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- Herausgeber: Skyline
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
On a certain bitter December evening, when the present century was several years younger than it is now, Miss Pengarvon, of Broome, in the shire of Derby, sat in the Green Parlor at the Hall, working by candle-light at some piece of delicate embroidery. The fingers of the old case-clock pointed to half-past ten--an exceptionally late hour in that remote place. Miss Pengarvon was alone. Her sister, Miss Letitia, had been suffering from neuralgic pains in the head, and had retired an hour ago. Barney Dale, the major-domo and, in point of fact, the only male member of the establishment, together with his wife, had gone into the village to visit a sick relative, and there was no knowing at what hour they might return. The solitary housemaid, having nothing to sit up for, had been glad to exchange the chilly gloom of the huge nagged kitchen for the comfort and warmth of bed. Earlier in the evening snow had fallen to the depth of two or three inches, but the sky was clear again by this time and the stars were glittering frostily. Except for the ticking of the clock and the occasional dropping of a cinder, silence the most profound reigned inside the Hall and out. Now and then Miss Pengarvon's needle would come to a stand for a moment while she snuffed the candles, after which the monotonous stitching would go on as before. Be it observed that candlesticks, tray, and snuffers were all of silver, although the candles themselves were of a cheap and common kind.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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T. W. Speight
The Heart of a Mystery
Table of contents
PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
THE STORY.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
CHAPTER XLI.
PROLOGUE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
THE PENGARVON'S OF BROOME.
The Pengarvons had been settled at Broome for three hundred years. They were the younger branch of an ancient Cornish family, which professed to be able to trace back its pedigree to the days when legend and history were so inextricably mixed that it was impossible at this distance of time to draw any nice distinction between the two. For twenty miles round they were known as "The Proud Pengarvons;" but whether this distinctive title had its origin in some mental peculiarity of the family, or in their mode of carrying themselves towards their fellows, or whether the family motto, "Pride I cherish," was responsible for it, it would not be worth while too curiously to inquire. In any case, it was accepted as an indisputable fact that the Pengarvons should be proud, and proud they were accordingly. The present mansion of Broome, which was situate in the extreme north of the county, where the Derbyshire and Yorkshire moors impinge upon each other, dated no further back than the earlier half of the seventeenth century. It was a long, low, two-storied house, built of common grey stone indigenous to that part of the country--the same kind of stone that the rough unmortared walls were built of, which divided one field or stretch of moorland from another (for miles round Broome, hedges were few and far between). It was a house which, as regards design and ornamentation, was severely simple almost to the verge of ugliness, but, in years gone by it had been found spacious enough for all the needs of a large family, with accommodation for a score or more guests into the bargain. Sir Jasper Pengarvon, the last baronet--with whom the title became extinct for lack of heirs male--and the father of the Miss Pengarvons, to whom we have already been introduced, had married for his first wife Maria, niece of Lord Dronfield, who brought him a fortune of ten thousand pounds.
Sir Jasper was not a man to appreciate the delights of the country, or to settle down after marriage into the groove which had contented so many generations of his forefathers. While still little more than a youngster, he had developed a very pretty taste for the gaming-table, which it was impossible to gratify at Broome. So one day, after he had been nearly yawning himself to death for a week, and after a more pronounced tiff than usual with my lady, whose penurious ways were a terrible annoyance to him, he discovered that important business called him to London, and there, a few days later, his yellow posting-chariot deposited him.
After this, Broome saw little of its master except at infrequent intervals. His visits rarely lasted longer than a fortnight at a time, after which he would be off again, either to London, or to the country house of one or another of his many friends. Meanwhile, Lady Pengarvon vegetated from year end to year end in the gloomy old house, seeing scarcely any company and rarely going from home, bringing up her daughters, giving sparingly to the poor, and being exercised in her mind for weeks before she ventured on the extravagance of ordering a new gown. All this time no heir male came to gladden his parents' hearts. Sir Jasper felt himself to be a deeply injured man, while his wife pined in secret and shut herself up from the world more closely than ever.
