Dread
Twenty winters had not come and passed away without leaving traces of their frosty rime upon the heads of Captain Norton and his wife; but as they stood in the Hall dining-room, hand clasping hand, and gazing into each others face, it was evident that, whatever might have been the past, there was peace, content, and happiness there.
“Yes,” said Mrs Norton, now grown into a pleasant matronly dame, “he has come back. The whole village rings with the news. So unexpected, too.”
“Poor fellow!” said Captain Norton, after a few minutes’ quiet thought. “Heaven grant that he may be more happy! I am sorry, though, Ada – very sorry; for his coming seems to open old wounds. But come – come, darling!” he exclaimed, as he drew her towards his breast. “Don’t wear that troubled face. Surely, after all these years – ”
“Pray forgive me!” said Mrs Norton, nestling closer to him; and she smiled happily in reply to his caresses. “As you say, Philip, Heaven help him, and clear up the dark mystery of his life! I do not see why we should trouble ourselves about his coming back.”
“Well – no,” said Captain Norton, uneasily; “but one cannot help recalling how events shaped themselves after his last return. But there, let us dismiss it all, for I cannot trust myself even now to dwell upon all these old matters. I would make up my mind to leave, and at once, in spite of the inconvenience, only that it would be like a tacit acknowledgment that I was afraid to meet him; and you know how charitable people can be.”
“Oh no; we could not think of leaving,” said Mrs Norton, hastily; “but I think – nay, I feel sure that with him the past will be buried entirely; for, Philip,” she added, solemnly, “may Heaven forgive me if I am uncharitable, but I believe that the man who could so cruelly malign my husband must have had his own ends to serve. I could not refrain from saying this, as the subject was brought up; but whatever evil – whatever wrong-doing was connected with poor Marion’s disappearance, must some day or other be brought out into the light of day. Twenty years – twenty long years – has the matter slumbered, and it may slumber twenty more; and, in spite now of my utter indifference to public opinion, I cannot help longing for the mystery to be cleared up in our day. But, whether or no, promise me this, dearest, that it shall not be allowed to trouble you – that you will not brood over it; and that, come what may, you will avoid all encounter with that bad, proud man, whose coming seems like a cloud sent over dear old Merland. I almost feel thankful that poor Mr and Mrs Elstree are now far away from trouble and care. There was that dread suspicion, though, in both their hearts; I feel sure, however, they struggled to the last to keep it back. But there: let us dismiss it all; and you promise me, do you not?”
Captain Norton’s calm, quiet smile was enough to reassure his wife; and as he took his seat at a side-table, covered with correspondence, she stood behind him, leaning her hands upon his shoulder.
“We are going on at a famous rate, Ada,” he said, after a busy pause, in short, sharp, decisive tones, that smacked of the man of business – “returns increasing every month. Some of the prophetic old wiseacres would give their ears now for shares in our rusty old iron company. By the way, though, Brace has not written for any money lately. Is it not time we heard from him?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Norton, with anxiety in her tones; “and – ”
“Now, don’t be an old fidget,” said the Captain, laughingly, as once more he drew her towards him. “That poor old head of yours is as full of shipwrecks and disasters at sea as one of the wreck-charts or Lloyd’s ledgers. What a pity it is that we did not have half-a-dozen boys for you to share that weak old heart of yours amongst, so that you need not have had to worry yourself to death about one!”
“But surely we ought to have had a letter a month since.”
“Certainly, my love, if the poor boy had had a post-office close at hand into which he could pop it. Don’t be so unreasonable. You don’t know how even an adverse wind will keep a vessel away from port for weeks together. You must study statistics, so as to ease that heart of yours, by learning how seldom a mishap befalls a ship. We shall be hearing from him before long, and – There, bless my soul, I must keep a clerk; I’ve forgotten to answer Harrison and Son’s letter.”
“What was that about?” said Mrs Norton, as, pleased to see how happy her husband was in his business pursuits – upon which, in spite of adversity at the outset, fortune had of late smiled in full sunshine – she tried to enter into each matter, knowing full well how his busy life had been the cure for a mind diseased.
“What was it about?” said Captain Norton, dreamily. “Oh, about the marsh – the warping, you know. I am to have two thousand acres.”
“But I don’t know,” said Mrs Norton, smiling; “you promised to explain.”
