Old Mr. Tredgold

“No pardon needed. Know what you mean,” Somers said with a wave of his hand.

“Of course,” said Lady Jane with emphasis, “I don’t mean the girls, or else you may be sure I never should have taken them out or had them here.” She made a little pause after this disclaimer, in the heat of which there was perhaps just a little doubt of her own motives, checked by the reflection that Katherine Tredgold at least was not vulgar, and might have been anybody’s daughter. She went on again after a moment. “But he is an old– Oh! I would not pay the least attention to what he said; he was bound to say that sort of thing at first. Do you imagine for a moment that any man who could do that would please Stella? What kind of man could do that? Only perhaps an old horror like himself, whom a nice girl would never look at. Oh! I think I should be easy in my mind, Charlie, if I were you. It is impossible, you know! There’s no such man, no such young man. Can you fancy Stella accepting an old fellow made of money? I don’t believe in it for a moment,” said Lady Jane.

“Old fellows got sons—sometimes,” said Sir Charles, “City men, rolling in money, don’t you know?”

“One knows all those sort of people,” said Lady Jane; “you could count them on your fingers; and they go in for rank, &c., not for other millionaires. No, Charlie, I don’t see any call you have to be so discouraged. Why did you come in looking such a whipped dog? It will be all over the island in no time and through the regiment that you have been refused by Stella Tredgold. The father’s nothing. The father was quite sure to refuse. Rather picturesque that about laying down pound for pound, isn’t it? It makes one think of a great table groaning under heaps of gold.”

“Jove!” said Sir Charles. “Old beggar said shillin’ for shillin’. Had a heap of silver—got it like a fool—didn’t see what he was driving at—paid it out on the table.” He pulled his moustache to the very roots and uttered a short and cavernous laugh. “Left it there, by Jove!—all my change,” he cried; “not a blessed thruppenny to throw to little girl at gate.”

“Left it there?” said Lady Jane—“on the table?” Her gravity was overpowered by this detail. “Upon my word, Charlie Somers, for all your big moustache and your six feet and your experiences, I declare I don’t think there ever was such a simpleton born.”

Somers bore her laughter very steadily. He was not unused to it. The things in which he showed himself a simpleton were in relation to the things in which he was prematurely wise as three to a hundred; but yet there were such things. And he was free to acknowledge that leaving his seventeen shillings spread out on the millionaire’s table, or even taking the millionaire’s challenge au pied de la lettre, was the act of a simpleton. He stood tranquilly with his back to the fire till Lady Jane had got her laugh out. Then she resumed with a sort of apology:

“It was too much for me, Charlie. I could not help laughing. What will become of all that money, I wonder? Will he keep it and put it to interest? I should like to have seen him after you were gone. I should like to have seen him afterwards, when Stella had her knife at his throat, asking him what he meant by it. You may trust to Stella, my dear boy. She will soon bring her father to reason. He may be all sorts of queer things to you, but he can’t stand against her. She can twist him round her little finger. If it had been Katherine I should not have been so confident. But Stella—he never has refused anything to Stella since ever she was born.”

“Think so, really?” said Somers through his moustache. He was beginning to revive a little again, but yet the impression of old Tredgold’s chuckling laugh and his contemptuous certainty was not to be got over lightly. The gloom of the rejected was still over him.

“Yes, I think so,” said Lady Jane. “Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, go on in that hang-dog way. There’s nothing happened but what was to be expected. Of course, the old curmudgeon would make an attempt to guard his money-bags. I wish I were as sure of a company for Jack as I am of Stella’s power to do anything she likes with her father. But if you go down in this way at the first touch–”

“No intention of going down,” said Sir Charles, piqued. “Marry her to-morrow—take her out to India—then see what old beggar says.”

“That, indeed,” cried Lady Jane—“that would be a fine revenge on him! Don’t propose it to Stella if you don’t want her to accept, for she would think it the finest fun in the world.”

“By George!” Somers said, and a smile began to lift up the corners of his moustache.

“That would bring him to his senses, indeed,” Lady Jane said reflectively; “but it would be rather cruel, Charlie. After all, he is an old man. Not a very venerable old man, perhaps; not what you would call a lovely old age, is it? but still– Oh, I think it would be cruel. You need not go so far as that. But we shall soon hear what Stella says.”

