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Title: Probation

Author: Jessie Fothergill

Release date: May 13, 2025 [eBook #76077]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1887

Credits: Carla Foust, Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROBATION ***





PROBATION




[Illustration:

  J. Collier, px.      C. O. Murray. Sc.

ADRIENNE.]




  PROBATION

  A Novel

  BY

  JESSIE FOTHERGILL

  AUTHOR OF ‘THE FIRST VIOLIN,’ ‘KITH AND KIN,’ ETC.

  [Illustration]

  A NEW EDITION

  LONDON

  RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON ST.

  Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen

  1887

  _All rights reserved_




BOOK I.

PRIDE AND PLENTY.


[Illustration]




CHAPTER I.

OF AN ABSENTEE EMPLOYER.

  ‘The perfection of mechanism, human and metallic.’


You, at any rate, Lancashire reader, know this place; the large
somewhat low room; the long lines of looms; the wheels, straps, and
beams; the rows of standing work-people, men, women, and children;
the dimness of the dust-laden atmosphere. You know, too, the roar of
noise--how deafening, stunning, and overwhelming it is to the stranger
who may happen casually to encounter it, yet how easily those in
the habit of working in it can make themselves intelligible to one
another. You know all this, and your accustomed eye recognises at once
one division of the ‘weaving shed’ of a large cotton factory; which
forms, with its perfect mechanism, the ‘metallic and the human,’ a most
wonderful sight to any eyes but the too careless or the too accustomed.

There is an air of calm, leisurely ease about the process which might
be apt to lead the uninitiated astray, and make him suppose that not so
much accuracy of eye, delicacy of manipulation, sensitiveness of touch,
was required as is really the case. Which are the most alive--the
girls in the cotton dresses, and the men in their fustian clothes,
who move lightly to and fro, adjusting their work, keeping watch and
ward over the flying shuttle; or that flying shuttle itself, which
seems instinct with vitality, darting with vivid, almost oppressive,
regularity of activity backwards and forwards--indulging sometimes in a
malicious vagary, worthy of a human being, such as flying suddenly out
from its groove, and perhaps striking its human fellow-worker a sharp
blow on the forehead, or in the eye? It would be difficult to say--the
definition at the head of the chapter forms also the best description
of the whole--‘the perfection of mechanism, human and metallic.’

It was during the afternoon hours of work; the day’s labour was drawing
to a close; the great ceaseless roar and buzz and rush seemed to
grow rhythmic, harmonious in its monotonous continuity; through the
thick-ribbed panes of glass, distorted yellow sunbeams came streaming,
golden, hazy, smoky, dusty, striking here and there upon the face of
some laughing or languid girl; here into the eyes of some lad--an imp
of mischief--or a youth of thoughtful and serious aspect.

That was the head overlooker who came in, looked round, stopped the
loom of one of the said laughing girls, fingered the cloth, remarked
warningly, ‘Now, Sarah Alice! this won’t do! You must look out, or
there’ll be some mischief;’ then passed on his round, stopping more
looms; examining more cloth, and then went out of the room altogether.

A steady progression, for a time, of the rhythmic toil, till the same
door was again opened, and a young man, who also appeared to be a
person of some authority, stepped in, and paused, note-book and pencil
in hand. This was the second overlooker, a person who of necessity
must possess considerable intelligence--being generally, as in this
case, a working-man born and bred--some discrimination and tact also,
since he fulfilled the duties, in some measure, both of a workman
and a superior. In addition to his position as overlooker, he also
performed the functions of what is known in factory parlance as ‘head
cut-looker:’ and a cut-looker is a man who examines each piece or ‘cut’
of cloth after it leaves the loom; notes the flaws, and deducts from
the wages of the weaver in compensation for the same. Perhaps this
‘cut-looking’ and over-looking may be like criticising--they may have
a tendency to produce a turn of mind sceptical as to the merits of the
work with which the cut-looker, or the critic, has to do. Incessant
flaws, ‘scamped’ work, broken threads, ill-joined ends, an uneven weft,
a rough warp--the parallel is certainly a striking one; and a long
career of cut-looking, to say nothing of criticising, may tend to make
the temper quick, and the tone just a little imperious.

The individual whose occupation was something like criticism was a tall
young man, dressed in grey clothes, which looked in some way cleaner,
or better, or different from the clothes of the others, and a white
linen jacket, which gave a cool and airy look to the whole costume,
and was far from unbecoming to the spare, yet very strong, well-built
figure, and to the dark, handsome, sharply cut face belonging to it.

A right workmanlike figure. There was power and capacity--skilled
power and capacity, too, in the supple, lissome figure, in the brown
hands, long and slim, yet strong and muscular, which looked as if they
were well-accustomed to do fine work, and to do it well. The loose
linen jacket was by no means new, though clean; it bore here and there
traces of having been mended, and sat in the easy creases and folds of
a much-worn old friend, from whose shape no washing and starching can
quite banish the accustomed outline, given by the wearer’s form. Above
the collar of this jacket was a narrow line of grey waistcoat; then a
white collar, and a narrow black tie. The whole costume was as pleasant
and as becoming to look at as it was practical, fit, and workmanlike.

The face was rather thin and rather square; the complexion pale. The
eyes were very dark and very steady--at the moment very quiet, though
with a touch of defiance in them which was habitual; the forehead broad
and thoughtful--the level eyebrows had a trick of contracting sharply,
which took away from the calmness which might have seemed at first the
dominant characteristic of the ample brow. The nose was rather long and
sharp--the mouth firm, and a little cross: the lips looked as if they
would more readily tighten in irritation at the stupidity of others,
than part in wonder or amaze at their cleverness--and their expression
did not belie the truth. The whole face was more clearly cut, more
decided in feature, more distinct in expression than the faces of
many--nay, of most of his class in the same place. Perhaps it answered
to a clearer mental outline--was the distinct objective side of a
well-defined subjectivity. Be that as it may, the figure was a manly
and a good one--the face no less so.

This young man, holding his pencil suspended over his note-book, looked
reflectively around the room, standing erect, though the wall was just
behind him to lean upon. Walls to lean upon, moral or material, are
irresistible to some people. His eyes fell upon the different workers
as they moved hither and thither, adjusting their work, or stepping
from one loom to another. Those eyes presently fell upon a young woman
who was standing at the far end of the room, and whose face happened to
be turned towards him. Her glance met his: they nodded and smiled to
one another, and his smile flashed across his dark face with an effect
which the smiles of fair faces and light eyes can never have.

This young man’s name was Myles Heywood, and the scene of his labours
was the factory of Sebastian Mallory, the largest mill and property
owner but one in the town of Thanshope, in Lancashire. He was, then,
clever, honest, proud to excess, and self-opinionated, though few
people could help liking him, even when his opinions and prejudices,
with both of which articles he was well provided, might rub against
theirs. One thing deserves recording of him, which alone would have
shown him to be somewhat aloof from his fellow-workmen--he had no
nickname; and in that district, where often a man’s real name was
quite hidden under a cloud of bynames and nicknames, this was at least
peculiar.

Myles Heywood, after spending a few moments looking down the shed,
through the mist of cotton fluff which made the air dim and the lungs
irritable, turned and went into a neighbouring room, where they were
twisting--a monotonous task--the rapid twisting together of the ends of
cotton of two warps, paid for at the rate of threepence per thousand
ends--a fact which had caused our critic in the linen jacket much
thought at different times.

Out of this twisting-room into a large square yard or court, with the
engine-house and its neighbouring boilers on one side; offices on
another, and the great wall of the mill on the third. On the fourth, a
blank wall and huge gates, at present standing open, and affording a
glimpse into the dingy street.

The engineer, this warm August afternoon, was standing in the full glow
of the furnace: his face was black, and shone as if recently it had
been anointed with oil. His arms were bare and sinewy, and they were
black too. His shirt, whatever its original hue, was black now, and his
other garments, reduced to as scanty a quantity as was compatible with
decency, were black also with oil, and grease, and coal-dust. He paused
to mop away a swarthy perspiration with a dingy-looking handkerchief,
as Myles went by, looking clean and cool, and aggravatingly comfortable.

‘Hey, Miles, lad, what time dost make it? I’m too hot to get my watch.’

‘Ten to six,’ said Myles, looking at his watch.

‘The Lord be praised!’ responded the engineer piously, ‘and send us a
speedy deliverance. It’s as hot as hell here of a summer afternoon, and
no jokin’. Hast had thi’ baggin?’[1]

‘I don’t take baggin,’ said Myles, a little contemptuously, as he took
his way to the office, where he found a man and a boy behind a desk,
on which was a heap of gold, silver, and copper coins, and a number of
books and papers. It was Friday afternoon--pay-day.

‘Oh, you’re there, Myles,’ said the man. ‘You may take your wages now,
if you like.’

‘All right!’ said Myles, picking up two sovereigns from the heap of
gold, and slipping them into his pocket. Then he twisted himself over
the counter and seated himself on a high stool beside the desk.

‘By your leave, I’ll just wait here till my lass comes, and then we’ll
go home together.’

Wilson, the head-overlooker and cashier, assented. Myles folded his
arms before him, and began to whistle a tune to himself. It was the
tune of the song, ‘Life let us cherish!’ and when Myles had nothing
else to do, he generally did whistle it--unthinkingly, almost
unconsciously. While he whistled he looked through the dingy panes of a
small window upon a prospect as dingy as the panes.

There was nothing but a short patch of grey-looking street, and over
the way the multitudinous windows of a great foundry, from the back
premises of which came loud sonorous clangs, as of metal striking
against metal--a maddening and a deafening sound to ears unused to it,
but which, from long habit, failed to disturb the workers in ‘Mallory’s
Factory.’ It had become not exactly inaudible to them, but part of
the day’s features--as clouds, or wind, or rain. They would, to use a
Hibernicism, only have noticed it if it had left off.

It still wanted some eight or nine minutes to the time when the bell
would ring for ‘knocking off’ work, and that interval was used by those
present to discuss with their tongues that with which their heads
happened to be concerned, for the truth is, that out of the emptiness
of the head, much oftener than out of the fulness of the heart, does
the mouth speak.

‘Hast heerd news, Myles?’ inquired the lad.

The whistle ceased for a moment.

‘What news?’

‘We have heard say,’ said the other man, ‘as how he’s coming home.’

‘Who?’

Wilson pointed northwards, over his shoulder, with his thumb.

‘Oh, him!’ said Myles, with again the touch of contempt which came a
little too often to his voice. And he shrugged his shoulders--another
gesture betraying his unlikeness in temper and temperament to those
with whom he was surrounded.

‘Ay, him!’

‘Is it true?’ inquired Heywood.

‘Don’t know. I’ve only heard say so.’

‘_Who_ said so?’

‘Why, I believe it were one of the men from the stables at Mrs.
Mallory’s.’

‘Servants’ gossip!’ said Myles, trenchantly, unsuccessfully trying to
turn up his nose. ‘Never believe what they say. Flunkeys by trade, and
liars by nature, the whole lot of ’em, or they wouldn’t be where they
are.’

‘I’m none so keen about believing everything that any one says to
me,’ said Wilson, with a slightly offended air, ‘but this seems to me
so uncommonly probable, with things in the state that they are. Why
shouldn’t he come back?’

‘Ay, why shouldn’t he?’ echoed Ben, the office boy, feeling a dawning
sense of coming pleasure in the idea of having given Myles a poser.

‘Why shouldn’t he?’ began Myles.

‘That makes three times as it’s been said,’ observed Ben, with an
intelligent smile. ‘Well?’

‘Young one, keep your fingers out of the pie!’ said Myles, ‘and answer
me this--why should he?’

Crestfallen silence on the part of Wilson and Ben, till the former
began rather feebly,

‘Well, he’s been abroad for years and years, and when he’s a fine
property like this awaiting for him to step into, as it were, and a
fine house, and a fine mother----’

‘Ha, ha!’ said Myles, and his laugh was by no means one of
unsophisticated enjoyment.

‘And with things in the state that they are,’ Wilson again repeated, as
if much impressed with that state. ‘With these Yankees and Southerners
at it like cat and dog, and cotton going up, and no prospect of any end
to it yet. Mr. Sutcliffe said to me, he says, ‘Wilson, we don’t know
what’s before us yet. If I’m not much mistaken,’ he says, ‘there’ll
be a famine in the land before this time next year.’ And I say, if a
master shouldn’t come home under those circumstances, when should he?’

‘Should! Ought!’ repeated Heywood, in sarcastic tones; his scornful
smile lighting his face and gleaming in his eyes. ‘What’s that to do
with it? I’ll tell you why he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, and won’t come.’

The others settled themselves more attentively in their positions to
hear the riddle answered.

‘Because he’s proud and lazy, and likes amusing himself better than
working,’ said Myles, with a strong flavour of contempt and dislike in
his voice. ‘Because the money’s there, and let who may have made it,
choose how they’ve sweated for it, it’s got into his hands, whether he
deserves it or not, and it’s his to do as he likes with--so he does
what he likes with it. He’s got such a manager as there isn’t another
like him in Lancashire. Mr. Sutcliffe can do anything; it’s he that has
slaved and made this business what it is--the biggest in Thanshope,
next to Spenceley’s. He’s got this manager, and if he chooses to think
that he hasn’t got a duty in this mortal world, except to muddle his
head with foreign politics, as I hear he does, and amuse himself by
dancing attendance on a lot of fine ladies, and stroll about foreign
countries, and stare himself blind up at pictures as big as the side of
a house, and as black as my hat, and figures of men and women without
any clothes on----’

‘Lord!’ said Ben, awestruck and shocked.

‘And go rambling about, admiring scenery, and wondering what to do with
himself next--well, what is it to us?’

As Wilson and Ben really did not see what it was to them, but had an
uncomfortable sensation that their hitherto revered and honoured Mr.
Sutcliffe was in some way a wronged and slighted individual, and that
they ought to feel it all to be a great deal to them, and a subject of
soreness and offence, they waited humbly for the keynote, nodding their
heads, and trying to look wise.

‘It’s true,’ went on Myles, more warmly--‘it’s true, he’s got this big
business here, which makes his money, and hundreds of hands who work
for him, and who are, so to speak, under his care; and it’s true that
some people--old-fashioned idiots, of course--might think that a big
property has its duties as well as its pleasures, and that a capitalist
has, or ought to have, something else to do than take and spend his
money, and never inquire how he got it, nor what state the machine is
in that made it for him; but what is that to us? If we’re going to
have a famine in the land, it would be unpleasant for a person not
accustomed to this kind of thing--all the more reason for him to keep
away. My lord likes the company of lords and ladies, and he thinks
Thanshope is only fit for tradespeople.’

‘I bet he’s ne’er seen nowt finer nor the new town-hall, choose where
he may have been!’ said Ben, aggressively.

‘And,’ went on Myles, whose mouth had grown very cross indeed, and
whose eyebrows met in a straight line across his frowning brow, ‘he’s a
_Tory_--a Tory; if I’d said that at first, I shouldn’t have needed to
say all the rest. A Tory, in these times, and in Thanshope!’

Wilson and Ben laughed, but not quite a whole-hearted laugh. A
Tory--every species of Conservative--was a poor thing, was the general
Thanshope opinion, but they had always thought of Tories more as
harmless old women, or vulgar ‘risen’ men, like Mr. Spenceley, than as
anything so actively mischievous and to be eschewed as their absentee
employer, Sebastian Mallory.

‘He’s ashamed of the place, and the people, and the business that has
made him what he is. And that’s why he won’t come back.’

‘I say, Myles, who told you all this?’ inquired Wilson, deferentially.

‘That I’m not at liberty to say; but not one of the men from the
stables, old lad,’ said Myles. ‘But my authority is a good one, and
it’s what I’ve suspected for years. I’ve heard of his doings. He goes
about with parsons. He’s trying all he can to shake himself free of
trade. He’ll try to do it by marrying a lord’s daughter--that’s what
these shoddy Conservatives always do--she’ll spend his money for him,
and if he says anything, she’ll tell him it smells of cotton, and she
wants to get rid of it.’

‘Nay, nay, now!’ interrupted Ben, with feeling.

‘But she will,’ said Myles, looking as angry as if the fair and
contemptuous aristocrat stood in person before them. ‘I know. Don’t we
all know what happened to Jack Brierley’s lad, and how----’

Clang, clang, clang! went the great bell in the courtyard. It was two
minutes past six. Wilson raised himself rapidly from his recumbent
attitude, and began to turn over his papers, calling Ben to his side
to help him. The discussion as to the merits or demerits of Sebastian
Mallory, who certainly formed a striking instance of the theory that
_les absents ont toujours tort_, was over; soon the office was filled
with a pushing, elbowing crowd, waiting more or less impatiently to
receive the hire of their week’s labour.

Myles sat upon his high stool in the background, and watched,
while Wilson and his assistant paid out the wages. It was rather
a dingy-looking crowd that he saw, and was apparent to nose, as
well as to eye, by the unmistakable odour of oil and fluff which
emanated from it. Bare-armed girls with long, greasy pinafores, loud
voices, and ungainly gestures, elbowing their way through the lads,
and exchanging with them chaff of the roughest description. Small,
pale, stunted-looking men; sometimes downright hideously ugly and
mean-looking, or again, only sallow, pale, and subdued by a sedentary
occupation, with here and there a tremendous massive brow; here and
there a pair of eyes so deep and glowing as to cause a shock and thrill
to one who encountered them; here a mouth of poetical delicacy and
sensitiveness; there a jaw so strong and heavy, that, comparing it with
the eyes, brows, and mouths before spoken of, one no longer felt cause
for surprise in hearing such aphorisms as ‘Manchester rules England,’
‘What Lancashire thinks to-day, England thinks to-morrow.’ It was,
taken all in all, an ugly crowd, but in its way a commanding one. It
might have moved the soul of a ‘Corn-Law Rhymer,’ a Gerald Massey, a
‘Lancashire Lad;’ it would probably have been repulsive to more refined
bards and writers, and the poet of the brush and canvas would have
found absolutely nothing here with which to gladden his eye.

Myles, a striking exception to almost every one of the men in point
of good looks and fine physical development, if not in point of
intelligent expression, sat upon his stool; and his monotonous whistle
continued as he scanned the faces, and returned a nod here and there.
Many a girl looked at him, and smiled her brightest as she caught his
grave eyes.

He was not quite like the other workmen in more things than beauty,
and a somewhat higher position, and none knew that better than the
workwomen. The smiles and amiable looks provoked little answer. Myles
was not rude to girls; he never chaffed them in the rough manner of
some of his fellow-workmen; but, on the other hand, he very seldom took
any notice of them at all, having very little to say to any young woman
out of his own family.

They passed before him in varied array; ugly, and pretty, and mediocre;
fair girls and dark girls, stout girls and thin ones, tall and short,
stupid and intelligent-looking. Here and there a pale, pensive face,
with a head of flaxen hair, and long, delicate, Madonna-like features;
now a brunette, with high complexion, and flashing black eyes, that
showed the brighter under the thick white powdering of cotton fluff
with which her head was covered; _piquante_ and placid, merry and
melancholy; but not for one in all the crowd did his cheek flush in
the least, not once did the calm indifference in his eyes change, nor
did his low, careless whistle cease for an instant. He stared over or
between their heads, or--which was the most irritating of all--right at
them, without once noticing them, until a girl, somewhat taller than
the majority of her companions, came in, and stood waiting with a group
of others near the door, until her turn should come to go up for her
wages.

Then Myles stopped whistling, and got off his stool, remarking, half
to himself, ‘There’s Mary, at last!’ and applied to Wilson for the sum
of eighteen shillings, that being the amount of his sister’s wages. He
received the money, and made his way through the crowd towards the door.

‘Eh, Myles, art there?’ said the young woman. ‘Wait of me a minute,
while I get my wages.’

‘They’re here,’ said he, putting the money into her hand. ‘So come
along, lass! Let’s get out of this shop.’

They passed out at the door, and walked together down the sloping
street--a tall and well-looking pair. It was very seldom, indeed, that
Myles Heywood and his sister Mary failed to walk home from their work
together.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] ‘Baggin’ is not only lunch, but any accidental meal coming
between two regular ones.




CHAPTER II.

BEFORE THE STORM.

  ‘And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for
  many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’


It was August of the year 1861--the year succeeding that which might
almost be called the apotheosis of the cotton trade. The goods of
Lancashire were piled in every port; her merchants were a byword
for riches and prosperity. ‘Cotton lords’--the aristocracy of the
land--that grimy, smutty, dingy, golden land, whose sceptre was swayed
by King Cotton.

Day after day the goodly ships had borne their load across the
Atlantic, from New Orleans and the other cotton ports; day after day
those Liverpool cotton lords had received that load upon their docks,
and those Manchester cotton lords had bartered with them and bought
it; and it had been borne slowly along, piled up on great lorries, or
it had been whirled along the iron road, and unloaded, and carried to
a thousand factories in Manchester, and Bolton, and Oldham--the giant
consumers; in Rochdale, and Bury, and Burnley; Blackburn and Wigan, and
Ashton and Stockport; to the great, young, growing towns; to strange
moorland villages, younger sisters of the towns; and there thickset
spikes had whirled it about, and combs had smoothed it out; revolving
spindles had spun it into the thickest or the most fairy threads; rows
and rows of shining looms had received it, and woven it into every
conceivable variety of texture and colour, and breadth, and length,
and pattern. Skilled workmen and workwomen, deft-handed, lissome,
soft-fingered craftsmen and craftswomen had stood by their wooden and
metal fellow-workers, and fed their untiring jaws; then it had gone to
the white-looking warehouses, to be piled in great masses, like little
mountains for height and solidity, and from thence removed to ships
again, and borne over the seas to India, and China, and America, and to
every town in Europe where men and women needed clothing and had money
to buy it.

The glory of King Cotton at this period of his reign, and the splendour
of him, cannot be better summed up than in the graphic words of one who
has thought and written on that great subject:--

‘The dreary totals which Mr. Gladstone’s eloquence illuminates, and
the rolling numerals of the National Debt, become almost insignificant
beside the figures which this statement (the statistics of the cotton
trade) involves. Arithmetic itself grows dizzy as it approaches the
returns of the cotton trade for 1860. One hundred years back, and the
cotton manufactures of England had been valued at £200,000 a year.
Had not French, American, and Russian wars--had not railways and
telegraphs, had their part and lot in this century, surely it would be
known as the Cotton Age. This year, 1860, was the _annus mirabilis_ of
King Cotton. In this year his dependents were most numerous and his
throne most wide. There was no Daniel at hand to interpret to him the
handwriting on the wall, which within twelve months should be read by
all who ran, in letters of blood. What cared he? An argosy of ships
bore him across every sea and into every port. He listened to the
humming of his spindles and to the rattle of his looms; he drank of the
fulness of his power and was satisfied, for he was great--yes, very
great.... The total value of their (the manufacturers’) exports for the
year amounted to £52,012,380. If figures can ever be magnificent--if
naked totals ever reach to the sublime--surely the British cotton trade
for the year 1860 claims our admiration. Its production for this
single year equalled in value £76,012,380, or nearly six millions more
than the gross revenue of the kingdom for the same period.’

Surely the land which was the chief home of this monster trade deserved
the title of ‘The Land of Plenty,’ and such it was--‘a goodly land,’
in fact, if not in outward show, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’
or at least their modern English equivalents--a land where wealth was
profuse--where masters and men vied with each other in pride of bearing
and dogged independence of spirit. Such was that rough, dark land at
the end of 1860; such it was still at the end of August 1861; what
it was in August 1862 only those know who dwelt in it, and saw its
thousands of perishing children, and noted their stoic endurance of
their sufferings.

Even now, even in this month of August 1861, rumours were gaining
ground that the war in America would not soon be over. The price
of cotton was beginning to go up; the days were hastening towards
that month of October when prices sprang up, mounting daily higher
and higher, and factories began to close--not in ones and twos as
heretofore, not to run short time, or half-time, or even quarter-time,
but to close bodily, in dozens and scores, with no prospect of their
opening again for an indefinite period of want and woe. It was a vast,
dark, pitiless cloud, that which was even now rolling up from the West,
bearing in its huge womb lamentation, and mourning, and woe.

But still Lancashire was the land of plenty and of hospitality; still
her generous fires burnt merrily upon her ample hearths, making the
stranger forget her murky skies, and the smoke-dimmed countenance
of her landscapes. Her work-people still got the largest wages,
her masters still made the greatest fortunes of any masters and
work-people, taken collectively, in England; and nothing was said about
the over-production of the last plethoric year, nor of the piled-up
goods in the overstocked warehouses.




CHAPTER III.

RIFTS WITHIN THE LUTE.


The brother and sister walked together down the sloping street already
mentioned, and which was, as usual at that time, full of work-people,
streaming out of the numberless factories which formed the staple of
Thanshope buildings. Arms were swinging, and clogs were clattering;
tongues were wagging furiously in the reaction of the release
from work, and the inhalation of the air, which, though close and
thunderous, was yet fresher than that in the great hot factories.

Thanshope was built on a situation with considerable claims to natural
beauty, and there were days, even now, when it looked beautiful. Its
streets all climbed up and down steep hills. Whenever the day or the
smoke was clear enough, hills might be seen surrounding it on all sides
in the distance, except to the south, where Manchester lay.

There was a river--the river Thanse--running through the town,
which unfortunate stream formed a fertile source of bickering and
heart-burning amongst the members of the town-council, the medical men,
and the people who write to the newspapers: one party of them contended
that there was nothing the matter with the river Thanse, it was a good
and wholesome stream, which purified the town; while the other party
said that it and its unspeakable uncleanness were at the root of all
the ills that Thanshope flesh suffered from.

Altogether, the verdict of a stranger would most likely have been that
Thanshope was a dim, unlovely, smoky place, in which no one would
choose to live whose business did not oblige him to do so--a place
where substantial dirt was the co-operator of substantial prosperity,
where grime and plenty went hand in hand.

Yet there were people who loved this dirty town, and who lived
contented lives in it--people not belonging to the great swarm of
workers who were obliged to live there, and who, perhaps, thought more
about the rate of wages than about the æsthetic condition of their
surroundings.

Myles and Mary Heywood, having come to the end of the sloping street,
turned a corner to the left, and soon found themselves in another
street, quieter, wider, with terraces of small houses on either side,
whose monotony was diversified by various chapels, meeting-houses, and
schools. Uphill for a short distance, till the street grew wider and
the houses better, and Myles and Mary, turning down a side street to
the right, emerged upon one side of a wide, open, square space, called
Townfield, or the Townfield, and elevated so high that the rest of the
town lay below them as in a basin. All along that side of the Townfield
where they stood was a row of neat, small houses, each exactly like all
the others; the only room for the individuality of the owners making
itself apparent being in the arrangement of the little strip of garden
spreading before each.

Half the Townfield had been cut off, a couple of years ago, to furnish
a small park or pleasure-ground; but looking across the open space to
the north-west, they could see the old part of the town in its hollow;
the old church of the parish on ground almost as high as the Townfield
itself; the gilded spire of the town-hall rising ambitiously from the
hollow (it chimed a quarter after six with mellow tone as they stood
there), and all the other churches and chapels and public buildings
strewn here and there about the town. A great cloud of smoke came
up and dimmed the air; on every side was a fringe of long chimneys;
different big factories were familiar features in the landscape, and
formed landmarks to Mary and her brother--had formed landmarks to them
from infancy.

Away to the north-west were undulating lines of blue, lofty moors. They
were part of Blackrigg--that mighty joint of England’s irregular spine.
It was not exactly an enlivening prospect, but it had certain beauties
of its own; and at least this town, full of rough, busy toilers, had a
fitting and harmonious frame in that semicircle of bleak and treeless
moors.

Mary and Myles went up one of the strips of garden about the middle of
the terrace, and opened the door of the house.

‘Pah! how hot and close it feels!’ said Myles, as they closed
themselves in. ‘Now I wonder how that lad is!’

They went along a little passage, to the left of which was the
‘parlour,’ arranged in the approved style of such parlours, with a
brilliant, large-patterned carpet in red, yellow, and blue; bright
green merino curtains, a ‘drawing-room suite’ in rosewood and crimson
rep, a pink cloth upon the centre table, upon which were negligently
arranged albums, Sunday books, paper mats, and a glass shade, under
which reposed waxen apples and grapes of a corpulent description.
On the mantelpiece, two green glass vases, and a china greyhound of
an unknown variety, more frilled paper mats, and little piles of
spar and crystal. On the walls, photographs and a rich collection of
framed funeral cards, together with the _chef-d’œuvre_ of the whole
establishment--a work of art which Mary regarded with feelings little
short of veneration--‘Joseph sold by his Brethren,’ executed in Berlin
wools, the merchants all squinting frightfully, and Joseph with a
salmon-coloured back and a decidedly ruddy countenance, though one
not of such remarkable beauty as quite to account for his subsequent
adventures.

Past the door leading into this epitome of art and beauty went these
young people, into the kitchen, which was, of course, the general
living-room of the family. Upon a couch beneath the window, with the
crinkling of the cinders and the ticking of the clock for his only
companions, lay the failure of his family--a cripple lad of eighteen.

‘Well, Ned, lad, how dost find thyself?’ asked Myles, going in.

‘I find myself as usual--wishing I was dead,’ was the encouraging
reply, as the lad turned a pale and sallow face, not without
considerable beauty of feature, but stamped with a look of ill-health,
pain, and something deeper and more sorrowful than either, towards the
strong, handsome brother who stooped over him.

‘Nay, come! Not quite so bad as that,’ said Myles, smoothing Edmund’s
hair from his hot forehead, and seating himself beside the couch. He
looked into his cripple brother’s eyes with a glance so full of life,
and hope, and strong, protecting kindness, and withal so contagious a
smile, that an answering, if a reluctant one, was wrung from the lad’s
dull eyes and down-drawn mouth.

‘I’m that thirsty!’ he said. ‘Molly, do get the tea ready.’

‘I’m shappin’’ (shaping) ‘to’t now, lad,’ she returned, hanging up her
cotton kerchief and poking the fire to settle the kettle upon it.

‘And you read a bit, Myles, wilta?’ pursued Edmund. ‘Mother won’t be
home for half an hour, and I could like to know how yon Lady Angiolina
got on at the castle.’

Myles took up a book from a table and began to read aloud:

‘“As the groom of the chambers announced the Lady Angiolina
Fitzmaurice, every eye turned towards her. She advanced with the step
of a queen. Her trailing robe of black velvet set off her superb beauty
to the utmost advantage,”’ and so forth.

Edmund listened with face intent and a pleased half-smile upon his
lips. Mary moved noiselessly about, getting the tea-cups out of the
cupboard and setting them on the tray with gingerly hand, so as not to
disturb the literary party in the window.

The reading was continued only for the space of some quarter of an
hour. The story was a novel of ‘high life.’ No agent in it was of lower
rank than a baronet; no menial less distinguished than a groom of the
chambers or a majordomo was permitted to appear in its truly select and
exclusive pages; the action took place in Mayfair, in Belgravia, and
in the ancestral halls of dukes and earls. Manchester was alluded to
by the refined author much as if it had been of about equal importance
with Timbuctoo; the whole a very tawdry tinsel, pasted together in a
very poor, second-rate manner.

Myles read on and Edmund listened. Perhaps he was aware that the story
was rubbish, but it took him into a world which by contrast with his
own was beautiful: it spoke of something else than the Townfield as
a pleasure-ground, grey factories, smoke and chimneys by way of a
prospect. It pointed out another sort of existence than that led by
him and his.

Edmund had an intensely poetic temperament. Poetry of some sort, in
real life or in books, he must have or die. It was not forthcoming in
real life: Myles never read novels for his own pleasure, therefore
Edmund had no beneficent hand to point out to him the shining treasures
of real poetry with which our English literature abounds, so he had to
rely on the titles in the catalogue of the Thanshope Free Library, and
often received a stone instead of bread, in the shape of such jingling
nonsense as he was greedily listening to just now.

Myles was a great reader of politics and science. The romantic
and poetic side of his nature had been left to itself; the soil,
whether sterile or fruitful, had never received the least touch of
cultivation--yet. He had some strong convictions on the subject of
ethics, which will be best left undescribed, to display their results
in his actions as circumstances put his theories to the test.

There was something striking and uncommon in the appearance of all
three of this group of brothers and sister. Mary was comely--a tall,
well-formed, well-grown young woman, with the pale but clear and
healthy complexion, dark eyes and hair of her elder brother--a calm,
sensible face, not destitute of a certain still, regular beauty, but
lacking the impetuousness and intensity of Myles’s expression. She sat
knitting a long grey woollen stocking, and looked with a large steady
gaze now at Myles, now at Edmund, whose face was equally sharp cut as
his brother’s, but worn and drawn with pain and ill-health.

Edmund was nineteen; Mary, two-and-twenty; Myles, six-and-twenty;
another, born between them, had died an infant.

At this juncture the back door was heard to open. Some one entered, and
in the pause made by Myles in his reading there was distinctly audible
a heavy sigh--almost a groan. Glances were exchanged between Myles and
Mary; both looked as if they braced themselves to meet some ordeal.
Edmund’s face darkened visibly.

‘Is that you, mother?’ called out Mary cheerfully.

‘Ay, it’s me!’ replied a rather grating voice--a voice high, though not
loud, and complaining in the midst of an ostentatious resignation.

‘Go on, Myles!’ said Edmund, in an undertone.

‘Can’t, my lad. You know mother can’t abide it.’

‘Why am I never to have a bit o’ pleasure? It’s precious little as
I get,’ grumbled the lad, as he turned away, and lay with his face
concealed.

‘See, lad! Tak’ the book, and read for thysel’,’ said Myles, who
indulged in a tolerably broad dialect when in the bosom of his family.

Edmund shrugged his shoulders irritably and made a gesture of aversion.
Myles closed the book, rising from the side of the couch and going
to the table, as a woman came in from the back kitchen--a small,
sharp-featured woman, comely yet, with a bright cheek and a dark eye.
She was the mother of all those tall children, though she was only
five-and-forty, having been married, as too many of her class do marry,
at eighteen. The great wonder was that she had remained a widow so
long, for in addition to good looks, clever fingers, and a stirring
disposition, she possessed property to the extent of thirty pounds per
annum left by a rich relation to her years ago.

An ignorant observer, looking at the family party just now, would have
said what a good-looking, prosperous, well-to-do party they were. But
Mrs. Heywood had scarcely spoken yet.

‘Evenin’, mother,’ said her eldest son, civilly, but, it must be owned,
hardly cordially.

‘Good evenin’,’ she returned, in her high-pitched, dubious voice.
‘What! you’ve managed to get th’ tea ready, lass? But I know what that
means. Just twice as much tea in the pot as we’ve any need for, or as I
should ‘a put in mysel’. Waste, waste, on every side!’

As this was Mrs. Heywood’s invariable remark when she came in from her
occasional day’s sewing at one of the large houses of the neighbourhood
and found the tea prepared, it excited neither comment nor indignation,
and the excellent woman, seating herself, cast a sharp, discontented
look around, as if wishing that some one would give her an opportunity
of saying something disagreeable.

‘Eh, bi’ the mass! It is some and hot! If some folks had to walk as far
as me, mayhap they’d understand what I feel at this moment.’

Again no answer. Myles was buttering a piece of bread. His eyebrows
were contracted again. The serpent in that Eden was the contentious
woman. Myles never answered her complaints, on principle, for fear of
saying something outrageous and unbecoming, but it was often with a
sore struggle that he abstained: he did not want to become a household
bully, or he knew--he had found it out by accident one day--that a
certain look and tone of his could quell Mrs. Heywood’s temper in one
minute. He was very much afraid of using it too frequently, though
often sorely provoked. ‘Such people as Sebastian Mallory,’ he reflected
(whose mother was said to live for him and his happiness), ‘were
not obliged to stay in one room, listening to maddening complaints,
like the continual dropping of a rainy day, with no alternative but
solitude, silence, or the taproom.’

Edmund’s shoulders were drawn up to his ears, and his back expressed
distinctly that he felt himself jarred and grated in every fibre of his
being.

‘Now, then, Edmund,’ said his mother, in her thin, penetrating voice;
‘art comin’ to the table, or mun thou have thy tea carried to thee, to
drink on th’ sofa, like a lady, eh?’

Answering to this appeal, he raised himself, his face darkened, his
lips quivering with anger.

‘That’s right!’ said he, bitterly. ‘Do insult me a little more! It’s so
nice to be ill, and so pleasant to spend your days by yourself upon a
sofa in a kitchen. I’m likely to keep it up as long as ever I can. So
would you if once you knew how agreeable it was.’

He had supported himself by means of a stick to the table; and as he
limped along to the chair which Mary had placed for him, one could
see how much deformed he was, and how clumsily he moved. No look of
pity warmed the woman’s face as she saw him. He was not, like many a
weakly or deformed child, the object of the mother’s divinest love and
tenderest care. He had been born three months after his father’s sudden
death. Mrs. Heywood had never been noted for enthusiastic devotion to
any of her children, or to her husband, or, indeed, to any one but
herself and her own interest. Myles could influence her; but she seemed
to have a positive aversion to Edmund, who used to say that his real
mother was Mary.

When the meal was over, there was a little movement. Edmund looked
wistfully towards Myles and the book; but Myles did not offer to resume
it. He had begun to think over that conversation in the office before
pay-time, and was wondering whether it could be really true that
Sebastian Mallory meant to return.

Sebastian Mallory was, and had been for years, his _bete noire_. He had
seen him once, ten years ago, a handsome, fair-faced, ‘yellow-haired
laddie’ of sixteen, who had come to look round his own works, with a
somewhat listless gaze. Myles’s vigorous soul had been filled with
contempt for him at that moment, and he had never seen fit to alter
that feeling. All he heard of Sebastian Mallory was exactly contrary
to his ideas of what a _man_--unless the man were some irresponsible
person, with neither business nor estate in the background--ought to
be and do. He had a very strong sense of duty himself, and never, so
far as he knew, left a duty unperformed. He struggled hard, according
to his light, to do what was right; consequently he felt himself in
a position to be somewhat censorious upon those who, he considered,
obviously did not fulfil their duties--duties to their property,
their dependents, their privileges, to him--such persons as this very
Sebastian Mallory. Therefore he smiled somewhat grimly to himself as
he imagined that lily-handed, yellow-haired, delicate-looking young
man coming to take his place at the head of affairs at such a crisis
as was striding towards Lancashire--a storm which it would take the
keenest heads, the strongest hands, the most practised eyes of the
wariest business men who should succeed in weathering it. Probably Mr.
Sebastian Mallory, if he did come, would cut a sorry spectacle, and
would soon be glad to retire again to more congenial scenes abroad.

He did not feel it his duty to excite Mrs. Heywood’s disagreeable
remarks by reading aloud what he justly considered ‘balderdash’ to
Edmund; he therefore suggested that they should go and take a turn on
the Townfield.

Edmund, who for some reason was in a more unhappy temper than usual,
shrugged his shoulders, and said he did not feel inclined to go out.

‘No? Then I must go by myself, I suppose,’ said Myles.

But he made no immediate effort to leave the house. He seated himself
at the table with a book, and might possibly have remained in the
house, but for his mother, who having ascertained that his book was
entitled ‘The History of Rationalism,’ announced that the bitterest
grief of her declining years consisted in having to see a son of hers
growing up an infidel, or worse. She hunted under the Family Bible,
and produced a tract, which she offered him in lieu of the work he was
reading. It bore the alluring title, ‘Thou also, Worm!’ And on his
refusing this tit-bit of religious badinage, she put it aside with a
bitter smile, and an audibly expressed hope that it might not in the
future go too hardly with those who had spurned the means of grace
proffered by a mother’s hand.

Myles endured these, and a succession of similar remarks, for some
little time, while he appeared to go on with his book without
heeding them; but, as none knew better than she who made them, the
contracted eyebrows and the impatient twisting of his moustache covered
considerable inward irritation. He at last abruptly rose, and took his
cap from the nail on which it hung.

‘Out again!’ said Mrs. Heywood, in the same maddening voice; ‘and if a
mother may ask, what pothouse are you going to now?’

‘No thanks to you, mother, that I’ve not taken to the pothouse long
ago,’ replied the young man curtly, slapping his hat upon his head and
leaving the room.

‘If he doesn’t break that door off its hinges some fine day, in one
of his tempers, my name’s not Sarah Ann Heywood,’ remarked his mother.
‘It’s a grievous thing to have an ungovernable temper. His Bible, if he
ever read it, would tell him that the tongue is a little member, but a
consuming fire.’

‘The Bible never said a truer word,’ retorted Edmund, witheringly; and
Mrs. Heywood, returning to her knitting, with the pleasant sense of
having driven out the strongest, sank into silence.




CHAPTER IV.

ADRIENNE.

    ‘I love my lady; she is very fair;
    Her brow is wan, and bound by simple hair:
    Her spirit sits aloof, and high,
    But glances from her tender eye,
        In sweetness droopingly.’


Myles left the house, and, traversing some sideways, found himself
presently in a steep, hilly street, which he descended, arriving at
last at a sort of square, through the middle of which ran the river
Thanse, and on both sides of which were rows of shops. Then, walking on
a hundred yards or so, he emerged in another still larger open space,
opposite a large and beautiful building, which, in its delicate and
multiform Gothic tracery, and noble dimensions, with the springing
gilded spire leaping aloft at last, offered a startling contrast to its
sordid surroundings--the shabby, low houses, narrow streets, and grimy
factories which crowded round, as near as they dared. The river here
made a bend, and passed the front of the town-hall. A kind of boulevard
had been made, planted with trees, and immediately across the river,
fronting the town-hall, was a house standing in a garden, divided by
the river from the road. It was a fine old house of red brick, which
had no doubt originally been ‘in the country.’ There was a look of
stateliness and substance about it--the brick was relieved by handsome
stone mullions, copings, and chimney-stacks.

The trees had been stunted by smoke, but they lived yet. Much ivy,
strong and tenacious from advanced age, clung about it. The grounds
were thoroughly well kept. The parterres were blazing with the
passionate, glowing colours of late summer flowers; the windows were
glazed with sheets of plate-glass. Here and there a bow had been thrown
out. Behind were extensive stables and outhouses. It was, though dingy,
and miscellaneous in architecture, a fine, imposing old mansion; it
instantly caught the stranger’s eye, and was known from infancy to
every inhabitant of Thanshope as well as the old church on the hill
behind the town-hall, or as the great co-operative stores on another
hill at the other side of the town.

To-night Myles looked more earnestly than usual at this old house. It
was called ‘The Oakenrod,’ and was the property of Sebastian Mallory,
tenanted during his absence by that stately dame, his mother.

‘There it is!’ said Myles within himself. ‘Cumbering the ground--kept
like a palace for a fellow who doesn’t care two straws for it!’

Again he shrugged his shoulders, and turned somewhat abruptly to the
left, making for one of the side doors of the town-hall. He went in,
and ran up a great many flights of stone steps, past corridors and
branching passages, till he could go no higher, for the excellent
reason that he was at the top of the building. Pushing open the glass
door, which swung to behind him, Myles found himself in the holy of
holies--the library. A door to the right led into the reading-room, and
thither he directed his steps. It was a large, lofty, handsome room,
with many tables and chairs, and plenty of pens, ink, newspapers, and
periodicals scattered about. When Myles entered, the room was almost
empty. One or two men were reading newspapers, and at one table in a
window sat a girl, who had a great book open before her, but whose eyes
were at the moment intently fixed upon the old house, the Oakenrod,
which lay directly beneath.

Myles, searching about, found a number of the _Westminster Review_, and
took it to his accustomed place, at the table next to that where the
girl sat. He noticed no one to right or to left of him--not even her
who was almost the only lady visitor who ever entered the reading-room.

She was already a familiar figure to his eyes. For some months past
he had seen her nearly every evening, sitting at the same table, even
at the same side of that table, with a book--generally some large and
weighty volume--open before her, and a small thick note-book, in which
she wrote extracts or abstracts of what she read.

Myles knew quite well the tall, slim figure, the two dresses which she
alternately wore--one a soft, flowing black one--another, soft and
flowing too, of a blue so dark as to be nearly black. He knew that the
lines of her dresses flowed gracefully, and were agreeable to the eye.
He knew, too, the little black _fichu_ which she usually wore--a sort
of apology for a mantle, which she never discarded on the hottest days;
the modestly shaped white straw hat, with its carefully preserved black
lace scarf, and bunch of daisies at one side, which hat she always
ended in taking off after she had sat there ten minutes or so. She had
a pale, clear, fair complexion, bright, warm chestnut hair, and a face
which, not conventionally beautiful in outline, was full to overflowing
of the subtler, more bewitching charm of a beautiful spirit. It--her
face--had a youthful softness of outline--not full, but not thin, with
a charming rounded chin, melting into the full white throat; a mouth
whose lines attracted irresistibly, so good, so spiritual were their
curves; an insignificant but well-cut nose; a pair of large, luminous,
expressive eyes, which in some favourable lights might appear grey, but
which an impartial observer must inevitably have confessed had a shade
of green in them.

Myles and this young lady had sat at neighbouring tables in the public
reading-room almost every evening throughout the spring and summer
months of that year. Whenever Myles came into the room he had found the
young lady there; he could not, of course, tell whether she came when
he was not there.

Conversation in the reading-room was against the rules; but
‘conversation’ is an abstract noun of considerable indefiniteness, and
one to which different minds may attach different meanings. A few words
exchanged, of greeting or courtesy, could scarcely have come under the
head of ‘conversation,’ or if it did, the rules were infringed every
day. A little remark, as one passed the paper to the other--fifty
little things might have been said (and were said by some frequenters
of the room) without in the least disturbing the peace of the studious.

But between Myles and his neighbour those words had never been spoken.
They had never exchanged a syllable--Myles because of a certain
British-workmanlike shyness, and a general sense that she belonged,
despite the simplicity of her appearance, manner, and attire, to the
class of ‘fine ladies’ whom he disliked and distrusted--the class which
was typified for him in the person of Mrs. Mallory of the Oakenrod--and
of whom he had the idea that they were silly, pretty, useless,
expensive things, good for nothing but to spend a man’s money, and make
him miserable with their tricks and antics--and break his heart if he
were fool enough to give it into their keeping--incapable of taking any
part in the serious things of life. That was his opinion of ‘ladies.’
For the women of his own class he had a hearty respect and admiration:
they could earn wages; they could work; they did not meddle with things
out of their sphere; they had a distinct use and purpose; he never
uttered an ill word to or of any one of them.

He had never spoken to his neighbour, because he was shy, and did not
know how to begin a conversation; but he would have scorned to own it:
he would have said, ‘Speak to her? Why should I speak to her? I’ve
nothing that I want to say to her.’

Which would have been untrue; for there was such intelligence, such
sympathy in her face, that he many a time caught himself, on reading
any striking passage, wondering what she would think of it if she had
read it.

She had never spoken to him--because--why--because--well, what did
it matter? possibly because she was a little more sensible than most
girls, and felt no wish to speak unless she had something to say.

They met without sign of recognition. He would take his place--she
hers; she always had some book under her arm, for which she had stopped
to ask the librarian on her way in, and they would often pass a couple
of hours thus almost without a word or a look. She read earnestly
and hard--not as if she read for pleasure, but for work--with a
purpose. Privately, Myles was mighty puzzled to know what she could
be reading, or rather, with what object she read what she did. Once
he had been quite excited (silently) to see her poring over a musical
score; reading it as if it were a book. One of the specialities of the
Thanshope Free Library was its musical department, which was richly
stocked both in scores and in treatises on music and musicians.

During the summer the room was generally nearly empty. The people were
otherwise employed, so that often not more than half a dozen readers
were to be found in all the large, airy room--sometimes Myles and the
studious, unknown ‘reading girl’ were all alone there.

Myles opened his Review, and his eye fell upon an article on the
governing classes which instantly caught his attention. In the hope of
finding some follies and weaknesses of the governing classes sharply
castigated, he settled himself with pleased expectation to his book.

Half an hour passed. One by one the other occupants of the room walked
away. The workman and the young lady were left alone together. She
looked every now and then out of the window. Her note-taking did not
seem to flow so smoothly as usual. Spread open on the table before her,
she had a fine edition of the ‘Fugues’ of Domenico Scarlatti, which
she studied a little now and then, but oftener looked out through the
window. Now, from that window she had a tolerably wide prospect; and
immediately beneath her eyes was the handsome old red-brick house, with
its flower-beds, and its lawns, smooth, and green, and well-watered--a
rural fastness in the midst of the dusty town.

There was silence that was almost solemn in the big room, which was
growing dusk: it was so high and airy, and so isolated; raised far
above the town and its troubles; the din hushed; the rolling vehicles
and the passing throng dwarfed; books on every side, and silence like a
garment over all.

As chimes broke that silence, and eight o’clock struck, the girl, with
a sigh, turned resolutely away from the outside prospect, and applied
herself again to her score.

Myles, half roused by the chiming, half pleased with a particularly
hard hit at the governing classes, which especially took his fancy,
raised his head at this moment, and his eyes, without any thought of
his neighbour. It is a gesture which every one makes sometimes in
reading. Smiling with satisfaction at what struck him as a masterly
argument, Myles let his eyes fall upon her.

She too was looking up--not at him, but past him. Her eyes were
turned towards the door, and quick as thought there passed a subtle,
inexplicable flash of dislike, tempered with alarm, across her face.
She made a movement as if to rise--as if to escape; then sat down
again, with a flush, more of annoyance than confusion, mantling in her
cheeks. Then, bending to her book, she seemed to make some effort to
keep her eyes firmly fixed upon it.

This little bit of by-play roused Myles’s attention. He turned his
head towards the door, which was behind him, and he saw how it was
opened, and a man came into the room. A gentleman? he speculated, as he
first saw the figure, in the obscure background. The visitor gradually
approached, and Myles, staring unceremoniously at him, experienced a
feeling of surprise, disgust, and sudden enlightenment as to the cause
of the young lady’s disturbance.

The new-comer was a young man with a somewhat high colour, dark hair
and eyes, a full beardless face, and a coarse, animal mouth. He was
well, even foppishly dressed, and bore the outward stamp of a person
to whom money is not a subject of painful study or consideration. But,
as Myles knew, he was not sterling coin. His manner, even of entering
that room, was less than second-rate; confidence became a swagger;
independence was metamorphosed into self-consciousness. The expression
of his face was bold and vulgar. Perhaps no greater or more telling
contrast could have been found, than that between the workman in his
work-a-day dress, and the would-be dandy in his gloved, perfumed,
over-dressed vulgarity.

This person came forward; his eyes fell upon Myles; he removed them. A
workman--a person not demanding his attention, one of the “fellahs” who
came to the reading-room.

Nevertheless, he seated himself at Myles’s table and drew a _Daily
News_ towards him, without speaking and without removing his hat. Myles
glanced at the young lady without letting her see that he did so; her
eyes were fastened upon the page before her, but he had studied her
expressions, and knew that she was not reading.

‘Now, I should like to know,’ speculated Myles inwardly, ‘what you may
want here, Mr. Frederick Spenceley?’

He had recognised the man--the son of a rich manufacturer of Thanshope,
who had earned his fortune as a Radical, and was living in state now as
a Conservative and a supporter of the aristocracy, Church, State, and
landed gentry interest. His son, as Myles was well aware, had assuredly
not visited the reading-room for purposes of mental instruction.

Myles apparently applied himself again to his book, but the argument
had lost its charm for him. He had not known until now how lively was
the interest he had taken in his graceful young neighbour. Placing his
book so as to shield his face, but yet so that he could observe what
was going on, he said to himself,

‘I’m glad I didn’t go away ten minutes ago.’

After bestowing a very short and scant need of attention upon the
_Daily News_, Mr. Spenceley cast his eyes around him. Myles watched
him, and saw the leisurely impudence of the stare with which he
favoured the young lady, and his ears began to tingle. He--my poor
Myles--was of a fiery temperament, could not endure to see even a ‘fine
lady’ insulted without cause, and was dangerously ready to take up the
cudgels for the unprotected or ill-used.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Mr. Frederick Spenceley, leaning towards the
girl. ‘Do you want that paper?’

He stretched his hand towards a newspaper which lay upon the table
at which she sat, but he was looking at her with a stare, perhaps
intended for one of gallant admiration, but which, from the unfortunate
‘nature of the beast,’ succeeded only in being impertinent.

Without looking at him, she raised her elbow from the paper on which it
had rested, and continued, or seemed to continue, her reading.

‘You don’t want it?’ he said, with what may have been meant for a
winning smile.

‘No,’ came like a little icicle from her lips.

Myles with difficulty sat still; but, making an effort, continued
quiet, though watching the game with a deeper interest than before.

The twilight had grown almost into darkness by this time. The
attendant, perhaps not knowing that any one was in the room, had not
yet lighted the gas.

Mr. Spenceley took the paper, but, without even pretending to look at
it, said in a tone of under-bred badinage,

‘Isn’t it rather dark to be reading, Miss--a----’

She raised her eyes this time, and caught those of the speaker fixed
full upon her. Her own were instantly averted, with an expression of
cold contempt and disgust, and she made no reply.

‘I assure you it’s very bad for the eyes to read by this
half-light--very trying. Hadn’t I better tell the fellah to light the
gas? I am sure you will spoil your eyes, and that would be a pity,’
with a winning simper, which made Myles’s fist clench with an intense
desire to do him some horrible violence. ‘Don’t you really think I had
better?’ he pursued, evidently bent upon making her speak. At last he
succeeded.

‘Be good enough to mind your own business, without addressing me,’ said
she, in a voice which, thought Myles, was sufficient to have rebuffed
the veriest cur that ever called itself by the name of man.

With that she quietly, by slightly altering the position of her chair,
turned her back upon Mr. Spenceley, while her profile, with frowning
brow and indignantly compressed lips, was plainly visible to Myles.

Mr. Spenceley laughed, not so musically as a lady-killer should be able
to laugh, and remarked:

‘I feel it my business to prevent a young lady from spoiling her eyes,
and----’

Steadying his voice with some difficulty into something like
indifference, Myles turned to him and said,

‘Don’t you know that talking is forbidden here?’

The look which he received in answer made him smile, despite his inner
indignation. Mr. Spenceley contemplated him with a stare, which was
unfortunately not so regal as it might have been; then, raising a
single eyeglass, he stuck it into one eye, and surveyed the audacious
speaker anew, as if his wonder at what had occurred could never be
sufficiently satisfied.

‘Will yah mind yah own business, and leave gentlemen to mind they-aws?’
he at last drawled out, with magnificent disdain.

‘When I see the gentleman I shall be quite ready to leave him to mind
his own business,’ was the placid retort. ‘In the meantime, as the
young lady wishes to read, and I wish to read, and you disturb us with
your chatter, perhaps you will kindly hold your tongue.’

Here Mr. Spenceley resolved upon a master-stroke. Turning his
broadcloth-clad back upon Myles, he tilted his chair back so as to see
the young lady better, and inquired,

‘Do you know the fellah, Miss--a----?’

Before she could reply (supposing that she had any intention of
replying) Myles had leaned a little forward, and tapped Mr. Spenceley
on the shoulder. With a great start, quite disproportionate to the
circumstances, the latter brought his chair to its normal position
again. Myles saw the start, and stifled a smile.

‘Excuse me, my good sir, I don’t remember ever to have seen you here
before, so perhaps you won’t mind showing me your ticket--I mean your
member’s ticket--otherwise----’

‘Will yah hold yah tongue?’ retorted the other, in a tone of scornful
exasperation.

‘No,’ replied Myles. ‘If you’ve any right to be here, show me your
ticket, and hold _your_ tongue, according to rules; if you haven’t that
right, walk out at once.’

‘I can tell yah, yah don’t seem to know who ya’h speaking to,’ observed
Mr. Spenceley, apparently lost in astonishment. ‘Are yah one of the
authorities here?’

‘Oh yes! I know you,’ said Myles, who saw that the young lady was now
watching the dispute with undisguised interest. ‘And I’m that much
of an authority that I can prevent you from disturbing and annoying
people. Once for all, will you show me your card of admission?’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Then you’ll excuse my going to the librarian and telling him you are
here without right--unless you prefer to save that trouble to me, and
ten shillings to yourself, by walking yourself off now, this moment,’
said Myles, who began to find a delicious piquancy in the sensation of
dealing thus summarily with a person of the consideration of Frederick
Spenceley. It was an ignoble feeling, and we all have ignoble feelings
sometimes, or what is the meaning of the constant injunctions to bear
and forbear which we receive from different sources?

‘Haw! Wha--at?’

‘The fine for using this room without belonging to it is ten shillings.
There’s another fine for talking and disturbing people, too,’ said
Myles, who had never lost his look of perfect ease and calmness, and
who did not for a moment remove his eyes from the other’s face.

Mr. Spenceley did not appear to like the mention of fines. His face
fell; his hand involuntarily sought his pocket.

‘Tender in that direction, poor fellow!’ thought Myles to himself.

‘Confounded radical place, this!’ observed Mr. Spenceley. ‘Not fit for
gentlemen to live in.’

‘Not when they have only been gentlemen since the last general
election,’ said Myles, politely. ‘I quite agree with you.’

‘Well, I shall go and see what the librarian says to all this,’ said
Mr. Spenceley, by way of covering his retreat; and then, after a
prolonged stare at the girl in the window, he retired, not so jauntily
as he had entered.

Myles picked up his book again. The girl watched her tormentor, until
the noiseless door had swung to behind him, and she had seen his shadow
pass towards the stairs. Myles feigned to read, but he could not help
seeing how she trembled as she sat there.

He did not speak to her. Something--he knew not what--held him back.
But he suddenly felt a light touch upon his arm, and, looking up, saw
the young lady standing beside him.

‘Do you think he is really gone?’ she asked, scarcely above her breath.

‘Oh yes! That sort of cur slinks off when you stoop for a stone, with
his tail between his legs. It’s only when he has his kennel well behind
him that he turns upon you and snaps,’ replied Myles, with homely if
expressive metaphor.

She drew a long breath, raised her head again, and said, with a mixture
of dignity and gentleness which appealed intensely to his strongest
feelings of admiration,

‘I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you!’

‘Don’t mention it, miss,’ said he; and it was odd that, while Mr.
Spenceley’s ‘miss’ made every right-minded person pant to knock him
down and pound him well, Myles’s ‘miss’ was not in the faintest degree
offensive.

‘You spoke as if you knew who he is. Do you?’ she added.

‘Oh yes! He’s well enough known; he’s the only son of that Spenceley
who has the big factories down at Lower Place--“Bargaining Jack” they
call him.’

‘Oh! I know who you mean. Poor man! How I pity him for having such a
son!’

‘Had you ever seen him before?’ asked Myles, confirmed in his
impression that she was not a native of Thanshope, and finding
conversation easier than he had expected.

‘I have seen him several times lately. I seem always to be meeting him.
Once I thought he had followed me, and then I thought how absurd to
imagine such a thing; but he must have done it all the same.’

Myles had had inexplicable sensations while she spoke. He had known
her so long without a voice, that now, when he heard it, she seemed to
become a stranger again; and yet not a stranger. She had a sweet, low
voice, clear and penetrating, and she spoke with an accent that had
something not quite English in it.

It would have been difficult--to Myles in his ignorance, impossible--to
say in what the foreign element lay; but it was assuredly there. When
she spoke she looked at him with fleeting glances which had nothing
insincere in them, and her face lighted up and became lovely--and more
than that, distinguished, spiritual; the slender figure was balanced
with such a graceful poise; the delicate hands were free from all
nervous restlessness. Her chestnut hair was abundant, and its dressing
so simple and beautiful as alone to make her remarkable. Myles realised
that she was most distinctly a ‘lady,’ but he could not make himself
feel her to be either trivial or stupid. There had been nothing trivial
in her behaviour. Her treatment of him flattered his discrimination
when he remembered her late treatment of Mr. Spenceley. At that time
of his life he had very wrong ideas on the subject of gentlemen,
having mistaken notions as to their power and character; but the best
part of his nature was soothed and pleased when so perfect a piece of
refinement as this young lady treated him entirely as a gentleman.

‘And I thank you again, very much,’ she added, smiling, and holding out
her hand.

Myles forgot to be confused as he accepted the hand so frankly
extended, and felt encouraged to do what he had thought would be right
from the moment she had spoken to him.

‘I am very glad to have been of service. May I ask how far you are
going?’

‘To Blake Street, if you know it.’

‘I know it well. It is too far for you to go alone, if you will excuse
my saying so. It is quite possible that fellow may be hanging about
yet. I’ll go with you, if you will allow me?’

‘Oh! you are very kind,’ said she, with visible relief. ‘I cannot
refuse, though I am sorry to take you away.’

‘Not at all. I can’t fasten to it again,’ said Myles, sincerely.

‘Then, if you would be so good, I should be very grateful,’ said she;
and she looked so relieved and so pleased, that Myles felt himself
rewarded an hundredfold for the act which had occurred to him as one of
simple civility--nay, of almost obvious necessity.

They left the town-hall when she had returned her book to the
librarian, and passed out into the street turning to the right.

‘This is the shortest way, miss,’ said Myles, distracted as to what he
should call her, feeling ‘miss’ disagreeable, he hardly knew why, but,
despite the wealth of the English language, having no other alternative
than a bold ‘you.’

She relieved his mind as if she had understood his thoughts.

‘My name is Adrienne Blisset,’ said she. ‘I should like to know yours,
if you will tell it me?’

‘Myles Heywood.’

‘I like it--it is so English, so Lancashire.’

‘It’s not like yours, then,’ said he. ‘It sounds foreign.’

‘Adrienne? Yes; that is French for Adriana; but I pronounce it in the
German way--Adrien-ne. Don’t you see?’

‘I never heard such a name--for an English young lady,’ said Myles,
simply.

‘I am not altogether an Englishwoman. I am half German. I was never in
England till eighteen months ago.’

‘Never in England!’ echoed Myles, incredulously. ‘Then you speak
English amazingly well.’

Adrienne laughed, and Myles asked,

‘How do you like England, now that you are in it?’

‘I do not know England. I only know Thanshope, and I--cannot say--that
I do like it much--if you will excuse me.’

‘Oh, we don’t expect every one to like our town,’ said Myles,
magnanimously. ‘It is a rough sort of a place, I fancy. And I should
not think you would like it either. You are not like most of the ladies
here.’

‘No?’

‘There isn’t another lady in the place who would come to the
reading-room as you do.’

‘Indeed. Why?’

‘They are too fine, I suppose,’ said he, contemptuously.

‘Too fine?’

‘Ay. We have a lot of fine ladies here. There’s Mrs. Spenceley, mother
of that fellow who was annoying you this evening; but she’s not so
fine, certainly, poor thing! But there’s her daughter!’ Myles shrugged
his shoulders and turned his eyes to heaven.

‘Is she very fine?’

‘Whenever I see her she is as fine as fine can be; but perhaps she
has some excuse for it, for she is very handsome, and she has a kind
face too; one would wonder how she could be that fellow’s sister. Then
there’s Mrs. Shuttleworth, that has the grand yellow carriage, but she
is better than some of them; and she looks ill, poor thing! so perhaps
her finery only gives her very little comfort.’

‘It seems to me that you have an excuse for them all,’ said Miss
Blisset.

‘Perhaps I have--for all but one--the proudest and the finest of the
whole lot. I’d rather have any of them than her--and that’s Mrs.
Mallory of the Oakenrod.’

‘Mrs. Mal----’ began Adrienne quickly, and then stopped abruptly. ‘Do
you know her?’ she added.

‘I know this much of her, that I work in their factory, and she comes
looking round now and then, behaving as if she thought that I, and the
factories, and the town, and the world in general were made for her
pleasure and service. Oh, she’s a proud, insolent woman, Mrs. Mallory;
all the Mallorys are proud and insolent. It would do them good to be
humbled, and I hope they will be.’

‘Oh! how can you be so bitter against them?’ said she, as if shocked.

‘No, I’m not bitter; but I don’t like to see people like that giving
themselves airs, looking as if the world’s prosperity depended upon
their continuing to favour it by living in it, when any one knows that
if they had their bread to earn they couldn’t do it. I like justice.’

‘Justice, and a little generosity with it,’ said she, gently, smiling
in what appeared to Myles a very attractive manner.

‘We are here in Blake Street,’ said he; ‘which way do we turn?’

‘To the right, please. My uncle’s house is at the very end of the
street.’

‘The end--it must be lonely,’ observed Myles.

‘Yes, it is, rather. He lives at Stonegate.’

‘Stonegate!’ echoed Myles. ‘I’ve often wondered who lived there,
and never knew. Why, it is part of the Mallorys’ property,’ he said
suddenly.

‘Yes; I believe it is,’ she replied composedly. ‘My uncle has lived
there for ten years now.’

There was a little pause, and then Myles said,

‘You will excuse me, but I don’t really think it is fit for you to walk
all that long way of an evening, especially now that it gets dark so
soon, and after what has happened to-night.’

‘I suppose I shall have to give it up. Luckily I am nearly at the end
of my task. So I shall try to finish it.’

‘Your reading?’ he said inquiringly.

‘Yes. References for my uncle’s book. He is writing a book about Art
and the Development of Civilisation: he is too infirm to go to the
library himself, and I like going there. I have been reading up music
for him all summer.’

‘Oh, that’s it!’ said Myles, in a tone which betrayed ingenuously
enough that he had thought often and deeply upon the subject.

‘Yes, that is it. I must really try to go a few times more, because
those books may not be removed from the library; and then I shall not
need to go any more.’

‘But you have not been here long, you said?’ said Myles.

‘No. Only eighteen months, since my father died abroad, and my uncle
asked me to come and live here with him, else I should have had no
home.’

She spoke with a quietness amounting to sadness, and Myles felt sure
that there was sadness in her life, though she spoke so cheerfully.

‘Were you sorry or glad to come to England?’ he ventured to ask.

‘Oh, sorry. Every association I had with it was unpleasant; whereas I
had had many pleasures at different times abroad; and it is so cold,
and dull, and _triste_ here.’

‘For any one that has no friends----’ he began.

‘Like me,’ she said.

‘It must be rather dull. Here is your place, I think.’

‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, pausing with her hand on the latch of the gate.
‘I would ask you to come in, only it would disturb my uncle so much.
But I shall see you again, and another evening I hope you will come
in--will you?’

‘You are very kind,’ said Myles, secretly feeling immensely flattered
at the invitation. ‘If it wouldn’t be intruding----’

‘Not at all. I should like to know what you think about one or two
things. I know you think, by the books I have seen you reading, and I
have a burning curiosity to know what you think.’

Myles suggested that his subjects--work, wages, politics--might not be
very interesting to a young lady.

‘It depends so much upon the kind of young lady, I think,’ said she,
smiling. ‘Well, good night; I am obliged for your kindness.’

With a gracious inclination of her head she was gone--had passed
swiftly up the walk, opened the door, and entered the house.

Myles stood for some time on the spot where she had left him, staring
at the house. He looked at it well. ‘Stonegate. Blake Street.’ The
whole of Blake Street was part of the Mallorys’ property--Sebastian
Mallory’s property, to gain which he had toiled not, neither had he
spun; but it had come to him, and was his to do as he would with.

Blake Street was a long street, composed, for about half its length, of
smallish houses, in which lived quiet, steady, proper people. Several
of the door-plates bore the indications of dressmakers; there were two
dentists, a veterinary surgeon, and an undertaker. The rest were quiet,
dull, dingy-looking private residences.

Beyond a certain point all this changed. Blake Street became a mere
confusion of pasteboard terraces, half-finished houses, single strips
of houses, and general disorder and chaos--a brick and plaster
abomination of desolation. And then came a lonely stretch of street,
quite without houses, with an unfinished footpath on either side,
skirting a waste of what really had been heath, and was now little
else. Some tufts of heather might be found growing there in their
season, and the air that blew over it was sharp and keen.

Across this common one might see the lights of the town; dim outlines
of factories and churches, and masses of buildings--the tortuous lines
of light creeping up steep streets and lanes, and the indistinct
outlines of the long range of the Blackrigg moors. On the left side of
the road stood one solitary house, in a moderately sized garden--the
Stonegate where Adrienne lived with her uncle. It was an old house
of dark grey stone; square, solidly built, and of moderately large
proportions. It was contemporary with the Oakenrod, and had been built
by some far-back, dead and gone Mallory (they were lords of the manor
of Thanshope) as a dower-house. In the garden the trees were shrivelled
up, the flower-beds were adorned with nothing but a few evergreen
bushes, and the grass was not kept as was the grass in the Oakenrod
garden.

Behind the house was the lonely-looking waste of heath or common which
was out of Sebastian Mallory’s jurisdiction; and in front a low wall,
with a wicket-gate in it, bounded the garden. From the wicket to the
door was a flagged walk, raised a little above the grass border on
either side of it. On each side the door two windows; on the second
story five windows. The shutters of the lower windows were closed--the
whole face of the house presented a blank, staring void, till at last
Myles, looking intently upwards, saw a light appear in one of the upper
windows, and a shadow pass the blind. That must be Adrienne’s room.
Then he glanced at the surroundings of the house.

‘A lonely place enough!’ he decided within himself. ‘I’m glad I came
home with her. If that blackguard had been at the trouble to follow
her! I hope he doesn’t know where she lives: it hardly looks as if he
did, or he wouldn’t have chosen the public library to molest her in. I
don’t believe that if she called out, in this street, any one would
hear her; and if they did, they’re a poor lot--tailors, and women,
and ‘pothecaries: they wouldn’t know a woman’s screaming from a cat’s
miauling.’

‘It is a nasty place!’ he muttered again to himself, lingering
unaccountably, reluctant to go. ‘It looks as if there were a blight, or
a curse, or something upon it.’

At last he tore himself away, and took his homeward way.




CHAPTER V.

PHILOSOPHY AND FASCINATION.

    ‘A tenderness shows through her face,
          And, like the morning’s glow,
          Hints a full day below.’


Myles walked home, not in the ‘kind of dream’ proper for a hero under
the circumstances, but thinking very lucidly and very connectedly
during his pretty long walk, from the end of Blake Street to his house
on the Townfield, chiefly of what had happened that evening. He thought
of Adrienne--of all those summer months of silence, and then of the
sudden, quick acquaintance.

‘She’s certainly different from other people,’ he said to himself:
and in that matter he was right, if he meant that she was not like
the ordinary Thanshope lady. But the ordinary Thanshope lady had
not been brought up as Adrienne Blisset had been, and Myles did not
know then what patient struggles with sorrow and poverty and adverse
circumstances had made her what she was. At one-and-twenty she had
lived in many lands, and her mind had come in contact with many other
minds, often minds of a far from common order. Very few English girls
in her class have had that experience at that age--nor would those who
wish a girl to be innocent and happy desire such experience for her, if
it had to be paid for with such a heavy guerdon of sorrow and suffering
as Adrienne had paid for hers.

Myles knew nothing of that, he only saw the difference. He felt a
curiosity about her, blended with some admiration. He admired her
grace, her spirit, her sweet voice, her quick intelligence; and he
thought a great deal about her as he walked home, and wondered if he
should see her again to-morrow--if she would be as gracious as she had
been to-night; he thought of Frederick Spenceley, and classed him in
his mind with ‘Mallory and that lot,’ and was glad, quite revengefully
glad, that he had been able to treat him as he had done, and that was
all.

Perfectly unexpectant, unconscious, unaware of the web which
circumstances, past, present, and to come, were weaving about his
head, he paced the well-known streets--a son of toil, the descendant
of generations of sons of toil, but with a whole world dormant in him,
or rather nascent--a whole realm of suffering: love, hope, grandeur,
baseness, which this night had first stirred into a premonitory natal
activity.

Saturday morning came, and work, and the business of life; Saturday
afternoon, and holiday. Myles and Mary walked home together about two
o’clock; and his sister looked at him more than once, as his head and
his eyes turned quickly from one side to the other, so often that at
last she said,

‘Why, Myles, dost expect to see some one thou knows?’

‘Me--no!’ said he, hastily, and with a forced laugh. He had been half
unconsciously looking for Adrienne, but in vain.

In the evening he repaired to the reading-room as usual. He went
straight to his seat in the window; but she was not there, so he picked
up the _Westminster_, which no one had disturbed since last night, and
resumed the article on the governing classes.

But he could not, to use his own expression, ‘fasten to it,’ until he
heard the soft opening and closing of the swing-door in the background,
and the faint sound, almost imperceptible, of a girl’s light footfall
and undulating dress, came nearer and nearer. Then, when he looked up,
she was there, looking just the same as usual--which was surprising,
after all his dreamy thoughts about her.

She bowed to him, with the smile which lent such a charm to her
fair face. For she was fair, Myles decided, as he saw that look of
recognition; and he was right. She was one of those women who are not
anything, neither ugly nor beautiful, until one knows them, and then
they are lovely for ever.

With the ‘Good evening’ and the smile they exchanged, he felt at rest,
and could turn to his book again, and read, and understand. For not yet
did he know that he had met his fate--good or evil as the case might
be; there was a sweet, momentary pause before there came that fever of
unrest which love must be to such men as he.

Miss Blisset made her notes, and studied her music with diligence,
until nine o’clock came chiming from the steeple above their heads,
and there rang out after the chimes the music of the tune ‘Life let us
cherish!’

Adrienne put her books together, and rose.

‘Mr. Heywood, I told my uncle about what happened last night, and he
told me to ask you to come and see him this evening. Will you?’

‘I shall be very glad to do so,’ said Myles, looking up, pleased and
somewhat surprised. He had thought Miss Blisset’s gratitude to him
natural, under the circumstances, and had quite supposed that she would
treat him with friendliness afterwards; but he had smiled at the idea
of the uncle of whom she spoke troubling himself about him. If he let
the girl take that disagreeable walk to the town-hall every evening, he
was not likely to care much whether she were annoyed or not, so that
his work was done. That was the conclusion Myles had come to; and it
was a conclusion quite in harmony with his character.

They left the hall together: it was Saturday night, and the streets
were thronged with a rough-spoken, roughly mannered Lancashire crowd,
pushing and talking, and, too many of them, reeling about, with the
absence of ceremony peculiar to them. They soon left the thoroughfare,
and found themselves first in the narrow cross-lane, and then in Blake
Street.

‘Only one more evening,’ said Adrienne, ‘and then my work will be done;
and I shall not need to come any more.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Myles, abruptly.

‘You like reading,’ said Adrienne. ‘Have you read much?’

‘I don’t think I have,’ he owned frankly.

‘The Thanshope library is not a bad one in its way,’ she remarked.
‘Rather behind the time though, in the matter of science and
philosophy.’

‘Well, you see, it’s like the gentlemen who have the managing of it,
I suppose,’ said Myles, apologetically. ‘They are a little behind the
time, too.’

‘Fortunately they have been allowed to exercise no control over my
department, the music, since it was all bequeathed by a good and
enlightened man to the town; and all those worthy committee people had
to do, was to accept it gratefully, and find a room to put it in. And
then, too, I don’t think they would know anything about the orthodox
and heterodox in such matters.’

‘Is there orthodox and heterodox in music?’ asked Myles.

‘I should think so! The adherents of the different musical creeds
are given to a “bear and forbearance” equal to that of adherents of
different religious creeds.’

Myles laughed a little at this and said,

‘Then I’m sure ignorance is bliss in that case. We’re somewhat overrun
with parsons in these parts. The women make so much of them that they
seem quite to lose their understanding--what they have of it. But the
vicar--Canon Ponsonby--he is quite different; and he keeps a pretty
tight hand over his parsons. I’ve heard that he shows them their place
sometimes as if they were schoolboys. He ought to have been a prime
minister, ought Canon Ponsonby.’

‘Yes, I know him,’ said Adrienne. ‘He and my uncle are great friends.
He is a grand old gentleman.’

Here they turned in at the wicket of Stonegate; Adrienne opened
the door, and Myles for the first time--not for the last by any
means--stood within that sad-looking, lonesome old house.

It was a square, matted hall in which they stood; dimly lighted by a
Japanese lantern, also square, hanging from the roof. On a great oaken
table in the centre, stood a large, beautiful vase of grey-green
Vallouris ware. Over the carved mantelpiece hung an oil-painting--a
fine copy of that beautiful likeness of Goethe--the one with the
dark rings of curling hair, and the magnificent face; that likeness
which always reminds one of the _herrlichen Jüngling_ described by
Bettina as the hero of a certain skating scene, when he stole his
mother’s cloak--_der Kälte wegen_. Opposite to this picture stood, on a
pedestal, a bust of Orfila. These were the only ornaments in the place:
every other available corner was filled with book-shelves loaded with
books. A dome-light gave light by day to this hall.

‘This way,’ said Adrienne, opening a door to the left, and Myles
followed her into the room. This room too was lighted with lamps and
candles. There was a table in the centre--a writing-table in one of
the windows, piled with books, and papers, and manuscripts. In an
easy-chair, beside this writing-table, reading, was a man--presumably
the ‘uncle’ of whom Adrienne had so often spoken.

‘Uncle’ said she, going up to him, and touching his arm, ‘here is Mr.
Heywood, of whom I spoke to you.’

He looked up, and Myles beheld a strange, long, pale face, with hollow
eyes, and a large and, as it seemed to him, an expressionless mouth. It
was a deathlike face; its expression neutral to impassiveness.

‘Mr. Heywood--oh, I am glad to see you. Take a seat.’

Somewhat chilled by this unenthusiastic greeting Myles complied without
a word, feeling remarkably small and insignificant, while Adrienne
produced her papers, sat down at the desk, and began to arrange them.
Mr. Blisset turned towards her, but did not move his chair. He merely
observed to Myles,

‘You will excuse us a moment, Mr. Heywood,’ and then gave his attention
to the remarks which his niece, in a low tone, made to him. It was with
a kind of shock that Myles soon perceived the man’s lower limbs must
be paralysed. That was what Adrienne meant when she spoke of his being
unable to come to the library. That was why he was so shy and reserved,
that he must be prepared for the visit of a stranger. Myles understood
it all now, and, from his experience of Edmund, knew what it meant,
only that this was far worse, far more of a living death than that in
which Edmund lived.

The writing and reporting over, Adrienne left the room. Myles and the
strange-looking, corpse-like man were left alone; and now Mr. Blisset
turned to him and said, still in the same cold, measured voice,

‘You rendered a very kind service to my niece last night, and I am much
obliged to you.’

‘Pray don’t mention it. No one could have sat still and seen a young
lady annoyed by a fellow like Frederick Spenceley.’

‘Spenceley--surely I have heard the name!’

‘Very likely. His father is the richest man in Thanshope.’

‘Oh--ah! Naturally I have heard of him then. So that was the name of
the individual who insulted her?’

‘That is his name,’ said Myles, concisely, ‘and it’s another name for a
cad and a blackguard.’

‘Oh, is it? You know something about him?’

‘There are few people in Thanshope who don’t. He is a born
ruffian--Spenceley. Some day the ruffianism will come out through the
veneering, and, once out, it will never be polished over again.’

Mr. Blisset assented half-inquiringly, surveying Myles all the time
from his impassive eyes, and then he said,

‘I am sorry my niece should have to go to the reading-room. She tells
me that one evening more will finish what she has to do, otherwise I
should not permit it. But I should think you have frightened the fellow
away for a time?’

‘Oh yes! He won’t trouble her again,’ said Myles, with contemptuous
indifference, forgetting that beaten-off insects, with or without
stings, have a habit of returning with blundering persistency to the
attack. ‘But couldn’t she go in the daytime?’ he asked suddenly.

Mr. Blisset shrugged his shoulders.

‘There is so much work to be done in the daytime,’ said
he--‘correspondence, and reading, and manuscript to copy. But I spare
her as much as I can. I never ask or wish her to work after she returns
in the evening. The rest of her time is her own.’

‘I should hope so!--from nine o’clock!’ thought Myles, a little
surprised. ‘She must be ready to go to bed at ten, after such a day as
that. I wonder at what time it begins. Why, I am better off than that.’

‘The rest of her time is her own,’ repeated Mr. Blisset, as if he clung
to that concession with fondness and pride, feeling that it made up for
all other privations which her day’s work might entail--which indeed
was the case. His infirmity--his long confinement to one house and one
spot--the absorbed concentration of his faculties upon one work--a
work which he was determined should burst upon the world, and make him
illustrious--all this, and above all, Adrienne’s own devotion to him
and his pursuits, since she had come to live with him, had fostered his
natural egotism; till now he verily believed that his yoke was easy
and his burden light to the young creature who bore it, and that that
hour ‘after she came in’ was an elastic period, in which any amount of
private work and reading could be done, and pleasure enjoyed.

Yet he was not a hard-hearted man, and if Adrienne had been by any
cause removed from him, it would have been her gentle presence and the
charm of her company that he would have lamented--not the loss of her
services in reading, writing, and research.

His intense and almost forbidding coldness of manner was soon
understood by Myles, who discovered before long that it arose chiefly
from physical weakness and languor--not from any want of interest in
the questions of the day, or in the men and things about him.

‘You are writing a great book, sir?’ inquired Myles, by way of
something to say.

‘A book,’ corrected Mr. Blisset--a slight but ineffable smile playing
upon the marble of his face. ‘Let no men and no generation call any of
their own achievements--whether in literature or legislation--great.
That is for posterity to decide.’

(‘Humph!’ thought Myles. ‘That implies that posterity will take some
notice of it, in which case--but the reflections opened up were too
large to be fully followed out then.)

‘One branch of knowledge, and one alone, can produce works which at the
very time of their appearance may be safely pronounced great--and that
is science, of course,’ resumed Mr. Blisset half-closing his eyes.

‘Then yours is not a scientific work,’ said Myles politely.

‘It is chiefly historical and speculative, but based, I trust, on the
truest and most profoundly scientific principles. It is an inquiry into
the question whether highly advanced civilisation and an art-spirit
living, original, and capable of producing new and great works, can
exist together--whether they are ever likely to go hand in hand.’

‘And what do you conclude?’ asked Myles.

‘I began in hope,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘But the hope has died away.
Music still remains--a wide, only partially trodden field, but for the
rest----’ he shook his head. ‘Of course it is a gigantic undertaking,’
he went on, ‘and I have been engaged upon it for twenty years. But I
think when my work is complete, that I shall have pretty well exhausted
the subject.’

‘And your readers, too, perhaps,’ thought Myles, unwillingly forced
to wonder whether there were much use in Mr. Blisset’s gigantic
undertaking.

At this juncture Adrienne came into the room again; and Myles,
beholding her for the first time in indoor dress, was sensible of a
warmer, deeper feeling of admiration than he had hitherto experienced.
There was a nameless foreign charm about her, which worked like a spell
upon him. She held some trifling work in her hand, and coming quietly
in, seated herself, and lent her attention to her uncle as he went on
discoursing in a monotone, which by degrees fascinated Myles, so that
he listened intently, and _nolens volens_.

It was only afterwards, in thinking it all over, that he remembered
what a sad, dreary life it must be for the young girl, alone with
this stupendous egotist, listening while he discoursed of--himself;
helping him in his great work; writing letters relating to his vast
undertaking; studying hard in order to supply him with facts. That
was all true: but at the moment Myles did not think of it, for Mr.
Blisset spoke upon subjects that the young man had thought about
himself--subjects that made his heart burn--of governments and peoples,
and the lessons which history may teach us.

And when Myles heard the treasures of learning and research, which Mr.
Blisset had undoubtedly accumulated, brought to bear upon his own view
of the question, and found that the speaker too was one of those whose
watchword is--

    ‘The people, Lord! the people!
    Not crowns and thrones, but _men_!’

his admiration speedily grew to enthusiasm, and he sat listening, his
handsome face all flushed with eagerness, and was disposed, before the
evening was over, to rank Mr. Blisset as a demigod.

Mr. Blisset was pleased, like other philosophers, with the admiration
he excited, and surveyed the young man with a favouring eye.

‘You must come and see me again,’ said he. ‘It is always a pleasure to
me to know one who has thought and felt upon these subjects. But I have
talked till I feel almost exhausted. Adrienne, my love, suppose you
give us some music.’

‘Yes, uncle,’ said she; ‘I like you to talk in that way,’ she added,
touching his forehead with her lips. ‘Then you do yourself justice.’

There was a piano in the room, and Adrienne’s playing for her uncle
when the day’s work was quite over--a sort of requiem upon the toil
they had passed through--was as regular a thing as the falling of night
upon the earth. There, in the world of harmony, was her kingdom--there
she ruled; from thence she could sway the hearts of men.

The harmonies she made for them that evening were calm and grave--a
pathetic _Tema_ of Haydn’s; a solemn _Ciaconna_ of Bach’s; a slow
movement, the ‘singing together of the morning stars,’ of Beethoven’s.

Mr. Blisset shaded his long pale face with his long pale hand, and
sat, with closed eyes, listening. Myles was listening too, but ear,
with him, was subservient to eye and to thought. His gaze never left
Adrienne, and the longer he looked, the deeper became the charm.
There had slumbered in his mind, throughout these years of toil and
striving, a latent, dormant, ideal of loveliness, purity, and fitness
for worship, and it was as though, when Adrienne’s fingers touched the
keys, that the door of heaven was opened, and a ray, falling upon her
fair head, proclaimed her his soul’s dearest wish.

With a sigh, promptly repressed, he rose from his dream as she
finished, and took his departure, after Mr. Blisset had made him
promise to come again.

It was Saturday night, and Myles found the din of the town not yet
hushed. He saw sights which were familiar enough to his eyes, heard
sounds to which his ears were accustomed--drunken men reeling out
of the public-houses which must be closed, brawling songs shouted
hoarsely up and down--all the ugliness of rude, coarse natures taking
their pleasure. He had never in his life found pleasure himself in
such things; but equally, he had grown accustomed to the fact that
others--men with whom he was on good terms--did take pleasure in them.
He thought of the scene he had just left, and there shot a sudden
sense of chill doubt and discomfiture through his frame of musing,
high-strung happiness, a desperate feeling that those whom he saw
about him in the streets now, were his class, his companions; that,
ever since he had begun to hope and think, he had hoped for their
advancement, their good, and he must not be untrue to them.

‘Pah!’ said he to himself, ‘as if she could ask a man to be false to
what he ought to be true to. She’s like truth itself.’




CHAPTER VI.

FINE LADIES AND FOLLY.


Monday morning, with the business of this work-a-day world in full
swing, or rather in preparation for the week’s swing of labour. In the
freshness and rawness of a six o’clock morning air, Myles walked with
his sister to his work. He and Mary were accustomed to do all their
private conversation during these walks. They sometimes discussed their
mother and her doings, and the discussion took away from the bitterness
which silence would have left to rankle there.

To-day Myles was exceedingly silent, but Mary, who knew him and loved
him better than any other soul, felt that the silence was no sign of
dejection.

The brother and sister separated on arriving at the factory. Mary went
to the weaving shed, and Myles to the warehouse. After breakfast the
same arrangement took place; but the day was not destined to be one of
pleasant memories for Myles.

In the course of the forenoon he was in the outer office, with Wilson
the overlooker, when the latter, glancing through the window, remarked,

‘There’s Mrs. Mallory coming. I see her carriage.’

Myles made no answer, for the information did not seem to him of any
particular importance; but Wilson went on, in a voice which had grown
by anticipation smooth and respectful,

‘I expect she wants to see Mr. Sutcliffe, and he’s out. So she’ll have
to put up with me.’

With that he stepped up to a square of looking-glass, which he retained
despite all Myles’s gibes and jeers, over the mantelpiece, and smoothed
his hair.

‘And Myles, lad, as Mrs. Mallory’s coming, and may have business to
speak about, perhaps you’d better----’

‘Go?’ said Myles, tranquilly, though the suggestion was highly
irritating to him. ‘That I’m not going to do, old chap. I’ve got these
figures to write down; and here I stay and write them, if fifty Mrs.
Mallorys were coming.’

