Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  ‘You are very kind,’ said Petrovitch, wondering whether he could find any means of evading an acceptance.

  ‘I had hoped to have had your fellow-countryman, Count Litvinoff, there to meet you; but I hear he has just gone to Derbyshire; so unfortunate. I suppose he has gone to stay with the Stanleys. He saved Mr Stanley’s life, you know — Mr Stanley — perhaps you remember his daughter, the sweet girl who sat next you at our house.’

  It appeared that Petrovitch did remember the lady in question.

  The other men had formed a knot at the other side of the fire.

  ‘You know,’ said Mrs Quaid, lowering her voice discreetly, as she glanced at them, ‘my daughter Cora thinks that there will be a match there before long. I do so hope that dear interesting Count has not lost all his property. From what I hear he is very well off.’

  ‘Gentlemen of your opinions ought not to marry,’ said Mr Quaid, striking in, much to his wife’s surprise. He did not usually advance independent opinions, being emphatically ‘Mrs Quaid’s husband,’ and nothing more.

  ‘Why?’ asked Petrovitch, amused.

  ‘Because your lives are so constantly in danger.’

  ‘There’s not much danger in Derbyshire,’ broke in Hirsch, in spite of Petrovitch’s restraining eye.

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Mrs Quaid, ‘I do hope, if anything does come of it, that he will settle down quietly in England. There is so much that wants doing here. We want good, brave workers to strive to bridge over the terrible gulf between the classes.’

  Toomey, suddenly recalled to a sense of the ‘gulf’ — which he had quite lost sight of under the influence of Petrovitch’s tact — felt a painfully renewed consciousness of his boots, his hands, and his Sunday clothes.

  Vernon, who knew Mrs Quaid, and delighted to ‘draw’ her, would not for the world have missed such an opportunity of amusing himself and his friends. By a skilful question or two he led the lady on to her favourite subject — that of education. She could discuss this question with eloquence, and at any length; but no matter how her discussions began, they always ended by placing her and her hearers in a difficulty. She was quite clear that before we could educate our children we must be educated ourselves, which, on the face of it, seemed reasonable; but, then, who was there to educate us? To that question no answer could ever be found; and in the meantime, what was to become of the rising generation? She had nearly reached this point when her husband, who had been present before when she trotted round this circle of argument, and for whom the repetition of the performance had no charms, brought the conversation back to the world of possibilities by renewing the invitation for Tuesday, which Petrovitch, after a little hesitation, accepted.

  When the gros grain silk had swept down the uncarpeted stairs, and Petrovitch had accompanied it to the front door and received the last nod of farewell from the imposing plume in the velvet bonnet, he returned to his room, to find the spirits of his friends visibly higher, except those of Vernon, who felt that he had been done out of the cream of his proposed joke.

  The evening slipped by pleasantly enough, but there were no more adventures told, nor was Count Litvinoff mentioned again, until one by one all the guests had departed except Hirsch.

  He stayed on, smoking in silence, and his host, equally silent, sat on the opposite side of the fire, regarding it fixedly.

  ‘Well,’ said Hirsch, at last turning his eyes towards the other, ‘what of this marriage that the large lady speaks of so confidently — this “sweet Clare” who is to be the Countess Litvinoff? That also is to be for the cause? With that also you are satisfied? That also is to be permitted, sanctioned, what you call approved?’

  ‘No,’ said Petrovitch slowly. ‘No; that is not to be.’

  CHAPTER XIX. AN HONEST MAN AND A BRAVE ONE.

  ‘THANK God!’ was Count Litvinoff’s inward ejaculation, as, followed by Roland, he sprang through the laurel bushes into the gravel path that skirted the lawn. For what he saw was not what he had feared to see. Clare was safe. She was standing on the last of the stone steps that led down from the verandah, her hands clasped over her eyes, as if to shut out some intolerable sight.

  On the lawn before her, half-a-dozen yards off, in brown shooting suit and gaiters, lay her father, face downwards, on the grass, his gun beside him, and his two sporting dogs sniffing round the hand that had held it.

