by Ellen Wood
“I heard, Uncle Godfrey: but I did not understand.”
“Eliza thinks Leet Hall ought to go in the direct line — through her — to this child. What should you say to that?”
“What could he say to it?” imperiously demanded Eliza. “He is only your nephew.”
Harry looked from one to the other in a sort of bewildered surprise: and there came a silence.
“Uncle Godfrey,” he said at last, starting out of a reverie, “you have been good enough to make me your heir. It was unexpected on my part, unsolicited; but you did do it, and you caused me to leave the army in consequence, to give up my fair prospects in life. I am aware that this deed is not irrevocable, and certainly you have the right to do what you will with your own property. But you must forgive me for saying that you should have made quite sure of your intentions beforehand: before taking me up, if it be only to throw me aside again.”
“There, there, we’ll leave it,” retorted Captain Monk testily. “No harm’s done to you yet, Mr. Harry; I don’t know that it will be.”
But Harry Carradyne felt sure that it would be; that he should be despoiled of the inheritance. The resolute look of power on Eliza’s face, bent on him as he quitted the chamber, was an earnest of that. Captain Monk was not the determined man he had once been; that was over.
“A pretty kettle of fish, this is,” ruefully soliloquised Harry, as he marched along the corridor. “Eliza’s safe to get her will; no doubt of that. And I? what am I to do? I can’t repurchase and go back amongst them again like a returned shilling; at least, I won’t; and I can’t turn Parson, or Queen’s Counsel, or Cabinet Minister. I’m fitted for nothing now, that I see, but to be a gentleman-at-large; and what would the gentleman’s income be?”
Standing at the corridor window, softly whistling, he ran over ways and means in his mind. He had a pretty house of his own, Peacock’s Range, formerly his father’s, and about four hundred a-year. After his mother’s death it would not be less than a thousand a-year.
“That means bread and cheese at present. Later —— Heyday, young lady, what’s the matter?”
The school room door, close by, had opened with a burst, and Miss Kate Dancox was flying down the stairs — her usual progress the minute lessons were over. Harry strolled into the room. The governess was putting the littered table straight.
“Any admission, ma’am?” cried he quaintly, making for a chair. “I should like to ask leave to sit down for a bit.”
Alice West laughed, and stirred the fire by way of welcome; he was a very rare visitor to the school-room. The blaze, mingling with the rays of the setting sun that streamed in at the window, played upon her sweet face and silky brown hair, lighted up the bright winter dress she wore, and the bow of pink ribbon that fastened the white lace round her slender, pretty throat.
“Are you so much in need of a seat?” she laughingly asked.
“Indeed I am,” was the semi-grave response. “I have had a shock.”
“A very sharp one, sir?”
“Sharp as steel. Really and truly,” he went on in a different tone, as he left the chair and stood up by the table, facing her; “I have just heard news that may affect my whole future life; may change me from a rich man to a poor one.”
“Oh, Mr. Carradyne!” Her manner had changed now.
“I was the destined inheritor, as you know — for I’m sure nobody has been reticent upon the subject — of these broad lands,” with a sweep of the hand towards the plains outside. “Captain Monk is now pleased to inform me that he thinks of substituting for me Mrs. Hamlyn’s child.”
“But would not that be very unjust?”
“Hardly fair — as it seems to me. Considering that my good uncle obliged me to give up my own prospects for it.”
She stood, her hands clasped in sympathy, her face full of earnest sadness. “How unkind! Why, it would be cruel!”
“Well, I confess I felt it to be so at the first blow. But, standing at the outside window yonder, pulling myself together, a ray or two of light crept in, showing me that it may be for the best after all. ‘Whatever is, is right,’ you know.”
“Yes,” she slowly said— “if you can think so. But, Mr. Carradyne, should you not have anything at all? — anything to live upon after Captain Monk’s death?”