Wilson made no answer. Myles’s position was too near his own for him
to be able to order him out of the office; but, not quite satisfied,
he waited, snatching up bundles of papers and sample cops, shoving an
empty skip aside, and endeavouring to make the rough office look a
little tidier.

‘What a pity,’ remarked Myles, sarcastically, ‘that you haven’t got a
few evergreens and some paper roses. I’d invest in a few, if I were
you, and keep them in the cupboard, ready for such an occasion as this.’

With which he seated himself at the desk in the window, which commanded
a view of the street, and began to write.

Wilson walked up and down, watching the carriage as it drew nearer, and
Myles felt contemptuous and superior.

‘She’s got Miss Spenceley in the carriage with her,’ observed Wilson,
reconnoitring over Myles’s head. ‘They go a deal together, those two.’

Myles looked up sharply as he heard this. The carriage had stopped;
Wilson had rushed to open the door. Myles saw the open carriage
standing at the gates, and how one lady sat waiting while the other got
out. The face of the waiting lady was turned towards the office.

‘Miss Spenceley’--the sister of the man who had displayed his
contemptible character to Adrienne Blisset the other night. It was not
likely that Myles should glance at her with very amiable or respectful
feelings. He saw a graceful figure leaning nonchalantly back in the
carriage; he had a general impression of a brilliantly beautiful
brunette face, large dark eyes, an extremely elegant costume, a hat, or
bonnet, with a waving plume, a parasol covered with lace--and that was
all. But he had long sight; he saw none of her brother’s expression on
the girl’s countenance, which was frank and open, as well as beautiful.

‘I’d bet something they don’t get on well together,’ he thought; and
then he heard a silk dress rustle over the threshold, and a woman’s
voice answering indifferently Wilson’s profuse salutations. Myles could
not help looking up, though he tried not to do so. He had often seen
Mrs. Mallory before; but she had never seen him. Now she was looking
full at him.

She was a handsome woman, of some forty-six years of age, but looking
younger when one did not notice certain lines about her eyes and
mouth--lines of meanness as well as of pride. She was very richly
dressed in black; there was silk, and lace, and perfume about her. She
was tall, fair, pale, and inclined towards _embonpoint_. She looked
Myles over from head to foot; then, turning to Wilson, said,

‘Is Mr. Sutcliffe in?’

‘I’m very sorry, ’m; he isn’t. He has had to go to Bolton, and won’t be
back till afternoon.’

‘Oh!’ said she, pausing as if in thought; and then added, ‘Give me the
papers Mr. Sutcliffe was speaking about the other day; they are sure
to have been left ready. I will take them home with me, and look them
over.’

Myles had turned again to his work, and was bending over a page of
figures, wroth with himself that, instead of being able undisturbedly
to add up the figures he had put down, he could not help listening to
Mrs. Mallory’s voice.

‘Yes, ’m; I’ll find the papers. They’ll be in Mr. Sutcliffe’s room. But
won’t you sit down ’m, while I look for them?’

‘No; make haste, please,’ was all she said, a little impatiently; for
Mr. Wilson’s manner was, to put it mildly, fussy; and Myles, feeling
the influence of that tone, despite all his efforts, began to count
half aloud:

‘Three and five, nine--eight, I mean; and seven fifteen, and----’

‘Here they are, ’m. Allow me to make them into a parcel, ’m: it will be
more convenient.’

‘No; you can take them to the carriage, and I will look them over when
I have time.’

‘Myles, lad, suppose you were to take the papers to the carriage,’ said
Wilson, wishing to appear superior.

Myles looked up, surprised; he could read the simple, fussy character
of the faithful old cashier to its very depths, and knew his motives
exactly. He had no wish to disoblige him, and, with an amused
half-smile, took the papers and walked to Mrs. Mallory’s carriage.

The young lady, Miss Spenceley, was looking somewhat impatiently
towards the office.

‘Oh!’ said she, when she saw Myles, ‘is Mrs. Mallory in there? Has she
nearly finished her business, do you think?’

Myles had seen the girl many a time before; she was the beauty and the
heiress, _par excellence_, of Thanshope; the only daughter, as her
brother was the only son, of her parents. The young man, looking at her
more attentively than ever before, could find no trace of likeness, or
his scorn of her relative might have displayed itself in his voice.

‘I really don’t know,’ said he, in answer to her question. ‘She is
talking to the cashier.’

‘Oh, thanks!’ said she, turning abruptly away, and looking impatiently
up the street.

Myles returned to the office, and as he re-entered it Mrs. Mallory was
saying to Wilson,

‘Because I expect my son--your master--will be at home again shortly,
and of course he will wish to inquire into everything that is going on.’

There was something in the tone in which this was said which rasped
upon Myles’s feelings--a calm superiority which he felt to be extremely
needless.

‘Then we may expect Mr. Mallory to come and take possession some time
soon?’ Wilson hailed the news as if it were a personal favour.

‘I expect so. I do not know the exact time; but of course everything
will be ready for him?’

‘Will _he_ be ready for everything?’ thought Myles, with strong
contempt; his old spite--it deserves no nobler name--against the
absent, unknown Sebastian Mallory rose angrily to the surface again.
‘Our _master_, indeed!’ he reflected angrily. ‘I wonder if he’s ever
proved himself his own master yet?’

Wilson, by an unlucky combination of circumstances, was at this moment
inspired to turn pointedly to Myles and remark:

‘Now, Myles, do you hear what Madam Mallory says? I told you the master
was coming, and you wouldn’t believe me.’

‘It remains to be seen whether “master” is the right word to use,’ said
Myles, with deliberation. ‘In this case I have my doubts about it.’

He bent to his book once more, but not before he had seen the stony
stare in the light blue eyes of Mrs. Mallory, and the gaze of haughty
astonishment upon her pale, high-featured face--a stare which seemed to
say, ‘I have seen human nature in many obtrusive and ill-bred aspects,
but never in one which so much required putting into its proper place
as this.’

Myles smiled rather grimly to himself; he hated to exchange such
civilities with any one, most of all with a woman, but his spirit could
ill brook the unquestionably haughty and supercilious manner of Mrs.
Mallory, and the profuse mouthing of the word ‘master’ by Wilson’s
complaisant lips. Myles had, up to now, utterly refused to call any man
master, and he was not going to begin it in the case of a man whom he
had never seen; and to whom local report gave anything but a decided or
master-like character.

‘There’s no call for you to be so rude,’ said the cashier, shocked and
reproachful.

Myles turned to him.

‘Will you understand,’ said he, with lips that had grown tight, ‘that a
man can’t both do arithmetic and talk?’

‘Who _is_ the young man?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory of the discomfited
Wilson.

‘You must excuse him, ’m. He’s one of the foremen: he knows no better.’

Myles made no sort of comment upon this apology, content that they
should say what they liked about it, so long as they did not require
him to acknowledge an unknown ‘master.’

Mrs. Mallory, after another and a prolonged stare of the said
haughty astonishment, which stare wasted itself upon the back of the
delinquent, swept away, leaving Myles with his lips twisted into a fine
sneer--an expression to which they were wont too readily to bend.

       *       *       *       *       *

Myles’s temper had assuredly not been improved by the occurrences of
the morning. It was destined to be yet more severely tried before his
return to work in the afternoon.

On leaving the factory he parted from Mary, as he had an errand in
the town, and told her he would be home in half an hour for dinner.
He did his errand, and took his way home. And as he arrived at his
own gate there came out from it a man whom Myles recognised as a
person to whom he bore no friendly feelings. He was named James
Hoyle, and was by trade a small shopkeeper, in the stationery and
evangelical-religious-book line: occasionally he acted as a preacher
of a denunciatory and inflammatory description; always he was a
missionary--so, at least, he said.

To him and to his style of preaching and piety Myles had a most
thorough dislike; he believed him to be a hypocrite, and in this case
his dislike was well grounded enough, and founded on facts.

‘Good morning, Myles. The Lord bless you!’ observed Mr. Hoyle, holding
out a dingy, fat hand. No lowest scum of the Levites, of whatever
section, whatever persuasion, could have looked, thought Myles,
sleeker, or more as if his sleekness were an ill-gotten gain.

Out of tune as Myles was with all the world, this apparition and his
tone of familiarity was not of a kind likely to restore harmony to the
jarring notes of his life’s music. Drawing up his proud figure to its
utmost height, and looking with his contemptuous eyes down upon the
pudgy individual who addressed him, he said,

‘Good morning. I’ll thank you not to make so free with my name. Who
gave you leave to call me “Myles”?’

He ignored the outstretched hand, having an objection to touching what
he considered to be both literally and metaphorically dirty fingers.

Hoyle looked up at him, and his eyes twinkled.

‘I’ve been taking spiritual counsel with your mother, my dear young
friend. A sweet, precious soul! It is a privilege to converse with her;
she teaches one so much.’

‘Does she? It’s a pity but she could teach you to be sober and honest,’
said Myles, with distinct enunciation and scornful mien, holding
himself somewhat aloof from Mr. Hoyle. ‘Anyhow,’ he continued, ‘until
you’ve managed it--the soberness and honesty, I mean (you needn’t look
as if you didn’t know. I saw where you came out of at eleven o’clock
on Saturday night)--till then, you’ll please give this house a clear
berth, and my mother may take her spiritual counsel--if she wants
it--with a different sort of person from you.’

He was about to turn in at the gate, but, with his hand on the latch,
was arrested by an expression on the face of the other.

‘The day will come, young man, when you will wish you had treated
me--me, of all people--with more respect,’ said he with a smile, for he
had a flexible face, which appeared to lend itself even more easily to
smiles than to other expressions. Yet the smile was an evil one.

He turned and walked away, and Myles, in some annoyance, went into the
house. Usually Mrs. Heywood had the field to herself in the exercise
of her tongue. Edmund occasionally indulged in a burst of temper, but
always to his own disadvantage. Mary never answered at all. Myles
alone, as has been before said, could, with a certain look and tone,
show himself master of the fretful, repining embodiment of scolding
and selfishness whom they had the misfortune to call mother. To-day he
was in no mood to ‘stand nonsense,’ and as he went into the kitchen
he said, hanging up his cap, and taking Edmund’s hand, as he seated
himself beside him,

‘What does yon James Hoyle want always hanging about here? The chap is
never out of the place, and I can’t abide him. If he doesn’t give us a
little more of his room and less of his company I must speak to him.
Mary, lass, I hope thou’rt not got agate of meeting-going.’

He spoke with perfect good-nature and good temper, not suspecting
anything but that all the rest of the company were equally averse with
himself to Mr. Hoyle’s visits, and he smiled a little as he looked at
Mary.

‘Me!’ said his sister, laughing. ‘Nay, I’m not come to that. As long as
I live I’st go to th’ parish church every Sunday, and sit in th’ old
place----’

‘Alongside o’ Harry Ashworth,’ put in Edmund, gravely, at which Mary’s
cheeks flushed, and she went on somewhat more rapidly.

‘For I make nowt at o’ out o’ the meetin’-house.’

‘Perhaps you’ll end by leaving th’ owd place for an older, and going
clean over to Rome,’ said Mrs. Heywood, who had been bending over the
fire, looking at a pan of potatoes, and who now raised rather a flushed
face from that occupation; ‘choose how, there’st nowt be said here
against James Hoyle, the godly man! and it’s more than likely that
you’ll see more of him than you have done yet.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked her eldest son, turning towards her; ‘you mean
that Jimmy Hoyle would come here a second time after I’d forbidden him
the house?’

He laughed, as if he thought it rather a good joke.

‘You’d turn him out of the house? That’s like you!’ said Mrs. Heywood,
emptying the potatoes into a tureen.

‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Myles, in some
surprise at her whole demeanour.

‘Well, you’ll get to know, then,’ she retorted, without meeting his
eye. ‘A good man is like the salt of the earth. He can make even a
sinful house holy, and bring a blessing on it. James Hoyle and me is
going to be married. We’st be wed this day three week, and then I’d
like to know how you’ll forbid him the house.’

There was a momentary silence, during which Myles, who had risen,
stared at his mother in an incredulous manner. Mary, after a moment,
turned pale, and sat down upon a chair in the background. Edmund’s lips
were curled into a sneer.

‘Mother!’ said Myles, confronting her, and somewhat forcing her eyes to
meet his. ‘Is this a joke that you’re playing upon us? Because, if so,
it’s a very poor one.’

‘Joke!’ she retorted, her voice rising to shrillness. ‘What should it
be a joke for, I’d like to know? Have I such comfort in my children
that I shouldn’t be glad of the help of a godly man--oh, and he is a
godly man--like that?’

‘That’s a poor answer, mother,’ said Myles, who had thrust his hand
into his breast, as if to repress some anger or emotion. ‘Your children
have never done anything to cause you uneasiness.’

‘Do go on blowing your own trumpet!’ Mrs. Heywood exhorted him.

‘Nay, I’ve no more to say about it. But I want a better answer than
that your children’s conduct drove you to marry that great, idle,
greasy, sanctimonious, all-praying, no-doing brute--he isn’t a man. I
can understand him wanting to marry you, you’ve thirty pounds a year
of your own: but that you should look at him!’ He made an expressive
gesture of contempt.

‘So it’s my money he’s marrying me for,’ said Mrs. Heywood; and no
girl of eighteen could have spoken with more anger at the suggestion.
‘That’s it, is it? Ay, ay! “Honour thy father and thy mother”--do!’

‘Are you giving us an example of honouring our father?’ he inquired,
growing quieter in tone as his anger and disgust grew more intense,
and her determination (he saw) more fixed. ‘Or is your present plan
likely to lead us to honour you? No, mother; I can’t see what a woman
like you wants with marrying again; though if it had been a decent man,
let him be never so rough, I’d have put up with him, but that--why,
I saw him on Saturday night coming out of the lowest public-house in
Thanshope--half-drunk--as plain as I see you. But here’s the long and
short of it. That man certainly never enters this house again. I’ll let
him know that. And if you do marry him, he’ll please to find a home for
you; for neither he nor you will share ours. Mark my words--if you go
to him you leave us for ever.’

‘Mother, thou’ll ne’er be so wicked,’ said Mary, from her corner, in
tears.

‘Hold thy tongue, thou hussy! calling thy mother wicked,’ said Mrs.
Heywood, sharply.

‘I’ll not have Molly called by that name,’ said Myles, composedly.
‘Remember, it’s I that am master here, when all’s said and done. I’ll
have no such nonsense carried on. So let us hear--do you intend to be a
wise woman or a fool?’

The words were not at all rudely spoken, but they were unfortunately
chosen. They incensed Mrs. Heywood, and she replied sharply,

‘I intend to marry James Hoyle.’

‘Then,’ said he, slowly, as if giving her an opportunity to recant,
‘it’s settled that I intend to have no more to do with you.’

‘Oh, Myles, don’t be so hard on her!’ implored Mary, coming forward and
laying her hand upon his arm.

‘My good lass,’ said he, ‘dry thy eyes, and be glad thou’rt not called
upon to be hard, as thou calls it.’

Mary did not expostulate. Under the gentleness of the words she read a
decision which she did not attempt to combat.

‘Mary’s our good angel,’ remarked Edmund from the couch; and his eyes,
too, fell upon her with affection.

‘A nice angel you’ll find her when I’m gone,’ grumbled Mrs. Heywood.

‘Once more,’ broke in Myles’s voice, ‘I tell you, mother, I have spoken
to you for the last time, unless I hear that this abominable thing is
given up--for the last time.’

‘Myles!’ implored his sister. But she might as well have tried to move
one of the great boulders on Blackrigg as make him soften or yield one
jot.

‘Come, lass!’ he observed to her. ‘Those that must work must eat. The
time’s gone by in this precious palaver, and we’ve only twenty minutes
left.’

He sat down and helped himself, and tried to look as if nothing had
happened; soon, however, he laid down his knife and fork, and told
Mary, who had not even pretended to eat, that it was time to go.

She put her shawl over her head, and, saying good afternoon to Edmund,
they went out.




CHAPTER VII.

SANS FAÇON.


Six o’clock was the time at which the work-people ‘knocked off.’ Myles
and Mary had not spoken as they went to their work, and of course not
during the afternoon; and it was only as they were coming home again
that they first named the subject which at that moment lay nearest
their hearts. Mary was all for mildness and temperate measures.

‘I think, Myles, that if we was to be kind to her, and talk to her,
hoo’d likely give it up,’ said the girl, in her soft, broad, Lancashire
dialect.

‘Not she, Molly. She’s no intention of giving it up.’

‘I never could abide yon Hoyle,’ went on Mary. ‘A false, sneakin’
fellow, he always seemed to me. I reckon he’s after mother’s bit o’
brass; but how hoo can gi’ so mich as a thought to him--nay, it fair
passes me!’

‘Ay! you may well blush! I don’t wonder!’ said Myles, grimly. ‘It looks
as if some people’s minds were fair crooked, or set up on edge, or
upside down, or something.’

They went into the house, and found Edmund alone.

‘She’s not coming back,’ said he, by way of salutation. ‘She’s gone to
some of his relations. She says she’s lived through a deal o’ trouble,
and has found out at last what it was to be turned out of doors by her
own children.’

Neither Mary nor Myles made any answer to this announcement. Mary got
tea ready, and they sat down. It was a silent painful meal. Myles rose
from it with a sense of relief, and taking Edmund’s book to change,
said he was going down to the reading-room.

‘Would thou mind calling at th’ saddler’s in Bold Street for yon strap
o’ mine?’ said Mary.

‘What strap, Molly?’

‘It’s a girder as I took to have a new un made like it. He’ll give you
both th’ old and th’ new un. I could like to have it to take wi’ me
to-morn. I’ve been using Sally Rogers’; but hoo’s comin’ back again
to-morn, and hoo’ll want it hoo’rsel.’

‘Ay, I’ll get it,’ said Myles, putting on his cap and going out.

He made a little détour from his usual route, in order to go to
the saddler’s on his errand for Mary. Bold Street was one of the
principal streets of Thanshope, and close to the very shop to which
Myles was going was a place known to the vulgar as ‘th’ Club.’ This
was a billiard and whist club, frequented by the golden youth of the
promising town of Thanshope.

It was a spot not exactly loved of the mammas of the said town, and
much discussed by the young ladies of the same. Much iniquity was
vaguely supposed to be perpetrated there: some of the piously disposed
spoke of it as a ‘den’; others, who knew nothing, and wished to appear
as if they knew a great deal, said it was ‘as bad as the worst of
London clubs,’ which remark may serve as a specimen of the mighty
self-consciousness of little provincial towns--and ‘den’ is a word
which has about it a fine abstract flavour of awfulness.

It is probable that, as a matter of fact, much bad whist was played
there; billiard balls were knocked up and down, and bets made; too much
spirits were probably consumed; as many dull, coarse, or vulgar tales
were told, as much aimless scandal was talked, as many praise-worthy
efforts were made to ape the manners and tone of metropolitan clubs, as
in most provincial institutions of a similar kind.

Myles went to the saddler’s, which was next door to this temple
of hilarity, fashion, and fastness; got the straps which Mary had
spoken of, and then came out to take his way to the town-hall. As he
passed the portico of the club, he saw just within it a back which he
remembered, clothed in broadcloth. Beside this figure was another,
that of a mere lad, with a babyish face and no chin to speak of, who
would have been better in the cricket-field, or even grinding at his
Latin grammar. On his small-featured insignificant face was stamped an
expression of foolish glee and admiration.

The first individual was speaking; Myles, strolling leisurely past,
heard the words, in the loud, strident voice:

‘Such a chase, my boy! but I succeeded. I found out where she lives,
and waylaid her; gave her my protection whether she liked it or not.
Unless I’m much mistaken, we shall soon be very good friends. She’s a
deep one--those little demure things always are. Ha, ha!’

‘I say, Spenceley----’

‘Doosid pretty, though. D--d good eyes she has, and knows how to use
them. Look here! do you want your revenge for Saturday night?’

‘Oh yes! Come along!’

They walked forward to the interior of the hall, and were lost to view.

Never before had Myles felt the singular sensation which just then
clutched him--a kind of tingling, half of rage, half of shame, from
head to foot--a tempest of his whole mental being. He was in a white
heat of fury, and only two ideas were distinct in his mind: to find
Adrienne, and to punish her insulter.

Almost unknowing how, he hurried to the town-hall, up the stairs,
through the library, into the reading-room. Would she be there? Yes,
she was there, in her usual place. He strode towards her. She was not
even pretending to read or write. She was pale as ashes, and trembling,
as he saw in his approach.

‘Miss Blisset!’ he almost whispered, as he went up to her, and bent
over her, his face dark with suppressed indignation, his eyes aflame.
If she too had not been moved out of all conventional calm, she must
have started at the expression which flashed from his face upon hers.

‘Oh, Mr. Heywood, will you be so very good as to go home with me now,
at once? I have been so frightened and--insulted.’

Her voice broke, though her eyes flashed. How proud a front soever
she might have showed to her insulter, the reaction had set in: the
remembrance was not to be borne unmoved.

‘I know you have,’ said he in a low emphatic voice; and a tremor
shook him too as he looked at her and saw how beautiful she was. He
had admired her as she sat in repose, but now every fibre of his
nature bowed to her, and he felt a passionate desire to do something,
anything, which should set him apart in her eyes from others. Yet
after his first swift glance, he scarcely looked at her, and said very
little. Words appeared weak and trivial--he could not express in them
his detestation of the conduct of that other man, or how profoundly he
reverenced her.

‘How was it?’ he asked, speaking composedly, but clenching his hands,
and crushing together what he held in them.

‘It was that man,’ said she, in a low breathless voice, ‘that hideous
man. I don’t know where he saw me. I think he must have followed me,
but when I got to that little lane, he suddenly overtook me, and spoke
to me. I could not turn back. It would have been much farther--and so
lonely. I did not answer him; I went on very fast, but he detained
me so long in that lane--he would not let me pass. I thought I
should--bah! I thought, when we got into the town, that he would have
left me, but he did not. He came to the very door of this place, and I
dare not go out for fear he should be there yet. Oh, I am so glad to
see you! I thought you were never coming.’

She had leaned her head upon her hand, or she must have seen the light
that flashed suddenly into his eyes--not the light that had been there
at first. He drew a long breath, but succeeded in not betraying for a
second his emotion, as she turned, pale and quivering with excitement,
and put her two little slender hands upon his, saying earnestly,

‘You have been very kind to me. What should I have done if you had not
helped me?’

‘It has been a pleasure to serve you,’ he said constrainedly. ‘Do you
feel fit to walk home now?’

‘Oh, quite!’ she answered, picking up her note-book; and they went away
together.

Myles walked with her to the gate of her uncle’s house, and said, as
they paused there,

‘Of course you will never come again, Miss Blisset?’

‘Never. Of course not.’

‘Then--then--’ he faltered, unable to say what he wished.

‘But I shall see you again, of course,’ said Adrienne, quickly. ‘You
will come again. My uncle wishes you to come again. And you will--yes?’

‘You are sure it wouldn’t be an intrusion?’ said Myles, doubtfully.

‘Very far from an intrusion,’ she answered. ‘You will be welcome--and
you will be expected until you come.’

With which, and with a warm hand-shake she disappeared.

Myles did not pause to-night to contemplate the street, or to look
out for the light in the window. He took the shortest and straightest
course into the town again, went direct to Bold Street, and stopped
before the club.

There was a light in the vestibule of that building, and a waiter stood
at the door surveying the passers by, and feeling no doubt that he
looked negatively fascinating.

‘Is Mr. Frederick Spenceley here?’ inquired Myles, quietly and politely.

‘Mr. Frederick Spenceley?’ repeated the waiter, while an expression of
ill-humour crossed his face. ‘I rather think he is, and in a deuce of a
temper too. If Mr. Frederick Spenceley keeps on coming here, I shan’t
stay. Well, do you want to see him?’

‘I should like just to speak to him,’ said Myles, ever calmly and
politely; his one object being to penetrate to Mr. Spenceley’s
presence, content to pocket his burning fury until he was face to face
with him.

Mr. Spenceley evidently enjoyed little favour in the eyes of the
waiter, or the latter would hardly have allowed a working-man to
penetrate into that _sanctum sanctorum_, the billiard-room. As it was,
he said,

‘Well, if you go straight ahead upstairs, you’ll find him in the
billiard-room, I expect. But perhaps you want to see him down here?’

‘Oh no! I can go to him. Upstairs, you say?’

The waiter nodded; and Myles obeying his direction, found himself on
the first landing, opposite a door inscribed ‘Billiards.’

He knocked, but no reply was given, which was accounted for by the loud
and overpowering voice of Frederick Spenceley, whose accents drowned
all other sounds.

Myles opened the door, and walked into the room, which was like most
other billiard-rooms: four green-shaded lights above the table; the
marker, standing in his place, looking sulky--he too having received
his share of the compliments of Mr. Spenceley that evening.

(It was a significant fact, that not one of Frederick Spenceley’s
inferiors would have felt anything but pleasure in his degradation or
humiliation.)

There was Charlie Saunders, the insignificant-looking boy whose pretty
pink-and-white face was now a good deal flushed, and who laughed
foolishly now and then in high-pitched voice. Opposite, with his burly
back towards the door, was Frederick Spenceley, shouting very loudly,
and freely expressing his opinion that the cloth was a confounded bad
one, and that the table was not level.

‘It’s your eye that’s not level, Freddy, my boy,’ said his youthful
opponent; ‘and your cue too. Look out what you’re doing.’

‘D--n it! it isn’t. Where’s the cha-alk? It’s my beastly luck,’ roared
Spenceley, against whom the balls had broken most unfavourably the
whole evening.

Had the fellow been in the least intoxicated, Myles would have retired;
but he was merely noisy and ill-tempered, and accordingly the workman
chose that moment to step forward and touch Mr. Spenceley on the
shoulder.

With a violent start, which contrasted somewhat curiously with his
previous bluster, he turned; and when he saw Myles, his face assumed a
deep hue of anger, and perhaps of some less noble feeling.

‘I want a word with you,’ said Myles, curtly; and young Saunders paused
to stare at the new-comer, while the marker turned and looked on too.

Be it observed that neither of these men loved Frederick Spenceley.
A billiard-marker, however, is not always in a position to resent
affronts, and Charlie Saunders was a person of less importance than
Spenceley, whatever might be his private opinion of him. Moreover, the
whole proceeding took them by surprise, or--perhaps they might have
interfered.

‘If you like to come to another room, where we can be alone,’ pursued
Myles, composedly, ‘lead the way. I don’t care where it is.’

‘What the ---- do you want, you ----?’ growled Spenceley, recovering
his pluck, or what he was pleased to consider his pluck.

‘I think you remember me. I don’t need to introduce myself,’ said
Myles. ‘Now look here! You’ve been behaving like a blackguard
again--perhaps you can’t help that--but, in any case, you’ll be pleased
to take your attentions to some other quarter than that one. You know
what I mean.’

‘I’ll be--’ (a volley of the dash dialect)--‘if I do, you fool! Be off,
and don’t annoy gentlemen. Clear out, I say, or I’ll call the waiter,
and have you kicked out.’

There was that in Myles’s face, so far removed from brutal violence,
which was conspicuous in every word and gesture of Spenceley, that the
others were quiescent. How he had got there was a mystery to them; but
being there, they were Englishmen enough to wish for fair play, and
had sufficient sense to perceive that the workman was no blackguard,
whatever his interlocutor might be.

‘You were in Markham’s Lane, to-night,’ went on Myles composedly,
though his face had become white, and his lips were set.

‘What’s that to you? What business have you to come spying on
gentlemen?’

‘If I were you, I wouldn’t say too much about spying. You know what
happened there--in Markham’s Lane I mean. If anything like it happens
again--just once again----’

He paused.

‘Well?’ said Spenceley, with a sneer and a taunt, ‘what will be the
consequences, my fine fellow?’

‘They will be unpleasant to you, for I’ll thrash you within an inch of
your life.’

‘Ha! ha! _ha_!’ roared Mr. Spenceley, but somehow there was a false
note in the full chord: it failed of rounded complete harmony.

‘Freddy, what have you been up to?’ cried Charlie Saunders, in amaze;
but he did not ask what the other man had been ‘up to.’ It appeared to
be taken for granted that he had good ground for his complaint.

‘Look here, you beggar,’ observed Spenceley to Myles; ‘just get out
of this, before you are turned out, and don’t interfere in things you
don’t understand.’

‘I go when I have your promise to behave yourself in future--not
before.’

‘Wha-at? Promises? I don’t make promises to cads.’

‘Then I suppose you’ve never promised yourself what you deserve. I’m
waiting for a promise to me, not a cad, and I’ll stay till I get it.’

‘D--n you! will you be off?’ shouted Spenceley, in a sudden passion, as
he saw the cool, scornful face of Myles, and his eyes contemptuously
measuring him from head to foot; and took in with a side-glance the
scarcely concealed smile upon the faces of the others. ‘Will neither of
you fellows ring the bell, and have this fool turned out?’

The rules of the club not providing for such an emergency, they took no
notice of what he blustered at them, while Myles replied coolly as ever,

‘When I’ve got what I want, I’ll be off, as I said.’

‘Perhaps you want to keep the little darling to yourself,’ began
Spenceley.

‘Drop that!’ said Myles, sharply, for the first time losing his perfect
self-command.

‘Ah, that’s it! We don’t want to be disturbed in our little game. We
are so very industrious and literary in our pursuits----’

In clenching his hand, Myles felt something in it which he had
forgotten--the parcel containing Mary’s straps. The paper which
enwrapped them had got loose. One strap had fallen coiling upon the
floor; one remained in his hand. He looked at it, and felt very strong
to wield it. He turned once more to Spenceley, saying,

‘Do you promise never to speak to, or molest the lady again?’

‘Make promises to _you_, about that little jade ...’ began Spenceley,
jeeringly, but he did not finish the sentence.

Myles’s hand, like an iron vice, was at his throat, and during the
paralysing astonishment and bewilderment of the other two, Frederick
Spenceley received such a thrashing as he had many a time deserved,
but which circumstances had hitherto denied to him. Myles’s hold,
strengthened by a passion which lent him irresistible power, did not
for one moment relax. At last Saunders turned and rang the bell; but
not before the fine broadcloth coat was in ribbons upon its owner’s
back, and the face above it purple and almost suffocating, did Myles
fling him away from him, remarking coolly,

‘Perhaps that will answer as well as a promise. If ever it’s necessary,
there’s the same thing, and worse, ready for you a second time.’

He turned to find the door open, and the waiter staring in, aghast.

‘Kick him out! Fetch some water!’ cried young Saunders, bending
over the prostrate figure of his friend. ‘Kick him out, I say!’
he reiterated. He was remarkably small and slender in figure, and
doubtless felt that it would be a mockery to attempt the deed himself.

Myles turned towards the waiter, who still blocked up the doorway.

‘Well,’ said he, tranquilly, ‘I am waiting; which are you going to do?
Kick me out--or let me pass?’

The billiard-marker had made no attempt to interfere. The insults
received that very evening from Spenceley rankled in his mind; he was
well pleased at the humiliation of the bully. The little waiter looked
up for a moment at the tall, muscular, sinewy young man who towered
above him, with a pale face, and a look of inflexible determination and
power about his eyes and mouth, and a frown of anger, terrible in its
intensity, on his brow. He stood aside silently. Myles turned and said,

‘If I’m wanted again about this business, my name is Heywood, and I
live on the Townfield. I can easily be found.’

No answer was returned: he composedly picked up his second strap, and
walked away.




CHAPTER VIII.

AFTER-THOUGHTS.


‘What ails thee, Myles?’ asked his sister, as he came into the kitchen.

‘Me? Nothing, lass. Here’s your straps. The new one has had a kind of
inauguration, but I reckon it will have done it good more likely than
harm.’

‘What dost mean?’ she asked, staring at him.

‘Oh, nothing!’ said he, with a slight laugh, as he leaned against the
mantelpiece with his arms folded behind him, his favourite attitude.

‘Hast changed my book, Myles?’ inquired Edmund.

‘Eh, I clean forgot it,’ replied Myles, with a start. ‘I’m very sorry.
Fact is, I was called off, and I never thought of the book again.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ answered Edmund, who was in high good humour
at his mother’s absence.

Mary also seemed less constrained, though nothing would have induced
her to own that she was glad her mother had left them. She moved about
more freely, and as she passed to and fro, ‘putting things to rights,’
she was heard to sing snatches of no less a song of praise than the
‘Old Hundredth.’ And when her household work was done (for Myles’s
adventure had not taken long, and it was now barely eight o’clock) she
brought her work, and sat down with her brothers; and though there were
shadows brooding over them all--darker shadows, and deeper, than they
imagined--they formed a very happy trio.

Mary especially felt happy and contented. She was devoted to her
brothers--loved Edmund with a mother’s and a sister’s love combined,
while she looked upon Myles as her ideal of all that was good and
manly. He had given her no cause to think otherwise. With regard to her
own merits, she was humble; but let any one impeach in the slightest
degree those of Myles or Edmund, and she became fierce, proud, and
resentful. Something in Myles’s mien to-night disturbed her, she knew
not why.

‘Wilt have thi pipe, lad? It’s theer; I’st get it in a minute.’

‘No, thank you, Molly. I don’t care about smoking to-night.’

‘Did iver ony one see sich a chap?’ said Mary, secretly filled with
pride in him. ‘He ne’er drinks, and he ne’er hardly smokes, and he
ne’er does nowt disagreeable.’

‘He hasn’t a redeeming vice,’ said Myles, ironically, watching her
fingers as she plied her needle, and forcing himself to speak, though
he did it half mechanically. What was she making? he asked.

‘A shirt.’

‘For whom?’

‘Why, for thee, lad!’ said Mary, with a laugh and a look at him; and
Myles returned the look with a smile, and instantly became lost in a
long train of reflection.

Edmund and Mary loved him, and looked up to him as to a superior
being, as the centre figure in their lives, and the person around whom
clustered their hopes, fears, and loves. Beyond them, out of their
circle, was Adrienne Blisset; was it in the nature of things that she
could ever behold him with eyes like theirs? No, never; because she was
instructed, and they were ignorant. Well, was adoration the best thing
for a man? Was it not better to adore? Could there be any shame in the
worship of a woman like Adrienne? He decided, no. It was not the giving
up of independence--it was the bending to a superior being, which, when
that attitude was self-elected, was the highest independence. Here all
was secure, safe, assured. Nothing would ever change the love of these
two for him: outside there, where Adrienne was, all was storm, cloudy,
feverish, uncertain: he knew not what she thought of him--what feelings
or no-feelings her gracious manner might cover.

He had defended her--from the first moment of their intercourse his
attitude had been made by circumstances a protecting one: he felt at
once an inferiority and a superiority to her, which two things do
surely form part of the primal basis of pure and holy love. He stood
still, leaning against the chimney-piece, thinking of what he had this
night done for her sake, and his face flushed at the remembrance.

‘Can she ever be like another woman to me?’ he thought. ‘It is
impossible. If it were possible I should be a clod.’ For what he had
done counted for something with Myles: he was not one of those heroes
who will thrash you half a dozen fellows, twice as big as themselves,
and then require to be reminded of such a trifle.

He was not quite sure, even now, that he felt unmixed satisfaction in
the deed. To thrash a cowardly bully, who seemed unable to express
himself without the assistance of copious volleys of oaths, was one
thing, and Myles contemplated with some complacency the fact that he
had done it. But if any evil consequences should ensue to Adrienne!

After a moment he reassured himself. He did not believe that Spenceley
knew her name. He had not mentioned it. Myles would have died rather
than utter it himself in that company--that would indeed have been a
casting of pearls before swine, of which he was naturally incapable.

If Mr. Spenceley chose to prosecute him he would own himself guilty,
and take his punishment--anything rather than drag her name into the
discussion; but he doubted much whether Spenceley would wish to draw
public attention so pointedly to the fact that he had been flogged by a
workman in the billiard-room of his own club. That would have been to
expose his own brutal insolence and violence, and to hint, moreover, at
some discreditable deed in the background which had called forth the
attack. Myles began to wonder how that beautiful sister of his, whom he
had spoken to that morning--could it be that morning?--would receive
her brother. Then his thoughts wandered off again to Adrienne.

‘At any rate, I can’t face her yet. I must stay quiet awhile until
it has blown over. Perhaps, as she’s so very quiet, and goes out so
little, she’ll not hear about it; and then I could call, and not
mention it, and it would all pass over.’

A knock at the back door roused him.

Mary lifted her head, and cried ‘Come in!’ but after a pause the knock
was renewed.

‘It’s Harry,’ observed Edmund. ‘Thou mun open to him, Myles, or he’ll
go on knocking for half an hour.’

‘Ay, poor lad, I suppose he will,’ said Myles, going towards the door,
while Mary maintained absolute silence, continuing her work.

Myles soon returned, accompanied by a young man, slight and somewhat
delicate-looking, pale-faced and fair-complexioned, whose calm, open
countenance was pleasant to look upon, despite a certain vagueness in
its expression--not a want of intelligence, or anything approaching
vacancy, but rather as if something escaped him and left him apart from
other people.

‘Good evenin’, Mary--evenin’, Ned,’ he said, in the very softest and
gentlest of voices.

‘Sit down, Harry, and have supper with us,’ said Myles; and when he
spoke, Harry Ashworth’s infirmity became apparent.

Myles had to go close up to him and speak, not very loudly, but very
slowly and clearly. He was almost deaf, in consequence of a fever he
had had when a boy of twelve. He was twenty-five now, and the weakness
increased each year: it was probable that in a few more years he would
be stone-deaf. He was a frequent visitor at the Heywoods’, and a great
friend of Myles and Edmund; Mary and he had little to say to each other
beyond the words of greeting and farewell.

There was a certain constraint this evening immediately after his
entrance, on account of what had happened in regard to Mrs. Heywood,
but this constraint was dissipated by Harry himself.

‘I hear your mother has gone,’ he remarked.

Myles assented in a grave sort of way.

Mary’s cheeks flushed, and she did not raise her eyes from her work.

‘She thinks of being married soon, then?’

‘I expect so,’ said Myles.

‘Ah,’ said Harry; and then, without any embarrassment, changed the
subject.

‘We may expect changes soon, Myles, I reckon.’

‘What changes?’ asked Myles, who had come close to Harry, while the
latter had placed his chair beside Edmund’s sofa.

‘The master’s coming back--so I hear.’

‘Oh, him!’ said Myles, again trying to turn up his nose, and again
failing to do so.

Harry laughed, and Mary remarked,

‘Eh, but I could like to seen yon chap. He mun be some and clever.’

‘Molly thinks he must be clever,’ said Myles to Harry, who nodded.

‘I don’t see why he shouldn’t be, choose how. I think you’re a bit hard
on him, Myles. We know no harm on him.’

‘Yes, we do. We know he’s neglected his business and his property. He’s
six-and-twenty if he’s a day, and he’s never looked in upon us since he
came into possession. He’s a gawmless chap--he must be.’

‘Well, we’st see that when he comes. Have you heard as Mr. Lippincott,
his health’s failin’, and he’s ordered abroad? They say he can’t live.’

Mr. Lippincott was the sitting member for Thanshope.

‘Nay, I heard nothing of that,’ said Myles, reflectively. ‘Then,
suppose he dies, we shall have a fresh election.’

‘Ay; and I have heard,’ pursued Harry, not without a twinkle of humour
in his eyes, ‘as it’s possible Mr. Mallory may stand, if Mr. Lippincott
resigns or dies.’

‘What!’ ejaculated Myles. ‘And who is to oppose him?’

‘Spenceley--Bargaining Jack.’

‘Why, Myles, thou’d be hard set to know who to vote for,’ said Mary,
innocently.

Myles suddenly recovered his presence of mind, and shouted to Harry,

‘You’ve heard wrong, lad. Mallorys are all Tories, and always have
been--it’s bred in the bone; and Bargaining Jack reckons to be a
Conservative too, so far as he’s anything. Conservatives manage better
than us. They would never run two candidates in Thanshope--in fact,
they only run one for the look of the thing. They can’t get the wedge
in here.’

‘Well, I have heard too,’ continued Harry, ‘as how Mallory is a
Radical--a Liberal, choose how.’

‘That I’ll never believe till I hear him say it himself,’ said Myles,
decidedly. ‘And from all I’ve heard, I think you’ve been misinformed,
Harry.’

‘Well, perhaps I have,’ said Harry, peaceably. ‘It doesn’t matter to me
which way it is.’

Nor did the others appear to take much interest in the subject, for it
dropped, and Mary began to get supper ready.

At that meal the conversation was carried on almost entirely between
Harry and Myles. Harry was a spinner, in receipt of a large wage. He
was, as has been said, a pleasant, comely-looking young man, and if not
very robust, did not look unhealthy. Many of his friends wondered why
he did not marry; for he was turned twenty-five. He and Myles and Mary
Heywood were beginning to be looked upon as drifting into the old maid
and bachelor ranks.

At all times, early--terribly early--marriages are the rule in
Lancashire; but in those halcyon years of plenty and golden prosperity
preceding the American Civil War, they had been more numerous than ever.

After supper Edmund, stretching out his arms, said in a muffled kind of
voice,

‘Eh, I say, it is some and hot here. I wonder what it’s like outside.’

‘Why, the air’s pleasant enough on the Townfield,’ said Harry.

‘I could like to feel it,’ remarked Edmund. ‘I’ve not been out these
three days.’

‘Well, come along and take a turn,’ said Myles, good-naturedly, well
knowing that Edmund’s motive for suggesting such a thing at that time
was that the dusk was rapidly gathering: there were fewer people about,
and he was less likely to be observed.

Edmund jumped at the offer, and Myles, giving him his cap, and taking
his own, drew his brother’s arm through his, shouting to Harry,

‘Wilt come with us, or wilt stay with Molly?’

‘I’st stay and have a pipe till you come in, if Mary’s no objection,’
said Harry; and Mary, by way of answer, pointed to a china basket on
the mantelpiece, in which stood half a dozen neatly made ‘spills.’

These spills were a mystery to the household. Mary gave it out that
she liked to have them. They looked tidy like, and did for lighting
the pipes; but it was a well-known fact that Edmund did not smoke at
all, that Myles preferred to light his pipe with a coal or a match,
and that the only visitor who enjoyed the privilege of smoking in
that kitchen was Harry Ashworth. Yet no one ever suggested that the
lighters were kept in stock for Harry’s benefit, though Edmund had
been perilously near doing so once or twice. Had he or any one else
uttered that theory, it is impossible to imagine what Mary would have
said--possibly nothing at all, for she was, in practice at least, a
strong upholder of the theory that ‘silence is golden.’

The two brothers went out, leaving the door open, and a waft of the
somewhat cooler outside air penetrated to the kitchen. The gas was
not lighted; the fire had burnt low; the room was almost dark. Mary
could no longer see to work, and sat, with her head thrown a little
backwards, in the high-backed, red-cushioned rocking-chair. The clock
ticked: everything was very still. It was Harry who spoke first, in his
soft voice.

‘Warm and close, this here weather, Mary.’

‘Ay,’ said Mary, ‘’tis.’

‘How does Ned get on?’ he asked; for though she did not speak very
loudly, she spoke deliberately, and he appeared to hear her easily.

‘He feels th’ heat aboon a bit,’ replied Mary.

‘Ay! I dare say.’

A pause, while Harry puffed away at his pipe, and Mary offered no
further observations on men or things.

‘I took a long walk o’ Sunday--yesterday,’ observed Harry at last.

‘Did you? Where to?’

‘Reet o’er th’ moors to th’ top o’ Blackrigg.’

‘It’s to’ far. Thou’rt none strong eno’ for sich like walks.’

‘Yea, but I am. I set me down on the heather, and listened wi’ all my
might, and I thowt I heard a bird singing.’

‘Happen a lark?’ said Mary, after a perceptible pause.

‘Happen. I should ha’ gone to church in th’ evenin’, but I can’t
hear--nowt distinct, that’s to say--and I’m a’most inclined to think
that I didn’t _hear_ yon lark, but only thowt I did, from memory, thou
known.’

‘Ay,’ assented Mary.

‘And when I go into church, and hear the organ buzzin’ and th’ voices
all mixed up wi’ it, and can’t make out what it is, it fair moithers
me; same as when I look up, and see th’ parson speakin’, and don’t know
what it’s about.’

‘Ay,’ said Mary, laconically as ever, but this time there was the
faintest possible vibration in her voice.

And there was another long pause, while Mary’s eyelids drooped. He did
not see that--it was too dark; and had he seen it, he could not have
known that those eyelids were sore with repressed tears, which burnt
them, and which she would not allow to flow.

‘Sometimes,’ his voice broke in again, ‘I get discontented. I’m main
fond o’ music, as you know, Mary.’

‘Ay, I know thou art.’

‘And it troubles me above a bit sometimes as I should be deaf, for it
just takes away my greatest pleasure. Sometimes I wish I’d been blind
instead.’

No answer from Mary, till Harry, in a hesitating voice, said,

‘What dost think, Mary? Is it very wrong to have such thoughts?’

‘No, I dunnot,’ replied Mary. ’ I call it very nateral. If I was deaf,
I reckon I should make more noise about it than you do. I wonder what
them chaps is doin.’ It’s time they was comin’ in.’

‘Don’t thou go out. I’ll find ’em, and tell ’em, for I mun be goin’
too,’ said Harry, rising.

Mary had begun to poke the fire violently, and now let the poker fall
with a loud rattle, as Harry, without her knowing it, had advanced
close to her, so that her elbow struck against his outstretched hand.

‘Dule tak’ th’ fire-irons!’ said she, impatiently. ‘I conna think what
ails ’em. Good neet to you, if you mun be going,’ she added, shaking
hands with him, and, as soon as he was gone, lighting the gas.

Presently her brothers came in. The house was locked up. Mary went to
bed, followed by Edmund. Myles was left by the dying-out kitchen fire,
with a book on the table, which he never opened, but sat till far into
the night, living through some of those strange hours of still, silent,
yet vivid, rushing, mental life which come to all of us sometimes in
our youth, and which are like no other hours in our experience.




CHAPTER IX.

A TEA-PARTY.

  ‘Mir war’s so wohl, so weh!’


After that evening Myles found himself in a position which he at least
found full of difficulties. Two things happened, both of which he had
looked upon as probable; the news of what had happened spread, and
Frederick Spenceley did not prosecute. The waiter who had allowed Myles
to go into the billiard-room was dismissed; the billiard-marker who had
stood by shared the same fate.

It would be difficult to guess what object, real or supposed, was
gained by this measure; but it seemed to afford great satisfaction to
many minds. Spenceley found it convenient to leave home for some weeks,
and Myles heard no more of his share in the transaction.

There were endless tales in circulation--the facts, the names, the
causes of the affair, all got mixed up in the wildest and most
inextricable confusion, as in such cases they always do. The principals
maintained absolute silence, and let report work what wonders it would
or could.

    ‘Bear not false witness; let the lie
    Have time on its own wings to fly!’

They adhered to the precept, and the result was that they and their
grievances were soon completely obscured in the buzz of talk,
conjecture, wrong guesses, and wild surmises which gathered about them
like a thick cloud. One thing soon became apparent; and, once secure of
that, Myles cared nothing for the rest. Adrienne’s name was not known.
The cause of the _fracas_ was generally supposed to be a woman; but the
tale which gained the greatest favour was one taking the side of the
workman--that mysterious ‘workman’ whose name had somehow disappeared
in the midst of contradictory reports, and whom no one could distinctly
specify, because there were so many workmen in Thanshope. How was a
genteel person to know one linen jacket, or its wearer, from another?
This report, which preserved a kind of likeness amidst all its
variations, was to the effect that Frederick Spenceley had deserved his
thrashing; for that he had been taking undue liberties with the young
man’s sweetheart--and her name was Sally Rogers, was Frances Alice
Kershaw, and she was a dressmaker, was a mill hand, and lived in half
a dozen places, and worked in as many factories, quite certainly and
positively; she was very pretty, and he was very jealous; or, she was
not a particularly good-looking girl, but Fred Spenceley had had words
with the young man before, and had wished to insult him.

Myles maintained a rigid silence upon the subject, even when Mary came
in one day in a state of unusual excitement, exclaiming,

‘Eh! Ned, Myles, have ye heerd tell o’ what’s happened?’

‘What?’

‘Jack Spenceley’s lad has had such a leathering,’ said Mary; and told
the rest of it with much excitement and volubility, for her.

Edmund manifested a lively interest in the story, and Myles admitted
indifferently that he had heard something about it.

They were, however, not much given to gossiping at that house, and the
subject soon dropped.

Then came Myles’s other difficulty. He did not know whether boldly
to go and call at Mr. Blisset’s, as he longed and desired to do, or
whether to remain away. He plagued himself with wondering what she
thought about it, and then tried to believe that she had perhaps not
even heard of it--her life was so very retired, she saw and heard so
little of what was going on outside. Then he might go? But suppose
she did know, and he appeared as if he came to be thanked and made a
hero of? He contradicted himself ten times a day; decided to go--to
stay--to go--and stayed because he absolutely could not decide which
was best.

So the days went on until Saturday, and he had not had a glimpse of
her--only the remembrance of her grateful eyes and the pressure of her
hand, as she bade him good-bye at her uncle’s gate before it had all
happened. When Saturday afternoon came, his longing to see her was
growing almost unbearable, and he had the sensation that if he went out
of the house, his feet would turn mechanically towards Blake Street.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was Saturday afternoon; the clockhands pointed to five; Mary’s
‘cleaning’ was over, and the house was quiet. Edmund lay upon his sofa
with a headache, and Myles was softly reading to him, glad of some
monotonous occupation which should divert his thoughts somewhat from
the topic which at present tyrannised over them.

Edmund had been reading in a magazine about the works of the Brontë
sisters, and Myles had procured him ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’
from the free library. ‘Wuthering Heights’ lay as yet untouched; it
had not yet laid its strong and dreadful spell on the boy’s spirit.
They were deep in ‘Jane Eyre.’ It proved a spell which caused Edmund to
forget his headache, and enchained the attention of Myles himself, with
its passionate expression of the equality of soul and soul, and its
eager conviction of the supremacy of mind over the differences of rank
or place. Its burning radicalism went straight to Myles’s soul, while
its deep poetry touched Edmund’s inmost heart.

At this moment they were wandering with ‘Jane’ over the summer moors,
homeless, friendless, foodless, penniless; and they had forgotten all
outside things with her, as she reposed herself beneath the broad sky,
on the friendly bosom of her mother--Nature.

‘Hist!’ said Edmund, suddenly, ‘there’s a knock.’

Myles paused. Some one knocked at the front door. Mary had heard it,
and rose from her rocking-chair.

‘Thee go on wi’ thi’ readin’,’ said she, going out; and they heard her
open the door, and a low voice--a woman’s voice--ask her some question.

With an inarticulate exclamation, Myles half rose, the book open in his
hand, and as Edmund was in the act of inquiring what was the matter,
Mary came in again, looking rather bewildered, and saying, as she
turned to some one who followed her,

‘Myles, here’s a lady wants to speak to thee.’

‘Why did you not come?’ said Adrienne, going straight up to Myles. ‘Why
have you never been to see me? I have waited and waited, until I could
wait no longer.’

He stood, crimson, unable to speak a word, but looking at her with eyes
that must have told their tale--which must have warned her had she been
less excited and earnest.

‘How could you go and do a thing like that, and then never take any
further notice of me?’ she continued. ‘I have thought of nothing else
since I heard of it. It was most wonderfully foolish--oh, very foolish;
but oh, I do thank you, and honour you for it, with all my heart. It
is exactly what such _canaille_ deserve, and it was nobly done--it was
indeed!’

‘Miss Blisset ... you ... you--it was nothing. Any one would have done
it. I couldn’t have rested or slept till I had punished him. I was
obliged to do it.’

‘Ah, that is how _you_ put it, no doubt--but any one would not have
felt so--only you would. I can never thank you--never.’

‘Well, don’t then! I--it makes me ashamed of myself--it does indeed,’
said he, earnestly.

‘But whativer is it o’ about, miss?’ said Mary, putting into words her
own and Edmund’s boundless astonishment.

‘Is it possible,’ said Adrienne, turning with wide-open eyes to
Myles--‘is it possible that you have never told them? Did he not tell
you?’

‘Nay, he’s ne’er told us nowt,’ said Mary.

‘I never heard of anything so extraordinary,’ said Adrienne, with still
a vibration in her voice, which showed how much she was moved. ‘You
must have heard about that man--Spenceley--who insulted me, and ...’

‘Thank heaven, your name has never been uttered,’ interposed Myles,
hastily.

‘And your brother, who had once before sent him away when he tried to
annoy me at the library, went to make him promise to behave himself,
and he would not. Was not that it? So he flogged him.’

‘Eh--Myles!’ said Mary, with a long-drawn intonation, compounded of
incredulity, pride, and pleasure. ‘Eh--h--Myles! I niver did--no niver!’

‘So it were you, Myles,’ said Edmund. ‘Thou hast kept some and quiet
about it. But I’m glad thou did it.’

‘And he has never come near my home--never given me a chance of
thanking him,’ pursued Adrienne. ‘You must understand, now, why I have
come.’

‘Ay, I can so,’ said Mary, regarding her with great favour and
cordiality, for this praise of Myles touched her to the very heart.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ she added.

‘I don’t wish to disturb you,’ said Adrienne, hesitating.

‘Eh, no sich thing. Sit you down,’ said Mary, drawing up the
rocking-chair, in which Adrienne sat down, and Myles stood leaning
against one end of the mantelpiece, feeling the need of a support of
some kind; for he felt a sort of intoxication and a bewilderment, and a
strange, subtle, new life in the very fact of Adrienne’s presence.

‘I had to inquire where you lived,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘You
did not even tell me that. You once mentioned that you lived on the
Townfield, and I thought I should never find your house; but the first
person I met told me where you lived. But would you never have come?’

‘I--I hardly liked to come. I did not know whether you might have
been--displeased, perhaps,’ he said, with some embarrassment.

‘My uncle has often asked when you were coming. He wants to see you
again. But now you will come soon--yes?’

‘I--yes. I should like to,’ said he.

‘I hope you don’t mind my coming here,’ said Adrienne to Mary.

‘Eh, no! Lord, no!’ said Mary, earnestly. ‘I’m reet glad to see you.
Yon chap would ne’er ha’ told us what he’d been doin’. He’s so--stupid.’

‘Yes--so I should think,’ said Adrienne, meeting Mary’s eyes with a
smile.

And then, looking at Edmund, she said, ‘I’ve heard of you, too. You are
not strong.’

‘No,’ said Mary, answering for him. ‘He’s ne’er one o’ th’ strongest,
and to-day he’s getten a headache.’

‘Don’t you do anything for your headaches?’

‘Nay, I jist bide ’em out.’

‘That is a pity. I could do something for them--if I come again, I will
bring you something that will do them good.’

She went on talking to Mary and Edmund, who seemed to feel no
embarrassment in the intercourse. Adrienne certainly possessed in a
high degree the art of putting people at their ease in her company.
Mary and Edmund were not usually communicative in first interviews
with strangers; but this stranger appeared to take their hearts
by storm, and quickly succeeded in making them forget that there
was any difference in station between them. She apologised for her
intrusion much more particularly than she would have done to a woman
whose servant had opened the door, taken her card, and announced
her with a flourish. This demeanour was not put on--it was her
natural, spontaneous manner, springing from instinctive politeness
and geniality of nature. Everything about her was true and pure--what
Myles was accustomed to call in the vernacular ‘jannock.’ Mary, also,
was nothing if not jannock; and the two girls--the lady and the
factory-worker--seemed instinctively to get on.

‘I must not detain you any longer now,’ said Adrienne, at last. ‘I see
you are going to have your tea. But I should like to know you. Would
you mind if I came again, now and then?’

‘Eh, I’st be vary glad,’ said Mary, ‘if so be we’re not too simple and
plain like for you. Yo’ seen we’re nobbut working folk ...’

‘Well, I am a working person too, and like seeks like,’ said Adrienne.

‘I reckon you’re a different mak’ o’ worker fro’ us,’ said Mary.

‘I am sure I work as hard as you at least, and am as tired and as glad
of rest as you, when my work is done.’

‘You look tired now,’ said Mary, fixing her large, clear eyes upon
Adrienne’s pale and somewhat weary face, from which the glow had faded.
‘Where do you live?’

‘Up at Stonegate, in Blake Street.’

‘My certy! But that’s a good step!’ said Mary, who, like many of
her class, was nothing of a walker. ‘We’re just goin’ to have our
tay--won’t you draw up and have a sup, and a bit o’ summat to eyt?’

That homely, cordial Lancashire invitation, ‘Come and have a sup, and a
bit o’ summat to eat’--what Lancashire ears are there that do not know
it and love it for the kind thoughts it arouses? It went straight home
to our lonely Adrienne: a mist rushed over her eyes; she said somewhat
hesitatingly,

‘Oh, I should like it. You are very kind, but I fear----’ she half
turned to Myles.

‘Myles, coom out o’ yon corner, and behave thisel’, mon! Thou can when
thou’s a mind to,’ said Mary, briskly. ‘Now draw up,’ she added to
Adrienne. ‘Tak’ off your hat, and I’st hang it up, so! And Myles’ll see
you home. He’s got nowt to do to-neet.’

Mary must have been inspired when she made this suggestion.

‘Oh, I need not trouble him now,’ said Adrienne, with a radiant smile
upon the approaching Myles--‘unless he has forgotten the way to my
uncle’s house, as I begin to think.’

‘It’s much better I should go with you. It’s Saturday evening,’ said
Myles, seating himself beside her, and throwing a fleeting glance
towards her face.

She was content, pleased, even flattered at the friendly way in which
she had been received. Her expression said that as plainly as words
could do. Myles began to lose some of his bewilderment, and to gain
somewhat more confidence.

‘Eh, I’ve forgotten th’ mowffins!’ said Mary, suddenly, a shade
crossing her face. ‘We mun really wait while I toast the mowffins.’

She jumped up and produced tea-cakes out of a cupboard, and Myles
suggested that perhaps it did not matter about the muffins. Mary was,
however, firm, and bade him cut some bread-and-butter while she toasted.

‘And mind thou cuts it nice and thin, and not all i’ lumps,’ she added
in admonitory tones.

Myles, much too simple-minded to see anything derogatory in cutting
bread-and-butter, began, but in half a minute Adrienne had jumped up
and laid hold of the knife.

‘Stop! That is clearly not your sphere,’ said she, laughing into his
embarrassed, yet ever-attractive face. ‘It is not stern enough--not
commanding enough. Let me do it.’

Unaware of the distinguished example set by the Wetzlar heroine in the
bread-and-butter cutting line, Myles watched the deft fingers of his
enchantress as if no woman had ever been known to cut bread-and-butter
properly before.

Mary, who grew visibly and every moment more satisfied with her guest,
toasted the ‘mowffins,’ buttered them, and tea was proclaimed ready
with acclamation.

Then Edmund came to the table; they all sat there, and Mary made tea in
state, apologising for not having the best tea-things because of the
impromptu nature of the visit.

‘I am sure these seem delightful tea-things,’ said Adrienne, smiling.

The festivity was altogether successful as regarded Adrienne, Mary,
and Edmund. But Miss Blisset cast every now and then fleeting glances
at Myles, and was not quite at her ease about him, for he alone of
all the party was silent and grave. It was the deep intensity of the
delight within him that caused this, but Adrienne could not be supposed
to know that--in very truth, as yet she honestly believed the greater
admiration and liking to be on her side. That delusion was soon to be
ended, but at present she was under its influence.

The meal was not long over when she said she must go, and promising
Mary to come again, she went away, accompanied by Myles.

Their way lay through what was called ‘the Park.’ They turned in at the
large iron gates of a town pleasure-ground, laid out in gravel walks,
grass plots, seats, and flower-beds. They were on a height. The town
lay below, with the gilded spire of the town-hall cleaving the air, and
the hazy-looking blue wall of Blackrigg to the north and north-west.

As they walked slowly along a broad terrace, unoccupied save by
themselves, Adrienne asked, in her quick foreign way,

‘Say to me, Mr. Heywood--you are vexed that I came?’

‘I--vexed--nay!’ was all that he could say.

The current which for the last week had ever been hurrying more and
more quickly forward had now arrived at the verge. It leapt over it in
a bound, and carried everything before. He was madly in love, and all
he could do was to say as little, be as brief as possible, for fear of
showing her, startling her, perhaps repelling her; for he was intensely
conscious of the difference; all his dearly loved, passionately
cherished theories of equality could not blind him to the fact that
they were not equals--that while he loved her with a strength that
shook his nature with its power, yet the bare thought of touching her,
holding her hand, speaking to her on easy and familiar terms, came to
him with a sense of impropriety--brought him the conviction, _non sum
dignus_.

‘You were so quiet,’ said she. ‘You would hardly speak to me. I was
afraid I had offended you.’

‘Not at all,’ said poor Myles, unable to say more lest he should say
too much.

‘I am sure,’ pursued Adrienne, stopping in her walk and looking
earnestly at him--‘I am sure you know that I did not mean to offend
you; and you could not be so hard as to wish me to keep silence. You
behaved splendidly. I felt that I must thank you for it.’

It was growing too much for him to stand there quiescent, and hear that
voice, which contained all melody for him, and to see that face, those
eyes, looking at him so. The eagerness of desperate love came storming
down upon prudence, and hurrying words of devotion to his lips.
Mastering himself by a strong effort, and clasping, or rather clenching
his hands behind him, he said, in what seemed to Adrienne a singularly
calm, colourless voice,

‘You make too much of it. I would rather not be thanked for it.’

‘You are hard upon me to say that. It gives me such pleasure to thank
you, but you deserve at my hands that I should comply with your
wishes--after what you have done for me. But you cannot guess what a
delightful feeling it is to one so lonely as I, to suddenly discover
that there is some one who has been not afraid to stand up for her--and
to some purpose.’

‘I should have thought you would have many friends,’ remarked Myles,
endeavouring to change the too-fascinating subject.

‘I--no indeed. I don’t think any one with fewer friends ever lived.’

‘But you may have left friends behind you on the Continent?’

A momentary pause while he looked at her. It was as though some sudden
blow had struck the words back from her lips to her heart--then she
said steadily,

‘Some few; but chiefly benefactors rather than friends--benefactors
who befriended and helped me in my loneliness and destitution, for my
father and I were sometimes almost destitute.’

‘Destitute?’ echoed Myles, shocked.

‘Oh yes! I have not always lived in Lancashire, you know. No one seems
to be poor here. I have known what it is to look at a piece of money
worth sixpence, and know that if I spent that upon my supper I should
not have a penny in the morning to buy breakfast with.’

‘But not seriously?’

‘I assure you it seemed very serious to me. I have sunk lower. I have
known what it was to go supperless to bed, wondering what poor little
trinket or book I could spare in order to get a breakfast next morning.’

Myles was silent, and Adrienne continued,

‘That, you know, is what is not considered respectable for a young
lady.’

‘Hang respectability!’ was all he said.

‘Not at all! I like it. After all the fever and the turmoils, and the
ups and downs, and dreadful uncertainties of that life, my present one
is like Paradise. Oh, rest is a very sweet thing--rest and security,
and a strong arm to help you.’ (Myles turned to her with parted lips.)
‘Your home is beautiful. That sister of yours is so calm and good. I
love her already. She must be very dear to you.’

‘Ay, I love Mary dearly.’

‘Yes. Both she and you, and all of you, look as if you had had a home
all your lives. Do you think I might go to see them again?’

‘They’ll only be too glad. I never thought you could sympathise so
much--with our sort,’ said Myles, constrainedly.

‘To-morrow you will come to Stonegate, will you not? and then I will
tell you my story, and you will perhaps understand how it is that I
sympathise with “your sort,” as you call it, and why I think so much of
what you have done for me.’

‘I will come with pleasure.’

‘To-morrow afternoon, then, I shall expect you.’

They walked the rest of the way in silence, and Myles left her at the
gate.




CHAPTER X.

  ‘Deeper and deeper still.’


It was a lovely Sunday afternoon on which Myles took his way to
Stonegate. He found Adrienne alone. She said her uncle was taking his
afternoon airing in his bath-chair in the garden, and did not wish to
be disturbed; his old servant, Brandon, was with him.

‘But sit down,’ she continued, ‘and we can have a talk.’

With that she picked up her knitting and began to work.

‘You will talk,’ said Myles, ‘if you keep your promise. You promised to
tell me about yourself.’

‘Do you really want to hear that?’

‘I came on purpose.’

‘Well, I will tell it you, and I hope it will have the effect I intend.’

‘What effect is that?’

‘You are determined to look upon me (I have seen it, so don’t be at the
trouble of denying it) as something fine and delicate, and unused to
roughness and hardship.’

‘Yes, one can see plainly enough that you are that.’

‘Can one? Well, I’ll begin my story, and you shall learn how
appearances may deceive.’

Adrienne related well. She did not exaggerate; there was nothing
strained, no striving after effect; but there was colour, pathos, life,
in her tale, and a subtle poetry thrown over all, by her way of looking
at things.

Myles, in listening, felt as if he were actually wandering with her on
that nomadic life she spoke of; through the great foreign capitals, and
the country villages, and the towns, big and little; to be sojourning
with her in the gay, feverish watering-places; to survey the distant,
rose-tinted Alps. He utterly forgot where he was, and knew only her and
her life.

There had been two brothers, she told him, of whom her father was the
younger, and her uncle the elder. Kith and kin, they had none, and
their patrimony was small. Both were gifted, but in different ways.
Adrian, her father, was artist to the marrow of his bones. Richard,
her uncle, had also some taste for art, but more of the analytical and
critical than of the synthetic description; he had been, moreover,
at one time, a practical man of business, and had made money--he was
not rich, but thoroughly independent. Her father had had the gift of
spending, not of making. The brothers had parted early. Adrian, as soon
as he was his own master, had said farewell to home, and had gone,
first to Germany, there to study the music which his soul loved, and
which had beautified his otherwise weary, disappointed life.

Some time was spent in Germany; then two or three years in
miscellaneous and somewhat aimless travel; then back again to Germany,
to music, and to love. The fair, clever, and penniless daughter of a
poor professor and man of science won his heart, as he hers, and they
married.

With marriage came the feeling of an insufficiency of means, and the
desire to augment them led him into business speculations of a nature
which he did not in the least understand: the bubble burst, and Adrian
Blisset found himself a ruined man in less than a year after his
marriage. Adrienne’s mother died at her birth; the girl had never known
that holy bond, however much she might have longed for it. Her father
chose to lay part of the cause of his wife’s death to the anxiety
induced by his extravagance and folly--moreover, he had adored her, and
from the hour of her death he had been a changed man. He had his own
living and that of his child to gain, but he settled nowhere. His life
became nomadic. He and the little one did not sojourn long in the tents
of any particular tribe. Scarce a city or a town of any importance in
Europe, but had sheltered the unconscious head of the infant, or been
trodden by the child’s uncertain feet, or by the sedate step of the
maiden, careworn before her time, while she knew intimately many an
out-of-the-way nook, unnamed by Murray, Bradshaw, or Baedeker, amongst
Italian hills, deep in the sunny lands of France, Thüringian woods and
slopes, or sleepy red-roofed Rhenish hamlets.

A restless ghost drove the musician with his child and his violin
hither and thither, never permitting him to stay long in any one place
and gather substance; but ever, so soon as the novelty had worn off,
seeming to drive him forth on a fresh search after--what? Adrienne had
learnt at an early age to ask herself that question, and sorrowfully to
give up the answer.

Sometimes he was in funds, when he showered all kinds of presents upon
her, and called her his dear child, his _Herzallerliebste_; but oftener
they were plunged in poverty, sore, sordid, dreadful poverty. His moods
varied distressingly, from kindness that had in it something fitful and
sinister, up to the dark melancholy silence which was his most frequent
humour. He was proud, and his pride was of a touchy and intractable
kind; it offended men of business, and estranged friends and pupils.

Adrienne had had many teachers and many strange lessons, and the whole
had combined into a varied and truly most unconventional education.
Her father had lavished musical training upon her. At Florence, where
they stayed a whole year, longer than anywhere else, she had wandered
about with a kind-hearted old artist, who led her about with him to
the great galleries, and showed her the grandest pictures, and made
her know the beautiful buildings, till she had imbibed the undying
loveliness of such masterpieces as Giotto’s Campanile, or Michael
Angelo’s Duomo, and had discovered that her favourite thing in Florence
was the ‘Pensiero’ Medici of the last-named artist.

‘You remind me of him,’ she added, suddenly looking at Myles. And she
had sat, at thirteen years of age, for a picture of ‘Gravity.’

‘Was that what he called you?’ asked Myles.

‘Yes. Gravity, or Sedateness was his name for me--and it suited me.’

She had had to part from her good old friend, and that had cost her the
pain which parting brings to those who know they will not meet again.

In Paris, Adrienne had had lessons in democracy from a young universal
genius, whose talents were too vast to stoop to any ordinary walk of
life. He lived in a garret, and planned schemes of a perfect republic.
Adrienne had not felt much grief on parting from him.

A monstrous learned professor, who lived at Bonn, in a _Schlafrock_,
slippers, and spectacles, had taught her a little store of Greek and
Latin. But her greatest teacher had been a strange, absent-looking
professor, in Berlin--a man of literature and philosophy, who had been
very fond of her, and had given her freely of his very best. Her uncle,
Mr. Blisset, looked upon this as a providential circumstance, for he
found when she came to him, that he had no tyro to deal with, but one
already instructed in philosophy and its terminology.

Two years ago her father had died; and just before his death she had
learnt for the first time that they possessed any relation in the
world. She had received a letter to give to her uncle. She fulfilled
the behest, and that was how she first met Mr. Blisset.

‘And what did he say? How did he receive you?’ asked Myles, eagerly.

‘I was chilled,’ said she, ‘as I sat opposite to him and saw his pale,
impassive face, and watched how he raised his eyes now and then from
that letter. He gave me no reply that night; told me nothing; did not
intimate whether he were pleased or displeased to see me, but ordered a
room to be prepared for me; and the next day he told me that my father
had asked him in his letter to give me a shelter until I was able to
find some employment by which I could support myself. My uncle said
that if I could endure to live buried alive with an old man, and work
hard at a sedentary employment, he would give me a home and pay me a
certain sum every year. I accepted his proposal gratefully, and have
never repented it; and I trust he never will, either.’

There spoke the true Adrienne Blisset.

‘And you are happy here?’

‘As happy as I expect to be. It is a great thing not to be miserable.’

‘That’s what our rulers appear to think we working-men ought to feel,’
said Myles, sardonically, his thoughts for the moment flying off at a
tangent.

‘Are you bitter against your rulers?’ asked Adrienne, tranquilly.

‘I am bitter against some of them--a pampered set of rich men, who
never had a care in their lives, but don’t mind how many other people
have to bear. There are some, now--Bright, and Cobden, and the
like--for them I’d die. There’s that in their faces which says they
have not a mean thought, nor a desire but for our good; but the most
of them’--he shrugged his shoulders--‘those lily-handed politicians
who call themselves Radicals in these days, and plan how to prevent a
working-man from getting his beer, but have half a dozen sorts of wine
at their own tables, and go mincing about at public meetings, talking
lightly of trials that would make them cringe if they had to face them;
talking about “supply and demand” and how to improve the conditions
of the lower orders--isn’t that the phrase? Much they know about the
lower orders, and how to improve them! They don’t know what ails them
yet.’

He laughed sarcastically.

‘It is true, they are a somewhat emasculate type,’ said she; ‘but
I don’t see what right you have to blame them much. It is the
working-man’s own fault that they can do no more for him.’

‘His own fault!’ he echoed incredulously.

‘Now don’t eat me up, please! I wonder if you and I differ essentially
in first principles on this subject. You have thought about it, haven’t
you?’

‘Ay, I have. I’ve plenty of reason to think about it, when I see such
fellows as Frederick Spenceley and young Mallory living on the fat of
the land, without having lifted a finger to get it, or proved by a
single act that they merited it.’

‘Mr. Mallory,’ said Adrienne, slowly, ‘you say you have seen him: has
he come home?’

‘No. I meant to speak figuratively. I don’t see him; but I know it is
so. If I don’t know him, I know the likes of him----’

‘But--but what about him?’ she asked, still with the same slowness and
a kind of hesitation. ‘What has he done wrong?’

‘He has done nothing; that’s what he has done wrong,’ said Myles.
‘Well, he’s coming home soon; we shall see how he breasts the
storm--for we are in for a storm, sooner or later. But don’t you think,
Miss Blisset, it must make a man think to see these contrasts--a man
who has the least bit of a power of thought?’

‘No doubt. And what conclusion have you come to in the matter?’

‘The conclusion that it’s a crying injustice.’

‘To whom?’

‘To--well, to put it broadly, we’ll say to the working-man--but I mean
to those in general, who work very hard, and get very little.’

‘In what way?’

‘Miss Blisset! Where is the justice of fellows like that having that
money without either rhyme or reason; and of fellows like----’

‘You,’ suggested Adrienne, demurely.

‘I don’t mean me in particular, but my class in general, earning from
thirty to sixty shillings a week--the very best paid of us--in payment
for hours and hours of close, hard work.’

‘I suppose it is not the work you object to?’

‘No. I like work. I should be lost without my work.’

‘The property which those young men enjoy has been earned with trouble
as great, or probably, from an intellectual point of view, greater than
your weekly wages.’

‘But not by them.’

‘Suppose it had been earned by you, and you wished to leave it to your
only son, whom you had educated with a view to his inheriting it, and
the law stepped in and said you should not, but should leave it amongst
a number of working-people whom you had never seen or heard of--how
would you like that?’

‘But that is an exaggerated view of the case.’

‘I don’t see it. I don’t believe you have ever considered the subject
fairly. And answer me this; suppose the average working-man became
possessed of that money, or of part of it--_money which he had not
earned_--money which had become his by a lucky chance: do you think his
use of it would be worse, or as good as, or better, than the use made
of it by those two of whom we are speaking? Do you think it would do
him a real and permanent good: increase his self-respect, lessen his
self-indulgence, make him steadier, soberer, more inwardly dignified,
worthy, and honourable?’

She was looking earnestly at him, and Myles frowned, the words driven
back from his lips. Did he know one man amongst his fellow-workman on
whom the possession of such money would have such an effect? Would it
have such an effect upon himself? The generalities of the writers who
cried up the working-man and his wrongs seemed suddenly to grow small,
and to shrink into the background.

‘Oh,’ went on Adrienne, ‘I don’t think you working-men know in the
least how noble your work intrinsically is. You only see that others
are outwardly better off than you, and you clamorously demand a share
of that wealth. You don’t see how disastrous to your best interests
such an acquisition would be.’

Myles had started up, feeling terribly humiliated.

‘You think so ill of us!’ he exclaimed. ‘You could come and see us
yesterday, and talk to my sister as if she had been your sister--and
now you reproach us in this way. Good-bye!’

‘Stop!’ said she, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking earnestly
into his face. ‘How wild and impatient you are! Think a moment! It is
not of _you_ I am speaking. Do you know any other working-man to whom I
could speak in this way?’

She paused. It was true. Perhaps Harry Ashworth might hear those words
and bear them--he knew of no other who would do so; and while he was
stung and tortured by what she said, he felt a bitter consciousness
that it was true. But he stood still, and waited to hear the end.

‘I am speaking to you with a purpose,’ Adrienne went on in the same
tone, low and quiet, but full of vehemence. ‘Since that night when you
stepped forward in my defence, I have thought much about you--very
much. I have studied you, and you do not know how well-used I am to
studying people. The more I have studied you, the more I have felt that
you were both generous and high-minded--and terribly hot-tempered,’
she added, with a smile, which Myles thought must have charmed the
temper of a ravening wolf. ‘Just think what you, a workman, might do
by setting an example to your fellow-workmen. Take the right side. You
are too good for the commonplace career of an ordinary “intelligent
working-man,” for a blind submission to trade-union rules, and for
an obstinate resistance to your masters, just because they are your
masters, or because your union bids you resist them. Don’t be a
tool; use your reason; consider the why and wherefore of things. Be
answerable to your conscience alone for all you say and do. Help to
show your fellows that all improvement in their condition must arise
actively from within, not be received passively from without--you know
that, and own it, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, quickly, folding his arms and leaning against the
mantelpiece, his eyes fixed upon her, as she stood before him, with her
head a little thrown back; her eyes alight, looking beautiful in her
energy and excitement.

‘I wish,’ she said, ‘I often wish that I were a working-woman, like
your sister. I would show you what I meant; how toil could be ennobled.’

She paused. Myles’s heart was beating wildly. Something, whether God or
devil he had no time to think, hurried quick words from his lips; in a
voice as low, as vehement as her own had been, he said,

‘Do you? And suppose it ever came to the point? Suppose some day some
working-man came to you, and told you he loved you; that he could see
how toil might be ennobled, if you would help him to do it--there would
be an end of your philosophy. You would think of the cottage to live
in, the floors to scrub, the rough neighbours, the coarse common life,
the children to tend, and make, and mend, and sew for; and if you could
get over that, there would be the man himself--a great rough fellow--a
workman, not a gentleman, a man of rough speech, like--like our sort.
You would have to work for him, too; to cook, and sew, and wash for
him; to obey him--_you_. When he said, “Do this,” you must do it, and
when he called, “Come here!” you must go to him. That’s the way amongst
us working-people. What about the ennobling of toil _then_?’

He spoke jeeringly, and hated himself for doing so; and listened for
her answer in a state of wild, if silent, excitement.

Her hands had dropped, her eyes had sunk, her face was burning; she
turned away. If he could have trusted himself to move or speak, he
would have fallen upon his knees and begged her pardon.

‘Oh, Myles!’ said she, at last, in a very low voice. He bit his lip
till the blood came, at that sound; the most maddening in its mingled
sweetness and bitterness, he had ever heard. ‘I suppose I gave you the
right to say that,’ she said, ‘and to demand an answer too. You put
it tersely, certainly. As you speak, I can see the very life rising
before me that you picture.’

‘And yourself in it!’ said he, still with a sneer, though he would have
given the world to ask her to forgive him.

‘No. You forget something,’ she replied, walking to the window, while
he still leaned against the mantelpiece. ‘You made it all hard and
sordid. You forgot the very “ennobling” that began the discussion.
I _could_ fancy myself in such a home--a working-man’s wife--but to
become that, I must love that man; and in the life you described there
was no love. The man I loved, be he workman or prince, must be a
gentleman--not a brute.’

‘Ah! and supposing you met this working-man--or whoever he might be?’
suggested Myles, in a calm, restrained kind of voice.

‘If I met him, and if I loved him, and he loved me, and asked me to
marry him, I would say “yes;” and I would love him, and serve him
faithfully to the end of my life.’

The words fell softly and gently, almost timorously, as if she
hesitated to speak of such a thing; and yet with a certain gentle
firmness which said that they were no sentimental verbiage, but
expressed the steadfast feeling of a steadfast heart. But each word
was like a drop of liquid fire in the young man’s veins. She seemed
suddenly to be close beside him--a possibility, a thing he might
dream of--and fifty thousand times higher and farther off, and more
impossible to him than ever. How could _he_ ever hope to bend that
heart to love him? The very thought was insanity.

He mastered his emotion, and walked up to her. She turned, but did not
look at him.

‘I beg your pardon, most humbly,’ said he.

‘It is granted freely. I dare say it has been good for me; it has
reduced my vague theories to the language of common sense. I had no
right to reproach you with the faults of your class, and expect nothing
but milk and honey from your lips in return. We understand each other.
Oh, but yours is a biting tongue! It cuts like a knife.’

‘It forgot itself when it turned against _you_. But, remember, your
words had roused me. You made me blush for my own “vague theories,” as
you call them. If you could not have said what you did, to any other
workman, do you suppose I could have spoken so to any other young lady?’

‘No, no. I suppose not,’ said she, but her face was still downcast. The
glance which he at last received wavered almost timidly. She resumed
her seat and her work, saying, ‘And you will think of what I have said?’

‘I will--seriously. I believe you are right, but the thing was too
wonderful for me. I could not attain unto it--all at once.’

The conversation was turned, as if by one consent, to books. Adrienne’s
heart was beating unwontedly fast; her knight had not only surprised,
but somewhat subdued her; delighting her at the same time. He was no
tool; he could turn upon her, and he had the front of a ruler. That
glance and that voice were not to be forgotten. She thrilled as she
remembered them. She was glad he had not gone; the sensation that he
was still there was pleasurable, with a strange potency of strength.

The door opened, and Mr. Blisset was wheeled in, and a servant brought
afternoon tea. Then Mr. Blisset began to talk, and Myles to listen.
Mr. Blisset had some of his niece’s conversational power. The time
flew insensibly, till supper was announced. Myles rose, fearing he had
intruded too long.

‘No,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘Stay, unless you are tired, and my niece will
give us some music.’

He looked at her, and she said, ‘Yes, do stay!’ And Myles stayed.

That evening Adrienne sang some songs. She finished with ‘_Neue Liebe
neues Leben_,’ and Myles went home with its last passionate words
ringing in his ears:

    ‘_Liebe, Liebe, lass’ mich los!_’

Would it ever ‘let him loose,’ that love which had sprung up so
suddenly and strongly, making every other feeling weak in the glow of
its might and strength?




CHAPTER XI.

PROMISES.


That visit was but the first of a long series. Mr. Blisset was pleased
to see the young man who listened so patiently and so deferentially to
him, and Myles had an ever-growing conviction that Mr. Blisset’s views
of men and things, of right and wrong, were deeper and sounder than his
own; riper, truer, and most justly balanced. Myles learnt much in these
visits and conversations.

Adrienne had been many times to the cottage on the Townfield, and had
completely won the hearts of Mary and Edmund. She had opened up a new
field of delight and wonder to the boy, by putting him in the way of
studying botany, and his enthusiasm knew no bounds. She lent him books
and specimens, and Harry Ashworth, who was a great walker, brought him
all kinds of plants, and ferns, and mosses, from the moors on which he
was wont to spend his Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings.

When Myles and Adrienne were in his house at the same time, they
seemed to have little to say to each other; which was, perhaps, not
surprising, for their subjects were not those discussed by Mary and
Edmund. Harry Ashworth had a great deal to ask Miss Blisset about
music; she comforted him, too, for she helped him to some scientific
understanding of the mighty harmonies of which he was fast losing the
outward apprehension. Harry had not read much about music or musicians;
he had, while his hearing had been pretty good, contented himself
with drinking in the sounds themselves. Adrienne soon discovered that
the sorrow of his life was his failing hearing, and one evening it
occurred to her to tell him the story of Beethoven. Mary and Harry and
she happened to be alone. Adrienne began, and related that saddest of
stories. It had the effect she intended.

Harry sat with one hand shading his face, in an attitude which he had
assumed soon after she began the story, when she said, ‘And at last
he wrote to one of his friends and confessed that he was growing quite
deaf--that if he went to the opera, he must sit close to the orchestra,
and even then, even leaning over towards it, he could scarcely hear.’

Mary went on knitting. Adrienne’s voice, somewhat raised, slow,
distinct, and clear, told the tale of that mighty genius--Christlike
in the immensity of his woe and the utterness of his separation from
those around him. She went through it all. She told him about the great
symphonies, about Beethoven’s one or two sad, luckless love-episodes;
his poverty; his love for the thankless young profligate, his nephew;
the performance of the Choral Symphony--of that great adagio ‘in which
we discern the slowly stalking movement of a god!’

‘When it was over,’ Adrienne went on, ‘the audience were
almost mad with rapture and delight, and the applause was
deafening--thundering--it resounded through and through the great room!
the master still stood with his baton in his hand, his back to the
audience, till one of the vocalists gently turned him round, and he saw
them all--how they were wild with pleasure and emotion; _he_ had thus
moved them by his heavenly music to ‘joy,’ and he had heard no sound of
it all.’

She paused. It was the life which she most loved in all truth or
poetry; to her Beethoven’s sufferings were as actual as his genius or
his grandeur.

She saw Harry look at her with an expression which told her that he too
understood, and she went on to the end--told of the bitter loneliness
of those last years, that death in harmony with the life--that passing
away of the Titan soul in the sublime music of the spring thunderstorm,
and then she was silent.

Harry looked at her for a moment, started up, and took her hand.

‘Thank you, miss,’ said he, and left the house.

‘Eh, Miss Blisset,’ said Mary, wiping her eyes, ‘you’re like no one
else as ivver I heerd tell on afore. You’ve done a kindness to yon poor
lad, such as he never had yet.’

‘I’m very glad if you think so.’

‘Yo’ve gi’en him summat to console him. He’ll go about now, thinking he
may bear his deafness quite easy like, seein’ yon man as yo’ towd us
on were so great and patient. His mind is fair beautiful--Harry’s mind
is,’ said Mary, moved out of all reticence.

‘I like him very much,’ said Adrienne; ‘very much indeed.’

‘Ay! He’s good--good to th’ marrow of his bones, he is.’

‘Like you, Mary. You and he are well matched.’

‘Eh, nay! Eh, don’t think o’ that! He’s ne’er said nowt about it.’

‘He will some time!’

Mary was silent, with a downcast face, till at last she said,

‘I know you’ll ne’er say a word to no one about it. I can trust you to
tell you this, as whether he ever says owt about it or not, the vary
thowt of ony other mon than him fair gives me a turn.’

‘Yes,’ said Adrienne. ‘And you do deserve to be happy, Mary. I wonder
how it is that you and all yours are so different from other people. I
always feel well, and happy, and right with the world, when I am with
you.’

Later, as Myles walked with her up Blake Street, Adrienne remarked that
the end of September was approaching and the evenings darkened earlier.

‘Yes,’ said Myles, ‘soon winter will be here. And then ... now then,
you,’ he added to a passer-by, who gave Adrienne a very close berth;
‘mind your manners when you’re passing a lady.’

‘I didn’t know you had lady-friends, Myles Heywood,’ replied a smooth
voice, as the offender paused, and looked at them.

‘Oh, it’s you!’ said Myles, with trenchant contempt. ‘If I’d known, I
wouldn’t have troubled to speak to you.’ And he passed on.

‘Who is the man?’ asked Adrienne.

‘He’s my--step-father,’ said Myles, in a peculiar voice. Adrienne had
heard the whole story from Mary; Myles had never been able to speak of
it.

‘Oh, forgive me for saying it, but I wish you had not spoken to him in
that way.’

‘Why? How?’ he stammered.

‘Has he ever done you any harm?’

‘Not directly; but I can’t abide the very looks of him.’

‘There!’ said she, with a somewhat nervous smile; ‘you are too
contemptuous. Reverence is better than contempt; it is indeed.’

‘Reverence! Would you have me reverence _him_?’

‘Yes. You ought to reverence human nature--your own nature--in him. If
you could have heard yourself speak! Do you know what you would do, if
any one spoke to you in that way?’

‘What?’

‘Why, you would--I think you would shake him. I can just see you make
one stride towards him, and fasten upon him--poor fellow!--to teach him
manners.’

‘You mean that I have none myself. Well, you may be right.’

‘Are you offended?’

‘Miss Blisset--you could not offend me.’

‘I think I could. But do think of what I have said; and try not to be
so contemptuous. Will you?’

‘The next time I meet Jim Hoyle, I’ll take off my hat to him
politely--since you wish it.’

‘You will drive me to despair! How different you are from your
reasonable sister, who sees the right bearings of things at once; and
from your sensitive brother, who....’