The Baronet had not been idle all this time. He had been doing his best, with the aid of the gaming-table, to dissipate the broad acres which had come down to him from a dozen generations of thrifty ancestors. It was a pleasant life, but unfortunately it couldn't last for ever. The end came when his eldest daughter was seventeen years old. His own fortune, his wife's fortune, the proceeds of the sale of every acre of land and every foot of timber that he had the power to sell had slipped through his fingers as easily as water through a sieve, till nothing was left save the old house of Broome, with a few acres of sparsely-timbered land about it, together with two small farms of the rental value of eighty pounds a year each, which it was not in the Baronet's power to touch. Beyond that the ruin was complete.
It was when affairs had come to this pass that Lady Pengarvon took it into her head to die. Her husband admitted that, under the circumstances, it was the most sensible thing she could have done. The poor lady was well out of her troubles.
Hardly was the funeral over before the Baronet packed off his daughters to some of their mother's relatives, and shut up the house, after which nothing definite was known as to his movements for nearly three years. At the end of that time information came to hand that Sir Jasper Pengarvon was about to take to himself a second wife, in the person of the daughter of a rich London drysalter, with a fortune of twenty-five thousand pounds.
The new Lady Pengarvon proved to be an unrefined, good-natured woman, who had probably been very pretty when she was a dozen years younger. Between her and the young ladies, her step-daughters, there was a great gulf, which they took care she should never overpass. She was their father's wife, and as such they treated her with civility and a certain amount of respect; but it was with a civility that chilled, and with a respect which seemed ever to imply, "We cannot rid ourselves of you, and consequently must tolerate you, bat don't look to us for anything more."
At the end of half a dozen years the second Lady Pengarvon went the way of her predecessor, fading slowly out of life under the cold, watchful eyes of Miss Barbara and her sister, which seemed to say, "We know you can't last long, and we shall not mourn you over-much when you are gone." She left behind her one little daughter, Isabel by name, who was at once packed off to a sister of her mother, near London; then the two Misses Pengarvon breathed more freely, and felt that Providence had not been unkind to them.
Meanwhile, Sir Jasper had resumed his old career in London as though there had never been a break in it. The young ladies saw little more of their father after the second Lady Pengarvon's death than they had before. He went down to Broome occasionally for a few days at a time, but that was all. He lived five years longer; then one morning he was found dead in his Mayfair lodging with a bullet through his heart. Once more he had come to the end of his resources. It was hopeless to think of marrying a third fortune. There stared him in the face an old age of obscure penury away from the haunts he loved so well, and the prospect daunted him. He died as he had lived, an utter pagan.
A few years later, the aunt with whom Isabel had gone to live died, and Miss Pengarvon found herself under the necessity of sending Barney Dale for the child, there being no other home for her than Broome. Isabel at this time was a blue-eyed, yellow-haired little lady of seven, the very presentment in features and expression of a certain youthful Miss Pengarvon whose portrait by Sir Joshua graced the gallery at Broome. In truth, the drysalter's little grand-daughter had all the traditional beauty of the women of her father's race--a beauty which had so unaccountably lapsed in the case of her elder half-sisters, niece though their mother had been to an earl.
It was in the dusk of an autumn afternoon that Barney Dale and his charge reached Broome. The Misses Pengarvon were awaiting the child in the old oak parlor, which even on the brightest day in summer was gloomy and full of strange shadows. The elder sister came forward a step or two, and taking Isabel by the hand, gazed down in frowning silence on the fair young face, which returned her look with wondering, frightened eyes. A faint momentary color flushed her sallow cheeks. Then she stooped and pressed her thin, cold lips to Isabel's forehead.
"So you are come back to Broome, child. They had better have found you another home," she said in her dry, hard voice, in which not the slightest chord of sympathy ever seemed to vibrate. Miss Letitia, who copied her sister in everything, went through a similar formula.
Isabel gazed from one stern, sad-faced woman to the other, and her lips quivered. She turned and clung to Barney's arm.
"Oh, take me away! take me away! I want to go back!" she cried.
Miss Pengarvon turned away in high displeasure, and Barney led the tearful child from the room.
That first night, and many nights afterwards, Isabel cried herself to sleep in the huge four-poster, with its funereal draperies, in which they put her to bed. All her life she had been used to being petted and made much of, and had hardly known what it was to be alone. But now she was left by herself in a great ghostly room from six o'clock at night till seven next morning. She felt herself to be quite an unconsidered trifle in that huge ocean of bed. She was morally sure that those grim portraits on the walls--dark, frowning gentlemen in perukes and embroidered clothes, and stately ladies in hoops and high-heeled shoes--whispered to each other about her, Isabel Pengarvon; and that after the candle was taken away they stepped down out of their frames, and hastened to join the other ghosts in the long gallery, where they danced and flirted and took snuff with each other, till some watchful cock on a faraway farm sounded the warning note which sent them back to their faded frames, there to attitudinize in silent mockery till another midnight should come round.