“Just a trifle, I calculate, as the Americans say — and it is calculating I have been — so that I need not altogether starve. Would you like to know how much it will be?”
“Oh, please don’t laugh at me!” — for it suddenly struck the girl that he was laughing, perhaps in reproof, and that she had spoken too freely. “I ought not to have asked that; I was not thinking — I was too sorry to think.”
“But I may as well tell you, if you don’t mind. I have a very pretty little place, which you have seen and heard of, called by that delectable title Peacock’s Range — —”
“Is Peacock’s Range yours?” she interrupted, in surprise. “I thought it belonged to Mr. Peveril.”
“Peacock’s Range is mine and was my father’s before me, Miss Alice. It was leased to Peveril for a term of years, but I fancy he would be glad to give it up to-morrow. Well, I have Peacock’s Range and about four hundred pounds a-year.”
Her face brightened. “Then you need not talk about starving,” she said, gaily.
“And, later, I shall have altogether about a thousand a-year. Though I hope it will be very long before it falls to me. Do you think two people might venture to set up at Peacock’s Range, and keep, say, a couple of servants upon four hundred a-year? Could they exist upon it?”
“Oh, dear, yes,” she answered eagerly, quite unconscious of his drift. “Did you mean yourself and some friend?”
He nodded.
“Why, I don’t see how they could spend it all. There’d be no rent to pay. And just think of all the fruit and vegetables in the garden there!”
“Then I take you at your word, Alice,” he cried, impulsively, passing his arm round her waist. “You are the ‘friend.’ My dear, I have long wanted to ask you to be my wife, and I did not dare. This place, Leet Hall, encumbered me: for I feared the opposition that I, as its heir, should inevitably meet.”
She drew away from him, with doubting, frightened eyes. Mr. Harry Carradyne brought all the persuasion of his own dancing blue ones to bear upon her. “Surely, Alice, you will not say me nay!”
“I dare not say yes,” she whispered.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Of it altogether; of your friends. Captain Monk would — would — perhaps — turn me out. And there’s Mrs. Carradyne!”
Harry laughed. “Captain Monk can have no right to any voice in my affairs, once he throws me off; he cannot expect to have a finger in everyone’s pie. As to my mother — ah, Alice, unless I am much mistaken, she will welcome you with love.”
Alice burst into tears: emotion was stirring her to its depths. “Please to let it all be for a time,” she pleaded.
“If you speak it would be sure to lead to my being turned away.”
“I will let it be for a time, my darling, so far as speaking about it goes: for more reasons than one it may be better. But you are my promised wife, Alice; always recollect that.”
And Mr. Harry Carradyne, bold as a soldier should be, took a few kisses from her unresisting lips to enforce his mandate.
IV
Some time rolled on, calling for no particular record. Mr. Hamlyn’s West Indian property, which was large and lucrative, had been giving him trouble of late; at least, those who had the care of it gave it, and he was obliged to go over occasionally to see after it in person. Between times he stayed with his wife at Peacock’s Range; or else she joined him in London. Their town residence was in Bryanston Square; a pretty house, but not large.
It had been an unfavourable autumn; cold and wet. Snow had fallen in November, and the weather continued persistently dull and dreary. One gloomy afternoon towards the close of the year, Mrs. Hamlyn, shiverin
g over her drawing-room fire, rang impatiently for more coal to be piled upon it.
“Has Master Walter come in yet?” she asked of the footman.
“No, ma’am. I saw him just now playing in front there.”
She went to the window. Yes, running about the paths of the Square garden was the child, attended by his nurse. He was a sturdy little fellow. His mother, wishing to make him hardy, sent him out in all weathers, and the boy throve upon it. He was three years old now, but looked older; and he was as clever and precocious as some children are at five or six. Her heart thrilled with a strange joy only at the sight of him: he was her chief happiness in life, her idol. Whether he would succeed to Leet Hall she knew not; since that one occasion, Captain Monk had said no more upon the subject, for or against it.