‘Yes, Ned is like a girl for delicacy,’ said Myles, a sarcastic flavour
in his voice. ‘Well, Miss Blisset, I will try hard to please you. Next
week there’s a fellow coming that I _have_ a contempt for, if I ever
had for any one.’

‘Who may that be?’

‘Mr. Sebastian Mallory, our so-called _master_.’

A pause. Then a hesitating, ‘In-deed!’ from her, the intonation of
which Myles did not remark.

‘So I’ll try to be polite to him, if our paths cross--which I hope they
won’t.’

‘Perhaps they may not. But now do try,’ said she. ‘You may find it
easier than you think.’

They parted at the wicket, and Myles went home, to find Edmund gone to
bed, and to sit up himself, reading ‘My Beautiful Lady,’ which Adrienne
had lent to Edmund, never supposing that Myles would look at it, or
that he would take any interest in it if he did. But he pored over it,
and his heart-strings trembled to the poet’s notes: it was he himself,
his own thoughts put into poetry as the lover waited his lady’s coming.
And as for the end, Myles read it differently; to please himself, he
allowed common sense to step in--Adrienne was not consumptive.




CHAPTER XII.

MR. MALLORY’S POLITICS.

    ‘_Philinte._--Mais on entend les gens au moins sans se fâcher.

    _Alceste._--Moi, je veux me fâcher, et ne veux point entendre.’

  _Le Misanthrope._


During the following forenoon Myles sat alone in the outer office,
employed exactly as he had been on the day of Mrs. Mallory’s visit,
weeks before. Wilson was going his usual round in the works, and Mr.
Sutcliffe, the manager, was out.

Pausing at the end of a column of figures, he raised his eyes and saw
coming down the street something which caused him to open his eyes in
surprise, though surprise was not his usual expression.

It was a very high and very swell phaeton, with a pair of magnificent
bays, which danced along the street, as if its shabby, clog-worn
stones caused much distress to their aristocratic hoofs. The driver of
this (in Thanshope) unique conveyance was a young man in light grey
clothes and a round cloth cap--no English cap: indeed there was, at
least to the uninitiated Thanshope eye, something un-English in his
whole appearance. He was, however, master of his cattle, as even Myles
could see. Beside him sat a slight, dark boy, with a plain, queer, but
attractive face; and behind was a very correct-looking groom.

‘Who on earth is that chap?’ was Myles’s first very natural thought, as
he forgot his work, and gazed in the blissfulness of ignorance at the
vision. The next moment he could have bitten off his tongue could he
have had the feeling that he had not bestowed a second glance upon the
whole affair, for the dancing bays came sidling down the street, and
the driver pulled them up before that very office door; moreover, he
had caught sight of Myles staring at him, and had given him in return a
lazy look from a pair of rather sleepy eyes.

Now Myles knew it was the ‘so-called master’--it was Sebastian Mallory:
a second glance at the fair though bronzed face, the yellow hair and
moustache, the proudly cut features, and the indifferent expression,
displayed sufficient likeness to his mother to make the first intuitive
conviction a certainty.

Furious with himself at having been caught staring openly and
wonderingly, Myles forgot his voluntary promise to Adrienne, and, in
order to prove that, whatever his open eyes might at first have seemed
to intimate, yet that he was not really at all struck by anything he
had seen, he turned his back to the door, and was apparently bending
with the deepest attention over his work, when that door was opened; he
heard a voice conclude some injunctions to the groom, and the answer
which followed:

‘_Jawohl, mein Herr._’

‘Foreign servants, even!’ murmured Myles, shrugging his shoulders.

‘Good morning, my good man,’ was the next thing he heard, in an accent
as different from that of the Thanshope ‘gentleman’ as Adrienne’s was
different from that of the Thanshope lady.

He turned round and looked up; he was forced to do so now, and, without
noticing the lad who stood in the background, he faced Mallory. The two
young men confronted each other for the first time.

So far as expression and complexion went, they were as great a contrast
as could be imagined. Both were tall, spare, and well-built, and there
the resemblance ended. Myles was, as has been said, quick, passionate,
lithe, alert, with a temper that sprang into action on every possible
occasion, with eyes that flashed, brows that contracted, very often
in the course of the day. Sebastian Mallory was graceful, but there
was some languor, real or assumed, in the grace. He was handsome, but
the good looks were certainly marred by the bored expression on his
pale, fine features. His eyes moved slowly; they were very good eyes,
luminous, and hazel in colour, but they did not look as if they would
easily flash. He spoke, looked, moved, as if he found life rather
troublesome, and scarcely worth the trouble when it had been taken. He
had taken off his cap when he entered the office--foreign fashion, and
Myles saw that his face, all save the forehead, was somewhat bronzed;
but it was with the bronze of a hot sun--not nature, naturally he
was pale. His hair, too, seemed to have caught the sun at the ends,
elsewhere it was just yellow hair. Every gesture and movement was full
of the polished ease of high cultivation.

Myles, looking straight at him, said to himself, ‘One of your languid,
heavy swells, are we? I’m afraid we shall ruffle his fine feathers in
this horrid democratic place.’

He had Mrs. Mallory in his mind’s eye as he surveyed her son; her
principles were well known--the divine right of kings--the Conservative
side through thick and thin, good report and evil report; Church and
Constitution intact through every storm; our greatest Premier, the
late lamented Duke of Wellington; _the working-man in his proper
place_ (wherever that may be); rich and poor, gentle and simple, a
providential arrangement which it would be sinful and impious to think
of disturbing.

Thinking of all this, Myles surveyed Sebastian Mallory, and as he found
him entirely different from any young man he had ever seen before, and
as most of the Thanshope people, great and small, were of the Radical
persuasion, he immediately concluded that he was right--what had been
bred in the bone must come out in the flesh, and it was quite clear
that Mr. Mallory was a Conservative of the bluest dye.

Meanwhile Sebastian had been looking at Myles, too, surprised at
receiving no answer to his remark, and still more surprised to observe
that the eyes of the ‘good man’ were fixed intently, criticisingly,
and with unabashed steadfastness upon himself, and appeared to measure
him over from head to foot, in a manner which was, to say the least,
singular. The cap of the young man remained on his head; he did not
rise; he did not ask what he could do, nor the visitor’s business;
he simply looked at him with a pair of remarkably keen, piercing,
dark eyes, and Sebastian returned the look, until at last a gleam of
amusement appeared in his sleepy eyes.

That look of amusement was not lost upon Myles; it irritated and
angered him. He was so terribly in earnest about all he did, thought,
or believed, as not readily to see the comic side of a question, while
it was Mallory’s chief foible to take everything in this world that
came to him as rather amusing--if not too troublesome.

‘_Ma foi!_’ he observed, with a quaint look, but very good-naturedly;
‘they told me in the train that I should be surprised at the Thanshope
people, and so I am!’

‘Perhaps they’ll be equally surprised with you,’ said Myles, concisely.

‘Well, they may,’ replied Sebastian, coolly. ‘Do you know who I am?’

Myles hesitated a moment, much wishing to say, ‘No, I don’t,’ but
integrity got the upper hand; he only put the fact as disagreeably as
he could.

‘I should suppose you are Mrs. Mallory’s son.’

Sebastian turned to the brown-faced, dark-eyed boy who stood behind,
and remarked smilingly,

‘You see, _I_ am nobody, Hugo; only my mother’s son; and yet here I am
upon my own property.’

The youth nodded, and glanced thoughtfully at Myles, who could not
resist going on with the rather perilous game he was playing, and who
remarked drily,

‘You’ll find that we count a good deal by residence and relationship
here.’

‘So!’ said Sebastian, with the amused half-smile still playing about
his lips and in his eyes, to the intense exasperation of Myles, who
naturally saw nothing at all to laugh at in the situation. There was
something, too, about Mallory, which struck a subtle blow at his pride
and self-esteem--something which in his innermost heart he knew to be
superior to himself, though he passionately refused to admit the idea.

‘Your guess is correct,’ went on Sebastian. ‘I am Mrs. Mallory’s son.
And now I should be glad to know who and what you are--one of my
work-people, perhaps?’

The young man did not seem to be at all annoyed at what was taking
place; indeed, there was that in his manner which said that he was
mildly amused with the whole affair. He looked around as he spoke, with
a lazy, criticising glance, but it was the glance, as Myles keenly
felt, of a master, and of one who was accustomed to be a master. He was
surveying his property, and questioning one of his servants. All the
revolutionary element in that servant was in perturbation.

‘What am I?’ he began, when Sebastian, who had taken off his cap on
entering the office, said suggestively, ‘Hadn’t you better take your
cap off?’

‘That is a matter of opinion,’ said Myles, the blood rushing to his
face. ‘It is not the fashion here. As for me, I doff to no man, and but
few women.’

‘Ah! well, we won’t quarrel about it. As you say, it is a matter of
opinion,’ said Sebastian, politely; but there was something in the
tone which made Myles feel small, and as if he had been behaving
childishly--not a comforting feeling.

‘But I interrupted you,’ continued Mallory, who seemed to be acquiring
gradually a sort of interest in the conversation; ‘you were going to
tell me who you are?’

‘My name is Myles Heywood, and my business is cut-looking and part of
the over-looking in this factory,’ said Myles.

‘Heywood,’ repeated Sebastian, his eyes losing their lazy look,
‘Heywood, where have I--ah, yes! A cut-looker--I don’t know what that
is.’

‘Likely enough not,’ said Myles.

‘But it is quite certain that I must learn it,’ pursued Sebastian;
‘what is it, if I may ask?’

An uncomfortable sense began to steal over Myles, that Mr. Mallory was
courtesy itself, and that too under considerable provocation. He gave a
short sketch of his business.

‘Thanks,’ said Sebastian. ‘And now--by-the-by, I am absolutely
forgetting my business--is Mr. Sutcliffe in?’

‘Not now: he will be in about an hour.’

‘In an hour? Then I must go over the works without him. Is there any
one here who knows all about it--you, perhaps?’ he added quickly, as if
struck by a happy thought.

The idea of leading Mr. Mallory round the works excited the liveliest
aversion in Myles’s mind.

‘Wilson, the head-overlooker, is above me. He generally does that,’
said he.

‘Wilson--I ought to remember Wilson. He has been here a long time,
hasn’t he?’

‘He has,’ said Myles, rather emphatically.

‘I thought so. Well, where is he?’

Myles, despite himself, very much despite himself, felt the influence
of Sebastian’s manner. He would have been glad could he reasonably have
classed him with Frederick Spenceley, but no such classification was
for a moment possible. He wished he had not made that difficulty about
going through the works. He suddenly remembered his voluntary promise
to Adrienne, and felt that he could not tell her he had kept his word.
But too proud, or perhaps too shy, to suddenly change his manner, he
said, in the same curt tone,

‘He’s going round the works. If you’ll wait a minute I’ll send him to
you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Mallory.

Myles went out of the office, and across the yard to the factory; and
Mallory, putting his hand upon Hugo’s shoulder, silently pointed to the
workman’s figure, and they watched him until he had gone into the mill.

‘Hugo, you have not a good ear for English names yet, but I have. I
have heard that man’s name just lately--yesterday, in fact, in the
train as we came from Manchester. He is a fellow I must know something
more about. Did you notice him? He has a splendid face.’

‘Splendid manners too, I think,’ said the boy sarcastically.

‘Yes,’ replied Sebastian meditatively. ‘Heywood! If he had not
mentioned his name when he did, I think I should have lost my temper.
As it is, I shall try another plan. There he goes! What a row comes
from behind that door!’

Then they looked through the window.

‘What a prospect!’ said Sebastian, glancing over the head of his
companion, who leaned with both arms on the window-sill. ‘This
time last week, do you remember? we were with--ah, what was their
name--those girls and their brother?’

‘On the Luzern steamer, going to Fluelen,’ said Hugo, his eyes fixed
upon the dead wall opposite.

‘Just so! Do you remember the sunset, and Mount Pilatus, as we came
back? Well, Pilatus is there now--and we are here.’

Hugo made no answer, but Sebastian saw a smile curve his cheek.

‘Why, you might be pleased rather than not,’ said he.

‘I am not displeased,’ replied the lad, with the same little smile.

‘Not displeased that I took a notion about duty into my head, and
whirled you away from Switzerland, and snow-peaks, and Alpine
colouring, to Thanshope, Hugo?’

‘Suppose you had obeyed the call of duty without whirling me away--had
left me behind somewhere?’ said Hugo, tranquilly.

‘Ah, so! That is at the root of it,’ said Sebastian, laughing. ‘What
an odd--ah, here comes the overlooker! Now, Hugo, observe me doing the
merchant-prince, and prepare your artist-eye for some shocks during the
progress we are going to make.’

Wilson entered in a state of high excitement.

‘Mr. Mallory, sir, this _is_ a hunexpected pleasure! I couldn’t believe
it. ‘Ow are you, sir? Well, I ’ope. We’ve looked forward long to this
event.’

‘Very well, thank you. I found myself at home sooner than I had
expected--a week earlier. I remember you very well,’ he added. ‘How are
you and your family?’

‘As well as possible, sir, thank you,’ said Wilson, pressing the hand
which Sebastian had held out to him. ‘Do I see a friend of yours,
sir?’ he added, looking at Hugo, who was watching the man with the
preternatural solemnity which was one of his ways of showing that he
was amused.

‘Yes; a very great friend--Mr. Von Birkenau,’ was all Sebastian said,
and added, ‘I want to go through the works. I asked that young fellow
who was here, who----’

‘I hope he wasn’t rude, sir. I trust he didn’t make him self
unpleasant,’ said Wilson, fervently.

‘Why, is he insubordinate usually, or rude to his superiors?’ asked
Sebastian, with a sudden keenness of look, in strong contrast with his
soft voice, and gentle manner.

‘Insubordinate! no, sir. A better workman or an honester young
fellow never lived; only he’s got the idea that he hasn’t got no
superiors--and it will bring him into trouble. I often tell him so.’

‘But he is clever and honest, you say?’ said Sebastian, pausing to ask
the question.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Wilson, who was fond of Myles, and had been fond of
him for years. ‘He’s got the brains of half a dozen of the usual run,
and you might trust him with untold gold; ay, and more dangerous things
than that. But he is apt to give a little too much of his sauce.’

‘Ah! Well, we will go on now, if you please; and when Mr. Sutcliffe
comes in, I’ll get him to go on and lunch with me. I should like to
say a few words to the--“hands,” is it you call them?--if there is any
place where they could come and listen to me.’

‘Surely, sir. The big yard will hold them all, and more than them.’

‘Then be good enough to lead the way,’ said Sebastian, looking at his
watch suggestively.

Wilson was a proud and a happy man that morning, as he led the
newly arrived lord of that place through the maze of great rooms
and machinery, and pointed out all the improvements, the wonderful
contrivances for making wood and steel and iron do the work of hands
and feet; all the ‘perfection of mechanism, human and metallic,’ of
which the factory and its contents formed an example.

Sebastian followed him: his eyes had lost their sleepy look; he asked
many questions, acute enough, for all the indifferent tone of them.
He seemed to have much of the gift which is said to be royal--the eye
which took in with incredible rapidity both details and generalities.
Very little that was to be seen escaped him, including the curious
glances and the loud comments and surmises relative to himself.

It took an hour to go even quickly through the different rooms, and
then Wilson, saying, ‘This is the last, sir, the warehouse,’ took
them into a large, well-lighted room, in which were some half-dozen
men at work, Myles Heywood in the centre. Sebastian stooped to Hugo,
whispering,

‘I want to speak to that young fellow alone a few minutes.’

Hugo stepped up to a large pile of cloth, seemingly interested in some
mystic marks and figures upon it, which he requested Wilson to explain;
while Sebastian, going on, stopped at Myles’s side, and, looking at his
work said,

‘That is cut-looking is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ve learnt something. Listen to me a moment, will you?’

Myles looked up inquiringly.

‘I am going to say something to all these people directly, and I want
you to promise to come and listen to it; will you?’

Half vexed, half flattered, Myles looked into Mallory’s face. He had
not given up his notion that the young man was a ‘jackanapes:’ but
if so, the ‘jackanapes’ had a manner that it was not easy for even a
superior person to resist. Myles replied,

‘Certainly I will come.’

He looked as if he were going to add something--in fact it was on the
tip of his tongue to say, ‘I don’t promise to like what I shall hear;’
but he refrained. He remembered Adrienne and his promise. Yet he had
the conviction that he would dislike what Sebastian had to say. A
Conservative--Southern sympathies, no doubt. What could such an one
have to say that he would like? But he would go, if only to watch till
the cloven foot showed itself.

At that moment Wilson came up again.

‘You’ve seen the last of the rooms, sir. If you’re ready, I’ll have the
bell rung, and then we can go out into the yard.’

In a few minutes the great bell had clanged out, the engines had been
stopped, the hands were streaming out into the yard.

Sebastian and Wilson stood upon a huge empty lorrie that was close by
one of the warehouse doors, so that they had nothing to do but step on
to it, which they did, while Myles and his comrades swung themselves on
to the ground, and took their stand in a knot, not far away from this
impromptu platform.

Sebastian looked keenly at all the upturned faces, while Wilson made a
few brief yet remarkably entangled and involved introductory remarks.

The overlooker’s voice ceased. He swung himself from the lorrie, and
went and stood with the crowd.

‘My friends,’ began Sebastian, ‘circumstances have kept me for ten
years away from Lancashire. Perhaps I might still not have made the
necessary effort to return, but for this great struggle which is
going on in America, and whose direct effects will first be felt in
Lancashire. When that began, I felt I had no right to remain any longer
away. I have heard, and one or two little things which I have seen,
even during the few hours I have been in Thanshope, lead me to feel
that the saying is a true one, that you Lancashire men are inclined to
despise an employer who does not know his business, much as you would
despise a workman who did not know his work. The principle is a right
and honest one; and I don’t say that I may not have come under the head
of those who deserve some contempt as being ignorant, and “absentee
owners.” Even since I came here, I have discovered that I never knew
what work was before; I see that my task will be no easy one, to master
the principles of my business, and to try and provide in some degree
against the dark days which, I fear, are almost inevitable. But, hard
or easy, it is a task I mean to learn. The time is coming, as I think
all thoughtful men must see--coming rapidly, when Lancashire will have
to exert every effort to meet that distress which will rush upon her;
that cloud that is hastening across the Atlantic is a very black cloud,
and will make the days very dark. Let us try manfully, hand in hand, to
breast the storm together.

‘I suppose that you all, or nearly all, will agree with me upon at
least one point--sympathy with the Federal side in this struggle.
(A murmur, deep and strong, of profound approbation arose--a murmur
in which men’s and women’s voices alike joined.) ‘That noble man,
Abraham Lincoln, against whose honour the Southern press has lifted its
impotent voice--not to mention some journals in this country, which
Englishmen ought to be ashamed to read--that noble man, should he live
and be fortunate in his grand crusade, will benefit all the world
by his intrepidity. He cannot give you cheap and abundant supplies
of cotton now, but by his courage and wisdom he is securing your
future supplies upon a firm basis, very different from the slippery
vantage-ground of slave-labour upon which they have hitherto depended.
(Another murmur indicative of that approval which, to their honour,
Lancashire working-men and women, throughout those bitter years, gave
to the Federal side, greeted the speaker.)

‘I understand that you Lancashire men, especially you Thanshope
men, think a great deal of politics and principles. So you ought,
considering who is your member, and that other great name which is
connected with Thanshope. I also know that in spite of the strong
Conservative element amongst your gentry, and, they tell me, amongst
the workmen too’ (a voice: ‘Conservative working-man--there’s no such
thing!’)--‘in spite of this alleged Conservative element, you have
always, since you first returned a representative to Parliament,
returned a Radical.

‘I was not aware of the strength of the feeling upon this point in
Thanshope. I have always myself held politics to be secondary to some
other subjects, but, since I find so much interest centred round the
point here, and moreover, since persons whom I have met and spoken to
have treated me on the tacit assumption that I was a Conservative,
I judge it as well to tell you, face to face, that whatever I may be
on other matters, in politics I am no Conservative, but a Radical.
Of course there are almost as many kinds of Radicals as there are of
Dissenters. The details of my radicalism and those of your radicalism
are, I dare say, somewhat different; but I hope we shall both be able
to respect the principle and never mind the form.

‘Now I will not keep you longer--only let me say, finally, I am here to
learn my business, and to try to guide my ship through the storm that
is coming. Thanshope, as you know, is one of the places where the pinch
of distress will be soonest felt, since the counts of yarns used here
are precisely those the supply of which will soonest fall off. I ask a
promise from you, and I make one to you. In that time that is coming I
ask you to trust me--my feelings and intentions towards you, and on my
part I promise to strain every nerve to do my duty by you. We will work
on as long as there is cotton to be had, and then--I trust, for your
sakes, and mine, and that of humanity at large, that it will not be
long that I shall have to help you in your fight to keep the wolf from
the door.’

He stopped, bowed, and was turning away, when they gave him a hearty
cheer; and one or two voices informed him laconically that they
‘reckoned he was one o’ th’ reet sort,’ and that ‘he’d suit.’

He jumped down from the lorrie, joined Wilson and his friend Hugo, and
went with them towards the office. The engineer returned to his post;
soon the busy machinery was in full roar again, as if there had been no
such thing as war--no such parties as Federals and Confederates. The
interruption to the morning’s work was already a thing of the past--an
incident to be talked about.

Myles Heywood maintained entire silence upon the subject, nor could any
one of all who inquired of him get him to say what he thought of the
new master. He might have deep thoughts about it--at least they were
unexpressed. The rest of the hands talked the event over with lively
excitement. The general impression was a favourable one. The men liked
what he had said, though he was generally pronounced to be a ‘bit too
much of a swell,’ and it was agreed that he ‘spoke rather fine,’ and,
they said, minced his words too much; was, in short, rather too much
of a fine gentleman. Otherwise he was considered sound, and they were
pleased to find him on the right side in politics.

The women, too, liked him, for reasons apparently similar to those
alleged by Peter van den Bosch, as their grounds for liking Philip van
Artevelde,

    ‘And wenches who were there, said Artevelde
    Was a sweet name, and musical to hear.’

Mary Heywood, at least, said she ‘liked the chap: he had siccan a soft
voice, and a nice, smooth-soundin’ name, like.’

The general conclusion was a very Lancashire one; that the young man
had spoken well and reasonably; sensibly enough for a person who knew
nothing about his business, but that ‘fair words butter no parsnips;’
and the conjecture may reasonably be hazarded whether Sebastian’s
speech had induced any one of his hearers to form a decided opinion,
good or bad, of him. They waited to see, and indeed the time was
striding forward with fearful rapidity, nearer and nearer, when the
sincerity of his profession should be put to the proof.




CHAPTER XIII.

INITIATION.


Sebastian and Hugo drove away from the factory, accompanied by Mr.
Sutcliffe, the manager and head man of the business. Arrived at the
Oakenrod, Mallory and his manager retired to the library, and there
plunged straight into business.

Mr. Sutcliffe was a small, mild-looking man, with eyes that were keen
despite his nervous, almost timid expression, a bald head, spectacles,
a gentle smile, and a large bundle of what he called ‘documents.’

Over these documents he and Sebastian remained absorbed until luncheon
was announced. They tarried not long over that meal. Hugo von Birkenau
appeared to be a very familiar friend, for Sebastian made no excuse
for leaving him, and with a slight apology to his mother he and Mr.
Sutcliffe returned to the library.

An hour, two, three hours passed, chiefly occupied in expositions
from Mr. Sutcliffe on the nature of the business, its principles,
and the method of carrying it on. Sebastian’s part consisted chiefly
in listening, naturally; but every now and then he interposed with a
question--questions so much to the point, and showing such discernment
and discrimination, that Mr. Sutcliffe, who had at first begun his task
with some constraint and great dryness of manner and tone, brightened
visibly every minute; his tone grew warmer, his manner more animated,
his eyes flashed now and then. Thus the interview went on, until Mr.
Sutcliffe, laying down a bundle of papers, whose import he had just
explained, took up another bundle, and was beginning--

‘These refer to the----’

But Sebastian interrupted him.

‘Excuse me, Mr. Sutcliffe. Suppose we lay aside business for to-day.
I want to ask you some other questions. With such a manager as you, I
have no fear of things going wrong.’

Mr. Sutcliffe smiled.

‘Judging from what I have heard and seen of you, Mr. Mallory,
you will soon be in a position to manage your own business. You
must not feel offended when I say that I have been most agreeably
disappointed--surprised is perhaps rather the word.’

Sebastian smiled a little.

‘I am a fearfully indolent fellow, I believe,’ said he. ‘I take a lot
of rousing; but once set me to plod at a thing, and I continue until I
understand it--at least, I think so.’

‘That is a very modest way of describing your ready comprehension of
details which must be as strange to you as those we have just been
discussing. But that’s neither here nor there; you wanted some other
information?’

‘I suppose you are pretty well acquainted with the different parties,
social and political, in the town, and with the characters, at any
rate, of the leading people?’

‘I may say that I certainly am.’

‘Well, to begin with, I wish you would tell me candidly what character
is borne by my own concern and the management of it?’

Mr. Sutcliffe looked up quickly, an almost startled expression upon his
face.

‘That is rather a delicate matter,’ he began.

‘Yes, I suppose it is. But I am sure you will be frank with me. I
drew my own conclusions from what I saw and heard this morning, and
I want to find out if your account agrees with them. Never mind how
disagreeable it may be.’

‘Your works, then, bear a very high reputation in many respects. Your
hands are as decent and as steady a lot as any in the town, take them
all in all. Things are generally peaceable. It is looked upon, and with
justice, as an increasing, thoroughly prosperous concern. Our goods,
both yarns and cloth, have got a name. I like the men who are under me,
and I think they like me--Wilson, and Heywood, and the others. I think
I have succeeded in keeping things right; but----’

‘Well?’

‘There are some misunderstandings about yourself--some prejudices. They
don’t like absentee owners here, and that’s a fact. But I’m sure that
impression will soon be effaced, now that you are here yourself. If you
show them that you don’t mean play----’

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders.

‘_Mon Dieu!_ There does not seem to be much question of play. I never
saw anything so oppressively in earnest as every one here seems to be.
It is stamped upon almost every face you meet. Certainly I am not in
play.’

‘Then they will soon find that out, and respect you accordingly.’

‘But that is not all you were going to say?’

‘It may seem a small kind of complaint to make; but it’s better to let
you know the truth at once. There certainly is a feeling against Mrs.
Mallory.’

Sebastian looked up in surprise.

‘Against my mother? What has she to do with it?’

‘A feeling that she is not sufficiently liberal in her ideas, and that
she would, if she could get the authority, interfere unduly in matters
which, with the utmost respect to her, she does not understand, never
having had occasion to study them. I am bound to say that, though I
have never had anything like a dispute with Mrs. Mallory, yet that is
my own impression too, and that is one reason why I rejoice at your
return. You are now the final authority.’

The murder was out, and Mr. Sutcliffe’s shrewd eyes watched the young
man’s face attentively. He did not look angry, did not look even
annoyed, but rather thoughtful for a moment. Then he said,

‘I am glad you mentioned it. Of course that is not a topic for
discussion. As you said, my presence will make all the difference. Is
that all about my own works?’

‘Yes. I don’t think there is anything else.’

‘Who are the leading men here?’

‘So far as money goes, there are a good many big men here. Mr.
Spenceley is reported to be the richest, and I believe report is right.’

‘Spenceley! Ah! What about him?’

‘He is a spinner; does an enormous trade. They say he has been
speculating rather too much lately. He has a certain influence in some
quarters, but it is an influence that will die with him.’

‘How so?’

‘He has only a son and a daughter, and the son is probably the biggest
blackguard in the place; he will never have any influence. The
daughter, I hear, is rather an eccentric young lady.’

‘Oh!’ was all Sebastian said.

Mr. Sutcliffe went on,

‘The son I believe, is a very black sheep. It was only a week or two
ago that he insulted some young woman--in a small place, you see, these
things make a good deal of noise--in a most abominable manner; but he
was punished for that, for the girl’s sweetheart--at least that is
one of the tales, I don’t believe it myself; but one thing is quite
certain, a young working-man followed him to his club that very night,
and gave him a good hiding in the billiard-room. No one, I don’t think
one soul, was sorry for him. The feeling was so dead against him that
he did not even prosecute.’

‘I have heard some account of it. But don’t you know who the young man
was who did it?’

Mr. Sutcliffe smiled a little as he said,

‘In my own mind, I believe I could lay my finger upon the man; but as I
thoroughly respect him for what he did, and should be sorry to get him
into trouble, I shall keep quiet about it.’

Sebastian looked inquiringly at him.

‘I believe the man was one of your own work-people--Heywood, a fellow I
have known from the time when he first came as a half-timer.’

‘I have seen the man. You think it was he. Why?’

‘Partly because I was passing the club-door at the very time of the
row, and saw him come out of it, looking rather dangerous, with a
couple of straps in his hand; and, secondly, because when it has been
discussed, which you will easily believe has been pretty actively, he
has looked embarrassed, and kept perfect silence upon the subject.’

Sebastian nodded.

‘Miss Spenceley is a great friend of Mrs. Mallory,’ went on the
manager. ‘But that’s neither here nor there; only they are about
the biggest people, in a money point of view, in the place. There
are several other families something like them. Then there’s Canon
Ponsonby, the radical parson, our vicar, a very fine old gentleman;
you will like him. He is respected by all who are themselves worthy of
respect, be they Churchmen or dissenters.’

‘Naturally the feeling here is radical?’

‘Tremendous; and North, almost to a man. Lots of these working-men know
what’s coming; and it _is_ coming upon them too, like the very devil.
They’ll tell you they know the cotton must run out soon, or run up to
such a price that we can hardly get it. But if they have to do without
it, or with Surats----’

‘What on earth is “Surats”?’

‘Indian cotton; abominable stuff to work. Haven’t you--but of course
you haven’t--heard of the weaver who put up the prayer, “O Lord! send
us cotton; _but not Surats_!” But if they have to work Surats, they’ll
stick to it that North is right, and South wrong; and they’ll clem
rather than have anything to say to Jeff Davis.’

‘How soon do you think distress will begin?’

‘I think we shall have to shut up shop by Christmas. It’s of no use
talking much about it beforehand. All I can say is, there’s a time
coming which will prove Lancashire once for all, her rich and her poor
alike; and show them up to the world in a light as fierce as that
of the midday sun. We shall get to see the stuff we’re made of. And
there’s half-past five; I must go.’

‘Won’t you stay and dine with us?’

‘I have another engagement, thank you. To-morrow, at the same time, Mr.
Mallory, we will resume the discussion, if you feel so inclined.’

‘Certainly. I shall expect you. Good evening.’

He was left, leaning against the mantelpiece, to reflect upon what had
passed.

A tap at the door was followed by the entrance of his mother.

‘Have you finished at last, Sebastian? I have had no opportunity to
tell you that I am expecting a friend to dine with us to-night.’

‘Oh, are you? Who may he be?’

‘She is Helena Spenceley, a very great favourite of mine. If my son
will spend all his time away from home, I am obliged to find some kind
of a substitute, you know. She has been almost like a daughter to me.’

‘Any relative of the young man who recently distinguished himself by
earning a thrashing?’

Mrs. Mallory looked annoyed.

‘He is her brother,’ said she coldly. ‘He is away from home now. You
must not judge Helena by him. Poor girl! She has a sad, unhappy home.
I believe I really have been a friend to her. And I like to see young
people about me.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I hope you have no engagement?’

‘None at all. I shall be delighted to make Miss Spenceley’s
acquaintance.’

She retired, after casting a comprehensive glance around at the papers
which strewed the table.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE TWO RADICALS.


Mrs. Mallory came into her drawing-room twenty minutes before the
dinner-hour, and found her son already there, alone, already dressed,
and stretched, in an attitude of extreme laziness, in an arm-chair by
the fire.

There was likeness between the mother and son--strong likeness; and
there was also, what most people forget in comparing relations with
one another, strong unlikeness. Mrs. Mallory was an elegant-looking
and a young-looking woman. She had an impassive, pale face, with thin
lips and a high nose; pale, flaxen hair, without a grey streak in its
glossy abundance; and the elegant trifle of lace and feathers which she
wore upon it made her look still younger and handsomer. She was dressed
in pale lavender silk and white lace, and she looked a very handsome,
prosperous person, as she came in, casting a glance at Sebastian--a
sharp, keen, calculating glance. Mrs. Mallory loved power, and had long
exercised it; she did not realise that her son had grown from a boy
into a man since she had known him. She had the lowest possible opinion
of the natural penetration of men; and circumstances had fostered that
impression. There is a great deal in having once lived for a term of
years in close intercourse with a person very decidedly one’s inferior
in intellect, as in the case of Mrs. Mallory and her late husband.
There is nothing like it for giving one an overweening idea of one’s
own capacities, and for fostering an attitude of contemptuous tolerance
towards the opinions of every one else. Mrs. Mallory’s experience of
her husband had entailed, as one of its indirect sequences, that she
was completely deceived now by the lazy, languid manner of her son.
In this most agreeable of convictions, that of mental supremacy over
the rest of the company, let her tranquilly abide, until her hour of
disillusion arrives.

‘Mother, it is too absurd that I should have to go about representing
myself as your son! Couldn’t you pass as my sister?’

‘Nonsense! Where is your friend?’

‘Dressing, I suppose. He was greatly excited at hearing that a young
lady was expected to dine with us.’

Mrs. Mallory had some remarks to make _à propos_ of the young lady, but
she deferred them for a moment in order to inquire,

‘What have you been doing all day?’

And she placed herself in an easy-chair opposite to his, and held a
feathery screen between her face and the fire.

‘I have been, like a good little boy, attending to my lessons,’ said
her son, lazily.

‘Ah, don’t speak in parables! I have forgotten how. In this dreadful
place every one says the most disagreeable things they can think of,
in the most disagreeable way they can think of, and then call it being
honest and candid. And if you can contrive to drop a few h’s, and speak
in a broad Lancashire dialect at the same time, you are thought very
honest and candid indeed. I detest the place!’

‘Do you really, mother? I wonder you have remained here so long.’

‘I have tried to do my duty, Sebastian, to you and your property. A
woman must make up her mind to sacrifice herself--a mother above all
others.’

‘I am infinitely obliged to you, mother, but I trust that now you will
have a long and complete rest. I am going to learn my business----’

‘Very proper, but I think it will take you some time. With your habits,
I am afraid you will find it a frightful bore.’

‘Do you know my habits, mother?’ he inquired in the very quietest of
voices.

Mrs. Mallory looked at him in some surprise. As a matter of fact, she
did not know his habits in the very least. But, looking at him as he
lounged in his easy-chair, with the newspaper across his knees, she
said within herself, and prided herself upon her discernment,

‘His father all over: weak and idle, though he has more surface
quickness. I don’t think I shall have much trouble with him.’

‘At least I know, dear, that your habits have not been those of
Thanshope business men. But I suppose your first object will be to go
over the works and see your people?’

‘I have been over the works, and have seen my people, and spoken to
them.’

‘When--why did you not tell me?’ she asked vivaciously, and with no
little vexation. ‘You should not be so impetuous, Sebastian.’

He laughed.

‘The first time I was ever accused of impetuousness. It shows indeed
that you don’t know my habits.’

This was annoying, though it was impossible to complain about it.

‘These people will not bear to be treated unceremoniously, though they
are such bears themselves.’

‘I am not aware that I did treat them unceremoniously.’

‘What did you say to them?’ she asked, curiosity getting the better
of vexation. ‘I wish you had not been so hasty. A speech of that kind
requires both consideration and careful management I hope you did
not commit yourself. They are such frightful people for taking up
one’s most innocent remarks and construing them into something quite
different from what one intended.’

Mrs. Mallory spoke feelingly, as if from experience.

‘Are they? Well, I don’t know that I committed myself to anything from
which I should wish to back out later. Indeed, I am not a fellow who
is given to backing out of his promises--but then I make so few,’ he
added, thoughtfully. ‘I simply told them I was afraid there were bad
times coming, and that we must stand by each other in them. And I said
a few words on politics.’

‘My dear boy! how foolish! Excuse me, but it was. They are rabid
Radicals, and have a prejudice against you already--one of their
horrid, narrow-minded prejudices, and to mention that you were a
Conservative would certainly not improve your situation.’

Sebastian looked a little surprised.

‘How odd it is! Why should I tell them I was a Conservative when I am a
Radical? I spoke the truth of course.’

Not Mrs. Transome herself could have been more horrified at Harold’s
declaration of his views than was Mrs. Mallory at this avowal by
her son. She forgot to shade that complexion, which was not as the
complexions of other women of six-and-forty. She laid her screen
down, sat bolt upright, without the pretence of any amiability in her
expression, and said sharply,

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’

‘I am truly sorry that I cannot oblige you by feeling so.’

‘You have no respect for your father, or your grandfather--for any of
your forefathers,’ said she, sullenly. ‘Every man here who can boast of
a grandfather, much more a man of good old family like yours, ought to
be a Conservative out of pure self-respect. No! You have no respect for
your ancestors or for yourself.’

‘_Mon Dieu!_ I think I have as much respect for them as they deserve.
Do you think ancestors are really of much use? But at least I have more
respect for their memories than to imagine that they would wish me
simply to sit down and hobnob with the first opinions that happened to
be offered to me. Since I have inherited my name and my tendencies of
mind from them, I must also have inherited my brains and my reasoning
powers from them. I have an inquiring mind, a thing, my dear mother,
which is not spontaneously generated, but developed.’

‘That is wicked nonsense, Sebastian. I won’t allow it.’

‘But you will allow me to explain my opinions to you, I am sure. That
is always better, and saves so many misunderstandings.’

‘I see without explanation that you are a renegade to your fathers, and
have degraded yourself to the level of these horrid, insolent Radicals;
yes, to the level of these grasping, dirty, presuming work-people.
I hate them, Sebastian; I cannot tell you how I hate all Radicals.
How can you refuse any of the demands of these odious people now,
professing, as you do, their own opinions?’

‘I don’t know what their opinions may be, I am sure. Probably not at
all the same as mine. But I was going to mention that, in my quite
early youth, I once read a little sentence which made a deep impression
upon my mind. It ran thus: “Those who believe that heaven is what earth
has been--a monopoly in the hands of a favoured few, would do well to
reconsider their opinion; if they find that it came from their priest
or their grandmother, they could not do better than reject it.”’

‘I call that impiety,’ said she, her lips tightening.

‘Allow me to finish,’ said he, courteously. ‘I read between the
lines of that little remark, and applied the principle contained in
it to a great many other things beside those mentioned in the text;
and the result of my continued use of that principle, as a test of
institutions, opinions, and customs, has been that I am a Radical.’

‘It is an odious and an impious principle,’ said Mrs. Mallory, with
cold and bitter anger in her voice, ‘and it is a principle to which I
will never give my countenance.’

The shock had been not a small one of finding that Sebastian called
himself by the name she hated, as the formula of the sum of the
opinions of Thanshope--Radical. But a yet greater shock was that
of finding, that though he seemed so soft and pliable, spoke so
indifferently, smiled so languidly, yet that she could no more bend
him, nor apparently impress him, than she could stem the incoming tide
of the ocean.

Sebastian had risen, and was standing by the mantelpiece. Mrs. Mallory
glanced at him once, sideways, and caught his eye. That was annoying in
itself: it vexed and angered her because he was smiling.

‘I am sorry you don’t like it, mother,’ he said quite pleasantly and
cheerfully, but not in the least apologetically; ‘and yet, do you
know, considering the letters you have had from me, and my perfect
frankness as to the society I have most sought and enjoyed, I think
you might have been prepared for it, even if I never explicitly stated
my convictions.’

This was also true. He had a most annoying way of being in the right.

‘Convictions? Oh, I dislike that talk about convictions. When people
want to annoy their best friends, they call their conduct the result of
convictions.’

‘The impertinence of circumstances is certainly very great sometimes,’
assented Sebastian, leaning against the mantelpiece, and she, as she
tapped her foot impatiently upon the floor, would hardly have been
flattered to find that he was thinking:

‘I must let her rail against it until it begins to be tiresome--perhaps
she may see the wisdom of stopping before then. I suppose one must
make allowances for the disappointment of a woman whose prejudices (or
convictions?) have been offended; but it would be wasting words to
reason with her about it, and soon, I suppose, she will learn to accept
the circumstances and make the best of it.’

He had no wish or intention of being disrespectful. Simply, he had
‘beaten his music out’ with more difficulty than any one knew, save
himself, and was mildly surprised to find that the resulting harmony,
which sounded not ill in his own ears, should cause his mother such
shuddering, should fall so discordantly upon her perceptions. He had
no more idea of interrupting the flow of that harmony than he had of
sharing his ample estate with all the paupers in Thanshope.

Fortunately, at this juncture, Hugo came into the room, his odd,
original young face looking still more peculiar in contrast with his
careful evening dress, and before many words had been exchanged ‘Miss
Spenceley’ was announced.

Sebastian turned, with the story of Frederick Spenceley and his already
conceived contempt for him strong in his mind, to confront Frederick
Spenceley’s sister. His glance softened as it fell upon the girl
advancing towards his mother.

Had he wandered through all the cities of Europe and seen their lovely
women, in order to come home and find in a provincial manufacturing
town a daughter of the people more beautiful than any of them?

‘Helena, my love, let me introduce my son, who has arrived sooner than
I expected. Sebastian, Miss Spenceley.’

A profound bow on his part, and a rather careless, not very
sophisticated inclination of her beautiful head on hers, was the result
of these phrases of politeness.

‘My son’s friend, Mr. von Birkenau,’ was then introduced, and received
the same notice exactly, a notice graceful and even dignified, because
she could not help all her movements being graceful and dignified.

‘Like my daughter,’ Mrs. Mallory had said, and as she spoke to Helena
Spenceley her voice assuredly took a tender accent; she glanced over
the young lady’s costly dress, and smoothed down a lace ruffle with
the affectionate familiarity of a very intimate friend or much-loved
relative.

Miss Spenceley remained standing on the hearthrug, talking to Mrs.
Mallory--a lovely, noble figure, tall, slim, and shapely, with the
exquisite elasticity of perfect health in every line.

‘Splendid!’ said Sebastian, in his own mind; and splendid expressed her
appearance and her character both. From her great dark, soft eyes, her
dusky hair, in its delicate unruly little rings and tendrils, her ripe
red lips, set in a delicious curve of mirth, frankness, and wilfulness,
down to her rich dress and sparkling rings, she was all splendid,
without being in the least vulgar.

‘Dear child, what a long time it is since I saw you!’ said Mrs. Mallory.

‘Yes. I have been busy. How nice this fire is, Mrs. Mallory. I do
believe we have not had one at our house yet. Perhaps it is lighted on
your behalf?’ she added, turning to Sebastian with a somewhat malicious
smile.

‘Mine? Not so far as I am aware. What makes you think so?’

‘You have been living in warm countries lately, and Thanshope is not a
warm place, but one of those towns where we have to use a lot of coals
to make up for the want of sunshine!’

‘Yes, indeed!’ said Mrs. Mallory, shivering.

‘I have not had time to miss the sunshine, or to enjoy it, if there had
been any, since I came,’ said Sebastian, his glance dwelling almost
involuntarily upon her as she stood there, her eyes flashing back the
firelight, and looking herself (he thought) like some bright living
flame, or some tropical flower.

He could not understand her. There was nothing vulgar about her; her
voice was pleasant and, though distinctly northern in its clear accent,
was not in the least uneducated in its pronunciation of words; she had
ease, grace, self-possession of carriage; apparently she was devoid
altogether of self-consciousness; all of which things were surely
signs of good breeding; and yet she was not in the least like the many
well-bred girls whom he had met in society up and down the world--in
Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and other places. He wondered what she could
talk about, and whether she talked well.

Dinner was announced, and he led her into the dining-room. Hugo von
Birkenau was talking with much animation to Mrs. Mallory, as was
his wont, though she did not appear to find him a very interesting
companion.

Helena Spenceley, suddenly turning to Sebastian, said,

‘I know quite well where you have been. I have followed your course
with the greatest interest Mrs. Mallory used always to tell me where
you went, and sometimes read me bits of your letters.’

‘Did she? I wish I had known.’

‘Do you? Why?’ she asked, looking at him with a certain bright
attentiveness, and waiting with evident interest for his answer.

Certainly she was not like other girls. Another girl would have known
directly that he meant a kind of vague compliment by his aimless
phrase; but she said ‘Why?’

‘If I had known, perhaps I might have written rather more carefully
considered epistles to my mother,’ he said, and felt that it was, and
sounded, a lame reply.

‘That would have been a pity, for the sake of a person you had never
seen and did not know,’ she said, the smile fading from her face.

Sebastian felt he had made a bad beginning. It began to be rather
dreadful, when she went on quite seriously,

‘Do you mean that if you had thought your letters were read aloud you
would have made them into set compositions to please an audience?’

‘I think it is a matter of no importance whatever. Letter-writing is
not my _forte_. I am too lazy.’

‘Oh, they were very interesting letters,’ said Helena, naïvely. ‘But
how can you talk about being lazy! If only I had had such chances!’ She
shook her head.

‘I should think you had the chance of doing whatever you pleased,’ he
said, smiling.

Helena did not respond to the smile. Her face, intensely expressive,
darkened visibly. Her eyes sank.

‘No,’ said she, coldly. ‘You are quite mistaken. Whatever pleasures
and enjoyments I have had in my life have been procured for me by the
kindness of Mrs. Mallory. She has been so good to me!’ She looked at
him with eyes tragic in the earnestness of their expression.

Sebastian, glancing down the table, saw that Hugo’s eyes were fixed
upon her in a perfect trance of admiration.

‘Then you have never been abroad?’ said he.

‘I--no! I have been nowhere except to London once or twice--oh, and to
Brighton with Mrs. Mallory. I don’t want to go anywhere.’

‘You are such a home-bird?’

He saw immediately that he had asked an unfortunate question. The blood
rushed over her face as she replied, again coldly,

‘Oh no! I think all that stuff about “home, sweet home,” and that, is
the most wearisome nonsense imaginable. I hate it.... Did you study the
position of women at all when you were abroad?’

Sebastian looked at her. She was perfectly grave, serious, and
judicial. The ‘Woman Question’ had not been forced so far to the front
in 1861 as in 1878, and Sebastian was proportionately surprised to hear
that question from so young, rich, and beautiful a woman as Helena
Spenceley.

‘I’m afraid I was rather remiss in that respect. But one sees their
position without studying it, I think.’

‘And what do you think about it? Is it what it ought to be? But that is
a foolish question. It is not what it ought to be, anywhere. It never
will be what it ought to be, until women themselves rise and refuse any
longer to submit to their own degradation. Don’t you think so?’

‘Really I am afraid I have not thought much at all upon the question.’

‘I suppose the idea has not yet penetrated to France and Germany. It
will have to come, though, sooner or later. The German woman, for
instance--is she in bonds, or emancipated?’

‘As how?’

‘Is the German woman the slave of the German man, or has she a position
of her own?’

A malign spirit took possession of Sebastian. Mrs. Mallory and Hugo
were both listening to the discussion, Mrs. Mallory with a shade of
anxiety on her face. Sebastian, after a pause, as if he were profoundly
considering the question, said,

‘I should say that she combined both those conditions--that she was
very decidedly the slave of the German man, and at the same time had a
distinct position of her own.’

‘Really! I wish I had brought my note-book. Pray explain!’

‘The German woman’s thoughts are, if I may use such an expression,
directed manwards, _Mann_ being, you know, her word for husband. Her
thoughts, then, are directed _Mann_-wards from her earliest youth--from
the time when she begins to go to school....’

‘Horrible!’ said Helena, her eyes fixed in grave earnest upon his face,
so that his gravity was sorely tried. ‘Horrible! Well?’

‘I don’t know how much or how little true the report maybe about her
beginning in early youth to prepare her trousseau.’

‘Disgusting!’

‘But she hears all around her and all her life long conversations on
the subject of matrimony.’

‘The end and aim of her existence, poor thing!’ said Helena, with
a pitying smile. ‘Go on! you have studied the subject almost
unconsciously, as every thinking man must.’

‘If she reaches the age of one-and-twenty, unmarried, she begins to
wonder what the reason can be of such a thing, and her friends, too,
begin to speculate about it....’

‘Naturally!’ said Helena, her eyes flashing and her colour rising,
while Hugo looked preternaturally solemn, except for a gleam in the
depths of his eyes, and Mrs. Mallory’s face wore a puzzled expression.
‘Naturally--she is sold, disposed of before her reasoning powers are
developed. It is very deplorable. Well?’

‘But very generally she is married at or before that age, and then----’

‘And _then_?’ echoed Helena, waving away the butler’s offer of wine
and leaning eagerly towards Sebastian. ‘And then--what is her life
afterwards, Mr. Mallory? Tell me that!’

‘A long course of bondage to husband, children, domestic affairs, and
social exactions.’

‘Hideous!’ murmured Helena. ‘What a sad, sad fate! Did you not burn
with indignation every time you witnessed it?’

‘I--I----’

‘Ah! you did, I know, or you could not have described it so
graphically. And now you will consider the subject, I don’t doubt, and
you will see it in its true light. But you said the German women had
also a distinct position of their own. How do you account for that?’

‘They have. The very fact of their bondage gives them a sort of
distinguishing rank. They have been accustomed to it for so long, that
now they glory in it. If you were to attempt to inspire them with your
enlightened notions, they would probably scoff at you; you would appear
as dark to them as they to you.’

Helena looked at him with such intense earnestness and expressiveness,
that Sebastian began to feel somewhat embarrassed.

‘What an odd girl she is!’ he thought. ‘And how, in Heaven’s name,
shall I get out of this mess that I have got into? I can’t let her go
without offering some explanation.’

‘You grieve me,’ said Helena, in a sorrowful voice. ‘I had no idea it
was so bad as that.’

Here Mrs. Mallory rose in a dignified though perplexed silence, and
they all went into the drawing-room.

Arrived there, Sebastian, as in duty bound, asked Helena to play.

‘I don’t play at all,’ said she. ‘I can’t waste my time upon
practising.’

‘_Waste_ your time upon music?’ he asked, wondering whether that were
one of the strong-minded female ideas too.

‘I have not the power of interpreting music; it would be vanity and
vexation. So I never try. I can just accompany myself in one or two
little songs; that is all.’

‘Then you will gratify us by singing one of the said little songs, I am
sure.’

Helena went to the piano, sat down, and began to play an introduction.
Sebastian looked at Hugo, with ever so slight a shrug, and they waited.
It was ‘Kathleen Mavourneen.’ But the faces of the two critics changed
gradually from an expression of painful doubt and suspense, to pleased
surprise, pleasure, and a broad smile of delight. A pure, strong,
fresh, sweet soprano voice rang out. There was no attempt at airs and
graces; the severest simplicity and the most unaffected tenderness
sounded in every one of the true, clear notes.

Mrs. Mallory watched her son covertly, but intently, and saw that
Helena’s music had power to move him. The languor disappeared from
his expression; his head was raised, and his lips parted. Song and
songstress engrossed his attention.

Mrs. Mallory’s countenance gradually cleared.

As Helena finished, both Hugo and Sebastian sprang forward, with thanks
and entreaties for something else.

She paused a moment, and then sang:

    ‘Since first I saw your face, I resolved
      To honour and renown ye;
    If now I be disdained, I wish
      My heart had never known ye!

    ‘What! I that loved, and you that liked,
      Shall _we_ begin to wrangle?
    No, no, no, my heart is fast,
      And cannot disentangle.

    ‘The sun, whose beams most glorious are,
      Rejecteth no beholder;
    And your sweet beauty, past compare,
      Makes my poor eyes the bolder.

    ‘Where beauty moves, and wit delights,
      And ties of kindness bind me,
    There, oh! there, where’er I go,
      I leave my heart behind me.’

It is a sweet, tender, quaint old song, and Helena sang it almost
perfectly. She rose when she had finished, and, looking at Hugo, asked
him if he did not play.

‘Yes,’ said the boy, flushing; ‘but after your voice----’

‘Don’t refuse, Hugo,’ put in Sebastian.

And Hugo seated himself and began to play German music--deep, strange,
and expressive, _con amore_.

‘But he is a musician--he must be!’ said Helena, turning, with
wide-open eyes, to Sebastian.

‘Most certainly he is. I believe he has it in him to make a great name
as a composer.’

‘How delightful to have a talent, a genius, that gives pleasure to
yourself and every one else! Is he a very great friend of yours?’

‘Yes; he is my ward. I have been his guardian now for four years.’

‘Ah! if he can compose, he has a life before him--a career!’ sighed
Helena; and her eyes looked dreamingly and longingly before her.

Sebastian felt strangely attracted to the girl, but as yet he felt
he knew her too little to know whether he should even like her. The
explanation he had to make would serve to bring out some fresh point in
her character.

Mrs. Mallory was knitting fleecy-white wool by the fireside, and seemed
able to give up Helena’s society on this occasion. Hugo’s fingers
wandered on in one melody after another--melodies like those which
Adrienne Blisset’s fingers most readily wove.

Helena herself gave Sebastian the opportunity he wished for.

‘About the German women and their position?’ she began.

He laughed a little.

‘I had no idea you were so much in earnest,’ said he. ‘It was a joke.’

‘A joke!’

She turned to him in amaze.

‘In this way. What I said was quite true--that _is_ the the position of
the German women; but--but--I thought you would see it--isn’t it the
position of all civilised women? Are not Englishwomen in the same case?
I am sure I think so. I don’t see how any woman who marries can expect
anything else.’

The colour rushed in an angry flood over her cheek, and brow, and
throat, as she realised that he had been politely making merriment of
the subject, and that the very point of the joke lay in her having
taken it all as solemn, thoughtful earnest.

‘You were making fun of me and of the cause: that was very polite of
you!’ she said, her eyes flashing upon him in anger.

‘I am very sorry,’ he said, with a provoking smile. ‘I was only
describing the position of women in general in a picturesque manner. It
depends upon the feelings of the speaker as to the colouring he gives
to his descriptions.’

‘I see,’ said Helena, ‘you are just like any other selfish, unthinking
man--not in earnest. But I am! I think that cause is worthy the
devotion of a woman’s life; and it is what I intend to devote my life
to.’

‘Don’t!’ said Sebastian, involuntarily.

But Helena had been roused to real anger.

‘Compliments and pretty phrases are all we ever get from men on that
subject,’ she said. ‘All my life I have been sure it was women alone
who must work their own emancipation; and after what you have said
to-night, I am doubly sure of it. Oh! it is horrible to think that
a woman is not even allowed to have a serious thought upon her own
condition; or if she says she has to a man, he laughs at her! There is
one consolation--the laugh dishonours him, not her.’

‘But, my dear Miss Spenceley, do let me explain. Do you think you
really have had any experience in such things? Many most accomplished
women think quite differently; the nicest girl I ever knew--I mean
the cleverest and best-informed young lady I ever knew--thought very
differently.’

‘Perhaps that was one reason why you thought her so nice. I am sure she
had not been brought up in the school of adversity and experience.’

‘Pardon me! She had been brought up in that school alone, and in no
other. I fancy she had attended more of its classes than you.’

‘I don’t see how you can know what school I have attended,’ said
Helena, the same sudden, cold, sharp look coming into her eyes and over
her face. ‘And I do not think much of any woman who is indifferent upon
that subject.’

‘I did not say she was indifferent,’ said Sebastian; and Helena,
looking at him, saw that he was, in imagination, in some very different
place from his mother’s drawing-room: perhaps thinking of ‘the nicest
girl I ever knew.’

‘Don’t you think,’ said he, breaking the angry silence which on her
part had supervened, ‘that the best way of securing your ends would be
for men and women to work together, and----’

‘I don’t believe in men’s help in that matter. They are too thoroughly
and naturally selfish ever to give real help in such a cause.’

‘Without help you can do nothing,’ he said composedly.

‘Can we not?’ she replied, setting her lips.

‘I don’t think that any number of women agitating, and making speeches,
will answer the purpose. The sort of help I mean is such as would be
given by, for instance, husband and wife practically showing how much
they had the subject at heart, by working together and giving in their
lives a specimen of their doctrines. It is not a question that will
ever be settled by public meetings and petitions. It must grow and
evolve, as other social conditions evolve--gradually!’

‘Husband and wife!’ said Helena, with a sneer--a sneer so bitter and
unmistakable as to startle him. ‘That is a relation I have put entirely
out of my calculations in this matter. I don’t believe in the existence
of husbands who will give up, and help their wives. I have been able to
study the subject remarkably well....’

(‘Mr. Spenceley sits upon Mrs. Spenceley, and the redoubtable Frederick
sits upon them all,’ thought Sebastian.)

‘And the women who wish to improve their condition must put all such
foolish ideas aside, and feel, as I do, that they can never be tempted
into accepting any such delusory fancies.’

‘You feel that?’ he said, smiling.

‘Yes, I do--to the bottom of my heart.’

Helena spoke with emphasis; her eyes flashing, her cheek flushing.
She was very handsome; she was more, splendidly beautiful; ‘but how
untrained, how unreasonable,’ thought Sebastian. ‘How different this
heat and prejudice from the calm, well-balanced judgment, the clear,
philosophical mind, of that other girl, scarcely older than herself.
This raging against the weakness and selfishness of men was very
short-sighted, and rather vulgar, was it not?’ All he said, however,
was,

‘I am glad you feel so independent. It must give you a sense of
superiority.’

‘I never think about such things. I call it vanity to be always
wondering whether you are superior to other people.’

She rose and went across the room to talk to Mrs. Mallory. Very soon
she was discussing the merits of a new knitting-pattern, just as if no
such thing as women’s rights had ever been heard of.

When she had gone, and Hugo had retired, after fervently expressing
his opinion that she was the loveliest, most fascinating, _schönste,
herrlichste_ person he had ever seen, Mrs. Mallory introduced her
intended remarks upon her favourite. Did not Sebastian think her very
lovely? Yes; she certainly was an exquisitely beautiful girl. And
intelligent, too? Undoubtedly; but there was a certain sameness about
her animation. She seemed to rave a good deal upon one subject.

‘If you knew her surroundings, Sebastian, you would not be surprised, I
assure you. Such a brother! With her high spirit, and rather strained
ideas as to what is honourable and gentlemanly, it must be a bitter
cross to her to have that brother constantly disgracing himself in one
way or another.’

‘Yes, that is true.’

‘And her father and mother too----’

‘Ha! what about them?’

‘Her mother is a mere cipher--a handsome, helpless, vulgar woman;
kind-hearted, but absolutely weak in intellect, and the father is a
hard, coarse man, who bullies that unfortunate woman in a disgraceful
manner. He is proud of his daughter, but in a tyrannical, despotic way.
Fortunately for her (I may say it without boasting), he thinks me the
best friend she could have, and places no restraint on her visits to
me. Otherwise, she has not a congenial companion.’

‘The benefit must have been immense to her,’ he said. ‘I wondered,
after all I had heard of her family, how she came to be even
so--well-behaved.’

‘She ought to marry soon. She would soon calm down if she had a kind
husband, whom she loved.’

Sebastian remarked drily that she had forcibly expressed her
determination to eschew any such relationship.

Mrs. Mallory shook her head, smiling with gentle pity.

‘So she may say, but her father has very different views for her. She
would be very helpless, cast upon the world, with her beauty, her hasty
disposition, and her large fortune.’

‘Has she a fortune, then?’ he asked, with provoking indifference.

‘Sebastian, that young, warm-hearted girl, with all her enthusiasms and
crotchets, ready to fall into the hands of any adventurer, will have at
least a hundred thousand pounds.’

Mrs. Mallory spoke with solemn, impressive manner and tones. She was
watching her son, who seemed to view the matter with a seriousness that
promised well, for he stood, his hands folded behind him, his eyes
fixed upon the carpet, profoundly silent and profoundly grave, till,
looking up with a sudden, humorous smile, he said,

‘_Ma foi!_ The adventurer who won her, and her hundred thousand pounds,
and her frantic ideas on women’s rights, and the execrations of all the
other adventurers who had tried, and failed to win her--and her family,
who must be most delightful people, I am sure--that adventurer would
have driven the very hardest bargain that could well be imagined. I
pity him, whoever he may be.... Good night, mother. You must excuse me;
I have several things to do to-night. I have my business to learn, you
know.’




CHAPTER XV.

  ‘“Do so,” said Socrates; “here is room by me.”

  ‘“Oh, Jupiter!” exclaimed Alcibiades, “what I endure from that man!
  He thinks to subdue every way.”’


In a week from that time the master’s face was beginning to be familiar
to his work-people; and his business and its details were beginning to
be a little less strange to him. Whatever Sebastian thought, felt, or
endured, in the change so complete and entire, of habits, customs, and
surroundings--and the contrast, and the effort to grow accustomed to it
must have been pretty severe at times--he said nothing--made absolutely
no remark, but quietly ‘went at it,’ with a cool, calm, comprehensive
energy which amazed Wilson and the other secondary officials, and
delighted little Mr. Sutcliffe.

It seemed as if, from the moment in which the young man had entered the
place, work had walked up to him, ready to his hand, and that hand had
grappled with it, and that head had bent itself to the understanding
of it, without thought or intention of ever turning back, until the
task were accomplished. His place was ready for him, and he stepped
into it. He had a tenacious memory; he was rather fond of saying that
it was the only mental advantage he possessed. He was a very quiet,
undemonstrative person--never paraded any likes or dislikes: at the end
of a week, his mother was amazed and angry to find, that though he had
so completely worsted her on that eventful night when Helena Spenceley
had dined with them, yet that she did not discover any pronounced
points of character in him--no particular weaknesses or predilections
on which she could lay hold, as handles by which to manage him. This
annoyed her excessively: she puzzled over it, and tried to find a way
out of it, and was, almost unknowingly to herself, nourishing towards
her son an attitude which was beginning to be one of opposition.

Sebastian’s retentive memory held, amongst the other figures with which
it was peopled, that of Myles Heywood in a conspicuous and prominent
place. A most distinct impression remained in his mind of the workman’s
defiant attitude and words. What Sebastian felt towards the young man
would make too long a tale, and involve too much dry psychological
analysis, to be here recorded. Mrs. Mallory had most truly told her son
that whether she knew his habits or not, she was sure they were not
the habits of Thanshope business men. Something happened just about
this time--and Sebastian’s method of treating the matter would probably
have made the hair of a Thanshope business man stand on end, or called
forth from his tongue emphatically Doric epithets as to the young
mill-owner’s sanity, and mental capacity in general.

Sebastian never beheld Myles’s firmly set lips and sharply contracting
eyebrows without wondering whether those strongly marked features were
merely signs of an absolutely crabbed disposition and bad temper, or
whether they were only traits of a hot temper and quick disposition.
He tried in half a dozen ways to find out, but in vain. Myles put on a
silent dignity and reserve equal to Sebastian’s own, until at last pure
accident put the matter to the test.

Some irregularity or insubordination had occurred in one of the rooms,
which Sebastian had been discussing with Mr. Sutcliffe, and the latter
had said that some one must be told off on the following day to
superintend that room--some one in authority. The following morning
Sebastian, coming down to the works, entered the outer office, and
found Wilson and Myles there.

‘Has Mr. Sutcliffe come?’ he inquired.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Wilson. ‘He’s in his room.’

‘Did he give any orders about the beaming-room?’

‘No, sir. He hasn’t mentioned it to me.’

‘Oh! Well, Heywood, you had better go there and look over them this
morning. I can’t have them idling about as they have been doing. You
had better go at once.’

With that, and without waiting for any answer, he stepped forward into
the inner office, and closed the door after him.

Myles went on with his work for some minutes, and then rose.

‘If you go to the beaming-room,’ observed Wilson, ‘I must take your
place in the warehouse myself, I suppose.’

‘I’m not going to the beaming-room,’ was the tranquil reply.

‘Not going! But the master----’

‘I’m not a Jack-of-all-trades. I know what my business is, and how
long it will take me to do it. It is not my business to overlook the
beaming-room.’

‘But Mr. Mallory didn’t know that.’

‘So it appears,’ said Myles, with a disagreeable smile. ‘He’ll know it
for the future. It’s all in the way of learning. You can find some one
else to overlook the beamers. I’m off to the warehouse.’

With which he departed, leaving Wilson aghast.

It was through a mere casual question to Wilson that Sebastian found
out, later, what had happened. Wilson’s evident confusion aroused his
suspicions. Dropping his careless tone, he promptly bade the overlooker
tell him all that had passed.

Wilson stammered out the whole story, even to Myles’s remark about it
‘all being in the way of learning,’ and then stood, looking miserable,
and feeling no less so, listening for the command, ‘Send Heywood to me.’

But the command did not come, and Wilson concluded that the dismissal
would perhaps be given through Mr. Sutcliffe. That it would be given,
and that promptly, he did not doubt, nor was he reassured by the
perfect calm and good temper of Mr. Mallory’s expression.

Several days passed, and still Myles Heywood, without let or hindrance,
pursued his usual avocations undisturbed; and still Mr. Mallory, calm
and good-tempered as ever, continued to learn away at his business; and
still he made no remark upon the act of flagrant insubordination which
had taken place.

Saturday came some three days after the occurrence just described.
It was late in the afternoon, and work had been over for an hour and
a half, but the mill was not yet closed, for Mr. Mallory and Mr.
Sutcliffe were in the inner office, in consultation, and Ben, the
office boy, stood lounging outside, wishing that his superiors would
bring their parley to an end and let him lock up and get home to his
holiday.

Within, at that moment, there ensued a little pause, and Sebastian
rose, looking thoughtful, and leaning against the mantelpiece.
Presently he said,

‘Well, I suppose there is nothing else for it; we had better put up the
half-time notice this afternoon.’

‘Yes. There is nothing else for it,’ echoed Mr. Sutcliffe. ‘It will be
no time at all in a few weeks. We can’t hold out much longer.’

‘Ah!’ said Sebastian, and again seemed to fall into a train of thought,
until he said,

‘I wonder how it will all end? What is there in this life of yours,
Mr. Sutcliffe, that gives it its interest? I feel more as if I was
really living now than I ever did before. The cotton trade is on its
last legs, for a time; and a young man who dislikes me has behaved with
insubordination and impertinence; and yet, though there is nothing
intrinsically interesting in those facts, and no connection between
them, I feel intensely interested in both.’

‘You will excuse my saying it, Mr. Mallory, but it is not discipline to
have allowed Heywood to remain a single day in your employment after
his openly disobeying an order of yours. It goes very much against my
judgment.’

‘I know it is neither business nor discipline,’ said Sebastian,
apologetically; ‘but you must allow me a little tether now and then,
till I am more used to run in harness in this way. I am trying an
experiment in regard to that young man. It is a delightful diversion
from business. How long has he been here, did you say?’

‘Fifteen years, and his sister eleven. Except in the strike, four years
ago, they have never missed a day.’

‘Exactly, it would decidedly displease me--it would humiliate me to
think that a man who had amicably worked fifteen years during my
absence should have to--hook it within a fortnight after my arrival.
Besides, he is unusually intelligent, and an admirable workman.’

‘Ay, he is. He could direct and manage if ever he got a rise in life.
He has a head on his shoulders as good as any one else’s, but that
temper of his will be the ruin of him.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Sebastian, reflectively, as if
discoursing with himself. ‘That temper of his--I should dearly like to
subdue it.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr. Sutcliffe, to whom this was as so much
Sanscrit.

Sebastian looked up with a smile.

‘Leave me my own way in this matter, Mr. Sutcliffe. I promise that, if
things do not turn out as I expect, I will dismiss Heywood on Monday.’

At this moment Ben put his head in at the door, and remarked,

‘Please, sir, there’s your carriage, and the young gentleman in it,
a-come for you; and Heywood, he wants to know if he can speak to you.’

‘Show him in here, and tell the gentleman I will join him in a few
minutes.’

Ben disappeared. Mr. Sutcliffe rose.

‘I’ll leave you alone with your rebel, Mr. Mallory. I shall be curious
to know whether he has come to beg pardon, or to give notice.’

‘For my part,’ said Sebastian, ‘I have no more idea which he will do
than an owl in the parish church tower.’

Mr. Sutcliffe laughed and went away, and a moment afterwards Myles
Heywood entered the office. Sebastian, still leaning up against the
mantelpiece, looked at him, and could read nothing from his expression.
He felt that he did not know the man, and he also felt an inexplicable
anxiety that the man should not say he was going to leave his service.

‘Good afternoon,’ said he, courteously; ‘you wish to speak to me?’

Myles had taken off his cap, a sign which Sebastian noted instantly.

‘Yes,’ said he, slowly, but not ungraciously. ‘You gave me an order the
other day, which I took no notice of, and I spoke of you as I ought not
to have done. I am sorry that I did so, and I beg your pardon.’

Sebastian had watched him intently, and with keen interest. He saw that
Myles had strung himself up to say the words from a sheer sense of what
was right and fitting, and from honest conviction that he had done
wrong; not from any sudden leaning towards him, Sebastian. And he saw
that the anxiety and the uneasiness followed, not preceded, the words.
He saw that Myles laid great importance upon the manner in which his
words were taken.

‘It is granted freely,’ said Mallory. ‘I felt sure that you were
too manly not to do this. You have felt that I had no wish to be
capricious, or put you to work that was not yours, when I gave you that
order?’

‘Yes; I have thought it over, and felt that that was the case.’

‘You have worked here fifteen years, and it would have troubled me very
much if you had, from any reason, been obliged to leave me as soon as I
got here.’

Myles looked up, surprised, but, as Sebastian plainly saw, with a
flush of self-reproach. It had not entered into his calculations that
Sebastian could possibly take any interest in him or his. The latter
went on,

‘I am new to my work; you must remember that. Another time, don’t let a
mistake go so near costing you your place, and me my best workman.’

Myles’s face flushed.

‘I will certainly bear it in mind,’ said he. ‘I have a hasty temper,
and it leads me astray often, I know.’

‘And you do not like me,’ said Sebastian, looking steadily at him.

Myles’s eyes were also fixed upon his.

‘I have not liked you,’ he said; ‘I should tell a lie if I said even
now that I liked you; but I respect you. I shall respect you from
this day, and I don’t think you will ever have to complain either of
disrespect or disobedience from me again.’

‘You have relieved my mind very much. I am glad we have had this
explanation. It does you credit.’

‘The credit is not all with me,’ said Myles, hastily, with a rising
colour and a conscious look, which Sebastian remarked. ‘I had some
advice from some one, that finished it off. I must go now. Good
afternoon.’

‘Good afternoon,’ said Sebastian, who would have prolonged the
conversation if he could; but Myles departed, and Sebastian followed
him out of the office.

Standing just without was Sebastian’s phaeton, with Hugo holding the
reins, and carrying on a conversation with Ben at the same time.
Sebastian heard the words:

‘Ay, and his mother never got o’er it, hoo didn’t. It were main stupid
o’ Sally Whittaker to say what hoo did----’

Ben stopped abruptly and grew very red in the face, as Sebastian tapped
him on the shoulder, inquiring, as he climbed into his place,

‘What was so stupid?’

‘Go on!’ said Hugo to the boy. ‘He’s telling me about a boy that he
knew, who was killed at a factory. Go on! What did Sally Whittaker say?’

‘Well, it were i’ this way, yo’ seen. It were at Ormerod’s works as th’
lad were killed, and Ormerod come round just as they was takin’ th’
body away on a shutter; and he says, “Now then, where are you boun’?”
he says. And they told him they were for takkin’ him to his mother,
and they doubted it would kill her too, for hoo were main fond on him.
“Eh, what?” he says. “Yo munnot do so. Yo mun one on yo go afore, and
warn her--prepare her like a bit,” he says. “Let one o’ these ’ere
wenches go on afore.” So Sally Whittaker, hoo knew his mother, and hoo
said hoo’d go and tell her, and hoo went on afore. Eh, bi’ th’ mass!
but hoo is a gradely foo’, is Sally Whittaker! and hoo walks into
Emma’s kitchen, and hoo says, straight out, hoo says, “Eh, Emmer, but
troubles is never to seech,” hoo says. “Your Johnny’s killed as dead as
a stoan!”’

‘What did the poor woman do?’ asked Sebastian, with interest.

‘Eh, hoo just dropped the fryin’-pan, and hoo gave a screech yo’ mowt a
yeard down to the town-hall, and then hoo begun to cry, and then they
browt him whoam. Mun I lock up, sir, now? Have you finished?’

‘Yes, quite,’ said Sebastian, with a good-natured nod. ‘Lock up, and go
home. You’ve not had much of a holiday this afternoon’

‘Bless you, sir, it’s no soart o’ consequence,’ said Ben, with a
gratified look at this mark of attention; and he retired to lock up
again.

‘Will you drive?’ asked Hugo, when they were alone.

‘No; I’ll let you drive on, if you will. And, stay! What do you say
to a drive in the country before dinner? It will be daylight for a
long time yet. If there is any country about here?’ he added, with a
disparaging look around.

‘Oh, lots! While you have been so industriously grubbing away at those
figures, and showing me quite a new phase in your character, I have
been exploring the interior. I know of four separate and distinct
routes to the country. Certainly it is rather stony when one does get
there; but it is country all the same. Will you go north, south, east,
or west?’

‘Hurrah for the North!’ said Sebastian, drily. ‘Turn the horses’ heads
towards Yorkshire, _mein Hugo_!’

Hugo complied. Very soon they were rattling through the main street.
Hugo’s attention was taken up with the guiding of his cattle. Sebastian
leaned back, a little wearily, and was long silent, until they had
left the town behind them--left the dirty straggling suburb called
Bridgehouse, and passed through the neighbouring manufacturing village
of Hamerton, with its stately houses of gentry and rich mill-owners,
and were put out upon a wide, open road, driving past a solemn old
house called Stanlaw, deeply sunk in trees. Beyond that, the purple
moors spread before them, rising every moment higher and nearer. The
sky was pure, the air sweet. As if with a sudden impulse, they both
turned and looked behind them. A heavy cloud of smoke showed where
Thanshope lay below, in the distance.

Hugo shrugged his shoulders.

‘Comfort yourself,’ said Sebastian. ‘It won’t be there long. Soon we
shall see what Thanshope looks like without smoke.’

They drove quickly on in the sharp, delicious October afternoon air,
along the upland road. The heather sprang from the very roadside, and
rich, mellow purple, brown, and crimson, the moors spread themselves
around, under the pale, chill blue of the cloudless sky. The peculiar
scent of the ling and heather rose like a pastoral incense around them;
far away glittered the sinuous line of a canal, and a silvery pond or
two. The crack of a gun broke the stillness once or twice.

‘Did I not tell you I would bring you into the country?’ said Hugo.

‘You always manage to keep your promises, somehow’ (they were speaking
German now). ‘How goes the music under these changed conditions, Hugo?’

The lad smiled his odd smile, and said,

‘The more prosaic the surroundings, the more need one has of something
like music to brighten them. Don’t you think so?’

‘Just so. I only asked because I have not noticed you practising, and
as for sitting down and listening to you--why, the last time I did that
was when Miss Spenceley was at the Oakenrod.’

‘You have been so busy. I have practised hard enough, only your mind
was taken up with other things.’

‘Ay, with things less artistic than the Sonatas of Beethoven.’

‘But not more earnest and workmanlike. Do you know, I like this
Thanshope. There is something real in the life these people lead.’

‘There is so! And in the things they say, and the way in which they
remind you of your duties. There is a fellow I am very curious to
know something more about. Do you remember that brusque individual who
confronted us the first time we drove to the office?’

‘Perfectly well. Do you never see him?’

‘Oh, daily. I have just had another shindy with him. He piques me
excessively. Every time I see the fellow, with his handsome face and
defiant eyes--he _has_ a pair of eyes--I feel as if I must stop and
question him upon his thoughts and feelings. It is a most insane idea,
and I know it makes him exceedingly angry; but it is so, all the same.
What is that air you are humming, Hugo?’

Hugo held the reins loosely between his fingers, while the horses
climbed slowly up the hill: he hummed to himself the half-melancholy
air of the German _Volkslied_--_Der Verschmähete_; and Sebastian
listened attentively with a half-smile.

‘Aren’t you tired, Hugo? Let me take the reins.’

‘As you will!’ said Hugo, changing places with him, and they turned
homewards again.

‘Do you remember when we last heard _Der Verschmähete_?’ asked Hugo,
smiling to himself.

‘Perfectly,’ said Sebastian, concisely. ‘Corona Müller sang it, and....’

‘There was instrumental music, too,’ put in Hugo; ‘one of Liszt’s
Hungarian Rhapsodies--ay, ay! And it was a Rhapsody too! How splendidly
she played it! It would have delighted Liszt himself. Do you remember
the end?’

‘Yes, yes! _Un poco pesante!_’ said Sebastian, who listened attentively
to the reminiscences, but volunteered no remark upon the subject.

They were now again in Thanshope, and the dusk was beginning to fall,
though it was still far from dark. There had been a silence. Now as
they turned into the main street, Hugo, suddenly taking courage, looked
up into his companion’s face, and said,

‘Sebastian, do you know where she went with her father, from Wetzlar?’

‘No I have seen nothing, and heard nothing of her, since then.’

‘But you have inquired?’

‘Inquired--naturally. But--ah, there’s my handsome young democrat. Just
take a good look at him, Hugo--quick! before he turns off--do you hear?
What? _Impossible!_’

Hugo had touched his arm, so that his attention was diverted from the
figure of Myles Heywood, who was in the act of turning off down a side
street, and directed towards that of a young lady going straight down
the main street, and whom they were now in the act of passing.

It was nothing remarkable for an expression of lively excitement,
pleasurable or otherwise, to be seen upon Hugo’s face, but such a look
upon Sebastian Mallory’s countenance was a rare visitor; and it painted
itself there at this moment, as his eye fastened upon the slight figure
of the girl, who was pursuing her way, looking neither to right nor
left of her. Would she see them? Would she turn? No--yes--no! The
phaeton had just passed her, when she casually raised her eyes, and
glanced towards the road; and then into her face, too, leapt the same
startled look--the same surprise and vivid emotion of some kind, as
that which already brightened Sebastian’s. She made a visible pause,
as her eyes fell upon the occupants of the carriage. Both hats were
lifted, two deep bows were made at the same moment; four earnest eyes
looked eagerly into her face. With a sudden, quick, warm flush, she
returned the bow of the young men, and then they had driven on, and
left her behind them.

They were almost at home now, close to the Oakenrod. No word was
spoken, until, as they sprang out of the carriage, their eyes met,
Hugo’s full of inquiry, Sebastian’s of a trouble and excitement strange
to them.

‘Are you glad?’ asked the boy, in a low voice, as they hung up their
hats in the vestibule.

‘Nay, _mein Bester_--time alone can tell me that. I know no more than
you. But here--how did she come here?’




CHAPTER XVI.

  ‘Mais pourquoi pour ces gens un intérêt si grand?’


One evening--it was Sunday, the day after that drive into the
country--Sebastian Mallory strolled into the drawing-room where his
mother sat, and, glancing round, seated himself, without speaking at
the piano, on which he struck some aimless chords, which presently
developed into a coherent harmony, in a style _un poco pesante_. He
played the first bars of Liszt’s second _Rhapsodie Hongroise_, and then
paused.

‘What is that thumping thing?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory, whose many mental
superiorities did not include an understanding of the art of music.

‘This “thumping thing,” as you so justly term it, is a “Hungarian
Rhapsody,” by that Thor the Hammerer of pianoforte music, Franz Liszt.’

‘I am as wise as I was before.’

‘_N’importe!_ Where is Hugo, I wonder?’

No reply.

‘You have not seen him?’

‘I saw him leave the garden about an hour ago.’

‘Gone out for a walk, I suppose. I am glad he can find anywhere to go
to.’

‘Sebastian, may I ask how long a visit that boy is to pay here?’

‘Visit!’ said Sebastian, turning round on the music stool, in some
surprise; ‘why, Hugo lives with me. I thought you knew.’

Mrs. Mallory lowered her favourite weapon, the feathery screen.

‘Lives with you? What will you say?’

‘I can but repeat my previous statement. He is my ward--you do know
that, mother--but then we drop that connection as much as possible. I
suppose we are more like brothers than anything else.’

‘You are the guardian of his property, then? He is a _von_--is he of
noble family?’

‘Two questions. He is of noble family. Von Birkenau is a good old name,
and he is the last of his race. As for property, he has none--not a
scrap.’

‘How came you to be his guardian? It was very extraordinary--so young a
man as you. Had his family, or whoever left him to you, any claims upon
you?’

‘It was his mother who left him to me, because I asked her to. She had
no claims upon me in the legal sense of the word; only the claim of
having been my great friend, and the source of inestimable benefit to
me. Paula von Birkenau was a woman in a thousand, beautiful, good, and
gifted; and, I am sorry to say, very unhappy.’

Mrs. Mallory, watching her son’s face, thought how odd it was that he
should have such queer, out-of-the-way ideas and tastes. What could
there be in this memory of an impecunious German countess to bring that
smile to his lips, and that light of subdued enthusiasm to his eyes?

‘If her son has no property, how did she manage to live?’

‘She was penniless when she married, and her husband’s family had
been a declining one for generations. When he died, she was left
without a stick or stone of land or house, and without a penny of
fortune. She retired into a _Stift_--an institution, you know, for
poor ladies of noble family. There are many like it in Germany. She
procured admittance for her son into a place of the same kind--a
school, where he was hard-worked and ill-fed, and quite unable to
pursue the real bent of his talent for music. I made the acquaintance
of Frau von Birkenau six years ago. I could not describe her; she
was a beautiful soul; she did more for me than any one I have ever
known. She talked to me a great deal about her boy, and I went to
see him. I liked him, and told her so. She asked me if I would think
of him sometimes, and perhaps pay him an occasional visit, when she
should be dead; she suffered from a painful complaint, and bore her
sufferings like a heroine. I said the best and shortest way would
be for her to make a will, appointing me her son’s guardian, when I
should have full authority over him. This she did, about four years
ago, and very shortly afterwards she died. On my signing a document
to the purport that henceforth I undertook the duties of a parent to
him, the authorities of the school permitted me to remove Hugo, to
his and my great satisfaction. Since then he has been my companion in
all my ramblings, and though I don’t wish to sound my own praises, I
must say he looks a different fellow altogether from the white-faced,
pinched-looking lad whom I took away with me overwhelmed with grief at
his mother’s death.’

‘In-deed!’ observed Mrs. Mallory, in cold tones of intense, though
repressed, exasperation. ‘It sounds like a page from a romance. If my
opinion were asked, I should say I could hardly tell whether he or you
stood most in need of a guardian--of some one to control you. You have
encumbered yourself with his entire maintenance. He is a pensioner on
your bounty?’

Sebastian shook his head. Leaning his elbow upon the top of the piano,
he remarked,

‘There is no question of “incumbrance.” I love the lad. I delight
to see him growing happier every day, and to know that his powers
are expanding in the direction best suited to them. It is not every
one who can secure the pleasure of enabling an artist nature to grow
and develop in a congenial soil. As to his being “a pensioner on my
bounty,” excuse me, mother, I mean no disrespect when I say that I
dislike that expression intensely. If you had not used those words, I
should not have mentioned that Hugo knows nothing at all of this. All
he knows is that I am his guardian. I let him live under the impression
that I guard not only himself, but his property. And that impression
must not be disturbed. I will not have his happiness embittered just
when he should be able to throw aside all care for everything except
his studies. He is intensely sensitive. I never approach the subject
with him--you understand?’

‘I suppose I do. But I consider it the most amazing piece of folly I
ever heard of. How do you know what he may turn out?’

‘How, indeed? At least he will have had every inducement to turn out
well; and, unless I am much mistaken, he will do so. It is not only
his name and lineage that is noble.’

‘I thought you were a _Radical_’ observed Mrs. Mallory.

‘My dear mother!’

‘That Frau von Birkenau must have been a clever woman--too clever for
you, at any rate.’

‘Please don’t say anything against her. I would as soon say anything
against you as against her,’ said Sebastian, calmly; and his mother,
meeting his eyes, found herself blushing for her own meanness. Such
signs of sensibility are often reckoned hopeful.

‘Is he to be always here?’ she asked quickly, to cover her confusion.

‘I don’t know. He will please himself. At present England is new to
him. He may enjoy it, or study it, until he gets tired of it; and then,
I expect, he will go to some German musical _Conservatoire_ to study,
just as he pleases. I shall give him his choice.’

‘Humph!’ said Mrs. Mallory, with indescribable significance of tone.

‘But I repeat, he is never to be told of his position. I shall explain
it all to him myself, when circumstances make it desirable. And I think
you will get to like him, mother. He is the best-hearted fellow, and
absolutely adores those who are kind to him. He is a perfect child in
some ways.’

‘I don’t like young men who are like children.’

‘Well, I like Hugo. It would pain me exceedingly to have any
misunderstanding with him,’ said he, with an emphasis unusual to him,
as he turned again to the piano, and solaced himself with a waltz of
Schubert.

Mrs. Mallory sat puzzling angrily over the character which daily
baffled her more completely; its traits becoming more involved,
enigmatical--nay, to her, insane. She considered this freak of his to
display an eccentricity not short of insanity, but strangely enough she
did not dare to tell him so. Did he care for any one? Was he so devoted
to this lad, whom she disliked for his fantastic, unconventional habits
and speech, and whom she would regard with contemptuous pity, as he
sat, the morning long, at the piano, absorbed, with strange tossings
of the head, and quaint, absent-minded wavings of the hands, and
contortions of the body? Or was he only obstinate to have his own way,
and provoke her, his mother?

At this moment the door was opened, and Hugo entered, followed by the
butler, with tea.

Mrs. Mallory was too much annoyed to linger over that refreshment. She
drank it quickly, and went to her writing-table, where she turned over
the papers, listening vexedly the while to the talk between Sebastian
and Hugo--talk in which she had no sort of share--about music, and
foreign friends, and foreign countries; and she heard Hugo express his
rejoicing that at last he could have an hour of Sebastian’s company,
and she heard Sebastian answer, that he was glad too, for that he
missed his companion. And she knew that the tone was one of genuine
affection; that Mr. Mallory of the Oakenrod was perverse enough to pin
his affections rather upon an eccentric, penniless German lad, than to
make acquaintances which would be to his advantage; that her chance
remark about the cleverness of the late Frau von Birkenau had been, in
vulgar parlance, ‘a bad shot’--a very bad one indeed, and that she had
not increased her own influence by making it.

The laughs and chaff of Hugo and Sebastian became intolerable, as
forming a running accompaniment to reflections of this nature. She made
another shot, this time unconsciously; and this time she hit her mark,
also unconsciously. Picking up a note which lay upon her table, she
suddenly interrupted the conversation.

‘Sebastian, here is a note--it must go to you now, I suppose. I have
nothing more to do with these affairs.’

He looked up; rose and came to fetch it; smiled as he took it; but she
would not see either smile or look.

‘It is from Mr. Blisset,’ she remarked, apparently busily arranging her
papers. ‘Something about repairs. I cannot imagine what he wants doing,
I am sure.’

Sebastian and Hugo exchanged glances.

‘Mr. Blisset--who may he be!’ inquired Sebastian.

‘Your tenant. He lives at Stonegate, that place up at other end of the
town, which your great-grandfather built, and which has always been a
great deal more trouble than profit.’

‘How long has this Mr. Blisset been its tenant?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know. Eight or nine years, I think.’

‘Do you know anything about him--who he is, or where he comes from?’

‘No. He is an invalid--paralysed--a most crotchety, tiresome person.’

‘Ah! Let me see what he says.’