And it very soon was known what Stella said. Stella wrote in a whirlwind of passion, finding nothing too bad to say of papa. An old bull, an old pig, were the sweetest of the similes she used. She believed that he wanted to kill her, to drag her by the hair of her head, to shut her up in a dungeon or a back kitchen or something. She thought he must have been changed in his sleep, for he was not in the very least like her own old nice papa, and Kate thought so too. Kate could not understand it any more than she could. But one thing was certain—that, let papa say what he would or do what he would, she (Stella) never would give in. She would be true, whatever happened. And if she were locked up anywhere she would trust in her Charlie to get her out. All her trust was in her Charlie, she declared. She had got his money, his poor dear bright shillings, of which papa had robbed him, and put them in a silk bag, which she always meant to preserve and carry about with her. She called it Charlie’s fortune. Poor dear, dear Charlie; he had left it all for her. She knew it was for her, and she would never part with it, never! This whirlwind of a letter amused Charlie very much; he did not mind letting his friends read it. They all laughed over it, and declared that she was a little brick, and that he must certainly stick to her whatever happened. The old fellow was sure to come round, they all said; no old father could ever stand out against a girl like that. She had him on toast, everybody knew.

These were the encouraging suggestions addressed to Sir Charles by his most intimate friends, who encouraged him still more by their narratives of how Lottie Seton tossed her head and declared that Charlie Somers had been waiting all along for some rich girl to drop into his mouth. He had always had an arrière pensée, she cried (whatever that might be), and had never been at all amusin’ at the best of times. He was very amusin’ now, however, with Stella’s letter in his pocket and this absorbing question to discuss. The whole regiment addressed itself with all the brain it possessed to the consideration of the subject, which, of course, was so much the more urgent in consequence of the orders under which it lay. To go or not to go to India, that was the rub, as Charlie had said. Stella only complicated the question, which had been under discussion before. He did not want to go; but then, on the other hand, if he remained at home, his creditors would be rampant and he would be within their reach, which would not be the case if he went to India. And India meant double pay. And if it could be secured that Stella’s father should send an expedition after them to bring them back within a year, then going to India with Stella as a companion would be the best fun in the world. To go for a year was one thing, to go as long as the regiment remained, doing ordinary duty, was quite another. Everybody whom he consulted, even Lady Jane, though she began to be a little frightened by the responsibility, assured him that old Tredgold would never hold out for a year. Impossible! an old man in shaky health who adored his daughter. “Doubt if he’ll give you time to get on board before he’s after you,” Algy said. “You’ll find telegrams at Suez or at Aden or somewhere,” said another; and a third chaunted (being at once poetical and musical, which was not common in the regiment) a verse which many of them thought had been composed for the occasion:

“Come back, come back,” he cried in griefAcross the stormy water,“And I’ll forgive your Highland chief,My daughter, O my daughter!”

“Though Charlie ain’t a Highland chief, you know,” said one of the youngsters. “If it had been Algy, now!”

All these things worked very deeply in the brain of Sir Charles Somers, Baronet. He spent a great deal of time thinking of them. A year in India would be great fun. Stella, for her part, was wild with delight at the thought of it. If it could but be made quite clear that old Tredgold, dying for the loss of his favourite child, would be sure to send for her! Everybody said there was not a doubt on the subject. Stella, who ought to know, was sure of it; so was Lady Jane, though she had got frightened and cried, “Oh, don’t ask me!” when importuned the hundredth time for her opinion. If a fellow could only be quite sure! Sometimes a chilling vision of the “old beggar” came across Charlie’s mind, and the courage began to ooze out at his fingers’ ends. That old fellow did not look like an old fellow who would give in. He looked a dangerous old man, an old man capable of anything. Charles Somers was by no means a coward, but when he remembered the look which Mr. Tredgold had cast upon him, all the strength went out of him. To marry an expensive wife who had never been stinted in her expenses and take her out to India, and then find that there was no relenting, remorseful father behind them, but only the common stress and strain of a poor man’s life in a profession, obliged to live upon his pay! What should he do if this happened? But everybody around him assured him that it could not, would not happen. Stella had the old gentleman “on toast.” He could not live without her; he would send to the end of the world to bring her back; he would forgive anything, Highland chief or whoever it might be. Even Lady Jane said so. “Don’t ask me to advise you,” that lady cried. “I daren’t take the responsibility. How can I tell whether Stella and you are fond enough of each other to run such a risk? Old Mr. Tredgold? Oh, as for old Mr. Tredgold, I should not really fear any lasting opposition from him. He may bluster a little, he may try to be overbearing, he may think he can frighten his daughter. But, of course, he will give in. Oh, yes, he will give in. Stella is everything to him. She is the very apple of his eye. It is very unjust to Katherine I always have said, and always will say. But that is how it is. Stella’s little finger is more to him than all the rest of the world put together. But please, please don’t ask advice from me!”

