Chapter XIX: Mr. Chevenix's Business

With all his erratic habits and general thoughtlessness, Jerry Wilmot was not without a capacity for business; thus on the evening after his return home he rode over to the village of Wilmothurst to visit Mr. Chevenix ostensibly as to matters connected with the estate, and with the decided desire, no doubt, of seeing the brilliant Bella.

The village consisted of a few houses, an ancient church of Norman times, with a squat square tower, covered with ivy, a spacious green, overlooked by an old thatched inn with a swinging signboard; and opposite stood the comfortable, two-storeyed mansion of Mr. Chevenix, who acted as legal adviser in small matters, as factor, and land agent for the Wilmots and other county families.

A kindly-mannered and benign-looking old man, he received Jerry in his cosy dining-room with considerable warmth, and the handsome Bella fairly blushed with pleasure on seeing her acknowledged admirer; and Jerry, when he saw the rare beauty of the girl, thought how thankful he should be that the widow had not accepted him!

At Wilmothurst Bella enjoyed the reputation of being the best organiser of pleasant picnics in the sunny summer-time, the great designer of games and charades at Christmastide, the most tasteful decorator of the village church for festivals, a kind friend to the poor and all the little ones of the hamlet.

Yet none shone brighter or better at the balls in Brighton or elsewhere out of her narrow home circle; she was a dashing horsewoman in the field; but seemed always most in her element when seated over some piece of feminine work by her old father's side, as Jerry now found her, in the flower-scented and lamp-lit little dining-room surrounded by all the home influences her presence caused.

Jerry knew now precisely how Bella was viewed by his mother and cousin, and this repressed--if not his ardour--the scope of his attentions.

The haughty Bella also knew from a thousand petty instances how Lady Julia Wilmot viewed her position in society, and resented it accordingly, for she was one of the many in and about Wilmothurst who had felt the sting of that lady's 'snub,' and were against her in consequence. Thus her first thought had been to decline the invitation to the ball, which had reached her that forenoon. Then on consideration came the knowledge that to do so would cause much local speculation, that many might infer she had not been invited at all, and that by her absence she would lose the society of Jerry for a whole night; and the girl's natural desire to outshine--as she knew she would do--so many there, if not all who would be present, led her to write an acceptance.

She had done so, and at once began the serious consideration of her costume--serious only as to the variety to select from, for her father was a rich man--richer than Lady Julia Wilmot had the least idea of.

'You are coming to our ball, of course, Miss Chevenix?' said Jerry.

'The invitation just reached me to-day, and I have not yet posted an acceptance.'

'But you will come, of course,' urged Jerry, looking admiringly into her bright laughing eyes.

'I am not quite certain,' faltered Bella, and paused.

'Oh, nonsense, she will be there readily enough,' said her father; adding--'I think I may be pardoned for saying it, Mr. Wilmot, but my Bella will be the belle of the ball. However, leave us just now, dear. Mr. Wilmot has come to see me on business, I doubt not, and that won't be interesting to you.'

She at once took up her work-basket, and withdrew, with a bow and a smile, and Jerry, as his gaze followed her, and he saw what a perfect creature she was, so slim and graceful with the pure complexion that comes of health and country air, soft and sparkling brown eyes and rich hair coiled round a shapely head, thought how unworthy it was of his mother to view the girl as she did, and to treat her as she had hitherto done.

He knew exactly from what her indecision about the ball sprang. Never before had she or her father been invited to the Manor House when other guests were there, at dinner or garden parties, and when they had dined with her and Miss Wilmot, in solitary state, she always resented bitterly the airs of patronage which Lady Julia adopted.

'She's going to the ball, never fear, Mr. Jerry, and there is her reply on the mantel-piece,' said her father.

'Permit me to be the bearer of it,' said Jerry, transferring it at once to his pocket.

'And, now through the medium of some brandy and water, we shall turn to business matters.'

'Glad to hear you say so,' replied Jerry; 'I have wished much to see you, Chevenix, about money matters.'

Mr. Chevenix smiled faintly, and coughed slightly behind his hand.

'How has it been that of late so little has been paid into my bank account,' said Jerry, 'and that I have had such difficulty in squaring matters at Aldershot; even in meeting my losses on the last Divisional Steeplechase, and in many other things; that in fact both the mater and myself are often short of the "ready"?'

'The estate, you are aware, was heavily mortgaged by your late worthy father.'

'I have heard that a hundred times, and know it to my cost,' replied Jerry, impatiently.

'And since you joined the army you must also be aware that, to meet the many requirements of yourself and Lady Julia, I have had to effect other mortgages, for instance, on Langley Park (which my forefathers farmed under yours for more than two centuries), on the forty acres of Upton Stoke, and on Hazelwood; that, in short, all these may never be yours again, as I see no way of your removing these encumbrances, save by a wealthy marriage; and that the good lady, your mother, has not the slightest idea of the extent of the evil and all your liabilities.'