He opened the note, and his face changed as he saw the handwriting.
It had been addressed to Mrs. Mallory, as had probably all other
communications on the subject. The hand was small, compact, and
characteristic--the matter was business-like.

  ‘Mr. Blisset presents his compliments to Mrs. Mallory, and begs to
  inform her that the outside of his house stands in need of some
  repairs before the winter sets in. If Mrs. Mallory will have the
  kindness to send her agent, or the work-people she usually employs,
  to inspect the house, Mr. Blisset will feel extremely obliged to her.’

Sebastian, without comment, handed the note to Hugo, who read it with a
smile, and an excited expression, which caused Mrs. Mallory to set him
down in her own mind as a lunatic.

‘I will have it seen to!’ was all Sebastian said, carefully putting the
document into a small letter-case.

‘I should send Mitchell to make an estimate: he will do it as cheaply
as any one,’ observed Mrs. Mallory.

‘Yes, it shall be attended to,’ repeated her son. ‘Now, Hugo, sit
down to that piano, and play something--something right lively and
soul-stirring, you will understand.’

‘I think I do,’ said Hugo, smiling in an uncanny manner, as he placed
himself at the piano, and straightway burst into a triumphal march.

       *       *       *       *       *

Later, when Hugo and Sebastian were alone, the former said,

‘Now you can go and call, Sebastian.’

‘Heaven forbid! I have not the least right to do so.’

‘But you would like to. Make a way. Make that note about the repairs an
excuse. Call upon Mr. Blisset, and find out what sort of an old party
he is.’

Sebastian said nothing, and the subject dropped.

The next day, as they sat in Sebastian’s study, and he cut the leaves
of a Review, he remarked,

‘I had a conversation with Myles Heywood to-day.’

‘The revolutionary weaver?’

‘He is no weaver, ignoramus. He is a sort of head man, but they call
him a cut-looker.’

‘A how much?’

‘A cut-looker. Your education, like mine, has been neglected. But I
know now what a cut-looker is. Myles Heywood is one. He earns forty
shillings a week. It exercises the brains and the observation, and they
have time for reading and thinking, too. Myles Heywood reads. He has
read Buckle’s _History of Civilisation_.’

‘Indeed!’ said Hugo, sitting with his head on one side, looking like an
intelligent dog. ‘That does not raise my opinion of him. It is a book I
hate.’

‘He has read most of the works of John Stuart Mill.’

‘I’m glad I don’t know him so well as you do.’

‘Impertinent!’

‘Can he play Beethoven’s Sonatas, and paint in oils; and does he sing
tenor, baritone, or bass?’

‘Tsh! I tell you I take the greatest interest in the fellow. He knows a
lot of German, too. Where he learnt it I can’t tell. When I asked him
who taught him he flushed up, looked me straight in the face, and said,
“A friend.” So I had to beg his pardon.’

Sebastian had thrown himself into an easy-chair, and was lighting a
cigar.

‘Beg his pardon--why?’

‘My dear child, you wouldn’t say to your equal, “_You_ learn
German--who teaches you?” and why should you say it to a cut-looker?’

‘Well?’ said Hugo, seeing the expression upon Sebastian’s face, and
knowing it to be no careless one.

‘I did beg his pardon, and he said, “Don’t mention it.” Then I asked
him what he meant to do with himself while we were working half-time.
He said he had no doubt he could manage to dispose of his own time, and
I incautiously persisted, “But how?” He said he really had not thought
much about it--might he ask why I wanted to know? So I had to beg his
pardon again.’

Sebastian was puffing away, with raised eyebrows. Hugo burst out
laughing.

‘I never heard of anything so preposterous. Why did you go on talking
to him, if you got so vexed?’

‘But I didn’t. I got interested. Why should the fellow dislike me so
intensely? What can be his object?’

‘Sebastian! I thought you did not care a straw what any one thought of
you. You have said so often enough.’

‘Well, and it was generally true--_generally_, mind you. I am
interested against my will--personally interested. One thing I’ve found
out--he hates me.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Hold your froward tongue! You know how to play Beethoven’s Sonatas,
and I know what I am talking about. He hates me, and I have made up my
mind that he shall, so to speak, eat his words--that is, change his
opinion. It will gave me endless trouble, I know,’ added Sebastian,
knocking the ash from his cigar; ‘endless trouble, but I will do it. I
must know whether that man is master, or I.’

‘Oh, if it comes to that,’ said Hugo, shrugging his shoulders, and
laughing a little; ‘if he has excited your obstinate combative
instincts, you will never let the poor beggar alone till he at any rate
_says_ that he gives in. Bless you, I know you!’

‘He will never say he gives in unless he actually does so.’

‘_Ja, ja!_’ said Hugo, nodding significantly, ‘I know. May you find the
game worth the candle, is the sincere wish of one who succumbed long
ago to your masterful disposition!’

‘Thanks!’ laughed Sebastian. ‘And as I can’t begin this laudable
campaign on the instant, I shall carry my investigations into another
direction, that, namely of Stonegate. I am going to call upon Mr.
Blisset.’

‘At Stonegate--also with a view to conquest?’ inquired Hugo, politely,
rising and walking quickly to the door, and closing it after him just
in time for it, instead of his own person, to receive the large bundle
of tape-tied ‘documents’ which Sebastian wrathfully sent flying after
him.




CHAPTER XVII.

DISCORD.


The scene once again the drawing-room of Mr. Blisset’s house; its
occupants, Myles and Adrienne: he just arrived; she smiling to receive
him, and he smiling in answer, as one might smile on suddenly finding a
flower peeping up through the snow.

‘I rather hoped you would come to-night, to do some German,’ said she,
‘but I did not think you would come so early.’

‘We are working half-time. We began to-day,’ said Myles.

‘Half-time already? I thought there was such an enormous supply of
cotton somewhere in the country.’

‘So there is, somewhere; but it will have to be bought with a price
before it can be got at. Lots of other places have begun half-time
to-day. And it’s not only that cotton is dear; there must have come a
reaction after last year’s over-production. It was tremendous. There is
a bad time coming for the workers; but those who can afford to wait,
and who know how to use their chances, will make some big fortunes.’

‘Some others will lose them, I think.’

‘Naturally. The one goes with the other.’

‘But how will you all manage when the hard time comes?’

‘We shall pull through,’ said poor short-sighted Myles, little dreaming
of the depths of misery, and what he, and such as he--proud, honest,
self-dependent men--considered deepest degradation, which lay in the
not far-distant future. ‘We shall pull through. If it is only half-wage
we get, we shall have to do with half-doings; pinch a bit, and clem a
bit, and put on a good face.’

‘But,’ said she gravely, ‘my uncle and Canon Ponsonby were saying the
other night that the time must most likely come when there would be no
work and no wages.’

‘If the war lasts a long time, or the ports are very well blockaded, it
may come to that,’ said Myles, calmly. ‘But we, and a good many others
besides us, have money laid by. We must live on that till better times
come.’

In six months from that time, thousands of working homes were stripped
of every stick of furniture that could possibly be done without. Many a
savings bank had collapsed. Many a stout-hearted toiler had to bend his
proud, unwilling feet towards the relief committee, or the guardians,
and, with burning face, and bursting heart and down-drooped head, tell
his tale, and ask for ‘charity.’ Not yet had the ‘Lancashire Lad’
sent to the _Times_ that pathetic account of the shame-faced girls
who stopped him to ask him, ‘Con yo help us a bit?’ that appeal which
brought the tears to thousands of eyes of readers in every end of the
earth. None of this had happened yet. The great ‘panic’ had not come
swooping down upon the land; but it was not long before the cry of the
distressed must go up.

Myles Heywood, after this his first half-day’s enforced idleness,
perhaps not ill-pleased to be freed for a few hours, on a fine
afternoon, from his toil, said he had no fears for the future. He felt
himself strong: felt that a little pinching and ‘clemming’ would do him
no material harm, and smiled at the storm-cloud hurrying across the
Atlantic.

They went on talking upon different topics; but while she questioned
or answered, his jealous eyes detected some change in her. She was
not cold to him; there was the same genial grace and cordiality, and
yet there was a change. In a pause which presently ensued, a footstep
passed on the flags outside. She raised her head quickly and looked up,
with parted lips and a startled expression.

‘Do you expect some one?’ asked Myles; and so much were the words a
part of the thought, that he scarcely knew he had spoken them, until
she answered,

‘I--oh no! Why should I? But shall we not read some more of
“Iphigenia”? Here is the book.’

She did not look at him. There was a sudden constrained expression
upon her face as she opened the book, and he as suddenly felt his
heart sink with a reasonless, aimless, lover’s pang. He said nothing,
however, but obediently began to read. But neither his heart nor
her’s was in the work, as usual. She had told him that he was an apt
scholar; his intelligence was ready, and his ear quick, and attuned
to the Lancashire gutturals, and its broad ‘a’s’ and ‘u’s’ found
little difficulty with the corresponding German sounds. Myles, for
his part, had treasured up that hour that she devoted to him once or
twice a week, as if it had been some precious coin or gem. Then she
was all attention to him; then she was thinking of nothing else but
him and his lesson, and the idea was heavenly. But this very evening,
for the first time, he was obliged to let himself understand that her
attention wandered, that she sometimes scarcely heard what he said,
and his anxiety and foreboding increased every moment. He was no
favoured lover; he had striven assiduously to conceal every sign of
his devotion, for fear it should annoy her, or repel her. He had no
right to ask her why her attention strayed, what made her absent and
_distraite_, and that very fact made him the more sensitive to the
change in her manner.

He read on, and translated, mechanically, dreamily, till he came to the
words:

    ‘Und künft’ge Thaten drangen wie die Sterne,
    Rings um uns her, unzählbar aus der Nacht.’

‘“And future deeds,”’ he slowly translated, while the sense of discord
and oppression grew every moment stronger; ‘“and future deeds pressed
about us, out of the night, countless as the stars.”’

She had not heard a word. He looked at her, with eyes that dared
not be reproachful, and said nothing. There was pain, there was
embarrassment, in her expression. Then she suddenly said,

‘I want to speak to you. Let us put away this book. I want to tell you
something that I ought to have told you before.’

At once his face changed; the cloud fled; he turned to her with a smile.

‘Something you ought to have told me----’ he began.

The door was opened. Just outside they heard the voice of Brandon, Mr.
Blisset’s old servant, saying,

‘I will see whether Mr. Blisset is at liberty, sir, if you will step in
here.’

Then he threw the door wide open and announced,

‘Mr. Mallory.’

Sebastian came into the room, and Adrienne rose, feeling like one in
a dream, looking like a person who has received overwhelming news of
some kind. She saw Sebastian: she felt that Myles was there--felt it
in every fibre of her being, and while Sebastian spoke to her, she was
only intensely conscious that Myles was gazing at them both; and she
wondered, with an intensity that amounted to pain, what he was thinking
of her.

She gazed at Sebastian, as he came up to her, looking as if he saw no
one but her, with extended hand, and she heard him as he said,

‘Miss Blisset, I little thought before Saturday, that I should have the
happiness of meeting you again--in Thanshope!’

With that their hands closed, and her voice said (with a vibration),

‘It is certainly long since we met. I am glad to see you again.’

Myles had risen with a swift, almost unconscious impulse, and was now
in the window, leaning against it, and looking into the night, which
was now falling fast. He closed his eyes. He felt his own emotion to be
almost grotesque in its intensity, but it was so--he could not help it.
The devil jealousy had seized his very heart-strings on the instant,
and clutched them relentlessly. There was one thing, and one only,
that he could do--having no right to call her to account, he could
suffer in silence, and speak gently to her--after all, he reminded
himself, she had been exquisitely kind to him, and he had no sort of
claim upon such kindness.

While Myles fought this silent, desperate battle with the feelings
which urged him to rush out of the room, and leave those two together,
Sebastian was saying,

‘I came to see Mr. Blisset on some business, and his servant asked me
to come in here. I fear I disturb you.’

‘Not at all. May I introduce--but Mr. Heywood tells me he knows you
already.’

She turned to Myles, who also turned. His very emotion made him rise to
the occasion. Pride and self-esteem, respect and regard for Adrienne,
modesty as to his own merits, all urged him to put on an outwardly calm
demeanour; and Sebastian, whatever astonishment he might feel, was of
course far too civilised to betray it.

‘We have met already to-day, earlier,’ remarked Mr. Mallory,
courteously bowing towards the young man, who, on his part, bowed his
head gravely and proudly, and wished his employer good evening. If
Adrienne had not flushed up, and looked with such startled, conscious
eyes, and such a half-excited smile, around her, he could have done
even more--he might have been able to force a smile too, but under the
circumstances it was physically impossible.

Adrienne, turning aside, as if to push forward a chair, looked at him,
but in his then state of mind he could not understand the glance;
all he could do was to answer it with another, of bitter, clouded,
miserable feeling; sorrow, pain, and a sort of premonitory despair.

Sebastian did not see Adrienne’s look, but he did see this one of
Myles’s, and it made him feel suddenly grave and doubtful. In an
instant he understood how things were with Myles: as to Adrienne’s
feelings he was utterly in the dark. He remembered one morning, when
she, relieved through his efforts of great anxiety, had clasped his
hand, and, looking up at him with brimming eyes, had said, ‘There is
nothing I would not do for you.’ They had been almost the last words
she had said to him. The day afterwards he had lost her. He knew
nothing of what she thought of him now, but he realised immediately
that the stiff-necked young workman, whose pride and reserve resisted
all his efforts to break through them, was over head and ears in love
with the woman of whom he had been thinking, when he spoke to Helena
Spenceley of ‘the nicest girl I ever knew.’ It might be preposterous:
it might be that young, handsome, and more than ordinarily
high-spirited and ambitious young workman had no business to fall in
love with young ladies in a superior position in life; but all that did
not prevent the fact that such an occurrence had taken place before,
and would take place again. Sebastian knew it, and, reasoning from the
interest he himself took in Myles, did not underrate the importance of
the discovery he had made.

‘Have you seen the evening edition of the Manchester paper?’ he asked
Myles, as he seated himself.

‘To-night? No.’

‘The war news seems rather important. I hope our neutrality won’t be
put in peril. It would be an everlasting disgrace to us if it were to
be interrupted for a moment.’

‘Yes, it would,’ assented Myles, dimly conscious that it was a superior
sophistication which was able to converse thus easily upon foreign
affairs--under the circumstances.

‘I suppose you take a great interest in the war too?’ said Sebastian,
turning to Adrienne.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Mr. Heywood and I have the audacity to dispute
even with my uncle sometimes.’

‘Mr. Blisset is your uncle?’

‘Yes. Oh! I forgot you could not know; I live with him here. Have you
known him before?’

‘Never. But I find he is my tenant I came to see him on a matter of
business and----’

‘Will you step into the other room, sir?’ interrupted Brandon, coming
in.

Sebastian rose.

‘Shall I see you again?’ he asked, stooping a little towards Adrienne,
who looked up to him with the same distinct, though well-repressed,
agitation or excitement of some kind in her face.

‘It will depend upon how long you stay; I do not know,’ said she; and
her voice was not calm and deliberate as usual.

Myles sat still, his face composed, watching those two; realising her
grace and beauty, and his charm of manner, and all those advantages in
the background. No girl--he felt it keenly--need be ashamed of the fact
that she had fallen captive to the wooing of Sebastian Mallory. His
heart grew heavier and colder.

‘Then I will say good evening, in case I do not see you again,’ said
Sebastian.

They shook hands, and Mallory followed the waiting Brandon.

Then they were left alone. Adrienne’s face had changed; the excitement
had gone from it; it was pale; the glow had faded; her voice sounded
tired when she spoke.

‘When Mr. Mallory came,’ she said, forcing a smile, ‘I was just going
to explain to you that I knew him--or rather, had known him a few years
ago. It was curious that he should call at that very moment.’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, in a voice colourless as her own.

‘Once he was very kind,’ she pursued, ‘when my father was in trouble.
He saved me a great deal of anxiety and distress.’

‘Yes,’ again assented Myles. ‘I am sure he is very considerate, and
means to do right.’

‘You think so! Then your opinion has changed?’

‘Yes, very much. He is not at all the kind of man I supposed him to be.’

‘I am glad you have discovered that. I am sure you and he will get on,
now that the misunderstanding is cleared up.’

Myles rose, smiling rather a faint, miserable smile. He felt it
impossible not to give one little thrust in the midst of the agony he
was himself enduring.

‘You know I am hot-tempered, and, I am afraid, prejudiced,’ said he
quietly; ‘but if you had mentioned to me that you knew Mr. Mallory, and
that he was not the kind of man I supposed, I should--perhaps I might
have behaved more rationally.’

Adrienne stood speechless. She made neither apology nor excuse. When he
said good night, she put out her hand silently, and did not meet his
eyes. His own manner was quite to coldness. Thus they parted. Myles, as
he walked home, could not forget the verse from ‘Iphigenia,’ which he
had laboriously translated:

    ‘Und künft’ge Thaten drangen wie die Sterne,
    Rings um uns her, unzahlbar aus der Nacht.’

In that moment he doubted bitterly whether any deeds, whether anything
but woes, lay for him in the future.

Meanwhile Adrienne was left alone to reflect upon the situation, to
think of Sebastian’s smile, and of Myles Heywood’s pale face and
glowing eyes; and, after due reflection, either to congratulate or
commiserate herself, as she thought most appropriate.




CHAPTER XVIII.

‘MAY MY MOTHER CALL UPON YOU?’


Mr. Mallory contrived to make his visit so delightful to Mr. Blisset
that that gentleman pressed him, with an eagerness unwonted to him,
to remain a little longer; and Sebastian, hoping each moment to see
Adrienne appear, continued in his place.

At last she came into the room; but she had brought her work with her,
and after a few sentences of courtesy, amiable but meaningless, she
took a chair a little apart, and sat in almost entire silence, while
the two men discussed, first politics, and then, when each had taken
the length of the other’s foot on that topic, science and philosophy.

Sebastian, whether intentionally or not, showed himself in his best
mood, and putting aside both cynicism and indifference, discussed the
subjects earnestly, and incidentally displayed how much thought and
attention he had really given to them.

Mr. Blisset, greatly delighted at finding so cultivated a listener,
was also in a happier and more hopeful mood than usual. Adrienne’s
eyes were fixed upon that monotonous embroidery. It is to be presumed
that she did not see the repeated glances, half of inquiry, half of
surprise, with which Sebastian’s eyes continually sought her face. He
knew that she could talk on such subjects. Mr. Blisset’s reiterated
appeal to her--‘Eh, Adrienne?’ ‘Don’t you think so, my dear?’--showed
Sebastian that she was not accustomed to sit in silence at the feet of
even so great a philosopher as her uncle; and yet she was silent now,
merely answering when spoken to, as briefly as possible.

At length came a pause, and Sebastian hastened to make use of it.

‘How do you like England, Miss Blisset?’

‘I can hardly say, seeing that I only know Thanshope.’

‘Thanshope, then, as compared with the Continent in general?’

‘I like it,’ said Adrienne, ‘because I have found a home in it, and
because I am useful to some one--am I not, uncle?’

‘Necessary, my dear, necessary.’

‘There, you see! necessary!’ said Adrienne.

‘But you used to rejoice so intensely in the sunshine, and the poetry,
and the beauty of those foreign lands.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Wetzlar, for instance. Do you remember how delighted you were? how you
sat dreaming by Goethe’s Brunnen, and how you seated yourself in Lotte
Buff’s parlour, and looked round, and could scarcely speak?’

‘Ah, yes!’ said Adrienne, her eyes lighting up at the remembrance, and
a smile stealing over her face; ‘but that was very enchanted ground,
you know.’

‘And you struck a few chords on that piano; that “old, tuneless
instrument,” on which Goethe had played to Lotte, and then drew back,
quite ashamed of your own audacity--you must remember?’

‘Did I ever say I did not remember?’ said Adrienne, a tremor in her
voice as she looked up and found Sebastian leaning forward, his chin
in his hand, and his eyes fixed upon her face.

Something in the expression of those eyes seemed to cause Adrienne some
emotion. Her colour rose. Mr. Blisset had opened a newspaper which his
servant had brought in, and was apparently buried behind it. Sebastian,
his eyes still fixed upon the young lady’s troubled face, said softly,

‘Don’t you think Wetzlar was the most sunshiny place you were ever in?’

‘At least the sun began to shine for me there,’ she said quickly, and
looking towards him with a sudden, deeper glance than before.

He smiled.

‘I think, for me too.’ Then, seeing that she looked still more
downcast, he added, ‘But we shall meet again, I hope, and then we can
discuss those old days. I was going to ask, have you many friends here?’

‘Scarcely any. My uncle does not visit. We know Canon Ponsonby, and
Mrs. Ponsonby called upon me, and was very kind. Then I have a few
friends of my own peculiar kind, you know.’

‘I know. Old apple-women at street-corners; working-people; unhappy
youths who want a few lessons in this and that--eh?’

‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, smiling.

‘Then Myles Heywood is not counted amongst your friends?’ said
Sebastian, composedly, glancing aside at Mr. Blisset, to assure himself
that that gentleman was absorbed in his newspaper.

‘Yes, he is,’ said Adrienne, raising her head. ‘He is a friend both of
my uncle’s and mine.’

‘Is it allowable to ask how you made his acquaintance?’

Adrienne suddenly crimsoned, while Sebastian unkindly continued
steadfastly to watch her. He had been piecing different facts and
inferences together in his mind, and was rather anxiously awaiting her
answer.

‘It is not allowable?’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Yes, it is, quite,’ retorted she, somewhat recovering herself. ‘I met
Myles Heywood a few weeks ago, not more. I used to have some work that
I did at the public reading-room, and he used to read there too. He
rendered me a very kind service on one occasion, and has been a friend
and a visitor here ever since.’

Sebastian bowed politely.

‘He interested me,’ said he, with a rather ambiguous smile. ‘I wished
to know more of him; but he declines every advance I make to him.’

Adrienne was silent. Sebastian, with a laudable thirst for information,
went on, in the same calm, matter-of-fact voice,

‘I begin to think that in his case appearances deceive me’ (Adrienne
looked rapidly up and down again). ‘There is something wonderfully
attractive about his face and manner. He appears so very superior to
his class, and yet I begin to fancy there must be some fatal defect of
temper--some moral want.’

‘You are mistaken,’ said she, in a voice which, though low, was so
clear and decided as to startle Sebastian. The information he wished
for appeared to be readily forthcoming--whether it were of a pleasant
nature or not, he could hardly yet say.

‘You think so? You think it is not mere churlishness?’ he said,
purposely using a strong word.

‘He has not a grain of the churl in him.’

‘Indeed! Then he must have well-developed imitative faculties,’ said
Sebastian, with a politely sceptical accent, which he had often
found useful as a conversational weapon. It was successful upon this
occasion. Adrienne answered quickly,

‘You must not think him churlish. It would be a grievous mistake to
make. He has a most generous disposition. You should see him at home
with his sister and his cripple brother--they are friends of mine
too, and his deaf friend, Harry Ashworth. You would not misjudge him
then. Those people know his heart, as it is--and they all adore him.
Churlish--no!’

‘Well, does he behave in such an extraordinary way to Mr. Blisset?
Does he look at him as if he would say, “Thus far, and no farther. Keep
your distance if you please”?’

‘To my uncle--oh no! He is very fond of him, and very respectful to
him,’ said Adrienne, demurely, a curious little smile quivering about
the corners of her mouth.

‘Then why does he select myself as the object of his hatred--for I am
sure he does hate me?’

‘He--because----’

‘Because?’

‘I cannot explain. Only he does not hate you.’

‘I am convinced you could tell me all about it if you would, so, as
you will not, I must find it out in my own way. I am determined I will
learn the reason of his aversion to me--and will overcome it.’

‘Oh, don’t! Pray let him alone. He is best let alone.’

Sebastian smiled.

‘You seem to be well acquainted with what is best for him--though you
have only known him a few weeks. If you have succeeded in making a
friend of him, why should not I?’

‘I would not go too far. Remember, he, as well as you, has a right to
choose his own friends, and if he does not choose you for one of them,
you have no right to----’

‘Importune him? No. You are quite right,’ he said, rising. ‘But there
is society of a different stamp from Myles Heywood, even in Thanshope.
Would you have any objection to my mother calling upon you?’

‘Mrs. Mallory--objection? Not the least. I should be delighted. But
don’t you think, if she had wished for my acquaintance, she would have
called before?’

‘She was ignorant that you lived here. She thought Mr. Blisset’s
household was quite without ladies. I expect she will call upon you
within the next few days.’

‘I shall be happy to see her,’ said Adrienne, politely, but not
enthusiastically; and he could read nothing from her eyes, as
they answered his inquiring gaze. She roused her uncle from his
abstraction, and Sebastian dropped her hand with a smile. After all,
he told himself, it was absurd to think seriously of Myles Heywood
as a rival--quite absurd. A high cultivation like Adrienne’s--and
how different she was from that little dark-eyed Helena, with her
vehemence and her disorganised ideas as to women’s rights and man’s
selfishness--could surely never feel any real affinity with that
untamed, untutored specimen of humanity, Myles Heywood. There might
be plenty of force about him, but force without culture is apt to get
uncomfortable.

Amidst earnest requests from Mr. Blisset that he would speedily renew
his visit, and equally earnest assurances on his part that he would do
so, Sebastian departed.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the Oakenrod drawing-room, Mrs. Mallory by the fire, with a novel
and the feathery screen; Hugo gloating over a copy of the original
edition of Bewick’s ‘Birds,’ the like of which treasure, he considered,
he had never seen before: for the rest silence.

‘You have been out all the evening?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory, languidly,
as she looked up.

‘Yes, I have been at Mr. Blisset’s.’

Hugo looked up.

‘Mother, do you ever call at Mr. Blisset’s house?’

‘No. Soon after he came, I called; but his man-servant told me that he
was a great invalid, and saw no one.’

‘He is certainly a great invalid. But there is a Miss Blisset.’

‘Is he a widower?’ asked Mrs. Mallory, struck by something in her son’s
tone, dimly conscious of some impending unpleasantness in store for
herself.

‘She is his niece. She came to live with him some two years or eighteen
months ago. I was delighted to renew my acquaintance with her.’

‘Then you had met her before?’

‘Yes, at Coblentz, and at Wetzlar, on the Lahn.’

Sebastian was at the present moment leaning on the top of his mother’s
chair, which was a deep, roomy easy-chair of a bygone day. As he spoke
he took the feathery screen out of her hand and fanned her with it a
little. She wished he would not do so. It might not make it more really
difficult to resist him, but it made her look very ungracious; it must
look ungracious in a mother to deny favours to a son who asked them in
so seductive a manner.

Mrs. Mallory thought there were certain points upon which she would
never give in; but even while she thought it, and Sebastian’s
hand waved the screen to and fro, and his voice gently continued
to speak--even then, she had an indefinable sensation of being
managed--that power was slipping from her hands into his. But she could
say nothing until he had in some way committed himself; and he had a
most provoking habit of not committing himself.

‘She is as clever and accomplished in her way as her uncle is in
his,’ Sebastian went on: ‘and she is, in addition, a most charming
young lady. She has no friends here--and she is so different from the
Thanshope people--much more in your style than that vehement little
Miss Spenceley,’ he added, while Hugo looked on from afar and laughed
in his sleeve. ‘I am sure you would like her if you knew her, and I
want you to be so kind as to call upon her.’

‘Call upon her! Call upon a person I know nothing about! Really,
Sebastian, I wonder at you!’

‘My dear mother, she is not in the least what you would describe as a
“person.” Even your critical taste will pronounce her a thorough lady
when you see her.’

‘How is it nobody else has called upon her?’

‘Some one else has. Mrs. Ponsonby has called upon her. But I want you
to call upon her. You really would oblige me exceedingly, mother, if
you would.’

‘And therefore I must, I suppose. That appears to be the rule by which
the young judge the old in the present day,’ said Mrs. Mallory, a
little acidly.

Sebastian had come round to the other side, and was leaning against the
mantelpiece, and as Mrs. Mallory concluded her remark she looked at
her son, and her son looked at her. If he had only been talking about
Helena Spenceley! But it was merely some Miss Blisset. She thought she
would refuse. But at that moment the idea struck her that she might
even serve her own aims by consenting conditionally.

Scarcely two days before, Sebastian had treated, first with levity and
contempt, and then with downright repugnance, the prospect of dining
at the Spenceleys’ house, or cultivating their further acquaintance.
Mrs. Mallory had at that moment in her pocket a note, in Helena’s
handwriting, requesting the pleasure of the company of Mrs. and Mr.
Mallory, and that of Mr. von Birkenau, to dinner ten days hence.

‘If I go out of my way to make new acquaintances, about whom I care
nothing in the world, it is only fair that you should put yourself a
little out of the way too, Sebastian.’

‘Perfectly fair. As how?’

‘We are invited to dine at the Spenceleys on the --th. If you don’t go
there, and behave civilly to my friends, I really don’t see how I can
encourage yours, about whom I know nothing, to come here, or go to see
them myself.’

‘I quite grasp the importance of the situation,’ said Sebastian, with
that placid politeness which exasperated Mrs. Mallory beyond bounds,
because she did not know into what language to translate it. ‘If you
will call upon Miss Blisset within the next day or two--I mean a proper
call, you know, with an intimation that you would like her to return
it, and so on--I will go to any amount of Spenceley spreads, be they
never so gorgeous, and will listen to Miss Spenceley’s diatribes with
the utmost resignation. There will be the contrast to think of.’

This was not very encouraging behaviour; but it was the best to be
extracted from her very ‘trying’ son, and Mrs. Mallory had to accept
it, merely remarking,

‘If your friend, Miss Blisset, has anything like the good qualities of
Helena, I shall be surprised.’

‘No, she has not,’ said Sebastian. ‘Miss Spenceley has one hundred
thousand golden virtues--not to mention others of a less tangible
character--of a kind that Adrienne Blisset knows nothing about.’

Mrs. Mallory made a note of the ‘Adrienne Blisset,’ and began to feel
an intense dislike to that young lady.

But the bargain had been struck. On the third day after the treaty
had been, so to speak, signed, Mrs. Mallory called out her horses
and called out her men, and drove in state to see and overwhelm Miss
Blisset.

She saw her; but the overwhelming remained still a dream of the future.
Adrienne’s utter freedom from embarrassment in the presence of Mrs.
Mallory, of the Oakenrod, might be in bad taste, but it could not very
well be commented upon. She parried all her visitor’s hidden thrusts
upon the subject of Sebastian with a cool adroitness which called forth
her visitor’s reluctant admiration, and behaved altogether with an ease
and an address which was the more reprehensible in that it seemed so
perfectly natural.

‘But it could not have been natural,’ reflected Mrs. Mallory, as she
drove away. ‘The attention, after Sebastian’s calling there and finding
her, was so marked. I think she is the most consummate little actress I
ever met anywhere.’




CHAPTER XIX.

‘I DREAMT I DWELT IN MARBLE HALLS.’


Castle Hill, the Spenceley mansion, was a large, new, imposing
residence of red brick, with massive stone facings. It had been the
dwelling of Mr. Spenceley and his family for some six or seven years,
and it was within these walls that Helena sat in captivity, and groaned
alternately over the selfishness of men and the mean-spiritedness of
women.

On the appointed evening, Mrs. Mallory, her son, and Hugo, were driven
to this mansion, and ushered into the drawing-room. It was an apartment
vast in dimensions, lofty, dazzling, perfectly square, perfectly
gorgeous, and more than perfectly uncomfortable.

Some ten or twelve persons were collected somewhere amidst the mass of
gorgeous carpet, hangings, furniture, and dazzling crystal drops which
seemed to blend and combine in a determined and successful effort to
crush and annihilate the human portion of the scene. Sebastian and Hugo
saw Mrs. Mallory sail up to a massive-looking lady in purple satin,
and white lace, and unlimited jewellery of florid design and great
brilliance. This lady she greeted almost affectionately. Was she not
Helena’s mother? and did not Mrs. Mallory herself regard Helena almost
as a daughter? Having introduced Sebastian and Hugo, Mrs. Mallory
turned to Mr. Spenceley, while the young men bowed themselves before
the mistress of the house.

She said she was very glad to see them. Then she told Sebastian that
she had heard a great deal about him, and then she looked hurriedly
around for ‘Mr. Spenceley.’

That gentleman, who had been exchanging courtesies in a loud and
blatant voice with Mrs. Mallory, now began to welcome Sebastian to his
native place, also in a loud and blatant manner.

‘Well, sir, I’m glad to see you. Come home just in the nick of time,
you have. You’ve a grand opportunity for making your fortune now. Gad!
But it’s providential, this American business! We shall get rid of some
of our surplus stock now. It’ll give us a pull over our work-people
too, at last; and not before we need it. The fellows were getting
beyond everything, eh!’

Sebastian, his calm and serious eyes quietly scanning the strong, if
coarse, under-bred face of the man before him, merely said that he was
quite new to this kind of thing. He had not considered the subject in
that light at all.

‘Well, I should advise you to do so as soon as possible then, or you’ll
lose your chance,’ shouted Mr. Spenceley, whose voice was elevated so
as to drown entirely those of the rest of the company, while his wife
timidly looked on, her florid face set gravely, and her eyes round and
staring with a sort of anxious attentiveness.

Sebastian foresaw that he would have to take her in to dinner, and he
glanced at her now and then, wondering what he should say to her--how
keep up some kind of a conversation. She was a tall, stout, matronly
woman; once she must have been an extremely handsome lass. Her black
hair was still abundant, and had something of the waviness of Helena’s:
her eyes, too, were dark. She was as tall as her daughter, but more
lymphatic in temperament.

Helena probably inherited her beauty from her mother, and her
vehemence from her father. Mrs. Spenceley was accustomed to roll in her
carriage through Bridgehouse and Lower Place, suburbs of Thanshope,
and to look from her elevation upon the extensive matrons who stood
at their cottage doors, exchanged gossip, and scolded their ingenuous
offspring, sporting in the road before them; but her nature was the
same as theirs. Denude her of her silks and satins, attire her in a
cotton or linsey gown, with bare arms and a large apron, her hair
twisted up into a knot behind, and her head capless; a cottage full
of cares and unruly children, a rough ‘measter’ to make and mend and
‘do’ for, and she would have been indistinguishable from those other
matrons. She would have fallen back into the old ways quite genially
and naturally; she would have been what she certainly was not under
existing arrangements--happy.

For Mrs. Spenceley was unhappy in her riches and greatness; she
could remember quite distinctly the days when Spenceley had been
overlooker at one of the great Thanshope factories, and she had done
the work of the house, and brought up the children single-handed,
and been happy--and not genteel. She remembered the sudden leap into
prosperity, the gradually increasing establishment, Helena dismissed
to a fashionable boarding-school, and Fred to a private and select
academy, where he was to learn how to become a gentleman--that short,
easy, and every-day process, where, as a matter of fact, he had drunk
in one lesson, and one only, namely, that a fellow whose father has
money, and who will one day have money himself, need not know, or do,
or be anything--except rich. Mrs. Spenceley remembered how servants,
of whom she stood in awe, had accumulated around her; how she had had
to leave her kitchen to their tender mercies; how she had found that
she must not handle a duster, or have an opinion as to the merits of
the heave-shoulder or the wave-breast any longer; until she had got a
magnificent housekeeper, in black silk and a lace cap, who was fully
conscious of the primordial fact that large and wealthy establishments
only existed in order that she might domineer over one of them. How
Helena was returned upon her hands, a ‘finished’ young lady, ignorant,
as it seemed to Mrs. Spenceley in her own ignorance, of the very
elements of a womanly education--unable to keep house, to cook, to
sew, even to distinguish ribs of beef from sirloin. She had ventured,
mildly, to utter some of her woe to the father, who had said, ‘Pooh!
Let the lass alone. She’ll never need to know such things. She shall
marry a lord! Only don’t let her cross me and she’ll do.’ And Helena
had been suffered to trample upon the domestic arts, and to throw
herself, with all the energy of one who has nothing to do with herself,
into all sorts of questions about which her active brain made her
curious, while her unfinished education left her profoundly ignorant of
their practical bearings. She had no female friends except Mrs. Mallory
and Miss Mereweather, a conspicuous friend and upholder of ‘the cause.’
She loved Mrs. Mallory, because that lady was kind to her, and was by
no means a nonentity; and she adored Miss Mereweather because of her
talents, or what seemed to Helena her talents.

Friends at home the girl had none. Fred had one of those hopelessly
dense natures which may be called the complacently brutal--nothing
in the way of friendship or sympathy was to be had from him. Her
father--Helena, in her intercourse at school with girls of good
family and social surroundings, had learnt to know that her father’s
manners and language were to be abhorred, while, had he been a Sir
Charles Grandison in the matter of deportment, his coarse bullying
and ferocious bantering of her mother would alone have made the
hot-spirited girl almost hate him.

And Fred--his mother stood in profound awe of him; his talk, his slang,
his ways in general; and she was the one soul on earth, except himself,
who was firmly convinced of the fact that Frederick Spenceley was at
once a finished gentleman and a consummate man of the world.

As Sebastian sat watching his hostess, and partly divining some of
these facts, a voice at his elbow roused him.

‘Good evening, Mr. Mallory. You look as if you were dreaming.’

Looking quickly round, he saw Helena standing close beside him, smiling
as frankly as if no misunderstanding had ever existed between them,
as if they had not quarrelled violently within two hours of first
seeing each other. How lovely she was! None but a very lovely woman
could have stood the dull ivory satin dress she wore, fitting tight in
the waist, without a fold or a crease; and, in an age of voluminous,
portentous crinolines, trailing straight and long behind her. She wore
a black lace fichu, and elbow sleeves with black lace ruffles falling
from them. The fichu was fastened with a golden brooch; beyond that was
not a ribbon, not a frill, not a jewel or a flower about her. And her
beauty came triumphant through the ordeal.

They had parted on decidedly evil terms, and he was surprised now to
find that she welcomed him cordially, and smiled as she took the chair
beside him.

‘I am afraid I was very cross the other night,’ said she, with a sunny
smile. ‘But I thought you had treated me badly, and I am going to have
my revenge to-night, and show you that I am in earnest. My greatest
friend, Laura Mereweather, has most fortunately been able to come just
when I invited her. Wasn’t that wonderful?’

‘I am prepared to say that it was; but I don’t yet know why.’

‘You know Miss Mereweather; by name, at least?’

‘To my shame I must confess that I never even heard of her before.’

‘What an extraordinary thing! She has a European reputation.’

‘You astonish me! For what?’

‘As being the most advanced female thinker, and the greatest benefactor
to her sex, of her time.’

Sebastian’s face fell, as he looked round the room.

‘These very intellectual women have often nothing remarkable in their
personal appearance,’ said he. ‘Would you believe that, of the several
young ladies I see seated about the room, I could not say which I
should suppose to be Miss Mereweather.

‘_That_,’ said Helena impressively, ‘that slight girl, all intellect,
and mind, and spirit, talking to my brother--that is Laura!’

‘Is it really?’ he said, his eyes falling upon the ethereal-looking
being described by Helena.

He saw a thin, nervous-looking girl--a girl with not a bad face, if
it could not be called absolutely handsome. She too was dressed,
like Helena, in a tightly fitting robe with undistended skirts, but
her dress was black. She wore an eyeglass, looked restlessly around,
and had a deep contralto voice. There was nothing alarming in her
appearance; she looked, thought Sebastian, as if she would have made an
excellent head-mistress of a large school, the matron of an hospital,
or some authority of that description.

‘She is a woman of powerful individuality, I should say,’ he remarked.

‘Is she not? After dinner she shall talk to you.’

‘Oh, you are very kind! I wouldn’t trouble her for the world.’

‘It is no trouble. Nothing done for the cause would be a trouble to
Laura; and then you must be enlightened. You must learn that ours is
not a cause to be treated with levity. You must be punished for what
you did and said the other night,’ said Helena.

‘I submit; but--I am sure you could talk just as well,’ said Sebastian,
resignedly.

‘Ah, if I could!’ said Helena, gazing with admiring devotion towards
her friend.

‘Is there not an immensity of power and force about her?’ she said
enthusiastically. ‘Laura has several times been mistaken for a man--by
persons who have heard her voice, and her remarks, without seeing her.’

‘Has she? How excessively annoying for her!’ said Sebastian, with
feeling.

‘Annoying! It pleases her, as a testimony to her power, and as a proof
that there is no real disparity in the respective capacities of men and
women. Of course, when it is known that books or pictures have been
written or painted by women, all hope of fair and impartial criticism
is over.’

‘Is it?--Well, I was looking at the question from another point of
view. I thought that if Miss Mereweather disapproves so strongly of men
in general, it would annoy her to be mistaken for one of that odious
and inferior sex; and, moreover, would only be a sign of how very
different she must be from most women.’

‘She is very superior to most women; if that is what you mean, I
concede the point willingly.’

‘Well, if such a superior woman is often mistaken for a man, is not
that a piece of negative evidence of the inferiority of women in
general?’ he asked politely.

Helena’s face had flushed again.

‘As I said, Laura shall talk to you. She will argue much better than I
can. I do not pretend to her abilities. And there is Parsons announcing
dinner,’ added Helena hastily, her colour mounting still higher as she
caught Sebastian’s eyes fixed with a grave yet not unkindly expression
upon her face.

He rose to offer Mrs. Spenceley his arm, and stood with her, watching
the couples as they filed out of the room. Yes, Helena was lovely, and
not all her wild talk, not even her enthusiastic admiration for Miss
Mereweather, could make her otherwise.

He looked absently on, as first his mother and Mr. Spenceley went by;
next a gorgeous dowager, whose tribal name and standing were unknown to
him, but whom he distinctly heard saying something about ‘the ’oist at
the Lang’um ’otel,’ as she swept past on the arm of a flaccid-faced,
red-haired, meek-looking man, pertaining to the goodly company of
cotton-spinners. The wife of the said cotton-spinner followed next,
with a gentle-looking incumbent--he who ministered to the spiritual
needs of Mr. Spenceley and his family. More couples followed. Fred
Spenceley with Miss Mereweather--more gorgeous dowagers and resplendent
spinsters, and more of the native young men, leading the same to the
banquet, and, at last, Helena, in her creamy robes, with Hugo.

‘The lucky young dog!’ thought Sebastian, resignedly, as Hugo’s
eyes met his, and the lad smiled rather triumphantly, in the full
consciousness that he was leading out the prettiest woman in the room.

Was she talking women’s rights now? Sebastian wondered, as he silently
brought up the rear with the equally silent Mrs. Spenceley. No! She was
laughing with Hugo, like any other pleasant, well-conditioned girl, and
asking him to tell her exactly how he spelt his name, and if it had any
particular meaning.

‘For I know nothing about German, you know, except a translation of the
“Sorrows of Werther,” which I thought very funny.’

‘And I do not know much about English,’ said Hugo, much delighted
with his own good fortune, ‘but I can understand yours, _sehr gut_, I
mean, very well. You speak so clearly--it is different from the London
people.’

‘Not bad for a first attempt, old boy!’ thought Sebastian, smiling
as they entered the celebrated dining-room of Castle Hill, with its
pictures and bronzes, and statuary, all of the very best, and ‘bought
by people who understood such things,’ as Mr. Spenceley was wont
modestly to say, when any one praised any of his artistic treasures.

Mrs. Spenceley did not look like a person who would have exactly a
discriminating taste in the matter of genre-paintings, or landscape,
but Sebastian broke the silence between them by remarking on a little
picture hanging opposite to him.

‘Yes; it’s by a person called Ansdell, I believe,’ said Mrs. Spenceley.
‘They say it’s very good; but for my part I’m no judge of such things.’

Sebastian bowed, and then, thinking that perhaps local topics might
prove more successful than artistic ones, said he feared that distress
was already beginning amongst the work-people.

Mrs. Spenceley turned with some vivacity to her guest.

‘You’re right, Mr. Mallory. If it goes on as it is doing, it’ll break
some ’earts before all’s over.’

‘Do you visit much amongst them?’

‘Not so much as I could wish. There’s some of the poor creatures will
soon be fair clemming--starving, I mean.’ Mrs. Spenceley sank her
voice, and every now and then her eye turned with a little nervous,
wavering glance towards her lord at the other end of the table. ‘You
see I shouldn’t like to go amongst them so much without I could keep
them a bit. I _should_ like to have a soup-kitchen!’ she added with
feeling; ‘but Spenceley doesn’t quite approve of it. He says that many
of them have money laid by, and he’s of opinion that we must let them
help themselves a bit before we begin to help them.’

‘From a politico-economical point of view Mr. Spenceley is perhaps
right,’ said Sebastian, glancing down the table at the red-faced,
coarse-featured man, with a heavy jaw not devoid of cruelty; and noting
that same jaw reproduced even more obtrusively and unpleasantly in the
son; scarcely at all in the daughter, or at least only in a manner
which gave an expression of decision to the charming mouth.

‘I know nothing about politics,’ said Mrs. Spenceley; ‘and you may mark
my words--those that’s starving will want bread--not politics.’

‘Certainly they will. Unfortunately you often cannot give them the one
without a good deal of the other.’

‘I dare say. But if the war doesn’t stop soon we shall have to do
something, if it was only to try and teach the poor women to make the
most of their bits of stuff. Most of them are no housekeepers to speak
of. They can spin and weave, but they can’t make home comfortable,
and after all, that’s the chief thing. But,’ she added, suddenly
remembering different reports she had heard of Sebastian, and Helena’s
contemptuous announcement that he was a fop, who thought the world was
made for his amusement, and that there was nothing in life worth the
trouble of being earnest about, ‘you won’t be much interested in these
kind of things, Mr. Mallory.’

‘On the contrary, I am much interested in it. Your idea makes me wonder
if something could not be done. If some schools, or something of that
kind, could be established,[2] if some of the ladies of the town would
take it up--my mother and you, for example, Mrs. Spenceley--and make
it unnecessary for those poor girls to be wandering about, laughing
and making fun of people in the streets as I saw them the other day.
And your daughter--I should think Miss Spenceley would find the work
congenial.’

‘Helena!’ echoed the mother, shaking her head. ‘It’s of no use talking
about her, Mr. Mallory. She has always some fresh craze in her head,
and never a useful one. That horrid Miss Mereweather has been the ruin
of her.’

Sebastian repressed a smile.

‘If she only would turn to something useful!’ lamented Mrs. Spenceley,
‘but with these ridiculous ideas about women being better than men, and
all that--and she can’t even make a shirt for her father or a pudding
for her brother. Oh, but I beg your pardon--only I do often tell her
that she would never make a good wife with these ideas--not if she had
millions of pounds and was the prettiest girl in England.’

Though Mrs. Spenceley threw back her head and spoke in a tone of
annoyance, yet Sebastian clearly distinguished an accent of pride in
her voice. The homely mother then was not altogether displeased with
her wilful, brilliant girl.

‘And what does she say to that?’ he asked, looking at Hugo and Helena,
who seemed to be greatly enjoying some remarkably good joke; and he
thought: ‘The prettiest girl in England! At least she might hold her
own amongst a dozen of the prettiest.’

‘Oh, she says she never will be married, and that nonsense. I tell
her to wait until Mr. Right comes, and then we shall hear a different
song. I wish he would, I’m sure,’ she added fervently, ‘before she gets
spoiled. She has a right good heart, has Helena, if only a giddy head.’

Sebastian did not answer. He was still looking towards Hugo and Helena,
and felt intensely conscious of the ripple of laughter which scarcely
ceased between them. It was impossible that women’s rights, or any
such bristly, hateful topic could be causing that delighted look on
Hugo’s dark, artist face; could call that gracious curve to Helena’s
red lips. Hugo threw himself with passion into the joy of the moment,
as Sebastian knew; Helena seemed to have something of his eager,
inflammable temperament. At least they appeared to be very happy
together.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dinner over; a group of four congregated in a corner. Helena on a sofa,
with Hugo beside her; Sebastian and Miss Mereweather facing one another
in chairs, and the cross-examination about to begin. Helena had wished
to leave Sebastian and Miss Mereweather to fight it out alone, but he
had meekly suggested that it was not fair to make him confront the most
remarkable woman of her age entirely without support; and Hugo adding
his petition, Helena had consented to be present at the discussion.

Helena seated herself, opened her fan, and said,

‘Now, Laura dear, Mr. Mallory would like to know your views on the
Woman Question.’

She avoided meeting the look of sorrowful amazement and reproach with
which Sebastian heard this decidedly exaggerated announcement, and
Laura replied,

‘I should first wish to know Mr. Mallory’s own views upon that
subject--_the_ subject, I may say, of the present age.’

‘They are soon stated,’ said Sebastian. ‘I have none.’

‘Then there is some hope for you,’ said Miss Mereweather, with rather a
pitying smile.

‘I am glad of that. At the same time, I should like to know in which
direction the hope shows itself.’

‘Your frank acknowledgment of your utter ignorance of the question is
a great point in your favour. As you have no views at all upon it,
you are the more likely to be able to receive just ones when they are
offered to you.’

‘I have some preconceived ideas upon the matter of logic and
reasonableness, common sense, and all that kind of thing. Will that be
against me in this case, do you think?’

‘I dislike flippancy,’ said Laura.

‘I did not mean to be flippant. I merely wished for information.’

‘We will take the suffrage first,’ said Miss Mereweather, raising
her voice somewhat, as if to scatter such irrelevant remarks to the
winds. ‘Are you in favour of extending the franchise to women--I mean
women-householders and ratepayers?’

‘On what grounds?’

‘On the only grounds on which they can claim it; on the grounds that
they are mentally, morally, and, in the practical affairs of the world,
the equal of man; and that, as they bear equal burdens for the State,
so they should have equal privileges.’

‘I could never grant them the suffrage on those grounds.’

‘_What!_’ exclaimed both ladies, while Helena started forward, and
dropped her fan, her eyes flashing, and her face flushing.

‘Because it would take too long to prove your case. What is more, if
you fight the question on that ground, I doubt whether you will ever
win it. You cannot be said to have proved a case to your opponent
until you have got him to agree with you, and you will never, in your
lifetime at least, get more than a number to agree with you on that
point; it may be an influential number, and a select one, but it will
not be at all a majority.’

‘Your argument is not logical, it is a quibble,’ said Miss Mereweather
disdainfully. ‘Your real opinion is that women ought not to have the
franchise.’

‘I never said so. If they think it a privilege, and if they would be
pleased to have it, why not?’

Miss Mereweather, unaccustomed to this style, neither agreement nor
opposition, was silent a moment. Then a shade of pique crossed her brow.

‘You do not think women worth discussing anything seriously with?’ said
she.

‘Excuse my saying that you are quite mistaken.’

‘Then why don’t you discuss this question seriously?’ was the decidedly
feeble reply of the most remarkable woman of her time.

‘But I do. I say, why not give them the franchise if they would like to
have it? I suppose that by degrees they would get educated up to it.’

‘Mr. Mallory! you are absolutely insulting,’ cried Helena, angrily, and
Sebastian merely answered with a grave look, and the remark,

‘I am sorry if I have offended you.’

Helena’s lips, opened to utter further reproach, suddenly closed; with
a look of embarrassment she became silent, and Miss Mereweather, in a
business-like tone, said,

‘Mr. Mallory is not so dark as he seems to you, my dear, I have good
hopes for him. We will turn to another branch of the subject. What is
your opinion, Mr. Mallory, of the relative status before the law of
husband and wife? What do you think of the laws about married women’s
property?’

‘I think they are bad,’ said Sebastian, stifling a yawn, and glancing
at Hugo, who was fanning himself with Helena’s fan, while she leaned
eagerly forward.

‘Ah!’ said Laura, ‘an opinion at last! You agree with us that there, in
that most important of all relations, the woman is a slave.’

‘I don’t think I said so. I suppose the woman might be a slave if every
husband were as bad as the law would allow him to be. Men are not all
tyrants, nor women all slaves! so I suppose that is why the law has not
been changed.’

‘That is sophistry,’ said Laura.

‘Will you deny that it is fact?’ he inquired politely.

‘Then you would allow the law to be altered?’

‘Certainly.’

‘It is an important subject for you, my dear child,’ said Miss
Mereweather to Helena. ‘I only hope your resolution will remain firm,
and that you will resist temptation and specious promises. In your case
you will have plenty of both.’

‘Of course I shall resist,’ said Helena, a little crossly. ‘I am not
quite imbecile, Laura, and know how to take care of myself. My mind is
quite made up on that subject.’

‘In what direction?’ inquired Sebastian.

‘I have told you already. I know I shall have property,’ said Helena,
trying to speak with lofty indifference, but all the same, not unaware
that the young man’s eyes were fixed upon her face, and with her own
wavering as she went on with the speech which she had uttered many a
time before, and which now struck her for the first time as falling
somewhat flat, and not being quite equal to the occasion. Other young
men had looked at her, and said they were sure she didn’t mean it,
and it was too cruel of her, and other ‘vacant chaff’ of the same
description. Sebastian only looked at her gravely, calmly, as it seemed
to her, almost pityingly, and in perfect silence.

The glance stung and galled her. She would not be deterred by that
look. What was Sebastian Mallory but a man--a thoughtless young man,
who had dared to laugh at her views?

‘And property entails responsibilities,’ she continued.

‘It certainly does.’

‘I shall therefore never marry,’ said Helena, courageously, though her
face burned, and she wished intensely that she had never insisted upon
the discussion. ‘I shall look after my own affairs, and arrange them
according to my own judgment. I will be free, and nobody’s servant.’

‘A very wise resolution; provided, first, that you keep it; and second,
that you feel equal to disposing judiciously of a large property.’

‘I have no doubt about _that_,’ said she, with a lofty smile, still not
raising her eyes, and very angry with herself for not being able to do
so.

Sebastian smiled, and the smile made Helena feel hot and uncomfortable.

‘I hope,’ said he, with extreme politeness, ‘that you will feel the
satisfaction which should be the reward of such high motives.’

Helena flushed again. She had argued the point more than once with
different people, and without this feeling of embarrassment. Why was
she embarrassed now? What would that ‘nicest girl’ he ever knew think,
if she were here? Had she money? He had said she had been brought up
in the school of adversity. That reminded Helena of another point in
the argument, which she ought to have advanced long ago. She was dimly
conscious of a kind of bathos as she said, ‘I don’t believe in useless
fine ladies, you know, all the same. I think women ought to be able to
earn their own living, if necessary. They ought to be able to be quite
independent of men, if they choose.’

‘Do you think they ever would choose?’ he asked with a suppressed smile.

‘I know this, that I would rather earn fourpence a day as a
needle-woman, than depend upon any man!’ said Helena, hotly and
indignantly. ‘And I could always do that.’

‘In that case I congratulate you,’ he retorted ironically. ‘You are
superior to all calamities and misfortunes. I wish I could feel myself
equally secure.’

‘You have not argued a single point,’ said Helena with passion. ‘I
shall never be at the trouble to talk seriously to you again.’

‘If you will only talk to me at all, I shall be delighted.’

She had risen, and whirled herself away to the other end of the room,
where she busied herself in setting two young ladies to screech duets,
while she conversed (seriously or otherwise) with the clergyman.

Sebastian turned with a half-smile to Miss Mereweather. He found an
unaccountable pleasure in goading Helena into a passion. He had a dim,
vague idea that if he tried, he could not only irritate her into fury,
but soothe her back into calmness; but he was quite sure he never would
try. Rages, he thought, were not in his line. He liked better, as a
permanency, the perfect temper and calm self-possession of another
character. No one would want to tease Adrienne.

His mind half given to such thoughts, he conversed with Miss
Mereweather, and his opinion of Helena’s discrimination was gradually
raised. Miss Mereweather was not at all bitter about her defeat--if
defeat it were. She was clever, sensible, accomplished. She owned
that she did think a great deal about the advancement of women and
their improvement, and she was an ardent advocate for giving them the
franchise; but, she added, she could not go to the lengths Helena
did, and very soon they left that subject and turned to others. Their
conversation was perfectly amicable and agreeable, and Helena watched
them from afar, with a darkling, somewhat resentful glance. Dear
Laura’s one fault, she thought, was that she was too facile--that she
compromised too easily.

As the Mallorys drove home, Mrs. Mallory, completely deceived by
the long conversation which had taken place, was in a disastrously,
unsuspiciously amiable frame of mind, and was correspondingly
dejected when Sebastian, summing up his description of the evening’s
entertainment, said that Miss Spenceley had adopted the strictly
feminine line of argument, ‘Agree with all I say, or I will quarrel
with you!’

‘As I did not agree with all she said, she quarrelled with me. _Violà
tout!_ Did she talk women’s rights to you, Hugo?’

‘To me--no!’

‘Why _I_ should be selected as the victim, I can’t imagine,’ pursued
Sebastian. ‘It is a pity she does it, for she could be nice, I am sure;
and as it is, she makes herself simply a bore.’

Mrs. Mallory was silent, mentally heaping opprobrium upon Helena’s
crazes.


FOOTNOTES:

[2] An apology is herewith offered to the Manchester Central
Committee, for thus putting into the mouth of a fictitious individual
their excellent proposals for the schools which were of so much benefit
in most of the distressed districts.




BOOK II.

THE STORM.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST OF THE STORM


The year 1861 had closed in thick clouds and a great darkness, with
the mutter of war in the far west, and with the threatening of famine
at home. The year 1862 dawned, but with a dawn so dark as scarce to be
distinguishable from profoundest midnight.

    ‘Earth turned in her sleep for pain.’

January, February, dragged slowly by, and times only grew worse. Few
chimneys smoked, no workers tramped through the streets; faces were
pinched, fires burnt low and meagre in the bitter weather; money was
not forthcoming, clothes were few, pleasures were at an end. Men paused
and waited, as it were, while the thunder growled and the first heavy
drops of the storm began to fall, slowly and deliberately, and then
faster and ever faster, till none could escape the universal drenching.

One bitter morning, in the beginning of March, Myles and Mary Heywood
turned out to their daily work. A furious, stinging wind, and a
driving, scourging rain, saluted them as they entered the long sloping
street leading to the factory. Myles pulled his collar up about his
ears, and Mary folded her shawl more tightly round her, pulling it also
farther over her face. They walked in silence, and did not look at
each other. In truth, both their hearts were sad as sad could be. They
were entirely changed from the well-to-do, untroubled, noble-looking
brother and sister who, six or seven months ago, had walked home
together in the heat of the August afternoon. What a hot, plentiful
blaze of sunlight then! what cold, what wet, what inclemency of
elements now! The contrast was pointed and searching, and went home to
both.

For months now, Myles’s heart had been growing bitterer and harder, and
more rebellious; ever since that evening on which Sebastian Mallory
had come and interrupted his talk with Adrienne. He had not seen her
often since then, or rather had not visited her often since then; but
on the few occasions when he had done so, she was changed. He had seen
the change distinctly, had seen how her eye wavered and her colour
changed under his piercing glance, for he could look at her steadily
enough now, without bashfulness, and with a gaze of desperate, hopeless
inquiry, which, he thought, must burn her secret from her heart. With
each visit, each conversation with her, he had grown more hopeless,
more despairingly certain that what little part or lot he had ever
had in her life, had now vanished--was done with for ever more. Once,
strolling aimlessly along, he had seen her come out of a shop, and
had been going to speak to her, when Sebastian Mallory had come up,
smiling, and lifting his hat, and fixing his eyes upon her face.

The sight had been quite enough for Myles, who had plunged his hands
into his pockets, and turned away with bitterness in his heart. Once or
twice--he did not know how often--he had purposely and pointedly spoken
to her of Sebastian, and had even asked her a question or two about her
former acquaintance with him, and had watched cruelly and unflinchingly
to see how she took it. And she had taken it just as he had expected,
with downcast eyes, a heightened colour, and a sudden confused silence.
He had been satisfied with his experiment; now he had given over going
to Mr. Blisset’s house, saying to himself,

‘If she cares for us, and is worth anything, she will come--she will
come, if it is only to see Mary. By this I shall know her. If she comes
I’ll keep quiet, and try to be satisfied with her--friendship. And if
she does not come--I’ll hate her; no, I’ll think no more of her--I’ll
forget her, and rid myself of this plague that has been with me ever
since I knew her.’

Adrienne did not come; days and weeks went by, and she came not,
and Myles did not hate her; he did not cease to think of her. His
‘plague’ tormented him more grievously than ever, and his life was
miserable. His days were long; there was only half the usual work to
fill them. The weary afternoons and evenings were unutterably long.
He sat at home with his books open before him, or he took his way to
the reading-room, and sat with more books open before him, and stared
at them, and knew nothing about what was in them, while the chimes
played ‘Life let us cherish!’ and Myles thought of the hundreds, now
daily augmenting, dwelling in the houses beneath those chimes, to whom,
in their destitution, the tune must have seemed a sort of melodious
mockery. ‘Life let us cherish!’ while the men across the Atlantic
were locked in the deadly grip of war, and the cotton manufacture in
England was coming steadily, surely to a stand-still. A few more throbs
of its mighty pulse--a few more desperate struggles to break through
the paralysis that was creeping over it, and then the iron lungs, the
great throbbing heart of it, its huge limbs, its vast arteries, would
be quiescent--for who should venture to say how long? It was a deadly
prospect.

With these various causes of distress gnawing perseveringly at his
heart, the young man might well be silent, as he set his teeth against
the wind, and stooped his head to shield his face from the rain.

While Mary, on her side, had cause enough and to spare of unhappiness.
The poor girl’s heart was full to bursting of a dread fear that she had
had for many weeks now, and concerning which she had not breathed a
word to any one.

‘That it should ha’ begun just now!’ she thought to herself; ‘just when
times is hard, and work is short, and I can none get him all he should
have.’

She kept up a brave face; worked out her daily task at her looms, and
her much harder, heart-breaking task at home; had caresses, and smiles,
and tender words for Edmund, and a good face to turn to poor Myles, in
his gloom, which oppressed her faithful heart like a chill hand laid
upon it. She had her meed of consolation for Harry Ashworth, who said
he was growing deafer and deafer. She had her own private astonishment
at Adrienne’s long absence, but no thought that Adrienne meant any
slight or ill-will to her or hers.

Still, her secret cares had thinned her cheeks, and taught her lips
to assume a sadder curve; had placed a line or two upon her frank,
calm brow, and lent a quiet pensiveness to her dark-brown eyes. It
had always been a good face--now it had the dignity and pathos of
well-borne sorrow.

They entered the great gas-lighted room. Myles went off to his part of
the mill and Mary to hers. How hot and overpowering it felt, after the
bitter rawness of the outside air! She cast aside her shawl, and set
her looms going, and in a few minutes the old accustomed roar of the
machinery had somewhat soothed her; and her monotonous, weary pondering
over ways and means, and sharp, stinging fears as to some dread event
hovering in the near future, had been somewhat dissipated by attention
to her work and the chat of a fellow factory-worker.

‘I reckon we’st soon have to shut up shop here, Mary,’ said the latter.
‘I yeard Wilson say as how we couldn’t hold out mich longer.’

‘Eh, what?’ said Mary, with a start--‘eh, I hope not, lass. What mun we
do, if we’ve no work?’

The other girl shrugged her shoulders.

‘I’ve yeard say, too, as if we do have any work, it’ll be wi’ Surats,
and I mun say I’d rayther have none at all. I conno’ work yon stuff.’

‘I care nowt at all, whether it’s Surats, or what it is, so as I’ve
summat to do, and summat to earn,’ said Mary.

‘Thou may work twelve hours a day at Surats, and not earn above
six shillin’ a week,’ said her companion cynically; and then the
conversation ceased, and Mary was left to her reflections.

At eight they went home to breakfast, and at half-past they were at
their work again, and continued at it until half-past twelve, when
Wilson put his head into the room, and called out,

‘All the hands in this here room will please wait a few minutes in the
big yard. I’ve got something to say to you.’

The same announcement had been made in the different rooms, and the
result was, all the hands were assembled and waiting, some curiously,
some apathetically, for the communication that was coming.

Wilson jumped upon a lorrie which stood in the yard, and in a clear,
distinct voice, read out from a paper he held in his hand this
announcement:--

  ‘I hereby give notice that on and after Friday, March the --th,
  this factory will be closed, owing to the present condition of the
  cotton trade, in consequence of the American war. At the same time,
  as I am anxious to keep my hands together, and to save them as much
  as possible from distress, I undertake, for the present at least,
  and until other circumstances should make a change desirable, to
  furnish them with the means of subsistence, and such of them as are
  my tenants will not be pressed for rent until the times improve. Each
  head of a family is requested to attend in the warehouse of this
  mill on the afternoon of Monday next, at three o’clock, when the
  conditions of relief will be made known, and the names and addresses
  of all in receipt thereof taken down. I request you earnestly, and
  with perfect confidence, to try, all of you, during this present
  trouble, to act together, and assist me in the preservation of order
  and the relief of distress.

    ‘SEBASTIAN MALLORY.’

There was a short silence; then murmurs; then, from some lips, an
attempt at a cheer. Some girls and women were wiping their eyes with
their aprons, and one or two men waved their hats: exclamations
and murmurs arose all around. ‘Eh, but that’s reet-down kind, that
is!’ ‘Th’ chap is a good sort!’ ‘Well, we needna fear to clem just
yet!’ and so on. The gratitude was very real, if expressed with true
Lancashire reticence and absence of effusion. But almost greater than
the gratitude was the gloom--the sense of shame and degradation--the
feeling that this was a draught too bitter for any amount of sugaring
to sweeten, and that they had done nothing to deserve to have to
swallow it. Sebastian had done wisely in committing to Wilson the
delivery of the message. Wilson seemed to the work-people almost as
one of themselves; he, too, must suffer somewhat from this calamity.
The humiliation would have been too intense had Sebastian read the
announcement himself. He, like hundreds of other masters, was making
money--netting large profits at this stage of the crisis. His piled-up
warehouses would be emptied at profitable prices of the accumulated
results of last year’s over-production, while the impossibility of
getting at the stores of cotton which were undoubtedly reposing in
large quantities in Manchester and Liverpool warehouses, relieved
him from the immediate expense of working, and of paying wages.
That part of the ‘panic,’ as it was and is always called by the
work-people, was one of unmitigated severity for the poor man--for the
worker--capital added hugely to her stores. Yet every employer of any
foresight was troubled to know what was to become of his work-people
during the great distress--such skilful, practised, deft-handed,
soft-fingered work-people as no other corner of the world could supply
to him--work-people who, if they once got scattered, or emigrated, or
separated from their labour, could not be replaced--the choicest of
craftsmen and craftswomen. This was a hard subject during all the years
of the cotton famine--how keep the operatives together, provide for
them, prevent them from becoming demoralised by the enforced idleness,
combined with the living on money not earned by themselves? It was a
problem which, all must confess, was nobly solved.

At this precise time, though the distress was daily augmenting in an
appalling manner, though each week saw a greater number of factories
closed entirely, yet the organised system of relief--that gigantic
machinery whose equal the world had never before seen--was not yet in
existence.

Sebastian, after long consultations with Mr. Sutcliffe, had come to the
conclusion, for the present at least, to support his own work-people,
and the result of that resolution was the paper just now read out by
Wilson.

Slowly the hands dispersed. Mary Heywood, seeing her brother near the
big gate, joined him there, and glanced rather doubtfully up into his
face. Doubt rapidly changed to dismay: he was white as death; his lips
tight-set; his great dark eyes absolutely scintillating with passion.
The words she had been about to speak to him died upon her lips.

‘Thou go home, lass! I’ve a little business to do before I come after
thee, but I’ll not be long,’ said he, so quietly and calmly that her
heart beat a little less rapidly, and without a word she obeyed,
leaving him there in the yard, he conscious only of one purpose, and of
a burning restlessness until that purpose should be accomplished.

He waited by the gates, looking at no one, speaking to no one, until he
saw that all the hands had filed out, and that Wilson was left alone in
the office, locking things up. A few swift, striding steps brought him
inside the little room. Wilson looked up.

‘Hey, Myles! Is that you? Do you want something?’

‘Yes. I just want to tell you to take my name--and my sister’s too--off
the books. We shall not work here any more.’

‘Oh! but you will. This here is only a temporary stoppage, you know.
Times must mend, though they look bad enough now, and Mallory’s won’t
go to smash so easily.’

‘I shall never work here again, I tell you, nor Mary either. Take our
names off the books, if you please; and look you, Wilson, if anybody
comes round to my house offering me relief in’--a spasm twitched his
pain-set lips--‘the master’s name, I’ll kick him out--so you’re warned.’

‘My certy, Myles! You’re mad to talk i’ that way. You’ve ne’er thought
about it. How are you to live without relief? And when such a handsome
arrangement has been made----’

‘That’s nothing to the point. Please to do as I ask, and remember, I’ll
keep my word.’

He turned on his heel and left the yard. Wilson looked after him,
watching the proud, elastic figure, haunted by the remembrance of the
deadly paleness of the face, and the sombre, despairing gloom of the
eyes.

Wilson acted as became a wary man, who did not choose to commit
himself--shook his head, and murmured,

‘Ay, ay, my good chap, but you’ll have to eat humble-pie sooner or
later--and why not sooner?’

Evidently, the characters of Myles and his easy-going old friend were
fundamentally unlike.

Meantime Myles, breathing rather more freely, and with a faint return
of colour to his cheek, took his way home, feeling that now, if he met
Sebastian Mallory, he could look him in the face as defiantly as he
chose. There was something almost exquisite in the sense that, though
only a few pounds stood between him and destitution, yet he was no
longer in any way dependent upon Mallory.

Arrived at home, he found the kitchen empty; the dinner half ready
(not such an abundant dinner, even now, as it once had been), the
table spread. He sat down moodily, and waited; and presently Mary came
down looking very sad indeed. She had not been crying, but there was
something in her eyes speaking of a grief and fear beyond tears.

‘Well, my lass, where’s Edmund?’

‘Edmund’s in bed, Myles.’

‘In bed!’ he echoed, looking up in some surprise; ‘why, what ails him?’

‘The same thing as has been ailin’ him this six-week. I dunnot know
what it may be. Th’ doctor calls it low fever.’

‘The doctor!’ he echoed again, more astonished still. ‘What’s the
meaning of this, Molly?’

‘Eh, Myles, if thou’d none been so wrapped up in summat all this time,
thou might ha’ seen as the lad were fair pinin’ away.’

She could hardly finish her words, but sat down upon the rocking-chair,
and covered her face with her hands for a moment, while he looked at
her with a haggard gaze. A hundred trifles came into his mind now,
crowding quickly forward--Mary’s pre-occupation--Edmund’s passive
silence and flushed face--and he had never seen it. Brute that he was!

‘And to-day he’s that weak, he can’t sit up no longer,’ continued Mary,
raising her face from her hands and looking sadly before her; ‘and I’m
sore fleyed he’ll ne’er be strong again, that I am.’

Then she rose, and began to finish the few preparations for dinner,
though, sooth to say, no two people ever made ready for a meal with
less appetite. She began to talk, as she thought cheerfully.

‘When I heard Wilson read out as factory would stop o’ Friday, my heart
fair sank within me, when I thowt o’ yon lad, and us wi’out a penny
to earn, but, eh! I could ha’ cried wi’ joy afore he’d done. Yon Mr.
Mallory mun be a reet good-hearted chap, and our Edmund winnot clem
now.’

‘Mary!’ he exclaimed, starting up, and speaking in so strange a voice
that she looked at him involuntarily, and saw again the look--the
pale face, the scintillating eyes--which had so terrified her an hour
before, at the mill-gate. He stepped across the room to her, and
grasped her arm. ‘Never thou name such a thing again. I told Wilson to
take my name, and thy name, off the books, and to send anybody round
here, poking into my affairs, if he dared. I’d die like a dog before
I’d take bit or sup from _him_, or let any of those that belonged to me
do it.’

‘Why, whatever----’ she began, but he went on, forcibly moderating his
voice,

‘Molly, I never could have thought to hear such a word from thee. Hast
thought what it means? It means that we--seven hundred and more of
us--shall go like beggars every day, and take that man’s money, and eat
his bread, and do nothing for it. Thou’rt mazed with thy trouble,’ he
added soothingly, ‘or thou’d never have dreamt of it.’

‘But how mun we live?’ she asked, seeing only that they were Mr.
Mallory’s work-people, and that he prized their services, and like a
generous master desired to help them until better times came round
again. ‘Thou wert always so set against th’ master, lad; but when we’re
like to starve, what mun we do?’

Neither Mary nor Myles, it may have been observed, made any mention
of their mother, or spoke as if she could relieve them. Later in the
distress Mary went to her mother, and represented their situation. Mrs.
Hoyle replied sententiously that her money was sunk in her husband’s
business, and she had no longer any control over it, which was indeed
true: she had put it entirely in his power immediately after marrying
him, and it remained there, for towards the close of 1863 Mrs. Hoyle,
who had believed that she was doing well for herself in her marriage,
died of a rapid, sudden illness, and her money passed away from her
children, and into her husband’s hands, for ever.

‘We’re not like to starve yet,’ replied Myles, to his sister’s last
remark. ‘I’ve got over ten pounds put by--it ought to have been more,
but I wasn’t as careful as I should have been; and you’ve something of
your own, I know. It’s true, we’d meant to keep it, but in these times
we’ll most of us have to use up what we put by.’

‘Eh, lad!’ answered Mary, with sorrowful embarrassment, ‘mine were such
a bit! And I’ve drawn it all out, for to buy yon lad his bits of things
as he must have. Doctor ordered them, and I saw as thou were moithered
wi’ summat, so I didn’t ax thee, but just used up my own bit o’ brass.
It’s all gone--all but a few shillin’s.’

He dropped her arm, and turned aside. This then was the prospect--a
sick brother to cherish, himself and his sister to support; the rent
to pay; and a little over ten pounds between them and destitution.
Undaunted though his spirit was, it was fain to stand appalled before
these facts, until at last, turning round, he said,

‘I’ll think about what can be done, Mary. Ten pounds will last a good
while, and thou’rt so clever at managing, and all that.’

Mary was silent. She knew how quickly ten pounds would vanish, where
there was an invalid to be cared for; and the regular weekly sum which
Myles had haughtily refused, seemed, now that it was out of her reach,
to assume the proportions of absolute wealth.

‘Myles,’ she said, ‘I know thou mun have some reason for what thou’rt
doing, but _I’ve_ no grudge against the master. I don’t see why I
shouldn’t take the relief and help Ned a bit ... thou needna know nowt
about it.’

‘Mary!’ He paused, choked back some passionate emotion, and looked at
her. There rushed over his mind, as by an inspiration, the conviction
that what he had said, what he had proposed to do, was a mean,
tyrannical way of making others suffer for his own private grudge.
Mary’s mind was to be kept on the rack as to ways and means; Edmund’s
comforts were to be stinted, or stopped, because he, Myles, hated
Sebastian Mallory, and, knowing his sister would obey him, despotically
said, ‘You will take no help from him.’

Certainly, to know that Mary and Edmund were subsisting upon Mr.
Mallory’s bounty, while he was idle, would be anguish almost as keen
as to sit down and subsist upon that bounty himself; but anguish, it
seemed, prevailed a good deal in the world. It had to be borne by some
people--what right had he to shift his portion upon the shoulders
of a loving woman and a cripple boy? He cried shame upon himself.
His cheek flushed, and he hesitated no longer. He had begun to speak
passionately; he finished calmly.

‘I had not thought of that. You are right, Molly. You’d better do so.
It will be bad for me to bear’ (how bad, his pale face and drawn lips
foretold), ‘but it’s best so. This is a great trouble that has come
upon us, and we must be as great as we can to meet it, I suppose. I
shall look out and see if I can find anything to do--perhaps away from
here. I’m sure it’s the best thing I could do. It’s a great mistake my
being here at all.’

This speech, with the misery and bitterness underlying its acquiescence
in her wish, seemed to freeze Mary’s heart within her. She could not
understand it, yet it seemed to forebode evil and misery and woe to
her. She looked at Myles, in whose whole attitude was something alien
and strange. For a moment a fearful weight and foreboding oppressed
her; then, breaking suddenly loose from it, she ran up to him with a
cry of love, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him eagerly.

‘Eh, Myles, hush, hush! Thou munnot talk like that. I’d clem sooner nor
take a penny from any one thou didn’t like. It were only that I were
quite disheartened, like, wi’ wondering what I were to do in these hard
times, now yon lad is so poorly. But for thee to go away and leave
us--the best brother’--a hug--‘ay, the vary best, ever a lass had--my
certy, don’t say nowt about it again.’

She was half laughing, half crying. As for Myles, the clasp of her
warm arms about his neck seemed to unstiffen it; the pressure of her
face upon his breast appeared to loosen a load of pent-up feeling. He
put his arm round her waist, and kissed her soft brown hair again and
again, and once more the feeling rushed over him that this was true
hearty love, and that he was a fool to distress himself for that other
love, which would never be his.

‘Don’t take on so, there’s a dear lass. Do just as you like about the
relief. Say nothing to me about it, and I shall know nothing about
it. There’s a reason why I can take neither bit nor sup from young
Mallory--a reason I can’t tell you, and that will never be removed. A
crumb of his bread would choke me.’

‘Why, has he done thee any wrong?’

‘None at all, and means me no wrong; it’s what they call circumstances,
Molly. They come rather hard upon a fellow sometimes, that’s all. Come!
the dinner must be well-nigh cold. Let’s have it, and then I’ll go up
and sit wi’ poor Ned a bit.’

It was a dark prospect which opened before them; yet, after this
conversation, they both felt lighter of heart, and better prepared to
meet it.




CHAPTER II.

‘RATHE SCHLAGEN.’


Sebastian Mallory, Mr. Sutcliffe, and Wilson, holding a council of
war together, late in the afternoon of that eventful day, discussed
the means to be taken for the preservation of order, and the best
distribution of relief.

Sebastian, in the course of the debate, asked how many exactly there
were to be relieved.

Wilson ran his eye over some long lists of names and addresses.

‘The number of hands is seven hundred and thirty, sir, all in all; but
it’s with the heads of families we shall have to deal. About a dozen
won’t require relief, and four have taken their names off the books
altogether.’

‘Which are they?’ asked Sebastian.

‘Frank Mitchell, weaver; he’s got a brother in Canada, who offered to
pay his passage out if he’ll go and help him on his farm; so, as soon
as he heard work was stopped, he decided to go. That’s one. Myles and
Mary Heywood----’

‘What! Any reasons given for their leaving?’ asked Sebastian, quickly.

‘Well, sir, relief would be a hard nut for Myles Heywood to crack, at
the best of times. He’s uncommon proud, and he came up to me, after I’d
read your notice, and told me very stiff indeed to take his name and
his sister’s off the books. I did hexpostulate with him, but he were
quite determined.’

‘Did he give any reasons?’

‘No, sir. He doesn’t generally give his reasons for what he does,
leastways not to me; but I’m not his master.’

‘Is he one of my tenants?’

‘No, sir. He lives on the Townfield, at Number 16.’

‘Oh, very well!’ said Sebastian, and the business went on for some time
uninterruptedly.

In the evening Sebastian, calling at Stonegate, and asking if Miss
Blisset could see him, was admitted, and taken to the drawing-room,
where he found Adrienne alone, seated at her piano. She rose, coming
forward to greet him, and he saw that her face was pale, and her eyes
sad and heavy.

‘I hope you are in a good-natured and self-sacrificing mood,’ said he,
‘for I am come to ask a very great favour.’

‘I shall be delighted if I can help you in any way.’

‘Did you know we cease to work at all after Friday?’

‘Cease to work at all! What will become--oh, I am very sorry--what will
the work-people do?’

‘I thought,’ began Sebastian, and bit his lips.

He was afraid of appearing to parade his intentions before her, and
altered the form of his announcement.

‘I have consulted with Sutcliffe, my manager, you know, and we have
come to the conclusion that it will be the best and wisest plan for me
to relieve my work-people myself, for the present at any rate, and----’

‘All of them! To keep them, do you mean?’ asked Adrienne, quickly.

‘It is really the best, and it will be the cheapest way in the end,’
said he, half apologetically; ‘and what I wished to ask you was----’

‘It is right--it is a generous thing to do. I am glad you are going to
do it,’ she interrupted him, her eyes beaming, and suppressed warmth in
her tone.

And she looked at him more fully and steadily than she had done for
many weeks past. Yet there was something not perfectly pleased in her
expression.

Sebastian, a young man who was not usually given to losing his
self-possession or presence of mind, coloured, half with embarrassment,
half with pleasure.

‘I am glad you approve,’ was all he could find to say.

‘I do. It will be such an excellent example.’

‘An example--ah, yes! But now to ask my favour. Sutcliffe thinks it
will not do to let them be idle all the time, so we have decided to
open some schools--one for the men and boys, and another for the women
and girls. Both of them will require some one with brains and a head on
their shoulders to look after them. I want to know if you will take the
management of the women’s school?’

‘But Mrs. Mallory--will she not wish to----’

‘No. She will have nothing to do with it beyond giving me a
subscription. I believe she does not altogether approve of the course
I have taken, and has decided to hold herself aloof. You can do it, if
you will, and if Mr. Blisset will spare you. I know you are not afraid
of yourself, and that is why I asked you.’

‘If my uncle can spare me, I will undertake it,’ said Adrienne,
speaking as she now usually did speak to him--rather briefly and drily.

Sebastian could wring no sign from her--nothing but a rapid, guarded
glance, and a brief, unemotional speech. It was unsatisfactory, he
felt. He was not making way. She tormented his thoughts sometimes in
a way that was harassing; he carried in his mind almost incessantly
the calm, sweet face, pale and clear; the rapid glance which was,
he felt, not so much destitute of expression as full of something
veiled--something which she would not allow to beam fully out upon him.

‘It will not be play,’ he proceeded, after a silent pause, during which
his eyes interrogated hers, which made no answer. ‘It will be downright
hard, arduous work. If it should prove to be too much for you....’

‘It will not be too much for me,’ she said quickly, and then her eyes
did suddenly fill with some expression--what he could not tell. ‘I
want some work like that--work which will be hard and absorbing,’ said
Adrienne, clasping her hands with an involuntary movement. ‘What must I
do? Have you got a room for the school, and some teachers?’

‘I think of dividing part of my warehouse, and filling it with
benches. It can soon be done. As for teachers, I thought some of the
better-educated amongst the young women themselves, or I could find a
mistress, and--do you know Miss Spenceley?’

‘No, I do not,’ said Adrienne, steadily, her colour rising.

‘She is a young lady who professes to need active work and to love it,
and I really think, if she had the opportunity, she would throw herself
heart and soul into such a scheme. But perhaps you would rather not
make her acquaintance?’

Adrienne paused again. Was she to extend the scorn and contempt she
felt for Frederick Spenceley to his whole connections, and to make
difficulties and quibbles about her co-workers in a scheme in which it
was essential chiefly to have workers as soon as possible?

‘No,’ said she; ‘if you think Miss Spenceley would help, I shall be
very happy to work with her.’

‘Of course you will be the head,’ said Sebastian. ‘I will take care
that is understood, and then there will be no difficulty.’

‘If you will send me a list of names and addresses,’ said Adrienne, ‘I
will go myself and see after them. I dare say Mary Heywood could tell
me something about a good many of them.’

‘That reminds me that Myles Heywood, for some reason or other, has seen
fit to decline all assistance. He has ordered his own name and his
sister’s to be taken off my books, and withdraws in dignified silence.’

He looked intently at Adrienne as he spoke. She was silent, crimsoned
for a moment as she met his glance; then she started from her chair and
walked to the fireplace, stooped over the fire-irons, and began to mend
the fire.

‘Allow me!’ said Sebastian, politely, coming to her assistance in
time to see her disturbed face. ‘Is it not foolish of him?’ he added,
remorselessly. ‘He is too young to have been able to save anything
almost, and there is not the least prospect of work at present.’

‘He was quite right,’ said Adrienne, clearly, as she fixed her eyes
upon Sebastian.

‘Quite right?’ he echoed, holding the poker suspended in his hand, and
looking at her in his turn.

‘Perfectly right. I am thankful to hear it. If he had stooped tamely
to accept charity from you--I mean from any one--as soon as it was
offered, I--I would never have forgiven him.’

Sebastian gently replaced the poker in the fender.

‘Perhaps he knew that,’ he remarked in his softest tone.

‘He could not,’ was Adrienne’s quick retort. ‘I have not spoken to him
for weeks. And if I had--if he had known it....’

‘He might know it perfectly well, all the same,’ insisted Sebastian.
‘Have you thought seriously about it, Miss Blisset? I know Heywood is a
friend of yours....’

‘Yes, he is--a great friend of mine,’ she answered firmly, and not one
sign was lost upon Sebastian’s cool, observant eyes; the head a little
thrown back, eyes bright, the pale cheek flushed, as if she braced
herself to meet some peril. He saw and noted it all.

‘You should be cautious how you influence him,’ said he.

‘I do not influence him. He is far too strong and decided to be
influenced by--by a girl like me.’

Sebastian smiled politely but derisively.

‘Pardon me, but I don’t think you are quite right there. I am convinced
you do influence him, and if so, don’t you think it is unkind to
prejudice him against his real interests?’

‘His real interest is not to take charity. Mr. Mallory, the bare idea
of Myles Heywood coming up to receive charity is dreadful. It makes me
miserable to think of it--only I can’t imagine his doing such a thing.
He never will. Poor fellow! I am sorry for him!’

‘Sooner or later it will come to that--it must,’ said Sebastian. ‘And
I--you speak as if I had tried to thrust alms upon him ostentatiously,
like a rich man relieving a beggar, and then appealing to every one
to notice his generosity. Can you suppose I intended anything so
revolting?’

The usually placid and unruffled Sebastian spoke in a tone of deep
vexation and chagrin.

‘No, of course I did not suppose any such thing,’ replied Adrienne,
her face still flushed. ‘I did not do you so much injustice. But I’m
glad he refused--so glad. I hope he will find something else. I even
hope that this present trouble may turn out to be a means of improving
his position, for I think he may turn his thoughts to some higher
employment than mere drudgery in a factory--even though it is your
factory,’ she added, with a slight smile.

‘He is certainly fit for a higher post. You would be glad to know him
in such a situation, would you not?’

‘Indeed I should.’

‘Even though it took him away from his friends and native town?’ went
on Sebastian, somewhat ironically.

‘Y--yes. Even in that case.’

‘Well--who knows! It may turn out to be as you say.’

The conversation had been a far from satisfactory one to Sebastian.
He had had no idea, a month ago, that Myles Heywood’s image would
take such an important place in his concerns. He turned the subject,
and made arrangements with Adrienne about the school; but it seemed
to him that since their passage of arms--for it had been a passage
of arms--her eyes had brightened, and her voice had been more full
and decided. He left her at last, firmly convinced that Myles was his
formidable rival, and the conviction gave him a strange sensation, such
as he had never known before. All his life he had been accustomed to
quietly make up his mind, and then as quietly carry out his decision.
Now, to his own astonishment, he found himself strangely wavering
between certainty and uncertainty; and as he walked from Mr. Blisset’s
house to his own, he pondered over the history of his own love for
Adrienne, and, almost for the first time, began to wonder what would be
the end of that history.

It was three years now since he had first met her. There had been a
chamber concert, in Coblenz, of classical music. Adrian Blisset had
played violin and his daughter piano, and Sebastian had been one of
the not very numerous audience; for the taste of the Coblenzers for
music was not of the severe sort. Perhaps the small audience was the
more appreciative--at least Sebastian Mallory sat a long two hours and
a half, without a thought of being weary or any wish to go. When the
music was over he had penetrated to the little room whither Adrian and
his daughter had retired; and knocked, and been bidden _herein_.