Sir Charles walked up and down the room, the room at Steephill, the room at the barracks, wherever he happened to be, and pulled his moustache almost till the blood came. But neither that intimate councillor, nor his fellow-officers, nor his anxious friends gave him any definite enlightenment. He was in love, too, in his way, which pushed him on, but he was by no means without prudence, which held him back. If old Tredgold did not break his heart, if he took the other one into Stella’s place—for to be sure Katherine was his daughter also, though not equal to Stella! If!—it is a little word, but there is terrible meaning in it. In that case what would happen? He shuddered and turned away from the appalling thought.

CHAPTER XIV

“Kate, Kate, Kate!” cried Stella. All had been quiet between the two rooms connected by that open door. Katherine was fastening the ribbon at her neck before the glass. This made her less ready to respond to Stella’s eager summons; but the tone of the third repetition of her name was so urgent that she dropped the ends of the ribbon and flew to her sister. Stella was leaning half out of the open window. “Kate,” she cried—“Kate, he has sent him away!”

“Who is sent away?” cried Katherine, in amazement.

Stella’s answer was to seize her sister by the arm and pull her half out of the window, endangering her equilibrium. Thus enforced, however, Katherine saw the figure of Sir Charles Somers disappearing round the corner of a group of trees, which so entirely recalled the image, coarse yet expressive, of a dog with its tail between its legs, that no certainty of disappointment and failure could be more complete. The two girls stared after him until he had disappeared, and then Stella drew her sister in again, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. Even Stella the unsubduable was cowed; her face was pale, her eyes round and staring with astonishment and trouble; the strength was all taken out of her by bewilderment. What did it mean? Papa, papa, he who had denied her nothing, who had been the more pleased the more costly was the toy which she demanded! Had Charlie offended him? Had he gone the wrong way to work? What could he possibly have done to receive a rebuff from papa?

“Of course I shall not stand it,” Stella cried, when she had recovered herself a little. “He shall not have much peace of his life if he crosses me. You let him dance upon you, Kate, and never said a word—though I don’t suppose you cared, or surely you would have stood out a little more than you did. But he shan’t dance upon me—he shall soon find out the difference. I am going to him at once to ask what he means.” She rushed towards the door, glowing anew with courage and spirit, but then suddenly stopped herself, and came running back, throwing herself suddenly on Katherine’s shoulders.

“Oh, Kate, why should parents be so hard,” she said, shedding a few tears—“and so hypocritical!” she exclaimed, rousing herself again—“pretending to be ready to do everything, and then doing nothing!”

“Oh, hush, Stella!” cried Katherine, restraining her; “there is nothing you have wanted till now that papa has not done.”

“What!” cried the girl indignantly. “Diamonds and such wretched things.” She made a gesture as if to pull something from her throat and throw it on the floor, though the diamonds, naturally, at this hour in the morning, were not there. “But the first thing I really want—the only thing—oh, let me go, Kate, let me go and ask him what he means!”

“Wait a little,” said Katherine—“wait a little; it may not be as bad as we think; it may not be bad at all. Let us go down as if nothing had happened. Perhaps Sir Charles has only—gone—to fetch something.”