But these first fears gradually wore themselves away, and in time Isabel and the portraits became great friends. She would sit up in bed on moonlight nights, and talk to them by the hour together. She invented private histories for many of them--strings of adventures, such as only a child's brain could have imagined. Like other people, she had her favorites. Among such were "my Lady Bluesash" and "Miss Prettyshoes," "Mr. Longcurls" and "Captain Finelace," all people of quality, who were so good-natured as to have no secrets from Isabel.
With that marvellous adaptability which all children possess in a greater or lesser degree, Isabel gradually learned to look upon Broome as her home, and to have few cares or interests that were not bounded by its four grey walls. She lighted up the solitary old house like a ray of sunshine that warms and brightens at the same time. On Sundays she went with her sisters to church, and was shut up with them in the great oaken pew, with its closely-drawn curtains, where the preacher's voice came to her as the voice of one that crieth in the wilderness, he himself being altogether unseen, and from whence nothing was visible to her wandering eyes save a portion of the groined roof and two hideous gargoyles, whose staring eyes seemed to watch her every movement.
When Isabel was fourteen years old she was sent to a school in Nottingham to complete her education. Since her arrival at Broome her only teacher had been Miss Letitia, who, in their long hours together over their lessons, had, in her own cold, formal way, grown to like the bright-eyed, high-spirited girl far better than at one time she believed it possible she ever should do. Isabel was away for three years; at seventeen she came home "finished."
She was quite a young lady by this time--tall, slender, and with all the traditional beauty of her race. She was brimming over with mischief and high spirits, and she looked forward with dread to the dreary, uneventful life before her, with no company save that of her two middle-aged sisters--for Miss Pengarvon was now forty years old, Miss Letitia only two years younger--and to being buried alive, as it were, in that grim old house among the Derbyshire hills. Her life at school had served to show her a little of the world, from which she now felt as if she were about to be shut out forever--just enough, in fact, to make its attractions, known and unknown, all the more alluring to her vivid imagination. She had seen the Nottingham shops, gay with the manifold wares dear to a girl's heart; she had heard the garrison band play delicious waltzes that thrilled her with emotions unknown before, and more than one audacious young officer had turned to look and look again, as she was pacing demurely to church with her school-fellows. She had devoured all the love stories that had been smuggled into the school, and she had heard other girls talking about sweethearts and possible husbands, and she could not help wondering whether anyone would ever fall in love with her. Isabel did what few girls do--she cried bitter tears when the time came for her to bid good-bye to school for ever.
Two year passed without change. Her life of repression and isolation became at times a burden almost too heavy to be borne. Her nature was affectionate, but impulsive; she was warm-hearted, but with something wayward in her disposition, which, under happier circumstances, would doubtless have found a vent in high spirits and innocent fun. The end of the matter was that one morning Isabel was missing. She left behind her a note addressed to Miss Pengarvon, in which she stated that she was about to be married to some one who loved her very dearly, and that she would write further particulars in a few days. For some time past, a young gentleman, name unknown, had been stopping at the King's Arms Hotel, Stavering, ostensibly for fishing and sketching purposes; but as he and Isabel had been seen together more than once, pacing the sheltered walks by the river, and as he disappeared at the same time, there could be little doubt that they had gone away together. After reading the letter, Miss Pengarvon threw it into the fire. Then she caused all Isabel's clothes to be burnt--not that the poor girl had had anything beyond a very meagre wardrobe--and locked the door of the room which had been hers and took away the key.
"She has disgraced the name she bears. Let us never speak of her again," she said in her bitterest tones to Miss Letitia. The latter was crying quietly to herself. Miss Pengarvon regarded her with silent scorn.
Three weeks later there came a second letter from Isabel, bearing the London postmark, and, a month after that, a third which had been stamped at Southampton. Both these letters Miss Pengarvon burned without opening. After that no further letter came, and it seemed as if Isabel were indeed lost to them for ever.