Apologising for the intrusion, he had introduced himself, and said
he imagined that certain pieces that had been played that evening,
and which stood on the programme without any composer’s name, were
the production of the musician himself. He was right, and as these
compositions had appeared to him to possess a certain wild, weird
beauty of their own, there had ensued a long conversation upon the
subject, during which Sebastian’s discrimination and real, earnest love
for the art he professed had won over even Mr. Blisset’s reserved and
moody disposition.

Thus the acquaintance began. The musician had been kinder and more open
than he usually was, not only to strangers, but to any one at all.
Sebastian had been allowed to visit him and his daughter. Adrienne had
played for him; she had talked with him, and he had found her charming.

From Coblenz they had gone to Wetzlar, in the vain and illusory hope
that there they might find an audience, and receive remuneration. The
projected concert never took place, but certain other things did.
They spent altogether a week in the sleepy old town. They floated in
a little boat up the river, between the rows of poplars and the level
meads; they sat under the shadow of the grim old _Heidenthurm_ of the
cathedral, and looked over all the landscape below. Adrienne sat upon
the wall above Goethe’s _Brunnen_, and looked at the girls coming to
fill their pitchers, and said to Sebastian, who was standing beside
her, and looking earnestly down at her,

‘I wonder if it was to such a well that Hermann came and helped
Dorothea? I could almost fancy so. Could not you?’

‘I think I could,’ Sebastian had answered, looking, not at the well,
but at her.

With each day that he saw her, his admiration for her grew greater. She
was a fair jewel in a poor setting. Her gentleness, her dignity under
trouble and sorrow, her

    ‘Festen Muth in schweren Leiden,’

impressed him, delighted him. Her flashes of quaint humour, which
showed him how gay the spirit she owned might be, if only the sun would
shine a little upon its dwelling-place; her grace, her intellect,
attracted him irresistibly; and he loved, too, the quiet independence
with which she met him; the calm dignity with which she ignored his
wealth, his position, his advantages, and treated him as her equal--no
more, no less.

Amongst the list of events which made, as it were, a gaily coloured,
kaleidoscopic pattern in his memory, that week at Wetzlar stood out
from the rest, like a little patch of pure gold, like the lucent
background on which stands out, pure and clear, some mediæval Madonna.

One morning, when he went to call upon them, he found Adrienne in sore
distress, which she tried in vain to conceal. She was alone, and he
had succeeded at last in getting her to confess what troubled her. A
creditor of her father’s pressed hard for a certain sum of money, due
long ago. That fact was in itself painful enough, but it alone would
not have been sufficient to break down Adrienne’s calm and steadfast
courage. It was her father’s manner of accepting, or not accepting, his
position, which alarmed and made her wretched. More than once he had
uttered dark and oracular hints as to the wisdom of leaving a world
which was full of nothing but misery and contradictions. At that time
he was in his room, and had refused to see her or speak to her. She
did not know what would happen, what he might or might not do; and
Sebastian saw the young girl’s courage fail for the first time, for the
first time saw her fold her hands, and, with tear-stained eyes, ask
piteously,

‘What am I to do?’

‘Leave it to me, Miss Blisset. Of course something must be done, and I
will do it. For your sake I will do it gladly,’ he had said, taking her
hands, looking into her troubled eyes with a glance that made them more
troubled still, and going straight to her father’s room.

The ‘something to be done’ naturally resolved itself into pecuniary
assistance. The matter was perfectly simple. Notes for three hundred
thalers settled it. Sebastian insisted upon becoming Mr. Blisset’s
banker, and Mr. Blisset said that he could not refuse the possibility
of being under obligations to a gentleman, who would understand
the feelings of another gentleman, rather than to a coarse-minded
tradesman, who could not by any possibility understand such fine
sensibilities. The money was a loan. They both called it a loan; and
Sebastian came out and told Adrienne that it was all right.

She had burst into tears; then recovering, had said,

‘There is nothing that I would not do for you.’

To which he had replied,

‘Then come and have a row on the river.’

Upon which they had straightway had a very delightful row on the river,
the Lahn; and delicacy alone had prevented Sebastian from then and
there saying to Adrienne that he loved her, and asking her to be his
wife. He deferred the question--he hoped, not for long--only until he
had spoken to her father; and that he decided he would do the following
day.

In pursuance of this resolution, he had called during the forenoon at
the musician’s lodgings, and had asked to see him.

‘_Ja!_’ the hostess told him, with a shrug of the shoulders, ‘the
_Herrschaften_ had left by the first train that morning. Last night the
gentleman had spoken very sternly to the Fräulein; she had heard him.
The Fräulein had expostulated, and cried, and said, “How unthankful
it will seem!” To which her _Herr Papa_ had replied that he could not
endure such a burden; he must leave the place. After which he had
desired his _Fräulein Tochter_ to pack up, and they were gone.’

‘Where?’ asked Sebastian.

‘_Na!_ How should I know, _mein Herr_? Apparently to Frankfort, since
the first train in the morning goes direct there; but from Frankfort,
I have heard, one may go out anywhere over the whole world, even to
Africa, if one chooses. What do I know?’

Sebastian had retired, quite convinced that it was not Adrienne but
the morbid pride and vanity of her father, which had caused this
_contretemps_. That pride could not endure to live in the presence of
the man who had placed him under an obligation. He had gone to hide
himself, and Sebastian tried in vain to find any further trace of
Adrian Blisset and his daughter.

He had so much the less forgotten her. The feelings of warm admiration,
chivalrous respect, and tender affection which he had hitherto felt
for her, suddenly leaped up in a quicker flame--he loved her. From
feeling convinced that to have her as his wife would be a good and a
happy thing for him, he had become determined that one day she should
be his wife; she and no other. From that time she had remained for him
as a sort of standard, an ideal of womanhood; gentle-spirited, true,
and pure, wise and prudent, sweet and modest. He had judged all other
women by this standard, and had never felt anything more than a certain
admiration for any woman since his parting from Adrienne.

Then had ensued his return home, his not very satisfactory relations
with his mother, the distress amongst his people, the necessity for
prompt action and hard work, his introduction to Helena Spenceley, his
sudden, unexpected meeting with Adrienne, and the eager conviction that
now she soon must, should be his. Beside Helena’s brilliant beauty, the
delicate grace of Adrienne was as the beauty of a white violet compared
with a crimson rose. Helena was dazzlingly beautiful, but she was the
exact opposite of all which he had been for three years praising and
exalting to himself as best and sweetest and most desirable in woman.
He thought a good deal of Helena. She was younger than Adrienne,
wilder, less educated, prejudiced, hot-headed, violent, and bewitching.

‘Yes, she must be bewitching,’ argued Sebastian, with exquisite
_naïveté_, within himself. ‘Look at Hugo. The lad was enraptured with
her.’ That was to be expected. Hugo was young too; he had not loved
Adrienne Blisset for three years. Sebastian had the steady purpose
and intention of asking Adrienne to marry him, to honour him and
make him happy by becoming his wife. When? As soon as he could find
the opportunity, he said to himself. But it never did come. He could
not understand how it was, that, though he saw Adrienne repeatedly
and alone, though she was amiable, cordial, pleasant, yet he could
never get that question asked. Adrienne’s behaviour puzzled him. He
could have sworn that once she loved him. When he was with her, Myles
Heywood’s handsome olive-hued face, with its scornful lips and defiant
eyes, seemed always to be hovering there between her and him. And yet,
on the one occasion on which he had seen them together, Myles had
looked and behaved as if he were as far as possible from being anything
like a favoured lover, thought Sebastian, with an odd sensation of
jealousy and pain. No; it was only opportunity for which he waited,
an opportunity which seemed as if it would never come. Certainly it
had not been there that evening. He walked home lost in profound
speculations, thinking of Adrienne’s lifted head and flashing eyes, and
of how Myles Heywood had been ‘very stiff indeed’ with poor old Wilson
that morning.




CHAPTER III.

    ‘Kannst du des Herzens Flammentrieb nicht dämpfen,
    So fordre, Tugend, dieses Opfer nicht.’


Towards eight o’clock on the following evening, Mary Heywood and Edmund
were the only occupants of the kitchen. The lad was somewhat better and
less feverish, and Myles had carried him downstairs and laid him upon
his old resting-place, the chintz-covered sofa under the window.

There he lay, with a shawl thrown across him; his thin face wasted to
sharpness--a waxen pallor on his cheeks and lips; dark rings under his
great bright eyes. His almost transparent hands were stretched out upon
the couch before him, and his unread book lay open across his knees.
Mary had made things as cheerful as she could, so as not to let Edmund
know how bitterly they were pinched in order to give him the things he
needed. True, the fire was smaller than their kitchen fires were wont
to be; and behind the cupboard-doors there was not very much to bring
forth for supper; but the place was exquisitely clean and tidy, and so
was the girl herself, in her faded gown, and with her pale, pathetic
face.

‘Mary,’ said Edmund, breaking a silence, ‘does Miss Blisset never come
here now?’

‘Well, it’s a good while, like, since hoo were here; likely hoo’s had
summat to do as has kept her away,’ said Mary, as confidently as she
could.

‘I canno’ think why hoo ne’er comes. I could like to see her ...
where’s Myles to-neet?’

‘Gone to the reading-room, he said. I’m some and glad he does go there.
Some o’ these chaps is hanging about the livelong day, fair as if they
didn’t know what to do with theirsels. I reckon some on ’em will do
summat as they shouldn’t before long.’

‘Has Harry Ashworth been lately?’ pursued Edmund, his thoughts turning
towards his friends, now that he felt himself somewhat more free from
pain and weariness.

‘Ay--he’s been more than once,’ replied Mary, and her cheeks flushed,
and she gave a great jump, as a knock resounded at that very moment
through the house. The coincidence was too remarkable.

In a moment, however, she realised that the knock was at the front,
not the back, door, therefore it could not be Harry Ashworth who
knocked; and secondly, it was not at all like his knock when he did
come. Wondering who the visitor could be, and casting a critical glance
around, to see if the kitchen were as neat as it should be, she stepped
out through the passage, and went through the ceremony of unlocking and
opening the door.

Outside it was dark. Coming from the light of the kitchen she could not
see who stood there, but a voice which she had already heard once, and
thought pleasant, inquired,

‘Does Myles Heywood live here?’

‘Ay, he does; but he’s out.’

‘Oh, is he? I’m sorry. I felt sure he would be in in the evening.’

The visitor still lingered on the doorstep, and inquired again,

‘Do you know how long he will be?’

Mary’s sense of hospitality was stronger than even her dread of Myles’s
displeasure.

‘Won’t you step in a minute, and see if he comes? It’s Mr. Mallory,
isn’t it?’

‘Yes. I did want to see him very particularly.’

‘’Appen, if you were to sit you down a bit, he might coom back soon,’
suggested Mary, fervently trusting that he would do nothing of the
kind; and that Mr. Mallory would get tired of waiting, as she knew
Myles himself did.

With a word of thanks Mr. Mallory accepted the invitation, and
entered the house. A proper attention to established etiquette would
have led Mary to usher him into the highly coloured parlour, but
the recollection that there was no fire there, and that some of the
furniture was wanting, overcame conventional rules, and he was taken
forward into the kitchen.

‘I hope I am not intruding,’ he began, so courteously that all Mary’s
innate politeness was roused to action, and his welcome was more
effusive than it might otherwise have been.

‘Eh, dear no! Please take a seat!’ said Mary, pulling up her own
rocking-chair. ‘Me and Edmund was quite alone, and not doin’ nowt at
all, except talk a bit. Ned, here’s Mr. Mallory. You’ve ne’er seen him
afore.’

Edmund had never been aware of Myles’s deep antipathy to the young
master; he only knew that his brother had a sort of contempt for his
employer, as a useless, highly finished piece of humanity, not good
for much in such a rough place as Thanshope. He himself was intensely
sensitive to refinement and beauty, in every shape and form, and as
Sebastian was handsome, polished, and refined in an eminent degree,
Edmund’s eyes rested upon him with a sense of satisfaction and soothed
pleasure and delight, and he smiled pleasantly as he took the hand
which their visitor extended, saying kindly,

‘I fear you are a great invalid.’

‘I’m none so strong,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve been ill, but now I’m better.’

‘I suppose you are Myles Heywood’s brother and sister?’ continued
Sebastian.

‘Ay,’ said the others, and they smiled--that smile of mingled pride and
affection which speaks well for the absent one, and which Sebastian
noted directly.

He took a chair by Edmund’s sofa, and, turning to Mary, said,

‘I suppose you know your brother has had his name and yours taken off
my books.’

‘Ay,’ responded Mary, colouring with some embarrassment, while Edmund
looked rather anxiously from the one to the other, this being the first
he had heard of the circumstance.

‘Was it your wish, too, to leave my employment so suddenly?’ he asked
slowly.

‘I didn’t know--Myles did it. He thought it would be for the best, I
suppose, sir,’ stammered the girl.

‘But you,’ he persisted gently--‘have you such an intense objection to
receiving a little assistance in such a time of distress, from a--you
don’t say master here, I notice--from an employer whom you have served
so long and so well as I hear you have done? I should not have thought
so. You know it is not an ordinary case. It is not as if you or I, or
any of us here, could have prevented it. There can be no shame----’

‘I never thought there was,’ said Mary, wondering in her distress what
could be the grudge that Myles had against such a master as this. ‘I
fair cried wi’ joy when I heard what you was going to do; but when
Myles came in and told me----’

‘But you do not mean that he has forbidden you--that he prevents--it
is----’

‘No!’ said Mary, suddenly. ‘Our Myles is not one of that sort, I can
tell you, Mr. Mallory. He won’t take a penny himself--why, I don’t
know. And I saw as it would go near to break his heart to see me and
yon lad eating another man’s bread, and him standing by idle. But he
said to me, “Thou’ll do what thou’s a mind to, Molly; it’s a great
distress, and we m--mun--be g--great to meet it.” Oh! it were same as
if he’d said, “There’s nowt for’t but to cut off my right hand; give me
th’ chopper, and let me do it!”--that it were!’

She sobbed vehemently once or twice, and Sebastian read the passionate
love and devotion she felt for that brother, whom, he began to think,
he never could conquer.

‘Ah! that is more like him!’ he said warmly. ‘I thought I was mistaken.
And will nothing persuade you to accept this help? It is such a small
thing to refuse; and I do not think it right in you to refuse it. You
must think of this brother of yours. He cannot stand the hardships of
this time as Myles, and even you, can; and----’

‘You are very good--reet-down kind, you are!’ said Mary, looking at him
with gratitude. ‘I’ll say this. We’ll hold out as long as we can. We
mun do that, if we want to think well of ourselves. But I’ll come to
you when it gets too much. You’re reet: I can’t see nowt to be ashamed
of in it.’

‘You promise?’

‘Ay, I promise.’

‘That is well. Now, if your brother would come in, I could say what I
have to say to him, and----’

Mary lifted her head. She heard footsteps along the flags of the back,
and the tune being whistled which no one but Myles ever did whistle.
She started forward as the back door was opened, and exclaimed,

‘Here’s Myles; he’s coming now.’

‘Ah, I’m glad of that,’ said Sebastian, though he was fully conscious
of Mary’s discomfited looks. ‘Now I can speak to him myself.’

The back door was closed again; the quick steps grew leisurely;
presently the kitchen-door also was opened, and the voice of Myles was
heard, saying, as he entered,

‘I say, Molly, thou must----’

He came in, and looked round with a smile, which flashed out of his
face as he saw who was there. His first impulse was to ask fiercely,
‘What brings _you_ to my house?’ but Myles had very strongly developed
the proverbial Lancashire sense of hospitality, and accordingly he
suppressed his question, and remained silent, until Sebastian offered
him his hand, saying courteously,

‘I hope you will not think I am intruding. I particularly wished to see
you, and your sister was so kind as to ask me to wait a few minutes, in
the hope that you would return.’

Sebastian had spoken just in time. Myles was assailed on the side of
hospitality, politeness to a guest, and other similar feelings. He
realised quickly that Sebastian had not acted as most masters would
have done--sent for him to come and see him--but had come himself to
seek him out, and now apologised for intruding in the most handsome
and ample manner. There was nothing there that even his sore heart
could construe into a slight. Moreover, the man was there, under his
roof--had been invited there; and, if Molly might have been wiser,
the thing was done, and he must act accordingly. He could not look
cordial--the sense of the advantages which the other had over him
was too heavily and oppressively present for that--but he could be
civil, he could speak words something like welcome. He could even,
under the circumstances, accept the hand which Mallory held out--or
rather, circumstances did not allow him to refuse it. Accordingly, he
took the hand, standing very erect, and looking very proud and solemn,
while Mary knitted more quickly, as she observed, from her seat in the
background, how each man looked straight and steadily into the other’s
eyes.

‘Won’t you take a seat?’ said Myles, handing a chair to Sebastian, and
taking one himself. ‘It’s a cold night, and you’ve had a longish walk.’

‘Thank you. It was on a small matter of business that I called--about
your having taken your name from my books.’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, his eyebrows setting suddenly in a straight line
across his brow, and his lips in one nearly as straight beneath his
moustache.

‘It was this. I do hope you will not think that I come out of any
officiousness or curiosity, because it is not so. Mr. Sutcliffe told
me you had left my employment. I asked him if he thought you had any
other occupation; and he said that, so far as he knew, you had not.
I concluded, whether rightly or not, that your reason for leaving
was that the factory was closed, and you would not accept assistance
without working for it. Was I right?’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, concisely.

‘I know that employment, especially remunerative employment, is
not easy to find in these bad times, and that you might not soon
find anything to do; so I merely called to say that I know of two
situations, for either of which you would be suited, and if you would
like me to use my influence to get you either of them, I shall be glad
to do so. You must not think that I meant anything else.’

‘You are very kind,’ said Myles, in the same constrained and colourless
voice, which belied his contracted brows and the fiery flash of his
eyes beneath them, ‘very kind; but I do not require any assistance,
thank you!’

The manner and the tone were such that Sebastian felt he could not,
after what he had said, urge his offer any farther. But the desire
which he constantly felt when with Myles, to gain his esteem and win
his confidence, rushed more strongly over him than ever before. He saw
in the young man so much that was noble, so much that was good, so much
that he, in his quiet, reserved way, intensely prized. Sebastian had a
strong, though secret, desire to be much loved, to greatly influence
certain individuals. He felt very strongly that where Myles Heywood
loved or admired, it would be with a passionate whole-hearted devotion,
which would go all lengths; and he desired greatly to see some other
expression light those sombre, moody eyes, when they looked at him;
to compel that right hand to stretch itself towards him in a genial,
spontaneous clasp of friendship and regard.

Was it possible that he who before now had won hearts, both of men and
of women; he who had inspired that fitful, capricious artist-Hugo with
a passionate love and devotion; he who had seen Adrienne Blisset’s
quiet eyes well over with something more than gratitude; he who felt
within him the potentiality to subdue that fiery-hearted Helena, did
he but choose to give his mind to the task, and to bring her to his
feet with a devotion as intense as her present half-assumed scorn--was
it possible that he was to be baffled by a young, uncultivated,
untutored, unsophisticated artisan, who could continue to resist,
defy, and scorn him, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary? Was
it possible that this plain-spoken Myles Heywood, with nothing on his
side but his prejudices, his pride, and his love, could continue to
hold Sebastian Mallory at arm’s length, when he really set his whole
battery of persuasion to work upon him? The idea was a galling one.
He did not like effusiveness, but he did like devotion very much. He
hated a display of power; but the power itself he loved dearly. Myles,
in his present attitude, represented a defiant obstacle which must be
overcome. But how?

Mary here afforded him unconsciously a little assistance, by saying in
a tearful voice, ‘Eh, Myles, think about it! Remember how badly off
we are. It’s not for mysel’, it’s for Edmund and thee. I canna bear
to think o’ thee bein’ so pulled down and troubled wi’ such things.
Thou’rt too good for it.’

‘Molly, lass, don’t make it worse for me!’ said Myles, with a
reproachful look; and Mary was silenced, as Sebastian saw.

She sat down in a rocking-chair, and cried quietly, wiping her eyes at
intervals, but she said no more. Myles turned his back upon her, not
wishing to see her distress. Sebastian had also stood up. The man’s
pride was stiffer than even he had supposed, and his desire to bend it
became proportionately greater.

‘I am very sorry you will not let me do anything,’ he said. ‘You are
quite mistaken in thinking there could be any degradation in it.’

‘I never said I did think so,’ interposed Myles.

‘You are not without ambition,’ pursued Sebastian, fixing his eyes upon
Myles with conviction, and noting the answering flush in his face,
though his eyes remained downcast. ‘No man who is worth anything is
without ambition. If you would let me, I could put you into the way
of furthering your ambition. Of course it would be a struggle; but
then you are one of the right kind to struggle--you like it. A few
years’ absence from England, a few years’ hard work in a post for which
you would be well suited, and you might return here, if you liked, a
different man, in a different position, able to do and get pretty much
what you liked. Remember, to a man of courage, who has made a mark,
_most things that he wishes for stand open_. Is this nothing to you? Do
you prefer remaining shut up in Thanshope, with your own prospects, and
the prospects of your fellow-workmen no better than they are? I cannot
believe it of you.’

Almost unconsciously, Sebastian had half-cast aside the mask of
indifference, and was speaking nearly as eagerly as he felt. He had
stepped up to Myles, and laid his hand upon his arm. Their eyes met.
Myles’s very soul had been stirred by the words he had heard.

They had touched the very well-spring of his present wishes and
desires, the longing which had grown and intensified with his love
and his sense of its utter hopelessness. To leave this place--go away
to some other spot, where there would be scope for hard work, mental
and bodily--work that would absorb his energies. There was nothing
he desired more than such work. His enforced idleness was absolutely
hideous to him. Out of England, he might advance, rise; Sebastian, he
knew, was not wont to speak rashly or unadvisedly on such matters,
but was given to measuring his words. He might return an altered
man, well off, perhaps, or at least with the means of becoming well
off; why, he might (it all seemed to flash in a second through his
mind)--he might go at last, and seek Adrienne--and find her gone, hear
that she was Sebastian Mallory’s wife. And _then_ the acceptance of
Sebastian Mallory’s assistance would have caused his last state to be
worse than his first. He would have stooped, not to conquer, but to
be forestalled, defeated, humiliated, and all the riches, and all the
position that the world could give, would not restore his hopes and his
lost self-respect. With a short sardonic, miserable laugh, he jerked
his arm from Sebastian’s hand, and said almost angrily,

‘It is of no use. You will never persuade me to that. It is wasted
breath to try it.’

Sebastian felt an absolute thrill of vexation and mortification; a
thrill so strong as to surprise himself.

‘What makes you so obstinate?’ he unwarily exclaimed. ‘Is it some
personal reason?’

‘Yes,’ answered Myles, looking him directly in the eyes; ‘it is!’

Sebastian’s lips were parted to speak, but he could not utter the words
he intended to say. He was silent with a disagreeable, discomfiting
sense that he was baffled and defeated. They were all silent till
Sebastian said,

‘Well, since you will not, you will not. But I think you are mistaken
in your course, and what is more, I think you will repent it before
long. If you do, if you should come to change your mind, let me know. I
have no wish to take my word back, but shall always be ready to abide
by it.’

Myles smiled, almost scornfully, as he bowed his head slightly and said,

‘Thank you.’

In his inmost heart he was thinking that he would rather die than place
himself under obligations to his rival, whose full formidableness he
only realised to-night. There was, he confessed it, fully and frankly
to himself, something extremely attractive about the grace and courtesy
of Sebastian, but the most dangerous quality was the power which soon
became distinctly visible beneath the polish; a power which forced the
observer, however reluctantly, to respect as well as to admire. If
he, the unwilling and prejudiced, felt these things so strongly, how
much more must others, already prejudiced in his favour, experience
it? So much the more reason why he, the plain and unadorned, should
keep himself to himself, follow his own path, and not ape qualities
so different from his own. But he had ceased to bear any ill-will to
Sebastian. The latter did not know how far he had advanced in the very
moment in which he seemed to have receded.

‘I will not intrude upon you any longer,’ said he. ‘You bear no
resentment, I trust, but understand my motives?’

‘I bear no resentment at all,’ said poor Myles, putting his hand
without hesitation into that held out to him. ‘If I have been rather
rough, I beg your pardon. It is my way. I meant no incivility.’

‘I am sure of it. Good night,’ he added, turning to Edmund. ‘Good
night, Miss Heywood.’

‘Good night, sir,’ said Mary, looking tearfully up, as Sebastian
followed Myles from the room. She heard the door open and shut, and the
steps of the unwonted visitor going away. Then Myles returned to the
kitchen.

Edmund was tired. Myles helped him upstairs, and came down again. They
scarcely spoke. Mary uttered no reproach, and he offered no apology;
but when she got up to go to bed, he kissed her tenderly, saying,

‘Don’t think too hardly of me, Molly. I can’t do otherwise and be an
honest man at the same time.’

‘I’m none thinking of blaming thee, lad,’ said Mary, escaping from him,
and going upstairs.

He remained there a long time, brooding over the embers of the fire,
and thinking, if only things had been different! And as he thought, a
vision rose before him of that Sunday afternoon when he had so nearly
betrayed himself, and he remembered Adrienne’s words:

‘If I loved that man, and he loved me, and asked me to be his wife, I
would say yes; and I would love him and serve him as long as I lived.’

‘Ay, my darling!’ his heart cried within him, in a kind of anguish,
‘but you don’t love me; and if you did, I should not be worthy of you,
if I did what was wrong to win you.’

No doubt he took a wild, fantastic, mistaken view of things, but to him
it was much more real than if the most accomplished logician had argued
it out for him, and proved it to be founded on the purest and most
solidly reasonable basis.




CHAPTER IV.

COMBINATION _V._ STARVATION.


For the space of some six weeks--that is, from early March to the
middle of April, Adrienne, Helena, Mr. Sutcliffe, Hugo, Sebastian,
and others who worked with them or under them, had toiled hard at the
schools of both kinds which Mr. Mallory had opened in connection with
his relief system. At first considerable difficulties were naturally
experienced; some of the work-people grumbled bitterly at being obliged
to ‘go to school again,’ as the condition of receiving a sum, which
appeared to them small indeed, after the abundant wages they had for
years been earning; but the tact and kindness of the three principals,
Sebastian, Adrienne, and good little Mr. Sutcliffe, and the hearty
manner in which they were backed up by their subordinates, soon worked
wonders. Ere long the work-people themselves discovered how much better
off they were than those of their friends whose masters had not seen
fit to provide for them; and who were just then groaning under the
obnoxious ‘labour test,’ as it was called, which roused so much gall
and bitterness before the sewing and educational schools were fairly
started. Learning to make clothes, or reading, writing, and arithmetic,
were felt to be decidedly more distinguished and elevating employments
than stone-breaking, or road-making, and were, moreover, much better
adapted to the lissom fingers, and to the physique, accustomed to
sedentary labour in a high temperature, of the operatives. By degrees
they fell into their places. They felt that they were known, and
expected, and missed if they did not come at the appointed time. The
great warehouse was warmed and lighted, and threw open its doors
hospitably wide to receive them. ‘Mallory’s schools’ were known all
over the town, and those who attended them were envied by those who did
not.

For the principals the task was, as Sebastian had told Adrienne, no
joke. It was continuous, dry drudgery. The routine was monotonous, and
the discipline strict; but the master and head of it all was the first
to adhere unswervingly to every rule laid down, and his coadjutors
followed with unhesitating obedience. Mr. Blisset received more
kisses and thanks from his niece just now than she had ever bestowed
before--kisses and thanks for what she called his goodness in sparing
her to help the poor people in their great distress. She was with him
much less than usual, and perhaps did not therefore notice so much his
pallor and weakness, and the strength which was failing in every way.
He, for some reason, withheld the truth from her, and did not tell her
that he felt almost at the end of his weary, dismal pilgrimage. It was
only to Sebastian that he spoke about that--Sebastian, who had become
the trusted friend of the poor, lonely man.

Adrienne and Helena worked heartily, hand in hand. That was no time
for petty bickerings and jealousies. Even sectarians forgot their
differences in the imperative necessity for administering to the great
need and woe of the people. In working-hours Adrienne forgot entirely
who Helena was; and knew her only as a hearty helper, a quick, bright,
kind-hearted girl, to whom no trouble was too great, and no task too
hard. It was not quite the same with Helena. She had divined, by some
subtle means--herself scarce knew how--that Adrienne was no other than
‘the nicest girl I ever knew,’ and Miss Spenceley’s eyes grew intensely
critical. Every word, every gesture and action of her coadjutor, was
weighed in a nice balance, and, so far, had not been found wanting.
Helena herself was, without knowing it, changing rapidly. Despite a
certain vague disquietude of heart, she was happier than she had ever
been in her life before. She threw herself into her new work with
her characteristic passionate energy and vehemence, and her contact
with life, and some of its sternest lessons, was rubbing down her
preconceived extravagances of opinion, though she still, in word and
theory, cherished them as fondly as ever. But it was impossible that
one of her intensely sensitive and receptive mind could behold what
she daily did, of sorrow and pain, of ignorance and helplessness, and
remain the same. She saw into depths in this our life of which she had
never dreamed, and which Laura Mereweather’s philosophy passed over
entirely.

It has been acknowledged on all sides that the benefits, at that time
were not only on one side. It was not only the rough factory-girls
who came to learn, but also the delicate ladies who gave up time
and comfort and their best energies to teach, who profited by the
intercourse. In the sad and degrading spectacle of the spring of 1878,
the sweet lessons learned and taught in that bitter season of 1862
seem almost to have been forgotten and obliterated. Many a benighted
girl--many an uneducated, ignorant matron, roused to her toil at
half-past five in the morning, and prevented by its long monotony from
acquiring any domestic grace, learnt almost her first notions of making
home happy and comfortable in the schools that were set up in the
‘panic.’

Then, in the woe of the poor, and the sympathy of the rich, it almost
seemed as if the great black frowning barriers of caste had been
overthrown; but the division of classes, the opposition between master
and man, is a plant of sturdy growth, and strikes its roots deep and
far under the earth. Now, sixteen years later, comes a strike almost
without parallel for bitterness and unyielding stubbornness on either
side--a strike accompanied by rioting and mob-rule, broken windows,
houses sacked, men assaulted, women and children threatened; and the
necessity for a strong military force to preserve even the outward
semblance of order; and this, on the identical ground where, during
the cotton famine, the sore distress was most nobly borne and most
generously relieved. These things make a riddle hard to read.

Adrienne and Helena found both their mental and physical energies
taxed to the utmost by the work they had undertaken, but neither had
any thought of giving up. With Adrienne it was a labour of calm,
affectionate duty; she went to it with an enlightened sense of her
own responsibilities, and a full comprehension of the gravity of the
crisis. With Helena it was something quite different; she worked
eagerly, till she was wearied, and scarcely knew why she did it. Of
course she was sorry for the poor people, and pitied them in their
present condition, and was anxious to help them, strained every nerve
to do her work; but she thought more about Adrienne Blisset and
Sebastian Mallory than about all the poor people in Thanshope.

She was changing rapidly, without knowing it. In the presence of
this great urgent need, and of her own deeper emotions, all the
flimsy theories of the past were being utterly undermined, though
outwardly towering as high and as fair as ever. She was no happier
in her home-relations than before. Sebastian’s conduct was condemned
there by her father and brother. She knew that it was only because of
Sebastian’s wealth and Mrs. Mallory’s high position in the town, that
she was allowed to participate in what was called the ‘madness’ of
Mr. Mallory. Fool and madman were the mildest words in the vocabulary
of the Spenceley men, by which to describe Sebastian’s course. It was
wrong and iniquitous in him, they said, to set such an example, as if
every mill-owner in Thanshope could be expected to support his hands
while this confounded war lasted.

‘Every mill-owner--no!’ said Helena, with flashing eyes. ‘So many of
them are too poor. They have not the means; but if all those who could
afford it did so, it would only be their duty--their bare duty, and
there would not be so many begging letters in the papers, asking for
help for the richest county in the richest country in the world.’

She was informed that she knew nothing about it, and that it was only
to keep her out of some other mischief that she was allowed to have
anything to do with such folly.

(‘And,’ she thought to herself, with a hard smile, ‘because Sebastian
Mallory is rich and influential, and I see him every day, there.’)

The conversation turned to Helena’s coming birthday, when she would
attain her majority, and great festivities would be the order of the
day. With tears in her eyes, she took the opportunity to implore her
father to give up the ball which would cost so much money, and to give
her half, nay, a quarter of the sum he intended to spend upon it, that
she might give it to Miss Blisset or Mr. Mallory, and have it used for
relief purposes; but the request was peremptorily refused, and she was
told, in oracular language, that she did not know what was good either
for herself or the work-people. Moreover, she was informed, it was
all very well for a pretty girl to play at women’s rights; but that a
daughter was expected to obey her father; and the regal Fred remarked
that a fool and her money were soon parted, and he would back Helena
for making ducks and drakes of any property she might ever have, if it
were not pretty tightly tied up.

‘I suppose it is only finished gentlemen like yourself who know how to
make proper use of their money and their time,’ said Helena, turning
upon him bitterly. ‘I can tell you the whole town will cry shame on
both of you--the richest men in it, and you have scarcely subscribed
five pounds to keep your own work-people from starving.’

‘I didn’t become the richest man in Thanshope by pouring my money into
my work-people’s pockets,’ said Mr. Spenceley, grimly.

And Helena, with a passionate ‘Psha!’ rushed from the room, drawing on
her gloves as she went, to go forth to her afternoon labours at the
school.

This was in the middle of March, and as she came up the cindery path
leading to the little anteroom, which Sebastian and his staff were in
the habit of using as an office, he and Miss Blisset sat at the window
watching her approach.

‘What a lovely, graceful creature she is!’ said Adrienne, admiringly,
as the tall supple figure of the girl came swiftly up the walk. ‘I
often wonder how she can be the child of such parents.’

‘There is some southern impetuousness in her nature,’ he replied,
‘and a capacity for southern rages, too,’ he added, watching her and
smiling. ‘Look at her now, Miss Blisset; do you see that frown, and how
her eyes are flashing, and her lips set?’

‘Yes, I do; but that is a very unusual expression with her. I wonder
what is the matter with her?’

Here Helena came in, somewhat in the whirlwind style, her tall figure
erect--her silken skirts angrily sweeping about her.

‘You look annoyed, Miss Spenceley,’ said Adrienne, looking up from
where she sat, composed and cool.

‘Annoyed!’ repeated Helena, whose anger and mortification had been
augmenting all the time since she had left home, and whose voice
vibrated; ‘they tell me on all sides that my father is the richest man
in Thanshope, and that I shall have more money than I know what to do
with--some time. Some time, indeed! And I cannot get five pounds now
to help people with. I’ve given away all my money. I have just half a
crown in the world, and I can’t get any more for a month. Do you call
_that_ the proper way to treat a woman who will be responsible for five
thousand a year--_some time_? My father said I should. Do you call that
the right means to accustom her to the duties of her position?’

She had turned suddenly, and almost fiercely, to Sebastian.

‘Not at all,’ said he at once; perceiving that her lips quivered, and
that she was divided between tears of mortification and flames of
anger. ‘Not at all; but, my dear Miss Spenceley, so long as we have
your services, the money which you do or do not contribute is not of
the very least consequence.’

‘Don’t say that to me!’ she exclaimed, excitedly. ‘What is the use? My
services are nothing; I can do nothing.’

‘Indeed, I don’t know what I should do without you,’ said Adrienne.
‘You can influence those girls and women sometimes, when I can make
nothing of them. You can make them laugh heartily, when all my efforts
can only extort a solemn stare from them.’

‘You must not talk of going,’ chimed in Sebastian. ‘It is your
countenance alone which reconciles my mother to the undertaking. And if
you did not come,’ he added, smiling, ‘I don’t believe Hugo would have
anything to say to it; and he is invaluable to me amongst the boys. For
heaven’s sake, don’t desert us!’

Helena, with downcast eyes, was taking off her gloves. Her cheek was
flushed, and she smiled a little triumphantly.

‘Girls can do something then, after all?’ said she.

‘Have I not two living and bright proofs of the fact before me now?’ he
replied, looking from the one to the other.

‘Ah, yes!’ said Helena, coolly, while the flush died from her cheek,
and the smile faded from her lips. ‘Would you mind helping me off with
my mantle? Thanks. There comes Hugo von Birkenau, and there is our
first batch of girls, Miss Blisset. What is the programme for this
afternoon?’

She was all business now; had tied on a great holland apron, studded
with baggy-looking pockets, and slung a huge pair of scissors by a
string round her slim waist. Adrienne was accoutred in a similar
manner. Helena stopped some of the girls who were coming in, to make
them carry a pile of calico to the workroom. Raising his hat, Sebastian
left them to their labours, and joined Hugo outside.

Half of the great warehouse had been temporarily cleared, and
accommodated with benches and half a dozen huge deal tables. This
afternoon was to be a ‘cutting-out’ lesson--a lesson which, sooth to
say, Helena had had to learn herself for the occasion, from her mother.
The two young ladies, with some half-dozen others, who rapidly followed
on Helena’s steps, each took a class, and began their instructions;
the women and girls standing round, and many a dozen of them receiving
their first impressions as to the practical construction of the clothes
they wore. The directions were clear and simple enough; care was
taken, by questionings and cross-questionings, that the pupils should
thoroughly understand what was being explained to them.

When the ‘cutting out’ was over, they were shown how to fix the
things, and as they all sat doing this, each one bringing up her
performance when it was complete, for approval or correction, there
was much talking, and some singing, chiefly of hymns, in very high,
and generally in minor keys. It was very fatiguing work: the long
standing, the continuous talking, explaining, expounding, arranging and
rearranging for the stiff, unaccustomed fingers, formed no light task.
After more than two hours and a half of such labour, it was time to
go. The work was folded up, piled in heaps, laid on one side, and the
pupils prepared to leave.

Adrienne and Helena, both very tired, stood at the door, counting them
as they filed out.

‘Three hundred and five,’ they exclaimed together, as the last one
departed, and they smiled, and turned inside the room again, to divest
themselves of their aprons and shears.

‘Miss Blisset, will you not come home with me, and have some tea?’
asked Helena, who had given the invitation several times before, and
always received the same answer as on this occasion.

‘Thank you very much. I am sorry to say I cannot come.’

‘You always say that,’ said Helena, looking earnestly at her. ‘I have
tried in vain to get a little conversation with you, and to know you
better. I never see you, except at this dingy schoolroom, where I am
sure the incentives to cheerful intercourse are not strong.’

Adrienne smiled rather faintly as she replied,

‘I am sorry; it looks rude, I know, but I must go home to my uncle. He
is not very well at present; and I am obliged to leave him so much. You
must excuse me!’

‘If I must, I must, I suppose, but I don’t all the same,’ said Helena,
turning away in some dissatisfaction, and at that moment Sebastian and
Hugo entered, arm in arm.

‘Miss Spenceley!’ said Hugo, eagerly going up to her; ‘it is getting
dark. May I accompany you home?’

‘Oh yes, if you like,’ said Helena, absently, while she attentively
listened to what was passing between their fellow-workers.

‘Miss Blisset,’ she heard Sebastian say, ‘your uncle particularly asked
me to call this afternoon. I will walk with you to Stonegate, if you
will allow me.’

‘I shall be very glad,’ said she. ‘I am sure he will be pleased to see
you. Do you know, sometimes I am afraid he will not live long.’

‘His is hardly likely to be a long life,’ said Sebastian, evasively.

‘Oh, but it may be. Invalids--when they are taken such care of as I
take of him--sometimes live a long time. And he is not old, and it is
not as if he had a complaint in which there was danger of his dying
suddenly.’

‘Do you dread his death so much?’ asked Sebastian, folding her shawl
around her.

‘I do; and I fear for selfish reasons. Without him I should be
perfectly alone in the world.’

‘You alone? not unless you wished it,’ said he, almost reproachfully,
whilst Helena, assisted by the proud and happy Hugo, was wrapping
herself in her fur-lined mantle with the sable border; the mantle which
set off her dark, piquant beauty to the utmost advantage; for she was
one of those truly English beauties who look almost lovelier in their
outdoor dress, and with the flush of exercise upon their cheeks, than
in the airy fabrics of the ball-room. But there was no flush upon
Helena’s cheeks now. She turned to the boy who had been, or wished
to be since he first saw her, her particular page in attendance (he
aspired to nothing more in his own mind, and, despite all unfavourable
circumstances, he had always seen Helena the wife of his worshipped
friend), and said, in a voice that had sunk and grown tired,

‘Come, Hugo, I have no time to spare. We will leave the others to lock
up. I must go.’

‘I am ready, and waiting your pleasure, _mein gnädiges Fräulein_.’

‘Don’t speak foreign tongues to me. Do you forget what Gretchen said to
Faust when he called her Fräulein?’

‘“Thank you, sir, I can walk home by myself.” That would be shocking,
and I will not do it again.’

‘Good afternoon!’ suddenly said Helena, in a loud, clear voice, as she
looked carelessly over her shoulder at the other two, who started, as
if suddenly recalled to a sense of what was going on around them.

Hugo and his companion left the mill-yard, and paced down the street in
the bitter cold of the March twilight, now rapidly becoming darkness.
The lamps were being lighted; some shops were open; the passengers
along the streets were not many; the great factories were silent, there
was no cloud of smoke to obscure the frostily twinkling stars.

Helena suddenly began to speak, in a voice bitter, though it strove to
be careless, and with a short laugh that was not a merry one.

‘How affecting--truly affecting it is, to see two such congenial
spirits together as Mr. Sebastian Mallory and Miss Adrienne Blisset.
He likes a rose-watery kind of woman, who looks up to him and
thinks he is better than she is herself, and wiser; and she likes a
dreamy, unpractical kind of man, full of sweet compliments and vague
generalities--like a sugar-plum that breaks in your mouth, and then
you find it has been full of a weak, diluted kind of essence--like
Sebastian Mallory.’

‘What a comparison!’ exclaimed Hugo, in a tone, almost of offence.
‘You are very harsh, sometimes, Miss Spenceley. Sebastian dreamy and
unpractical! _Jawohl!_ I used to think so once; but I have found out
that there is an iron hand under the silken glove. Once I fancied he
was all art, all----’

‘All art!’ said Helena, perversely twisting his imperfect English to
suit her own purposes; ‘perhaps you were not so far wrong there, Hugo.’

‘What has occurred to vex you, _mein Fräulein_?’ asked her companion
innocently.

‘To vex me? I am not vexed. I am tired, and it is so cold. Well, go on!
I don’t think very highly of Mr. Mallory, as you may be aware; and I
should like to hear what you can find to say in his favour. What other
good points has he?’

‘_Herrgott!_ He is all good.’

‘Ha! ha!’

‘Miss Spenceley----’

‘A good, bigoted Tory and Conservative, despite his professed
radicalism. Mrs. Mallory need not have been distressed. He may call
himself what he likes, but he hates progress.’

‘I don’t understand about Radicals and Conservatives,’ said Hugo,
good-humouredly. ‘I am densely ignorant about politics. In Prussia
there are Liberals and Conservatives, and Communists, but I don’t know
what any of them want. I don’t think the _Reichstag_ is the sphere for
me--do you?’

‘Good gracious! how should I know? I was not talking about Communists
or the _Reichstag_. If you don’t know anything about them, you know
something else, Hugo,’ she said, softening her voice confidentially.

‘I know that you are charming--so kind to me,’ said he, with a
vibration in his voice--and indeed Helena had been very kind to the
boy; ‘and I know that you sing “Since first I saw your face” like an
angel.’

‘You know perfectly well that Mr. Mallory and Miss Blisset are
desperately in love with one another--deny it if you can.’

Hugo was silent.

‘You cannot,’ said Helena, triumphantly.

‘I am not in their confidence,’ he said slowly.

‘All the world is in the confidence of people who are so far gone
as they are. If you mean to say that they did not each take you
separately aside, and tell you in so many words--well, I can say the
same. He that hath eyes to see, let him observe.’

Hugo was not yet master enough of the English language to be able to
turn off her remark. Helena began to hum a little song to herself, and
then suddenly sank into silence and gravity, until it began to snow,
and grew quite dark, when she shivered, putting up her umbrella, and
saying pettishly,

‘My mantle will be ruined. Why didn’t I bring a cloak? I declare,
another day, when the weather is so bad, I won’t take this horrid long
walk.’

‘You will rather drive?’ suggested Hugo, with apparently the most
childlike innocence of her meaning.

‘How ridiculous you are! How far is it, Hugo, from the mill to
Stonegate?’

‘About as far as from the mill to Castle Hill, only in exactly the
opposite direction.’

‘Oh! I don’t know that end of the town at all. We, at any rate, have
had time for a delightful conversation, haven’t we? Come in, and have
some tea, and play me something.’

Nothing loth, Hugo followed her, and they vanished within the portals
of Castle Hill.




CHAPTER V.

    ‘Death, with most grim and grisly visage seene,
    Yet is he nought but parting of the breath;
    Ne ought to see, but like a shade to weene,
    Unbodièd, unsoul’d, unheard, unseene.’


Adrienne and Sebastian were walking ‘just the opposite way,’ with very
little more satisfaction to themselves than Hugo and Helena had found.
Helena was constantly picturing Sebastian to herself as engaged in
half-intellectual, half-amorous discourse with the ‘nicest of girls;’
his mind elevated by her spiritual observations, and his languid but
ever-present sense of superiority (this was Helena’s hypothesis)
gratified by her deference to his superior wisdom. It was a comical
theory--one worthy of Helena’s vivid imagination and hopelessly
impractical ideas; and was, moreover, as far removed from the truth
as she herself could possibly have wished. Yes, wished; for while the
delusive vision kept dangling before her mental eyes, and while she
professed to sneer and scoff at it, it was in reality an ever-present,
dull pain, none the less real because not clearly comprehended for what
it was.

On this especial evening Adrienne was tired more than usual, and
mentally as well as physically weary. An undefined pain and distress
had troubled her mind for some weeks--to-day the cloud was very
dark. She had seen Sebastian Mallory growing more and more intimate
with her uncle, and progressing with great rapidity in the favour of
that most fastidious individual; she had seen--how could she help
seeing?--Sebastian’s attentions to herself; how, when he was with her,
his eyes constantly turned towards her, and how a light flashed into
their quietness when they met hers; how his voice, in speaking to her,
took a deeper sound. He was good, rich, handsome, clever, kind. She
knew all his good qualities, and thoroughly valued them. She approved
of him; she liked his presence; it was pleasant to her. She remembered
with deep, earnest gratitude his delicate kindness and attention to
her in those days gone by, when her troubles with her father, and her
terrible struggle against their adverse circumstances had threatened
to overwhelm her. ‘I would do anything for you,’ she had said, and had
meant it. And yet, now! How painfully, unaccountably, unexpectedly
things changed! Thus meditating, her step dragged, and her head drooped
a little, as they paced the dreary length of Blake Street together.
She did not understand why that load of oppression and longing--that
_Sehnsucht_--should just now lie so heavily upon her heart. Sebastian
paused at the gate, and laid his hand upon it, and then Adrienne seemed
to see, in a flash of sunlight, Myles Heywood’s tall figure and earnest
face; as he, in the same attitude, almost a year ago, had laid his hand
upon that wicket, and had opened it for her to pass in. Her heart
throbbed--something rose in her throat as she entered.

‘Myles has not been near us for weeks,’ said she to herself. ‘I will go
and call there some day, very soon,’ she added valiantly, ‘and ask the
reason of it, and if I have done anything to offend them.’

Mr. Blisset, his servant said, was not at all well. He felt very weak,
and had gone to bed, and he had left word that if Mr. Mallory called,
he particularly wished to see him.

Sebastian followed the man upstairs. Adrienne went into the
drawing-room, and mechanically sat down, without even turning up the
shaded lamp, and her hands clasped themselves before her upon her knees.

Sebastian sat a long time beside Mr. Blisset’s bed, for their
conversation was prolonged. At last Mr. Blisset said,

‘And I have made you one of my executors. I hope you don’t mind. I have
so few friends.’

‘I am honoured in being chosen, and will gladly undertake it.’

‘Thank you. Of course, I have left everything to Adrienne. She will
be placed above all money troubles; for she is like me, she has no
extravagant desires. But I should wish the child to have a staunch
friend, and you are different from other young men, or I would not have
asked it. Will you be her friend?’

‘It is my most earnest wish. But since we have spoken of this, I may
as well tell you the whole truth. I have loved your niece for a long
time--for years. When I find an opportunity, I intend asking her to
become my wife. Have you anything against it?’

Mr. Blisset pressed the young man’s hand with a clasp which had grown
feeble.

‘You make me very happy. I would rather know her safe in your hands
than in those of any other man.’

‘I wish you could know it,’ said Sebastian, with a somewhat melancholy
smile. ‘I assure you I am far from feeling confident myself, but I hope
for the best.’

‘I think you may be quite confident,’ said Mr. Blisset. ‘Poor child!
now she need not be alone, and has a fair chance of a safe, untroubled
future, such as a woman ought to enjoy.’

Shortly after this Sebastian left him, and went away without seeing
Adrienne. Later, she went upstairs to sit with her uncle, and ask if
she should read to him.

‘No, thank you, my child. I shall need no more reading now, Adrienne.
Your wearisome, monotonous task is almost at an end.’

‘Dear uncle, what do you mean?’

‘I am what men call dying, my dear. Whether it is the end of all things
for each one of us, or whether it is but the beginning of an endless
succession of advancing lives, very soon I shall know--or I shall not
know.’

She kissed his hand.

‘You must not talk in that way. You have been very good to me, and I
cannot spare you. I love you, uncle--you must not leave me.’

‘I fear your pleasure will not be consulted on that point, my
daughter,’ said he, with a strange half-smile, half-pity, half-deep
amusement. ‘Ah! Adrienne, when men have lived--or existed--as I have
done, and for so long, they are not sorry when the machinery comes to a
stop, and they know no more.’

Much moved and much distressed, she listened to him until he sent her
away, telling her to sleep undisturbedly, for he would yet live to talk
with her, and convince her that it was for the best.

But he was wrong. When morning dawned, Richard Blisset was at rest, and
free from the mantle of pain and weakness which he had worn so long.




CHAPTER VI.

‘TO THE DREGS.’


The merry month of May, in the year of grace 1862, and in that part
of her Majesty’s dominions known as the County Palatine of Lancaster,
wore a face even less smiling and colder than usual. Despite the
gaudy sunshine, despite the unusual chances offered to external
nature, of showing herself to the best advantage through the absence
of smoke--despite this, all was sad, penitential, silent. One missed
the burst of talk and laughter, the chaffing and shouting in the
streets when the mills were loosed. One missed the tramp, tramp, of the
thousands of clogs over the flags at the appointed times.

Trade had collapsed. King Cotton was discrowned; his subjects had
become a nation of paupers; some of whom were begging their bread,
all of whom were living chiefly on help from outside. There was a
vast organisation kept up, chiefly by unpaid, voluntary toil, for
discovering distress, and distributing relief. Thanshope had now added
herself to the list of towns which had instituted Relief Committees,
and Sebastian’s schools had been merged into the larger ones belonging
to the public body. They had served as a sort of model or introduction,
and the others were founded upon the same plan. He himself was one of
the most powerful and active members of the committee, while Adrienne
and Helena, from their previous experience, were in reality the head
and front of the ladies’ committee, though duly subordinated in outward
order to Mrs. Ponsonby, and one or two other dames of place and
importance.

But while the great complicated machine was working with such
regularity and smoothness, so that it and its movements were praised
by all who beheld them, what were those doing on whose behalf all this
mechanism had been set a-going? What was happening in the thousands of
homes whose most cherished hopes and traditions had to be given up and
forsaken in this terrible emergency? In the one home in which we are
interested it was going hardly enough.

It was in the very beginning of the month, a bright, glaring, sunny
May morning, to look upon, with a dry pitiless east wind blowing
round the corners and sweeping down the shady side of the streets.
It was the middle of the forenoon, and the Heywoods’ kitchen did
not get the morning sun. There was no fire. Mary and her next-door
neighbour, Mrs. Mitchell, took turns at having a fire, for the cooking
of both households now was less extensive than it once had been, and
each alternately undertook the responsibility of the other’s baking
and boiling. This was the day on which Mrs. Mitchell had the fire;
consequently Mary’s kitchen was all the colder from its bareness and
its spotless neatness. She was sitting in the window, sewing. Myles
was at the centre table with some books from the library before him,
ostensibly reading--really gazing blankly at the page, and looking, as
it is not good that a young man, or any man, should look--looking as
men only do look when their affairs are in a very bad way.

His sister stole occasional side-glances at his face, and her heart
wept, if her eyes did not. She and Edmund had been living all this time
upon the weekly sum allowed by Sebastian Mallory to such of his hands
as chose to accept it. They had been aided by Myles from his own store,
in order that Edmund might have the things he required; and that store,
Mary knew now, was at an end, had come to an end some days ago. She did
not quite know how Myles had lived during those few dreadful days. He
had accepted nothing from her, because what she offered had been bought
with Sebastian Mallory’s money. He had smiled when she had implored him
to take something and repay her when times mended, if he would not have
it as a gift; smiled in a way that had not encouraged her to repeat
the offer. He had made no complaints, had been very quiet, but those
days had been the most wretched Mary had ever spent in her life. She
knew what her brother had been trying to hold out for, but the hope
continued to be deferred; and even if it must now be soon fulfilled,
she feared the relief would come too late to save him from what he and
she both considered the supreme and ultimate disgrace and shame, of
having to apply for relief. Some fortnight ago, the Relief Committee
had advertised for two clerks, to relieve their honorary secretaries
of the burden of accounts and correspondence, which had grown greater
than they could bear. Candidates of the artisan class were invited
to apply, and it was intimated that, if competent, they would be
preferred rather than others, on the principle of helping them to
help themselves. Myles Heywood had been one of the applicants, and the
decision would not be known for two days yet. The day before, Mary had
met Mr. Mallory, and had hurriedly implored him to use his influence,
if he had any, to get her brother in; but never, never to say she had
asked him, or she did not know what would happen if Myles ever knew
of it. He had promised; but there still remained a dreadful blank two
days, and then, even with Sebastian’s efforts, the answer might be that
Myles was rejected.

Thus she sat this morning, with a sick heart, furtively watching her
brother in an anguish of pity. Would it really come to the worst?
Would he actually have to turn his steps--her brother, of whom she was
so proud--towards those dreadful doors above which glared, in white
letters a foot long, ‘Relief Committee’s Offices’? those doors which,
she thanked her God every night, she had not yet been obliged to enter?
He had had no breakfast, she knew; she did not know when he had last
eaten, or of what the meal had consisted. His face was terribly wasted;
so was the muscular, long-fingered hand which lay before him on the
table. There was lassitude in his attitude, a drawn look about his lips
and his eyes; his eyes haunted her, and made her very heart bleed when
she encountered them. What would he do? At eleven the committee began
their sitting, and it was ten minutes to eleven now, and the offices
were some distance away. If he were going it was time he----

She started violently as he, at this moment, pushed his books away from
him with a slow, resolute sweep of his hand, and rose. What a terrible
change had taken place in the whole figure and deportment of the man!

Myles took his cap from the nail on which it hung, and turned to her.

‘I’m going out, Molly,’ said he.

‘Yes,’ she answered; and something in the muffled toneless accent of
her voice made him look at her. She was gazing intently at him, with
a fixed, almost staring look--a glance of blank pain and suffering,
passive, yet terrible.

‘Mary,’ said he, pausing, ‘you know what it is. It must be. You think
it is the worst; but I tell you it is not so. It is not so bad as what
you would have me do.’

With that he left the room and the house.

He had a pretty long walk, up and down hill. He felt inexpressibly
tired--and worse than tired: his stomach was empty: he had a sick,
gnawing sense of hunger--absolute, grinding hunger, such as he had read
of others--destitute people--feeling; but such as he had never before
felt, till now that he was destitute himself. His head felt weak and
dizzy; his mind dull and stupid--he found he could only walk slowly, as
he took first this turning and then that, and presently arrived at his
destination--the one place in Thanshope where, in these hard times, a
flourishing business was being carried on.

About the door was a crowd of people--men and women; young and old. The
expressions upon the different faces varied from callousness, through
every variety of unwillingness, pain, and shame, up to a careless
hardihood that felt no disgrace, and was only wishful to make the most
of the opportunity.

Into this crowd stepped the tall figure of the young workman; his
face white, half with exhaustion, half with emotion; his lips set,
his deep-set eyes glooming beneath the pain-drawn brows. He looked
neither to right nor left of him, but leaning against the wall, plunged
his hands into his pockets and waited. There was a kind of network
of railings before the door, through which the people had to pass in
single file, to prevent their all crowding in together, and Myles, like
the rest, had to wait his turn.

Most men have to go through one or two _mauvais quarts d’heure_ in the
course of their lives, but few can have surpassed in bitterness the
minutes which Myles Heywood spent, waiting his turn, before the door
of the committee-room. Some one recognised him, spoke to him, and said
she had never expected to see him there. He answered mechanically and
composedly, but felt his face suddenly grow fierily hot; and then a
little push from behind warned him to move on, and he obeyed it.

He entered the large room in company with several other people, and
there were more than a dozen gentlemen seated round the table in the
middle of the room. But from the moment in which he entered and saw a
face raised, a pair of eyes fixed in pitying astonishment upon him, he
felt as if he were alone with one man, and that man Sebastian Mallory.
Strange to say, he had never remembered, had scarcely been conscious of
the fact, that Mallory was one of the most important members of this
very committee. He knew it now--realised it with heart and brain and
consciousness, as the face of his rival

    ‘Flashed like a cymbal on his face,’

and for a moment the sense of degradation, of humiliation, burned and
scorched him, and he felt almost mad.

Almost--but no; reason was still the stronger. The remembrance of his
own utter destitution, the distinct, imperative call of sickness and
hunger, the clear knowledge that there was no alternative, prevailed.
He did not turn round and walk away. He remained, but how he dragged
his feet towards the desk of the man who was asking questions, he
knew not. How he answered those questions remained also a mystery to
him. The gentlemen heard him, noted his address, and said he would
see that the case was inquired into. Myles felt no resentment at the
idea of his statements being thought to require investigation: whether
because his pride had been once for all laid low, or whether from sheer
weakness and dulness of sense, he did not know. He was turning away
and wondering when the inquiries would be made, and how much longer he
would be able to hold out, when Sebastian Mallory, for the first time
removing his attention from the writing in which he had apparently been
engrossed, said composedly,

‘There is no need to trouble the visitor to inquire into that case,
Mr. Whitaker. I can vouch for the truth of every word of it. I should
recommend you to write a ticket and pay the sum required at once.’

Then he turned to his writing again. Mr. Whitaker said, ‘Ah, that is
all right, then,’ and immediately took a ticket and began to write.

Myles felt as if everything was reeling around him, and himself
with the rest. He caught at the top of a chair by the table and
steadied himself, feeling as if he were some one else, some strange,
alien, degraded being--one of the beggars of whom he used to read in
advanced periodicals, that they ought not to be relieved by private,
miscellaneous almsgiving; but should all be ticketed and classified,
and strictly watched and overlooked. It was as the bitterness of death,
and must be borne unmoved, standing composedly and decently.

All the time he still supported himself by the back of the chair,
unable, from very weakness and dizziness, to move. The gentleman
who sat in it rose, and looked at him from a pair of keen, stern,
steel-gray eyes.

‘You look ill, young man,’ said he. ‘Come with me, and I will show you
where to get the money.’

He took the ticket in his hand, and, taking Myles’s arm, led him away
through a side-door, into a small sort of anteroom. Here he bade Myles
sit down, and he took from a cupboard some wine--red wine, which he
poured into a glass and gave to Myles with a piece of bread.

‘Take that,’ said he, ‘and drink the wine, or you will be ill before
you get home. You have fasted long. You should have come sooner. How
long is it since you had any food?’

‘About thirty-six hours, I think,’ said Myles, looking at him as
he took the glass in his hand. It was Canon Ponsonby, ‘the radical
parson,’ the man who ought to have been a prime minister, but who, as
Rector of Thanshope, earned more love than falls to the lot of most
prime ministers, charm they never so wisely.

His stern face softened as he looked upon the figure before him.

‘You have a right spirit,’ said he. ‘I know your name, and who you are.
Your sister attends the parish church. You----’

‘Attend no church at all. I’m a free thinker.’

‘Are you? I don’t think you will ever solve your riddle by
free-thinking. But shake hands. I wish you were one of my flock.’

‘If anything could make me one of a flock, it would be that you are the
shepherd, sir,’ said Myles, finishing his bread and wine, and feeling a
warmed life in his veins and at his heart.

‘See!’ said Canon Ponsonby, ‘here is the weekly allowance to which
your ticket entitles you. Do not trouble to call at the office. Good
morning.’ He took the young man’s hand. ‘I have long known of you. I am
glad to have seen you. God have you in His keeping!’

Strangely moved and grateful, Myles silently clasped the noble old
man’s hand. He could not speak. Canon Ponsonby showed him out by a
side-door, so that he avoided that dreadful crowd round the entrance.
He was in the street again, with the white ticket, and some money in
his hand. After what Canon Ponsonby had said to him, he had ceased to
feel that dreadful agony of shame, but he felt utterly crushed, and
reduced to the most perfect insignificance.

Dreamily pursuing his homeward way, he turned over the money in his
hand, and remembered that he must buy some food with it! Food! for
himself? When he had gone through that age of anguish, as it had seemed
to him, he should take the coins which had been so hardly earned, and
buy bread with them, and eat them? It struck him as being absurd--as if
one had used a steam-hammer to crush a midge withal.

Nevertheless, he went into a shop, and bought some bread and cheese,
and was carrying it home, still with the same sense of incongruity
between the means and the end. But, as he passed a doorstep, at the end
of a street, he beheld a little girl sitting on it, and crying bitterly.

‘Little one, what’s the matter?’ he asked, stopping, and looking down
at her.

‘I’m--so--hungry!’ said the child, with a sob between each word, as she
looked piteously up into his face, and held a thin little pinafore,
soaked with tears, in two small, tremulous hands.

‘So hungry!’ he said, stooping over her, with the sense that perhaps,
after all, he had not gone through the furnace to find nothing at the
other side. ‘Hast had no breakfast?’

‘Nay, none at o’.’

‘How’s that?’

Here a thin, clean-looking, poorly clad woman, with a baby in her arms,
came to the door.

‘Come in, Sarah Emily,’ said she. ‘For shame o’ thisel, to sit bawlin’
on th’ dur-step. Thi’ feyther’s gone to see about summat to ayt. Coom
in, and hold thi’ din.’

‘I’m--so--hungry!’ was the only answer.

‘Ne’er heed her, lad!’ said the woman to Myles. ‘My measter’s going to
th’ committee to-day. We’ve had to come to that, and we’ll likely get
summat to ayt afore neet.’

‘Nay, but it’s very hard for such a bit of a lass to wait so long,’
said Myles. ‘If you’ll trust her to me, I’ll give her some breakfast.
I’m just going to get my own.’

‘Eh, thank you, you’re very kind,’ said the woman, her voice suddenly
breaking, as she looked at him, and then turned aside again.

‘Come, my lass!’ said Myles gently, and he took the open-mouthed Sarah
Emily in his arms, and carried her to his home.

In the kitchen, he seated her in Mary’s rocking-chair, explaining
briefly to his sister that the child was clemming, and must be fed, and
then he cut her some bread and cheese, and watched her with an intense
and altogether unaccountable interest while she ate it. He felt almost
light-hearted. If he had not, so to speak, walked up to the cannon’s
mouth this morning, little Sarah Emily might have been sickening with
hunger until eventide.

‘Good! good!’ she cried, when she had eaten as much as she could.

And she laughed at him, while he slowly ate something himself.

‘Look here!’ he suggested; ‘do you think you could find your way from
your home to this another day?’

‘Eh, ay! It’s none so far,’ said Sarah Emily.

‘Then, if you come every morning--every morning, mind--I’ll give you
something to eat always, eh?’ he suggested.

‘But I can ayt such a lot, when I’m hungry,’ said Sarah Emily
bashfully, putting her forefinger into her mouth.

‘Never mind! There’ll always be something. Wilt come?’

‘Eh, I will so!’ said the child, clapping her hands, jumping upon his
knee, and kissing him.

Thus was the bargain struck.

There is this day, in Thanshope, a dark-eyed young woman, of some
twenty-four years, who has a husband, and some young children. When the
little ones clamour for breakfast or dinner, she is in the habit of
reproving them, by telling them that they don’t know what real hunger
is; and, as an instance in point, she is given to relating the story
how she sat on the doorstep one day in the ‘panic’ crying with hunger,
and how the tall, pale-faced young man with the kind eyes picked her
up, and carried her home, and gave her food; and how either he or his
sister welcomed their hungry little visitor daily for----

‘How long, mother?’

‘Three months, child; every day--eh, they were kind; they were so.’

‘Is he alive now, mother?’

‘Ay, for sure he is, and----’

But the dark-eyed young woman always makes rather a long story of it,
and freely intersperses remarks and comments, which, though doubtless
interesting to her family, might not be considered of value by the
public in general.

Two days later, the postman brought Myles a summons to attend at the
Central Offices of the Relief Committee that day, as he was one of the
successful candidates for the clerkship, and the announcement that his
salary would be twenty shillings a week.

Thus the worst, materially, was tided over; but the bitterness of the
cup he had drunk that terrible morning did not lightly pass away.




CHAPTER VII.

A PAUSE.


When Myles began his work at the Committee Office, one conspicuous
member of the Ladies’ Committee was temporarily absent. Adrienne
Blisset was then occupied in learning the condition of her own affairs,
and found herself soon in a totally different position from any she had
ever expected to fill--very rich, as it seemed to her, and a person
of great importance; and, what was strangest of all, with Sebastian
Mallory coming and going and fulfilling his duties as executor, and
explaining everything to her. She repeatedly told him that she could
not believe it; it was impossible--there must be a mistake. All that
money hers to do as she liked with, and she had not earned it, nor
worked for it!

‘What an idea you have of working for everything you get!’ he exclaimed
suddenly one day. ‘Do you carry it so far as to demand a service from
every one to whom you accord a sign of favour?’

‘Really I don’t know what you mean,’ replied she. ‘I only know that I
have got, you tell me, between six and seven hundred a year, and I have
done nothing to deserve it.’

‘No. I suppose you have to deserve it now, by using it properly,’ said
he sedately.

That was in fact the amount of Adrienne’s means, and it was natural
that it should appear to her as wealth unbounded. She had also
Stonegate on a lease, which had yet somewhat over two years to run. And
when she had learnt all this, and that she really was the mistress of
such means, with the only drawback that there was no one to share them
with, no one to consult with--herself alone, and her own pleasure and
convenience to study; when she had grasped these facts, and had begun
to feel rather sad and lonely, she returned to her work one morning
in a black dress, looking rather thinner and paler than she had done
before. The people with whom she had become acquainted in her work, and
who had heard the reason of her absence, came round her, and, though
not openly, congratulated her, hoped she would now take a recognised
place amongst them, asked if they might call, and so on. And as she
somewhat vaguely and sadly answered these efforts at friendship, she
looked up, and saw some one pass the window. It was Myles Heywood going
to his work.

Adrienne’s name had become well known in Thanshope during the last
three months. It was but a provincial town, and every one seemed
thoroughly acquainted with every one else’s affairs. Mrs. Mallory had
been much annoyed at finding Sebastian ‘mixed up,’ as she called it,
with Mr. Blisset’s affairs, and above all, with those of Miss Blisset.
She had had to explain it as well as she could to certain friends who
had asked her who this Miss Blisset was, and what it all meant.

Sebastian, she said, was so very good-natured; she feared he would be
imposed on some time. Did she know Miss Blisset? Certainly she did, in
a way; but as for being a friend of hers, certainly not! Sebastian had
consented to act as Mr. Blisset’s executor out of pure goodwill and
kindness, because the man was so much to be pitied, and seemed to have
absolutely no friends. That was all.

But despite all Mrs. Mallory’s efforts, it got known that her son
and the young lady, who had lately come into a fortune, and who was
reported to be both charming and accomplished, were very great friends.
Helena Spenceley took rather a malicious pleasure in upholding this
theory in Mrs. Mallory’s very presence, so that that lady would have
boxed her ears with pleasure, if one could box the ears of a person who
would have one hundred thousand pounds some day.

Thus Miss Blisset and Mr. Mallory were already talked about in a
certain set, and Adrienne’s duties had made her name and herself
familiar to another and a less distinguished public--to the
working-people of Thanshope. She had been a notability amongst them
before her sudden accession to wealth and friends; she was doubly well
known to them now. She was busy and preoccupied, thought Myles, as he
sat at his desk in the second office, and saw her almost daily pass the
windows on her way to the Ladies’ Committee-room. She was a lady of
property, sought after and busy, and he was a clerk on a high stool, to
whom she scarce spoke a word from one week’s end to the other.

Those years of distress brought about some strange acquaintances, and
led to some unusual events. Though everything appeared on the outside
to work so smoothly, there were active emotions stirring amongst the
members of that Thanshope Relief Committee--emotions, quite unconnected
with the wants of those for whose benefit they had assembled
themselves. The circumstances were exceptional, and it was only under
exceptional circumstances that those particular people could have not
only met, but continued almost daily to meet and come in contact with
one another. Gradually circumstances drew them together--gradually as
they met, the half-forgotten, smouldering feelings of love and hate,
contempt and pity, sprang into life and activity again, and emotion
stepped to the front, and all these things acted and reacted one upon
the other, till every story was modified, every life received a bend
this way or that, a change in the even tenor of its way.




CHAPTER VIII.

A MEETING.


Mr. Spenceley, the millionaire, the richest man in Thanshope, the man
of boundless wealth and boundless callousness, was amongst those cotton
lords who, to their lasting shame and disgrace, were determined at
this crisis not to come forward and give of their abundance, but who
preferred to hang back until the popular voice left them no option, and
the universal indignation absolutely thrust them to the front.

For a long time Mr. Spenceley had contented himself with abusing the
sorely tried work-people, demanding to know why they did not all
emigrate, and vowing that he would not waste his money upon them. He
amused himself by everywhere calling Sebastian Mallory, behind his
back, a fool and a madman, a spendthrift, a pernicious leveller, and so
on: and by behaving to him before his face with the utmost courtesy and
politeness, excusing conduct which might savour of double dealing by
saying that such fools could never be made to see that they were fools,
and that it was best to take them as you found them, and let them go
their own way.

When the Public Relief Committee was established, and one and all, rich
and poor, young and old, contributed something either in money, or
kind, or assistance, or all, the chief inhabitant of Thanshope could
no longer hold back. He allowed his name to appear as a member of the
committee, sent a subscription of a hundred pounds, and deputed his son
to act as his proxy at councils, committee meetings, and so on. Despite
the bad times, he himself was so much engaged with business, that he
had no time to attend to such things.

Accordingly, Fred Spenceley periodically shed the light of his
countenance upon the council board and those surrounding it. He
continued to come, despite a terrible rebuff he received on the
occasion of his first appearance upon the scene.

It was that rebuff, and one or two incidents connected with it, which
filled him with rage and bitterness; so that if he had been an Irish
reaper, or an Oldham weaver, he would have proceeded to drink himself
blind, and then gone home and maltreated his wife, or any other
feminine creature within the range of his arm. Being in a different
station from that occupied by reapers and weavers, and thinly veneered
over into a poor, tinselly, outward semblance of a gentleman, he only
raged frantically within himself, and cast about to find an instrument
to execute a moral revenge, which, he had sense enough in his dull
brutal brain to know, would far more torture the objects of it than all
the corporal punishment in the world.

He arrived one afternoon, thinking the whole business a great piece of
‘tomfoolery.’ The Relief Committee’s offices consisted of three rooms,
opening one out of the other. The first was the Ladies’ Committee-room,
a large, spacious place, where the ladies could meet, decide upon their
proceedings, and hear the accounts of their wants and troubles brought
to them by mothers, wives, and daughters from all parts of the town.
Passing through this room, a second and smaller one was reached, in
which sat the two clerks, Myles Heywood, and a lad who was under him.
Through this second apartment, ingress was obtained to the Gentlemen’s
Committee-room, where the council assembled, three times a week as a
rule, and oftener if necessary.

Coming to attend his first committee meeting, Fred Spenceley entered
the first of these rooms, and, glancing round, beheld different groups
scattered in different parts of the room. No one took any notice of
him; they were all much too busy; but as he looked round, he perceived,
in one of the windows apart from the rest, three persons: Sebastian
Mallory, whom he had hated since first he saw his face, as only a
true ‘cad’ can hate a true gentleman; and two ladies--one in black,
whose back was turned towards him, the other his sister Helena, erect,
animated, with her dark eyes flashing and her silks in some agitation.

He walked up to the group, and touched Helena on the shoulder,
inquiring graciously,

‘Well, little one, what’s the matter now?’

‘Fred! How you startled me! Have you come to the meeting?’

‘Yes, I have. Much good it will do me or any one else, my being here.
But the governor was----’

‘Oh yes! I know. But stop! You know Mr. Mallory. Miss Blisset, let
me----’

Adrienne interrupted her. She was standing, pale, haughty, and erect,
with eyes full of cold contempt; and she interposed, in a cool, decided
voice,

‘Pardon me, Miss Spenceley, I do not wish for any introduction. I must
decline to make that--gentleman’s acquaintance.’

With which she turned away, in perfect outward composure, and, seating
herself at a desk, calmly looked out of the window, leaving Sebastian
surprised, and yet not surprised, Fred furious, and Helena overwhelmed
with confusion; for she knew her brother, and felt sure that he must
have distinguished himself in some far from desirable manner towards
Miss Blisset, to cause that gentle lady openly to manifest discourtesy.
Helena’s humiliation was increased as she realised, with lightning-like
rapidity, that Adrienne must have some excellent reason for repeatedly
refusing to visit her at Castle Hill. Crimson, she stood where she
had received the rebuff, and knew not what to do. It was Sebastian
who, after the unavoidable momentary pause, and when Mr. Spenceley had
turned upon his heel, said just as if nothing had happened,

‘I shall lay the matter before the Board to-day, Miss Spenceley, and I
am sure it will be attended to immediately.’

Helena met his eyes as she looked up at him, and the burning blush of
mortification glowed more deeply than before.

‘You are very kind,’ said she, in a low, choked voice; ‘but you cannot
do away with the fact that I have to blush for my nearest relations.’

With that, she too turned away, as if not knowing where to go to; and
Sebastian decided that the best thing he could do would be to follow
Mr. Spenceley to the council-room.

For Mr. Spenceley, muttering an anathema, had directed his steps away
from such dangerous ground, and with raging hatred in his heart,
entered the second of the three rooms. In that moment he would gladly
have strangled some one, or kicked his dog, or flogged his horse, or
sworn at his mother; and if he had had a wife, he would have caused her
to spend a joyful evening on his return home.

As it was, he found himself in a small room, in the window of which
stood a long desk, at which desk sat two men busily writing. One of
them rose, as he entered, to fetch a ledger from a shelf at the other
side of the room. Spenceley’s rage gave way to a momentary start of
surprise; then the blood came surging to his face and ears, as he
found that he was confronting that insolent, unknown operative who had
disgraced and branded him, and degraded and punished him, ten months
ago in the club billiard-room.

Like a lurid dream it all started up again in his brain. There the man
stood--he tingled from head to foot as he beheld him--with face pinched
and worn, but with that same broad, unstained brow, the same scornful
grey eyes, the same muscular fingers--he seemed to feel them at his
collar again--and he could not grind him to powder, as he would like
to do, nor put him to any kind of horrible torture, such as he would
have deemed desirable for him. Myles’s eyes fell upon him, and a sudden
gleam of scornful contemptuous amusement shot into them; his head flung
itself backwards--his lips curved into a kind of smile, but otherwise
he did not deign to notice Mr. Spenceley.

Into the heart of the latter the old devils of revengeful desire and
frantic hatred came leaping back. Why had he been so quiet? Why had
he suffered himself to be laughed at and diverted from his original
purpose of punishment? Why had he sat down patiently all this time with
that--a black cloud of fury overshadowed his mind. His thoughts were
scarcely coherent. But it was incredible. The fellow should and must
be made to pay dearly for his insolence. He had sworn it once, and he
would carry it out now. With wrath and rage contending madly in his
stupid, brutal soul, he went on into the committee-room, where he was
immediately followed by Sebastian Mallory, and business commenced.

Fred Spenceley was too much occupied with his own private fury, with
thinking, with a sort of hatred and love combined, of the sweet,
contemptuous face of Adrienne Blisset, which he could not banish from
his mind--of these and of other things, to take any particular notice
of the man called James Hoyle, who was summoned to read a report to the
Board that afternoon.

He had been intrusted with the task of visiting certain courts in a
low part of the town, whither, it was said, a number of the factory
hands had been obliged to retire, in consequence of being unable any
longer to pay the rent of more respectable houses. Mr. Hoyle had
offered himself to the Board as peculiarly suited for the work, being
himself a minister of the gospel, and used to strange scenes and low
neighbourhoods.

‘He speaks the truth there, at all events,’ Sebastian Mallory had
remarked _sotto voce_ to Canon Ponsonby, ‘but the Father of Lies has
had some share in his parentage, all the same, sir--don’t you think so?’

‘Or else he has selected him as his peculiar adversary, and left the
traces of his attempts to corrupt him,’ replied Canon Ponsonby, fixing
his piercing eyes upon Mr. Hoyle.

But as Mr. Hoyle really did seem well fitted and anxious for the work,
he was allowed to undertake it.

His report was considered clear and succinct. He was told that he had
done well; a further commission of the same kind was given him, and he
was told to present himself again as soon as possible with the required
information.

Expressing himself humbly gratified at having been of any service
in such a cause, Mr. Hoyle bowed to the assembled Board, carefully
avoiding two pairs of eyes--a pair of lazy brown ones and a pair of
piercing grey ones, and, with a long sidelong look at the sullen,
averted countenance of Frederick Spenceley, took his departure.

A fortnight passed. The middle of May had come and gone. Every day
the distress grew more tremendous--the efforts needed to meet it more
strenuous and unceasing. The whole time and the whole energies of those
who had begun the work were gradually absorbed into it. Still the cruel
war raged on across the Atlantic, and Mid-summer and Famine advanced
hand in hand, with long, devouring strides.




CHAPTER IX.

‘FOR A PRICE.’


A committee meeting had been called for a certain Tuesday afternoon. An
appeal for help had been sent out to all the persons of any position
in the neighbourhood. Canon Ponsonby’s name headed the list with a
donation of fifty pounds, which was more to him than fifty hundred
would have been to Mr. Spenceley. Some half-dozen large manufacturing
firms followed with sums varying from one to five hundred pounds. ‘S.
M., five hundred pounds.’ ‘Mrs. Mallory, five pounds.’ Mrs. Mallory had
so many calls upon her charity just then, she said, she really could
not afford more, or the yearly sum she set apart for such purposes
would be exceeded.

‘The yearly distress to be relieved is also considerably exceeded,’
murmured her son, as he took possession of the contribution. ‘H. v. B.,
five pounds.’

‘Our money!’ as Mrs. Mallory indignantly observed to herself, and
tossed her head angrily.

‘H. S., ten pounds.’ This stood for Helena Spenceley, who delivered the
money over to Sebastian with a kind of chuckle. ‘You would never guess
how I got it,’ said she, with a broad smile of triumph and satisfaction.

‘Begged, borrowed, or stolen?’ he asked, smiling too.

‘Neither one nor the other. Nor yet was it a free gift, nor yet did I
find it at the back of a drawer, having quite forgotten that I had put
it there, as I once before did with a five-pound note. Oh, you will
never know how I got it.’ And she laughed.

But Sebastian learnt from Adrienne how she had come by the money.

‘Her father would not give her a penny,’ said she, ‘because he had made
up his mind with his narrow income to sacrifice twenty-five pounds,
which he was sadly in need of himself, so what do you think she did?’

‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.’

‘She sold a lot of her dresses and things. I expect the poor girl has
been awfully cheated,’ Adrienne added, a touch of real feminine feeling
and regret in her tone. ‘She said she had left herself only half a
dozen--and fancy getting no more than ten pounds for the rest of her
wardrobe--it is awful to think of. But the money was there, she said,
and she could not resist it. She is as pleased as if it had been a
hundred.’

‘Like somebody else’s,’ suggested Sebastian.

‘Somebody else’s?’

He pointed to the written subscription list which they had been looking
over. ‘Life let us Cherish, £100,’ stood inscribed on the page.

‘Do you think I don’t know what hand traced that?’

‘But you won’t tell, please!’ said Adrienne.

‘Ah, you have confessed. No; I will not tell, unless I think it would
be for your good.’

‘Nonsense! But was it not nice and generous in that girl?’ persisted
Adrienne, who always would talk to Sebastian, much more than he liked,
about Helena.

‘Yes; it was. But she has a generous disposition,’ he admitted, still
looking affectionately at his favourite inscription.

The celebrated twenty-five pounds spoken of by Adrienne--it is lucky
that money has not an organised nervous system, or it might suffer
keenly under the touch of some fingers!--was committed by Mr. Spenceley
the elder to Mr. Spenceley the younger, with the remark that he
wondered how much longer people who had honestly earned their money
would be expected to pour it out like water ‘in that way;’ and the
request that he would deliver it into the hands of Sebastian Mallory,
the treasurer.

Mr. Frederick Spenceley, who did not appear to find business so
engrossing as his father, strolled down to the committee-rooms,
arriving on the scene of action some ten minutes or quarter of an
hour before any signs of action had begun to manifest themselves. The
well-known _mauvais quart d’heure_ may be evil in many ways, kinds, and
degrees of badness. Frederick Spenceley had no intention of spending
his fifteen minutes more aimlessly or mischievously than usual; but
his guardian demon had ordained that they should be consumed more
reprehensibly, perhaps, than all the rest of his existence put together.

There was no one in the first room, no one in the second room; in the
third room was a solitary figure standing in one of the windows--a
figure in black cloth clothes, with a bundle of documents under one
arm--the figure of Mr. James Hoyle.

There were two windows to the room. Mr. Spenceley, jingling the coin in
his pockets, strolled up to the other one, and stood at it, whistling
to himself, and looking out upon the prospect--what there was of it.
The two windows were on the same side of the room, and looked upon a
kind of open yard, separated from the street by a low wall. It was
a slanting street, like so many others in that up-and-down town,
Thanshope. Exactly opposite the window in which Spenceley stood was a
gate, through which any one coming to the committee-rooms must pass,
and, going under the windows (to the right) of the other two rooms, at
last arrive at the door opening into the Ladies’ Committee-room. There
was also a separate door, leading into the second room, or clerk’s
office, where Myles Heywood and his fellow-clerk sat.

Half absently, Spenceley began to collect the money together that
his father had given him, and to lay it out, two five-pound notes
and fifteen sovereigns, upon the window-ledge before him. He looked
at it pensively, and Mr. Hoyle’s little sharp eyes were fixed with a
sidelong gaze, full of interest, upon his face. Mr. Hoyle had surveyed
the prospect to more purpose than Mr. Spenceley, and was very anxious
that the latter should give over counting out his money, and return to
the apparently innocent pursuit of looking out of the window, which he
presently did.

He plunged his hands into his pockets, and gazed out again, swaying
to and fro from his toes to his heels, in the rhythmic manner common
to persons in his position. Presently the rhythmic movement ceased.
Mr. Spenceley’s attention became concentrated on outside objects, on
a figure some two hundred yards distant, approaching down the hill.
He looked at her as she came along, in her black dress, with her pale
face and her warmly tinted hair. He hated her for a thousand reasons,
and because she looked sad and lovely at once, because she was gentle
to others and to him an icicle; and most of all, because he had made
a great mistake about her in his gross, clumsy, blundering way, and
knew now, that if he had but known what she was he would never have
insulted her, but would have tried with all his might, though he was
not clever, to become good enough for her. But she had prevented that,
she had refused him the faintest chance of letting her know that he
repented, and by ----, he thought savagely, he did not repent. These
women were all alike; either worse than the devil himself, or too icily
cold and pure to glance aside at such as he. He watched and watched, as
if fascinated; watched how she came along, looking tired and pale, but
lovely; despite his hatred he felt, with all the finer feeling he had,
that she was lovely, and his head turned, his eyes followed her steps,
till she arrived at the gate, and then her face changed, and he gave
a great start, for, standing there, exactly as she came up, was Myles
Heywood, who had been coming (as the astute Mr. Hoyle had perceived) up
the hill from the opposite direction.

They met at the gate. Adrienne’s face, after a faint smile, seemed to
grow still paler and calmer. She held out her hand. Myles took off his
cap, and though he did not smile--unless a slight quiver about the
comers of his mouth could be called a smile--yet he took her hand, and
they spoke together for a moment at the gate. It was quite evident
that it was Adrienne, and not Myles, who made the pause and carried on
the conversation which took place before they both came on, past the
windows (which had the lower panes frosted, on purpose to baffle vulgar
curiosity), without seeing the two striking countenances that were
watching them.

Myles left Adrienne at the door of the second room, and she went on to
the ladies’ room.

Frederick Spenceley had entirely forgotten the presence of any one but
himself. He gave vent to his feelings in a low but distinctly audible--

‘D--n them!’

He suddenly felt a touch on his arm, and, turning round with his usual
disproportionate start, beheld Mr. Hoyle at his elbow, looking into his
face.

‘Oh! Confound you! What do you want, creeping up to a fellow in that
way?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I have been looking at that man Myles
Heywood....’

‘What, that’s the blackguard’s name, is it?’

‘Yes, sir. My step-son. A--_some_ young ladies choose strange friends,
sir; don’t you think so?’

Spenceley was about to ask roughly what business of his it was; but
something in the intent, glittering fixity of the man’s gaze held him
fast.

‘Perhaps they do,’ said he, slowly. ‘What then?’

‘Only this. That young man’s mother is now my wife. I ought to know
what sort of a character he is. I ought to know something about the
young lady, too. If the facts about both of them, the real facts, were
known, _she_ would be in a different position from what she has, and
he----’

Mr. Hoyle laughed.

‘He--what about him?’ asked Mr. Spenceley, almost breathlessly.

‘Well, I don’t think that young fool of a master of his----’

‘Who is his master?’

‘Mallory.’

‘Ah--h!’

‘He’s taken a fancy to him; he’s offered to help him. He did help him
to his present place. But it was in ignorance of the facts. If he knew
the facts, my young gentleman would not be in such a hurry to patronise
him. In fact--he’d be ruined.’

‘Facts--what facts?’

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Hoyle. ‘That’s just it. Properly to investigate and
establish those facts might be rather expensive.’

‘Oh! you are certain that if they were known they would have the
requisite effect?’

‘You mean----’

‘Of parting him and her--of punishing her?’

‘I tell you, he would leave the place, and she would cry her eyes out.
I know it.’

‘And about how expensive would that be?’ demanded Spenceley.

‘It would cost a hundred pounds, and I should want five-and-twenty to
go on with--the rest down when I tell you he has gone.’

Spenceley put his hand on the money.

‘This is five-and-twenty,’ he remarked. ‘I must give them a cheque for
it, instead of money down. But remember, if you’re cheating me----’

‘On my soul and honour, sir,’ said Hoyle, with almost vehement
earnestness, ‘you may trust me. It’s as much my cause as yours. And
meantime, if you should hear any reports to the disadvantage of a
certain lady, don’t deny them--I told you I knew some queer facts about
them both.’