  The two young men were at his side in an instant, and had half raised him by the time Clare had shaken off the horror that had paralysed her and had sprung towards them. Roland glanced at Mr Stanley’s face, and, passing his arm round the old man’s neck, drew his head towards him, and bent over it in such a manner as to keep it from her eyes.

  ‘Take her in, Litvinoff,’ he said, still bending forward; ‘make her go in.’

  ‘Come in, Miss Stanley; you can do no good here,’ said Litvinoff, rising and taking the girl by the arm. She shook him off.

  ‘Let me alone,’ she cried. ‘How dare you interfere? Let me go to my father.’

  ‘Miss Stanley, be reasonable. You can do much more good in the house. Don’t you know we must bring your father in? — and your mother must be told.’

  But Mrs Stanley needed no telling. From the window she had seen — when the barking of the dogs told of Mr Stanley’s near approach — how Clare had run out bareheaded to meet him — how he had stopped in the middle of the lawn, as if expecting her to come to him — how he had taken his gun from his shoulder, and dropped the butt on the ground — how there had been a flash, a report, and how he had fallen. Now she came out.

  ‘Go in,’ she said to Clare, ‘and send for Doctor Bailey. Thomas can go on Red Robin.’

  By this time the servants were gathering from all directions.

  ‘Come,’ Litvinoff spoke in a low voice, but a voice of authority, and led her towards the stable-yard. Coming round the corner they met Thomas.

  ‘Oh, Thomas—’she began, when Litvinoff interrupted.

  ‘Saddle Red Robin, and ride for Doctor Bailey — ride fast for your life! Now, Miss Stanley, for Heaven’s sake don’t give way; keep up. They may want linen for bandages, and brandy.’

  She looked at him with wide-open, frightened eyes, but she obeyed him; and when those things were brought she stood looking mutely at him, like a child asking for directions.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said; and, pouring out some brandy-and-water, held it to her lips.

  ‘Drink, and then you will be able, perhaps, to be of some use.’

  They were in the drawing-room. Litvinoff noticed, even at that moment, the hundred dainty tokens of a cultivated woman’s daily presence. As he set down the glass, past the closed door came the heavy tread of the men who were bringing the master back to his home.

  Then Clare rose up. ‘I will go to my father,’ she said, turning a white, resolute face towards the door. ‘Twenty of you shall not stop me!’

  Litvinoff caught her two hands and held them tightly.

  ‘Wait, wait; they are getting him to his bed. You would only be in the way. Trust me, Miss Stanley. I would not keep you from him if you could be of any use to him. You may be of real service by-and-by.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said; ‘I will do what you tell me. But, oh, tell me all you know; tell me where he’s hurt; did you see? Will it be dangerous? For pity’s sake tell me what you saw, whether—’

  Here the door opened, and Roland came in. Her eyes searched his face for re-assurance, but found there something more terrible than her worst fears, and as he opened his lips to speak she cried in a high-pitched voice, quite unlike her own, as she held out her hands as if to keep off something, ‘Don’t tell me — don’t tell me anything — let me go!’

  And as Roland stood aside she rushed from the room. Litvinoff closed the door.

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Roland.

  ‘ — I know. I knew that directly I put my hand on him. I have had my hand on a man shot dead before to-day.’

  Roland sat down on a low chair. It
was the one Clare had occupied half-an-hour before. There on the little table by it lay her work-basket, and some pretty useless bit of sewing, and all the little gilt working implements which she had put down when she went to meet her father. Roland’s eye fell on them, and he groaned.

  ‘ — Good God, Litvinoff, what a terrible thing! What a frightful blow for them!’

  ‘Does Mrs Stanley know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How soon can the doctor be here?’

  ‘In half-an-hour; but he’ll be no good when he does come,’

  ‘Not for him, but Miss Stanley may need him. Her face as she passed out of the door was not reassuring,’

  Roland groaned again.

  ‘What a horrible world it is!’ he said.

  His father dead, his brother estranged, his sweetheart lost to him, and now this new calamity had fallen near him. ‘It never rains but it pours.’ And it seemed to be raining misfortunes in Firth Vale.