Three years went by, and then came that snowy December night which brought Isabel back, a suppliant, to the door of Broome. It has already been told how Miss Pengarvon refused her admittance, how Barney Dale and his wife found her dying, or dead in the snow; and how a reluctant consent was given to her inanimate body being brought indoors by way of the back entrance. From that hour every trace of her vanished. Morning broke, the housemaid came down stairs and went about her duties, suspecting nothing. Neither inside the house nor out was any sign or token to be seen of her, who living or dead, had been carried in but a few hours before. Where was she? What had become of her? Those were questions which four people alone out of all the world could have answered, had they chosen to speak.
THE STORY.
CHAPTER I.
MR. HAZELDINE CHANGES HIS NOTES FOR GOLD.
Twenty years, with all their manifold changes, have come and gone since Isabel Pengarvon was found one December night lying in the snow in front of the great door at Broome; and the course of our narrative now takes us to Ashdown, a thriving town in the Midlands, of some twenty-five to thirty thousand inhabitants.
Everybody in Ashdown knew Avison's Bank, and could have directed a stranger to it. It had been established for nearly three-quarters of a century, and no bank stood higher in the estimation of the manufacturers and tradespeople of the town or of the farmers round about. Mr. Avison, senior, owing to his great age and infirmities, had retired from any active direction of the business some years ago. Mr. Avison, junior, who was himself a middle-aged man, had been abroad, with the exception of a week or two now and then, for the last year or more, in search of the health which his native country denied him. Now, however, he was coming back--was, in fact, expected almost immediately, and was once more going to try a winter at home.
Since the retirement of the elder partner, and during the absence of the younger, the entire management of the business had devolved upon Mr. Hazeldine, the chief cashier, and no one more capable of sustaining the burthen could have been found. He had been with the firm since boyhood, and in process of time had risen from one grade to another till it was impossible for him to rise any higher, unless he were made a partner; a contingency which had been discussed more than once between the two Mr. Avisons. Although of obscure origin, Mr. Hazeldine, early in life, had married a young lady of some standing in Ashdown society, who brought with her a fortune of three thousand pounds, and had thereby at once raised himself considerably in the social scale. Two sons and one daughter had been born of the marriage, all of whom were now grown up. Edward, the elder son, was in business as a brewer at Beecham, which might almost be called a suburb of Ashdown, although it was in another parish. He was a keen, hard-headed business man, eager to push his way in the world, and ambitious after a fashion which no one but himself was aware of.
The younger son, Clement, was in practice as a surgeon. After gaining experience for three or four years as assistant to a popular London doctor, his father had bought for him what remained of the practice of old Doctor Diprose. Clement had thereupon removed his quarters to Ashdown, and was at present fighting the uphill fight of a young doctor in a small provincial town. Fanny, Mr. Hazeldine's daughter, was unmarried, and lived at home with her parents.
It was customary at Avison's Bank for Mr. Hazeldine, or his chief clerk, John Brancker (generally the latter) to go up to London by train every Thursday and there change a thousand or twelve hundred pounds' worth of notes for gold, in order to meet the requirements of the bank's numerous small customers on market-day. On this particular Thursday on which we make his acquaintance, Mr. Hazeldine himself was on his way to London to change the usual amount of notes for gold. In the netting of the carriage overhead was the black bag, now empty, in which he would bring the money back. As he sits there in the train with folded arms and shut eyes, to all appearance asleep, but in reality as wideawake as ever he had been in his life, and with his mind pondering a thousand questions, let us endeavor, with a few touches, to bring him more definitely before the reader.
James Hazeldine at this time was fifty-four years old. He was closely shaven, except for two small side-whiskers, so that there was nothing to hide his square, clear-cut jaw, his thin lips, and firm-set mouth. In color his hair and whiskers, once nearly black, were now an iron-grey. He had a prominent, well-cut nose, and cold, resolute, steel-grey eyes. The predominant expression of his face was determination; you felt that here was a man with a masterful spirit who would not readily be moved from any course, whether for good or evil, which he had once made up his mind to follow. Mingled with this expression was the keen, shrewd look of the experienced man of business--the look of one who in his time had chaffered and bargained with many men. In his dress Mr. Hazeldine was somewhat old-fashioned and precise; possibly it was part of his policy to be so. He wore a black tail-coat and waistcoat, and pepper-and-salt continuations. He wore a starched checked cravat, high-pointed collars and broad-toed shoes with drab gaiters. With the addition of an overcoat in winter, his dress was the same all the year round.