“To be sure; so I did!” he exclaimed, eagerly reaching down a rolled-up plan, and spreading it upon the table. “Now look here, Ada; this will be an expensive affair, and we shall reap no benefit from it ourselves, for it is a matter of years and years; but that young dog will have an estate which will make him hold up his head as high as he likes. Now, see here – this is my side. I’ve bought these two thousand acres of worthless marshland – worthless save for peat-digging and wild-duck shooting. This is the piece, Ada, love,” he said, solemnly, as he laid a finger upon the plan. “I chose this so that I might preserve the pine-wood untouched.”
He stopped to gaze up in his wife’s face, and as she recalled the past, she bent over him until her cheek touched his forehead.
“Well, love,” he said, raising himself and speaking cheerfully, “we – that is to say, the other purchasers and myself – dig a large drain, or canal, through our marsh pieces right to the Trent, and fit our drain with sluice-gates, so that at every high tide we flood our low tract of marsh with the thick, muddy waters loaded with the alluvial soil of Yorkshire and our own county, brought down by many a river and stream, which, after the fashion of the hill floods, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, is deposited upon our peat and rushes, in a heavy, unctuous, wondrously rich mud, or warp, till, in the course of time, we have it two, three, and in places even four feet deep. Then comes the change: we cease flooding, and give all our attention to thoroughly draining our warp land, which now becomes, in place of marsh, fit only to grow water-plants, a rich and fertile soil. Nature has converted it for us; and twenty years hence, instead of marsh, Master Brace will have a couple of thousand acres of the best soil in England. That is all I can do for him, and after all I don’t think that it will be such a very mean heritage. Now, love, what do you say to that?”
Mrs Norton’s answer was a cry of joy: for at that moment, free of step, bright and happy, in came Brace Norton, to be strained again and again to his mother’s breast.
There was a grim smile of pride and pleasure upon Captain Norton’s scarred face, as, after hastily rolling up his plans, he caught at his son’s disengaged hand.
“My dear Brace, how well and hearty you look!” he exclaimed, as he scanned the broad chest and muscular limbs of his son.
“I Well? Ay! father, never better,” was the reply. “And I don’t know that I ever saw you look better.”
“Oh! I’m well enough,” said Captain Norton. “But, my dear boy, what a pity it is that you did not join our service! With that build of yours, you would have drilled as upright as a dart.”
“And broken my heart over the pipe-clay, eh, father?” laughed the young man. “I’m right enough – make a tolerable sailor, perhaps, but I should have been a poor soldier. But, I say,” said Brace, after half-an-hour’s questioning and answering, “I have had quite an adventure coming over: came across a fine, fierce, grey old fellow, with – oh! mamma, the most lovely girl you ever saw in your life!”
“Pooh!” laughed the Captain, “the sailor’s Poll. What asses you boys do make of yourselves!”
“All right, father; only let me bray in peace.”
“Fell in love at first sight, and would have eloped, only the fierce, grey old fellow was watchful as a dragon, eh, Brace?” said Captain Norton, smiling.
“Belay, there, will you!” cried Brace. “How can I go on with my story? Not quite so fast as that. But there, sir, we can spare you for the present. I’m talking to some one here who can sympathise. Really, you know,” he continued, passing his arm round his mother’s waist, as she gazed at him fondly, and drawing her to the window, “she was about the sweetest girl I ever set eyes on. Quite an adventure: chaises passing; theirs overset; sweet girl’s temple cut; insensible; offering aid; received very haughtily by the old gentleman – quite a Spanish grandee!”
Ada Norton started, as those words seemed to carry her back five-and-twenty years, and the smile upon her lips slowly faded away.
“Well,” continued Brace, lightly, “I spoiled my cap by fetching water in it from a pool, like a true knight-errant would have done with his casque, and bound up the bleeding temple with my handkerchief. Then, after a great deal of snubbing from the old gentleman, I was rewarded by a sweet smile of thanks from the lady as I prevailed upon the Don to take my chaise and come on. Got them in at last, after a great deal of ceremonious fencing, and they drove off, but only to stop directly. Old gentleman leaps out, drags sweet girl after him, and goes raging off; and all, I suppose, because he had seen my name upon my leather writing-case; while, for explanation, I have the young lady’s handkerchief, bearing the sweet name of Isa Gernon. But, good heavens, my dear mother, how pale you look! Father, what is the matter?”