Why need she have longed for it so fervently? to the setting at naught the express wishes of her deceased uncle and to the detriment of Harry Carradyne? It was simply covetousness. As his father’s eldest son (there were no younger ones yet) the boy would inherit a fine property, a large income; but his doting mother must give him Leet Hall as well.
Her whole heart went out to the child as she watched him playing there. A few snowflakes were beginning to fall, and twilight would soon be drawing on, but she would not call him in. Standing thus at the window, it gradually grew upon her to notice that something was standing back against the opposite rails, looking fixedly at the houses. A young, fair woman apparently, with a profusion of light hair; she was draped in a close dark cloak which served to conceal her figure, just as the thick veil she wore concealed her face.
“I believe it is this house she is gazing at so attentively — and at me,” thought Mrs. Hamlyn. “What can she possibly want?”
The woman did not move away and Mrs. Hamlyn did not move; they remained staring at one another. Presently Walter burst into the room, laughing in glee at having distanced his nurse. His mother turned, caught him in her arms and kissed him passionately. Wilful though he was by disposition, and showing it at times, he was a lovable, generous child, and very pretty: great brown eyes and auburn curls. His life was all sunshine, like a butterfly’s on a summer’s day; his path as yet one of roses without their thorns.
“Mamma, I’ve got a picture-book; come and look at it,” cried the eager little voice, as he dragged his mother to the hearthrug and opened the picture-book in the light of the blaze. “Penelope bought it for me.”
She sat down on a footstool, the book on her lap and one arm round him, her treasure. Penelope waited to take off his hat and pelisse, and was told to come for him in five minutes.
“It’s not my tea-time yet,” cried he defiantly.
“Indeed, then, Master Walter, it is long past it,” said the nurse. “I couldn’t get him in before, ma’am,” she added to her mistress. “Every minute I kept expecting you’d be sending one of the servants after us.”
“In five minutes,” repeated Mrs. Hamlyn. “And what’s this picture about, Walter? Is it a little girl with a doll?”
“Oh, dat bootiful,” said the eager little lad, who was not yet as advanced in speech as he was in ideas. “It says she —— dere’s papa!”
In came Philip Hamlyn, tall, handsome, genial. Walter ran to him and was caught in his arms. He and his wife were just a pair for adoring the child.
But nurse, inexorable, appeared again at the five minutes’ end, and Master Walter was carried off.
“You came home in a cab, Philip, did you not? I thought I heard one stop.”
“Yes; it is a miserable evening. Raining fast now.”
“Raining!” she repeated, rather wondering to hear it was not snowing. She went to the window to look out, and the first object her eyes caught sight of was the woman; leaning in the old place against the railings, in the growing twilight.
“I’m not sorry to see the rain; we shall have it warmer now,” remarked Mr. Hamlyn, who had drawn a chair to the fire. “In fact, it’s much warmer already than it was this morning.”
“Philip, step here a minute.”
His wife’s tone had dropped to a half-whisper, sounding rather mysterious, and he went at once.
“Just look, Philip — opposite. Do you see a woman standing there?”
“A woman — where?” cried he, looking of course in every direction but the right one.
“Just facing us. She has her back against the railings.”
“Oh, ay, I see now; a lady in a cloak. She must be waiting for some one.”
“Why do you call her a lady?”
“She looks like one — as far as I can see in the gloom. Does she not? Her hair does, any way.”
“She has been there I cannot tell you how long, Philip; half-an-hour, I’m sure; and it seems to me that she is watching this house. A lady would hardly do that.”
“This house? Oh, then, Eliza, perhaps she’s watching for one of the servants. She might come in, poor thing, instead of standing there in the rain.”
“Poor thing, indeed! — what business has any woman to watch a house in this marked manner?” retorted Eliza. “The neighbourhood will be taking her for a female detective.”
“Nonsense!”
“She has given me a creepy feeling; I can tell you that, Philip.”