To-day, however, Mr. Hazeldine was not looking in his usual health. There was a worn and anxious expression on his face like that of a man who had been much worried of late. His eyes, too, looked sunken and dull, but his mouth was as firm-set as ever. Only a few days ago his daughter Fanny had said to her mother:
"Have you noticed how fast papa's hair has been turning grey of late?"
But Mrs. Hazeldine, whose eyesight was no longer as good as it had once been, had noticed nothing.
Mr. Hazeldine roused himself from his reverie with a sigh when the train stopped for the collection of tickets. At the terminus he engaged a hansom and was driven direct to the Bank of England. There he exchanged notes to the value of twelve hundred pounds for gold, which sum he locked up in the bag he had brought with him.
On leaving the Bank, he made his way into Throgmorton Street, where he plunged into a maze of narrow and tortuous courts and passages, nearly all of which have been swept away within the last few years.
Threading his way like one who held the clue, he presently dived into the semi-dark entry of one of the oldest houses; the numerous names painted on the door-posts betokening that it was split up into sundry suites of offices. Ascending slowly to the first floor, with feet which seemed weighted with lead, Mr. Hazeldine turned the handle of a certain door, and went in. He found himself in an outer office occupied by two clerks.
"Is Mr. Barker within and disengaged?" he asked.
"What name, sir?" queried one of the clerks, thereby answering the double question.
"Mr. James," was the reply.
The clerk was scarcely gone a moment. Holding open the door of the inner office, he said:
"Mr. Barker will see you, sir."
Mr. James went in, and the door was shut behind him.
At a square table, with his back to the fire, sat Mr. Barker, a stout, bald-headed, foxy-looking man, dressed in a blue frock coat and white waistcoat, with a flower in his buttonhole, and a rather conspicuous display of jewelry. He nodded familiarly to "Mr. James" as to an old acquaintance.
"I rather thought you might call in the course of the day," he said. "Come to settle up, eh?"
"Yes, come to settle up," was the answer, with a faint sigh. "Perhaps you won't mind taking the greater part in gold; your doing so will oblige me."
"I shall have no objection at all, Mr. James. It don't matter to me--ha! ha!--in what form it comes, so long as I get hold of it. What nice weather we have been having of late."
Mr. James opened his bag and drew therefrom twelve small canvas bags containing one hundred sovereigns each. "Be good enough to count these," he said.
Mr. Barker emptied one bag on the table and counted its contents into little piles of twenty sovereigns each.
"I won't detain you, Mr. James, while I count the rest," he said. "I have no doubt I shall find them quite correct."
"There are twelve there," said Mr. James, indicating the bags. Then he drew a roll of notes from his breast-pocket. "These will make up the seventeen."
Mr. Barker took the notes, wetted his forefinger, and counted them one by one.
"Right you are, sir, and I'm very much obliged to you," was his comment when he had done. Then he went to a safe in one corner, and having deposited the notes and gold in it, he drew from a receptacle containing several other documents of a similar kind, a long, narrow strip of bluish paper, which he handed to his visitor. "All ready and prepared, you see," he said, with a smile.
Mr. James just glanced at the document, then he crumpled it up, and flinging it into the fire, watched it till nothing was left of it but ashes.
Mr. Barker laughed.
"Have a glass of sherry. You are not looking over-bright to-day," he said, heartily.
"Thanks; I never drink before dinner," was the answer. "I have been worried a little in business matters lately, that is all," he added. "But I am going to take a long holiday presently."
"Nothing like it when you're fagged out, or when the machinery gets a bit out of gear," responded Mr. Barker. "Can't keep the bow always bent, you know. Sha'n't see you again for some time, then? South of France--Italian Lakes--eh?"
"Well, I hardly know yet where I am bound for," said Mr. James, with a curious, pallid smile. Then he took up his hat and brushed it round with his sleeve in a hesitating way very unusual with him. "Nothing you see or hear ever surprises you, does it, Mr. Barker?" he asked.
"Well, no, Mr. James. I'm rather too old a bird to be surprised at anything."
"Then you won't be surprised at anything you may read in the papers in the course of the next few days."