Captain Norton had risen from his seat and advanced to his wife, who, pale as death, stood gazing at him with a terrified expression upon her countenance.
“My dear father, what does all this mean?” exclaimed Brace, with real anxiety in his tones. “What mystery is there here? Of course I concluded that the elderly gentleman was Sir Murray Gernon; and I have some misty recollections of an old family quarrel, and Lady Gernon running away. There, I have arrived at my cable’s end. What is it all? I trust nothing wrong.”
“Speak to him, Ada!” cried Captain Norton, hoarsely. “There must be no more of this!”
And without another word he hurried from the room; while, perfectly astounded, Brace turned to his mother for some explanation of what was to him a profound mystery.
On the Bygone
“And where had my father been at the time?” said Brace Norton, after sitting with knitted brows listening to his mother’s narrative of the past.
“France – abroad – to avoid arrest; for his affairs in connection with the mine were then in a sad state. It was his absence which made matters wear so suspicious an aspect.”
“Suspicious? Yes,” said Brace, angrily, “suspicious enough to base minds! How long was he away?”
“Five, nearly six, months,” said Mrs Norton.
“But you never believed this charge, mother? You never thought my father guilty?”
“Guilty? No!” exclaimed Mrs Norton, proudly. “Your father, Brace, is the soul of honour, and above suspicion; but matters shaped themselves most cruelly against him.”
“That Gurdon must have had the cross,” said Brace, after a thoughtful pause; “and you say that he obtained his deserts – transported?”
Mrs Norton nodded her head.
“But Lady Gernon’s disappearance – what could have become of her? Was it possible that she was deluded away out of revenge – perhaps with the cross for a bait – by some one or other of Gurdon’s associates, so that she fell into some trap?”
“My son – my dear boy, pray do not talk of it any more,” said Mrs Norton, sadly. “It is a rock upon which our happiness was nearly wrecked; but avoid it now. It was right that you should know all after the strange meeting of to-day; but you see now the reason for your father’s – for my agitation, and for the strong emotion displayed by Sir Murray Gernon. It is quite impossible, as you must see, that the old intimacy should be renewed. Your fathers – my peace of mind depends upon our keeping at a distance – upon the past, Brace, being deeply buried. You see that I am speaking freely – that I am keeping nothing back, in order that you may be upon your guard, and do nothing to endanger the happiness of what, my child, has been these many years a happy home.”
“But,” exclaimed Brace, impetuously, “if the mystery could be cleared up! I do not like that, even with Sir Murray Gernon, there should be a doubt of my father’s honour.”
“Brace, my dear boy,” said Mrs Norton, laying her hand upon the young man’s arm, “let the past rest; it is a subject that has brought white hairs into more than one head. It has been thought upon till left in despair. I pray to be forgiven if I am unjust, but I do not think that Sir Murray Gernon entertains a single suspicion against your father, whatever he may once have felt. Time must have removed old impressions; but for his own black conduct – There, I dare not say what I think, even to you, Brace!”
There was a contraction of the young man’s features, as an inkling of the meaning of his mother’s hastily-spoken words flashed across his mind. Then, rising, he began to pace the room with impatient strides, for there was a sense of disappointment at his heart which he could not overcome; and in spite of his efforts, there seemed to be continually before him the sweet, timid face and the reclining figure that he had for a few minutes supported; while, as he pondered upon his mothers words, again piecing together her long narrative, it seemed to him that he was every minute being removed further and further from one who had made what in another case he would have called an impression upon a susceptible nature. It was as though each moment a deep, black gulf was opening wider and wider between them – a gulf that it would be impossible for him ever to pass. Then, as Mrs Norton watched him anxiously, he stood gazing from the window, telling himself that it was absurd to treat matters in such a light; that he had seen Isa Gernon but for a few minutes; that he had barely spoken to her; that she might be engaged to another; that she might be in disposition unamiable, and in tastes utterly opposed to his; that, in short, he was making an utter ass of himself. But, all the same, there were those two large, sad eyes ever before him, gazing reproachfully in his face from beyond that great gulf – ever widening more and more, more and more, till, impatiently stamping upon the floor, he made an angry effort to cast the “folly” from him, and went and knelt down by his mother’s side.