“Like that?” cried Stella; and then a something of the ridiculous in the drooping figure came across her volatile mind. He was so like, so very like, that dog with his tail between his legs. She burst out into a laugh. “Poor Charlie, oh, poor Charlie! he looked exactly like—but I will pay papa for this,” the girl cried.

“Oh, not now,” said Katherine. “Remember, he is an old man—we must try not to cross him but to soothe him. He may have been vexed to think of losing you, Stella. He may have been—a little sharp; perhaps to try to—break it off—for a time.”

“And you think he might succeed, I shouldn’t wonder,” Stella cried, tossing her head high. To tell the truth, Katherine was by no means sure that he might not succeed. She had not a great confidence in the depth of the sentiment which connected her sister and Sir Charles. She believed that on one side or the other that tie might be broken, and that it would be no great harm. But she made no reply to Stella’s question. She only begged her to have patience a little, to make no immediate assault upon her father. “You know the doctor said he must be very regular—and not be disturbed—in his meals and things.”

“Oh, if it is lunch you are thinking of!” cried Stella, with great disdain; but after a little she consented to take things quietly and await the elucidation of events. The meal that followed was not, however, a very comfortable meal. Mr. Tredgold came in with every evidence of high spirits, but was also nervous, not knowing what kind of reception he was likely to meet with. He was as evidently relieved when they seated themselves at table without any questions, but it was a relief not unmingled with excitement. He talked continuously and against time, but he neither asked about their visit as he usually did, nor about the previous night’s entertainment, nor Stella’s appearance nor her triumphs. Stella sat very silent at her side of the table. And Katherine thought that her father was a little afraid. He made haste to escape as soon as the luncheon was over, and it was not a moment too soon, for Stella’s excitement was no longer restrainable. “What has he said to Charlie—what has he done to him?” she cried. “Do you think he would dare send him away for good and never say a word to me? What is the meaning of it, Kate? You would not let me speak, though it choked me to sit and say nothing. Where is my Charlie? and oh, how dared he, how dared he, to send him away?”

Katherine suggested that he might still be lingering about waiting for the chance of seeing one of them, and Stella darted out accordingly and flew through the grounds, in and out of the trees, with her uncovered head shining in the sun, but came back with no further enlightenment. She then proceeded imperiously to her father’s room; where, however, she was again stopped by the butler, who announced that master was having his nap and was not to be disturbed. All this delayed the explanation and prolonged the suspense, which was aggravated, as in so many cases, by the arrival of visitors. “So you have got back, Stella, from your grand visit? Oh, do tell us all about it!” It was perhaps the first fiery ordeal of social difficulty to which that undisciplined little girl had been exposed. And it was so much the more severe that various other sentiments came in—pride in the visit, which was so much greater a privilege than was accorded to the ordinary inhabitants of Sliplin; pride, too, in a show of indifference to it, desire to make her own glories known, and an equally strong desire to represent these glories as nothing more than were habitual and invariable. In the conflict of feeling Stella was drawn a little out of herself and out of the consideration of her father’s unimaginable behaviour. Oh, if they only knew the real climax of all those eager questions! If only a hint could have been given of the crowning glory, of the new possession she had acquired, and the rank to which she was about to be elevated!

Stella did not think of “a trumpery baronet” now. It was the Earl whom she thought trumpery, a creation of this reign, as Miss Mildmay said, whereas the Somers went back to the Anglo-Saxons. Stella did not know very well who the Anglo-Saxons were. She did not know that baronetcies are comparatively modern inventions. She only knew that to be Lady Somers was a fine thing, and that she was going to attain that dignity. But then, papa—who was papa, to interfere with her happiness? what could he do to stop a thing she had made up her mind to?—stood in the way. It was papa’s fault that she could not make that thrilling, that tremendous announcement to her friends. Her little tongue trembled on the edge of it. At one moment it had almost burst forth. Oh, how silly to be talking of Steephill, of the dance, of the rides, of going to the covert side with the sportsmen’s luncheon—all these things which unengaged persons, mere spectators of life, make so much of—when she had had it in her power to tell something so much more exciting, something that would fly not only through Sliplin and all along the coast but over the whole island before night! And to think she could not tell it—must not say anything about it because of papa!