'The devil!' exclaimed Jerry, 'these are pleasant things to listen to.'

There was a silence between them for a time, and Jerry took a long sip at his brandy and seltzer. With all his admiration and certainly growing love for the handsome Bella, she seemed to be receding from him in the distance now.

'I am deeply sorry to tell you these things, Mr. Wilmot,' said Chevenix, who had genuine respect and love for the listener, and really had the well-being of the old family at heart; 'it is a serious thing for a young man like you, the inheritor of a good old name, bred with expensive tastes and so forth, to find yourself hampered and trammelled thus at your very outset of life, but so it is.'

'We live and learn, Mr. Chevenix,' said Jerry, with unusual bitterness for him.

'True,' added his old agent,

'We live and learn, but not the _wiser_ grow, says John Pomfret.'

'And who the devil is he?' asked Jerry, testily.

'A poet and divine of the seventeenth century.'

Jerry sat staring into the fire as if bewildered by the sudden revelation--this new state of things.

'And who holds all the infernal mortgages?' asked Jerry, abruptly.

'I do--they are in the iron safe on yonder shelf.'

'You; and who advanced all this money to my father, and to myself latterly?'

'I did--every shilling to the old squire and to you, Mr. Jerry; but do not be alarmed--do not be alarmed--I have no intention of foreclosing.'

Jerry was more thunderstruck than ever. Here was another startling revelation. He found that more than half of his paternal estate was in the hands of the very man whose daughter he had been learning to love in secret, and whom his proud mother so heartily disliked and publicly slighted.

He had hinted, as related, of mortgages on the evening of his arrival with Bevil Goring, but this state of matters he was altogether unprepared for. In short, it would seem as if but a moiety of his property remained to him, and that the heiress of it all was Bella Chevenix!

Bella, the daughter of the village attorney, 'the lawyer man,' as Lady Julia called him, whose forefathers did yeoman service to his, and farmed old Langley Park.

'Take courage--you have yet time to look about you, and money, if it can be procured from some other source, may repair these evils,' said Mr. Chevenix, kindly; but he knew not what was then in Jerry's mind. That in reality a love for Bella had been fast becoming the ruling thought of his life; that on learning she had returned to Wilmothurst he had arranged to return home also, and had made up his mind, despite his mother's pride and opposition, to propose for the girl; but dared he do so now?

Their positions were completely reversed, and were he to do so she would never believe in his love or view him as other than a pretender, who offered it in barter for the mortgages her father held on his estate.

The latter was eyeing Jerry, and, having no idea of what his secret thoughts were, failed to see why, if even a half of his estate remained, he should seem so suddenly overcome, for he had grown very pale, and he respired like one in pain.

To thrust all love for Bella out of his heart was now the bitter task to which he must set himself, and perhaps to replace her image by one of the many heiresses to whom his mother so often drew his attention; but that could not be. Jolly, good-hearted Jerry would never condescend to be mercenary; he felt that he would rather a thousand times share poverty with a loving little girl like Bella than wealth with another. Matters had not yet come to poverty--far from it; but now, and after all that had transpired, and he had learned who the holder of these fatal mortgages was, how could he speak to her or her father of love or marriage without being most cruelly and degradingly misunderstood, and having his object utterly misconstrued?

'And the interest on the mortgages?' he asked, in a hard, dry tone.

'Has been unpaid for several years.'

'Making matters worse and worse. It was six per cent. on Langley Park, Mr. Chevenix, and that is stiff interest as things go.'

'Yes, it _was_.'

'You speak of it in the past tense.'

'Yes.'

'Worse and worse,' assented Mr. Chevenix, shaking his white head. 'But bear up, my dear boy. I may call you so?' added the old man, kindly patting Jerry's shoulder. 'Money will pull you through. A handsome young fellow like you, with your family prestige, will easily find a rich wife, and an officer has a hundred chances of success when other fellows have none.'

Jerry had not the heart to ask what the total sum of his liabilities amounted to, and rose to depart.

'Bid Miss Chevenix good-bye for me,' said he, as he departed in haste, having just then no desire to add to the intense mortification that crushed him by looking again on the bright face of the unconscious Bella--for unconscious she was of what their mutual monetary relations were till her father some time after informed her, when the news came to her perhaps too late.

Sunk in thoughts too bitter for words, Jerry rode slowly home through the dusk of the gloomy winter evening. The barriers raised by evil fortune, and added to by a sense of honour and propriety, enhanced in his eyes the value of the girl he felt that he had lost, and rendered dearer to him the hopes he had been cherishing of late, and which had become so precious to him.