Mr. Barker winked and laid a finger against one side of his nose. As an action it was vulgar, but expressive.
Mr. James nodded and smiled the same curious smile.
"Good-morning, Mr. Barker," he said. "Good-morning. I'll leave this empty bag till next time I call."
"Which I hope will be before very long, eh, Mr. James? Always happy to accommodate you, you know."
"We shall see what we shall see. And so, once more, good-morning." He went without another word, closing the green baize door behind him. A minute later he found himself in the street.
Mr. James Hazeldine walked on till he was overtaken by an empty cab. This he hailed, and was driven westward. Although he had told Mr. Barker that he never drank before dinner, he now went into a tavern in the Strand, and called for a tumbler of hot brandy and water and then for another, both of which he drank in less than five minutes. In truth, he looked very haggard and ill. During the next half hour he wandered up and down the Strand in a purposeless sort of way, staring into the shop windows, but having no thought or interest in anything he saw there. More than once he took a letter out of the breast pocket of his coat, read the address over to himself, and then put it back again. At length, spying a pillar-box in a side street, he walked slowly up to it and again took out the letter. It was directed as under:
"Edward Hazeldine, Esq.,
"The Brewery,
"Beecham by Ashdown,
"Midlandshire."
He dropped the letter into the box.
"That settles everything," he muttered. "There can be no turning back now. Edward will get it by the first post to-morrow."
Why was Mr. Hazeldine posting a letter to his son, whom he would probably see in the course of the evening?
He turned back into the Strand, and entering a restaurant, called for a basin of soup. He ate about half of it, finished up with a glass of sherry, and then ordered a cab and was driven to the terminus.
Going into the cloak-room at the station, he there redeemed a black bag, precisely similar in size and appearance to the empty bag he had left in Mr. Barker's office. This bag, which apparently contained something heavy, he took with him into the carriage and placed it in the netting over his head.
There were other passengers in the compartment, but he spoke to no one. He pulled up the collar of his coat and shut his eyes, and, to all appearance, went fast asleep. The clocks were striking seven as he walked out of Ashdown station, carrying his bag in one hand and his umbrella in the other.
Mr. Hazeldine's house was not far from the station. He let himself in by means of his latchkey, and walked straight into the drawing-room, where he found his wife and daughter.
"You are late this evening, dear," said Mrs. Hazeldine, languidly, as if his being so were a matter of no moment.
"Yes, I had some special business to transact, and could not get done in time to catch the two o'clock train."
And yet he had spent nearly an hour mooning about the Strand!
He sat down in his easy-chair with an air of weariness.
"We did not wait dinner for you, not knowing how late you would be," resumed his wife. "Will you have a steak cooked, or what shall I order for you?"
"I had some dinner in town; all I want is a cup of tea."
His daughter rang the bell, and presently a tea equipage was brought in.
"You are not looking at all well, papa," said Fanny, as she handed him a cup. "I hope you are not going back to that horrid Bank to-night."
"I am quite well, my dear," he said. "A little tired with my journey; that's all. I must go to the Bank for a couple of hours." He drew her face down to his own and kissed it.
"There now, you have disarranged my collar, you dear old bear," she said, turning to survey herself in the glass over the chimney-piece.
"You scarcely ever spend an evening at home nowadays, James," said Mrs. Hazeldine, in the complaining tone to which her husband was well used. "You seem to care for nothing but the Bank. Instead of taking things easy as you get older, you seem to have to work harder every year that you live."
"I hope we shall see more of you at home when Mr. Avison gets back," remarked Fanny.
Mr. Hazeldine shivered, and then he sipped at his tea.
"Do you know what I am going to do?" he asked, presently. "I am going to take a long, long holiday."
"Oh, papa! when--when?" cried Fanny the excitable.
"Almost immediately."
"You darling old crocodile! I'm languishing to visit Switzerland again. But, of course, one can't go there at this time of year. The Riviera, and then on to Rome, would be delightful. I am dying to see Rome."
"Give me Paris, either in winter or summer," said Mrs. Hazeldine, with the air of a person who knows her own mind. "I care nothing for a parcel of mouldy ruins, but I do love nice shops; and there are no shops in the world equal to those of Paris."
CHAPTER II.
"FAREWELL, A LONG FAREWELL."