Scarcely had the money been transferred to the keeping of Mr. Hoyle,
than the door was opened, and Canon Ponsonby, Sebastian Mallory,
and others, came in. Mr. Hoyle began to study his documents, and
Fred Spenceley to look out of the window again, his heart beating
unheroically fast, with a sense of peril of which he felt ashamed, and
an undercurrent of eager thirst for revenge, the stronger in that there
was now some prospect of its being gratified.




CHAPTER X.

    ‘Bear not false witness; let the lie
    Have time on its own wings to fly.’


One fine morning, Mrs. Mallory, her son, and Hugo von Birkenau sat
at breakfast, and the young men maintained a decorous silence while
the lady held forth on what was at present her favourite topic, the
approaching ball at Castle Hill, in honour of Helena’s coming of age.

‘Helena will be the belle at her own ball,’ she observed. ‘I called the
other day, and Mrs. Spenceley showed me her dress. It had just come
from Paris. It is perfectly exquisite. Even you, Sebastian, will be
able to find no fault with that toilette.’

‘Black velvet, diamonds, and point lace?’ he suggested. ‘That would
be just like her, and then it is a costume on which you may spend an
indefinite amount of money.’

‘How ill-natured you are! It is a charming dress, and she will look
lovely in it. I hope you have secured one dance, at any rate, or you
will have no chance now.’

He confessed that he had not acted with sufficient spirit in that
respect; he had never even thought of asking for a dance.

‘Then I am sure she will be very much hurt. She let me see the other
day that she thought a great deal about your coming.’

‘If she did, she is not the girl I take her for,’ said he, looking
rather impatient. It was not Mrs. Mallory’s fault if her son remained
sceptical on the subject of Helena Spenceley’s _penchant_ for him.
She had long ago seen that it was useless for her to dangle Helena’s
hundred thousand pounds before his eyes; he would none of it, whereas
to Mrs. Mallory it was an ornament which grew more becoming and more
desirable the longer she looked at it. She had discovered, or thought
she had discovered, that Sebastian was very anxious not to hurt the
feelings of any one, by neglect or unkindness, ‘that is, of any one
but myself,’ as she plaintively told herself--and she thought that
if she pictured in colours strong enough the affection which she was
determined Helena had for him, this sensitiveness of his might lead to
the desired results--sooner or later.

‘Any other man,’ Mrs. Mallory said to herself, ‘would have fallen in
love with the girl for her beauty alone, if she had not had a penny;
but in that case, of course, he would have fallen in love with her.’

Then she tried to excite his self-esteem, and pique his _amour propre_,
by telling him that Helena was very difficult to please, and had
already had half a dozen more or less eligible offers, all of which she
had refused _sans façon_.

‘I can quite believe it,’ was the tranquil reply. ‘_Sans façon_ exactly
describes her manner and her character as well. She has no idea of any
medium. Wild enthusiasms and extravagant hatreds----’

(‘Like me,’ murmured Hugo to his plate.)

‘And I have no doubt she did refuse the “six braw gentlemen” you
mention, unceremoniously enough.’

Mrs. Mallory would have despaired, if she had not taken comfort in
the idea that Sebastian liked to conceal his feelings from her, which
argued that perhaps he cherished a secret passion for Helena, and would
do as he ought to do, if he were let alone.

Her fears as to the influence of Adrienne Blisset were fitful and
intermittent. Sometimes that adventuress did not particularly disturb
her mental peace, but at other moments a dread fear seized her lest the
game should be going in the very direction she least wished it to take;
lest the obstacle which interfered with her plans and wishes was not
Sebastian’s utter and unaccountable indifference to beauty, love, and
a hundred thousand pounds, but a misguided, infatuated inclination on
his part, for a daughter of Heth, with neither beauty (compared with
Helena) nor pretensions. When attacked by such thoughts, Mrs. Mallory
felt herself turn cold and numb with fear. The idea of Adrienne Blisset
promoted to her place was the most thoroughly unpleasant--not to say
altogether hideous--that had ever occurred to her.

On the morning in question, Sebastian, on being asked what his plans
were, said he should be in his office all morning, and at a committee
meeting in the afternoon. Would he be in to lunch at half-past one?
Yes, he fully expected so; and with that, he said good morning, and
went away.

The others went their several ways. Hugo retired to the drawing-room,
to a packet of new transcendental German music, and to the spinning out
certain music of his own. Mrs. Mallory, after an interview with her
housekeeper, ordered her carriage for half-past eleven, wrote letters
in the breakfast-room till that time, and then got ready and drove out
in the said carriage. The proverbial ‘spectator might have seen’ the
equipage go from one place to another in the town, and afterwards to
certain mansions in the vicinity of the same, where its mistress made
state calls. (It was the fashion in Thanshope to make state calls in
full dress between twelve and one.) It was quite half-past one when
Mrs. Mallory forsook the war-path, and returning home, came into the
dining-room. She sat down to lunch without removing her bonnet. She
was dressed in her favourite lavender and black, and so attired, with
a new and unusual expression of animation and amiability upon her high
fair features, she looked a very handsome, agreeable, though rather
thin-lipped English matron.

The gong sounded. First Hugo strolled in, and raised his dark eyes in
astonishment when the lady graciously and sweetly inquired,

‘May I give you some soup, Mr. von Birkenau?’

‘No, thank you,’ he replied, politely but tentatively.

‘How warm it is, is it not? So unlike the end of May. May is generally
such a bad month in England; don’t you think so?’

‘You should know best,’ said Hugo, bowing solemnly, and somewhat
nervous under this excessive amiability.

‘I wonder what Sebastian is doing,’ she remarked, still graciously. ‘He
really seems to have his hands quite full.’

At that moment he came in.

‘Sorry to be so late, but Sutcliffe kept me. Soup? No, thanks. I’ll
trouble you for some of that cold fowl, Hugo, please.’

‘And will you give me a little sherry, my dear?’ said his mother.

Sebastian, too, changed countenance at this tone, privately wondering
‘what next?’ but poured out the sherry with imperturbable gravity.

The meal proceeded in silence for some little time, until it occurred
to Sebastian to ask,

‘Where have you been all morning, mother?’

‘Driving,’ was the vague reply, and another pause ensued.

Sebastian poured out a glass of sherry, drank some of it, and then
thought he would trouble Hugo again; he was so awfully hungry. Hugo,
with a gravity amounting to gloom, wrenched the second wing from the
fowl before him, and placed it upon Sebastian’s plate.

Sebastian was watching the operation with the intense eagerness of a
mind quite at ease; and it was at this juncture that Mrs. Mallory said,

‘Sebastian, I am sorry to hear of a very strange thing in connection
with that girl--what is her name?--whose uncle’s affairs you somehow
got mixed up with.’

Hugo’s eyes gave a flash. That was what was coming.

‘Do you mean Miss Adrienne Blisset?’ asked Sebastian, in a distinct
voice.

‘Blisset--yes, Miss Blisset. She professes to take a great interest in
the relief affairs.’

‘So far as I know, the interest is real--at least if hard work is any
test of reality.’

‘She appears to choose very strange people as her intimate friends.’

‘Myself, _par exemple_?’ he suggested.

War was now declared. The blandness had disappeared from Mrs. Mallory’s
countenance. The excitement remained. Her son did not appear to her to
be excited, but Hugo, glancing at him, felt a little thrill as he saw
all the slight signs which he so well understood, and which told him
that his friend was moved, much moved, unpleasantly moved.

Mrs. Mallory, all unconscious how much Sebastian knew, and reckless of
the storm she was inviting to descend upon herself, continued,

‘I must say, I hope you are not amongst her intimate friends, unless
you wish to be placed on the level of low, immoral, atheistical
work-people; the very dregs of the lower orders.’

‘It is asserted that Miss Blisset selects her friends from the dregs of
the lower orders?’ he inquired, with ominous politeness.

‘The case does not rest on mere assertion. Her uncle professed peculiar
opinions, and she carries them to extremes, as is the way with those
women who have been brought up amongst men, and always led a vagabond
life.’

Sebastian smiled slightly as he carefully balanced a fork upon his
little finger.

‘_Après?_’ he inquired.

‘She made the acquaintance of a young man of whose character the less
is said the better--picked him up at some reading-room where she used
to go in an evening--an _evening_,’ said Mrs. Mallory, in an utterly
indescribable tone. ‘She encouraged him to visit her, and he did so
repeatedly; he is a socialist, an atheist, and altogether immoral. How
far the connection may have gone I cannot pretend to say, but this I
know, that Frederick Spenceley, who is not exactly strait-laced----’

‘No, certainly not.’

‘Frederick Spenceley declined to make her acquaintance, and took his
sister away, and declined to let her converse with her.’

‘You have this information from a reliable source?’

‘Perfectly reliable. I am not at liberty to say who told me, but I must
say the news exactly agrees with what my own judgment led me to expect.
I always said....’

‘Pardon! No matter what you have always said, or what other people say.
I can tell you the truth, not from any second-hand source, but from my
own personal knowledge of the circumstances. The young man of whom you
have heard such a delightful character was, though he no longer is, one
of my own work-people. He is perfectly respectable, and of unstained
character. If Frederick Spenceley were one hundredth part--if he could
ever become one hundredth part as much of a gentleman as Myles Heywood
naturally is, he might congratulate himself. He--Heywood, I mean--is a
friend of Miss Blisset’s, and the fact honours both him and her. I have
met him at her uncle’s house, and I have shaken hands with him in his
own house. He is a man whom I honour and respect very much. So much for
that part of your information. For the rest, that Frederick Spenceley
refused to make Miss Blisset’s acquaintance--my dear mother, I am
surprised that a woman with your knowledge of the world should believe
such a story. I happened to be present then, too. Miss Spenceley wished
to introduce her brother to Miss Blisset, and the latter declined
the acquaintance; I believe she had excellent reasons for doing so.
I pitied Miss Spenceley, from my soul, for she is as superior to her
blackguard of a brother as heaven is to earth. But--I trust you will
see the wisdom of making the best of Miss Blisset, and not the worst,
for I shall ask her to be my wife--to-day, if I get the chance, and if
not, on the very first opportunity.’

Mrs. Mallory had sat, during this prolonged harangue, drawing deep
breaths, but at the last announcement, made with an emphasis unusual to
Sebastian, it seemed suddenly to burst upon her, how entirely she had
overreached herself, and she rose from her chair very pale; and, but
that her pride forbade it, would have burst into tears of mortification.

‘There is no ingratitude like that of a child to a mother,’ said she,
in an icy voice. ‘You have done all you could to humiliate me and cross
my wishes ever since your return, and now you insult me by seeking out
the least----’

They were at the door. He had opened it for her, but as she looked up
in uttering those words, she paused, subdued by a certain expression in
his eyes and mouth.

‘Don’t speak too recklessly of that lady. It will do no good, and you
would repent it,’ he remarked.

She did not finish her sentence, but swept out of the room, and he
gently closed the door after her.

He stood in the middle of the room, biting his lip, till Hugo came up
to him and took his hand.

‘Dear Sebastian, I wish you success, though, _freilich_, I fancied you
would marry Miss Spenceley.’

‘Why, I wonder?’ asked Sebastian, impatiently. ‘I cannot imagine why
I am supposed to be destined for Miss Spenceley, or she for me. She
cannot endure me, and makes no secret of her dislike....

‘You could overcome that,’ suggested his counsellor audaciously.

‘Could I? She is perfectly charming, I don’t wish to deny, but I have
loved Adrienne Blisset for years, and I am not going to give her up
unless she refuses me.’

‘Fellows don’t always give up when they are refused,’ suggested Hugo
again.

‘Finish your lunch and hold your tongue. What I was going to say is,
that my mother is answerable for a great deal of mischief by persisting
in marrying me to Miss Spenceley.’

‘If there had been no such person as you, then there would have been no
mischief,’ said Hugo, apparently throwing in the observation between
two sips of claret, for he had obediently returned to the table.

‘What do you mean?’ asked his friend, stopping in his promenade between
the two windows.

‘I mean what I say.’

‘Why, do you mean that I have ever encouraged----’

‘Miss Spenceley? _I, bewahre!_ No. But----’

‘I shall do you some serious bodily injury if you don’t curb your
boundless impertinence. Do you mean that I ever encouraged my mother’s
scheme in any way?’

‘Can’t say. I’ve done. Adieu!’ said Hugo, going out of the room, and
singing in an insultingly loud voice--

    ‘Willst du dein Herz mir schenken,
    So fang’ es heimlich an!’




CHAPTER XI.

  ‘Opportunity is always golden and beautiful. It is the use it is
  sometimes put to that is--imperfect.’


Sebastian did not find any opportunity that afternoon for carrying out
his purpose. He was fully occupied; so was Adrienne, and he was forced
to see her, half an hour before he could leave himself, walk away alone
in the direction of Blake Street, without having been able to exchange
a word with her. This annoyed him, and made him feel nervous and
anxious. Three months ago he would, without any inordinate vanity, have
felt almost secure of being accepted if he proposed to Adrienne; now he
felt very far from sure of it. The unpleasant scene with Mrs. Mallory
left him determined to wait no longer, no more to ‘fear his fate too
much,’ but ‘to put it to the touch, and win or lose it all,’ that very
day, be it early or late.

Accordingly, he returned home after the meeting, dined alone before
the usual time, and, knowing that Adrienne was usually at home about
half-past seven, set off a little after seven.

His shortest way to Blake Street was to go past the town-hall, and
proceed through the pleasure-grounds on the hillside, through the park
at the top, and so across the Townfield into Blake Street.

This he did, and having ascended the hill, entered the park by one
of its gates, and found that it was almost deserted. There was a
nursemaid, and some children playing about the croquet lawn; there was
a man reclining upon a bench in a rocky recess--a man who seemed tired,
for he was almost crouched together; his face was completely hidden by
his arm and hand, which were stretched on the back of the bench. There
was also a woman’s figure advancing from the other end of the park, and
Sebastian’s heart gave a spring as he recognised Adrienne Blisset.

He walked up to her, and met her.

‘You here, Mr. Mallory, at this time? That is unusual, isn’t it?’

‘I am here because I was on my way to your house, hoping very much to
find you in. I am glad I have not missed you altogether.’

‘I am glad too. I was going to see Mary Heywood, and should most likely
have sat with her some time, for my conscience accuses me of having
neglected her. But shall we return to my house?’

‘Not on any account--that is, if you are not tired, and do not object
to walking about on this terrace for a short time.’

‘Not in the least. What a lovely evening it is! And how clear! Look
at those purple moors to the north. I have often longed to get to the
top of one of those moors. What do you think I should see at the other
side?’

‘Yorkshire--and more moors.’

‘Those are the moors on the other side of which Charlotte and Emily
Brontë lived,’ said Adrienne, her thoughts taking any direction but the
one Sebastian wished.

‘Yes, I believe so. Haworth and Keighley, and all about there. You
should go there some time. But don’t look at the prospect now. I want
to ask you something.’

‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, turning to him with a half-smile.

The smile died away. She found his eyes fixed upon hers with an
unmistakable meaning in their earnest gaze. Her own face flushed
deeply, as he gently took her hand and said,

‘I have tried in vain to take an opportunity--at last I have had to
make one. I must know something, certainly. I cannot wait any longer.
Adrienne, I love you dearly--I have loved you ever since I lost sight
of you on that unhappy morning after you left Wetzlar. I knew it then,
and my love has only grown stronger ever since. Can you return it? Will
you--some time--be my wife?’

He felt his happy confidence falling from him on all sides, as he
beheld her face, and stood there, cold, as if a warm mantle had dropped
from his shoulders.

‘You--I am very sorry,’ she stammered. ‘Oh, Mr. Mallory----’

‘Mr. Mallory!’ he echoed drearily. ‘Adrienne, I see what you are going
to say, but think again! I must have been a terrible, conceited fool
all this time; but will you not think again? Wait till to-morrow. Don’t
speak to-day. Let me explain.’

Adrienne’s face was full of pain as she said, tremulously but
decisively,

‘No. It would be wrong. I know what I feel, and must always feel, now.
I admire you very much; I respect you, oh, more than I can tell you. I
have a sort of affection for you. Indeed, I am very fond of you. You
were so good to me,’ said Adrienne, with tears swimming in her eyes;
‘but I cannot marry you.... Oh, do not look like that!’ she exclaimed,
in an agony, ‘I am so sorry; I am so sorry.’

‘Are you quite certain?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Have I all along
been so utterly indifferent to the woman I----’

‘Not indifferent. You were never indifferent to me. And once----’

‘Once!’ he echoed eagerly.

‘I thought--I believed----’

‘That you could love me--perhaps that you did love me?’

She bowed.

‘Ah, that was when I was away. But why should you not love me now,
dearest? If you would only let me show you how I love you--you
must--you could not help--so good and so loving as you are.’

‘No, no! Do not speak to me of it. _It can never be._ I know my own
heart now--too well,’ she said, looking at him almost appealingly, and
with distracted, troubled eyes.

‘And there is no love in it for me?’

‘Not that kind of love. Oh, heavens! why must I have such things to
say to _you_! You must know that you ought to have a very different
kind of wife from me. Your wife should be rich and beautiful, and quite
different. You will see it yourself some day, when you meet a woman
worthy of you, who will love you as you deserve to be loved.’

‘That is cold comfort when the woman I worship won’t have me. I cannot
make you love me.’

‘Only because another man has all the love I have to give,’ said
Adrienne, scarcely audibly, as she turned aside her face.

Sebastian stood still for a moment.

‘Forgive me!’ said he; ‘it is hopeless, I see. I will never speak to
you of it again.’

‘Forgive _me_!’ she said, much moved. ‘I ought--no, I could not tell
you. I have been distracted.... I----’

‘Do not reproach yourself,’ said he, chivalrously. ‘I understand. After
this’ (they had begun to move towards the farther gate of the park,
along the broad terrace where the man was sitting on the seat in the
trees)--‘after this I have not another word to say. We shall have to
meet as before, Adrienne. May I call you Adrienne sometimes?’

‘Always, if you like.’

‘Will you try to overlook this--to treat me as if I had not annoyed you
thus?’

‘Annoyed me--_you_! Oh, how can you ask?’

‘And then slander will be silenced, and then there will be no more
misunderstandings. All will be clear between us.’

The tenderness he felt he could not banish from his voice, and hers
trembled as she answered.

‘Quite clear--as it should be.’

He raised her hand to his lips, and they passed on. The man on the
bench had not moved, and they, as they uttered these last words, which
were in effect a farewell, saw nothing and no one but each other.

‘I must go home. I cannot go on now,’ said Adrienne, as they arrived at
the gate.

‘I will leave you. Good-bye.’

‘Good-bye,’ said she, putting her hand in his, but not looking at him.
He kept her hand in his so long that at last she looked up.

‘Dear Sebastian, I----’

‘There, that is all I wanted,’ said he, with a rather faint smile. ‘God
keep you, child. Good-bye!’

When Adrienne had left her home, it had been with the firm resolution
to see Mary Heywood before returning. But she met Sebastian, and the
visit was not accomplished.




CHAPTER XII.

    ‘Great Mother Nature!
    Eternal good and blessed!
    Hear me! Hear my prayer!
    Forsake me not in this my need!’


Myles Heywood’s life had become worse and darker than merely a sad
life. It was filled with a wretched pain and unrest, which had been
growing like a disease for weeks. His was an earnest, passionate
nature, deep and intense; but there was in it a well-spring of
contentment, a something essentially sweet and wholesome, which,
so long as no very disturbing element intruded, left him tolerably
at ease with his life, in spite of the vague dissatisfaction and
striving which had led him in earlier days to associate himself with
radical working-men’s clubs; which had made him eagerly devour all
kinds of iconoclastic literature, and which had often sent him home,
on pay-day, meditating upon the unequal manner in which wealth was
distributed. But he had had nothing to make him feel this inequality,
keenly and cruelly, until, with one single circumstance, one single
evening’s adventure, the turning-point in his life came, and he seemed
all at once to realise the significance of all these things--wealth,
station, and culture--in the shape of Adrienne Blisset. From that time
his view of things was changed. He had seen what he felt to be the
best, and most beautiful, and desirable thing in the world; and he
did desire it with the ardour of a young man and a poet and a lover
all combined, and with an ardour deeper still--the ardour of one who
feels that everything great and high and satisfactory lies in one
direction, and in the other, blackness, emptiness, death, if death be
the opposite of life. He could never look back or down again; and yet,
the more he looked forwards and upwards, the more did all he saw in
the distance seem unattainable and impossible. He had quite ceased to
visit Adrienne. To be with her now was only a prolonged ache and pain.
He watched her wistfully, and noted in his heart each day that passed
over without a visit from her. She used to come so often; now she never
came at all. He knew--every one knew, that her uncle was dead, and that
she was his heiress. More than once he had heard it was likely that she
and Sebastian Mallory would be married. He felt it to be very likely
himself; but to go and see her, to hear such a thing from her own lips,
was more than his will had strength to accomplish.

Myles had at one time heartily despised Sebastian Mallory; and later,
with little more reason, had as intensely disliked him. Now that was
all changed, and he himself was surprised to find how utterly and
entirely his resentment had burnt out, vanished, evaporated. He could
see his (as he considered him) successful rival without any other
feeling than one of quiet, despairing indifference. His most active
wish, when he was conscious of actively wishing anything, was that all
this could somehow come to an end, that some change would soon take
place.

The change was approaching, in a manner so unexpected, so utterly
terrible and unthought of, that if his sore and weary heart led him
somewhat astray, a just and righteously acting world must not blame him
too severely. When the eyes are dim with watching, when every nerve is
irritable from long strain and a cruel endless tension, when calamity
quickly succeeds calamity, it is not given to all men to act exactly as
they ought to do.

On the morning of the day on which Mrs. Mallory had been so signally
defeated as regarded Miss Blisset, Myles Heywood received a letter.
Address and contents were alike in a handwriting unknown to him.
The epistle was simply headed ‘Thanshope,’ with the date following.
He turned it over, and the subscription puzzled him--‘A Christian
Well-wisher,’ it was signed. Marvelling at the whole thing, he began at
the beginning, and read it through.

  ‘Do you know,’ began the ‘Christian Well-wisher,’ ‘what position you
  are standing in? Do you know to whom you really owe your situation?
  You owe it to your friend Mr. Sebastian Mallory. Ask him if he did
  not get Canon Ponsonby’s casting vote, which, with his own, got you
  in. I thought you were determined to owe nothing to him. Do you know
  that, with all his fair professions, he is stealing a march upon you
  in one direction--that if you don’t either make sure of a certain
  young lady, or give her up altogether, you will soon look a great
  fool? I say this because it is well known that you and she are, or
  were, great friends. Ask any one you know, almost any one in the town
  of Thanshope, what is said about you and her, and see if I have not
  written the truth. There is one way open to you out of this, and one
  only--you can leave the place. I take a real interest in you, and
  advise this, supposing that you do feel some grief at having caused
  her to be spoken about in such a manner. Of course you are at liberty
  either to take my advice or leave it. I should think there cannot be
  much doubt which is the most manly, not to say Christian, course.

    A CHRISTIAN WELL-WISHER.’

He laid the letter down, feeling that he was trembling--feeling almost
as if his limbs failed him. He did not speculate as to who had written
the letter. Much of it seemed true to him. Sebastian’s love for
Adrienne was no delusion of his jealous fancy. Nothing was said against
her; he was blamed, and it was hinted that others spoke lightly of her.
He was told to test the report, to inquire for himself; the challenge
was a fair one.

That he owed his situation to Sebastian Mallory’s influence was
nothing; such things as that had now lost the slightest power to
distress him. That Sebastian was ‘stealing a march’ upon him--that
idea was so ludicrous and so pitiable as to make him smile drily in
the midst of his own torture. There was no sting in that. If Sebastian
chose to woo Adrienne, if she chose to receive his wooing, who should
say them nay? He had no such right, at least. He dwelt for a moment
on these points, and then came the rush of horror and disgust, the
sickening, dreadful part of it. He shook with fury, and with misery
too, as he realised that there were people who had watched him and
her; that wrong constructions had been put upon their friendship; that
people gossiped about her--coupled her name with his. It stung him into
madness. There must be something in it. ‘Ask,’ said the writer, ‘ask,
and see if I have not written the truth.’ To advise him to go away--to
appeal to his manly feeling! It was like a hideous dream, which he
could not at first grasp. His heart was sore and aching already; this
blow seemed to crush him. His nerves had been strained for weeks past;
he saw nothing in its proper light or just proportions. He thrust the
letter into his breast-pocket, and, driven by necessity, went out to
his work. How he got that work accomplished he could not tell. Adrienne
was not there, or he did not think he could have struggled through with
it.

At noon he took his way home again. Crossing the Townfield, he met
Harry Ashworth, who joined him, wishing him good-day, and observing,

‘Myles, lad, you don’t look so well. What ails you?’

‘Nothing, nothing ails me,’ said Myles; and then there flashed a sudden
thought into his mind: that letter--that ‘Ask, and see if I have not
written the truth.’ He would put it to the test now; no time like the
present.

‘I am telling lies,’ said he; ‘something does ail me. Harry, are you my
friend?’

‘Ay, for sure I am, old lad.’

‘Then come and prove it. Come with me into our house; I want to show
you something.’

They were close at home. Myles led the way, and Harry followed him into
the parlour, the front room, now stripped of almost all the furniture
and ornaments which had formerly been the pride of Mary’s life.

‘See here!’ said Myles, his eyes filled with a sombre fire, and his
lips twitching a little as he pulled out the letter: ‘read this, and
tell me, when you’ve done, if you know who’s meant in it.’

Harry looked surprised, but took the letter and read it. Myles watched
him, thinking what a good idea it was to make him read the letter. If
the report were unfounded, he would not guess who was referred to;
and if it were true, he would. Harry’s face changed, grew amazed,
embarrassed as he read on. When he had finished the letter, he folded
it up, and returned it, without speaking, to its owner. He did not look
at Myles, but out of the window, as he said,

‘It’s a very queer kind of a letter.’

‘Well,’ said Myles, obliged to raise his voice, but desirous that
neither Mary nor Edmund should overhear the conversation, ‘can you give
a guess, lad, as to who the lady is that’s spoken of?’

‘Well,’ said Harry, rather confusedly, ‘I have heard some talk about
you and--and--that lady.’

‘Suppose I don’t know who is meant? Suppose it’s all a riddle to me?’
said Myles.

But Harry shook his head, saying,

‘Nay, nay, that won’t do.’

‘But tell me who you think it is,’ said Myles, impatiently,
desperately; ‘tell me, for God’s sake! I will know, Harry, so out with
it.’

‘You must remember, it’s no tale of mine--it’s only what I’ve heard;
and I believe the lady meant is Miss Blisset. Fact is,’ he added
decisively, ‘I know it is!’

Again Myles’s lips quivered a little as he said,

‘You said you were my friend, Harry. You must tell me what you’ve
heard.’

‘Well, it’s useless to deny that there’s a story going about that
before her uncle died she was in love with you, and that you said so
often; but _I_ don’t believe it, old chap. You never think I believe it
all?’

‘That I said she was in love with me?’ said Myles in a voice that had
grown almost hoarse.

‘Yes; and that when you went to their house it wasn’t exactly to see
the old gentleman, but----’

‘There, that will do!’ said the other, holding up his hand and turning
away sickened. It was too hideous. If any such rumour had penetrated to
her ears? He could not speak, till Harry, in an ill-judged moment, said,

‘Nay, there’s nothing to take on about so much, Myles. Some enemy of
yours has written that letter--some one as wants you out of the way.
Can’t you see what he’s driving at when he advises you to go? Likely
enough some one as thinks he might get your place if you were gone. But
you’re not the sort of chap to pay any attention----’

‘The advice is good,’ said Myles, curtly. ‘Very likely I shall take it.
Do you know who set this tale going?’ he asked, turning to Harry with a
look which startled the latter.

‘That’s just what no one can tell,’ said he. ‘It seems to be known
everywhere, and yet we can’t tell where it comes from.’

‘Though you give it the benefit of free discussion. Well, I’ve found
out what I wanted to know. There’s only one thing more--if you care for
me or mine--and we’ve known each other a good many years now--you’ll
never speak of what we have spoken of this morning.’

‘My hand upon it,’ said his friend. ‘Never, so long as I live.’

They left the room. Harry departed by the back way to have a word with
Mary, and to offer to come and sit up that night with Edmund, who was
much worse. The offer was accepted, and Harry went away.

The midday meal was again a very sad one. Myles ate nothing, and said
nothing; and Mary, full of fears and forebodings, was almost as bad.

After dinner the young man went out again--up the street he hated, to
the room which had become a purgatory to him. How he loathed the sight
of that long building with the many windows and the well-known faces!
It seemed to him as if every eye must be fixed upon him, every finger
pointing at him.

Work was not over until late that afternoon. It was six o’clock, or
after, when Myles got home again, and on going into the house found
that Mary was sitting upstairs with Edmund; so, after brooding a
little, his mind full of wild, half-chaotic projects and ideas, he
left the house and wandered out, he knew not whither. At last he found
himself in the park, pacing about the broad terrace, and looking with
eyes that saw nothing, across the idle town and the nearer hills, to
the blue, calm, moorland ridges far away to the north. It was a scene
he had loved, half unconsciously, from his childhood up, but to-day it
was without joy--almost without existence for him.

At last he seated himself on a bench situated in a kind of rockery
which ran along one side of the terrace; the seat was a little retired
in a hollow of the rockwork, and there he remained, and gradually he
turned his back upon the prospect and his face to the wall, and hid
his face in his arm and fought alone, as well as he could, with the
misery and despair which rushed over him like a flood. He saw no point
of cheerfulness or light in all his life’s sky. All was black and thick
and overcast.

‘This is no fit place for me to stay in,’ he thought. ‘I must get away
as soon as I can. If I go, all the lies will die out quickly enough,
and then--there’s another man who is ready to fight her battles for
her, and he may see her as much as he pleases, and there’s no harm in
it.’

How long he had remained there motionless and miserable he did not
know. He had forgotten all outside things, and was busied solely with
his wretched self-introspection. At last, however, distant voices
first, and then approaching footsteps, which advanced slowly and with
many pauses, penetrated to his abstracted ear. He did not move; why
should any one notice him, or think of him? Still less did he move when
he distinctly heard and recognised Sebastian Mallory’s voice close to
him saying,

‘And then slander will be silenced, and there will be no more
misunderstandings. All will be clear between us.’

His voice was deep with love as he spoke, and to each vibration of it
Myles’s heart seemed to give an answering throb.

‘Quite clear, as it should be,’ replied the voice he loved best, and it
trembled too.

They paced past. Myles hid his face more deeply in his folded arms. He
heard Sebastian kiss her hand, and then their voices died away--their
footsteps too, and at last Myles raised his head and changed his
position. He was half puzzled at the change which had come over him,
at the quiet apathy which seemed to fill his whole soul. He had heard
those words spoken which he had thought would be harder than any other
words for him to bear, and yet he found himself sitting on in the same
place, his pulses beating no faster, his breath coming no more quickly.
Such utter indifference he felt to be ominous, and yet, though he
tried, he could bring no different feelings forward; he repeated to
himself all that he thought he had lost, all he believed Sebastian had
won--conned it over as a devotee might tell his beads, but it had no
effect. He felt no special pain or indignation.

And yet, when he rose with the instinctive intention of turning his
steps homeward, he found that he was incapable of going home. He
recoiled from the very idea of entering the house, or speaking to any
one he knew. He stood reasoning within himself about it.

‘Why shouldn’t I go home? Home is surely the best place. Molly is
there, and Ned. I ought to go and stay with him; he’s so ill.’ And he
forced his feet towards home. But it was useless, he felt it impossible
to enter the house.

‘I know what I want,’ he reasoned within himself. ‘I want a good
stretch of a walk, right over the moors, and away from this smoky hole.
There’s nothing like a moorland breeze for blowing away unhealthy
fancies. Harry used to say so, and he’s tried it often enough, and in
trouble enough, poor lad.’

He smiled. He found himself pitying Harry Ashworth with an intensity of
commiseration such as he could not by any means wring out for his own
sorrows.

But he congratulated himself. A long, long walk, a walk of twenty
miles or so, to prove to himself that he was still young and strong,
and swift of foot, and that six weeks of clerkship drudgery, and six
months’ alternate hot and cold, hope and fear, doubt and despair,
had not impaired one iota his strength and endurance! That glorious
moorland air, blowing keen and fresh, though it was pure, from the
north over the top of Blackrigg! There was surely not a grief, not a
solitude-nourished fear and sorrow, that its strong, bracing breath
would not blow clean away!

By this time he had left the park, and was walking quickly down
the street in a northerly direction. He met one or two friends and
acquaintances before he got fairly out of the town; he returned their
salutations quite mechanically, and still walked on. Just outside
Thanshope, as the suburb of Bridgefold began, there stood a well-known
public-house, the _Craven Heifer_; and, as he was passing its door,
some one hailed him.

‘Eh, Myles! I say, Myles, is yon you?’

He looked up, and saw a man standing in the doorway--a man whom he
had known years ago, who had once worked side by side with him in the
factory, and had left and gone over into Rossendale before Myles had
been promoted from the weaving shed to the warehouse. He stared blankly
at the man, who had been drinking, and though by no means drunk, was
decidedly elevated.

‘Come in, mon?’ he cried. ‘It’s years sin’ I saw you. Come in, and have
a glass, for old acquaintance sake. I’ll stand it.’

He would not be gainsaid, but rolled out, and pulled his former friend
into the taproom. There were half a dozen men there, all more or less
happy and free from care, as it seemed to Myles. They welcomed him
noisily, and his friend asked him, with unnecessary affectionateness of
tone and manner, what it should be.

‘What? Oh, anything. What you are having yourself,’ said Myles,
greeting first one and then another of them, and thinking, with a
kind of savage mirth, within himself, that there were more kinds of
pleasure in the world than one; since he could not have one kind, he
might as well try another. He would see whether these men, who seemed
so pleased to see him, were really such bad company after all. And he
sat down, and waited until a girl brought him a glass of steaming hot
punch--whisky punch; that was what they were drinking.

‘Now, then,’ cried his acquaintance, ‘good luck to you, Myles! Here’s
to our next merry meeting, eh?’

‘To our next!’ said Myles, raising the glass to his lips, and then,
even as it touched them, feeling as if he had suddenly come to his
senses, he put the glass down on the table. ‘Not yet,’ he said, half
aloud, and got up from his seat and walked out of the room, shaking off
the hands that were outstretched to stay him, and unheeding the loud
and angry expostulations which came after him.

‘Pah!’ he exclaimed, as he took his way along the road again; ‘I’m not
come to that yet!’

It was a long and toilsome road that led from the town of Thanshope,
through some outlying suburbs, to a large manufacturing village, called
Hamerton, which lay on the very skirts of Yorkshire, closed in on all
sides by the great ridges of Blackrigg, and some neighbouring wild and
desolate moors. He took the road along which Hugo and Sebastian had
once driven, and the sun had set as he turned his face towards the
hills with that strange sensation of oppressive apathy and indifference
ever at his heart. The night was descending, the ‘stars rushed out,’ as
he at length gained the complete solitude of the moors, and, turning
aside from the road, plunged half knee-deep into the thick heather and
ling, which was the only vegetation about there. He walked, for a very
short time as it seemed to him--really, for hours--battling with the
horrible sensations of a great, black, yawning, hideous blank, a huge
emptiness, an _ewiges Nichts_, which completely overpowered him. He
was unconscious how far he had gone, or where he was, or that he was
even weary, when suddenly he found himself stumbling over the knolls of
heather, and looking up, found that it was dark. The summer night had
closed in, and he, for aught he knew, might be twenty miles away, or
thirty, from Thanshope.

He thought he would sit down and rest a little, so he sank down upon
the friendly heather, and found that it formed a soft and yielding bed,
and that the air which played around his head and face was cool, and
pure, and sweet. For a moment he found a blessed sensation of rest and
relief, and then all things seemed softly to swim and fade around him;
with sweeping wing sleep came upon him, and laid her finger upon his
eyelids, and bade the weary brain rest. He sank gradually down in the
hollow of the heather, and a deep, dreamless slumber overcame him, and
saved him. Never had sleep been a more beneficent visitant; never had
kindly Nature taken to her soft arms a more weary, heart-sick child of
hers, than she did that summer night, when she offered to Myles Heywood
rest upon her own broad bosom.




CHAPTER XIII.

SUNRISE.


Mary Heywood, all the weary afternoon of that weary day, sat beside
Edmund’s bed and nursed him, with fear at her heart that the nursing
would be of no long duration. The fever which had consumed him was
over, but the weakness which remained was terrible--it was a weakness
from which, as Mary dimly felt, there would never be any rallying.
She had brought sewing and knitting upstairs into the little bedroom,
and she drew down the blind ‘to keep the sun out,’ as they both said.
Edmund lay perfectly still. She asked him if she should read to him,
but he smiled a little, and shook his head. Neither of them knew how
very near the end was. Edmund, if he could have known, would have been
very glad, and Mary would have been so miserable, that it was well she
did not know.

‘I could like to see Myles a bit,’ said Edmund at last; ‘I ne’er see
him now, hardly. He’s quite different from what he was.’

‘He’s not happy,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t rightly know what ails him, but
it’s summat very bad, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, he doesn’t like bein’ out o’ work. No more should I, if I was him.
He’s ne’er been used to such pinchin’ work as this. They keep him a
long time at yon shop.’

‘Ay, they do. Harry Ashworth said he’d come and sit wi’ thee to-neet,
Ned. Would thou like it?’

Edmund assented, with a look of pleasure, and there was silence, while
the afternoon wore on, and at last Mary’s head began to droop. She was
weary with sorrow, with working, and with watching. The atmosphere of
the room was close and heavy, although Mary had conscientiously tried
to follow out the doctor’s directions about keeping it ventilated. She
could not keep her eyes open, but slept in her chair until Edmund’s
feeble touch on her arm awoke her, and she started up.

‘Eh, what is it, lad?’

‘I could so like summat to drink, Molly,’ said he, gaspingly. ‘And I
think there’s summat not reet wi’ Myles. I heard him come in, and sit
quite still for a bit, and now he’s gone out again, without coming up
here, or waitin’ for his tea, or anything.’

Thoroughly awake, Mary hurried downstairs, and found emptiness and
solitude. She could see that Myles had been in. She could see the
chair that he had drawn up to the table and pushed away again, and she
wondered, and was uneasy at his going out thus, without word or message.

The kitchen, too, felt close. She drew up the window, and set the back
door open to let some air in. Then she roused the fire, and set the
gently singing kettle upon it, and brought out the tea-things. She
prepared some tea for Edmund, and took it upstairs to him. He had said
he was very thirsty, and he took the cup eagerly, and put his lips to
it, then put it down again.

‘I feel very faint, Mary; I can’t take that. I mun have a
little--bran----’

He had fainted, and it was some time before she succeeded in restoring
him to consciousness.

‘Eh, I wish Myles was here; I wish Harry would come,’ she kept
murmuring to herself, looking with anguish upon the poor worn
face, which had now the stamp of the approaching end set upon it in
unmistakable characters.

At last a knock at the outer door informed her that Harry Ashworth had
come. She ran downstairs and let him in, drawing him into the kitchen;
and when they were there, sat down upon her rocking-chair, and began to
cry heartily.

‘Why, Mary, what ails thee, lass?’ said Harry, taking her hand.

‘Myles is gone out--I don’t know where, and yon poor lad upstairs
hasn’t so much longer to be here,’ said Mary, looking at him with her
tearful eyes. ‘Thou munnot leave me yet awhile, Harry.’

Whether the presence of a great mutual sorrow broke the barrier which
had hitherto existed between these two, I know not. As Mary begged him
not to leave her, their eyes met, and something in those eyes gave
Harry the courage he had never before been able to summon to his aid.
It was as if by a mutual impulse that they bent towards each other,
and their lips met for consolation and reassurance; and Harry, with a
wonderful sense of strength of courage, put his arm round Mary’s waist,
saying,

‘There’s nought I’d like so well as never to leave thee at all, Mary,
if thou could look at such a poor, deaf, marred chap as me. Sometimes I
think thou could, and sometimes I’m sure thou couldn’t. Dost think thou
could make up thy mind to take me?’

‘I made up my mind long ago what I’d do if ever thou asked me,’ said
Mary, naïvely.

‘And what was that?’

‘Why, to take thee, for sure,’ she answered.

Harry, smiling, looking on her with amaze and admiration, ventured on
another kiss, and said,

‘Eh, but I have been a fool not to speak to thee before.’

She smiled a little, and then the remembrance of the troubled present
returning to her, said,

‘I’m very happy, but we mun think o’ poor Ned just now. Thee go
upstairs, and tell him what thou’s done. He always _were_ suspicious
about thee. It’ll cheer him up like, and I’ll come after thee in a
minute or two.’

Just for a few moments the news had the desired effect upon Edmund. He
shook hands with Harry, smiled and looked what he had not voice enough
to say. But the same chill look of coming death was upon his face; and
Mary, as Myles still did not come, could not rest until she had been
out and brought the doctor back with her. The doctor was a busy man.
He made a very brief visit--said nothing much in the sick-room, but
ordered some restorative, and, when Mary followed him downstairs and
tremulously asked his opinion, said brusquely, but not at all unkindly,

‘My good girl, you must make up your mind to lose him. I cannot even
assure you that he will live till morning.’

Restraining her tears, Mary went upstairs again, and, with Harry,
resumed her watch by the sick lad. They were slow and solemn hours.
They saw the end approaching under their very eyes; they saw Death’s
grey seal stamping its impress more and more visibly upon the features,
and one on either side the narrow little bed they sat, while it grew
deep night, and still Myles did not come home.

‘What can be keeping him?’ the girl uneasily wondered again and again;
but she dared not speak her wonder, for every time that Edmund roused
from the lethargy which was settling more and more heavily upon him,
he looked round with an anxious gaze, and a vague astonishment at the
absence of that brother who had been his stay and protection all his
weak and painful life.

Midnight passed, and still the sorrowful watch lasted. One o’clock
struck, and still he came not; and still the face on the pillow grew
grayer and more deathlike. Two o’clock passed, and yet all was as it
had been. Towards half-past two, Mary, going softly to the window,
raised a corner of the blind, and beheld the first flush of dawn in the
east, as it may be seen at that hour on a June morning. Her heavy eyes
looked across the houses, across the town, to where the pure sky, with
a cool, bright light, showed the ridges of the moors. She looked back
into the room. Harry’s eyes had followed her, and hung upon her face;
and Edmund’s eyes too were opened, wide, bright, and clear. His voice
had regained a last flicker of strength, as he said distinctly,

‘Wind up the blind, Molly, and open the window a bit. Let _me_ see the
sun rise.’

Speechless, Mary complied. A waft of pure, fresh morning air was
borne into the room through the open window. Then there was a pause.
From where he lay, Edmund could see the broadening rose flush in the
east, and then suddenly the chimes from the spire rang out; three was
solemnly tolled, and in a moment there rang out upon the sleeping town,
resting from its troubles, the sweet old tune, ‘Life let us cherish!’
Mary heard the tune, ‘Myles’s tune,’ as she called it, and wondered
longingly where he was. She returned to the bedside, and Harry went to
the window. Edmund had closed his eyes again, and another quarter had
chimed, when Harry exclaimed,

‘He’s there! He’s coming!’

In a few moments more Myles stood in the room. There were very few
words more. They all stood round the bed, and Edmund held his brother’s
hand. In the watching him, the others had no time to notice the haggard
look on Myles’s face. Day grew broader, and life waned. Four was chimed
melodiously; the first stir of life was audible, as Edmund quietly
breathed his last.

Mary was sobbing--the sunrise was over--and day, full, glowing, and
brilliant, poured in upon the dead face.




CHAPTER XIV.

DUST AND ASHES.


The day that followed was naturally a sad one. Mary was too much
occupied in mourning her loss to notice Myles as she otherwise might
have done. Harry left the house about five o’clock, promising to call
again about dinner-time. A friendly neighbour came in and helped Mary
to perform all that remained to be done for the dead. At last all was
finished. The woman had gone, and Mary paused as she left the room,
looking round it with a kind of sorrowful pride. It looked very white,
and pure, and still.

She had drawn the blind down and set everything in the most exquisite
order. The dead figure lay stretched out in its eternal repose,
with calm, beautiful face, and quietly closed eyes. At the door she
returned, and ran up to the bedside, and kissed the cold forehead.

‘Poor lad! poor lad!’ she whispered between her tears, ‘thine has been
a hard life, but thou’rt in heaven now, if ever anybody was.’

When Myles came in, during the forenoon, she was struck, for the first
time, with his great stillness and the strange, haggard look upon his
face. She remembered that he had been out all night, and asked him what
he had been doing.

‘I dare say it seemed unkind,’ he replied, ‘but you may trust me,
Molly, I couldn’t help it. I can’t explain to you why it was; something
had happened. I couldn’t help it.’

He sat down beside her, and took her hand, and they both remained
there, looking mournfully into the little fire; she with the sorrow of
deep affection which knows its object removed; he sad too, but with a
more incurable sadness than hers. They were both oppressed with sorrow,
but he

            ‘Beneath a rougher sea,
    And whelmed in deeper gulfs than she.’

On this scene entered Harry Ashworth, with offers of his services if
they were wanted, and also with the object of telling Myles what had
passed between him and Mary.

Myles heard it all out, down to Mary’s acknowledgment that she wished
to marry Harry, ‘supposing thou hast nothing against it, Myles.’

‘Against it? What could I have against it? You’ve my hearty consent and
good wishes, both of you. There won’t be a better wife in Thanshope,
nor in England, than you’ll get, Harry; and I know you so well that I’m
not afraid to trust Molly to you. I’m glad it is so, for I don’t think
I shall stay here long, and I should have been unhappy to leave her
alone. I hope you’ll both be as happy as you deserve.’

He shook hands with Harry and kissed Mary, but he could not force
a smile. They saw that he was glad, relieved to find that they had
decided to be married; but they also saw that he had some sorrow behind
it all, which was greater than the joy.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a little after eight on the same evening. Myles found himself
standing opposite the Townhall, with his hand on the latch of the
Oakenrod gate. He paused a moment before lifting it, then summoning up
courage, did so, and stood within the garden of the house against which
he had had so long and so strong a prejudice.

He had never been so near it before. His feet were strange within the
gates of rich or important people of any kind, but particularly here.
It was with a sort of thrill that he looked round at the smoothly
shaven grass, the dazzling flower-beds, in all the splendour of their
June garments, the softly rolled gravel beneath his feet. The errand he
came upon was one which, a month ago, he would have repudiated, would
have said that no imaginable combination of circumstances could make
him undertake. Yes, truly; but the combinations of circumstances which
force us into the actions that humble us, and wound us, and sting our
self-esteem with hornet-stings, are always such combinations as we
should never imagine beforehand, because it never occurs to us that
deserving persons, such as ourselves, can be put into positions only
appropriate to ill-regulated conduct.

Myles was conscious of no bad conduct or evil intentions, but only of
a great, ever-growing misery, which was so strong as to force him to
try in some way to escape from it, and this was the only path which
presented itself as practicable; so he took it, as is generally the
case.

He walked up to the front door, past the open windows with the lace
curtains fluttering inside, and pulled the bell. An unpleasant fear
seized him, lest Sebastian should be out, gone to see Adrienne,
perhaps, and he would have his hard task to do all over again.

A page-boy opened the door, and Myles inquired if Mr. Mallory were at
home.

‘I believe so,’ said the youth, a little wondering at the unusual
visitor.

‘I wish to see him,’ said Myles, stepping in, ‘if he is not engaged,
that is; and my business is rather particular.’

The boy, after serious consideration, decided to show the visitor into
the library, and asked him to take a seat. This he did, and inquired,

‘Who shall I say wishes to see him?’

‘Tell him that Myles Heywood would be glad to speak to him, if he is
disengaged.’

The page disappeared. Myles was left alone in the library, and his
quick, restless eyes roamed round it, and took everything in, and the
full significance of everything--the soft carpets, the harmonious,
subdued hues of walls, hangings, and furniture; the relief afforded by
gleams of gold here and there; the book-cases filled with books of all
times and in all languages; the great bronze busts of Aristotle and
Sophocles; the quaint blue and white vases; the two curious paintings
by Sebastian’s favourite German artist; the reading-stands; the
writing-tables; the pleasant luxury and taste, and abundance of every
appointment.

‘No wonder!’ said he to himself. ‘And between the man and me--his
manners and mine, his mind and mine--there is just the same difference
as there is between this library of his and our little flagged kitchen
at home. This is the place for her, and I feel as if I could see her
here sitting at that writing-table, or standing in the window there
looking out.’

He heaved a deep sigh, and at that moment some one began to play a
melody on a piano in another room; a soft, sad, melancholy air, to
which he listened so intently that he did not hear the door open, and
was first roused by Sebastian’s voice.

‘Good evening. I am sorry to have kept you waiting; but I was engaged
and could not escape.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Myles, rising; and as each man’s eyes fell
upon the other man’s face, both felt surprise. Sebastian almost showed
his, in a suppressed exclamation, but Myles was too sad and oppressed
to experience more than a vague wonder and astonishment that a man
in what he thought was Sebastian’s position should wear that subdued,
grave, downcast look.

‘I noticed that you were not in your place to-day,’ began Mallory, by
way of opening the conversation; ‘nothing wrong at home, I hope?’

‘Yes; we are in trouble at home. My brother, who has been ill for a
long time, died this morning, early.’

‘I am very sorry indeed. Of course you would not think of coming to
work, at present. It is not----’

‘It was not to excuse myself from work that I came,’ said Myles, in the
same quiet, constrained way. ‘My brother’s death is a grief to me, of
course; but one does not talk about such things. I was going to trouble
you on a matter of business, if you can spare the time----’

‘Perfectly well. In what can I help you?’

Myles bit his lips. He had strong ideas about what it was fitting for
a man to say and do under certain circumstances. Probably if he had
formulated some of his ideas upon ethics, most sophisticated persons
would have broken into inextinguishable laughter. One favourite maxim
of his was that, to use his own language, ‘To blackguard a man high
and low, and then go and ask a favour of him, was a mean, dirty trick;
fit for a hound, perhaps, but not for an honest man.’ If he could
not be said to have ‘blackguarded’ Sebastian high and low, he had
certainly spoken with less than courtesy, both of him and to him; it
was impossible to ignore that fact, and proceed to his real errand.

‘You may think it a very strange thing, but I’ve come to ask a favour
of you,’ said he.

‘Is it strange? I shall be glad to grant it if I can.’

Myles lifted his hand a moment, and then went on,

‘You may not know that I have often spoken very bitterly of you, but
you do know that I have not been particularly civil to you--have I?’

‘Well, not exactly effusive,’ admitted Sebastian, with a slight smile,
wondering whether he had at last completed his much-desired conquest.

‘It is true,’ said Myles. ‘I had a bad opinion of you--a prejudice
against you--and I expressed it. If it had not been for troubles I have
had lately,’ he added, with that little nervous twitch of the lips
which had only lately been present with him; ‘but for those troubles, I
might have gone on thinking and speaking evil of you without a cause,
but my eyes have been opened. I see how utterly wrong I was--blind and
bigoted. You have proved yourself a very different man from what I
thought you--a very much wiser and better man than I should have been
in your place--and I beg your pardon for what I have said against you.’

‘But, my dear fellow, you must not take it so terribly in earnest;
so--so tragically. Every one has his prejudices; I have some most
preposterous ones, I believe. All the same, I confess to you that I
was excessively piqued by your bad opinion of me. It has been a matter
of some moment, with me, to overcome that prejudice, and enlist you
amongst my friends. If I can say that you are amongst them now, I must
feel that I have won a kind of victory.’

‘Mr. Mallory, I can never be amongst your enemies, never again. Let
that be enough. I can say no more. You are wiser and more generous,
too, than I am; but you can afford to be so. The reason I came to-night
was to ask you if you still remembered an offer you made me a short
time ago--the offer to give me a place away from Thanshope and _out of
England_, you said?’

‘I remember it perfectly well, and that I said I could still do it if
you changed your mind about it. Well?’

‘I have changed my mind about it If you can carry your generosity
a little farther, and get me that place, or something like it--the
farther away from here the better--I shall be--God knows, how grateful
to you: I can never express it.’

‘I can still do it,’ said Sebastian, looking attentively and kindly
at the eager, haggard face of the other. ‘But I am sorry you think of
leaving Thanshope.’

‘I _must_ leave Thanshope. It is to get away from here that I ask. Will
the work be hard? I hope so. I care for nothing but hard work--hard
work,’ he repeated, in a sort of restless, prolonged sigh.

‘You will have what you wish for. The work is certainly pretty stiff.
It is in Germany--in a rough, mining district near a large town. There
is a cotton factory, and some collieries. They have a lot of English
and Irish work-people there. The master and owner, Herr Süsmeyer, is
a very intimate friend of mine. He wants a sort of superintendent--an
Englishman, and one who is not afraid of work. He himself is as much an
Englishman as a German. Still, you must know a little of the language.
Did you not learn something of it from Miss Blisset?’ he added
deliberately.

‘Yes,’ said Myles, curtly.

‘Ah, you will soon pick up more; you are quick, and you must study when
work is over. That will give you as much occupation as even you could
wish, I think. I shall give you a very high recommendation, indeed, as
being personally known to me.’

‘And as having been always polite, reasonable, and amiable with my
superiors; not ready to take offence, and willing to own myself in the
wrong!’ suggested Myles, with grim humour.

Sebastian smiled, in silence, as he drew a paper-case and inkstand
towards him, and wrote rapidly. He fastened up the letter, and
addressed it to--HERRN GUSTAV SÜSMEYER, Eisendorf, Westphalien,
Prussia, and handed it to Myles, saying,

‘I know the situation is still open, and that letter will secure it for
you. I shall also write to Herr Süsmeyer to-night, so as to lose no
time. From what you say, I suppose you will want to go soon?’

‘As soon as ever I can--in a few days, when poor Ned is buried, and I
can leave Mary.’

‘You will leave your sister behind you?’

‘For a good reason,’ said Myles. ‘She’s going to be married, and I know
I leave her in good hands.’

‘May I ask whom she will marry?’

‘Harry Ashworth, a friend of ours. He has loved her long,’ said Myles,
not even feeling surprised that he should be relating such things to
Sebastian.

‘I am very glad; I wish them all happiness. I am sure the man is
fortunate who marries your sister.’

‘Yes, he is,’ assented Myles. ‘Then,’ he added, ‘you think I may go any
day?’

‘Any day; but before you go, I hope you will see me again, so that I
can give you some idea of the place, and tell you what route to take.
It is an out-of-the-way sort of place; and excuse me, the journey is
somewhat expensive, and----’

‘You are very kind. My friend Harry has money which he will lend me.
I shall soon repay him if I once get work. He won’t want it till he
is married. Let me see: the day after to-morrow--Mary will stay with
Harry’s mother. Would it be convenient if I called the day after
to-morrow, in the evening?’

‘The day after to-morrow--to-morrow is Mrs. Spenceley’s ball,’ said
Sebastian, half to himself. ‘Yes; the day after to-morrow will suit me
perfectly well.’

‘And the day after that I can go,’ exclaimed Myles, the first ray
of anything like pleasure flashing across his face. ‘I can go,’ he
repeated.

Sebastian looked at him, not feeling at all satisfied with his victory.
All that he had ever wished to himself, with regard to Myles, had come
to pass. The latter had owned himself wrong; had apologised for his own
frowardness; had descended so far as to ask a favour, and to express
himself in tones of unmistakable emotion as deeply grateful when it was
granted. And yet--the effect was not in the least what it ought to have
been. The sensations of the victor were anything but jubilant.

‘You seem very anxious to get away?’ he remarked, involuntarily and
inquiringly.

‘Yes, I am; it’s the only thing I care for, just at present,’ said
Myles. ‘Good night,’ he added, rising. ‘I can’t express my gratitude to
you. You would have been justified in treating me very differently.’

‘Indeed I should not!’ exclaimed Sebastian; and the sense that his
victory was a barren one was borne still more strongly in upon him.

What was it worth if, after all, it had only been won _for_ him by
Myles’s adverse circumstances, not _by_ him, through his own influence
over the conquered one?

‘Heywood,’ he exclaimed earnestly, ‘is there nothing behind all this
that you could tell me? Can I do nothing for you but help you to get
away from this place, which seems to have grown so unbearable to you?
I do not ask from ordinary curiosity--you must know that; it is from
sympathy, and a sincere wish to be your friend, if possible.’

Myles shook his head.

‘I can speak to no man of what troubles me, thank you,’ said he. ‘All
the same, I am not ungrateful.’

He held out his hand, which the other grasped heartily, and in another
minute found himself alone.

All that evening, all the night, he was haunted by a vision of the pale
face and miserable eyes of Myles Heywood--a vision of suffering whose
very remembrance oppressed him.




CHAPTER XV.

HUGO.


The few days intervening between her dispute with her son and the
Spenceleys’ ball were, as may be supposed, not particularly pleasant
ones to Mrs. Mallory. Sebastian, after his interview with Adrienne,
came home, and looking into the drawing-room found his mother alone.
She did not deign to notice him, but he, coming in, said to her,

‘Mother, I want to speak to you.’

‘Well?’

‘I proposed to Miss Blisset this evening.’

‘Indeed!’

‘You do not ask what reception my offer met with.’

‘I imagine, considering your relative positions, there cannot be much
need to inquire.’

‘Still, I may as well tell you that she refused me.’

Mrs. Mallory was profoundly astonished, of course; but as, after a
moment’s reflection, she did not perceive herself any nearer her real
and cherished object, Sebastian’s marriage with Helena, she contented
herself with uttering a sneering little laugh, and saying, in an
exasperating tone--

‘Really!’

‘So that you will not have the annoyance of knowing her your
daughter-in-law. But I think it better to mention that such remarks as
you made about her this morning must not be repeated in my presence. I
do not choose to hear anything spoken of that young lady which is not
quite respectful.’

‘Though she _has_ jilted you,’ said Mrs. Mallory, with an amiable smile.

‘I was not aware of it.’

‘Very likely not; men seldom do know when women make fools of them. The
better for them and their conviction as to their superior wisdom.’

‘You may possibly be right,’ he rejoined, with perfect temper; ‘but the
point I wish to impress upon you is, that nothing disrespectful is ever
to be uttered of Miss Blisset in my presence. The other questions are
quite supplementary.’

She made no answer, and Sebastian, politely wishing her good night,
retired to his study.

Mrs. Mallory sat alone, very angry, after her phlegmatic, batrachian
fashion, at what had happened, and longing very much, for the relief
of her own feelings, to punish some one in some way. It was too
exasperating that Sebastian should behave in that manner, after all
her plans for his good and welfare. Helena Spenceley was at the moment
perfection in her eyes.

‘At any rate, he must go to the ball the day after to-morrow,’ she said
to herself. ‘It is a good chance. There is no time when a man is so
likely to fall in love with a woman as when he has just been “refused”
by another woman.’

But here her thoughts wandered off to Adrienne, and she felt as angry
with her for her presumption in refusing Sebastian as she would have
felt with her success had she accepted him. Indeed, her audacity in
attracting him at all was thoroughly odious; she was a little dog in
the manger, who would neither accept the man’s love herself nor leave
him free to wander aside to where beauty and a hundred thousand pounds
waited for him to lift his hand in order to utter a rapturous ‘Yes.’

‘For Helena _is_ in love with him, let her pretend what she likes,’ she
muttered angrily. ‘I can see it distinctly. He might have her for the
asking.... I wonder if all children are born to break their mothers’
hearts?’

With which speculation agitating her brain she retired to rest.

Her spirit was still ruffled and ill at ease all the next day, and by
degrees she concentrated her ill-temper upon a single object--a sort
of focus to her anger and vexation--and that object was no other than
Hugo von Birkenau. She had always regarded him with little favour: he
was poor, dependent, and behaved himself as if he were rich and free.
Now, everything that he said or did appeared an offence--a purposely
intended, premeditated insult directed at herself, with the purpose
of angering her--a very strange frame of mind, dear reader, and one
which, from its being so utterly unknown to you and me and eminently
reasonable persons like ourselves, would almost seem to require some
elucidation or description.

Mrs. Mallory found the day go over, and Hugo continue to be insultingly
cheerful and conversational, without her being able to find any actual
ground for quarrelling with him. It would come, she was determined; it
should come: he was too impertinent to be tolerated without an attempt
to repress him.

On the evening on which Myles came to see Sebastian, the latter and
Hugo were sitting together in Sebastian’s study. Hugo had heard of
Adrienne’s refusal, and though condoling, did not feel so sorry as he
considered he ought to have done. By degrees the conversation drifted
off to Hugo’s own affairs and prospects. Sebastian told him he thought
he ought seriously to think about what he meant to do.

‘I have thought about it, and decided,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m going to write
an opera. That has been my ambition ever since I could strum upon a
piano.’

‘But, my dear lad, you will never learn all that you must know in
order to write an opera by staying in Thanshope. You must go away,
Hugo, to your native land, where alone true music flourishes, and
you must study. You ought to go to Köln or Leipzig or some other
conservatorium. I should recommend Leipzig.’

‘I have always thought of Leipzig,’ answered the boy, ‘and I will go as
soon as you like, Sebastian, but it will be very dreary without you.’

‘Oh, bah! Yours is a fickle, artist nature, Hugo, revelling in the
delight of the moment. You will think Leipzig heaven a week after you
get there, and all the other pupils in the conservatorium seraphs and
angels, and you will wonder how you ever lived here.’

‘Not fickle, Sebastian!’ he cried, with the tragic earnest which
sometimes made Sebastian think him so like Helena Spenceley. ‘Anything
but that! Anything but fickle to you! If I thought I ever _could_ be
fickle to you, I’d put an end to myself to-night, and have no qualms
of conscience about it. Such a wretch would be better out of the world
than in it.’

‘Oh, nonsense! But one thing I do wish you would promise me. I’ve often
thought of asking you before, but I was afraid it might seem like
trying to entrap your youth and innocence.’

‘What is it? Quick, tell me what it is!’ asked Hugo, his eyes ablaze
with eagerness.

‘Well, it is this: that you will never, before you are one-and-twenty,
take any very important step, without _telling_ me what you intend to
do. I don’t say asking my permission. I trust too much to your honour
and purity of heart to keep you from doing anything bad,’ he added,
with a smile. ‘I would not harass and fetter you by any such stupid
restriction; but, as I trust you, I want you to trust me. Don’t do
anything important without telling me that you intend to do it, and
giving me a chance to offer you a specimen of my superior wisdom, you
know.’

‘What a question! I swear it!’ said Hugo, enthusiastically. ‘As if I
_could_ do anything without consulting you!’

‘Not so fast!’ said his friend, laughing. ‘Wait till the time comes. I
shall most likely seem then a wearisome old formalist, who----’

‘_Never!_’

‘But I tell you, it will be so, you obstinate young dog! There are
temptations, Hugo, and you, with your temperament, will find them as
hard to resist as if they were red-hot fiery hail. I am such a slow,
phlegmatic sort of fellow. They don’t affect me in the same way. My
temptations always come too late. By the time I begin to think I should
like to do something either bad or idiotic, the chance is over, and I
am saved. So I have got the reputation of being a very well-conducted
sort of person, and not caring for the things other fellows care about.’

‘At any rate, I solemnly give the promise you ask, and should have
done so if it had been ten times as binding--and there’s my hand upon
it,’ said Hugo, to whom the idea of binding himself to any particular
thing, by ‘solemn oaths and execrations,’ was especially fascinating
and delightful. It seemed to surround him and his friend with a little
romance, and to separate them from the outer crowd. It opened up vague
possibilities of self-denial, trial, and probation, and a prospect of
endurance through good and evil, thick and thin, which delighted his
ardent soul.

‘Then that is settled,’ said Sebastian, contentedly. ‘We can talk about
your going away later.’

It was towards the close of this conversation that Sebastian had been
called away to Myles Heywood--the day, therefore, before the ball at
Castle Hill.

On the following afternoon Sebastian had to go out. His mother asked
him at lunch if he intended to go to the dance, and he said yes, he
supposed he did--he must now, but he did not care about it, and did
not think it was in very good taste to be having balls at such a time.
Moreover, he had heard a rumour that Mr. Spenceley’s own affairs caused
him some anxiety.

Mrs. Mallory said she supposed it was Mr. Spenceley’s own business;
he ought to know best whether he were able to give balls at such a
time. He could not put off his daughter’s twenty-first birthday for an
indefinite time.

‘No,’ said Sebastian, ‘and that is just what makes the whole affair
such a melancholy farce. His daughter is very anxious not to have any
ball. She told me so, and nearly cried with vexation about it.’

Mrs. Mallory made no reply, and Sebastian, saying he had a meeting to
attend, went out.

Hugo was that afternoon in one of his oft-recurring idle moods, and
wandered about, apparently not knowing what to do with himself. He was
anticipating the ball eagerly enough, having extracted from Helena the
promise of no less than three waltzes--less of a distinction than he
imagined, perhaps, since Helena, in granting them, had been thinking
chiefly of escaping from the defective dancing and fatuous remarks of
the Thanshope young men, amongst whom she enjoyed what she considered
a fatal popularity. She had wondered whether to keep any dances for
Sebastian. Would he ask her to dance at all?

‘Of course he will!’ she thought, ‘as a matter of duty, and I think I
shall fill up my programme, and show it him without any comment when he
asks me. Then he will raise his eyebrows in that way I hate, and make
a little bow, and smile a little smile, and remark, “I see I am indeed
too late;” and stand on one side, perfectly content not to dance, since
the nicest girl he ever knew is not there.’

But these workings of the feminine mind could not possibly be known
to Hugo, who was only aware that he had received an indulgent smile
and a pleasant glance from Helena’s dark eyes, as she protested a
little against the three waltzes, but yielded in the end. He repaired
to the drawing-room, and, with characteristic fitfulness, spent the
whole afternoon in playing waltzes, good, bad, and indifferent, of
every kind and from every source he could think of. Waltz after waltz
flowed from his rapid fingers. Gung’l and Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart,
Schubert--ancient and modern composers, good and bad ones, were laid
under contribution, till his whole being seemed a waltz, and he was
in a state of highly strung nervous excitement and anticipation, with
which mingled the memories of past waltzes with partners of a bygone
day. Hugo felt his whole soul penetrated with music, melody, and
happiness as he sat in the shady corner of the drawing-room and saw the
sun stream warmly in at the side window. He felt life that afternoon
very full and rich and delicious, and crowded with sweet and grand
possibilities. He felt at harmony with all the world, and was sure it
was a good place to live in.

He had just finished the solemn, passionate strains of a waltz of
Beethoven’s, and still his fingers lingered on the keys, and still his
ears drank in the glorious notes, when the door opened and Mrs. Mallory
came into the room.

Hugo stopped playing. She did not openly request him to do so, but he
knew she disliked to hear him, and to his fastidious taste the very
presence of an unsympathetic spirit was jarring. Spontaneity ceased;
pleasure was gone.

He rose from the instrument, went to the sunny window, and hummed over
the air he had been playing.

‘At what time do we go to-night, Mrs. Mallory?’ he presently inquired.

‘Go where?’

‘To the ball.’

‘At eight o’clock, I believe,’ she said, with stony coldness. Mrs.
Mallory’s anger was coming to a climax now; it would be strange if Hugo
did not say something which should cause the storm to break over his
head. Unconsciously, unwittingly, he led straight up to the point.

‘I should like to dance every night,’ he said, rather enthusiastically,
for his music still haunted him, and even Mrs. Mallory’s chill
influence could not quite bring him down from his heights of
abstraction to the commonplaces of every day--yet.

‘Very likely,’ she said. ‘I have noticed that the more frivolous a
thing is, the more you delight in it.’

‘Dancing is not necessarily frivolous,’ Hugo assured her with the
greatest solemnity. ‘It is, or should be, an art; not a mere kicking
about of the legs.’

‘Indeed!’

‘When I grow up,’ continued Hugo, ‘that is to say, when I am _majorat_,
come of age, I mean, and come into my property, I shall devote a great
part of my time to dancing, I love it so.’

This was too much, far too much. It was high time that this vain,
bombastical, self-conceited pauper was put down.

‘When you come into your property,’ she remarked with polite sarcasm,
‘then you can squander it just as you please. But I would advise you
first to make certain that you have any property to come into.’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose I shall be rich. Sebastian knows all about it. He
says he will explain all in good time.’

‘Sebastian is as foolish a young man, in some respects, as I know; and
as for you, Mr. von Birkenau, I am at a loss to understand how any one
professing to be a gentleman can behave as you do.’

‘As how?’ demanded Hugo, his brow suddenly clouding as he perceived
that her words bore reference to something unknown to him.

‘Did Sebastian ever tell you, in so many words, that you had any
property, any money, estate, possessions of any kind?’

‘N--no.’

‘I thought so. He is very trying, but I have always found him sincere,
so far. I should have thought that very fact would have led you to
think a little about your own position. That you can quietly accept
another man’s bounty, and never ask the reason of it, never inquire
into your own affairs, or ask whether you are living in a manner
suitable to your future prospects--it is incredible! No one with any
sense of honour could conduct himself in such a manner.’

‘I do not know what you mean--Sebastian knows,’ said Hugo, a dread
suspicion beginning to creep into his heart. ‘He is my guardian, and I
live as _he_ pleases, of course. You know I do.’

‘Your guardian! That is about all he has to guard, I think.’

‘He is my guardian, and the guardian of my property, however small
it may be. I dare say, to you, I may seem almost a beggar, but
Sebastian----’

‘You make me pity you! I do not think it right that you should live
under such a delusion any longer. Let me tell you that you have no
property except what my son gives you. You live on his bounty. But for
him you would be a beggar.’

‘You are not speaking the truth!’ said Hugo, suddenly standing before
her and bending his flashing eyes upon her. ‘You know you are not
speaking the truth.’

    ‘Where is it now, the glory and the dream?’

‘Am I not? You had better ask Sebastian. It was he who told me. I
thought you considered him perfect in all respects--not being his
mother.’

‘Sebastian told you that I lived on him--that he----’

‘That your mother committed you to his charge, and he took it into his
head to adopt you. That, except what he gives you, you have _nothing_.
He told me that, and I think it best that you should know it, for I
consider your behaviour and conversation very unfit for your position.
That is all that I have to say, or want to hear, upon the subject.’

Mrs. Mallory’s moral equilibrium was almost restored; she felt
distinctly more cheerful and better satisfied with everything. For Hugo
there remained only a hideous chaos, a general _bouleversement_ of his
fixed, contented conceptions of life and his sphere in it.

He walked out of the room, and stood in the hall a moment. What should
he do--whither go? This was no place for him. He had no right here. He
was the object of a rich man’s pitying charity--a beggar. Mrs. Mallory
had said it, and said it after a fashion which left no doubt possible.
Instead of playing a grand piano in a luxurious drawing-room, instead
of going to balls and dancing with beautiful young women of large
fortune, and driving about, and riding fine horses--all belonging to
another man--instead of this, he ought to be--what? Well, if Sebastian
had left him at the institution where he was being brought up, the
authorities would at least have found him a trade and apprenticed him
to it: he might have been at this moment a shopman or an usher, or a
clerk, or somebody’s secretary and amanuensis. At least, he would not
have been anybody’s dependent, loaded with so many obligations that
their weight crushed and overpowered him.

By this time he had almost unconsciously ascended the stairs, and
found himself in his own room. What must he do? It was impossible to
let such a state of things continue any longer. What remained? To go,
of course! The idea flashed like an inspiration upon him. He would
fly--now, at once, Sebastian was out; Mrs. Mallory would certainly
not try to prevent his departure. What should he take? what leave?
He made an excited rush to his wardrobe, his drawers, and began to
turn them out. Then another idea struck him. That would not do. They
were all Sebastian’s things. Not one of them but had been bought with
Sebastian’s money. He could not take any of them. It would be stealing.
He looked down with a shudder at the very clothes he wore. No--he must
take nothing; but he must go--he must get away from here, and go and
earn some money, and pay Sebastian back.

But he never could do that. How could he repay the kindness, the
advice, the friendship--the care that had watched over him, the
generosity which had condoned a thousand impertinences and wayward
wearisome fancies? No money, no service, could ever repay these
things. But at least he must get away--must remove himself. That very
generosity which he had so often proved might, for anything he knew,
have wearied of him long ago, though it would never say so.

He rose with the vague intention of getting out of the house with as
few impediments as possible, and, once out of it, never to re-enter it.
And then memory and conscience again asserted themselves. What was it
that he had promised Sebastian only last night? Not to do anything of
any importance without first telling him of his intention. He could not
even go, for he would not begin his new career by breaking his word to
the man to whom he owed everything. He must wait.

‘Oh, Sebastian!’ groaned the poor boy, flinging himself face downwards
upon a couch at the foot of his bed, ‘it was cruel, cruel of you! You
should not have treated me thus!’

Men of Hugo’s temperament weep sometimes with almost womanly facility,
and Hugo, in his new-born anguish and despair, wept now; and when
the weeping was over, he did not rise, but remained with his face
buried in the cushions, repeating to himself every item of Sebastian’s
generosity, and his own blind, besotted self-confidence and ignorant
assumption (such it appeared to him). A thousand things rose up in his
memory, and he asked himself how he could have failed to comprehend
their meaning, to have some suspicion of his real position. He
resolved, with more and more impassioned eagerness, to _go_; to wait
till he had redeemed his promise, and then to say farewell, and bid
Sebastian forget him. How his heart ached at the thought! But no
alternative was open to him. He was a gentleman. No gentleman could
knowingly continue to live as he had been doing.

The time went on; whether long or short he could not tell. He did not
keep count of the minutes or hours. His whole consciousness seemed to
resolve itself into a desire to be gone, which had grown overpowering
and intense, when a quick tap at the door was heard, then it was
opened, and Sebastian’s voice said,

‘I say, Hugo, do you mean to go to this entertainment or not? Because
if--why, what _is_ the matter with you?’

‘I never knew, Sebastian! Upon my soul and honour I never knew
till Mrs. Mallory told me to-day!’ exclaimed Hugo, starting up and
confronting his horrified friend, with pale face, scintillating eyes,
which bore traces of recent weeping, hair wildly tossed up and down his
head, and generally demoralised aspect.

‘Didn’t know _what_, my dear fellow? What is all this excitement about?’

‘Mrs. Mallory told me, just a little while ago, the _truth_ about
myself,’ said Hugo, speaking rapidly and vehemently in German, as he
nearly always did when agitated, and he began to stride excitedly about
the room. ‘It was not right ... no, no! it was very cruel! you should
not have done it. I have no right to reproach you, but you should
not have laid such a burden upon me--a burden which is greater than
I can bear ... _aber, Gott im Himmel_! what do I mean by reproaching
you, when I owe you the very bread I eat, the very clothes I wear!
Sebastian! Sebastian! It was not _right_!’ he reiterated passionately,
coming to a stop, and standing before the other, upon whose mind the
truth began to dawn.

His mother had played the traitor--had betrayed the trust which he
had been weak enough to repose in her before he had understood her
so well as he did now, and the result must be, in any case, a very
painful explanation, and perhaps failure to convince Hugo; perhaps
the alienation of a love which he prized more highly at this present
moment than he ever had done before. For the moment, the first moment,
his heart sank very low: he suddenly seemed to see everything that he
most prized deserting him. Adrienne was lost to him, and his heart
was yet smarting under that conviction. Yesterday he had seen Myles
Heywood depart, expressing his gratitude, but, as he felt, unconquered,
untouched at heart. Now, here was Hugo bitterly reproaching him for
not having done what was right towards him. One stroke coming upon the
other almost unmanned him momentarily, for the men with warm hearts and
cool heads are necessarily more susceptible both to failure and success
than the men with cool heads and cold hearts to boot.

Then he suddenly gathered himself together. Hugo was not gone; he was
only drifting away from him. He would make a very strong struggle to
still hold him fast to him; if he succeeded, he might take it as a good
omen for the future--if not, the future must look after itself. He came
into the room and closed the door.

‘You startle me, Hugo. This is something I did not expect. Suppose you
tell me all about it, and we can discuss it. Shall we?’

‘There is nothing to be discussed. If it had not been for my promise to
you yesterday, I should not be here now. As it is, I waited; but only
to say that I am going at once--to clear myself--to tell you that I
never knew....’

‘Why, Hugo, how _could_ you know? If you had known, you would not
have been what you are to me, the frank, open-hearted comrade, whose
friendship and companionship have made me so happy.’

‘If I had known,’ said Hugo, ‘I should not have behaved myself like
a mountebank, such as I must have seemed to you many a time, with my
impertinences and fancies. Mrs. Mallory is quite right--for me to be
thinking of balls and amusements and enjoyments is folly--madness. What
an ape! what a confounded, conceited, self-important _ape_ I must have
seemed all these years! Acting as if I had great prospects before me,
while all the time I am a beggar. It is hideous!’

He was getting excited again. His eyes began to flash and his foot
to beat the floor restlessly. Sebastian noticed that he had not once
looked at him during all this scene, but away from him: anywhere rather
than meet his eyes.

‘Let me go,’ he added, in a choked voice. ‘Let me go, and forget me.
That is all you and I can do, and it must be done at once.’

‘You will never leave me, any more than I can, or shall try to forget
you.’

‘Why? Because I am under such obligations to you, that you can force me
to obey you from very shame?’ asked Hugo, bitterly.

‘Not at all, Hugo, but because you love me, and I love you (if it were
not so, after all these years, it would be strange), and you could
never find it in your heart to wound me as such a proceeding would
wound me.’

At last Hugo’s eyes turned to him; at last he stood still and looked
at him, and Sebastian returned the look from his inmost heart. This
soul-to-soul, searching gaze was a prolonged one, and Hugo at last,
turning away, sat down on the sofa again, put his hand before his face,
and said in a broken voice,

‘You could always do what you liked with me, and you can now. What do
you want?’

‘I only want you to listen to me and _believe_ me,’ said Sebastian. ‘If
you will only believe me, all will be well.’

A movement of the head showed that Hugo was listening.

‘You have called me cruel--you have said that what I have done was not
right. I cannot hear such accusations unmoved. Why have I been cruel?’

‘In putting me into a false position--making me believe myself to be
what I am not.’

‘Somewhat insincere it may have been, but I do not see how I could well
have acted otherwise. When your mother died you were equally badly off,
so far as worldly circumstances go, as you are now. _You_ did not know
it. It was her weakness that she could not bear you, whom she adored,
to know it. She had a horror of your learning that the institution at
which you were being educated was a ch--I mean----’

‘A charity-school--yes.’

‘That’s right, old fellow! Put it as spitefully as you can. If you
like, it _was_ a charity-school--and a poor coarse inadequate place
too, not the place for you. When I think of _you_ there, it is
horrible; I simply took the place of the authorities of that school
towards you. They had nothing to bind them to you; no single tie
existed. _I_ had everything. I had been your mother’s intimate friend;
she gave me, in her goodness, that which no service of mine could
repay. I reverenced her in her lifetime, and I reverence her memory
now. She knew what I wished; I discussed it with her fully and freely,
and she gave her unqualified consent. She trusted you to me--gave you
to me. Have you any right to impute wrong motives to her memory? You
remember her perfectly well. You know what she was. You must know that
she never acted but as she thought, from right and pure motives.’

‘I know; that alters it. But all the same it is very hard.’

‘I feel it so,’ said Sebastian. ‘Year by year I have been more glad
that I had you as my firm and faithful friend, who would never desert
me, whatever any one else did. I firmly believed that it was so, and
you--you have so little regard for me, that you would leave me--quit
me here at an hour’s notice, and why? Because you cannot, or will not,
rise above a few miserable, material interests; because you let a
few paltry, sordid coins (that is what it comes to) raise themselves
between you and me, and make them into a wall which neither of us
can pass. Yet you told me the other night that you _could_ not be
fickle--to me. Which am I to believe--your words or your actions?’

‘You may believe both now, when I tell you that I will do what you
please. Shall I stay? I will do whatever you like--just whatever you
like,’ said Hugo, in a dull, toneless kind of voice.

‘You call that doing what I please--remaining though you hate it. I
thought--last night I was sure that it would have caused you pain to
leave me.’

‘It will--would, I mean, cause me agony; but what am I to think, when
you have told Mrs. Mallory, who hates me, my whole story, and kept it
from me, whom you say you love?’

‘There I was wrong, Hugo--utterly wrong, I own it Had I known--but I
must not say that. If I had it to do now, I should keep silence. But if
you will not allow me _one_ mistake, take your own way. Leave me alone.
My mother opposes my wishes bitterly. The girl I love won’t have a word
to say to me. I have no one left but Hugo von Birkenau--and he begs to
decline my acquaintance. So be it!’

He turned to leave the room. His hand was on the door-handle, when Hugo
overtook him.

‘Stop!’ said he, almost in a whisper. ‘You know me better than I know
myself. I cannot leave you thus. If I thought I was of any good to
you----’

‘I suppose I should go through all this, to keep a thing I didn’t care
for. That is so like me!’ observed Sebastian.

‘Yes,’ said Hugo, with a half-laugh, half-choke, or sob; ‘I never
thought of that.’

‘Of course not. You wish to repay me, as you call it, Hugo. The only
way in which you can do it is to let me watch your future, as I have
always hoped to do, till you are famous, and I am known as your
greatest friend, eh?’

Hugo smiled faintly.

‘Your mother despises me,’ he began.

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders.

‘My dear boy, you must have seen that my mother is by no means
graciously disposed towards any one or anything that I may have the
misfortune to be fond of. As I like you better almost than any one,
she naturally dislikes you proportionately. It is not a pleasant thing
to have to say, but it is true. Surely, if you and I understand each
other, it does not matter what outsiders think of us.’

‘No,’ said Hugo, and once more there was heartiness and confidence in
his tone. ‘Forgive me my folly. It is over now.’

‘I thank you for making such a sacrifice to me.... When I came into the
room it was to see what you were doing, as you didn’t appear at dinner.
And, behold, nearly an hour has passed. The carriage will be here in
ten minutes.’

‘I don’t think I shall go.’

‘Pray do, though, or I shall have to think that this reconciliation is
only a sham one after all. Besides, Helena’s _beaux yeux_ will not turn
very amiably towards me, if I come without you.’

‘It depends upon yourself how Helena’s _beaux yeux_ regard you,’ said
Hugo; ‘but I will go. It would be insulting to her if I did not. I’ll
get ready now.’

‘I must do the same,’ said Sebastian, leaving the room.

Hugo proceeded to dress himself. He found himself looking back upon the
afternoon, when he had sat playing waltzes, as if it had been separated
by years from the evening, and his present self was a stranger to
himself of yesterday.

It was quite true. These few short hours had transformed him from a boy
to a man. The process, which in some cases is one of such prolonged,
lingering growth, had been with him effected at a leap, a single bound.
The change proved itself most in the fact that he accepted the cross
laid upon him; he felt himself possessed of that goodly, manly virtue,
the ability to wait; two days ago he would have tried to rush away from
pain and difficulty--now he could shake hands with them. As he dressed,
he planned his course as it should be, subject to circumstances; not
with the furious, fitful temper of an hour ago, but with calm, manly
reasonableness and judgment.

When the carriage came round they stood in the hall, and Mrs. Mallory
looked curiously at his pale, altered, composed countenance; but she
saw in an instant, by the look that passed between him and Sebastian,
that all was perfectly clear between them. The sweet accord of two
noble natures was a thing beyond her power to grasp; but she saw that
she had not succeeded in separating them, and recognised that she had
done her cause no service by her interference.




CHAPTER XVI.

HOW HELENA CAME INTO HER FORTUNE.


The rooms at Castle Hill were nearly full, and the ball had just
begun, when the Oakenrod party arrived. Sebastian offered his arm to
his mother, and she took it, both of them having a very strong sense
of the fact that the courtesy was a mere outside show, and that they
would rather have been any number of miles apart. Followed by Hugo,
they penetrated through the large square hall and the coffee-room,
to the drawing-room, which blazed in the full splendour of unlimited
wax-lights. In the centre of the room, looking very hot and very
uncomfortable, they found Mrs. Spenceley alone. Her lord was nowhere to
be seen, though her son was stationed at some little distance from her,
helping her in the discharge of her duties with a Thanshopian grace and
dignity all his own.

Sebastian, when his mother had finished her greetings and
congratulations, went up to Mrs. Spenceley, and in his turn paid his
_devoirs_.

The lady bore upon her face distinct traces of uneasiness of mind.
There was something terrible and _bezarre_ in the contrast between
her expression and her attire. Helena had considerately tried to
arrange her dress for her, with the natural sense of beauty and
harmony of colour and material which she so strongly possessed. She
had endeavoured to soften down the radiant hues contemplated by Mrs.
Spenceley, and had succeeded in inducing her rather to dress herself
in a magnificent robe of black satin. Diamonds twinkled upon her
spacious bosom, and diamond pins fastened her gorgeous lace cap. Here
Helena’s efforts had ceased to produce any effect. At this point Mrs.
Spenceley’s own taste in dress asserted itself. She had thrown over
her shoulders a floating scarf of crimson gauze, intertwined with
lines of orient gold, and over which wandered abnormally large bunches
of abnormally large grapes--purple grapes, with leaves of the same
phenomenal proportions. This treasure had been put on in order, as
she explained to Helena, ‘to cover my shoulders and give me a little
colour; for, say what you will, a black satin and a white lace cap is
not full enough for a woman of my years.’

In despairing resignation Helena had submitted, and the result was
the apparition already described, looking, with the troubled, puzzled
expression on her highly coloured face and the restless wandering of
her gentle dark eyes, altogether so grotesque, that Sebastian’s quick
observation instantly suspected something behind the gay show which
surrounded them.

‘I am glad to see you, Mr. Mallory,’ she said, giving him her hand,
and with an effort giving her attention to him. ‘I hope you’ll enjoy
yourself, I’m sure. We’ve done all we could think of to make people
enjoy themselves; but it is _very_ provoking, Spenceley’s not coming at
the last minute, isn’t it?’

‘I thought I missed Mr. Spenceley. Is he engaged?’

‘Oh, it’s this horrid business, you know. I said to him, I said,
“Spenceley, if business is so uncertain, it’s a very sure thing that we
oughtn’t to be giving balls in this style;” not but what I am _very_
glad to see you, and I hope you’ll enjoy it,’ she hastened to add. ‘He
had to go off to Liverpool early this morning, and he said he _might_
have to come home by Manchester, but he’d try to be with us before we
began. However, he hasn’t turned up.’

‘Very likely he has been detained.’

‘I expect so. These are anxious times, and it keeps a man on the
strain, with things going first up and then down, and not knowing how
anything will turn out,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, lucidly. ‘But aren’t
you going to dance, Mr. Mallory? There’s lots of young ladies will
be delighted to dance with you. See! there’s little Fanny Kay sitting
out--the first dance, too. Do you know her?’

‘Yes, thank you. I don’t think I will dance at present. I’m looking for
Miss Spenceley, to congratulate her; but she is not here, I think.’

‘She’s in the ball-room. You see, she had to open the ball, being for
her own birthday, and all, and some of them were very anxious to begin.
It makes it very awkward, Spenceley’s being away. But you’ll see Helena
directly, I dare say. She said she should come straight here when the
dance was over.’

‘I think I will go and see if it is over,’ said Sebastian, who saw Hugo
leading off a white-robed virgin to the ball-room.

‘Ay, do; I’m sure they must be nearly done by now,’ she replied,
drawing her dazzling scarf more closely about her, and obstinately
refusing to lessen her fatigue by sitting down.