  ‘It is a horrible world,’ said the other; ‘but reflecting on that truth will not aid anyone just now. Is there nothing we can do?’

  ‘ — Not that I know of, but we won’t go till the doctor comes.’

  ‘Certainly not; and in the meantime let me suggest that a little of this brandy would not be amiss, if you don’t want him to find a patient in you. You look uncommonly shaky,’ Roland accepted the suggestion and the proffered glass.

  ‘Miss Stanley’s mother seems to have her wits about her?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Stanley’s a sensible woman — but she’s not Miss Stanley’s mother. Mr Stanley was married twice,’

  ‘There are no other children?’

  ‘No,’

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Litvinoff, sincerely enough, though for a certain reason he was not displeased to hear that Clare was an only child. ‘He seems to have been a rich man,’ went on Litvinoff, glancing round the room.

  ‘Yes, he had more than he knew what to do with. It seems hard that he should have had to leave it all so suddenly,’ said Roland, growing sentimental.

  It is a great pity men have to leave their wealth behind them. If they could only take it with them, there would not be so many young people growing up in vicious idleness.’ Then, as it suddenly occurred to him that this might possibly be considered personal, he went on in his most approved didactic manner,—’Since death is inevitable, how lucky we ought to think it that so few people have anything to live for. I believe to a great many people the best thing in life is the certainty that some day or other they’ll get out of it.’

  Roland did not answer. There are moments when moral reflections are particularly hateful.

  The doctor arrived sooner than they had hoped, the manservant having met him about half-way between Aspinshaw and his own house, but of course he could only confirm what they all knew. The whole contents of the gun had lodged in the lungs, and death must have been instantaneous. He asked the two young men a good many questions as to the manner of the accident, but of course they had not seen it, and were unable to throw any light on the cause of the disaster. He must have been carrying the gun full-cock, and the concussion, when he brought the butt down on the ground, must have started it.

  ‘Mrs Stanley bears up wonderfully well.’

  ‘And his daughter?’ put in Litvinoff.

  ‘Well, the poor child’s crushed at present, but she’ll soon be all right. Young hearts soon throw off their troubles, thank Heaven! I shall have to trouble you two gentlemen at the inquest,’ he said, as he got into his gig and was driven off.

  Roland Ferrier and Michael Litvinoff walked home almost in silence, consumed a dinner enlivened by Miss Letitia’s comments on the events of the day, and, when she had retired in tears, passed one of the most melancholy evenings in the recollection of either. Roland did his best to perform the difficult part of genial host to the guest who had been introduced to Thornsett under such inauspicious circumstances; but he was a young man who had not that within him which enables men to resist the influence of the immediately surrounding circumstances, and his attempt was a dead failure. Litvinoff could, perhaps, have succeeded with a desperate effort in raising the cloud of gloom that hung over them both, but it did not seem to him that the game was quite worth the candle, and he let it alone.

  Under the circumstances there could be no shooting, and none of such social entertainments as would certainly otherwise have enlivened his visit, and the prospect of his first Christmas in an English country-house looked very bleak.

  ‘I suppose one mustn’t smoke here,’ he said aloud to himself, when, the long evening over, he reached his bedroom, and sank down into an easy-chair before the brightly-burning fire. ‘That antiquated lady is the sort of person who would go mad if she smelt smoke in one of the bedrooms. It is a great bore.

  I want to think — and how the deuce am I to think if I can’t smoke! — and I must think. Yes, it must be done; they must put it down to my foreign ways,’ he added, as he drew out his cigar-case and lighted up.

  Something in his surroundings reminded him of that night in October when he had saved the life of the man who was now lying dead at Aspinshaw.

  ‘Poor old boy,’ he said, ‘I didn’t renew his lease of life for very long, after all; but I expect he lived long enough to have done almost as much for me as he could have done had he lived longer. Perhaps my “views,” as he would have called them, will not stand so much in the way now. My crushed young host told me that she is beginning to share those views and to be enthusiastic — thanks to that mysterious entity, Petrovitch. I owe him that; I wonder if I owe him anything else?