“I am sorry, Brace,” she said, as her hand played, with all a proud mother’s tenderness, amongst his fair, crisply-curling hair – “I am grieved that my words should have made so troublous an impression.”
“It is not that – it is not that! There, what am I saying?” he exclaimed, with assumed cheerfulness. “I’ve come home in high spirits, brimful of happiness, and ready to enjoy myself; so, dear mother, don’t let us trouble about the past – let it be buried.”
“Yes, better so – far better so!” exclaimed Mrs Norton. “For our sakes, Brace, never refer to it before your father in any wise; for those incidents were so many shoals in the way of his happiness; but, Brace, I set myself to try and make his life happy, and sometimes I cannot help thinking that I have succeeded.”
“Indeed, no happier home than this could ever have existed, I’m sure,” cried Brace, smiling in his mother’s pleasant face. “But,” he added, as he kissed her, laughing, “it does seem hard that when you have cured a husband of a roving disposition, you should have a son turn out far worse.”
Mrs Norton smiled, but a grave, sad expression swept the next moment over her face.
“Save for his business transactions, Brace, that was your father’s last long absence from me – for I suffered deeply then. I think that on his return from France, when he had had some arrangements made by which he gained time to pay off every demand, he saw how I had felt his absence, and made a resolve to leave me no more, and he has kept to that determination.”
“The mines nearly ruined him, then, in the first place?” said Brace.
“Very nearly; but he had such faith in them that for five years we lived almost in poverty that we might pay off debts; when, as his last creditor was satisfied, your father’s faith met with its reward, and ever since the mines have gone on increasing their returns year by year. But let us go to him now. You will be careful, though, Brace; you see now how necessary it is that not even a reference should be made to the bygone?”
“Yes – yes, mother – yes!” said Brace, with a troubled sigh; and they rose to leave the room, when, with the traces of his former emotion quite passed away, Captain Norton entered, looking inquiringly at mother and son, and then entering into conversation upon indifferent topics, as if nothing had happened.
Right Honourable
“Now look here, Josh: it’s of no use for you to come bothering me like this. Here have I been back from Italy only a few days, and you’re down upon me like a leech – I mean like a hawk!”
“If your lordship had condescended to tell me that you were going abroad, and consulted me about the meeting of those little bills when they fell due, it would have been a different thing.”
The scene was a heavily-furnished room in a fashionable London hotel, and the speakers were George Viscount Maudlaine, son and heir to the hampered estates and somewhat tarnished title of the Right Honourable Valentine, twentieth Earl of Chiltern; and Joshua Braham, Esq., solicitor, of Drury Chambers, St Alban’s Place, Regent Street. The former, as he lounged back in his purple dressing-gown, appeared to be a tall, well-made young man, with a somewhat dreamy or tobacco-contemplative cast of countenance, more remarkable for bone, and the prominence of the well-known Chiltern features, than anything particularly definite; the latter was a gentleman, very smooth, very swarthy, possessing a ruddy and Eastern development of lip, aquiline of – nose, hair short – black – spiky – of a texture, in short, that threatened, should a lock be sent for, to fly off in dangerous blinding showers of capillary stubble.
“You see, I don’t recollect these sort of things,” said his lordship.
“Only when your lordship requires a fresh supply of money,” said Mr Braham, smiling like a shark, and rubbing his hands together so that his rings rattled.
“There, don’t make a bother: sit down and have some breakfast, Braham,” said the younger man. “These sort of things are so dooced unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant? There’s nothing further from my thoughts, my lord, than making things unpleasant. I only came, after writing twice to remind your lordship that three bills, which fell due a month since, were all returned, and now lie in my hands, with interest and expenses attached. Unpleasant? Why, I give you my word, that Moss, or Peterson, or Barcohen, would have had your lordship arrested and in Bream’s Buildings or Cursitor Street days ago. But I don’t do business like that. I only accommodate gentlemen of position, and then, in return, I expect to get the treatment one meets with from gentlemen of position.”
“You Israelitish hound!” muttered his lordship, “I’d pitch you out of the window if I dared!”
“Did your lordship speak?” said the visitor, bending his head aside in an attitude of attention.
“Speak? No! Only I’ve such a confounded headache this morning, I’m not fit for business matters. Richmond last night with some friends.”
“Yes; I heard so,” said the visitor, softly. “Mad’moiselle Duval was of the party, I think?”
