Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  The dinner was not such a dismal feast as he had imagined it would be. People are apt to accustom themselves very easily to an old friend’s removal, and the vicar and the lawyer seemed tolerably cheerful about their departed neighbour. They discussed his little eccentricities, his virtues, and his foibles, in an agreeable spirit, and did ample justice to his claret, of which, however, Mr. Clare said he had never been quite so good a judge as he had believed himself to be. They sat for a couple of hours over their dessert, sipping some Burgundy, of which Jasper Treverton had been especially proud, and John Treverton was the only one of the three who seemed troubled by gloomy thoughts.

  It was ten o’clock when Mr. Sampson proposed an adjournment to his own abode. He had sent a little note home to his sister before dinner, telling her of Mr. Treverton’s intended visit, and had ordered a fly from the inn, in which vehicle he and his guest drove to ‘The Laurels,’ a trim, bright-looking, modern house, with small rooms which were the very pink of neatness, so neat and new-looking indeed, that John Treverton fancied they could never have been lived in, and that the furniture must have been sent home from the upholsterer that very day.

  Thomas Sampson was a young man, and a bachelor. He had inherited an excellent business from his father, and had done a good deal to improve it himself, having a considerable capacity for getting on in life, and an ardent love of money-making. He had one sister, who lived with him. She was tolerably good-looking, in a pale, insipid way, with eyes of a cold light blue, and straight, silky hair of a nondescript brown.

  This young lady, whose name was Eliza, welcomed John Treverton with much politeness. There were not many men in the neighbourhood of Hazlehurst who could have borne comparison with that splendid military looking stranger, and Miss Sampson, who did not yet know the terms of Jasper Treverton’s will, supposed that this handsome young man was now master of the manor and all its dependencies. For his sake she had bestowed considerable pains on the adornment of the spare bed-room, which she had embellished with more fanciful pincushions, and ring stands and Bohemian glass scent-bottles, than are consistent with the masculine idea of comfort. For his gratification also she had ordered a reckless expenditure of coals in the keeping up of a blazing fire in the same smartly furnished chamber, which looked unspeakably small and mean to the eyes of John Treverton after the spacious rooms at the Manor-house.

  ‘I know of a room that will look meaner still,’ he said to himself,’ for this at least is clean and neat.’

  He went to bed, and slept better than he had done for many nights, but his dreams were full of Laura Malcolm. He dreamt that they were being married, and that as she stood beside him at the altar her face changed in some strange ghastly way into another face, a face he knew only too well.

  CHAPTER III. A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR.

  THE next day was fine, and Mr. Sampson and his visitor set out in a dogcart directly after breakfast on a tour of inspection. They got over a good deal of ground between an eight o’clock breakfast and a six o’clock dinner, and John Treverton had the pleasure of surveying many of the broad acres that were in all probability to be his own; but the farms which lay within a drive of Hazlehurst did not constitute a third of Jasper Treverton’s possessions. Mr. Sampson told his companion that the estates were worth about eleven thousand a year altogether, besides which there was an income of about three thousand more accruing from money in the funds. The old man had begun life with only six thousand a year, but some of his land bordered closely on the town of Beechampton, and had developed from agricultural land into building land in a manner that had increased its value seven-fold. He had lived quietly, and had added to his estate year after year by fresh purchases and investments, until it reached its present amount. To hear of such wealth was like some dream of fairy land to John Treverton. Mr. Sampson spoke of it as if to all intents and purposes it were already in the other’s possession. His sound legal mind could not conceive the possibility of any sentimental objection on the part of either the gentleman or the lady to the carrying out of a condition which was to secure the possession of that noble estate to both. Of course, in due time Mr. Treverton would make Miss Malcolm a formal offer, and she would accept him. Idiocy so abject on the part of either the gentleman or the lady as a refusal to comply with so easy a condition was scarcely within the limits of human folly.