He longed for the society and advice of Goring over a 'quiet weed' to talk about these things ere he confided the state of matters to his mother, who, with all her great love of him, he feared could not be brought to see how matters stood with regard to the estate and the encumbrances thereon.

When he joined her in the drawing-room before dinner, the careworn expression of his face--an expression all unusual to him--certainly struck her, but for a time only.

'You have been with Mr. Chevenix?' she asked.

'Yes, mother.'

'And he has worried you with business.'

'Yes; his daughter is coming to the ball. Here is her reply; I brought it with me,' said he, with an irrepressible sigh.

'Of course she will come; who ever doubted it?' responded Lady Julia, as she somewhat contemptuously tossed Bella's unopened note into the fire; and Jerry turned away to join Goring and his cousin Emily, who were looking over a portfolio of prints upon a stand of gilded wood.

To Jerry at this precise time the familiar yet gorgeous drawing-room, with all its inlaid cabinets and brackets, bearing treasures of art and _bric-a-brac_, as seen under the soft light of wax candles in sconces and the glittering crystal chandelier, gave a sense of worry by its apparent incongruity, as did the very attire of his mother and cousin by the richness of its materials, the laces, the jewelry; and he absolutely shivered when he thought of the coming birthday ball, with its hundred and four guests on one hand, and the mortgages of Chevenix with their unpaid interest on the other.

To Jerry it seemed that ere long his mother might have to betake herself to Bruges or Boulogne to retrench, while he might have to exchange for India if the route came not speedily for Africa.

Bevil Goring, when they were alone, heard with genuine concern the state of affairs as Jerry set them before him, and agreed with him that to continue his attentions to Miss Chevenix would lead to an entire misconstruction on the part of herself and her father as to the true state of his heart, and lead them to infer that he was only a fortune-hunter; and honest Jerry blushed scarlet at the name, and twirled and gnawed his moustache with intense irritation.

Though she failed to take in the whole situation--which Jerry knew would be the case--Lady Julia heard his tidings with considerable alarm, and felt her wrath increased against Mr. Chevenix, which was utterly unreasonable.

'The state of our--or rather your--affairs, as this man has set them before you, Jerry,' said Lady Julia, 'now renders it absolutely necessary that you should marry for money, and that at once.'

'Or cut the service and emigrate,' groaned Jerry.

'Emigrate!'

'Invest in a pickaxe and spade, and try Ballarat or the Diamond Fields.'

'How can you jest thus?' said his mother, loftily.

'To me the nearest heiress seems to be Bella Chevenix,' said Jerry, not unwilling to revenge her for the slighting remarks his mother daily made.

'She has a fortune certainly--a fortune won by advances made upon our lands--but of what use can it be to her, brought up, as she has been, ignorant of the habits, the tastes, and requirements of our class?'

'She is ignorant of none, and enjoys them all,' replied Jerry, with some asperity.

'You inherited the estate encumbered, and have, in no small degree, added to its burdens, and, if you do not make a rich marriage, may be--my poor, dear Jerry--a ruined man.'

'We are going to fight King Koffee, they say. I'll get taken prisoner, and marry his youngest daughter!' cried Jerry, with a gleam of his old recklessness.

For some days now he did not go near Bella Chevenix, who began to feel a little wroth at him in consequence, as she had no key as yet to what influenced Jerry.

'Their ball!' exclaimed the proud girl, petulantly; 'I am not sure that I should go, papa, to be patronised and slighted perhaps.'

'Patronised or slighted--who dare do either to you?' asked her father, with surprise.

'I shall be bored to death, I fear.'

But the desire to appear where she knew she would shine prevailed over all her doubts, and she devoted all her energies to have a costume that should be second to none.

Meanwhile Jerry found the impossibility of abstaining entirely from visiting the house of Mr. Chevenix, and so days of meetings in various ways passed--meetings in which their lives seemed to be mutually merged in that sweet occupation which was not quite love-making, but yet was far, far in advance of that perilous frivolity that so often leads to it called--flirtation.

Yet Jerry was further now from disclosing himself than ever, and Bella seemed in no hurry for him to do so, for she was young enough--even after all she had seen of society--to shrink from a declaration, for to a girl there is something so seductive, so sweet in hovering on the brink, when she, as Bella did in her secret heart, loves the man.

Cousin Emily was not slow in discovering the direction in which Jerry so often turned his horse's head, and hinted thereof to Lady Julia.

'But for the dangers my poor boy will have to encounter,' said the latter, 'I would hail with pleasure his departure to the coast of Africa, as a useful means of separating him from this most artful creature.'

Meanwhile an influx of visitors and guests preluded the ball, as many came from a considerable distance. Like Goring, Jerry was in no mood for all this gaiety just then, and the latter resented that his duties as host enforced his presence at Wilmothurst, and consequent absence from Bella Chevenix.