“How the dooce did you know that?” exclaimed his lordship, uneasily.
“Oh! really I hardly know. It is one of the troubles of position, my lord, that every one hears of your movements.”
“I’ll lay twenty to one that you’ve had some hook-beaked, unshaven dog watching me ever since I’ve been back!” exclaimed his lordship, impetuously.
“He, he, he!” laughed the Jew. “Your lordship may have a headache, but you are really most keen and business-like this morning.”
His lordship growled.
“You are,” he said, after a pause.
“Exactly so,” said the money-lender. “And now, perhaps, your lordship will give your attention to the matter in hand?”
“Well, I am attending!” grumbled his lordship.
“Then, perhaps, your lordship will give me a cheque on your banker for the total of the bills, interest and expenses. Let me see,” continued the visitor, drawing a large bill-case from his pocket.
“There, keep that confounded thing out of my sight! My head aches quite badly enough without having that thrown in my teeth. Now, look here: I haven’t fifty pounds at the banker’s, and what there is I want for present expenses.”
“Then what does your lordship propose doing?”
“Nothing at all,” said his lordship sulkily.
“Does your lordship wish me to ask payment of the Earl, your father?”
“If you like,” said his lordship, with a grin; “but while he has this fit of the gout on, I should not advise you to get within his reach. He holds to the fine old idea of his Norman ancestors, that knocking a Jew on the head was meritorious. But there! he won’t pay – he can’t, even if he felt ever so disposed. Now, look here, Braham: you must stick some more interest on, and renew the bills.”
“Renew, my lord?” exclaimed the money-lender, expressing with eyebrows and hands the greatest of surprise. “Impossible! I’ve renewed till I’m as sick of it as of your broken faith.”
“No, you’re not; so don’t be a humbug!” said the Viscount. “I’m not very sharp, I know; but I’m keen enough to see through that. You’ve milked me pretty well, and worked me nicely with all your professional cant. I don’t recollect how much I’ve had in cash – I did put it down on old envelopes, but they’re lost – but I know that those pictures and the wines were horrible stuff; and one way and another you’ve made those bills grow till now they amount to – ”
“Four thou – ”
“There – there, that’ll do; I can’t pay it, so what’s the good of bothering one about how much it is? I’ve got it down somewhere, I tell you, and perhaps I can find it when I want to know, and I don’t now. Well, as I was going to say, you’ve made the bills grow to that size, now make them grow a little bigger.”
His lordship yawned, stretched himself, and then poured some pale brandy into a coffee-cup, before filling it with the rich fluid in the biggin.
“Totally impossible, my lord,” said the money-lender, rising. “I’m very sorry, my lord, but I must set the law to work. I have, as you well know, always been most desirous of aiding you during pressing necessities; and when unable to help you myself, I have always introduced you to some one who would. But, to speak plainly, this trip of yours to Italy, without a word to me first – ”
“Why, confound it all! was I to come and ask you if I might go abroad?” exclaimed his lordship, furiously.
“Oh, dear me, no! Of course not, my lord; but as I was saying, this trip to Italy looks so much like trying to bilk me, that I must, for my own sake – ”
“And that of the gentleman in the City,” sneered his lordship.
“No, my lord, I don’t do business with men in the City,” said the Jew, in injured tones; “and for my own sake alone I must take strenuous measures for the recovery of the debt.”
“’Tisn’t a debt: it’s only a money-lending affair,” growled his lordship.
“Well – well, we won’t argue upon that point, my lord. The Sheriff of Middlesex has his ideas upon these matters – ideas in which I have implicit confidence.”
“Here, Braham; I say; come, no nonsense. Don’t be a fool, you know. Don’t be hard on a fellow because he’s bilious and put out!” exclaimed his lordship, who, with the immediate prospect of a sponging-house before him, displayed an unwonted degree of perturbation. “But, I say, you can’t – you know you can’t do any thing yet;” and his lordship’s face brightened.
The Jew laughed.
“Your lordship forgets. Hyman has a little affair out against you, which will just work in well with mine. I shouldn’t be surprised if some one is already waiting for you!”
“Oh! come, I say – you know; I can’t stand this. You mustn’t do anything, Braham; and you must stop Hyman, because I’ve come home – come over – come on purpose – that is, I have something good on my book.”