  Looking at the matter from this point of view, Mr. Sampson was surprised to perceive a certain air of gloom and despondency about his companion which seemed quite unnatural to a man in his position. John Treverton’s eye kindled with a gleam of triumph as he gazed across the broad bare fields which the lawyer showed him; but in the next minute his face grew sombre again, and he listened to the description of the property with an absent air that was inexplicable to Thomas Sampson. The solicitor ventured to say as much by-and-bye, when they were driving homeward through the winter dusk.

  ‘Well you see, my dear Sampson, there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip,’ John Treverton answered, with that light airy tone which most people found particularly agreeable. ‘I must confess that the manner in which this estate has been left is rather a disappointment to me. My cousin Jasper told me that his death would make me a rich man. Instead of this I find myself with a blank year of waiting before me, and with my chances of coming into possession of this fortune entirely dependent upon the whims and caprices of a young lady.’

  ‘You don’t suppose for a moment that Miss Malcolm will refuse you?’

  John Treverton was so long before he answered this question, that the lawyer presently repeated it in a louder tone, fancying that it had not been heard upon the first occasion.

  ‘Do I think she’ll refuse me?’ repeated Mr. Treverton, in rather an absent tone. ‘Well, I don’t know about that. Women are apt to have romantic notions on the money question. She has enough to live upon, you see. She told me as much last night, and she may prefer to marry some one else. The very terms of this will are calculated to set a high-spirited girl against me.’

  ‘But she would know that in refusing you she would deprive you of the estate, and frustrate the wishes of her friend and benefactor. She’d scarcely be so ungrateful as to do that. Depend upon it, she’ll consider it her duty to accept you — not a very unpleasant duty either, to marry a man with fourteen thousand a year. Upon my word, Mr. Treverton, you seem to have a very poor opinion of yourself, when you imagine the possibility of Laura Malcolm refusing you.’

  John Treverton made no reply to this remark, and was silent during the rest of the drive. His spirits improved, or seemed to improve a little at dinner, however, and he did his best to make himself agreeable to his host and hostess. Miss Sampson thought him the most agreeable man she had ever met, especially when he consented to sit down to chess with her after dinner, and from utter listlessness and absence of mind allowed her to win three games running.

  ‘What do you think of Miss Malcolm, Mr. Treverton?’ she asked, by-and-bye, as she was pouring out the tea.

  ‘You mustn’t ask Mr. Treverton any questions on that subject, Eliza,’ said her brother, with a laugh.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘For a reason which I am not at liberty to discuss.’

  ‘Oh, indeed!’ said Miss Sampson, with a sudden tightening of her thin lips. ‘I had no idea — at least I thought — that Laura Malcolm was almost a stranger to Mr. Treverton.’

  ‘And you’re quite right in your supposition, Miss Sampson,’ answered John Treverton, ‘nor is there any reason why the subject should be tabooed. I think Miss Malcolm very handsome, and that her manner is remarkable for grace and dignity — and that is all I am able to think about her at present, for we are, as you say, almost strangers to each other. As far as I could judge she seemed to me to be warmly attached to my cousin Jasper.’

  Eliza Sampson shook her head rather contemptuously.

  ‘She had reason to be fond of him,’ she said. ‘Of course you are aware that she was completely destitute when he brought her
home, and her family were, I believe, a very disreputable set.’

  ‘I fancy you must be mistaken, Miss Sampson,’ John Treverton answered, with some warmth, ‘my cousin Jasper told me that Stephen Malcolm had been his friend and fellow-student at the University. He may have died poor, but I heard nothing which implied that he had fallen into disreputable courses.’

  ‘Oh, really,’ said Miss Sampson, ‘of course you know best, and, no doubt, whatever your cousin told you was correct. But to tell the truth Miss Malcolm has never been a favourite of mine. There’s a reserve about her that I’ve never been able to get over. I know the gentlemen admire her very much, but I don’t think she’ll ever have many female friends. And what is of so much consequence to a young woman as a female friend?’ concluded the lady sententiously.

  ‘Oh, the gentlemen admire her very much, do they?’ repeated John Treverton. ‘I suppose, then she has had several opportunities of marrying already?’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but I know of one man who is over head and ears in love with her.’