Thus Stella fretted through the afternoon, determined, however, to “have it out with papa” the moment her visitors were gone, and not, on the whole, much afraid. He had never crossed her in her life before. Since the time when Stella crying for it in the nursery was enough to secure any delight she wanted, till now, when she stood on the edge of life and all its excitements, nothing that she cared for had ever been refused her. She had her little ways of getting whatever she wanted. It was not that he was always willing or always agreed in her wishes; if that had been so, the prospect before her would have been more doubtful; but there were things which he did not like and had yet been made to consent to because of Stella’s wish. Why should he resist her now for the first time? There was no reason in it, no probability in it, no sense. He had been able to say No to Charlie—that was quite another thing. Charlie was very nice, but he was not Stella, though he might be Stella’s chosen; and papa had, no doubt, a little spite against him because of that adventure in the yacht, and because he was poor, and other things. But Stella herself, was it possible that papa could ever hold head against her, look her in the face and deny her anything? No, certainly no! She was going over this in her mind while the visitors were talking, and even when she was giving them an account of what she wore. Her new white, and her diamonds—what diamonds! Oh, hadn’t they heard? A rivière that papa had given her; not a big one, you know, like an old lady’s—a little one, but such stones, exactly like drops of dew! As she related this, her hopes—nay, certainties—sprang high. She had not needed to hold up her little finger to have those jewels—a word had done it, the merest accidental word. She had not even had the trouble of wishing for them. And to imagine that he would be likely to cross her now!

“Stella! Stella! where are you going?” Katherine cried.

“I am going—to have it out with papa.” The last visitor had just gone; Stella caught the cloth on the tea-table in the sweep of her dress, and disordered everything as she flew by. But Katherine, though so tidy, did not stop to restore things to their usual trimness. She followed her sister along the passage a little more slowly, but with much excitement too. Would Stella conquer, as she usually did? or, for the first time in her life, would she find a blank wall before her which nothing could break down? Katherine could not but remember the curt intimation which had been given to her that James Stanford had been sent away and was never to be spoken of more. But then she was not Stella—she was very different from Stella; she had always felt even (or fancied) that the fact that James Stanford’s suit had been to herself and not to Stella had something to do with his rejection. That anyone should have thought of Katherine while Stella was by! She blamed herself for this idea as she followed Stella flying through the long and intricate passages to have it out with papa. Perhaps she had been wrong, Katherine said to herself. If papa held out against Stella this time, she would feel sure she had been wrong.

Stella burst into the room without giving any indication of her approach, and Katherine went in behind her—swept in the wind of her going. But what they saw was a vacant room, the fire purring to itself like a cat, with sleepy little starts and droppings, a level sunbeam coming in broad at one window, and on the table two lines of silver money stretched along the dark table-cloth and catching the eye. They were irregular lines—one all of shillings straight and unbroken, the other shorter, and made up with a half-crown and a sixpence. What was the meaning of this? They consulted each other with their eyes.

“I am coming directly,” said Mr. Tredgold from an inner room. The door was open. It was the room in which his safe was, and they could hear him rustling his paper, putting in or taking out something. “Oh, papa, make haste! I am waiting for you,” Stella cried in her impatience. She could scarcely brook at the last moment this unnecessary delay.

He came out, but not for a minute more; and then he was wiping his lips as if he had been taking something to support himself; which indeed was the case, and he had need of it. He came in with a great show of cheerfulness, rubbing his hands. “What, both of you?” he said, “I thought it was only Stella. I am glad both of you are here. Then you can tell me–”

“Papa, I will tell you nothing, nor shall Kate, till you have answered my question. What have you done to Charlie Somers? Where is he? where have you sent him? and how—how—how da—how could you have sent him away?”

“That’s his money,” said the old gentleman, pointing to the table. “You’d better pick it up and send it to him; he might miss it afterwards. The fool thought he could lay down money with me; there’s only seventeen shillings of it,” said Mr. Tredgold contemptuously—“not change for a sovereign! But he might want it. I don’t think he had much more in his pocket, and I don’t want his small change; no, nor nobody else’s. You can pick it up and send it back.”