Mrs. Hazeldine was a lady of fifty, who, in the small circles of Ashdown society, had at one time been accounted a beauty, and who sometimes found it difficult to forget that she was one no longer. On her delicate, clear-cut features there rested habitually a pinched and careworn expression. She was a woman who, never having known any real trouble, made her life a perpetual worry with those small, everyday grievances which we all have to contend against in a greater or lesser degree. To wail over the shortcomings of her servants, to moan over certain fancied ailments, to discuss the last morsel of local gossip with this friend or that, or to immerse herself for the time being with Fanny in preparations for the next ball, or garden party, or flower show, seemed to be the sole objects for which Mrs. Hazeldine existed. And yet there was one more object for which she lived, and that was to see her daughter married to some man of wealth and position--two qualifications which, she persuaded herself, were absolutely indispensable to marital felicity. As yet, she and Fanny were waiting for the coming Prince, who, so far, had not even put in an appearance. But Mrs. Westerton, of Owenscraig, was going to give a fancy-dress ball on the nineteenth, to which Mrs. Hazeldine and her daughter had been invited, and just now expectation ran high in the breasts of both.
Fanny Hazeldine was a pretty blonde who had seen her twenty-second birthday. Her mother, when young, had been noted for her slender and graceful figure, and one of Fanny's chief desires was that she should be noted in the same way. She had been troubled in her mind of late by a suspicion that she was imperceptibly, but surely, increasing in bulk. She laced so tightly that sometimes she felt as if she could scarcely breathe; but even that did not seem to have the desired effect. Unfortunately, Fanny was blessed with a fine, healthy appetite, and a great liking for the good things of the table. It was a pathetic sight at dinner to see the poor girl struggling between her natural inclination for some tempting dish, and the certainty which beset her that by partaking of it she would not be tending to promote the object on which her heart was so firmly fixed. She had been brought up by her mother's side, and had imbibed her mother's notions and prejudices; and, in such a case, unless there was some native strength of character, as the mother is, so to a great extent will the daughter prove to be. Fanny's pretty head was filled with thoughts of sweethearts and possible conquests, and whether this style of dress would suit her, or that mode of hat become her best--and with very little beside.
"Oh, papa," she cried, "Captain Lacie has lent me such a charming Book of Costumes. All the plates are colored. I do wish you would look through it and say which costume you would like me to appear in at Mrs. Westerton's fancy ball."
"Mrs. Westerton's fancy ball!" echoed Mr. Hazeldine, with a strangely dismal laugh. "What should I know about such frivolities? Besides, I'm too tired tonight. Then, again, something may happen to hinder you from going--one never can tell."
"It would have to be something very particular that would keep me away," said Fanny, with a pout. "I'm dying to go--only I can't make up my mind whether to go as a Breton fish-wife, as a Louis-Sèize marquise, or----"
At this moment the door opened, and in marched Edward Hazeldine. He had caught his sister's last sentence.
"If I were you, Fan, I should go as Ophelia, with straws in your hair," he said. "A touch of madness would become you admirably."
"Why don't you keep your rude speeches for your fine lady friends at Seaham Lodge?" asked Fanny, with her nose in the air and a heightened color. But next minute she poured out a cup of tea for her brother and took it to him.
Edward Hazeldine was a robust, strongly-built man of thirty, not unlike what his father had been at the same age. His face was instinct with energy and determination. He had his father's thin lips, and his father's cold, steel-grey eyes. He was brusque in manner and decided in all his movements. He was a man who had an excellent opinion of himself, and a dogged belief that whatever he might choose to say or do must be the right thing to say or do. He was not the sort of man you would ask a favor of without thinking twice before doing so. Children rarely made friends with him, and vagrants of every kind had a rooted aversion to him. His ambition--and it was an ambition which in most men of his position would have seemed of that vaulting kind which Shakespeare has told us about, but, somehow, it did not seem so in his case--was one day to win for himself a seat in Parliament; but it was a secret which he kept locked in his own breast.
"Have you been up to town to-day?" he asked, as he sat down near his father.
"Yes. I had a little business to transact which Brancker could not do for me, so I got the notes changed at the same time."
There was something in his father's tone that struck Edward. He bent his eyes on him more attentively than he had hitherto done, and then he saw how careworn and haggard he looked. He did not, however, make any remark about it, knowing how much his father disliked being noticed; besides which, his thoughts were just then running on a very unpleasant matter which more immediately concerned himself.