  ‘Would it be any breach of confidence on your part to say who the gentleman is?’

  ‘Oh, dear no. I found out the secret for myself, I assure you. Miss Malcolm has never condescended to tell me anything about her affairs. It is Edward Clare, the vicar’s son, I have seen them a good deal together. He used to be always making some excuse for dropping in at the Manor-house to talk to Mr. Treverton about old books, and papers for the Archaeological Society, and so on, and anybody could see that it was for Miss Malcolm’s sake he spent so much of his time there.’

  ‘Do you think she cared about him?’

  ‘Goodness knows. There’s no getting at what she thinks about any one. I did once ask her the question, but she turned it off in her cold, haughty way, saying that she liked Mr. Clare as a friend, and all that kind of thing.’

  Thomas Sampson had looked rather uneasy during this conversation.

  ‘You mustn’t listen to my sister’s foolish gossip, Treverton,’ he said; ‘it’s hard enough to keep women from talking scandal anywhere, but in such a place as this they seem to have nothing else to do.’

  John Treverton had taken his part in this conversation with a keener interest than he was prepared to acknowledge himself capable of feeling upon the subject of Laura Malcolm. What was she to him, that he should feel such a jealous anger against this unknown Edward Clare? Were not all his most deeply-rooted feelings in her disfavour? Was she not rendered unspeakably obnoxious to him by the terms of his kinsman’s will?

  ‘There’s something upon that man’s mind, Eliza,’ said Mr. Sampson, as he stood upon the hearthrug, warming himself in a thoughtful manner before the fire for a few minutes, after his guest had gone to bed. ‘Mark my words, Eliza, there’s something on John Treverton’s mind.’

  ‘What makes you think so, Tom?’

  ‘Because he’s not a bit elated about the property that he has come into, or will come into in a year’s time. And it isn’t in human nature for a man to come into fourteen thousand a year which he never expected to inherit, and take it as coolly as this man takes it.’

  ‘What do you mean by a year’s time, Tom? Hasn’t he got the estate now?’

  ‘No, Eliza; that’s the rub.’ And Mr. Sampson went on to explain to his sister the terms of Jasper Treverton’s will, duly warning her that she was not to communicate her knowledge of the subject to any one, on pain of his lasting displeasure.

  Sampson was too busy next day to devote himself to his guest; so John Treverton went for a long ramble, with a map of the Treverton Manor estate in his pocket. He skirted many a broad field of arable and pasture land, and stood at the gates of farmhouse gardens, looking at the snug homesteads, the great barns and haystacks, the lazy cattle standing knee-deep in the litter of a straw yard, and wondering whether he should ever be master of these things. He walked a long way, and came home with a slow step and a thoughtful air in the twilight. About a mile from Hazlehurst he emerged from a narrow lane on to a common, across which there was a path leading to the village. As he came out of this lane he saw the figure of a lady in mourning a little way before him. Something in the carriage of the head struck him as familiar: he hurried after the lady, and found himself walking beside Laura Malcolm.

  ‘You are out rather late, Miss Malcolm,’ he said, not knowing very well what to say.

  ‘It gets dark so quickly at this time of year. I have been to see some people at Thorley, about a mile and a half from here.’

  ‘You do a good deal of visiting among the poor, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, I have been always accustomed to spend two or three days a week amongst them. They have come to know me very well, and to understand me, and, much as people are apt to complain of the poor, I have found them both grateful and affectionate.’

  John Treverton looked at her thoughtfully. She had a bright colour in her cheeks this evening, a rosy tint which lighted up her dark eyes with a brilliancy he had never seen in them before. He walked by her side all the way back to Hazle-hurst, talking first about the villagers she had been visiting, and afterwards about her adopted father, whose loss she seemed to feel deeply. Her manner this evening appeared perfectly frank and natural, and when John Treverton parted from her at the gates of the Manor-house, it was with the conviction that she was no less charming than she was beautiful.