Sebastian crossed the hall, and at the door of the ball-room met Helena
and her partner coming out. She was leaning on the arm of an elderly
man, one of the Thanshope magnates, to whose lot it had fallen to guide
her through the mazes of a duty-quadrille, by way of opening the ball.
Helena looked bored, and the gentleman no less so. They were making
straight for the drawing-room, in order to get rid of each other as
soon as possible.

Helena did not at once see Sebastian, and he had time to notice how
downcast and pale she looked, although so lovely. Mr. Rawson, her
partner, was at this moment ‘collared’ in a summary manner by an
acquaintance, and appeared particularly anxious to talk with him on
congenial subjects. Mr. Mallory, therefore, seized the opportunity to
advance and say:

‘Good evening, Miss Spenceley.’

Helena started, and turned quickly to him.

‘Mr. Rawson,’ proceeded Sebastian, ‘I see you are engaged. Allow me to
take Miss Spenceley to the drawing-room--or wherever else you please,’
he added, in a lower voice, as Mr. Rawson, with evident gratitude,
gave up his charge, and they walked away, her hand resting lightly on
his arm.

‘Now he is happy with a friend of his own age,’ remarked Sebastian. ‘I
could not find you in the drawing-room, so I came to seek you, in order
to offer you my sincere congratulations upon this occasion.’

‘Why so _sincere_? You speak so emphatically that I begin to doubt your
sincerity. Why congratulate me at all?’

‘What a question! I always understood, from your own words, that
you looked forward to your twenty-first birthday as a moment of
emancipation, when you would not be trodden down any more, and could
really show the sex which fails to meet your approval what you think of
them, and----’

‘I wish you would not keep talking in that way,’ said Helena. ‘It does
not amuse me in the least, and I don’t see what fun there is in it.’

‘Fun! I had no idea of fun! You shock me. I am in the most solemn
earnest I beg to be allowed to offer my congratulations to the heroine
of the present occasion, and to wish you “many happy returns of this
day.” You will permit me to do that?’

‘I am not a heroine, and the present occasion requires anything but
congratulations,’ was all Helena said.

Her wonted brilliance and high spirits had quite deserted her, even
in the presence of Sebastian Mallory, for whose delectation they
were usually wont to flow rather more rapidly than at other times.
In this new and more pensive mood Sebastian found the charm, which
he had always owned, a strong one. He had never before found her so
attractive. Her dress was less splendid, and more airy and girlish
than usual. It was white and full and flowing, suggestive of _tulle
illusion_ and silvery clouds, and was dotted all over with little
bunches of rosebuds. There was a string of pearls around her lovely
throat; and, for all her paleness and downcast looks, her beauty came
out triumphant.

‘She is a lovely creature!’ he thought, glancing downwards at the
serious face and the dark lashes which swept her cheek.

‘Not a heroine!’ he said. ‘You must be one to-night, whether you like
it or not. And as for congratulations, I could offer you a hundred
reasons why people should congratulate you; but to confine myself to
one, you are Helena Spenceley. Don’t you think that is reason enough
for congratulation?’

They had wandered into a little anteroom, divided by curtains from one
of the other sitting-rooms, and as Sebastian asked the last question
they were standing in the middle of the room, and Helena looked at him.
Her face was sad, and her eyes were bright with tears.

‘It is of no use; you cannot make me angry to-night, even by laughing
at me. But if you want the satisfaction of knowing that your remarks
wound me, take it: it is so.’

‘Helena! Miss Spenceley!’ he stammered, in confusion, for his words had
not been free from malice, and he knew it. What he had not known was
that Helena was in no mood for battle--that she did not even wish to
quarrel with him.

‘If you are offended, I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I did not mean
anything like what you imagine. And, since you do not choose to be
congratulated, I withdraw the congratulations. May I say you have my
good wishes?’

‘Not unless you mean it,’ said Helena, coldly; ‘and, when you think how
different our thoughts and wishes, and hopes and objects in life are,
you will, I hope, hesitate before making more pretty speeches.’

‘You are very severe. I think I had better say no more upon the
subject. But,’ he added, with that air of almost affectionate interest
which Helena believed she so greatly resented, ‘you are downcast and
out of spirits to-night--not as you should be for your own birthday
ball. How is it?’

In so matter-of-fact a tone was the question asked, that Helena
scarcely felt it strange that he should put it, and began in a docile
manner to explain.

‘How can I be otherwise? It is such nonsense. What is the good of
having a ball? I don’t want a ball. I wanted to be quiet. I go about
every day, from house to house, and see people starving--much better
people than I am, or ever shall be--and then I have to come home and
see money flung away on a ball--for me--because such an important
personage has condescended to live twenty-one years in this horrid,
grimy old world; and to put on a dress that has cost--no, I will never
reveal all my shame, but I could tear my dress to pieces when I think
of a woman whom I saw this afternoon, and who was crying as if her
heart would break, because she had to pawn her husband’s and children’s
Sunday clothes, and their best tea-things, that she had when she was
married. I thought of this dress, which was got on purpose for me at
Paris, and which cost about ten times as much as the materials that
made it are worth,’ said Helena passionately, ‘and when I put it on, I
felt as if I were putting on my shroud.’

‘I am very sorry--only you won’t believe it, because I say so, but
surely now it will be different? You must not get morbid. That never
does any good. You will have wealth of your own now, and be your own
mistress, when you can take your revenge on all these fine clothes, and
go about in home-spun, or even sackcloth, if you choose.’

‘Yes,’ said Helena dispiritedly, ‘I know; but I should not like it.
I love expensive things, and I hate coarse and common ones. And I am
beginning to think that perhaps I am not such a very fit person to have
money. I have heard a great deal about money lately, and I don’t fancy
it is so easy to manage as I used to think.’

‘Miss Mereweather will assist you,’ he said, half smiling.

‘Don’t name Miss Mereweather to me,’ said Helena, with sudden
animation. ‘She has deceived me cruelly. I never was so cut-up about
anything.’

‘What _has_ she done?’

‘She has got married,’ said Helena, in a determined voice, as if
anxious to get the worst over.

‘Got married!... Why ... and a very good wife she will make, if she
has got the right sort of husband. I remember thinking, that evening I
met her here, what a capital head of a large establishment she would
make....’

‘Did you?’ said Helena, with a curious quaver in her voice, half
laughter, half astonishment. ‘Well, you must have been right. She has
married a clergyman who is the head of a very large boys’ school--a
sort of college.’

‘The very thing for her. I wish, when you write, you would ask if she
remembers my insignificance, and offer my warmest congratulations and
good wishes.’

‘When I write!’ echoed Helena, scornfully. ‘I wrote to her once, after
I heard of it, but never again. I told her my mind.’

‘Did you really? What did you say?’

‘I said she was a traitor to her sex and her cause, and that, as I
still held my old opinions, I could not be her friend any longer.’

‘How awful for her! May I ask whether she made any reply?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Helena, her colour rising, ‘she made a very stupid
reply.’

‘Won’t you tell me what it was?’

‘No, it was too silly.’

‘I believe you got the worst of it.’

‘At least, it was too ridiculous to repeat.’

‘Perhaps she said, “Wait and see;” or, “Don’t shout till you are out of
the wood!” only more elegantly expressed.’

‘She--oh, there is Hugo coming. This is my first dance with him.’

‘Miss Spenceley, will you be very kind to Hugo to-night? Really and
truly, he has had a great trouble.’

‘I will. Poor boy!’

‘And have you any dances left?--a waltz? Though I can hardly hope it.
You must have been engaged long ago, for the whole evening?’

‘In that case you might have spared yourself the trouble of asking,’
said Helena, rather defiantly; but as their eyes met, hers wavered.

‘Perhaps you have still one left,’ said he, capturing her programme and
opening it.

‘It looks very full,’ he said; ‘but--ah, yes! here is one, a waltz--two
waltzes. This is extraordinary--my luck, I mean; don’t you think so?
And may I----’

He paused, looking inquiringly at her as he held the pencil suspended
over the card.

‘Two waltzes!’ exclaimed Helena, innocently. ‘Oh, but that must be a
mistake. I know when Mr. Consterdine came just now I told him I had not
one left.’

‘No doubt you told him what was good for him,’ said Sebastian, with
laudable gravity. ‘At least, we will make it quite sure now. There: “S.
M., 6,” and “S. M., 10.” Thank you, very much.’

With a bow and a half-smile he resigned her to Hugo, who came up at
that moment to offer congratulations and to claim his dance, while
Sebastian walked away to while away the time until ‘Number 6’ should
begin.

As he danced only once or twice with any one but Helena, he had ample
opportunity of observing the general features of the entertainment, and
he soon saw that Helena’s depression was but a part of that obvious
more or less throughout the whole assembly. The rooms were dazzling,
the decorations were unutterably gorgeous, the brilliance of the lights
amounted to an absolute glare, and became oppressive and terrible. On
all sides there was evidence of the most lavish expenditure; flowers,
furniture, attendants, refreshments, all seemed to cry in loud and
blatant voices, ‘Try us; we are of the very best. No stint here,
because expense is no object, absolutely none at all.’ It would have
been exceedingly amusing, and Sebastian was by no means slow to see the
humorous side of ambitious entertainments of that kind; but the amusing
part of it was quite overcome and swamped by the great and nameless
cloud and oppression that hung over it all. What was the reason of that
cloud? Surely not the simple fact that the master of the house was
absent. That alone would have been a relief rather than otherwise.

For he came not, and came not, and poor Mrs. Spenceley still looked ill
at ease: and at last Sebastian noticed some one else begin to look ill
at ease too, and to glance round with a suspicious, watchful air now
and then. That person was Frederick Spenceley. Something was wrong,
something lay behind it all, thought Sebastian, as he stood in the
cool hall after his first dance with Helena, that is to say, between
ten and eleven o’clock. During that dance they had quite forgotten to
flout each other, or to do anything but enjoy themselves. He had said
all he could to raise that nameless cloud from her face, and he had
been startled to find what brilliant success had attended his efforts.
Helena had soon smiled again, and had half confessed that she had kept
the two dances for him, and had even blushed and laughed when he teased
her about it. He was thinking of that waltz, and humming the tune to
which they had danced as he paced about the hall, while he still seemed
to feel Helena lightly resting in his arms, her fleet foot keeping pace
with his; and he began to wish that he had not four whole dances to
wait before his next one with her came.

‘She is very lovely, and there is something very bewitching about her,’
he said to himself for the second time that evening.

A dance was going on in the ball-room, and the hall at the moment was
empty, save for himself. He paused before a huge mirror, which had been
raised at one end of it, and in front of which was erected a fragrant
pyramid of flowers and ferns, delicate hothouse blossoms, and feathery
aromatic leaves. There was a blaze of light all around, and the
staircase and part of the gallery running round the second story were
reflected in the mirror. Sebastian stood before the pyramid of flowers,
and gently first touched one and then the other, and then his eyes fell
upon the reflection of his own face, and he was surprised to see how
grave it looked; for he did not feel particularly grave at the moment,
and that interview with Adrienne Blisset seemed to hang like a dream in
the far background of his consciousness, while another face and form,
flower-crowned and glowingly beautiful, advanced to the front.

Suddenly he became conscious, as it were, of some shadow crossing the
glass, and looking higher, to where the staircase was reflected, he
saw the figure of a man stealing carefully, softly, noiselessly up the
stairs, keeping well to the wall, with averted face, as if anxious to
get as quickly as possible out of all that obtrusive glare of light and
stream of dancing sound.




CHAPTER XVII.

HOW MR. SPENCELEY MET HIS DIFFICULTIES.


Sebastian’s first thought naturally resolved itself into the words, ‘A
thief in the night;’ some evil-disposed person who thought to penetrate
to some of the bedrooms, in the confusion, and perhaps reap a harvest
of neglected brooches, watches, or shawl-pins. In such a case, it was
his duty at once to warn the servants, and he was in the act of turning
to go and do so as quickly as possible, when the figure reached the
head of the first flight of stairs, and turned to mount the next. As
this happened, Sebastian caught a momentary glimpse of the face. He
was long sighted, and not given to making mistakes in the matter of
identity. The man who was stealing so quietly up the stairs in such
evident fear of detection was, one would suppose, the last person
who should need to act in so strange a manner. It was Mr. Spenceley
himself, the master of the house.

With great presence of mind Sebastian checked his movement to turn
round, and neither started nor stirred, but stood pensively trifling
with a fern leaf, as he gave himself time to reflect upon what had
happened.

The vague, floating rumours which he had heard, as to the ‘shakiness’
of Mr. Spenceley’s commercial position, recurred to his mind. Probably
there was something in them. His own business and that of Mr. Spenceley
lay in utterly different lines: he had not come across him in any
commercial transactions; but he knew men who had, and who were of
opinion that Spenceley was playing rather a dangerous game. During
those troublous years some fortunes were made, and many were lost--lost
by men who seemed as little likely to fail as Mr. Spenceley of Castle
Hill. Sebastian pictured the feelings of his mother, supposing she were
to hear any such rumour--his mother who was probably at that moment
listening with affecting interest and politeness to some circumlocutory
history from the lips of Mrs. Spenceley, _à propos_ either of Fred or
of Helena. This was the day on which Helena was to come into--not her
whole fortune--that was only to happen at her father’s death, or if
she married--but of so much of it as would make her what many people
would call a rich woman. Sebastian thought of this, and wondered if the
fortune were but

        ‘A fleeting show
    For man’s illusion given.’

His thoughts turned persistently to the girl with whom he had so
lately been dancing. It was all in her honour, this ghastly, hollow
mockery of an entertainment, with its spectres and shadows flitting and
stealing about. All for her! She was crowned with roses, which were
indeed the fitting flower for so beautiful a rose as she was herself.
Those great pearls round her neck, and those massive bracelets on
her slender arm--his mind recalled each item of her dress, and, as
it were, every line of her beauty; he saw her standing, as she had
stood more than once that evening, with a crowd round her, of friends
and well-wishers--for she was popular--who congratulated her, and
brought her flowers and bouquets--chiefly roses--the flowers of love
and triumph. And ever, as he pictured her thus, that shadowy, stealing
figure seemed to lurk and crouch behind them, now uncovering its face
a little, and then, with a smile of weird meaning, drawing the veil
again. He shuddered a little, and turned hastily towards the ball-room;
stood in the doorway and looked. Yes, there was Helena with Hugo; he
was glad she was with Hugo; smiling and laughing with him, as they flew
swiftly by, past the door, and her perfumed skirts brushed him and sent
an odd little thrill through him.

The ball progressed, and the evening drew drearier and drearier; he
heard the excuses made by Mrs. Spenceley, and saw the care growing
darker upon her brow; he heard the regrets of the guests, and saw the
increasing uneasiness of the looks cast about him by Fred, with a
strange sense that he alone could, if he chose, point the way upstairs
and say, ‘You will find the explanation of all, if you go there and
ask.’

As the tenth dance was about to begin, he saw Fred make some excuse to
the lady whom he was leading to the ball-room; heard the words, ‘Very
sorry--back in a minute.’ The young lady was put on a cushioned bench
beside the wall, and Fred quickly departed, with a look of resolution
on his face. Sebastian, with Helena on his arm, looked after Spenceley.
He was going upstairs. Mallory, throughout all the dance, could not
keep himself from wondering what was taking place in one of those upper
rooms. What confession, or what revelation? Were things very bad? Was
the crisis a very critical one?

‘You have become perfectly silent, Mr. Mallory--not to say morose,’
remarked Helena. ‘And when I was dancing with Hugo, I saw you looking
in upon us with a sort of glare. What is the matter?’

‘Oh, nothing! Miss Spenceley, when did you last see your father?’

‘This morning, quite early: you know we have breakfast at eight,
because we are business people. He gave me these pearls that I have
on for a birthday present, and though I would much rather have had
no presents, they were so beautiful, and I am so weak, that I was in
ecstasies with them. But papa said he had very important business in
Liverpool, and he might have to go to Manchester too. Still, he is very
late,’ she added, as they began to dance again.

The waltz was over. Every one was streaming into the supper-room;
Helena, with Sebastian, remained in the ball-room, watching the people
out, to see that all went, when voices made themselves heard: young men
were calling out, ‘I say, Spenceley!’--‘Where’s Fred?’--‘Who’s to sit
where?’--‘Fred, Mrs. Spenceley wants to ask you something.’

‘Where can Fred be?’ exclaimed Helena, craning her neck to look round.
‘It is very strange in him to go away just now, when he ought to be
seeing after things.’

They were standing beside a door of the ball-room; not that leading
into the hall, but one which opened into a passage leading to the
billiard-room, and thence to the kitchen regions and offices. Almost
as Helena spoke, the door was suddenly opened, and a young woman
appeared, with frightened face, and widely distended eyes, who, seeing
Helena, began, after the manner of her kind, to wring her hands, and
exclaim, in much agitation,

‘Oh, Miss Spenceley! Where’s missis? Oh, how dreadful! Oh!’

‘What is the matter?’ demanded Helena in a clear, decided voice.

‘Oh--master, m’! He’s----’

‘Stop!’ said Sebastian, suddenly and sternly, as he took the girl’s
arm, and gave it a little shake, to restore her to her senses. ‘Don’t
make such a noise! Miss Spenceley, wait here a moment. Come here!’
he added to the girl--one of the housemaids--as he drew her into the
passage, and closed the door. ‘Now, what is the matter? Your master has
returned. I saw him. Is he ill?’

‘Oh, sir,’ she said, with an hysterical sob, ‘he’s dead! He’s lying on
the sofa in his room, and----’

‘Dead!’ repeated Sebastian, and he knew in a moment what it meant.
‘Where is Mr. Fred? Is he with him?’

‘No, sir. I haven’t seen him. I thought he was here.’

Sebastian, with a growing fear that the whole thing was much blacker
and more dreadful than he had suspected, bade the young woman wait
a moment, while he returned to Helena. He had rapidly reviewed the
circumstances, and found there was nothing for it but to go to her.
Fred was gone: he did not like to let the idea, ‘absconded,’ shape
itself, even in his mind; but all the same, it was there, like an ugly
black spectre. To burst upon Mrs. Spenceley with such news would have
been in the highest degree inhuman and improper. Helena alone remained
to take this fearful burden upon her shoulders.

He found Helena standing in the same place in which he had left her,
and the last of the guests disappearing through the hall to the
supper-room. Helena was composed and calm, but her eyes, as they met
his, told him that she suspected a catastrophe.

‘I want you to come with me,’ said he, drawing her arm through his,
and speaking in a low, gentle voice, and then they stood in the
passage, with the servant-maid.

‘Show me the room where your master is, and do not speak,’ he said to
her; she was crying bitterly, in a cowed and helpless fashion, but was
less excited, less inclined to shriek out her dreadful news to every
one she met. Helena’s face grew white, but she neither trembled nor
spoke, as they followed the girl up the backstairs to a landing-door,
which she threw open, and then they found themselves standing on the
gallery which formed the landing, and from which all the bedroom doors
opened out.

‘Which is your master’s room?’ asked Sebastian.

The maid pointed to a door, and cried more bitterly still, while
Helena’s face grew whiter and more set every minute.

‘Have you seen Mr. Fred at all this evening?’

‘I saw him run upstairs, sir, and then I saw him go to his own room;
but he’s not there now, and I’ve never seen him since.’

‘Very well, you can go now; but remember, you are to be silent, or it
will be worse for you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir. I won’t say nothing, indeed!’ said the weeping young woman,
going away with her muslin apron to her eyes.

He turned to Helena. He felt he must not defer it any longer. There was
pity and tenderness in his eyes and in his voice, as he said,

‘Now, Helena, you are brave, and you must be as brave as you can
to-night.’

‘Tell me what it is!’ she said; ‘but don’t keep me waiting any longer.’

‘I must keep you waiting just a few moments,’ said he. ‘I want you to
sit down here, and not move, while I go to your father’s room--will
you?’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, seating herself with a prompt docility which
contrasted strangely with her white face and distended eyes.

Sebastian left her, walked into the room, and found it all as he had
expected. Mr. Spenceley had committed suicide. He had taken prussic
acid, and lay dead upon the couch at the foot of his bed. Sebastian,
looking quickly round, saw a written paper lying on the floor at his
feet. It was merely a scrap of paper, with the words,

‘DEAR LIZZIE,--I am a ruined man, and I can’t bear it. I’ve never made
you very happy, and the best I can do is to leave you. I don’t know
what will be left, but there is always your money of your own, and
Nelly’s that I----’

Here it broke off. It was not torn; it was as if the facts had rushed
over the man as he wrote these words, and he had failed to pen another
syllable. There was no proof that Fred had absconded, or that he knew
his father’s fate. Sebastian knew he must put the matter in the best
light; but he himself felt an absolute certainty of conviction on the
matter.

He took the paper and went out of the room, locking the door and
putting the key in his pocket. Helena looked up as he came to her, but
said not a word.

‘Helena,’ he began, ‘from what has happened to-night, I fear your
father has found that he is ruined.’

‘Is that all?’ said Helena, drawing a long breath of relief.

‘No. That, if true, is the least part of it. Remember what this must
have been to your father. Prosperity and success were his very _life_.’

‘Do you mean that it has killed papa?’ asked Helena with unnatural
calm, fixing her eyes upon his face.

‘I wish to spare your mother, or I would not tell you this. It has
killed him--that is, he could not bear to live after such a fall. My
poor child, your father has destroyed himself.’

‘He has--oh!’ came like a whisper from her white lips. Face, cheeks,
brow, lips, were white as the dress she wore. She caught at a chair
which stood near and supported herself upon it, looking at him with a
stare of blank, utter horror, which he felt to be almost unbearable.
For weeks afterwards he was haunted by the vision of the white figure
in its cloudy dress; the roses scattered about it, all like one white
marble figure, save the dusky hair and eyes which looked coal-black by
contrast with her face.

‘Think of your mother,’ said he, feeling that that spell of horror
must be broken, and he gently put his arm round her, and placed her
in the chair on which she had been leaning. She did not speak for a
moment, but at last said,

‘Oh, poor mamma! If she only need not know.’

‘I fear she must know a great deal of it.’

Then Helena put the question which he dreaded.

‘But where can Fred be all this time?’

‘He is not in the house. He may have gone away to see if the failure
is complete--if anything remains to be saved,’ said Sebastian; ‘at any
rate he is not here.’

‘Ah, yes!’ said Helena, and no suspicion like Sebastian’s conviction
even for a moment troubled her mind. He gave her the paper he had found.

‘I have read it; I thought it best,’ said he. ‘And now I want you to go
to your own room, and I will send Mrs. Spenceley to you, and ask all
these people to go away. You will allow me!’

‘You are very good,’ said Helena, calmly.

‘You must break just what you think fit to Mrs. Spenceley,’ he added.
‘There is no one but you to do it, and she will hear it best from you.
For her sake, you will keep up this brave, calm behaviour till the
worst is over.’

‘Yes; and then?’

‘Trouble yourself about nothing else to-night. I will see to everything
until your brother comes back. I will stay here all night. You need not
leave your room again.’

Helena rose without speaking; looked at him with an indescribable
expression; her lips moved, as if she would have spoken; but, without
a word, she turned and went to her room. Sebastian watched until the
door had closed after her, and that silence seemed to leave an enormous
want in his heart. There was silence, except a murmur coming from the
supper-room. That reminded him of his duty. With another earnest look
at that closed door, he went downstairs.

He made his way to Mrs. Spenceley, and asked her to go to her daughter
in her room. With a deep flush of terror and foreboding, she went.
Neither husband nor son was there to support her. A stranger took her
to the foot of the stairs and left her. Sebastian’s soul was quite
possessed with the idea of these two women; one telling, the other
learning, the extent of their awful calamity, so far as it was known.
It haunted him, but he gathered himself together, and easily catching
the attention of the startled company, he merely told them that Mrs.
and Miss Spenceley wished him to express their great regret at having
to leave their guests, in consequence of very distressing news which
they had just received. Frederick Spenceley had had to leave home
immediately, and he thought, as it was already late, the kindest thing
they could do would be to leave the house as soon as possible.

Amidst a wild buzz of inquiries, suggestions, and speculations, the
guests dispersed. In an hour the house was quiet, and Helena had gently
told her mother the whole truth as far as she knew it.




CHAPTER XVIII.

DOWN IN THE WORLD.


It was not until late in the afternoon of the following day that
Sebastian, not forgetting his appointment with Myles Heywood, found it
possible to return to his own home.

That was a dreadful day, bringing in its course fresh disclosures of
dishonesty on the part of both father and son of the Spenceleys, fresh
shame and humiliation to the sorely proved Helena; fresh bursts of
wild, hopeless weeping and meaningless questions from her poor mother.
Mrs. Spenceley was, of course, perfectly bewildered by everything, and
could only reiterate that she had told Spenceley, over and over again,
that if business was so precarious, they had no right to be giving
balls; and she knew it would turn out badly, she had said so all along.
Then a fresh burst of weeping, and the inquiries:

‘Helena, my dear, I s’pose we shall have to leave here. What do you
think we shall be allowed to keep? Will everything have to be sold?’

To all of which Helena, pale, composed, and gentle, made answers as
soothing as she could.

It was upon her head that the cruellest shame and humiliation naturally
fell. Sebastian asked her, almost as soon as he met her in the morning,
what friends or relations there were with whom he could communicate
on the subject of her father’s death, and to whom he could resign his
present authority.

‘But there is Fred,’ said poor, unconscious Helena. ‘He is sure to be
back soon. He will come by one of the early trains from Manchester, I
am sure.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Sebastian, feeling his task a hard one. ‘And even
if he did, it is not right that your friends and relations should not
be summoned. Don’t think I wish to withdraw the little assistance I
can offer you, but I have no right to the position. It is absolutely
necessary that I give the responsibility into some proper hands.’

‘I don’t know of any one except Uncle Robert, and papa and he were not
good friends. He is mamma’s brother. I think he would come if we sent
for him.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘In Manchester; I will give you his address,’ said Helena.

When she had done so, Sebastian telegraphed to Mr. Robert Bamford,
requesting him to come over as soon as possible on urgent business.
An answer came to the effect that Mr. Bamford would arrive some time
in the afternoon. It was for his appearance that Sebastian waited. He
and Helena were in the library. He was trying to explain to her the
circumstances which had made it possible for her father to fail, and
Helena was giving her best attention, but, with all the goodwill in
the world, utterly helpless before the technical business terms and
details. Her sad face with its serious, puzzled look, was in sharp
contrast with that of the Helena Spenceley whom Sebastian had always
hitherto known.

‘You see,’ said she, suddenly looking up at him with a wan attempt at a
smile, ‘you had every right to laugh at me when I boasted my business
capacities. No one could be more ignorant. I see it now.’

‘It was not unnatural,’ said he, gently. ‘People with a cheque-book and
a balance at the banker’s, are apt to think they understand business
when they don’t. But it is of no consequence, really. The thing has
happened, and if you had known all the secrets of the Stock Exchange
you could not have prevented it.’

‘No, I know,’ said Helena, looking wearily round. ‘I wonder if Fred
will come back with Uncle Robert. I daresay he has been to consult him.
Don’t you think so?’

‘It may be so; at least, your uncle will be able to tell us something
about him.’

‘How I wish it was all over,’ she went on, ‘and that we were safely
housed in, wherever we go to--some back street in Manchester, I dare
say.’

‘Oh, it may not be quite so bad as that.’

‘I never said I thought that would be bad,’ said Helena, leaning her
elbows, as if utterly tired out, upon the table, and resting her head
upon her hands. Sebastian felt a deep pity stir his heart. She had
already suffered so much--she had still so much more, and so much worse
to suffer. Perhaps all this pain would make her what people, what he
himself, would call ‘more reasonable.’ But she was very sweet in her
unreasonableness. It seemed rather sad that she must go through such an
ordeal in order that she might become like other people.

At this point a servant announced ‘Mr. Robert Bamford,’ and Helena’s
uncle arrived. Now Sebastian felt sure some painful truths would have
to be told, and he again looked with a strange strength of compunction
at the beautiful, weary, white face of Helena.

Mr. Bamford was a very plain, rough-spoken man indeed, who walked with
a heavy step into the room, glanced at Sebastian from a pair of shrewd,
dark eyes, and without waiting for an introduction, gave a stiff little
nod, and said, ‘Your servant, sir;’ and then turned to his niece with
the greeting, ‘Well, Helena, this is a pretty business.’

‘It is very sad, uncle,’ said she, facing him, pale, and with dilated
eyes. ‘I think we had better not talk about it, but see what is to be
done.’

‘There’s not much left to be done now that yon precious brother o’
yours has given us the slip.’

‘_What?_’ said Helena, growing paler than before, and putting her
trembling hands upon the table to support herself. ‘Fred given you the
slip--what do you mean? He has gone to see about papa’s affairs. He--I
expected him to come back with you. What has he done?’

There was no defiance in the tone, only apprehension.

‘Done!’ ejaculated Mr. Bamford, plunging his hands into his pockets and
almost running about the room in his excitement. ‘Done! Why, he’s taken
everything he could lay his hands on in the shape of money or money’s
worth, and he’s off--perhaps to America, but certainly to the devil.’

‘Do you mean that Fred has acted dishonourably?’ asked Helena, almost
inaudibly, and trembling still more.

‘Dishonourably! Why, you know nothing. Every one in Manchester knows it
by this time. There’s been precious little honour wasted on the whole
business, my lass. We know what to think when the men make away with
themselves one way or another, and leave the women and the debts behind
them.’

‘But my father--it was his misfortune--he did not----’

‘The less said about your father’s transactions, for the last six
weeks, the better,’ said Mr. Bamford, curtly.

‘Consider Miss Spenceley’s feelings, sir!’ interposed Sebastian, unable
to endure seeing Helena’s despair, and feeling a glow almost of hatred
towards Mr. Bamford, and what struck him as his brutality. Helena had
turned away and covered her face with her hand, as a man might do
who is sorely hit on some vital point--it was more a man’s gesture
than a woman’s. Neither groan nor cry escaped her, but Sebastian
saw that the iron had entered into her soul. That which she endured
was the keenest moral anguish--the supremest of all pains. He could
understand it. Her beauty was enhanced: the reckless, impetuous girl,
with her ‘disorganised’ ideas, which he had laughed at before now, was
transformed into the noble woman, who must bear things which only women
can or do bear--the punishment for the sins of their masculine shields
and protectors. ‘She has had a very severe shock already,’ he went on,
‘and it cannot be necessary to pain her with----’

‘She must know the truth, and the sooner the better,’ said Mr. Bamford,
irascibly. ‘If she is a girl of spirit, she will not wish to be
deceived, and anyhow her whole life will have to be changed, and come
down a peg or two, for the sins of her father shall be visited upon
her.’

‘You are very kind, Mr. Mallory,’ said Helena, turning to them again
and speaking calmly, though her face had, even in those few minutes,
taken an older, worn expression, which shocked Sebastian. ‘I wish to
know the worst at once. I can bear it. I did not know there had been
anything dishonourable. Go on, uncle. I am not afraid, and I must know
what I have to tell my mother.’

‘By ----, the lass has a spirit of her own!’ observed Mr. Bamford. ‘Now
that I see what she’s made of, I may try to explain things to her a
bit.’

‘Then I will leave you,’ said Sebastian. ‘Miss Spenceley will tell you
that I made what arrangements were immediately necessary. I shall take
the liberty of calling soon,’ he added to Helena, ‘in the hope that I
may be of some assistance to you. May I?’

‘You are very kind,’ she said, still with the same unmoved calm, as
she gave him her hand. ‘I shall be glad to see you whenever you call.
Perhaps, another time I can thank you better for your goodness; but at
present----’

‘Pray do not thank me; there is not the very least necessity,’ said he,
as he left the room.

‘Now, Uncle Robert!’ said Helena.

‘Who is that young fellow?’

‘Mr. Sebastian Mallory.’

‘Young Mallory of the Oakenrod, who has been acting the philanthropist
since he came from abroad?’

‘Has he? Yes, it is that Mallory.’

‘Any particular friend of yours?’

‘No,’ was the cold response. ‘He happened to hear first of my father’s
death last night, and as there was no one else here, and no one to do
anything, he has been kind enough to arrange things for me since. I
know very little of him.’

‘H’m! ha! Well, we must get to business.’

In a very short time Helena was made acquainted with what had happened,
and with the bare and naked outline of her approaching future life. The
less said of her brother the better, said Mr. Bamford. He believed that
the sum with which he had absconded was about two thousand pounds. As
for her father--he softened his tone a little, out of consideration for
Helena--he was to blame, too, for not drawing in when first he began to
find himself in difficulties; ‘only that would have brought him down
in the world, and he couldn’t bear it; so, instead of going one step
lower, and then climbing up again when he had a chance, he has waited,
till he had to tumble down to the ground, and can never get up again,’
remarked the merchant drily, while Helena listened.

She showed him the scrap of paper which Sebastian had given her.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Bamford; ‘that money of yours is a myth----’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said his niece, in a deep, almost resentful
tone. ‘And if it had been there--every penny--I should not have kept it
now, of course.’

‘And what your mother was to have had--it’s all in the business; was, I
mean. It has gone with the rest.’

‘I am glad of that too,’ observed Helena, concisely. ‘Then no one
will have the power to say that we were well off while other people
suffered.’

‘Your wardrobe and jewellery will be your own, of course. Your jewels
and your mother’s must be worth a pretty good sum, Helena.’

‘My jewellery will be sold, and mamma’s too.’

‘Please yourself about your own; but if your mother is not your
father’s most pressing creditor, I don’t know who is. Of course she
will sell her jewels; but she will keep the proceeds, and you will
abstain from meddling in matters you don’t understand.’

‘I understand right and wrong, uncle, and I shall do what I feel to be
right.’

‘Eh!’ he repeated, with a kind of chuckle: ‘the lass has a spirit in
her after all.’

They would have to leave Thanshope. Helena must try to find some
employment. He would give them a home until that was accomplished; to
his sister as long as she chose to stay with him. If she liked she
might keep house for him, but if she chose to also try some means of
gaining a livelihood, he would do what he could to help her. More, he
thought, they could not expect.

‘Certainly not,’ said Helena, composedly. ‘We have no right to expect
so much, and may consider ourselves fortunate in having you for a
friend.’

She had always asked for work, she reminded herself when she was
alone--real work, necessary work--not the fads with which rich women
try to deceive themselves by calling them work. Behold! here was every
prospect of as much work as she liked, and yet she found nothing
cheering in it. Only--anything to get away from this sham life of sham
luxury, sham state, sham riches, sham everything--away from the world’s
eyes and those of Sebastian, into obscurity and poverty, which, she
felt, would be no shams, but stern realities, with front of brass and
eyes of stone.




CHAPTER XIX.

IRREVOCABLE.


‘Good-bye, Heywood, I wish you every success, and you carry the
assurance of success in yourself. You will return to England a man of
mark.’

‘I trust never to return to England,’ replied Myles, standing up in
Sebastian’s study, in the act of going. ‘I am afraid it will seem
ungracious to you when I say I don’t care much about success. I want
work; I don’t care whether it’s successful or not. There’s a verse in
the Bible about “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world
and lose his own soul?” There may be many sorts of souls, don’t you
think so?’

‘Yes, certainly. But I think time will soften these feelings of yours.
Some time you will find yourself wishing to return to England.’

Myles shook his head, with a half-smile, at once melancholy and
sceptical. He ever wish to return to the place where Adrienne lived,
Sebastian Mallory’s wife! They had left the study, and gone to the hall
door.

Straight before them, separated only by the garden and the dirty
little river, was the broad, busy street--the beautiful building of
the town-hall rose through the dusk before them. Lights twinkled; feet
and wheels sped rapidly past. As they paused before the open door, the
chimes rang out, clear and melodious; nine struck solemnly, and the old
tune which haunted Myles, so interwoven was it with all the most sacred
feelings of his life, was borne through the air in broken, fitful gusts
of sound.

Sebastian heard it too.

‘Take that as an omen,’ said he, earnestly. ‘The old poet old Martin
Usteri, in his homely German town, touched a deeper truth when he wrote
that little song of his, than all our present pessimistic sages put
together can cram into their learned books. Don’t forget the tune when
you are away.’

‘I am not likely ever to forget it,’ said Myles. ‘Good-bye, and thank
you. I cannot say more.’

With a pressure of the hand he was gone. Sebastian heard his quick step
along the gravel--then he heard the gate open and swing to after him;
and then Myles Heywood’s form and footsteps were lost in the general
rush along the busy street. Sebastian was left to listen to the last
echoes of the chimes, and to hum softly to himself--

    ‘Freut Euch des Lebens,
        Weil noch das Lämpchen glüht!
    Pflücket die Rose,
        Eh’ sie verblüht.’

Myles was striding quickly homewards. In the hurry, preparation,
and excitement of the last two days his mind had regained somewhat
its vigour. It was not that he felt at all happier, or satisfied, or
contented--not that life appeared much brighter to him, only _it had
to be lived_. He set that formula before his mind, and never allowed
a doubt upon the subject to intrude, because he dared not. He felt
that his only safe, his only reasonable course of action, was to press
forward sternly and as rapidly as possible; to cast from him his old
life like a worn-out coat, and begin the new one.

There was the prospect before him of life, struggle, striving, which
he knew was worth a hundred of the lives he had been leading, which
he knew it was his duty to accept and fulfil. The mere idea of
it--of the difficulties to be overcome, and the possibilities to be
attained--attracted him and braced him up, even while all he must leave
seemed to grow dearer and more desirable as it was thrust farther into
the background. There was no turning back now; a delay was what he most
dreaded. He had grown a little grim and hard in his resolute pressing
forward; even Mary fancied that he left them with a kind of exultation,
and grieved the more, even while she felt no surprise.

This evening he walked rapidly up the hilly street, ‘for the last
time,’ he kept saying to himself, and hoping so too. How he had loved
this prosaic, commonplace, dingy manufacturing town! What memories
hung about it! Memories of a childhood spent amongst those he loved,
of a youth and young manhood, which had not been without their
honest, hearty struggles, strivings, and conquests, as well as their
backslidings and failures; memories of a love which had grown upon him,
stealing into his heart by such gentle, subtle degrees that he could
by no means define them--which love had become the master passion of
his earnest heart, with heaven on its side, and chaos on the other.
All this he had lived through in grimy, smoky Thanshope, with the
everlasting roar of machinery as a sort of chorus; within sound of the
melodius, chiming bells. His whole surroundings had ever been earnest
and serious as his own thoughts and bent of mind, and he felt that
no other home would ever be harmonious to him as this was. Yet he
was going to leave it all to-morrow, and his heart beat with a fierce
gladness at the thought.

Occupied with such reflections as these, he found himself at his
own door, and went into the house. Mary was in the kitchen. All her
preparations lay neglected; she sat in her rocking-chair, with her
hands before her, looking at nothing, her eyes wet with tears.

‘What ails you, Molly?’

‘Eh, you’re there, Myles! Nothing ails me except thinking o’ what Miss
Blisset’s been talking about.’

‘Miss Blisset!’ he echoed in a gentle voice, pausing to look at her.
‘Has she been here?’

‘Ay, she has so! She only heard tell this morning about poor Ned,
and she came down to say how sorry she were. Eh, but she is some and
altered; hoo’s gone so quiet, I ne’er saw nowt like it. Hoo were ne’er
a noisy one, but now----’

Mary paused a minute.

‘I’d a deal to tell her--all about me and Harry, and poor Ned, and
about thy going away.’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, in a dull voice.

‘Hoo fair started when hoo heard thou were going away. Hoo were so
surprised. I told her all about it, and hoo said it were much the best
thing, and I were to congratulate you. And then hoo said it were a
long time since hoo had seen you, and, if you’d time, would you go up
to-night and see her, for she’d something she wanted to say to you. If
you do go,’ added Mary, ‘you’ll have to go now, or it’ll get too late.
It’s after nine.’

‘I don’t think it would be anything very important,’ said her brother,
in a measured voice. ‘And I have no time, either. I’ve a lot of things
to do to-night.’

‘Won’t you go?’ asked Mary, opening her eyes wide. ‘Not go and say
good-bye to her! Such friends as you’ve been!’

‘No,’ repeated Myles. ‘She will understand that I am too busy.’

‘I don’t think hoo’ll understand nowt o’ t’ sort,’ said Mary very
emphatically. ‘But go thy own gait! thou knows best.’

He turned away from her, and went upstairs to nail up a box with some
books of his own in it, and to put up some few things of furniture
which Mary was to take away with her when she went to the Ashworths’
house; and as he worked his heart and his temples throbbed almost to
bursting.

Go to her, after what had been said! And, never to mention that, why
was he to go to her? To hear something she wanted to tell him! What
could that be, but that she was going to marry Sebastian? He was to
walk up and hear that from her own lips, and then say good-bye to her,
and not betray himself! After what had happened! After he had gone
through with his bitter task, accepted favours from Sebastian--all in
order that he might never see her again! No! Of course it might be
ungrateful, brutal, uncivilised; it was nevertheless the only safe
path for him to take--to maintain absolute silence and let her think
what she pleased of him. What did it matter? She had Sebastian. He
would soon be forgotten; he would take care of that. He knew, he was
perfectly conscious all the time, that he was doing wrong. As he drove
one nail after another into the box, each stroke of the hammer seemed
to say ‘Wrong!’ And, with his eyes open, he did that wrong, because he
was utterly miserable, and for the moment utterly indifferent; because
he had suffered so much and so long that even his will felt broken, and
to deliberately go to her and court still more suffering was more than
he could do.

The theory of the freedom of the will, says the latest philosophy,
is nonsense, and worse than nonsense. If we seriously follow out
such an idea, it leads us into a mad confusion--an insane chaos of
impossibilities piled on impossibilities. We have no power to will
this or that; we have the power of following and obeying the strongest
motives, and acting upon them. It was in strict accordance with this
principle that Myles behaved in this crisis of his fate: he followed
and obeyed the strongest motives--he stayed at home.

Soon after eight the next morning he left. Later on the same day,
Mr. Hoyle, hearing of the disappearance of Frederick Spenceley, was
perforce reminded of the words of the preacher, and learnt practically
that he had wrought in vain; that, truly, all was vanity.




BOOK III.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER I.

THE DAWN OF NEW DAYS.


It was August; the second August since that memorable one in 1862. This
year, that of 1864, was in many respects a remarkable one in the annals
of commerce, more especially in that branch of it known as the cotton
trade.

Strange events had been witnessed; amongst others, a wondering world
had looked on at the great ‘scare’ which took place amongst the cotton
lords, when the first mistaken rumours of peace were spread. The
members of a trade whose greatest friend, it might have been supposed,
would be peace, turned pale and trembled when peace was mentioned, and
actually wished for the continuance of war; some of them saying that
for them the alternative was war or ruin. Things grew somewhat more
sane and better balanced, later; but the fact remained, that for once
a great industry had seriously inclined her ear unto warlike councils,
and had sought therein her profit. Despite all drawbacks, however, this
last mighty daughter of civilisation was slowly arousing, and shaking
off the paralysis which oppressed her. She stretched her huge limbs,
and found that there was still life and vigour in them. Factories
were being reopened on every side, and amongst those which were again
working full time was that of Sebastian Mallory.

He sat breakfasting one Friday morning, alone, opening his letters, and
with the unopened newspapers beside him. He usually breakfasted alone
now, and had grown quite accustomed to it. Mrs. Mallory rather avoided
his society, and he, when he thought about the matter at all, felt the
absence to be a relief rather than otherwise.

Two years may or may not make a great change both in the character and
appearance of a man. Sebastian Mallory was somewhat altered in the
latter respect since he had parted from Myles Heywood one evening,
which, when he thought of it, seemed a long time ago. His face had
taken an older, more decided expression; his lips were more firmly
closed; his eyes had lost much of their listlessness. He had found
plenty of work ready to his hand, and he was not one of those persons
whose work decreases. Business accumulated about him. People had
discovered that he was useful, capable, and impartial. He did not know
himself how great his influence was, or rather he had not known it
until a few days before, when, to his great surprise, he had been asked
to contest the borough in the Radical interest, so soon as a vacancy
should occur. He had promised to take the matter into consideration.
In a few days his answer was to be given. He was not wont to waver
or vacillate; generally he could sum up the reasons for and against
a course, and decide in the most prudent and reasonable way. On this
occasion he had not found the matter so easily disposed of. ‘He would,
and he would not.’ Many considerations urged him to accept; he could
scarcely assign any for declining. The only one which would have
been valid--that he felt no desire for a public life, and no wish to
increase his present occupations--was absent. He had often felt a
strong inclination for such a life; and he knew that he could manage
to give time enough to it. The core of the matter was that his heart
was not in it. As he read his letters this morning, he thought of the
coming interview with his supporters, and had an odd sensation that he
absolutely did not know what to say to them, and that it was a case
which might appropriately be settled by tossing up.

He laid two of his letters on one side, until the business
communications were disposed of, and then he took one of them up. They
both bore the Prussian stamp of two and a half groschen, and both were
addressed in a German handwriting. He took up the first of them, with
a slight smile hovering about his lips, or ever he began to read.

    ‘DEAR SEBASTIAN,’ it began,

  ‘What an age it is since I heard from you! I look out fervently every
  day for the postman, and he never comes. I suppose you are _busy_!
  How completely changed you are, you who never used to be busy. I am
  writing this at the midnight hour, because I have news for you. Good
  news, of course; if it were bad news, I should leave it to travel to
  you on its own legs. Old Biermann, the _Direktor_, and I have, so to
  speak, buried the tomahawk, and sworn an alliance; and he is going to
  give my little cantata, _Hermann u. Dorothea_, at the next concert
  but one. This is a great step in advance. I hardly know what has
  induced him to be so gracious; but his word is given now, and let him
  repent him never so much, he will be obliged to carry it out. I need
  not tell you, however, that I look upon it only as a step, and that
  my hopes and wishes continue to turn always to the opera. I am not
  hurrying about it, because I want it to be worth hearing when it is
  done. Mozart was only eighteen when his first opera (it’s true it was
  a comic one) was produced, and I am nearly twenty.

  ‘I am in luck’s way, too. I have earned ten pounds by my own
  exertions, teaching, in the last six months. It is spread out before
  me in a beautiful shining row. No money ever looked so charming
  before. Please remember this, and make your next remittance ten
  pounds less than usual, or else I shall not feel as if I had really
  earned it.

  ‘I cannot give you any news, for there is none; still, I will
  tell you what happened to me the other day. I was walking in the
  _Hofgarten_, when I met a lady walking alone. I looked up, and I
  thought: ‘Helena Spenceley! How did she come here?’ In the surprise
  of the moment I did not look at her attentively enough, but raised my
  cap, held out my hand, and was going to accost her, when she smiled
  and uttered a rather astonished ‘_Mein Herr_, you are mistaken!’ She
  was German, and when she smiled I saw the difference; she had not
  Helena’s fire and spirit, and yet the likeness was wonderful. The
  incident set me thinking about these old days. You never mention
  Helena now. Do you never see her? Tell me when you write. I have
  never seen any one like her. I suppose you are too busy to think of
  such things. I used to wonder at your coolness all the time that she
  was suffering so, in consequence of that wicked father and brother of
  hers. I used to make her, in my own mind, the heroine of a hundred
  tragedies and romances, in those days. And yet--forgive me for saying
  so, I have always said things I ought not to say, to you--I was
  nothing to her but an enthusiastic boy, to whom she was kind, and you
  were a great deal--a man--I believe _the_ man. Since I met that lady
  in the gardens, I have thought a great deal about it, and as I found
  a little poem the other day, called _Hélène_, I composed an air for
  it, and made it into a song; but I shall not sell it. You may have it
  if you like; but I shall not send it until I hear from you.

    ‘Ever your devoted
    ‘HUGO.’

Sebastian put the letter down, the smile fading from his face. The
meeting with a strange girl, a passing likeness, had set Hugo’s memory
working; had prompted him to write words which seemed striking to
Sebastian. He had thought, more than once--often--of Helena Spenceley,
but he had never seen her since, with disasters falling thick upon
her young head, she, with her mother, had left Thanshope. They had
gone to Manchester, he had heard. Once or twice he had asked his
mother if she had not heard from Helena, for he remembered that Mrs.
Mallory had told him how Helena had been a ‘kind of daughter’ to her;
but she had composedly answered ‘No,’ and had added that she did not
know their address, and had reason to think they did not wish to keep
up any of their old Thanshope acquaintances, which, she feelingly
added, was really very natural under the circumstances. At the time
of their departure, business had pressed upon Sebastian, as it had
continued to press upon him ever since. He had been smarting under the
disappointment of his refusal by Adrienne. Helena and her misfortunes
had touched him deeply; her calmness, and the real heroism with which
she met her fate, had impressed him. He had firmly intended that he
should not be one of the Thanshope acquaintances whom they dropped
entirely; but, by some means, they had slipped out of his ken, and
he had not been able to find them again. Yet, many a time, Helena’s
beautiful face had seemed to start up before his eyes, at strange
moments: sometimes when he was most busy, sometimes when he was in one
of his rare idle moods. Sometimes a song or a strain of music would
summon up the vision; sometimes in a busy street, or in a silent hour,
it would hover before him. This morning, after reading Hugo’s letter,
he saw it more strongly than ever; but with the strength of will which
belongs to daylight and activity, he thrust it away, and took up his
other letter.

It was from his old friend, Herr Süsmeyer, who asked him if he was
never coming to see him again, and added, that he expected his son home
some time during the autumn, to take his place in the business. There
were further domestic details, and then the remark, ‘Young Heywood,
whom you sent here to me, is my right hand, now that I am somewhat
laid up; but he has been invaluable ever since he fairly mastered the
language. I should like to speak to you about him too. There will have
to be some change when Julius returns.’

‘Julius will return, will he?’ murmured Sebastian to himself. ‘And
Heywood is invaluable. He has gained the old man’s affections, and has
not hardened his heart against him, or indeed against any one but me.
But I know the reason, and can forgive him. It is an old story now.
Still, if ever I had the chance, I should like to test once again his
feelings, and see if he is as stiffnecked as ever.’

He put the letters into his pocket-book, and, having finished
breakfast, took his way to his office, pondering as to whether it
would be possible for him to get a brief holiday some time during the
autumn, run over to Eisendorf, see Herr Süsmeyer, and observe with
his own eyes how ‘young Heywood’ was getting on; then go on to where
Hugo was studying, and carry him off with him to--Italy, perhaps, or
Switzerland. He began to long all at once that he might be able to do
so, and to yearn, almost, for the sound of Hugo’s voice; to feel a
sudden weariness of this grey, dismal town--this never-ending strife
with starvation, this strained suspense, this sensation of standing on
the brink of a precipice, which had been present with him, as it was
with most men in his position, during all those troubled years. The
last two of them he had fought out alone: to-day, for the first time,
he felt the battle weary and monotonous--almost ignoble.

‘Please, sir,’ said Ben, who still retained his place in the office, as
Sebastian entered it, ‘there’s a message from Mr. Sutcliffe to say he’s
very poorly this morning, and can’t come. He’s very sorry, and he hopes
he’ll be better to-morrow.’

‘Ill, is he?’ said Sebastian, going into his private room. Mr.
Sutcliffe had often been ill lately, and when he came to his work he
walked feebly, and coughed a good deal.

‘That’s another question that must be settled, and before long, too,’
reflected Mr. Mallory, a shade of care upon his brow, when he found
himself alone. ‘I must have a serious talk with Sutcliffe, but how I’m
to manage to make him have assistance, and yet take the same salary, I
don’t know. He is so confoundedly conscientious.’

After working doubly hard, in order to make up for Mr. Sutcliffe’s
absence, Sebastian found himself, shortly after eleven o’clock, in
the train on his way to Manchester, Tuesday and Friday being the
market-days in that city: the days when merchants in the streets most
do congregate, and when that impressive spectacle, High ’Change, is
wont to be even more imposing than usual.

It was a busy day. Sebastian, after going on ’Change and visiting his
Manchester office, made certain business calls, and, in the middle
of the afternoon, found himself standing in Mosley Street, exactly
opposite the Royal Institution.

It was a hot, close, Manchester afternoon. Scarcely a breath of air
was stirring. The smoke pressed heavily down upon the thick, yellow
air. Faintly the coppery sunbeams tried to struggle through it,
and wavered, and seemed to fail. There was a roar and a din in the
much-frequented street--all about the great black, grimy-looking
buildings, shops, offices, and warehouses. Omnibuses, carts, and
lorries were struggling in a ‘lock’ in the middle of the street,
and two exhausted-looking policemen were trying to restore order.
Sebastian’s next destination was over the way; but, surveying the scene
before him, he saw no immediate prospect of getting over the way, and
turned round towards the Royal Institution, as if to consult that
building as to what he had better do.

Three large boards, covered with placards, caught his eye. ‘Exhibition
of Pictures,’ in large letters, stood at the top of the boards, while
profuse details followed in smaller print below.

‘The pictures! Why not go in and have a look?’ he reflected, and
straightway walked up to the door, paid his shilling, secured a
catalogue, and ran up the steps.

It was between three and four in the afternoon. If it had been sultry
out of doors, it was much more so within. The rooms felt stiflingly
hot, and the blaze of colour upon the walls was oppressive. There were
not very many visitors present, and those who had come were going
languidly round. The people who had secured seats upon the chairs or
divans looked nearly asleep, and those who had not secured such seats
were looking enviously at those who had, as if, with a little more
provocation, they would forget conventionality and sit down on top of
them.

Sebastian glanced critically around. Now and then a picture caught his
eye and partially pleased it, but these were few and far between; and
he passed rather quickly from one room to another, until he came to the
end one of all, which was devoted to water-colours. The first object
that met his eye was an empty chair, and he promptly sat down upon
it. On examining the wall before him, he found that one oil-painting
had been admitted amongst the water-colours, and that it was hung
exactly opposite to him. He sat in rapt contemplation of it, feebly
endeavouring to guess what it was meant to represent. A drab-coloured
lady crouched together, nursing one of her own feet. She was scantily
attired, also in drab, and had a peculiar cast of countenance, and
an imbecile smile, showing rows of very fine teeth, and was glancing
upwards. She was adorned with ropes of pearls of a size and value which
must have surprised even the author of ‘Lothair,’ could he have seen
them. An opaque veil prevented the colour of her hair from being seen.
She was drab; the stones of the palace-steps upon which she reposed
were likewise drab. The sand of the banks, the water of the river
flowing by, were all drab. Sebastian studied the composition, and shook
his head, referring in despair to his catalogue. ‘Cleopatra by the
Nile, by ----. Price, one hundred guineas.’ If a little green ticket
stuck in the margin of the frame were to be believed, this work of
genius was sold.

‘Some fellows do have most awful strokes of luck,’ mused Sebastian.
‘Now, the man who painted this thing--I wonder if he knew how the
chances were against his ever sell----’

‘You shan’t!’

‘I shall! I tell you I shall have that picture; it’s mine. I like that
little pussy. Mayn’t I have that little pussy, Miss Spenceley?’

‘Well, no, dear, I’m afraid not, unless you can persuade papa to buy
it; because, you see, we can’t take the things away.’

‘But I will have it! I want that little pussy for my own!’ And a howl
followed.

‘Oh, hush, Jacky, dear! What shall we do if the man comes to turn us
out? Come here. We’ll ask papa about the pussy, shall we?’

Sebastian started from his chair, heat, listlessness, ‘Cleopatra by
the Nile,’ and everything else forgotten, and turned suddenly round.
The group was behind him, close to him--yes, he knew that figure again
instantly, even in its present shabbiness, compared with its former
splendour. She was bending over an urchin of four or five summers,
whose engaging countenance was ominously puckered up in readiness for
another burst of infantile music. Two other children, a girl and a boy,
both older than the would-be possessor of the pussy-cat, stood by,
wrangling with each other as to the possession of another work of art.
She still did not turn her face in his direction, but Sebastian, with
an eagerness and a pleasure which surprised even himself, exclaimed
very audibly,

‘Miss Spenceley, have you forgotten me? Won’t you look at me?’ She
started violently from her stooping attitude, and, leaving the
recalcitrant Jacky to his fate, at last turned to him.

‘Mr. Mallory, I--I--how you surprised me!’ she stammered, looking at
first so pale and startled that he was surprised.

He was shocked too, after the first glance, at the change, the sad,
mournful change, in her face.

‘You do know me again,’ he said; ‘at least you might shake hands with
me. I fear you are not pleased to renew our acquaintance.’

He had taken her hand, and as his fingers touched hers, Helena’s
paleness fled, and crimson dyed her cheeks. Tears rushed to her eyes;
her lips opened, but she did not speak. His eyes were still fixed
upon her face; he could not remove them; he did not realise that his
prolonged gaze distressed her. He felt unaccountably glad to meet her,
pleased, excited, light-hearted, as if he had a great deal to say to
her and ask her. He forgot all about his engagements--about returning
to the station, or going home; he wanted to talk to her, to hear her
speak, to find out all about her.

The colour gradually died out of her cheeks, and then became again
apparent the change these two years had wrought in her. She was thin,
decidedly thin, compared with the full if delicate beauty of past days;
there were hollows in her cheeks, and under her great dark eyes; there
was a painful line about her lips, and a melancholy, which looked
as if it were settled, in her expression. She looked, what he had
never thought she could look, patient and subdued--not the impulsive,
fiery-hearted girl whom he had known and teased and quarrelled with.

Her dress, he also saw, was sadly altered. Helena had always had a
weakness for splendid things: she delighted in a rich colour, a soft
silk, a sheeny satin--in all kinds of luxurious, and beautiful, and
fashionable things. Formerly people used to laugh at this weakness.
Other girls, whose fathers had not been so rich as Mr. Spenceley, used
to turn up their noses, and say that she was vulgarly ostentatious;
that it was exceedingly bad taste in a girl to dress herself as
splendidly as a dowager, and so on. In truth, it had been no bad
taste at all. The splendour was part of her nature--one phase of her
individuality; it belonged to her as much as her queenly shape and
melodious voice.

But now--there was no splendour in that dress, of poor material and
last year’s fashion. The silk mantle had been handsome once--perhaps it
was a relic of palmier days; now its shape was antiquated, and it was
too good for the poorness of the rest of the toilette. The glove on the
hand, which Sebastian still continued to hold, had been often mended.
Helena looked what she used to have the strongest objection to--poor,
shabby, and unprosperous, her good looks faded----

But not gone. No. Sebastian, staring on in the same rude and
reprehensible manner, satisfied himself that her beauty was only
clouded over, not vanished.

‘Do you know, I have been thinking about you a great deal to-day?’ he
said. ‘I had a letter this morning from Hugo von Birkenau: he saw a
German lady in the gardens at ----, and thought it was you. Just fancy!
He made all sorts of inquiries about you. How fortunate that I happened
to look in this afternoon!’

Helena seemed to have nothing to reply. Her face was still downcast;
she remained silent.

‘It is nearly two years since we met,’ he urged; ‘and yet you do not
say you are glad to see me.’

‘Oh, I am! Very glad,’ murmured Helena.

‘You live in Manchester still?’

‘Yes; mamma and I. We live in Woodford Street----’

She named one of the southern suburbs of Manchester.

‘Do you? That is not far away. How odd that we should never have met!’

‘I don’t think so. Woodford Street is not a fashionable locality.’

‘Is it not? I must remember the name. I asked my mother where you
lived, but she said she did not know the address. But now that we have
met, I am sure you will allow me to call, will you not?’

‘Our house is so very small; we have so few visitors,’ she began in
some embarrassment.

‘But, my dear Miss Spenceley, you do not seriously mean that you could
urge that as an objection,’ he exclaimed. ‘You are pleased to chaff me,
I think, as you used to do.’

Helena turned abruptly away; her lips set; her eyes fixed upon a
water-colour drawing immediately before them.

‘Do you mean that you really would rather I did not come?’ he asked
earnestly, and excessively piqued at the idea.

‘If you really wish to come,’ said Helena, rather proudly, ‘of course
we shall be happy to see you, but I am sure you will find it very
inconvenient. I am engaged until after four o’clock, and mamma----’

‘Until after four? I shall remember that. The evenings are long now,
and there are trains going to Thanshope till midnight, you know. How is
Mrs. Spenceley?’

‘She is very well, thank you.’

‘Have you been bringing these young people to see the pictures?’ he
inquired, for something in Helena’s manner forbade him to make the
eager personal inquiries which crowded to his lips.

Now that the first shock and surprise of meeting him again had passed,
and she had recovered her self-possession, there was a certain
pride and distance of bearing which seemed to require considerable
deference on his part. Helena’s troubles had indeed made her into
a woman; she had most decidedly quitted the girlish stage. She had
probably, thought Sebastian, become a great deal more reasonable, and
consequently a great deal less amenable to the influence of other
persons--Miss Mereweather, for instance, and himself too. With regard
to Miss Mereweather, it might be a matter of rejoicing that Helena had
forsworn her tenets, but with regard to himself, perhaps that was not
altogether delightful.

‘Yes,’ said Helena, calmly, as she looked at the three children, ‘I
have. They are my pupils.’

‘Are they good?’

‘I fancy they are as good as their parents will allow them to be. It
all depends upon that.’

‘How so?’ asked Sebastian. Anything to prolong the conversation!

‘Mr. and Mrs. Galloway are supplied with the newest ideas upon all
subjects, education included. The new education theory is, that when
children are allowed their own way, they always do right; or if they do
wrong some one else is to blame for it. That is why I say they are as
good as their parents will allow them to be.’

‘And are you generally the “some one else” who is to blame?’ he asked,
wishing very much that she would utter some complaint, afford him some
chance of offering sympathy or expressing fellow-feeling.

‘Oh no!’ she replied, quite cheerfully. ‘I only come in for my share,
and they really are very fond of me; only they show it in rather a
funny way. That is why I can’t see any one before four o’clock. I leave
them then--reluctantly, of course,’ she added, with a smile which vexed
Sebastian, because he could not tell whether it was feigned or not;
‘but still, I leave them.’

‘Won’t you sit down in this chair,’ he said reproachfully, ‘and tell
me all about yourself?’ He moved the chair forward for her, for he saw
that she looked tired, and indeed she was very tired, and Sebastian
looked to her wearied eyes, so kind, so handsome, and so agreeable,
that it was with difficulty she maintained her little air of dignified
reserve: but the voice within was a powerful one: ‘What right has he
to look at me in that gentle, reproachful way, as if he, and not poor
mamma and I, had been neglected? It is impertinent, and I won’t submit
to it.’

‘No, thank you,’ she said aloud, looking at her watch. ‘It is time to
go. We must take a Victoria Park omnibus, and it will pass in three
minutes. Come, children! Jacky, Amy, Ted! we must go.’

They came obediently enough, their failing appearing to be in affection
towards each other. They lavished affectionate epithets upon their
governess, and quarrelled, as Helena said, ‘because I have not three
hands;’ but they cast looks of suspicion upon each other, and took
every opportunity of falling out.

‘Good afternoon!’ said Helena to Sebastian, and as the children crowded
round her and clasped her hands, she was not displeased to see that his
face fell. She was glad that he should see that she was not altogether
an object of pity.

‘I am going too,’ he said. ‘I will see you into the omnibus. It will
save you a little trouble. Come, young lady, take hold of my hand, or
you will tear Miss Spenceley to pieces.’

The little girl put her hand in his contentedly enough, merely
informing her brothers that they were ‘nasty, selfish things,’ and the
procession went downstairs.

As they stood on the top of the steps, waiting for the omnibus,
Sebastian, turning once more to Helena, said,

‘You have not told me the number of your house. What is it?’

‘Fifty-seven,’ said Helena. ‘Jacky, dear, if you pull Teddy’s hair
again, I’ll make you sit outside the omnibus.’

‘Fifty-seven. Best make a note of it, for fear I should forget it,’
he added, jotting it down, while Helena, with a brave assumption of
indifference, looked straight before her, and choked back her tears.

‘You are not engaged until four o’clock on Sundays, are you?’ he
suddenly asked.

‘No--but--oh, don’t come on Sunday!’ said Helena in her old tragic
manner.

‘I solemnly swear that I will not come on Sunday!’ he said. ‘And
equally solemnly I swear I will make you tell me why I am forbidden to
come on that day.’

‘Why?’ said Helena, with a kind of half-laugh, not quite free from an
hysterical sound--‘why, the reason is simple enough. Because----’

The omnibus is almost more relentless in its punctuality than time and
tide. Not another word could be exchanged. They ran down the steps, and
went through the ignominious performance of hailing and catching the
vehicle. Sebastian, with great presence of mind, did manage to clasp
Helena’s hand once more, and to repeat the words,

‘I shall come soon, and _not_ on Sunday.’

Then he stood in the middle of Mosley Street gazing after the omnibus,
until an uproar caused him to look up, and he found himself surrounded
with infuriated lorrie-drivers, swearing at him for getting into the
way, while a hansom cabman had just pulled his horse up on to its
very haunches, and was apostrophising him in a manner the reverse of
complimentary. Newspaper boys were jeering at him, and an indignant
policeman was ordering him to move on.

With an amiable smile, and a murmured general apology, he made his way
to the footpath, and then on to the station.




CHAPTER II.

FENCING.


Towards five o’clock on the following Tuesday afternoon, a hansom-cab
drove rapidly up that Manchester thoroughfare known as Oxford Street,
and the address given by the man who took it had been, ‘Fifty-seven
Woodford Street.’

As they spun rapidly along, he looked out wondering on which side of
Oxford Street Woodford Street might lie; how far from town, and if it
would turn out to be a very poor little street indeed. He remembered
Helena’s look of embarrassment, as she said the house was small and
uncomfortable. They drove on; the cab passed the Owen’s College, passed
the ‘Church of the Holy Name,’ passed some other buildings, and at last
turned off to the right.

Sebastian shook his head. ‘Not the best side. Poor little Helena!’ Why
did he always think of her as ‘little Helena,’ she who was taller than
most women, and whose disdainful head, set upon her long white neck,
had been wont to look over the heads of a good many even of the men
of Thanshope? Three whole days had passed since he had met her in the
Royal Institution--three whole days, and part of a fourth, because she
had told him not to come on Sunday.

‘Why wouldn’t she let me come on Sunday?’ he had asked himself many
times, and had assigned all kinds of imaginary reasons for the
prohibition. The latest was, ‘Perhaps other people, or another person,
may be allowed to come on Sunday. I shall make her tell me--if I can. I
wonder if I can call one of those old flashing smiles to her face--one
of those looks, which ran over it, and made it more beautiful still, if
that could be?’

Lost in profound conjecture upon this subject, he forgot to look where
they were going, until the cab had traversed several smallish streets,
and at last pulled up suddenly before one of a row of moderately sized
houses--houses of the kind which would be called ‘respectable.’ It was
not a glaring new street: it was neatly kept, and as he jumped out
of the hansom and looked up it and down it, he did not see a single
barrel-organ--not even a perambulator.

Neither of these things did he behold; but he saw Helena Spenceley
herself, just coming up to the gate, walking rather wearily, and
looking tired as she pushed it open.

‘She has been walking, and I have been driving,’ he thought, with a
strange sensation of guiltiness, as he dismissed the man and joined her.

‘You see, I have kept my word,’ he observed. ‘I have come soon, and I
have not come on Sunday.’

‘I am glad to see you,’ said Helena, sedately.

They were airing themselves all this time on the top of the door steps,
Mrs. Spenceley’s domestic, or domestics, not seeming to be in any
violent hurry to open the front door; but as Sebastian was about to
make some further observation, it was suddenly flung (as much as such
a modestly proportioned door could be flung) wide open, by a young man
whose appearance seemed to indicate that he belonged to some one of the
numerous tribe of clerks.

When he saw them he recoiled a step or two, and Sebastian, to his
great amusement, saw that he was honoured by the surprised young
gentleman with a scowl of peculiar malevolence. Clearing his brow,
after a moment, of this unbecoming expression, he addressed himself to
Helena.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Spenceley. I hope I see you well.’

‘Very well, thank you. Will you allow me to pass?’

‘You see I am somewhat earlier to-day; in fact two hours earlier than
usual. I was, if I must tell the truth, on my way to meet _you_,’
with great emphasis upon the personal pronoun, and a languishing but
fascinating smile.

‘To meet _me_?’ repeated Helena, with equal emphasis. ‘Pray, on what
errand, Mr. Jenkins?’

‘I thought, as the evening was so beautiful, you might possibly not be
indisposed for a--a--little walk after tea of course; and if so, I----’

‘I am obliged, but I am engaged this evening, and I _never_ take walks
after tea,’ said Helena, with crushing coldness. ‘If you will kindly
allow us to pass----’

Mr. Jenkins, plunging his hand into his breast, flattened himself
against the wall, and resumed the Giaour-like scowl as Sebastian
followed Helena. She opened the door of a back room and invited him in.

‘I am afraid you will find it rather hot,’ said she; ‘these little
houses are so thin, you know. They let the heat in, and then it never
seems to get out again, somehow. Take that chair,’ and she seated
herself languidly upon another. ‘It is our only sitting-room,’ she
added, drawing off her gloves, and speaking deliberately, as she looked
fixedly at Sebastian, to see how he would take her announcement. ‘It is
dining, and drawing-room, morning-room, boudoir, and library. At Castle
Hill we had them separately, but here mamma lets the rest of her rooms
to lodgers. Mr. Jenkins, who wanted me to go for a walk with him, was
one of them.’

‘I see,’ said Sebastian, tranquilly. ‘I also saw that I did not rise in
his esteem from the fact that I deprived him of his walk.’

‘Mr. Mallory!’ exclaimed Helena, indignantly, as she lost the languid
look and suddenly sat upright, ‘do you insult me by supposing that I
_ever_ take my walks abroad with that horrid, presuming little man?
But why should you not suppose so?’ she added with a little laugh.

‘I supposed nothing,’ said Sebastian. ‘I only saw that he looked very
much disappointed, and I could quite sympathise with him.’

Here he ventured to look at Helena with some meaning in his glance,
but was met by a direct gaze of what seemed to him cheerful, blank
indifference--a gaze which chilled him; for Helena’s looks and glances
had suddenly risen to a place of high importance in his mind. Their
interview on Friday, especially the first few minutes of it, haunted
him. He could not forget her agitation, nor how she had turned, first
pale, and then red as a rose, on meeting him. He had wondered, and had
determined to find out, what the agitation meant. He had thought it
would be quite easy. The Helena whom he had known in former days had
not been adroit in concealing her feelings, but before the present
young lady he was obliged to own himself baffled. Her appearance,
attitude, expression, were languid and weary; she looked worn, and
not very happy, but her manner was composed, and a little hard in its
ostentatious cheerfulness. He could not tell what was real and what
assumed, and the desire to find out, to break down the reserve, to
conquer in short--his besetting foible--grew very strong indeed.

‘Can you drink tea at five o’clock?’ pursued Helena. ‘We have ours
at five. Teaching makes me thirsty, and mamma likes her tea at five.
Remember, there is no dinner to follow after.’

‘If you invite me to tea, I am sure I shall be delighted to stay.’

‘Then you are invited. Now I must go and take off my things. I will try
to find mamma. You will excuse our leaving you alone for a short time.’

‘Pray don’t mention it,’ said Sebastian, and Helena left the room. It
was not a lofty room: the doorway was decidedly low, and he thought she
would have to stoop to pass under it.

When he was left alone, he glanced round the room. It was rather
small, and was over-filled with furniture. Books were scattered about,
and in the most shady corner of the room there was a vase containing a
carefully preserved nosegay, such as might be bought for a trifle at
any greengrocer’s shop in the neighbourhood. Everything was exquisitely
neat and orderly, and in little touches here and there he fancied he
recognised Helena’s hand despite the plainness, and in some respects
even poorness, of the furniture. On the mantelpiece he detected two
little vases of Sevres--relics of former splendour, no doubt. There
was no piano, he noticed that. Perhaps because it would have filled
up the room too much, or perhaps because pianos were rather expensive
things to buy or hire. Yet Helena used to sing, and had a very fresh,
sweet voice. How well he remembered her on that evening when he had
first seen her--in her beauty and splendour, in her costly dress and
sparkling necklace and rings. She had sung, ‘Since first I saw your
face.’

That seemed a very long time ago!

He hoped it would not be long before Helena came down again. He hoped
Mrs. Spenceley would not sit with them all the evening, and he hoped
they would not expect him to go away very early.

Presently the door was opened, and, not Helena but her mother came in.
Sebastian was as much struck with the change in her as he had been
shocked with that in Helena, but in a different way. Mrs. Spenceley
looked better, happier, younger, and more contented, than she had done
since her husband had made his fortune eighteen years ago. And she
looked so because she was so. She did not mind the narrow means, the
small house, the two girls, and the constant necessity for her presence
in the kitchen. All that was as the breath of life to her, and she
thoroughly enjoyed it. Sebastian, with a sigh of relief, felt that here
no condolences were needed, no delicate skirting of dangerous ground.
He might look cheerful, and ask Mrs. Spenceley with confidence and
success how she was. The nature of her answer was visibly written upon
her face beforehand.

‘Well, Mr. Mallory, this is a pleasure! I could scarcely believe it
when Helena said she had met you, and you were coming to see us. I
said, “Eh, he’ll never come, not he!” But she said she thought you
would; and she’s right, it seems.’

‘She certainly is. I am very glad to see you looking so well, Mrs.
Spenceley.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, lightly, flinging a purple satin
cap-string over her shoulder. ‘I’ve nothing to complain of, thank God!
I’ve got on much better than I’d any reason to expect, and I’m thankful
for it. It’s hard work sometimes, but I’ve a broad back.’

Which she certainly had.

‘That is very fortunate,’ he said, with becoming solemnity.

‘Yes; I’ve four gentlemen. You’d wonder where we find room to put them
all, but the house is more capacious’ (Sebastian conjectured that she
meant spacious) ‘than it looks, and we’ve room for them all. Very
nice gentlemen they are too; all in business in Manchester, you know.
They’re quiet and well-behaved, and they pay up regularly; and,’ she
added, dropping her voice, ‘none of your stand-off gents. They are all
disposed to be most friendly, all except Mr. Harrison, and he’s engaged
to his cousin, who lives in Northumberland. He hears from her regularly
twice a week.’

‘Yes,’ said Sebastian, with an air of the deepest interest--the air of
one thirsting for more information.

‘But all the others, Mr. Finlay, and Mr. Smithson, and Mr. Jenkins--are
most friendly, and quite gentlemen, every one of them. Indeed, Mr.
Jenkins,’ she dropped her voice again, ‘is very much interested in
Helena.’

‘Is he?’ said Sebastian, still with unfeigned interest.

‘Yes, he is. He’s getting on, too. And a perfect gentleman--on
Sundays’--Sebastian leaned eagerly forward--‘on Sundays they often go
out into the country for the day, or sometimes even for the week-end;
but Mr. Jenkins, never,’ said Mrs. Spenceley, emphatically: ‘Mr.
Jenkins dines with _us_.’

‘_Poor_ Helena!’ thought Sebastian, while he said, ‘Oh, indeed!’

‘Helena said I oughtn’t to have entered into such an arrangement; but
I think she’s mistaken, and I think she’ll come to see her mistake in
time.’

‘Miss Spenceley does not feel so much interest in Mr. Jenkins, perhaps,
as he feels in her!’

‘That I can’t say; but if she does, she conceals it, which is but
natural after all.’

‘Quite natural in such a case,’ assented Sebastian.

‘Here’s the tea-things,’ continued Mrs. Spenceley, cheerfully,
producing a bunch of keys, and going to a cupboard, whence she drew
forth, to speak metaphorically, flagons wherewith to stay her guest,
and apples for his comfort--in the dry language of reality, a jar of
apple-jelly, and a glass dish containing conserves of a deeper, more
sanguinary hue.

While Mrs. Spenceley was half-buried in the depths of the cupboard,
Helena came into the room again. She had changed her dress, and
attired herself in another relic of splendour, a black silk dress,
rich and handsome, if somewhat old-fashioned; and she had tied an
orange-coloured ribbon round her neck, and put on a little lace frill,
and Sebastian felt that she looked lovely, and began to hate those
three gentlemen who were disposed to be so very friendly, with a deadly
hatred. Her eyes fell upon the figure of her mother, half in and half
out of the cupboard. It was a very funny sight, and when she turned to
Sebastian there was a broad smile of amusement upon her face. It looked
as if it was the first that had been there for a very long time, and
Sebastian felt it only right to smile as genially in return.

Mrs. Spenceley, emerging from the cupboard, summoned them to the table;
Sebastian felt as if it were a dream, as he handed Helena her chair,
and took his place opposite her. No surroundings, however poor, could
take away from the queenly beauty of her face and figure. She was
indeed more queenly than she ever had been before, he thought, as he
watched her across that simple board. The meal was soon over, and then
Mrs. Spenceley, rising, said,

‘Mr. Mallory, you must excuse me if I leave you. I must first go
and see about Their teas, and then I’ve promised to go and sit with
Mrs. Woodford, next door but one. She’s a great friend of mine. Her
husband’s father built most of the houses in this street, and was a
rich man, but he never could keep anything, never! and now she pays a
rent for the very house her father-in-law built. This world’s full of
ups and downs.’

‘It is indeed. Then I shall not see you again this evening?’

‘Well, no. We shall most likely have a little supper together, and so I
shall leave Helena and you to have a little chat. But I shall hope to
see you again soon, Mr. Mallory, if you don’t mind coming all this way
out of town.’

He hastened to assure her that he thought it a very nice drive, and not
at all far; and Mrs. Spenceley, disturbed by the sound of a ring at the
bell, said,

‘There’s Mr. Finlay! I must go. Good evening, Mr. Mallory.’

She was gone, and they were alone. Helena had taken her work-basket to
a little table near the window, and had begun to embroider a little
strip of muslin. Sebastian thought the sofa, which was just on the
other side of the little table, offered a suitable place for the
purposes of confidential conversation, and he went and sat down upon it.

‘Is there no one in Thanshope about whom you wish to inquire, Miss
Spenceley?’ he began.

‘I--oh, how rude of me! I have never asked after Mrs. Mallory. How is
she?’

‘She is very well, thank you.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Helena, calmly; and Sebastian felt rather
uncomfortable, for Mrs. Mallory had not displayed any interest in the
Spenceley family since their downfall.

‘Do you see much of the Thanshope people?’ continued Helena, in the
same calmly indifferent tone; not a resentful tone, but a politely
conventional one, which was much more disagreeable to Sebastian than a
resentful one would have been. It implied that Thanshope and all that
therein lived had become a name, a memory, a thing of the past to her.
‘Do you visit much?’ she added; ‘go to many parties?’

‘N--no. I am very busy. I am busy all day, and I don’t care much for
the Thanshope people. All my near friends, those in whom I took an
interest, I have lost.’

‘How very distressing! How has that come to pass?’

‘Hugo von Birkenau has gone to Germany. He is studying music, and
intends to make a profession of it. He has begun to give lessons
already.’

‘Hugo give lessons!’ cried Helena, looking up surprised.

‘Yes, I will tell you all about it another time. I see you don’t half
believe it. But it is true. We have not quarrelled, I am glad to say;
but he has gone. He has begun life for himself, and henceforth our
paths are divided. There was another. You did not know him. I could
scarcely call him one of my friends, but I miss him. He is one interest
less. There was Mr. Blisset; he is dead. There was you--at least I hope
so.’

‘I don’t think we ever were really friends. I did not like your
opinions.’

‘But not enemies?’

‘Well, perhaps not exactly; at least, not at last,’ said Helena with
a sudden change in her voice. ‘But,’ she repeated, ‘I did not like
your opinions. You shut me--I mean, you denied to women the right
to participate in those larger questions which I hold they ought to
be interested in as well as men, for the sake both of men and of
themselves; and I never would give in to that as long as I live.’

She did not speak vehemently, but with a decision and calmness unlike
her old agitation of manner.

‘I wonder how I shall ever make you understand my real views on that
subject,’ he said despairingly.

‘You said you had no views on the question. Perhaps, if you had ever
tried to find out whether I had any understanding, you might have
succeeded in discovering a tiny scrap somewhere very low down. But
never mind, it is of no consequence now. I can never help forward the
questions I take an interest in, as I once hoped to do; so you need
not be afraid of my going astray. I have lost the power.’

‘Miss Spenceley----’

‘I think you have forgotten one of your friends,’ suggested Helena,
with a change in her voice, which she could not quite conceal.

‘Have I? Which?’ he asked very meekly.

‘Miss Adrienne Blisset.’

‘Ah, yes! I actually had forgotten her. I never see her now, either.’

‘Does she no longer live in Thanshope?’ asked Helena, bending over her
work.

‘She still has Stonegate, but she is scarcely ever there. I think she
has taken a dislike to the place. And when she is there, I do not see
her. As you say, she is lost to me too, for we once were friends.’

Sebastian’s voice did not change. It was quite steady and composed.
Helena still seemed interested in her work, as she said,

‘I should think that must be the greatest loss of all to you.’

‘In some respects it is. At first it was a great loss. Now I feel
it less. For two years I have been learning to live alone. Smile
scornfully to yourself if you like! You may not believe me, but it is
true all the same.’

‘Oh, I can believe that you found it hard to lose Miss Blisset’s
society. She was no ordinary young lady. If she had once been your
friend, it must have been difficult to resign her. And people spoke of
something more than friendship. I heard, often, that you and she were
engaged.’

‘Did you? I, too, have heard something of the same kind; but there was
no truth in the report. We were never engaged.’

‘Ah! people will talk, you see!’

‘Naturally, but I don’t think they talk so much anywhere as in
Thanshope.’

‘Perhaps they haven’t so much cause.’

‘That is rather too bad.’

‘You mean that people are not often so rude to you. I can quite fancy
so.’

‘You will agree with me that I have lost all my friends.’

‘You do not seem broken-hearted,’ said Helena. ‘You look well and
cheerful.’ She raised her eyes, and surveyed his face, straightly
and composedly. Sebastian wished the look had not been so entirely
self-possessed.

‘I lead too busy a life to be broken-hearted,’ he replied. ‘Pray don’t
suppose that I spend my time in thinking how lonely I am.’

‘I never supposed anything of the kind.’

‘It is simply that I once had friends, and circumstances removed
them, and I have not been able to fill up their places. I have worked
hard--really hard, and I think I have learnt some good lessons in these
sad years.’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, looking up, with the old eager interest in her
eyes, the old brightness upon her face. ‘You must indeed have learned
some lessons. My greatest trouble in leaving Thanshope was that I
lost sight of all my friends that I had made during the distress. I
have had no interest like that since then. You have. And you have had
other interests too. I saw that they had asked you to be the Radical
candidate, when Mr. Lippincott resigned. There is a prospect before
you! Have you given your answer yet?’

‘My answer is due to-morrow. And upon my honour, I don’t know what it
is going to be. What would you advise?’

‘Mr. Mallory!’

‘Yes?’

‘Why will you persist in saying such things? Do you think it is
amusing?’

‘According to you, I must have the most wonderful faculty of amusement
that any man possessed. Please, do I think what amusing?’

‘Do you think it amusing to ask questions of that kind?--to solemnly
ask advice when you don’t want it? To consult a woman, and a young
woman, upon an important step in life? We don’t understand these
things--at least you say so, and I choose to take you at your word,
so far as you are concerned. I do not choose to be treated as you once
treated me, when I was in earnest, and then be appealed to for an
opinion. I have no opinion on the question.’

‘I wish I had never opened my lips upon that question. You have
never forgiven me, and you never will,’ said he, in a deep tone of
mortification. ‘I too was in earnest when I asked you to-night what you
advised. I have been vacillating, and considering and wondering what
was best, like----’

‘Like a woman.’

‘Like a lonely man who has no counsellor to whom to apply.’

‘How pathetic!’

‘Will you really not give me one word of advice? Would you accept or
not?’

‘You do not want my advice. You--it is absurd! You have lots of men to
advise you. What can you want my advice for?’

She spoke impatiently. Stung by her tone, words, and manner, he leaned
suddenly forward, saying,

‘I do want your advice, Helena. I acted like a consequential fool
towards you at one time. When your troubles overtook you, I was made
thoroughly ashamed of myself. You behaved like a heroine. Tell me,
should I accept or refuse? Give me your opinion, and, by heaven, I will
abide by it! I can trust you.’

‘Then accept! With your abilities and your responsibilities, you have
no right to refuse.’

‘I shall accept,’ was all he said, and there was silence for a time.

Helena went on working, with how great, how immense an effort, he could
not know. He sat and meditated on what he had done, on the fact that
he had submitted his conscience to the guidance of a girl’s voice, and
that since that voice had spoken, every hesitation, every doubt had
vanished. Not a difficulty remained.

‘You will be almost certainly elected,’ said Helena, after a pause.
‘Then your life will be busier than ever. How will you manage?’

‘That is a problem which is even now troubling me. I must have some
help. I do not know where to turn for it. I am overwhelmed with
business, really.’

‘Are you? I wonder at you wasting your precious hours here,’ said
Helena, and the moment after she had said it her face became crimson.

‘You think the time wasted, and you wonder that I should waste it
here?’ said Sebastian, and looked at her steadily.

Helena did, at this point, show a return of her former sensibility.
The flush remained high in her cheeks. Her eyes fell, and her hands
trembled as she resumed her work. Sebastian was much too good a
tactician to lessen the value of the sign he had wrung from her, by
coming to her assistance with any casual remark. He remained perfectly
silent, till Helena, apparently finding the situation disturbing,
started up, exclaiming impatiently.

‘How hot it is! Oh, how hot! My needle gets sticky, and I can’t work
with a sticky needle.... When you are elected--and you are sure to be
elected--you will, as you say, be very busy; but what an interesting
kind of business! I shall often think----’

She stopped suddenly.

‘Never mind my life,’ said he, beginning to see where the power on his
side, and the weakness on hers, really lay. ‘Tell me something about
your own.’

‘About mine--my life!’ said Helena, with a laugh. ‘That would indeed be
an exciting history--too much for your nerves altogether, I fear.’

‘Tell me, or I shall not know how to think of you. It is so annoying
not to know the tenor of the life led by some person in whom one takes
an interest. What is the name of the parents of your pupils?’

‘Their name is Galloway.’

‘What sort of people are they?’

‘They are rich people.’

‘That is nothing to the point.’

‘They are people with fads, and yet they are very kind to me. I teach
their children--as much as they will allow me, that is. They believe in
letting the children grow up happy, and never punishing them, which
means----’ Helena smiled.

‘Which means that every one else, and you particularly, are to grow up
unhappy, and live in a state of eternal punishment,’ said Sebastian,
resentfully; ‘disgusting people!’

‘They are not disgusting, and they have a right to bring up their
children as they think best.’

Sebastian found that Helena would not complain. She evidently accepted
the inevitable resolutely. She had become very reasonable and sensible.
He wished she had been less so.

‘Mrs. Spenceley looks well and cheerful,’ said he at last. ‘That must
be a comfort to you.’

‘Poor mamma! Yes, it is,’ said Helena, with sudden tenderness. ‘What a
great deal she has had to go through, and how brave, and cheerful, and
uncomplaining she is. She makes me feel ashamed of myself, and yet I
cannot see things in the light in which she sees them.’

‘Mr. Jenkins, for instance, on Sundays.’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Helena, and then, after a pause, ‘No; mamma and I
differ very much on the subject of Mr. Jenkins.’

‘You see, I know why I may not come on Sunday,’ said he, rising.

‘Do you? I thought you would not enjoy Mr. Jenkins’s society, but now,
if you like, you may come on Sunday, and have the pleasure of meeting
him. We are glad to see our friends, if they care to visit us.’