"I had a bit of bad news this afternoon," he presently remarked.
"Aye--what was that?" asked Mr. Hazeldine, lifting his eyes from the carpet to his son's face, but betraying no curiosity in the way he put the question.
"One of my customers at Monkshill has let me in for a debt of twenty pounds--the scoundrel."
"I would not call a man a scoundrel for the sake of a paltry twenty pounds," said Fanny, as she peeped into the teapot.
"Yes, you would, Miss, if you had to work for your living as I have," retorted her brother. "How long would it take you to earn a 'paltry twenty pounds,' as you call it, I wonder?"
"I could spend it much more quickly than I could earn it, I have no doubt," retorted Miss Fan, with a saucy smile. "Still, I am quite sure----"
"I am quite sure that you don't know what you are talking about," interrupted her brother, brusquely. "Leave business matters for men to deal with, and attend to your feathers and fal-lals. A paltry sum indeed!" He pushed back his chair in a huff and laid hold of his hat.
"Edward always was short-tempered, and I suppose he always will be," murmured Mrs. Hazeldine, sotto voce, with the air of a martyr.
"Going already?" asked Mr. Hazeldine.
"Yes; I've a couple more calls to make before going home. What a scamp that fellow must be!" Edward could not forget his twenty pounds. Money was very dear to his soul.
Mr. Hazeldine took one of his son's hands in both his. "Good-bye--good-bye, and God bless you!" he said, in a low voice. Edward looked surprised, but said nothing. "I would not let this loss worry you overmuch, if I were you. After all, the sum is not a large one, and there are worse things in life to endure than the loss of a few pounds."
Edward chafed a little. He had expected sympathy, instead of which he was being lectured. "I'll oppose his certificate, for all that," he muttered, viciously. He withdrew his hand abruptly from his father's grasp, and with an all-round "Good-night," not very graciously spoken, he marched out of the room, shaking an imaginary fist in "that scoundrel's" face as he went.
Mr. Hazeldine sank back into his chair without a word more. He had made no mention to his son of the letter which he had posted to his address that afternoon in London.
About five minutes later, there was a tremendous rat-a-tat at the front door.
"Whoever can that be?" cried Fanny, springing up and taking a hasty survey of herself in the glass.
The visitors proved to be Mrs. and Miss Maywood, two fashionable friends of Mrs. Hazeldine and Fanny. After the two young ladies had kissed each other, and the two elder ones had shaken hands, and made one or two mutual inquiries, Mrs. Maywood and her daughter condescended to extend the tips of their fingers to the master of the house. He was the money-making machine, and as such a necessary adjunct of existence; but beyond that point he was a nonentity.
As it turned out, Mrs. Maywood and her daughter were also going to Mrs. Westerton's fancy ball, and they had come to have a quiet gossip with their friends anent that all-important event. How fortunate that Captain Lacie's Book of Costumes was there! It opened up an inexhaustible mine of conversational topics. As they criticised one plate after another, it seemed to them as if they could have gone on talking for a week; and if occasionally they were all talking at once, it did not greatly matter.
Mr. Hazeldine began to feel himself de trop.
Presently he looked at his watch, and then he got up and stood with his back to the fire. There was a grey, earthy look about his face, and a strange glassiness in his eyes. Fanny came up to him.
"Are you going now?" she asked.
"Yes; the sooner I go, the sooner I shall finish what I have to do."
"What a shame that you have to leave home again at this time of night!"
"Not a bit of it. Business is business, and must be attended to."
There was an assumption of gaiety in his tone which his looks belied. He was gazing down with wistful, yearning eyes into the fair young face before him. Suddenly he enfolded Fanny in his arms and pressed her to his heart; then he kissed her three or four times very tenderly on her lips, her forehead, and her hair. This was a proceeding so entirely novel in Fanny's experience of her father, that for a moment or two she was at a loss what to make of it. Then it struck her, in her little mercenary way, that it would be foolish on her part not to take advantage of such an unwonted burst of paternal affection. Surely, when he kissed her in that way, he could not have the heart to refuse her anything!
"Papa, dear," she whispered, "I saw such a lovely pair of earrings in Wilson's window the other day. Turquoises and diamonds. I'm dying to have them."
