Phoebe, Junior

He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway, and thus missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and followed him to the train; but too late.

“Well, well,” Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, “Old Tozer has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between 'em.”

Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally an awful and respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth; but Tozer was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten times that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean's sense of commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill in the circumstances should give him a very serious pang. He would not be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before. He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as calmly as possible. He was but passive in it. It could not harm him much in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much astonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it between them. It was their affair.

Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got a dog-cart at the little inn at the station to take him over, though generally when he went to see the Dorsets it was his custom to walk. “But what were a few shillings?” he said to himself, the prodigality of desperation having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less matter? but the discomfort of walking over those muddy roads, and arriving with dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest good-humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another, over the stables, the farm-buildings, the farm itself from end to end, the preserves, the shrubberies, the greenhouses, everything; all of which details he examined with an unfailing curiosity which would have been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized by a strain of comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing loudly over a picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true “Wilson,” bought by an uncle of Sir Robert's, who had been a connoisseur, from the Master himself, in the very country where it was painted; and all these details pleased the imagination of the family, who, though probably they would have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the acquaintance of the best of contemporary painters, were proud that Uncle Charles had known Italian Wilson, and had bought a picture out of his studio. A Hobbema or a Poussin would scarcely have pleased them as much, for the worst of an old Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as a copy; whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to be copied. They were showing their picture and telling the story to the millionnaire with an agreeable sense that, though they were not so rich, they must, at least, have the advantage of him in this way.

“Ha!” said Mr. Copperhead, “you should see my Turner. Didn't I show you my Turner? I don't venture to tell you, Sir Robert, what that picture cost me. It's a sin, it is, to keep that amount of capital hanging useless upon a bit of wall. The Wilson may be all very well. I ain't a judge of art, and I can't give my opinion on that point, though it's a common sort of a name, and there don't seem to be much in it; but everybody knows what a Turner means. Here's May; he'll be able to tell you as well as another. It means a few cool thousands, take my word for it. It means, I believe, that heaps of people would give you your own price. I don't call it a profitable investment, for it brings in no interest; but they tell me it's a thing that grows in value every year. And there it is, Sir, hanging up useless on my wall in Portland Place, costing a fortune, and bringing in not a penny. But I like it; I like it, for I can afford it, by George! Here's May; he knows what that sort of thing is; he'll tell you that a Turner is worth its weight in gold.”

“Thank you, I don't think I need any information on that subject,” said Sir Robert. “Besides, I saw your Turner. It is a pretty picture – if it is authentic; but Wilson, you know – ”

“Wasn't a big-enough swell not to be authentic, eh?” said Mr. Copperhead. “Common name enough, and I don't know that I ever heard of him in the way of painting; but I don't pretend to be a judge. Here's May; now, I dare say he knows all about it. Buying's one thing, knowing's another. Your knowing ones, when they've got any money, they have the advantage over us, Sir Robert; they can pick up a thing that's good, when it happens to come their way, dirt cheap; but fortunately for us, it isn't often they've got any money,” he added, with a laugh, slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a way which made him totter. But the clergyman's good-humour was equal even to this assault. It is wonderful how patient and tolerant we can all be when the motive is strong enough.

“That is true,” he said; “but I fear I have not even the compensation of knowledge. I know enough, however, to feel that the possessor of a Turner is a public personage, and may be a public benefactor if he pleases.”

“How that? If you think I am one to go lending my pictures about, or leaving them to the nation when I'm done for, that's not my sort. No, I keep them to myself. If I consent to have all that money useless, it is for myself, you may depend, and not for other people. And I'll leave it to my boy Clarence, if he behaves himself. He's a curiosity, too, and has a deal of money laid out on him that brings no interest, him and his mother. I'll leave it to Clar, if he doesn't make a low marriage, or any folly of that kind.”

“You should make it an heir-loom,” said Sir Robert, with sarcasm too fine for his antagonist; “leave it from father to son of your descendants, like our family diamonds and plate.”

Anne and Sophy looked at each other and smiled, the one sadly, the other satirically. The Dorset family jewels were rose-diamonds of small value, and the plate was but moderate in quantity, and not very great in quality. Poor Sir Robert liked to blow his little trumpet too, but it was not so blatant as that of his visitor, whose rude senses did not even see the intended malice.

“By George! I think I will,” he said. “I'm told it's as safe as the bank, and worth more and more every year, and if it don't bring in anything, it don't eat anything; eh, May? Look here; perhaps I was hasty the other day,” he said, pushing the clergyman a little apart from the group with a large hand on his shoulder. “Clarence tells me you're the best coach he ever saw, and that he's getting on like a house on fire.”

“He does make progress, I think,” answered the tutor, thus gracefully complimented.

“But all the same, you know, I had a right to be annoyed. Now a man of your sense – for you seem a man of sense, though you're a parson, and know what side your bread's buttered on – ought to see that it's an aggravating thing when a young fellow has been sent to a coach for his instruction, and to keep him out of harm's way, to find him cheek by jowl with a nice-looking young woman. That's not what a father has a right to expect.”