  And yet he gave a short, impatient sigh as he tuned away from the great iron gates to walk to The Laurels, and it was only by an effort that he kept up an appearance of cheerfulness through the long evening, in the society of the two Sampsons and a bluff red-cheeked gentleman-farmer, who had been invited to dinner, and to take a hand in a friendly rubber afterwards.

  John Treverton spent the following day in the dogcart with Mr. Sampson, inspecting more farms, and getting a clearer idea of the extent and nature of the Treverton property that lay within a drive of Hazlehurst. He told his host that he would be compelled to go back to town by an early train on the next morning. After dinner that evening Mr. Sampson had occasion to retire to his office for an hour’s work upon some important piece of business, so John Treverton, not very highly appreciating the privilege of a prolonged tête-à-tête with the fair Eliza, put on is hat and went out of doors to smoke a cigar in the village street.

  Some fancy, he scarcely knew what, led him towards the Manor-house; perhaps because the lane outside the high garden wall at the side of the house was a quiet place for the smoking of a meditative cigar. In this solitary lane he paced for some time, coming round to the iron gates two or three times to look across the park-like grounds at the front of the house, whose closely-shuttered windows showed no ray of light.

  ‘I wonder if I could be a happy man,’ he asked himself,’ as the master of that house, with a beautiful wife and an ample fortune? There was a time when I fancied I could only exist in the stir and bustle of a London life, but perhaps, after all, I should not make a bad country gentleman, if I were happy.’

  On going back to the lane after one of these meditative pauses before the iron gates, John Treverton was surprised to find that he was no longer alone there. A tall man, wrapped in a loose great-coat, and with the lower part of his face hidden in the folds of a woollen scarf, was walking slowly to and fro before a narrow little wooden door in the garden wall. In that uncertain light, and with so much of his face hidden by the brim of his hat and the folds of his scarf, it was impossible to tell what this man was like, but John Treverton looked at him with a very suspicious feeling as he passed him near the garden door, and walked on to the end of the lane. When he turned back he was surprised to see that the door was open, and that the man was standing on the threshold, talking to some one within. He went quickly Lack in order to see, if possible, who this some one was, and as he came close to the garden door he heard a voice that he knew very well indeed, the voice of Laura Malcolm.

  ‘There is no fear of our being interrupted,’ she said, ‘I would rather talk to you in the garde
n.’

  The man seemed to hesitate a little, muttered something about’ the servants,’ and then went into the garden, the door of which was immediately shut.

  John Treverton was almost petrified by this circumstance. Who could this man be whom Miss Malcolm admitted to her presence in this stealthy manner? Who could he be except some secret lover, some suitor she knew to be unworthy of her, and whose visits she was fain to receive in this ignoble fashion. The revelation was unspeakably shocking to John Treverton; but he could in no other manner account for the incident which he had just witnessed. He lit another cigar, determined to wait in the lane till the man came out again. He walked up and down for about twenty minutes, at the end of which time the garden door was reopened, and the stranger emerged, and walked hastily away, John following him at a respectable distance. He went to an inn not far from the Manor-house, where there was a gig waiting for him, with a man nodding sleepily over the reins. He jumped lightly into the vehicle, took the reins from the man’s hands and drove away at a smart pace, very much to the discomfiture of Mr. Treverton, who had not been able to see his face, and who had no means of tracing him any further. He did, indeed, go into the little inn and call for soda-water and brandy, in order to have an excuse for asking who the gentleman was who had just driven away; but the innkeeper knew nothing more than that the gig had stopped before his door half an hour or so, and that the horse had had a mouthful of hay.

  ‘The man as stopped with the horse. and gig came in for a glass of brandy to take out to the gentleman,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t see the gentleman’s face.’

  John Treverton went back to The Laurels after this, very ill at ease. He determined to see Miss Malcolm next morning before he left Hazlehurst, in order, if possible, to find out something about this mysterious reception of the unknown individual in the loose coat. He made his plans, therefore, for going to London by an afternoon train, and at one o’clock presented himself at the Manor-house.