  II — do owe many sums to many people. He had me for ten pounds, though, any way. Pardieu! I hope he won’t try that again, or I shall have to stay down here permanently. I shall attend a funeral in a few days, I suppose. I wonder when I shall attend a marriage? She was obedient to-day — a good sign. Things will go smoother so.’

  He puffed at his cigar in silence a few minutes, then he spoke aloud again, ‘And so that was John Hatfield, and he is one of us — or half one of us. By Jove! that makes me feel a cursed traitor — that merits death. Well, I’m not afraid of that, anyhow, nor of anything that may come after. I’ve got memories enough to make a hell of my own here, and death would be the end of them, at any rate, not the beginning. And yet one must live, I suppose, though I don’t feel so sure of that to-night. Poor little girl — dear little girl! I wish you were the heiress of Aspinshaw. The real heiress is pretty and charming, and a lady,’ with a rather bitter laugh, ‘and she is beginning to have “views;” but somehow I can’t get you out of my head to-night.’ He moved his hand to and fro before his eyes, as though to clear away the smoke. Then he rose. ‘Curses on conscience — curses on principle!’ he said; ‘I must see if sleep will do it;’ and he went to bed.

  During the next few days there was nothing to do except to call at Aspinshaw every day and ask after Mrs and Miss Stanley. This was an obvious duty, but as an occupation it was not engrossing. On the second day, young Ferrier offered to ‘show his guest over’ the mill, and Litvinoff, always glad of a new experience, joyfully consented. The mill was charmingly situated in a little hollow in the hills, with a big reservoir above it and a little stream below. On one side was a wood, where a good many hollies kept up the impression of greenness, though all the other trees were sere and brown. On the other side was a very steep incline which shot up almost like a high wall, and was bare and rugged and rocky, and from the top some rude steps cut out of the grey rock led down to the mill. While the workings of the machinery were being explained, and the various processes exhibited, it did not escape the Count’s observation that the men looked particularly discontented, and that there was none of that deferential submission in their manner to Roland which he had been accustomed to see in the manner of workmen towards their masters.

  ‘What’s the matter with the men?’ Litvinoff asked, as they walked back to Thornsett. ‘They looked uncommonly disagreeable. My friend John Hatfie
ld doesn’t appear to be the only one who is dissatisfied with the munificent two pounds a week.’

  ‘John Hatfield! What a memory you have for names. Oh, they’re not dissatisfied with the amount of their wages. On the contrary, they only wish they could go on at the same rate. But they soon won’t have any at all from me. The mill stops working at the end of the year, and they’ve somehow got it into their heads that I’m responsible for it, whereas it’s just about as much my fault as it is that tree’s.’

  ‘Is it any one’s fault?’

  ‘You know that it is my brother’s. He made the quarrel, and forced it on me, knowing what the results would be.’

  ‘And the results to these men will be—’

  ‘Starvation, I’m afraid, for some of them, poor fellows, and very short commons for them all; but it’s rather hard that I should be blamed for it.’

  ‘Oh, beautiful system!’ said Litvinoff; ‘splendid organisation of industry! Two brothers quarrel about nothing in particular, and a hundred men and their families have to starve in consequence.’

  ‘It’s not the fault of the system, but of my father’s will and my brother’s mad temper; but anyhow it is not my fault.’

  ‘Well, your father’s will is distinctly part of the system; but, as you say, you are not to blame. No, Ferrier; you are certainly the most hardly done by. As to these “hands,” as you call them, qu’importe? It is you who are to be pitied. It is so much harder to be blamed than to starve.’

  ‘What a cool fellow you are, Litvinoff!’ Roland laughed, hut was yet a little nettled too, for, like all Englishmen, he hated irony. ‘You’re always mocking at something or somebody. But perhaps you forget that I shall have hardly anything to live on either — a wretched hundred a year or so.’

  ‘A hundred a year,’ said the Count, in the tone of one who is dealing with a difficult arithmetical problem, ‘is just about two pounds a week. Now the other day you said that two pounds a week was “not so bad” for a man with a family; and, with all your misfortunes, you are not what you English people call “a family man.”’