“You couldn't expect me to do away with my daughter because I happened to take a pupil?” said Mr. May, half-amused; “but I can assure you that she has no designs upon your son.”

“So I hear, so I hear,” said the other, with a mixture of pique and satisfaction. “Won't look at him, Clar tells me; got her eye on some one else, little fool! She'll never have such a chance again. As for having no designs, that's bosh, you know; all women have designs. I'm a deal easier in my mind when I'm told she's got other fish to fry.”

“Other fish to fry?” said Mr. May; this time he was wholly amused, and laughed. “This is news to me. However, we don't want to discuss my little Ursula; about your son it will be well that I should know, for I might be forming other engagements. This moment is a time of pecuniary pressure with me,” he added, with the ingratiating smile and half-pathetic frankness of the would-be borrower. “I have not taken pupils before, but I want money for the time. My son's settlement in life, you see, and – but the father of a large family can always find good reasons for wanting money.”

“That's it,” said Mr. Copperhead, seriously. “Why are you the father of a large family? That's what I ask our ministers. It's against all political economy, that is. According as you've no money to give 'em, you go and have children – when it should be just the other way.”

“That may be very true; but there they are, and can't be done away with; and I do want money, as it happens, more now than I shall want it a year hence, or, perhaps, even six months hence.”

“Most people do,” said Mr. Copperhead, withdrawing his hand from his pocket, and placing his elbow tightly against the orifice of that very important part of him. “It's the commonest thing in the world. I want money myself, for that matter. I've always got a large amount to make up by a certain date, and a bill to pay. But about Clar, that's the important matter. As he seems to have set his mind on it, and as you assure me there's no danger – man-traps, or that sort of thing, eh?”

The colour came to Mr. May's cheek; but it was only for a moment. To have his own daughter spoken of as a man-trap gave him a momentary thrill of anger; but, as he would have applied the word quite composedly to any other man's daughter, the resentment was evanescent. He did not trust himself to answer, however, but nodded somewhat impatiently, which made the millionnaire laugh the more.

“Don't like the man-trap?” he said. “Bless you, they're all alike, not yours more than the rest. But as I was saying, if it's warranted safe I suppose he'll have to stay. But I don't stand any nonsense, May; and look here, your music and all that ain't in the agreement. He can have a master for his music, he's well enough able to pay for it; but I won't have a mistress, by George, to put folly into his head.”

“I am to forbid him the drawing-room, I suppose, and take his fiddle from him! I have no objections. Between ourselves, as I am not musical, it would be very agreeable to me; but perhaps he is rather over the age, don't you think, for treatment of that kind?”

Clarence had come in, and stood watching the conversation, with a look Mr. Copperhead was not prepared for. Those mild brown eyes, which were his mother's share in him, were full a-stare with sullen resolution, and his heavy mouth shut like that of a bull-dog. He lingered at the door, looking at the conversation which was going on between his father and his tutor, and they both noticed him at the same moment, and drew the same conclusion. Mr. May was in possession of the parole, as the French say, and he added instinctively in an undertone,

“Take care; if I were you I would not try him too far.”

Mr. Copperhead said nothing; but he stared too, rather aghast at this new revelation. What! his porcelain, his Dresden figure of a son, his crowning curiosity, was he going to show a will of his own? The despot felt a thrill go over him. What kind of a sentiment love was in his mind it would be hard to tell; but his pride was all set on this heavy boy. To see him a man of note, in Parliament, his name in the papers, his speeches printed in the “Times,” was the very heaven of his expectations. “Son of the famous Copperhead, the great contractor.” He did not care about such distinction in his own person; but this had been his dream ever since Clarence came into being. And now there he stood gloomy, obdurate. If he had made up his mind to make a low marriage, could his father hinder him – could anything hinder him? Mr. Copperhead looked at his son and quailed for the first time in his life.

“May,” he said, hurriedly, “do the best you can; he's got all his mother's d – d obstinacy, you can see, can't you? but I've set my heart on making a man of him – do the best you can.”

Mr. May thought to himself afterwards if he had only had the vigour to say, “Pay me six months in advance,” the thing would have been done. But the lingering prejudices of breeding clung about him, and he could not do it. Mr. Copperhead, however, was very friendly all the rest of the day, and gave him private looks and words aside, to the great admiration of the Dorsets, to whom the alliance between them appeared remarkable enough.

CHAPTER XXXIX

A CATASTROPHE

Mr. May left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the warm invitation which was given to him to stay. He was rather restless, and though it was hard to go out into the dark just as grateful odours began to steal through the house, it suited him better to do so than to spend the night away from home. Besides, he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook was not first-rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation. It was a long walk to the station, for they had no horses at liberty to drive him, a fact at which he was slightly offended, though he was aware that Sir Robert's stable was but a poor one. He set out just as the dressing-bell began to ring, fortified with a glass of sherry and a biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he went on; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was all quite plain before him what to do, – to go to the Bank, to tell them what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible. The consciousness of having this to do acted upon him like a gentle opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware now far he was going, or where he was going, across the country; and even when he arrived at Carlingford he roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he had to get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and half-asleep. “If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have blamed that,” he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy, amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he scarcely could tell how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and looked up at the lights in the windows. There was music going on; Phœbe, no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness stealing over him for Clarence too.

Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phœbe “had not intended to come,” but was there notwithstanding, persuaded by Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote had “not intended to come.” Indeed, he had gone further than this, he had intended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner, he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up and down in forlorn contemplation of the lighted windows, had been spied by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation. Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was occupying, but she was keenly interested in all that was going on, very eager to understand the relationships in which the others stood, and to see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the features, expressed a totally different phase of existence from that which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears, and watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a soft response fluttering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was not destined to be spoken to-night; and it was she who made Phœbe's music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no danger. Phœbe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even Phœbe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and incipient; they could not come to anything; there were no hairbreadth escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything, neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the condition of Ursula and Phœbe to one of absolute safety. They were all kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement and mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness for Janey's bed-time.

“Do you let her sit up till midnight every night?” said Reginald, with indignation.

“Let me sit up!” cried Janey, “as if I was obliged to do what she tells me!”

Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked at the clock.

“It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock,” she said, with a sigh. “I should have thought papa would have come home before now. Can he be staying at the Hall all night?”

Just then, however, there was the well-known ring at the bell, and Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper. Why couldn't Janey make herself useful and do that, the little company thought indignantly and with one accord, instead of staying here with her sharp eyes, putting everybody out? Mr. May's little dinner, or supper, served on a tray, was very comfortable, and he ate it with great satisfaction, telling Ursula that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.

“The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead was a little less disagreeable than he always is; and you may look for Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not going to leave us. You must take care that he does not fall in love with you, Ursula. That is the chief thing they seem to be afraid of.”

“Fall in love with me!” cried Ursula. “Oh, papa, where are your eyes? He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't you see it? It is Phœbe he cares for.”

Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious smile in his eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully whether her father had taken much wine at the Hall.

“Ah, ha! is that what they are frightened for?” he said, and then he shrugged his shoulders. “She will show bad taste, Ursula; she might do better; but I suppose a girl of her class has not the delicacy – So that is what they are frightened for! And what are the other fish you have to fry?”

“Papa!”

“Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you; that you had other fish to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that? Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door – just a whiff of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go into the study and get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed.”

“Won't you come upstairs to the drawing-room?” said Ursula, faltering, for she was appalled by the idea of explanations. What had she to explain, as yet? Mr. May shook his head, with that smile still upon his face.

“No, you'll get on excellently well without me. I've had a long walk, and I think I'll go to bed.”

“You don't look very well, papa.”

“Oh, yes, I'm well enough; only confused in the head a little with fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good-night. Don't keep those young fellows late, though one of them is your brother. You can say I'm tired. Good-night, my dear.”

It was very seldom that he called her “my dear,” or, indeed, said anything affectionate to his grown-up children. If Ursula had not been so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so sure that “they” would miss her, she would have been anxious about her father; but as it was, she ran upstairs lightly when he stopped speaking, and left him going into the study, where already his lamp was burning. Betsy passed her as she ran up the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held between two folds of her apron. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome parish business to bother him, when he was tired already. But Ursula did not stop for that. How she wanted to be there again, among “them all,” even though Janey still made one! She went in breathless, and gave her father's message only half-articulately. He was tired. “We are never to mind; he says so.” They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May being tired, what did that matter? He would, no doubt, be better to-morrow; and in the mean time those sweet hours, though so hampered by Janey, were very sweet.

Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on his table. He was just taking out his medicine from the drawer, and he made a wry face at the note and at the pills together.

“Parish?” he said, curtly.

“No, sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He came this morning, after you'd gone, and he sent over little Bobby.”

“That will do.”

A presentiment of pain stole over him. He gave Betsy a nod of dismissal, and went on with what he was doing. After he had finished, he took up the little note from the table with a look of disgust. It was badly scrawled, badly folded, and dirty. Thank Heaven, Cotsdean's communications would soon be over now.

Janey had proposed a round game upstairs. They were all humble in their desire to conciliate that young despot. Reginald got the cards, and Northcote put chairs round the table. He placed Ursula next to himself, which was a consolation, and sat down by her, close to her, though not a word, except of the most commonplace kind, could be said.

Just then – what was it? an indescribable thrill through the house, the sound of a heavy fall. They all started up from their seats to hear what it was. Then Ursula, with a cry of apprehension, rushed downstairs, and the others after her. Betsy, alarmed, had come out of the kitchen, followed by her assistant, and was standing frightened, but irresolute; for Mr. May was not a man to be disturbed with impunity. And this might be nothing – the falling of a chair or a table, and nothing more.

“What is it?” cried Ursula, in an anxious whisper.

She was the leader in the emergency, for even Reginald held back. Then, after a moment's pause, she opened the door, and with a little cry rushed in. It was, as they feared, Mr. May who had fallen; but he had so far recovered himself as to be able to make efforts to rise. His face was towards them. It was very pale, of a livid colour, and covered with moisture, great beads standing on his forehead. He smiled vaguely when he saw the circle of faces.