‘Our _friends_!’ It was the turn of the eminently reasonable Mr.
Mallory to feel most unreasonably annoyed at being classed, along with
Mr. Jenkins, as ‘our friends.’ Helena had succeeded in turning the
tables very completely upon him. It was useless to try not to feel
mortified and snubbed. He felt both; and Helena stood, the picture of
unconscious innocence, waiting for him to finish his good-bye.

‘You have changed, Miss Spenceley,’ said he. ‘You have developed the
power of being very----’

‘Rude and unkind?’ suggested Helena. ‘Perhaps adversity has soured my
temper. It has that effect upon many natures, and I never was one who
could endure thwarting as you may remember.’

‘May I be allowed to come again?’ he asked, almost humbly.

‘We shall be happy to see you, whenever your other engagements allow
you to call,’ said Helena, quite coolly and distantly. The answer
chilled him and stung him, and yet he asked himself, what more would he
have had her say?

‘You say you are so very busy,’ she continued remorselessly, ‘and if
you accept this invitation to stand, and if Mr. Lippincott resigns,
which I suppose he really intends to do now, and the election comes on,
your time will indeed be fully occupied.’

‘But I am not forbidden to come when I have time?’

‘Forbidden! Oh no! As I said, we are always glad to see our friends.’

‘Good-bye,’ said he. ‘Remember you are answerable for the step I am
going to take.’

‘You say so, but I wonder how it would have been if we had never met,’
said Helena, carelessly. They shook hands, and Sebastian was gone, with
the words still echoing after him: ‘I wonder how it would have been, if
we had never met!’

‘How indeed?’ he muttered to himself. ‘And how is it to be now that
we have met? I don’t know how it will end, but you shall look at me
differently from that, Helena, or----’




CHAPTER III.

IN THE RAIN.


It was more than three weeks later. The month of August had almost
come to its close. The scene was again the bright and cheerful city of
Manchester, on one of its typical days. August was going out, as she
often does in Lancashire, with a sullen, streaming rain, which poured
on, relentlessly and unceasingly. Helena Spenceley had been struggling
all the morning with her pupils, who had turned refractory, and, unable
because of the rain to go out, had vented their youthful spirits in
a series of experiments upon Miss Spenceley’s endurance. They were
not bad children; indeed they had in them ‘the makings’ of very good
children, and were, as their governess had informed Sebastian, as good
as their parents would allow them to be. They had been allowed to find
out that everyone and everything in the establishment was to yield to
their comfort and convenience. They knew their power, and used it.

The morning’s lessons were over. Usually, at twelve o’clock, Helena
took her pupils for a walk, but to-day that was impossible, so they
remained indoors, and she was understood to be amusing them. It was a
dreary kind of amusement. She had been feeling weary and exhausted all
the morning, and now, the close room, the shouting children rushing
wildly about, almost overpowered her. She felt herself growing each
moment more numb and stupid. At last the bell rang for Mrs. Galloway’s
lunch, and the dinner of Helena and the children. Pell-mell they
rushed in, and forgot for a time, in the pleasures of the table, their
quarrels and disputes, relating chiefly to the possession of certain
precious objects and fetishes, over which they wrangled with ever fresh
acrimony and avidity.

The meal was over, and Helena returned to the schoolroom. The children
were to remain downstairs for an hour with their mother. Helena took
a chair to the window, and, resting her chin upon her hand, looked
drearily out upon the streaming rain, the dripping trees, and the misty
outlines of other houses in the park. Idle tears filled her eyes, and
a lump rose in her throat. She choked both back, and smiled drily and
drearily to herself.

‘What a fool I was,’ she thought, ‘to expect him again! It was
a passing fancy. He is naturally polite--that means, a little
deceitful--and he could not have said anything rough or rude if he
had tried. But he will never come again. It is not likely. I was most
foolish to be so glad to see him. I might have known it would bring me
nothing but pain and sorrow. I wish we had not met again, and then, if
I had not had the pleasure, I should not have had the pain either. I
had almost given over thinking of him, and now I have nothing else to
think of, and he has everything else. Why did he come and spend that
one evening, and brighten everything, and take me into another world,
and force me to like him? Why did he ask my advice--as if he wanted
it? It was too bad, and I was a fool. But I always was that. He is not
shallow--no, it is not that. It is simply that his life is a full one,
and mine is an empty one, and that what to him is a chance meeting--a
passing act of politeness, is to me a great event--a thing to think
about. I wish I had a great deal to do--a work, a regular career. Soon,
if these miserable, restless feelings do not leave me, I must bestir
myself, and find something more absorbing than this teaching. I have
been more dissatisfied ever since I knew that he had the prospect of
making himself a name and an influence. And I will do something, too.
There must be things to be done; there must be some way of curing this
sentimental folly--some way of working it out, till nothing is left of
it. I will find a way, or I will die.’

She started as the door opened, and Mrs. Galloway, the mother of her
pupils, entered.

‘Are you sitting moping, Miss Spenceley? You should never mope,’ said
she; ‘it is a very bad habit, and leads to all kinds of follies.’

‘Does it?’ said Helena.

‘Yes, indeed,’ replied Mrs. Galloway, who did not look as if she moped
much herself.

She did not either speak or look unkindly; she was only devoid of tact
and judgment. She held three books in her hands; and as she spoke she
advanced to the window and looked out.

‘I am afraid it is not going to clear up,’ she began, looking first at
the rain, and then at the books.

Helena also expressed the same opinion.

‘I am rather in a dilemma,’ continued Mrs. Galloway.

‘Can I be of any help to you?’

‘I was on my way to ask you to do something for me; but I had no idea
how very wet it was, and I do not think it fit for you to go.’

‘Was it to go out?’ asked Helena, wondering whether it would not be
pleasanter to brave the elements than to return to her task of teaching
the little Galloways that day.

‘The fact is, Mr. Galloway forgot to take the books to Mudie’s this
morning, and we had arranged to have some reading aloud to-night,
and----’

‘I will go and change them for you with pleasure,’ said Helena, almost
with animation; ‘only the children----’

‘It will do the children no harm to miss their lessons this afternoon;
in the depressed state of the barometer, it is cruelty to make them
study. But it is such a day----’

‘Oh, I don’t mind. It will do me no harm; I don’t take cold easily, and
I can take an omnibus from Oxford Street, you know.’

‘Really, since you don’t seem to mind, I think----’

‘I will get ready now,’ said Helena.

‘I can lend you a waterproof,’ suggested Mrs. Galloway, to whom it
did not seem to occur that a cab would be the most effectual kind of
waterproof.

‘I have one, thank you; I am ready now. I will put the books in this
strap. Have you put a list with them?’

‘The list is quite ready. Then you will bring the books back here?’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, cheerfully, so pleased at the prospect of escaping
the afternoon’s lessons that she would willingly have gone if, in
addition to the rain, it had blown a hurricane.

Mrs. Galloway followed her to the hall door, uttering deprecating
observations, and Helena, unfurling her umbrella, stepped out into the
rain.

After a short walk through the damp, soaking avenues of the park, she
at last emerged in Oxford Street, and stood waiting in the wet until
an omnibus came by. It was nearly full, but Helena managed to squeeze
herself in between two stout ‘Turkish merchants,’ and opposite a
fat old woman with a bundle. Who does not know and love the classic
atmosphere of a crowded omnibus on a wet, close day?

The omnibus took her to Market Street, from whence she took another
walk into Cross Street, and turned into the narrow lane, sacred to
Mr. Mudie’s library and fancy shops. Her enthusiasm was beginning
to glow less brightly. She felt very wet, very draggled, and very
tired--exceedingly tired. She went into the library, and found herself
alone there; the young man who came forward to serve her looked almost
compassionately at her, and remarked what very bad weather it was.
Helena languidly agreed with him, and presented her list. He gave her
two heavy massive volumes of travels, and she took them. They would not
go into the little strap which had held the three volume novel, and
Helena was in that mood in which a trifling inconvenience makes one
feel that it would be best to put an end to one’s existence at once.

‘Suppose you were to take only one volume,’ suggested the young man.

‘No, I’ll have both,’ said Helena, stoically, manfully seizing them,
and going on her way.

As she left the library some one almost knocked up against her, some
one who was going, like herself, towards St. Ann’s Square.

‘Beg your pardon. Oh, Helena--Miss Spenceley! What, in the name of all
that is damp, brings you here on such a day?’ asked Sebastian, stopping
suddenly and looking at her.

To meet him thus, after her recent reflections, came upon Helena with
almost a shock: but she mastered herself quickly, and said,

‘I have only been to the library.’

‘Only been to the library! Suppose you give me those books. I have
tried to call at your house again,’ he added, ‘but I have been
so awfully busy. You would see all about my acceptance and Mr.
Lippincott’s resignation in the papers.’

‘Yes; I did not expect you to call again,’ said Helena, distantly.

‘Did you not? You speak as if you were offended. What have I done?’

By this time they were in the square, near the cab-stand, and it was
high time to decide whether they were going in the same direction or
not.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Sebastian.

‘To the omnibus office, till a Victoria Park omnibus comes, and then to
Mrs. Galloway’s with the books. Where are you going?’

‘I am going to see the pictures again,’ said Sebastian. ‘Don’t you
think you had better come and see them too?’

‘I! Oh, I am afraid I have not time,’ said Helena, taken aback by the
proposal. ‘It is nearly four o’clock, and the books----’

‘Oh, never mind the books. I am sure you want to see the pictures; and
you must explain to me what I have done to offend you, and we can’t do
that under an umbrella in the street.’

He signed to an observant cabby, who drove up, and Sebastian politely
handed Helena into the vehicle. She did not know why she got into
the cab, unless it was because Sebastian looked as if he were quite
determined that she should do so, and she did not feel able to resist.

‘Royal Institution,’ said he, and followed her. They drove rapidly away.

‘I ought not to have come; it is very absurd,’ said Helena,
uncomfortably.

‘I am quite sure you ought,’ he said, decidedly.

He saw that Helena’s manner was changed. From her gravity and almost
monosyllabic answers to his remarks he concluded that she was for some
reason offended with him. He did not know that three weeks’ absence and
silence had done more to favour his cause than three months’ assiduous
courtship would have done.

‘Here we are! Now for the pictures!’ he observed, as they stopped
before the Royal Institution.

Helena laughed nervously, and did not know why she laughed. They
stopped to leave their umbrellas with the porter, and she found
Sebastian unfastening her cloak.

‘Because we shall be here a good while,’ said he, gravely. ‘The
pictures are not to be done all in a minute.’

Helena did not resist. It was all very strange--comical almost. She
felt as if it had been a pre-arranged meeting, and yet, she solemnly
assured herself, that was impossible.

They went up the stairs, bestowing a very scanty meed of attention on
the much-talked-of pictures. Sebastian seemed in very high spirits,
thought Helena, unconscious that her own cheeks were burning with
their old brightness, that the actual sight of her and her eyes had
turned her companion’s head; that he had thought more of her than of
his work since they had parted; that her face, and her eyes, and an
orange-coloured ribbon, had seemed to float before his eyes by day and
by night, haunting him in all his business, and intruding themselves
in the most solemn of committee meetings or political dinners. She was
conscious that whenever she looked at him he seemed to be looking at
her, and, she thought, often when she was not looking; that there was
something in his eyes and his manner which made her tremble strangely,
and that she suddenly felt quite certain that whatever might have been
the case in the past, he did not care for Adrienne Blisset now.

On that wet afternoon there were not more than half a dozen persons
in all the suite of rooms. They walked through one after another, and
would probably have gone on for ever, had they not found that they had
come to the last: they were stopped by a wall, and could go no farther.

‘Sit down,’ said Sebastian, suddenly, taking her hand and drawing her
to the settee in the middle of the room, which was empty, save for
themselves.

‘You know I am in the midst of electioneering?’ said he.

‘I supposed so, from what I read in the papers.’

‘That has been the only reason why I did not call. Twice I have tried
to do so, but, with the best will in the world, I could not manage it.
And poor Sutcliffe, my manager, is ill, so I have had double duty to
do.’

‘I am sure you are busy,’ she repeated mechanically.

‘It is thought that I shall win,’ he added. ‘The Conservatives seem to
have got desperate. No local candidate would present himself, so they
had down a Q.C. from the Junior Carlton. I don’t fancy he has much
chance, though he is a good fellow.’

‘Oh, he will have no chance. You will win. I shall be very glad.’

‘Will you really? You really meant what you said when you told me I had
no right to refuse?’

‘I am not in the habit of saying what I don’t mean.’

‘That is true, but you were very brief in your remarks on that
occasion. Do you think that I really can do good?’

‘Yes,’ said Helena, crushing down all the ungenerous remarks which
occurred to her, and answering him frankly, according to her
conviction, ‘I do. I think, with your experience of a different,
broader life than most of our young manufacturers have led, and
with the practical talents that you have too, you ought to rise to
influence. You may do a great deal. I think you have a noble career
before you, if you will follow it worthily. And--I--I shall always read
with interest of your progress.’

‘You really think this, though you so bitterly opposed me upon some
other questions?’ he asked earnestly.

‘Yes, I do. I have seen not the error of my ideas, for I still believe
them to be true and just in principle, but I have seen that a man may
be utterly against them, and may yet be capable of very great things. I
believe this of you. I shall be sorry if I ever hear of your rising and
lifting your voice against these ideas that I believe in; but I shall
try to think that my cause is not so important as a great many others,
and----’

‘But, will you give me a hearing now, while I tell you that my views
have changed, too, as much as yours?’

‘Have they? How?’

‘I always did believe that the woman’s cause is man’s. I told you that,
even when we most disagreed and least understood each other. During
these two years in which I have lived alone, I have learned to feel
that still more strongly. I have felt that no friend, no _man_, could
give me the help and sympathy that I wanted; that no man, and no woman,
pitted each against the other, could do any good, but that “the _twain
together_ well might change the world.” I shall never uplift my voice
against those theories of yours, never.’

‘I am glad of that, very glad. It would have hurt me dreadfully; it
would have seemed as if--it would have cut me up,’ said Helena.

‘How careful I shall have to be, as to what I say and do, now.’

‘Because of what I have said? You have a larger public than me to think
of. You must do what is right--you must say all that you know of the
truth.’

‘Helena, will you help me to try and discover what is right and true? I
have been wondering for a fortnight whether you would, and sometimes I
have dared to hope it. Have I been too bold?’

‘You mean----’ said Helena, with trembling lips and a face which had
suddenly grown pale.

‘I mean that for a year, for more, I have loved you unconsciously,
Helena; that since I met you three weeks ago, I have known it to my
very heart-depths. Will you help me? Will you be my wife?’

‘You forget,’ said she, her face grown still paler, and its expression
more pained; ‘you forget.’

‘Forget what?’ he asked, surprised and chilled by the tone, yet unable
to think that the expression in her eyes was one of indifference.

‘You forget whom you are asking to be your wife. You----’

‘I am asking Helena Spenceley to be my wife. Who has a word to say
against her?’ he asked, his face darkening.

‘You must remember that I am not alone,’ said Helena. ‘There is the
past: my father, my brother; oh, it is not to be thought of--for you.’

‘Is that a roundabout way of telling me that you do not love me, and
will not marry me?’ he asked, taking her hand, and looking at her until
she looked at him. ‘I would rather you said it straight out--I am
waiting.’

‘But I cannot say that,’ murmured Helena; ‘I do love you.’

‘Then let the other things take care of themselves,’ said he
pleadingly, for something in her face forbade him to draw her to him,
or do anything more than plead.

‘No,’ said she. ‘It is not fit that a man like you, in your position,
should marry a girl with the--connections--that I have.’

‘You mean this seriously?’

‘I am quite decided about it.’

‘Then good-bye,’ said Sebastian, abruptly rising; ‘I will bear it as
best I can.’

He was going, but suddenly turned to her again and stooped over her.

‘Helena,’ he said, and his voice was so changed that she looked up
affrighted--‘is it that your pride is stronger than your love? Because,
if so, yours is not real love.’

‘My pride!’ she ejaculated.

‘Yes, your pride, which is afraid lest it should be said that I stooped
to you? That is the secret of this objection. You would ruin our two
lives for the sake of gratifying your pride.’

‘Sebastian!’

‘Helena?’

‘It is not that....’

‘What else is it?’

She was silent, in pain and uncertainty, till he said:

‘_My_ pride is not so great as my love. You have conquered me, Helena.
I would go through fire and water to win you. Once more, will you tell
me again to go?’

His voice had sunk to a whisper. He was leaning over the settee, and
she, with a sudden shiver at the idea his words conjured up, looked up
to him. He stooped, by an involuntary, instinctive impulse, and kissed
her.

‘Must I go, or may I stay? Answer me, my darling.’

‘Do not go!’ said Helena, almost inaudibly, and Sebastian stayed; but
he could not conceal from himself that he had yet much to win, much
service to do, before he could call Helena his own.

She loved him; she said so; she felt it, but she was proud: he had
been right when he said so. Despite her love, she was half ashamed,
half angry at finding herself conquered, and the glance was a shy and
wavering one which he met. It was a strange fact, that though he wished
very much that Helena would ask him to go home with her, though he had
a couple of hours to spare, yet he dared not venture to hint at the
invitation. All he could venture upon was to say to her.

‘You will allow me to take you to Mrs. Galloway’s, as it is late?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Helena, rising.

And they went downstairs. Sebastian gave Helena her umbrella, carried
her cloak, opened the door for her, in a strange silence. She had just
accepted him, and yet he had never felt so completely held at arm’s
length before. Helena’s own shyness and timidity effected what the
most cunningly laid stratagem could not have accomplished--they raised
her lover’s fervent admiration into absolute worship. He called a cab,
and in it they drove towards the Victoria Park. When they were nearly
there, Sebastian, unable to endure the silence any longer, said.

‘Helena, when may I come to see you? Will you not even look at me?’ he
added, almost vehemently. ‘You cannot know how hardly you are treating
me.’

‘Hardly!’ she repeated. ‘I--it is so strange. It is a most wonderful
feeling.’

‘But pleasant, I hope?’ suggested Sebastian, earnestly.

‘Oh, very!’

‘Then may I come soon to see you? To ask Mrs. Spenceley’s consent----’

‘Oh! there is Mrs. Mallory. I am sure she will object,’ said Helena,
suddenly, and with animation.

‘Leave her to me!’ said he, almost impatiently. ‘See, Helena, we are
almost at the park, and you have not given me one look, one word, to
tell me that you are really mine. I have not deserved to be so treated.’

‘Forgive me!’ said she, suddenly, in a voice of tenderness. ‘I was so
unhappy this afternoon before I saw you, and now I am too happy for
words. I am afraid of my happiness. Come soon to see me, and I will try
to behave better.’

She looked at him at last with an April face, beneath whose showers lay
a broad and fathomless heaven of love. Sebastian was satisfied.

‘And may I write?’ he asked.

‘Yes, do!’ returned Helena, and the cab stopped at Mrs. Galloway’s
door. Helena and the books got out, and Sebastian Mallory drove away
again, to the station--and a meeting.




CHAPTER IV.

A CONQUEST.


‘My dear Mallory, I am glad to see you here at last! Were you
unexpectedly detained?’ asked Canon Ponsonby, greeting Sebastian at the
door of the room in the town-hall in which the meeting was to be held.
It began at half-past seven, and that time had been already past when
Sebastian arrived.

‘I was very unexpectedly detained,’ replied the young man, pressing
Canon Ponsonby’s hand with a fervour which seemed a little extravagant
to that gentleman. ‘But I am quite ready now, quite fit,’ he added.
‘Suppose we go to the platform. They seem to be getting impatient.’

They ascended the platform, and Sebastian was surprised at the
heartiness of the greeting he received. He had not known how popular he
was, and in his present mood he felt absolutely touched by these signs
of goodwill on the part of the ‘people.’ All things combined to-night
to rouse and inspire him. One or two even of his warmest friends and
supporters, and most earnest admirers, had said they feared Mallory’s
coldness of manner might be mistaken for indifference, that he was a
little too prone to betray some of the contempt which he felt for party
and party feeling: and had a way, in the extreme philosophy of his
radicalism, of saying things which might be mistaken by the uninitiated
Thanshope mind for distinctly Conservative expressions. On this
occasion, these doubting hearts were agreeably deceived. Sebastian’s
tact came strongly into play; he made one of those fortunate speeches,
in which the right was happily touched off, and in which the truth was
told without disturbing people’s feelings. He felt himself penetrated
by an enthusiasm as rare, with him, as it was agreeable. Every now
and then he seemed to lose sight of the sea of faces below him, and to
see only one; his own voice seemed to die away, while Helena’s voice
bade him do what was right, and tell the truth as far as he knew it.
Under that influence questions which had hitherto seemed even a little
contemptible were suddenly revealed as susceptible of being raised
and ennobled; and the effort which he had at first thought of making,
chiefly in compliance with the wishes of certain friends, and because
he felt (like Myles Heywood) a thirst for constant work wherewith to
fill up his life--this effort, not a very hearty or enthusiastic one,
was now changed completely by the consciousness that there was not only
Sebastian Mallory, indolent and indifferent by nature, to be consulted,
but also Helena Spenceley, earnest, vehement, and enthusiastic, who
would exult in his success, and be bitterly disappointed by his
failure. Indeed, she was so calmly confident that he would win, that
he felt he dared not lose. All this combined in his favour that night.
There was no want of unanimity in the voice of the meeting. The speaker
was so carried away himself that he carried his audience away with him.
They separated in the highest good humour with him and themselves--full
of confidence in their candidate, and of amiable contempt for his
Conservative opponent.

There followed a gathering of some of his friends, and supper at home.
Politics, and nothing but politics, engrossed the conversation, and
it was late when Sebastian found himself alone. He drew a long breath
of relief, but checked it again immediately--as he remembered the
interview which was to follow.

‘Best get it over at once,’ he reflected, going to the drawing-room;
but finding it empty, he went upstairs and knocked at his mother’s
dressing-room door.

‘Who’s there?’ she asked.

‘It is I--Sebastian. May I see you for a few minutes?’

‘Come in!’ was the answer, and Sebastian entered.

Mrs. Mallory was seated before her looking-glass, and her maid was
brushing her hair.

‘Be quick, Emma,’ said she; ‘and sit down, Sebastian; I shall be ready
directly.’

He threw himself into a low chair by the hearth, and in two minutes was
lost in a pleasant, pleasant dream.

‘Now!’ said his mother’s voice at last, and he speedily awoke to
reality again.

The lady’s maid had twisted up her mistress’s hair into a loose knot in
the gaslight. With the soft frills of her dressing-gown round her neck
she looked a very young and handsome woman.

‘What beautiful hair you have, mother!’ he exclaimed, struck with its
gloss and abundance. ‘Why do you cover it up with a cap?’

‘Is that all you have come to say?’ she inquired drily. ‘What kind of a
meeting did you have?’

‘It appeared very unanimous and successful. Ponsonby said it was, and
he ought to know. I wish you had been there. I saw a good many ladies.’

‘Very likely; but not ladies of my opinions.’

‘Ah! I forgot,’ said Sebastian, smiling.

He felt soft-hearted to-night, and hardly noticed his mother’s coolness.

‘Have all those men gone?’

‘Yes; the last of them has departed, and I am glad of it. But I did
not come to keep you talking about Radical meetings, mother. I wished
particularly to see you to-night; I have something to tell you.’

Mrs. Mallory knew in an instant the nature of the coming communication,
and prepared herself to hear something disagreeable. She had not
omitted to provide her son with many opportunities of changing his
estate. She had had plenty of visitors at her house, and chiefly young
lady visitors. None of them had had a hundred thousand pounds, but
equally none of them had been quite portionless, and all of them had
been more or less good-looking, and what are called ‘nice girls.’ She
had seen all her efforts wasted; had seen Sebastian studiously polite
and amiable, even putting himself out of the way often to attend her
and her visitors when they wanted an escort. She had seen him follow
them to concerts and dances and garden-parties; she had seen him play
the host--and nothing else--to admiration; and she had seen the look of
relief which dawned upon his face when the duty could conscientiously
be left, and he could return to his books, his plans, and his
business--that business which seemed to have become the very breath of
life to him, and from which no girl, however nice, could succeed in
drawing him away.

But some one had at last found this power--probably some one whom she
would dislike excessively. Most probably he had met Adrienne Blisset
again somewhere; had proposed to her a second time, and been accepted.
Mrs. Mallory thought she would have preferred him to come and tell her
that he was going to marry any one--a barmaid, a milliner--any one
rather than ‘that girl,’ whom she hated with a virulence which grew
with time.

‘Indeed!’ she made answer, and left him to inflict the blow. It was
exactly as she expected.

‘I am going to be married, mother.’

‘To be married?’ she repeated mechanically. She had long ago said that
she had no power over her son, but she felt bitter at this proof of the
truth of her words.

‘Yes. I hope you will approve my choice.’

‘If your choice is Miss Blisset, Sebastian, I shall never approve it,
and so I tell you distinctly.’

‘But it is not Miss Blisset, mother. She refused me two years ago--she
would refuse me now, and she would refuse me through all time. Then I
was a good deal cut-up about it. Now, I am very glad. No; it is some
one whom you used to like very much. At least, I always understood you
to say so.’

It is a fact that the idea of Helena Spenceley did not once enter Mrs.
Mallory’s mind. She had so come to believe that her son never could,
under any circumstances, turn to her former favourite, that since the
downfall of Helena and her family she had altogether dismissed them
from her thoughts. Even now, as Sebastian paused, she did not think of
Helena, but said, after a moment.

‘I cannot imagine whom you mean, Sebastian, and I never could guess
things of that kind. Who may the lady be?’

‘Helena Spenceley.’

Mrs. Mallory actually started from her chair.

‘HELENA SPENCELEY! What will you tell me?’

‘You surely cannot disapprove of that. My dear mother, you at one time
wished me to marry her. You told me so.’

‘You have the most extraordinary, perverted ideas of right and duty,
Sebastian. Can you suppose that I ever wished you to marry a girl whose
father committed suicide after behaving in a far from honourable way in
his business affairs, and whose brother absconded with a large sum of
money which he had stolen, and who is now--who knows where he is, or
what he is doing, or what trouble he may cause his relations even yet?’

Sebastian almost smiled at the utter opposition of his mother’s ideas
to his own. They never saw but one side each of the other’s nature--not
because neither had another side to show, but because of the formation
of their respective mental eyes. Yet, for the sake of appearances, he
must argue the matter out.

‘Suppose we had married at the time you wished it,’ he suggested.
‘These things would have happened all the same. As it is, they are now
nearly forgotten. No one with any feeling would wish to remind her of
them. If you could only see her, you would forget them all, in looking
at herself. She was always a beautiful girl, but now she is lovelier
than ever, and more charming.’

She was silent.

‘Will you not say you approve of this, mother! You know I will not seek
a wife with a fortune. If she had happened to have money, well and
good; but I would rather have her without, and with the beauty and the
love that Helena gives me.’

‘It is a mockery to ask me whether I approve of it. You will do it
whether I approve or not.’

‘But if you will approve--if you will hold out your hand to Helena, and
accept her as my wife, you will gratify me beyond measure. You know,
it is really your fault. You threw Helena in my way at first, and she
must have made a much deeper impression upon me than I knew, for a
few weeks ago, when I met her unexpectedly, I was scarcely master of
myself. It was all over with me from that moment.’

‘And suppose I do not approve?’

‘I should be unspeakably grieved. We are alone in the world, almost.
You are the very nearest relative a man can have; but you will agree,’
and he stooped and gently kissed her cheek.

She started. With that kiss seemed to come suddenly to her a great
revelation, the revelation of the love which she had thrust obstinately
away from her. She had received her son as a child, and had tried to
curb and control him; and when he acted as a man, she had enclosed
herself within a wall of icy reserve, and had repelled every advance he
had made. The truth rushed upon her mind now with overwhelming force.
She was a selfish, a profoundly selfish, woman; but somewhere, not
quite withered away within her, there lay the remains of a mother’s
heart.

‘I am your mother, Sebastian,’ she said, with a sudden tremor in her
voice. ‘It is very strange that we should have got on so badly since
you came home.... I have had no wish but for your prosperity and
well-being, and yet----’

‘I know you have. I fear I have not been all that I might have been to
you. Forgive me!’

He refrained, and she noticed it, from even speaking of the other side
of the question--from saying, ‘You have deliberately set yourself
against every plan and project of mine, until at last, in very
self-defence, I have been obliged to be silent, and to keep my hopes
and wishes to myself.’ This behaviour was generous, and she knew it
was. It appeared that Sebastian did love her, and prized her goodwill.
The emotion she felt was not an unpleasant one. And then, as he
certainly would marry Helena, she put her hand on his shoulder and said,

‘I consent, Sebastian, though it is a trial. No; I don’t mean that I
disapprove of Helena. I know a more lovely girl could not easily be
found. It is her--well, never mind! Are you going to be married soon?’

‘Thank you! I thank you from my very heart!’ he exclaimed. ‘My great
fear was lest you should be displeased. Shall we be married soon? I do
not know in the least. I am obliged to go abroad before the autumn, and
if I can persuade Helena, we will be married before then; but I am not
sure that I can. She is not by any means inclined to rush into my arms.
She is very much changed. She used to be so impulsive, and to betray
her feelings so easily; and now, I assure you, her dignity has already
almost overwhelmed me more than once.’

‘When you are married, or, at any rate, when you return from abroad,
you will want the Oakenrod to yourselves,’ she suggested graciously.

‘My dear mother, I hope you will stay in it exactly as long as you feel
disposed to do so. Helena wishes very much to please you,’ he added,
drawing a bow at a venture.

‘Does she? When next you see her give her my--my love. Perhaps I had
better go and call upon her.’

‘Or I will bring her over here to spend the day with you.’

‘Yes, perhaps that might be better. Has she given up any of her old
notions yet?’

‘We both find that our views on these points are considerably modified,
so that we are quite able to meet each other and agree together.’

‘I am glad to hear it. I think it must be getting late.’

‘It is indeed. You must excuse me, mother. I seem to have found more
than a wife to-day,’ he added, kissing her hands one after the other.
‘Good night.’

Mrs. Mallory drew her son’s face down, and kissed him, strangely moved.

‘Good night, my son. God bless you!’

Sebastian left her. The conquest was won. From that day Augusta Mallory
was a happier woman than she had been. There was always a certain
distance about the intercourse between her and her son and his family,
but there was amity and concord; and later, when Helena won triumphs
by her beauty, grace, and spirit, which no money could ever have
purchased for her, and when Mrs. Mallory heard on all sides of her
beautiful and charming daughter-in-law, she began to think that after
all Sebastian had not done so badly, even in a worldly wise point of
view; and her respect for him increased accordingly.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the course of a week the election came off, when the Radical
candidate headed the poll by a large majority. Despite the exceeding
business of that week, Sebastian had found time to pay several visits
at 57 Woodford Street, and there had used such arguments with Helena
that she had consented to the early marriage he wished for. Sebastian,
Mrs. Mallory, and Canon Ponsonby went over to Manchester one evening,
and the next day there was a small wedding at a quiet church in some
fields.

Helena was given away by her uncle of the uncompromisingly truthful
disposition. Mrs. Mallory looked calmly dignified. Mrs. Galloway
was there, subdued by the fact that Helena had taken the liberty to
contradict her hypothesis that governesses always make disastrous
marriages. Mrs. Spenceley was there too, weeping in an obtrusive
manner; and, when it was all over, they returned to their respective
dwellings, except Helena and Sebastian, who went to the London Road
station, to a compartment in the Euston express marked ‘engaged.’ They
were on their way to Germany, but before they arrived at Euston Square
Sebastian had told Helena the whole history of his earlier love for
Adrienne, and his own misty conjectures as to how things stood between
her and Myles Heywood--a recital which aroused the romantic Helena’s
most compassionate and interested feelings--and so ended Sebastian’s
courtship.




BOOK IV.

QUITS.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER I.

  ‘_1st Friend._ Well, you’ve tried it: is your problem solved?

  _2d Friend._ I have lived so long in the dark, I do not know.

  _1st Friend._ Out, into the wind and sunshine then, and try!’


What is the difference, save in size, between one manufacturing town
and another? How will you say, reader, on the first view, where this
town lies to which I am about to lead you? You shall have heard no
word of the language of its people, seen none of its customs, only had
a quick bird’s-eye view of it, with its long chimneys and its canopy
of smoke, its blackened grass and dingy trees. Not to make the survey
tedious, let me say that it is no English town, but a German one. Let
us not linger longer than is needful in its streets; here is a sloping
road that leads to the railway station; and here, after ascending the
hill, we are within the great noisy arena.

Amidst the crowd of hurrying passengers and phlegmatic officials, one
figure stood perfectly still on the platform, waiting quietly, and
looking composedly around him with quick, observant eyes. Whether a
German, an Englishman, or even a Frenchman, the casual observer would
have found it hard to say until he spoke, and then the accent would
have betrayed the Englishman.

He was much changed. The two years of absence, the better outward
circumstances, the habit of authority, the necessity of accommodating
himself to a life new and strange to him, together with whatever
inward thoughts might have had their part in moulding and shaping his
mind--all these had had their influence. He was still Myles Heywood;
but between him and himself of two years ago there was just the
difference that there is between the reflective man and the passionate
child.

As he stood waiting, a little round, quick-looking fair-haired German
man came up to him and began to talk to him.

‘Now, Mr. Heywood, you have finished your business in the town?’

‘Yes, Herr Sternefeld; I am, as you may see, waiting for the train to
Eisendorf.’

‘How goes all there? The old man is in rather feeble health, I hear.’

‘Yes. He has not been strong this summer. He thinks he will be better
when the cooler weather comes.’

‘Ah!’ said the little German, ‘and still he keeps grinding away at the
business?’

‘Yes,’ said Myles, rather indifferently; ‘or rather, I do. He leaves it
pretty much to me at present.’

‘Yes, to be sure,’ said Herr Sternefeld, with a somewhat significant
nod and smile. And there’s your train. Herr Süsmeyer will be glad to
see you back again. _Au revoir!_’

He bustled away, and Myles, stepping forward to take his place in the
Eisendorf train, soon forgot him.

From the great manufacturing town of ----feld, the home of turbulent
spirits and birthplace of social democracy, to the mining and
manufacturing village of Eisendorf, was some three quarters of an
hour’s railway journey. The way was so thickly set with factories,
houses, great collieries, and other evidences of manufacturing
industry, that scarcely had these been left behind, and a strip of
green grass and some distant hills been allowed a chance of showing
themselves in a purer air, than they too were swamped, as it were. More
collieries, more great buildings, cranes, hoists, and a canal, became
dominant in the landscape, while the train rolled into Eisendorf.

Myles got out of the train, and left the station. Going quickly in
the September evening through the busy main street, he presently
turned aside and went down a kind of alley, at the end of which
light and trees were visible. It was the way into a restauration
and _Biergarten_, much frequented by the middle and better class of
Eisendorf. Here, on almost every evening in the week, music was to be
heard, and here, beneath the trees, one might sit and take one’s supper.

This was apparently Myles’s intention, for he walked through the
lighted garden, seated himself at one of the tables, and gave an order
to a waiter, who presently returned bearing a dish, a table-cloth, and
all the other paraphernalia of a supper.

Myles did not spend a long time over this meal. The table was soon
clear again, with the exception of the indispensable bottle of yellow
wine, and the accompanying green glass. He leaned his elbows upon the
table before him and stared dreamily forward across the garden, beyond
the groups of merry guests--young men and girls, and whole families,
with _Vater_ and _Mutter_ in full amplitude; he seemed to see none of
them. The band in the orchestra, fifty yards away, were playing soft
strains; the lamps twinkled with a mild, pleasant brightness; the trees
above them looked ink-black by contrast. The sky beyond was like a
vault of violet crystal, and the lamp-like stars beamed out mildly here
and there. The breeze rustled gently now and then, but it was a very
gentle breeze, with nothing of the storm in its breath. All around was
the hum of laughter and talk, and the murmur of flirtation; now and
then the clanking of spurs and the rattling of swords as the company
was reinforced ever and anon by fresh specimens of the inevitable
lieutenant; it was all very pleasant, very calm and peaceful. Myles,
somewhat languid after a long day’s business in the de-oxygenised
atmosphere of the offices and warehouses of a large town, felt, at the
moment, perfectly neutral; neither glad nor sorry, but content, so far
as he was anything, to sit still, with his arms on the table, taking an
occasional drink of his pleasant, if not strong, straw-coloured Neckar
wine, and listening to the whispers of the band, as one instrument
after another died away in the final bars of a little serenade of
Haydn’s. He would have been content to stay there for an indefinite
time, for Myles had arrived at that mental state in which a man finds
it easiest and pleasantest to go on doing the same thing. Whether the
thing were work or idlenesss was almost immaterial to him, when he had
once begun it. It was the effort of turning his attention from one
thing to another which brought mental pain and inconvenience. All day
he had wrought hard, and asked nothing better than to continue doing
so. So long as he could go on, he was almost at ease. But when the work
was over--when the offices were closed, and men had finished their
toil, and were going home to ‘play them’--to use an idiom of his own
native dialect--then it was that despondency seized him; then it was
that he felt a sudden blank, an emptiness, a sense of being lost and
unprovided for; then it was that the effort to find some other pastime,
something else with which to fill his thoughts, was a dull pang which
he dreaded continually. It was this feeling of desolation that kept him
sitting up till all hours of the night, with book and dictionary open
before him, studying or reading until his eyelids fell over his weary
eyes, and he could go upstairs, certain that he would fall asleep as
soon as he tumbled into bed. It was this which made him dread to awaken
in the night watches, or to lie awake with nothing to do; this that,
as soon as he opened his eyes in the morning, made him rise instantly
and begin to do something. He had got an unconquerable horror of those
hours of silent thought and meditation which had once been a joy and
a privilege to him, as they are and must be to all robust, properly
ripening minds.

It was for this reason that, being tired with his work, soothed with
eating and drinking, and pervaded by a feeling of quiet calm and
contentment unusual with him, he felt reluctant to move, and sat on,
his handsome bronzed face set in a gravity that amounted to solemnity,
and a fixed listlessness in his dark and brilliant eyes. Soon, he
knew, the transient pause would be over--for the contentment was
abnormal--soon the aching sense of desolation and unrest would return,
and he would have to awake again.

Very soon, indeed, the spell was broken. A party of young men,
strolling through the gardens, saw him, greeted him, and sat down
beside him. They began to talk--persisted in drawing his attention to
this girl and that girl, and in asking him if he had heard this piece
of gossip or the other.

They were well-conditioned, kind-hearted young fellows enough; they
had liked him, and had treated him with friendliness ever since his
advent amongst them, and they continued to seek his company, in spite
of his unvarying sedateness and gravity. Myles, in these latter days,
was courtesy itself to all who merited courtesy; if Adrienne Blisset
could have heard the yea, yea and nay, nay of his daily communication
at present, she would have been quite unable to accuse him of being
‘scornful’ or ‘disdainful,’ as she once had done. What she might have
felt about the little air of proud, absent, patient indifference, who
shall say?

Despite absence and indifference, Myles was very well liked amongst
the better sort of the young men of Eisendorf. They were of various
nationalities; chiefly, however, German, Dutch, and English, with a
sprinkling of French. They were all engaged in commercial pursuits,
with the exception of one or two young professional men, and an
occasional ‘lieutenant’--that much-laughed-at, much-abused equivalent
of the English curate. It was known--Myles had never attempted to make
any secret of it--that he had left a workman’s situation in an English
town, to come and be the overlooker at Herr Süsmeyer’s works--that
since then he had rapidly risen to the post of manager and headman;
that Herr Süsmeyer had greatly attached himself to him; and it was
thought more than probable that Herr Süsmeyer’s son, Julius, would
never abandon his favourite occupation of travelling in foreign lands,
and that when Herr Süsmeyer had provided for the said Julius, he would
most likely retire, and leave his business in the hands of Myles
Heywood, who--so every one agreed--was quite the most proper person to
succeed to it.

Myles happened to know better--to know that Julius Süsmeyer was even
then on his way home, with every intention of devoting himself to the
career of a merchant, but, at Herr Süsmeyer’s request, he had not named
the fact.

He sat, this evening, listening to the talk and jesting of the others
for some little time, and then rose.

‘Why are you going?’ cried one of them. ‘Why not stay here? The evening
has only just began. It’s only nine o’clock. I expect we shall have
some dancing in the _Saal_ when the concert is over.’

‘Thanks,’ said Myles, with a gleaming smile which lighted up his dark
face; ‘dancing is not in my line, as you know.’

‘No,’ said a young Englishman, laughing. ‘One would almost as soon
expect to see old Michel Angelo’s Juliano de Medici step from his
pedestal and begin to dance, as you, Heywood.... Now that I look at
you,’ he added, thoughtfully, putting his head on one side, ‘there is a
likeness actually; at least about the nose and mouth. Look here! If you
were to put your hand across your face so----’

‘And twist my other arm into a commanding position--thus--you would see
a man in the attitude of Michel Angelo’s ‘Pensiero’ Medici, and that
would be all. Good night!’

‘Odd fish, Heywood!’ murmured his countryman, shaking his head. ‘I
wonder if he was ever less solemn than he is now.’

The object of that speculation took his way out of the gardens and
the town, walking northwards, along a road leading to that suburb in
which lived most of the more wealthy and distinguished inhabitants
of Eisendorf. He walked for half an hour or more, till he arrived at
the house of Herr Süsmeyer, the largest and pleasantest of all these
residences. He went up the dark garden walk, and pulled the bell; soon
the great door was thrown open, and he was in the presence of his
chief, a delicate, kindly-looking old man, with a gouty foot laid up
on a stool before him, and a crutched stick leaning against the table
which stood hard by his easy-chair. The table was covered with books
and papers; a reading-lamp cast a softened light over the page which
the old man was reading. He was quite alone; there was perfect rest and
perfect stillness around him.

He glanced up over his spectacles, and laid down his book, as if well
satisfied when he found who his visitor was.

‘So late!’ said he. ‘I had hardly expected to see you to-night, after
your long day’s work. What business in ----feld?’

Myles entered into details as to the business he had done, with an
incidental disquisition upon the state of trade in general at that
time. Then the conversation drifted off into other channels.

‘Your holiday-time will soon be here,’ observed Herr Süsmeyer; ‘you
mean to spend it in Berlin, I think you said?’

‘I shall go to Berlin, amongst other places,’ said Myles, who had
assumed the very attitude which the young Englishman had wished him to
take, and who sat, his hand half across his face, looking out, through
the open window, into the darkness of the garden. ‘I suppose I shall
wander from one place to another. I do not much care where I go. You
know it is your doing, sir, that I am going at all.’

‘I wonder that you should go to Berlin, from one town to another. I
should have thought the green woods and fresh air of Thüringen, or----’

Myles shook his head.

‘No; I don’t care about the country. It is dull.’

‘Or to England, to see your friends?’

The young man started.

‘No--oh, certainly not,’ said he. ‘The last place I should wish to
go to. No, Herr Süsmeyer; with your introductions and through your
kindness, I shall meet with friends in Berlin and other places, and
shall see a great deal that is interesting, and which I have long
wished to see. I shall come back here refreshed and ready for work
again, until your son----’

‘We can talk about that when Julius arrives. Time enough, time enough!
I hate changes,’ said Herr Süsmeyer. ‘Meanwhile, I have had very good
news to-day--excellent news.’

‘Indeed!’

‘Yes; a letter from Sebastian Mallory.’

‘Ah! Is he coming, then?’

‘He is coming--yes, but not alone,’ said Herr Süsmeyer, a smile of much
satisfaction playing upon his face. He will bring his bride with him.
What do you think of that? He says I must see her. But you say nothing;
you did not know?’

‘His bride!’ repeated Myles, in a low voice. ‘No, I did not know.
But--when does he come?’

‘In a few days. They are already at Cologne. They will travel through
Düsseldorf and ----feld, and come here for two nights only. Then they
are going on. It is their wedding tour. I have already given orders,’
continued the old man, ‘to receive them. I must make much of my friend
Sebastian. It is as if a child of my own brought his bride to see me.
I have ordered the guest-chambers to be prepared, which have not been
used since the death of my blessed Amalie, my wife.’

Thus the good old man prosed on, with childlike pleasure in the
prospect of meeting ‘his’ Sebastian again, and of seeing his bride,
so engrossed in the anticipation that he did not even look at his
listener, who sat still, composed and pale, hearing distinctly all that
was said, and occupied, he too, in picturing the scene: how Sebastian
Mallory would lead forward his bride, who would be glad that his old
friends were pleased to welcome her. Myles could exactly realise how
she would go up to good old Herr Süsmeyer with both hands held out, and
eyes shining with happiness, and he--perhaps he need not be there at
all; but, at any rate, if he only kept sufficiently in the background
he would not be observed, and he could bear his pain alone. This stroke
had been long delayed, but it had come at last--as he knew it must.
Those words he had heard spoken in the Thanshope Park had held good.
Why there had been so long an interval he could not tell; he had often
wondered, had many a time sought the papers through with sickening
anxiety, and had never yet seen what he expected and dreaded to see.
But at last all uncertainty was over. He could never doubt again: and
now, he thought to himself, life would be much easier to live, for he
had too much sense to bewail his lot when he knew what it was; it was
uncertainty which was so wearing, and no doubt it was uncertainty which
had caused all his mental pain and distress. Now, certainly, things
would be better.

Thus consoling himself, he rose to take his leave of Herr Süsmeyer, who
shook hands with him, and thanked him for calling, and said.

‘You know, you too must see Mr. Mallory. He will wish to see you;
indeed, he says so in this letter.’

‘Yes, I shall see him, of course,’ said Myles.

Then he went away--walked back to town to his lodgings; found his lamp
burning, and his books open as he had left them; said to himself,

‘Now, at last, I can study with a mind at ease,’ and straightway
prepared to do so.

In vain! Echoes from a life that he had tried to believe lived out
thronged in his mind, and resounded there. Faces seemed to flash
past him and voices to ring in his ears. All sorts of scenes vividly
recurred to his mind: always he and she were together; always there
was exquisite delight mingling with his pain, till he recalled the
scene in which Frederick Spenceley had come scowling through the
committee-room, in the great distress. It was after that that his
life had become so intolerable to him. His thoughts wandered off
to the Spenceleys in general. Of course he had heard of the great
failure; of Mr. Spenceley’s suicide; of Fred’s dishonourable flight.
What was the wretched fellow doing now? he wondered. And there had
been others: a good, homely-looking mother, who seemed ill at ease
under her greatness; and a daughter--he remembered her too--the most
beautiful girl in Thanshope, so every one had said, and Myles also had
been compelled to give her his meed of admiration when he saw her,
day after day, working with Adrienne Blisset. He had often thought
what a contrast they formed--like a beautiful crimson rose and a white
violet: the one with her fair hair and delicate, pale face; the other
with dusky locks and great dark eyes, the rich colour that came and
went, the vivid life in every movement, the splendid attire. Yes, he
remembered her--she was most beautiful; but to him a violet was more
exquisite and precious than the most gorgeous rose, and it seemed other
people shared the same opinion.




CHAPTER II.

ROSE OR VIOLET?


Two days later, Myles took his way, in the evening, towards Herr
Süsmeyer’s house. The travellers had arrived, he had heard, early in
the forenoon. There had been a ceremonious _Mittagessen_, or midday
dinner, at which different treasured friends of Herr Süsmeyer’s had
been present--friends also of Sebastian in former days. Myles, too,
had received a pressing invitation to be there; but, feeling that he
would much rather descend of his own free will into the crater of Mount
Vesuvius, and there spend the remainder of his natural life, than sit
a long three hours (for German congratulatory dinners are not amongst
the briefest of ceremonies) at Herr Süsmeyer’s table under the proposed
circumstances, he had declined, on the plea that it was a very busy
day at the works, and he could not possibly be spared before evening.
At the evening meal (the _Abendbrod_), Herr Süsmeyer insisted that
he should be present; and Myles, not quite sure, when it came to the
point, that the last arrangement was not worse than the first, had
perforce consented.

The house was lighted up, he saw, as he approached. There were lights
in the windows of those guest-chambers which had once been the pride of
her life to the _selige Amalie_ of Herr Süsmeyer. There, in that house,
under that roof, he was to meet Adrienne again--no longer the girl
whom he might dare to love because she was free, but as the wife of
Sebastian Mallory, henceforth to be looked upon with other eyes. A rush
of recollections, sweet and bitter, alike filled his mind for a moment,
and were very strong.

But his will was still stronger. He had not endured his years of
sorrow, trial, and probation, to emerge, at the last, a weaker and
worse man than he had been at first. He was prepared to endure the pain
that awaited him, _piene forte et dure_ though it might be--to endure
and perhaps, in the end to conquer it; to bear it, moreover, so that it
and its cause should be known to himself alone.

It was with a feeling of sadness, but without any of bitterness, that
he entered the house. He felt clearly and distinctly that he could meet
his successful rival without a feeling of grudging or ill-will.

He was ushered into the large commodious room which was Herr Süsmeyer’s
library, and in which he always sat when alone, or with intimate
friends. Myles, going in, saw his old master in his gala dress of
faultless black cloth and dazzling linen, his gouty foot laid up on
the stool before him; his best-pleased smile upon his face, looking up
to where Sebastian Mallory stood talking, his elbow resting on the top
of the piano. There was no one else in the room. Sebastian, who was
looking towards the door, changed his position quickly as Myles came
in, and went to meet him with outstretched hand.

‘Ah, Heywood, I am glad to see you again. We were talking about you at
this instant.’

Myles found it strangely hard at first to return the greeting, but
he sternly beat back the grudging feeling which momentarily raised
its head, and spoke with cordiality. How well Sebastian looked! How
happy! How self-possessed, and at harmony with life and circumstances,
naturally, thought Myles. He had everything to make him so. He was
little changed. Perhaps there was a degree more of animation or
abruptness in his manner; a little more of the active combatant, and
less of the amused bystander, looker-on at the world’s game. That was
natural too, thought Myles, and to be expected, while Sebastian was
thinking he had never seen any man with manner, expression, almost
appearance, so completely changed as this ‘revolutionary weaver,’ as
Hugo von Birkenau had once called him. He could scarcely realise the
excessive change which had taken place. All the old froward defiance
appeared to have vanished, and instead there was

    ‘The reason calm, the temperate will,
    Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill,’

which were the qualities he himself most highly prized in man and
woman. They stood patent on his ex-workman’s broad brow, in his steady
eyes, and upon his firmly, though not sourly, set lips. Sebastian was
divided between pleased surprise and self-congratulation on his own
foresight; for, from the first, he had hoped and expected to see Myles
turn into something of this kind.

Occupied with these feelings, the two young men scarcely spoke, but
left Herr Süsmeyer to do the talking, which was exactly what he wished.
The first thing that really roused them to reality again was a remark
of Herr Süsmeyer’s:

‘Your dear wife (_Ihre liebe Frau_) is absent a long time, _mein
Bester_.’

‘Oh,’ said Sebastian, with a sudden flash of the eyes, which did not
escape Myles, ‘she will not be long. I told her at what time you took
your supper. She was resting when I saw her.’

‘So!’ said Herr Süsmeyer, adding, for the hundredth time, ‘I trust she
finds herself accommodated with all she wants upstairs.’

‘Oh, everything, thank you. She says she thinks German hospitality is
the most delightful she ever had.’

‘German hospitality!’ thought Myles. ‘Strange! She passed her happiest
years in Germany; she told me so.’

While he was marvelling at this (to him) peculiar remark of
Sebastian’s, the rustle of a silken gown became audible on the polished
floor of the passage; _she_ was coming now.

‘There she is!’ said Sebastian, catching the sound too, and starting
forward to open the door.

‘I hope I’m not very late,’ said a voice--(silvery, though not _the_
voice)--and it was just at that moment that Myles began to wonder if he
were labouring under some wild and extraordinary hallucination--whether
long brooding and the last blow had really driven him mad.

He was conscious, but in a dream-like, unreal manner, of rising, as
Sebastian led a lady into the room--a lady who laughed a happy laugh.
He was conscious, also dreamily, of seeing a figure which had been in
his thoughts quite lately--a tall, superbly shaped, queenly figure--not
the figure of Adrienne; of seeing a lovely face, glowing with a soft
flush of health and happiness; of meeting eyes which, for darkness and
fire, might match his own; of seeing a long, white throat, a dress of
silk and lace, rings flashing on white hands, and a dazzling smile
making the brilliant whole more brilliant still. Nothing like a sweet
violet, indeed, but a rich and gorgeous rose, in the full pride of its
queenly beauty.

‘Helena, this is Mr. Heywood, of whom you have often heard me speak.
Heywood, Mrs. Mallory.’

(‘How fearfully he stared at me, dear!’ said Helena afterwards. ‘He
is really a very remarkable-looking young man, and I liked him when I
talked to him; but he stared most alarmingly at first.’)

Myles was still dimly aware that the brilliant vision, which he kept
expecting to see fade away like a dissolving view, to be followed by
that of Adrienne, held out her hand graciously, saying something about
‘My husband has often told me about you,’ or words to that effect; and
that he took the hand and bowed over it--very creditably, considering
his state of mind. Then Sebastian placed a chair for--yes, his wife--it
must be his wife, Myles argued within himself, and the conversation
was taken up, and he listened to it in silence for a time, gradually
comprehending that he had been labouring under a delusion, but a
different delusion than he had imagined. By and by he became able to
answer some remark addressed to him by Helena, and then she continued
to talk to him, and Myles found himself being drawn out to show to the
best advantage, saying clever things which he had had no idea that he
could say, until they were elicited by the tact and sympathy of a woman
like Helena. Still, he could not altogether get rid of the sensation
that he was in a dream, and he continued to feel so for the rest of the
evening.

When he was going away, Sebastian asked him if he could see him on the
following morning.

‘At any time you please,’ said Myles.

‘Then I will call at the works in the forenoon. I can soon say what I
have to say.’

On that understanding they parted.




CHAPTER III.

WHICH WINS?


The following forenoon, while it was yet early, Myles saw Sebastian
coming through the great yard, towards the office where he sat. His
face wore an expression of gravity--even of trouble--and he frowned
thoughtfully as he came along.

Myles took him into his private room. He could not help thinking of how
he had received him on that eventful morning when he came driving up to
the office at Thanshope with Hugo beside him, and Myles smiled a little
sadly at the change.

‘You came on business, perhaps,’ suggested Myles.

‘Yes; but I had no idea myself, until about an hour ago, how pressing
the business was. Herr Süsmeyer and I were talking about you last
evening before you came. He tells me his son is on his way home, and
that he intends devoting himself to business.’

‘Yes; I believe that is true.’

‘Under those circumstances, I presume, your position would be somewhat
changed.’

‘Certainly. It would naturally become more subordinate.’

‘Will you like that?’

Myles shrugged his shoulders.

‘Herr Süsmeyer was talking to me about it. He gave me a very high
character of you. He very much regrets your having to take a secondary
position. He says he would be very sorry to part with you for many
reasons, but not if you left him to your own advantage.’

‘Does Herr Süsmeyer want to get rid of me?’ asked Myles.

‘On the very contrary. He only wishes to see your position improved. I
may as well come to the point. You would hear that I have been returned
as the representative of Thanshope, in Parliament.’

‘Yes. I think the Thanshope people showed their good sense there, at
any rate,’ said Myles, with a smile.

‘Let us hope so. But you will easily understand that such a position
will take me away from home a good deal, and make me unable to attend
to my business as fully as I have done.’

‘Naturally,’ said Myles, with a sudden, quick glance upwards, as he
first saw the drift of Sebastian’s remarks. His face flushed, and he
rose from his chair, pacing about the room.

‘For some time Mr. Sutcliffe has been quite unfit for the post he
held--I mean, as regards bodily health. I have wanted very much to
provide him with an assistant, but did not know how to manage it
without hurting his feelings. My conversation with Herr Süsmeyer
decided me to ask you to take the post. Since then--in fact, this
very morning--I have a telegram from Wilson with the news of poor
Sutcliffe’s death. I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I liked him well.
Such faithful probity, such diligence, and such capacity, are not found
in one man in a hundred. But, long ago, I thought I had discovered
them all in you, and my errand to you this morning is to ask if you
will take Mr. Sutcliffe’s post in my business. Your energy, vigour,
and the talents for business which Herr Süsmeyer tells me you have,
would be invaluable to me, and without doubt the connection would be an
advantageous one for you. What do you say?’

Myles had come to a stop in his restless walk, his hands plunged in
his pockets, his brows knit, his eyes somewhat downcast. He did not
look elated. His first words were not an explicit answer to Sebastian’s
question.

‘I think you are the most generous man I ever knew, sir,’ he said at
last, almost abruptly.

‘That is beside the question. There is no talk of generosity, but of
a business connection, a contract entered into by us for our mutual
advantage.’

‘It would at least be very much to my advantage. Have you not
considered that there are plenty of men, employers like yourself, who
would be glad to see sons of theirs placed with you, and would furnish
capital too, as a premium?’

‘_Mon Dieu!_ yes, I know. I have had hints to that effect from more
than one already. It does not suit me to do anything of the kind.
I don’t want a young gentleman with capital, whom I shall have to
teach. I want a business man, who can really take commercial care
off my shoulders when cares of another kind are laid upon them. I am
not a fellow to do things in a hurry. The whole matter has been well
considered, and it is a great object with me to secure you. As to
terms, we could come to some satisfactory arrangement, I doubt not.
What I want to know now is, will you come to me, and take the place of
manager of my business?’

Again Myles began to pace the room, biting his lip and frowning
desperately.

‘You must think me strangely callous and indifferent, not to jump at
such an offer,’ he began.

‘No; I see you don’t want to come. I know your reasons. No,’ he added,
as Myles started, ‘not your very reason, but I know that when you left
Thanshope it was in the hope never to see it again; and that desire has
not yet changed.’

‘No it has never changed,’ he owned.

‘But, if I guess rightly, there is no actual, tangible obstacle to your
return. It is a strong private feeling of repugnance on your own part,
arising from some cause or causes to me unknown. Is it not so?’

‘Yes, it is so.’

‘Well; still I ask you to come. Come and try, at least. Fight it down,
and come and revisit your city of the dead. Come and try whether there
may not be new life hidden for you there.’

Myles shook his head.

‘There is not that,’ said he.

‘Then, to put it in another light, come because I ask you, to oblige
me. Surely all that wrath and misunderstanding which once existed
between us is burnt out for ever now. I am certain we can act together
in most things. And--excuse me, I have no wish to be impertinent--but
let me tell you that Stonegate is always empty now; and if it were not,
I have introduced you to my wife.’

Myles turned abruptly away. Stonegate always empty! Whether empty or
inhabited, he had forfeited all right to approach it.

‘With the best wishes in the world for friendship, that would have
divided us, would it not?’ continued Sebastian, who, when he took
up the probe, was not wont to lay it down again, with the operation
half finished, deterred by the anguished face or fainting mien of the
patient.

‘Yes,’ was the only answer.

‘But it is gone. I know not what life may hold for you in the future;
I do know that you have suffered in the past, and that places where
one has had that kind of suffering are haunted, and full of ghosts;
but again I urge you--come! I think you are leading a morbid, foolish
life here, rendered, by the motives which prompt it, not a particularly
healthy one, and----’

‘Say no more, sir. I will come. I knew I should come, as soon as you
asked me. No wish of yours could be other than a command to me now. It
was only that I could not force myself to say yes. But now I say it. I
will go whenever you like--that is, whenever Herr Süsmeyer will spare
me.’

‘That is spoken as I hoped you would speak,’ said Sebastian, heartily.
‘Let us shake hands upon it.’

‘On my agreement to take you for my lawful master, and serve you
faithfully and honestly,’ said Myles, with rather a forced smile, as he
grasped Sebastian’s hand.

‘I suppose that is the foundation of all such agreements, but I trust
we shall be something more worthy of us both than mere master and
servant. At least, you need not be afraid of rusting. I have dozens of
plans which I have never had time or assistants to carry out. Now, with
my wife, and I hope you to help me too, I shall get along splendidly.’

‘I am glad to hear there is plenty of work,’ said Myles. ‘I was to
have left here in a couple of days for a holiday. Suppose I went to
Thanshope direct, instead of Berlin, and the other places I had thought
of. That would leave the field clear to Herr Süsmeyer and his son, and
I could get to work at once.’

‘Better take the holiday first, hadn’t you?’ said Sebastian. ‘It may be
long enough before you have the chance of another.’

‘Thank you; but I would much rather go straight to work. The holiday
was none of my seeking. It was Herr Süsmeyer’s doing.’

‘Very well. I will telegraph to Wilson that you will be there in a few
days, and he must have the books ready for you. I will just give you
an idea of how we stand at present, and leave you to shake down before
I come back, eh?’ said Sebastian, with as much nonchalance as if he
had been proposing nothing more difficult than that they should take
a stroll together. He knew, this astute young man, the kind of nature
he was dealing with. To have proposed coming to Thanshope with Myles,
and there standing by him and smoothing out his way for him, would
have been in the highest degree distasteful to the latter. The charge
imposed upon him was a heavy one; it promised him arduous and incessant
occupation for some time, at least until Sebastian’s return from
abroad. Already the idea of Thanshope looked less like a grim phantom.
The way became more practicable. He brightened visibly, to Sebastian’s
private amusement.

‘Yes. How soon will you return?’

‘It is impossible to say. It will depend a great deal upon the reports
you send me. This is my wedding tour, really, though it has had a
queer beginning, and I think my wife has a right to complain of being
dragged about to German manufacturing towns in order to settle business
matters, when I promised to take her to the Italian Lakes. We shall
try to go on there, and to Switzerland, and make a regular holiday of
it, before coming back to settle really to business. You will do the
best you can.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Myles. ‘I hope and think that my reports will
allow you to take a pretty long holiday.’

‘Then I can go,’ said Sebastian. ‘We leave to-morrow morning. Suppose
you come up to Herr Süsmeyer’s to supper to-night, as you did last
night, and we will take an hour afterwards for business--yes? And now I
must be off.’

These rapidly made arrangements were all faithfully carried out.
In less than a week Myles, armed with Sebastian’s explanations and
instructions, was on his way to Thanshope.




CHAPTER IV.

                                    ‘Yet, ere the phantoms flee,
    Which that house, and heath, and garden, made dear to thee erewhile,
      Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free
    From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile.’


It would be difficult to overrate the completeness of the change which
had supervened, in both the outer and inner life of Myles Heywood,
between the time when he had left his native town, and now, when he
returned to it.

He was very busy, very quiet, and very lonely. Sebastian had acted with
the soundest wisdom in leaving his new manager to take his place alone,
and alone to fight down the obstacles which he encountered, alone to
strike back the ill-will, the jealousy, and the insubordination--all of
which things raised their heads and gaped upon him with their mouths on
his first assumption of his new office.

Myles had accepted the post calmly, but he had known perfectly well
that he assumed no light task. It would have been comparatively easy,
if there had not been the envy and prejudices of old friends to be
overcome. Thanks to the first-rate management of Mr. Sutcliffe, and
to Sebastian’s own ubiquitous eye, the whole machine was in complete
working order; but this, perhaps, only left all the more room for
smaller spites and jealousies to make themselves felt. There was, first
of all, Wilson, the faithful old cashier who had once been Myles’s
superior: he was a first-rate accountant and bookkeeper, but no manager
or man of business, and utterly devoid of the faculty of arranging
or regulating things. None knew it better than himself, yet it was
something of a trial to his feelings to see the young fellow, whom he
had known from the time when he had begun life as a ‘half-time’ of
eleven, placed over him. In justice to both the men, it must be said
that this little jealousy soon wore off. Myles won Wilson’s heart by
his manner of treating him with scrupulous respect in the presence of
third persons, and without pretensions of any kind when alone with him.
Wilson, too, was an intelligent man, who knew a clever man of business
when he met him. Myles very soon proved his perfect capacity for his
post, and after that Wilson’s soreness was at an end. He backed up ‘Mr.
Heywood’ on every possible occasion, and suffered no appeal from the
said Mr. Heywood’s behests.

Myles found it a somewhat more difficult matter to dispose of others,
old comrades of his own, who were working away in the same old places,
no higher than they ever had been; and who, unable to rise themselves,
were lost in astonishment that he should be put over their heads.
Some of them were strongly inclined to be provokingly familiar; first
jocosely, and then maliciously, insubordinate; utterly unconscious
of the mental gulf between him and them. But the stronger brain and
will of the man who had risen beyond them was able to check these
manifestations of feeling. One or two sharp examples, and a most
unequivocal demonstration that no nonsense would be endured, reduced
them to their natural places. Ever afterwards he had the name amongst
them of having become hard, inconsiderate, and a fine gentleman. He
knew it and regretted it, but accepted it as inevitable, remembering
the time when he had resented the fact that the law did not compel all
men to live on the same level.

The new manager’s eyes appeared to be ubiquitous--nothing escaped them;
but good work and good conduct were as keenly noted by him as bad, and
he let the approval be as distinctly felt as the displeasure. There
was, moreover, another thing which soon began to tell more than all the
others put together: he was utterly unconscious of deserving ill-will;
he was so evidently bent upon work, hard work, and nothing but work,
and not upon hectoring it over those who had become his subordinates,
that distrust gradually subsided. Sneers and scoffs had no effect
whatever upon him; they were ignored in a manner so complete as to
recoil with disconcerting effect upon their originators. That grave
absorbed face, those eyes which noted everything, that ready presence
of mind, that seemingly unwearying, untiring strength, that utter
disregard of the amount of work which fell upon his own shoulders, soon
began to tell upon individuals, and, through them, upon the mass.

Myles wrote Sebastian regular accounts of his business transactions,
hoping they met with his approval. He never named any disputes with the
work-people, leaving his master to infer that he was, as the latter had
said, ‘shaking down’ to his new work.

Outside that work his life was rather colourless. Mary and Harry no
longer lived at Thanshope. Harry had found work in a manufacturing
village some five miles distant; he lived in a cottage on the borders
of an open moor, where the air was pure, free, and bracing. He had
grown, physically, much stronger in consequence of the change, and
thought that his hearing, if not actually better, did not become
worse so rapidly as when he lived in the town. Occasionally, on a
Sunday, Myles would go over to see them, and nurse his sister’s little
boy on his knee, feeling a passion of tenderness which he could not
express for the little round-faced thing, with its large, solemn, dark
eyes--like his own, Mary said, with affectionate pride. He would walk
with Harry over the moors, and gratify him by shouting descriptions of
his foreign life into his failing ears. But, except for this one day
in the week, they were lost to him; their incessant toil, and his own,
preventing further intercourse.

Very often his dead brother occupied a place in his mind. Poor Ned!
What a life he could have given him now! He could have had him to live
with him, and bought him books and pictures, and given him music, and
made his existence a poetry to him. But it was too late: Edmund slept
his quiet sleep, killed off by the want and the sorrow which had been
too much for them all, at the time of the great distress.

One face was missing--that of Hoyle, his old enemy. Myles made some
casual inquiries about him one day, and heard that he had left
Thanshope about a year ago. He never knew the part the man had played
between him and Adrienne.

The young men who had once been friends of his (it seemed as if it
must be hundreds of years ago), and to whose debating society he had
once belonged, received him with a mixture of timidity and admiration.
Many of them had advocated--perhaps still did so--the Proudhonistic
theory--‘all property is a crime.’ At one time Myles had believed
and ardently advocated the same delusion. He had lived faster and
grown faster than these old friends of his, and now they were divided
between embarrassment at his open support of one of the most flagrant
property-holders of the district, and admiration of his cleverness,
which had swept such gains into his own lap. Myles felt little sympathy
with them, and had the uncomfortable sensation that while they were
shy of discussing things before his face, they were very voluble, and
chiefly about himself, behind his back.

He found his most congenial associate in Mr. Lyttleton, the Factory
Inspector of Thanshope and some surrounding towns, who lived in
Thanshope--a middle-aged, highly educated man, who was attracted,
the first time he saw him, by the keen yet sombre countenance of Mr.
Mallory’s new manager; and who, when he learnt the outlines of Myles’s
history, became still more interested in him, asked him to his house,
and there introduced him to some young professional men, of a higher
class, taken all in all, than those he had known in Eisendorf. The
benefit was mutual, and Myles’s circle of acquaintances, if not of
intimates, thus gradually extended. Almost everywhere he pleased, but
everywhere there was the constant wonder why Heywood was so reserved,
so almost melancholy in manner, and so sparing in speech; ‘much more
like a Spanish grandee,’ observed a young doctor to Mr. Lyttleton,
‘than a man who has risen from the ranks of the working-men. I can’t
make the fellow out.’

Very few people could make the fellow out, though many seemed to find a
decided pleasure in trying to do so.

Thus time passed until Sebastian and his wife came home, and then
Myles found that ‘master and servant’ was indeed far from expressing
the relation which Mallory wished to exist between them. Sebastian’s
regard, once won, was dealt out with no niggard hand. He had got
Myles to yield to his will; now it seemed he wished for more than
respect--regard. The best part of Myles’s nature responded to the call;
his liking warmed each day, till it grew to an affection, reserved and
reticent indeed in outward show, but inwardly glowing as warmly as
Sebastian himself could desire. The former ill-will had burnt itself
out. Master and man were on a footing of perfect amity and accord.
The more Myles heard of Sebastian’s plans, thoughts, and schemes,
the better he liked them, and the wiser he felt them to be. He could
appreciate them now; three years ago he could only have scoffed at
them. He entered heartily into them all; he worked unremittingly till
Sebastian declared he was afraid of his energy, and refused rest,
saying he neither required nor desired it. Whatever his own private
and personal hopes, thoughts, or wishes (if he had any), he kept them
strictly and entirely to himself. Helena was very kind to him, and
they were very good friends; she, woman like, always thinking of that
background in his life, that hinted love-story, of which Sebastian had
given her some glimpses. Occasionally she and her husband would speak
of it.

‘Sebastian, you know him best, and what he is capable of. Do you think
he is in love with that girl yet?’

‘I think, most reverend matron, that he is in love with that girl--who,
by-the-by, is rather older than yourself--yet.’

‘Then why doesn’t he find her out and propose to her?’

‘I have not asked him.’

‘He cannot think she is too good for him.’

‘I should not be surprised if he did.’

‘Absurd!’

‘Pray take it upon yourself to tell him so. No doubt you will succeed
in convincing him.’

‘You are ridiculous, sir.’

When he, Myles, had by any chance a leisure hour, he would go--even
after the nights had grown dark, and frosts of winter had set in--up
the dreary length of Blake Street to the wicket of the empty Stonegate,
and, leaning upon that support, would stand gazing at the emptiness
and the desolation of it. No one lived there. A woman came some few
times in the week, and spent the day there, lighting fires and throwing
open shutters and windows; but that was all. It had always, at the
best of times, been a dreary-looking, sad, cold place, but now it was
forlorn in its mournfulness. If it had not been so utterly lonely,
Myles would not have gone there. No one he knew ever came past. He had
his watch-post to himself, and probably found some kind of mournful,
unsatisfactory joy in his vigils. Always it remained the same--empty,
closed, desolate--always void of her presence--always without sign or
indication that it would ever again be gladdened by it. Her name had
never been mentioned, either by him or his friends. He was absolutely
ignorant of where she was, or how; of what she was doing, whether she
were happy or sad; of every fact and circumstance connected with her.




CHAPTER V.

    ‘Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen;
    Du, du, liegst mir im Sinn;
    Du, du, machst mir viel Schmerzen--
        Weiss’ nicht wie gut ich Dir bin!’


The spell--the long silence--was broken at last. One evening towards
the end of April, when he had been seven months in Thanshope, he first
had any news of Adrienne. The Mallorys were in London, and had been
there since the opening of Parliament in the beginning of February.
Myles had had all the work and responsibility at home laid upon his
shoulders. His work for the day was over, and, the evening being fine
and the air pleasant, he turned out for his usual stroll up Blake
Street. As he came nearer to the house, he saw a man standing in the
garden, and as he approached still nearer, he recognised the man; he
was Brandon, Mr. Blisset’s old servant and factotum.

The windows in the front of the house were all open, and glittering
in the rays of an April sunset--mild and cool. Brandon was standing,
looking meditatively towards that sunset, and towards the moors to
which it formed a flaming background. His hands were in his pockets,
and he was softly whistling a tune.

Myles paused, and the man turned round. There was a mutual recognition.
Brandon had been three days in the town, and had heard all the
gossip there was--all about Myles’s changed position; and while he
looked pleased to see an old acquaintance, he touched his cap as to
a superior. Myles, wishing him good evening, rested his elbow on the
gate, and said.

‘Are you living in Thanshope?’

‘No, sir. I only came here for a few days on business.’

Myles was gratified that he could at once satisfy the deep yearning
that lay at his heart--to ask after Adrienne--and at the same time do
what was natural and to be expected; for who, if not her uncle’s old
servant, should know anything about her? He therefore inquired.

‘Do you ever hear anything of Miss Blisset now, since Mr. Blisset’s
death?’

Brandon looked surprised.

‘Hear of her, sir! I’m in her service.’

‘In her service?’ repeated Myles mechanically.

‘Yes, when my late master died, Miss Blisset was good enough to say
that she particularly wished me to remain with her, unless I had other
views, which I had not. I have served her and her family for thirty
years, and I hope never to serve any other.’

‘I had no idea you had remained with her. I am glad to hear it. She
must require a person to--an old servant, who will be like a friend to
her as well.’

‘Miss Blisset was so kind as to say, when she asked me to remain, that
she looked upon me as a friend. My wife and I are the only servants she
has.’

‘Ah! How is Miss Blisset--or rather, how was she when you left her?’

‘She was quite well, sir, thank you.’

‘Does she live in England?’

‘At present she is living in London, and we have been at Florence and
Dresden.’

‘Indeed! Does she mean to stay in London?’

‘I think she will stay until autumn. Then she is going abroad with some
friends. I am not sure where, but I think to Italy. Most likely she
will take either my wife or me with her, and leave the other behind.’

‘Then she does not think of coming to Thanshope at all?’

‘No. Her lease of this house expires directly, and she is not going to
renew it. She has seen Mr. Mallory in London, and made arrangements to
give it up. I have come to see about storing the furniture.’

‘Yes. When shall you be returning?’

‘In about three days, sir, I expect.’

‘The house will then be empty.’

‘Yes.’

There was a pause. Myles’s heart was beating. Brandon was looking at
him inquiringly, as if he awaited some further word or some message to
be delivered to his mistress. But Myles dared not send any message.
He could not forget how he had ignored her own message to him, though
head and heart alike cried out that he was wrong. In ordinary concerns
he was clear-headed and practical enough: where his love for Adrienne
stepped in, his nature seemed changed; he became timid, nervous, and
lost all self-confidence. To have sent a mere conventional phrase
of compliments or kind regards, would, it seemed to him, have been
deliberate, insolent bravado--after what had passed. If he could have
seen her, if she would have spoken to him, he might have confessed his
fault and begged her pardon; but there was no word, no message that he
could send through even the most trusted of old servants--through any
third person.

After a few more words with Brandon, he wished him good night and moved
on, leaving that worthy man to think how ill-mannered he was. ‘And he
used to sit and look at my young lady in a way that any one must have
noticed,’ thought Brandon, rather indignantly.

Myles walked homewards, deciding in his own mind that he would not go
near Blake Street again until after Brandon should be gone. He pictured
Adrienne in London, with plenty of friends, visiting the Mallorys,
happy--the man had given no sort of hint that she was not happy.
Suppose he happened to be in London, to be in the same room with her,
to pass her in the street! He had forfeited the right to claim her
acquaintance; he did not think he would have the courage to address
her. He had made a great mess, a horrible mistake, when he repulsed
that advance of hers; for that it had been an advance there could be
now no doubt, since there had never been anything between her and
Sebastian Mallory. What a shock, what offence, that behaviour of his
must have caused her! The dead silence which had supervened on her part
showed how she must have taken it.

His heart ached a good deal as he walked towards his home. What
profited him all this solitary, lonely prosperity? If he could have
exchanged it all for one more of those evenings at Stonegate in the
old days--for one more of those glances from Adrienne, which used to
intoxicate him with their half-frank, half-timid expression--he would
have flung all he had to the winds, and begun life again to-morrow,
if he could have seen her once again betrayed into such a look, such
a tone, as that with which she had said, ‘Oh, Myles!’ one Sunday
afternoon. But that would never be. She too had found that Thanshope
was not the place for her. She would never come to Stonegate again.
When next he saw it, it would be empty, dismantled, a shell. He
wondered--and immediately felt eager that it should be so--whether
Sebastian Mallory would let _him_ have Stonegate. There was no other
place in which he cared to live. A fear seized him, lest it might
already have been promised to some one else. He hastened his steps,
and as soon as he got in wrote to Sebastian, and dropped the letter
with his own hand into the letter-box. He had written urgently. If Mr.
Mallory had not already disposed of Stonegate, might he, Myles Heywood,
become its tenant, at whatever rent Mr. Mallory pleased, even to the
half of his income? Repairs and everything of that kind (he mixed up
business and sentiment in a hurried jumble) were to be his concern, and
his alone. And might he have an answer soon? He did not care whether
the reasons of his eagerness were guessed or not by Sebastian.

By return of post he had an answer:

  ‘DEAR HEYWOOD--I am glad to find there is something you seem to
  care much about, outside business. Since Miss Blisset is leaving
  Stonegate, I could have no other tenant so desirable as you, and I
  assure you applications have not flowed in with the rapidity you
  seem to think. You are at liberty to take possession as soon as she
  vacates, which I suppose will be in a few days from now. It is not
  a residence which I should have exactly chosen out from amongst all
  others, but _chacun à son goût_.--Yours truly,

    ‘S. M.’

Myles carried this note about with him in his breast-pocket, as if it
had been a magic talisman. He studiously adhered to his resolution not
to go near Blake Street till the three days of which Brandon had spoken
should have elapsed, but the shadow of the deserted house ‘haunted him
like a passion’--a longing, intense and increasing, concentrated his
thoughts upon that ‘house, and heath, and garden,’ the ‘phantoms’ of
which had been ‘so dear to him erewhile.’

Not until the fourth evening after this interview with Brandon did he
again take his way along the familiar street.

It was even such an evening as that earlier one. The air was mild, the
sun, now declining, had been bright--all nature smiled. It was growing
dusk as he drew near the house. Why was his heart so low? Why had he
such a great sensation of loneliness--of being cast adrift? Why did sad
words of a sad song ring in his ears, and seem to be borne in whispers
to him with each breath of wind--

          ‘Away! away! to thy sad and silent home!
            Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth!
          Watch the dim shades, as like ghosts they go and come,
            And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.’

    ‘The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall fall about thine head,
      The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet,
    But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the
      dead,
      Ere midnight’s frown and morning’s smile, ere thou and peace may
        meet.’

He felt the idea dreadfully prophetic; he felt as if that were the fate
he had selected for himself, as he at last rested his arms upon the
homely wicket of that lonesome abode, and looked towards the front of
the house.

He was prepared for closed shutters, melancholy wisps of straw and
scraps of paper, doors bolted and barred--such as mark, with a brand
not to be mistaken, the deserted house. What he beheld was an open door
and an open window--the window to the right hand; he could see that the
hall was stripped of its fittings, that the windows were curtainless,
but the house was not empty--as yet, its hearth was not ‘desolated.’

What is that moving within the room? A figure; perhaps one of ‘the dim
shades, as like ghosts they go and come.’ So dull are our senses, when
night is falling, that even he did not recognise whose form it was; it
was not to a sight, but to a sound, that his nerves suddenly thrilled,
and his senses became tense and alert.

As he stood, a chord was struck upon a piano within--another. A slight
shiver shook him, but still he was not convinced until a voice floated
out--the softly melodious voice which he knew in every fibre of his
heart, not loudly, but with a subdued intensity of feeling which made
him also absolutely tremble. For the song she sang brought hopes,
doubts, fears--and again, wild and tremulous, chaotic hopes, crowding
into his mind. It was the homely old German _Volkslied_--

    ‘Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen.’

To every word his heart throbbed, as she apostrophised, with the
abandon of one who believes herself unheard and unlistened to, that
absent one--

    ‘Thou, love, shrined in my heart,
    Thou, love, shrined in my mind!’

and sang how he ‘caused her much pain, and knew not how much he was
loved.’ A pause after that, till she went on to the second verse--

    ‘So, love, e’en as I love thee,
    So, so, by thee I’d be loved.’

‘For,’ said the song, ‘I must ever be drawn most tenderly towards thee.’

    (‘Die, die, zärtlichsten Triebe
    Fühle ich ewig auf Dich.’)

Towards thee--towards whom? Her voice vibrated, almost failed, as
she went on with a sad, pondering accent, to the wonder expressed in
the third verse, as to whether _he_, that absent one of the careless
spirit, might be trusted, as he might trust to her; and the notes
swelled out again--

    ‘Weiss’ nicht wie gut ich Dir bin.’

Myles’s head had sunk down upon his arms. The wonder, the mystery, the
wild hope, that came surging over his heart almost unmanned him, and
still the voice floated out, as she sang the last verse of the song.
_Could_ it be? Might he dare to hope that, as she chose _that_ hour,
that place, that song in which to express her feeling, that it _was_
he--for she was singing now--

    ‘My love, when in the distance
      In dreams thy face I see,
    My heart, with fond insistance,
      Turns evermore to thee.’

Whose face? Her voice had faltered with the energy of her own feeling,
on the last lines--

    ‘Dann, dann, wünsch ich so gerne,
    Dass uns die Liebe vereint!’

She sang the last cadences again, as if she could not leave them, as if
weary of waiting and separation--

    ‘Ja, ja, ja, ja!
    Dass uns die Liebe vereint!’

With a heart full of the wildest, most chaotic doubt, wonder, surmise,
Myles stood, his head raised again, his dark eyes burning, as their
wont was when he was agitated, upon the open window. The dusk was too
deep now for him to see anything in the room.

His brain, his heart, all of him, were thrilling with the aspiration
conveyed in the last untranslatable words of the song--the passionate,
simple, primitive--

    ‘Dass uns die Liebe vereint!’

He saw nothing, heard nothing, until a footstep paused, as if arrested
in surprise, beside him--a figure interposed itself between his eyes
and the window at which he was gazing.

‘_Adrienne!_’

The name fell, like a sigh, without his will or wish, almost without
his knowledge, from his lips. He scarcely knew himself, or where he
was, or anything, except that she stood there, and had paused, stopped,
was looking at him. It was light enough to see that she had recognised
him on coming close to him, and that, when their eyes met, she was
trembling.

When she looked into his face, her own turned paler, and a startled
‘Oh!’ fell from her lips.

For a moment they both stood silent thus. Then Myles, seeing that she
still trembled and looked startled, remembered suddenly where he was,
and how it all was. He bared his head and stood before her, saying, in
a low voice,

‘Pardon me! I forgot! I will not intrude. I did not know you were here.’

He had turned to go, was absolutely moving, when she herself opened the
wicket wide, and said, in an indescribable tone,

‘Will you leave me without one word, as before?’

The tremulous appeal was a command. He entered the garden, looking at
her, as if awaiting a direction from her. But at last he said,

‘It was that which made me fear to look at you. I can scarcely believe
you will speak to me. Do you mean,’ he added, with a sudden appeal in
his voice--‘do you mean that I may come in, and--talk to you?’

For all answer Adrienne held out her right hand, and closed the wicket
with the other, so that they stood together within the garden.

Myles took that hand, but he could not at first speak.

‘Miss Blisset, I behaved unpardonably--like a ruffian--two years ago. I
do not deserve your forgiveness.’

They had been moving towards the house, and they now stood in the
almost dismantled drawing-room, by the open piano.

‘At first,’ said Adrienne, in a voice which still trembled, ‘I thought
I never could forgive you. It was cruel on your part----’

‘It was brutal--unpardonable.’

‘No; you were mad with grief--I knew it afterwards--and you could not
know what it was I had to say to you.’

‘What was it?’ he asked, below his breath.

‘It was to say good-bye, and something more--to say that I feared I had
been unkind! I had seemed to desert you--in your trouble, but that
it had never been so in reality, for I had thought of you constantly;
and,’ she added steadily, ‘to tell you, too, that I had heard
something--that some report had been set going about you and me----’

‘You heard _that_! It was to spare you that--it was because I was
almost mad at the thought----’

‘It was to tell you that I prized your friendship beyond all those
slanders, and that nothing could ever shake it. I did wish to tell you
that; but after you were gone, after you had left me in that manner,
Myles, I dared not write.’

‘Fool that I was! But I have been paying the price of my folly for two
years without ceasing. Till seven months ago I believed you were going
to marry Sebastian Mallory. You may suppose I was anxious for nothing
so much as to be silent--to hear nothing of you.’

Adrienne made no answer, till Myles said,

‘And now you are going to leave Thanshope?’

‘Yes, for ever.’

‘You have come to say good-bye to the old place?’

‘I never meant to come. Brandon found some difficulties about the
arrangements I wished him to make, and telegraphed for me. I came this
afternoon, and am leaving again to-morrow morning.’

Adrienne had lost her self-command as he gained more of his. Her voice
shook uncontrollably, as she leaned her elbow on the top of the piano.

‘I shall always feel happy that I have been able to see you, to tell
you that, whether you forgave me or not, I have repented, and do
repent, my churlishness, and to thank you for your--your _unspeakable_
kindness to a rough, stupid, clumsy fellow like me,’ said he. ‘Your
great goodness and your gentle influence will go with me through my
life; and--may you never know a sorrow or a care as long as you live!’

The aspiration appeared useless, for Adrienne had buried her face in
her hands, and was weeping with a quiet sorrow that had something of
despair in it.

‘But before I go,’ he added, ‘will you answer me a question? Perhaps
I have no right to ask it, but I must, I have been listening to your
singing; I heard every word.’

‘Yes,’ was the almost inaudible answer.

‘Tell me if you had some one in your mind when you sang that song.’

‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, still scarce above her breath.

‘You had!’ he exclaimed, and forgot the solemn farewell, the almost
benediction, he had just bestowed upon her, while he hurried his words
out desperately. ‘Oh, Adrienne! forgive me if I am too presumptuous;
but have mercy! Tell me, when you sang ‘Du, du, liegst mir im
Herzen’.... But I am too bold--I----’

‘Do not look at me so strangely!’ she began, raising her tear-stained
face. ‘Tell me----Ah!’ she suddenly exclaimed, as with one movement
they clasped each other, ‘it is you, Myles--it was always you; but you
were so dreadfully proud.’

‘Do you mean,’ he asked, after a long pause, ‘that if I had come to you
that night--if I had forgotten myself, and told you, as I felt sure I
should, that I loved you, and that no “friendship” could be anything
but a wretched mockery to me--do you mean that _then_ you would have
taken me, ruined and wretched, and without one bright thought or one
hope for the future?’

‘If you had come then, and told me all that, you need not have gone
away without hope, and I should have spent a different two years than I
have done. But it is all right now,’ she added. ‘The probation is over,
my love, and you have borne it bravely.’

‘If you think so, it must be so; but at the time, I assure you, I felt
anything but brave. _Now_ I feel--I feel at rest,’ said Myles.

There was silence. The darkness gathered. The air blew softly in at the
window, and bore with it the faint sound of an old tune, in broken,
melodious chimes.


THE END.


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Transcriber’s note


Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Spelling of
surnames names were standardized

Other spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
changes:

  Page 113: “Another murmer indicative”     “Another murmur indicative”
  Page 138: “exclaimed Alkibiades”          “exclaimed Alcibiades”
  Page 140: “nor was he reasurred”          “nor was he reassured”






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