“But why?” he exclaimed.
“I can’t tell you why; I don’t know why; it is so. Do not laugh at me for confessing it.”
Philip Hamlyn did laugh; heartily. “Creepy feelings” and his imperiously strong-minded wife could have but little affinity with one another.
“We’ll have the curtains drawn, and the lights, and shut her out,” said he cheerily. “Come and sit down, Eliza; I want to show you a letter I’ve had to-day.”
But the woman waiting outside there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from the window until the curtains were drawn.
“It is from Peveril,” said Mr. Hamlyn, producing the letter he had spoken of from his pocket. “The lease he took of Peacock’s Range is not yet out, but he can resign it now if he pleases, and he would be glad to do so. He and his wife would rather remain abroad, it seems, than return home.”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, he writes to me to ask whether he can resign it; or whether I must hold him to the promise he made me — that I should rent the house to the end of the term. I mean the end of the lease; the term he holds it for.”
“Why does he want to resign it? Why can’t things go on as at present?”
“I gather from an allusion he makes, though he does not explicitly state it, that Mr. Carradyne wishes to have the place in his own hands. What am I to say to Peveril, Eliza?”
“Say! Why, that you must hold him to his promise; that we cannot give up the house yet. A pretty thing if I had no place to go down to at will in my own county!”
“So far as I am concerned, Eliza, I would prefer to stay away from the county — if your father is to continue to treat me in the way he does. Remember what it was in the summer. I think we are very well here.”
“Now, Philip, I have said. I do not intend to release our hold on Peacock’s Range. My father will be reconciled to you in time as he is to me.”
“I wonder what Harry Carradyne can want it for?” mused Philip Hamlyn, bowing to the imperative decision of his better half.
“To live in it, I should say. He would like to show his resentment to papa by turning his back on Leet Hall. It can’t be for anything else.”
“What cause for resentment has he? He sent for him home and made him his heir.”
“That is the cause. Papa has come to his senses and changed his mind. It is our darling little Walter who is to be the heir of Leet Hall, Philip — and papa has so informed Harry Carradyne.”
Philip Hamlyn gazed at his wife in doubt. He had never heard a word of this; instinct had kept her silent.
“I hope not,” he emphatically said, breaking the silence.
“You hope not?”
Mrs. Hamlyn treated her husband to one of her worst looks, telling of contempt as well as of power; but she did not speak.
“Listen, Eliza. I cannot bear injustice, and I do not believe it ever prospers in the long run. Were your father to bequeath — my dear, I beg of you to listen to me! — to bequeath his estates to little Walter, to the exclusion of the true heir, rely upon it the bequest would never bring him good. In some way or other it would not serve him. Money diverted by injustice from its natural and just channel does not carry a blessing with it. I have noted this over and over again in going through life.”
“Anything more?” she contemptuously asked.
“And Walter will not need it,” he continued persuasively, passing her question as unheard. “As my son, he will be amply provided for.”
A very commonplace interruption occurred, and the subject was dropped. Nothing more than a servant bringing in a letter for his master, just come by hand.
“Why, it is from old Richard Pratt!” exclaimed Mr. Hamlyn, as he turned to the light.
“I thought Major Pratt never wrote letters,” she remarked. “I once heard you say he must have forgotten how to write.”
He did not answer. He was reading the note, which appeared to be a short one. She watched him. After reading it through he began it again, a puzzled look upon his face. Then she saw it flush all over, and he crushed the note into his pocket.
“What is it about, Philip?”
“Pratt wants a prescription for gout that I told him of. I’m sure I don’t know whether I can find it.”
He had answered in a dreamy tone with thoughts preoccupied, and quitted the room hastily, as if in search of it.
Eliza wondered why he should flush up at being asked for a prescription, and why he should have suddenly lost himself in a reverie. But she had not much curiosity as to anything that concerned old Major Pratt — who was at present staying in lodgings in London.
