Chapter XII: Part 12

That lane was hallowed to him: but a quarter of a mile farther was the old woman's cottage where he had encountered the sisters; there was the place where he had walked one evening with Tiny; there--oh, there was a happy memory clinging to every tree and mossy block of granite; and but for the strong effort he made, he could have wandered out of the path, thrown himself down amongst the ferns, and cried like a child.

Meanwhile, Pratt chatted excitedly.

"Bless the dear old place. Why, Dick, that's where I saw my little Fin looking so disdainfully at me, coming round the sharp turn there; and, look here, that's my old perch, where I've had many a jolly pipe."

He caught his friend suddenly by the arm, in a strangely-excited fashion, and turned him round, as he pointed to the grey, lichen-covered monolith of granite.

"Dick, old man, I could smoke a pipe there now, and sit and whistle like a bird. I say, Dick, how comical a fellow would look up there in his wig and gown, and--thank goodness!"

He said those last two words to himself with a sigh of relief, as, turning round, there, timed to a moment by his vile machinations and those of Fin, the sisters came, basket and fern trowel in hand, from amongst the trees, just as if time had been standing still, and no troubles had intervened.

To two of the party the surprise was complete. Richard stopped short, rigid and firm; while Tiny, as soon as her eyes rested upon him, turned pale, her basket fell to the ground, and uttering a faint cry of pain, she pressed her hand to her side and tottered back.

Conventional feelings, rigid determination, everything went down before nature then. With one bound Richard was at Tiny's side, and the next moment, with a cry of joy, the poor girl's arms were round his neck, and she was sobbing on his breast.

The probabilities are that had the insane behaviour of Frank Pratt been seen, he would have lost caste at the bar; for, dashing down his hat and an expensive meerschaum, which was shivered to atoms on the granite path, he executed a wild breakdown, brought his foot to the earth with a flop, and then rushed at Fin; but only to be disappointed, for she was clinging to and sobbing over Dick--that is, as far up as she could reach, crying--

"Oh, you dear, good darling, Dick--pray, pray don't go on breaking her poor heart any more."

"I say," said Pratt, reproachfully, as Richard bent down and kissed the little maid, "what have I done? Ain't I nobody?"

"Oh, go away now," cried Fin, "There, you may have one, if nobody's looking. Now, that will do;" and, after suffering a kiss, she returned it with a push.

"Time's up, Dick, come. You shall see her again," said Pratt, looking ruefully at his meerschaum scraps, as he dusted his hat. Then followed a little whispering with Pin, and he caught his friend's arm, as his fellow-conspirator led her sister away.

"This is madness," groaned Richard, as he yielded to his friend's touch, and they walked rapidly away. "Oh, Franky, you contrived this."

"To be sure I did," said Pratt, grinning; "and you shall have another dose to cure you both, if you are good. But, quick; now, then, look a man. Here we are."

Richard walked steadily up to the house, where he was pleased to find that all the servants' faces were new. Humphrey met him at the door, and Mr and Mrs Lloyd were in the hall ready to approach timidly, as the young man gravely kissed the late housekeeper, and shook hands with Lloyd.

Polly was in the drawing-room, for it was to be a very homely, unconventional marriage; and she blushed warmly on encountering the former owner of the place.

"I wish you every happiness, my dear," said Richard, to set her at ease; and he bent down and kissed her. "Humphrey has told me of your good little heart."

"And you will listen to him, Mr Lloy--Trevor?" said the girl, mixing the two names together.

"Time to go," said Humphrey; and he handed Polly, Mrs Lloyd, and her husband into the first carriage, which was kept back while he, Richard, and Pratt entered the other, and were driven off to the church.

In spite of the endeavours to keep the affair quiet, the little churchyard was crowded, and it was a harder trial for Richard even than he had expected, to hear the whisperings, and receive the friendly nods and bows from so many of those who knew him well.

But he bore it all in a calm, manly fashion; shook hands warmly with Mr Mervyn, who had come with a white favour in his button-hole; stood best man to Humphrey; and after little Polly, but a week before at school, had been given away by her uncle, and, the wedding over, the carriage had driven back with the bride and bridegroom, he took his place again quite calmly, shook hands with those who clustered round, and was driven away.

Everything went off well; and at the simple wedding breakfast, when called upon, Richard, in a very manly speech, wished health and happiness to the bride and bridegroom. Humphrey responded, broke down, tried again, broke down again, and then, leaving his place, crossed to where Richard sat, grasped his hand, and in a voice choking with emotion, exclaimed--

"Master Dick, I'm speaking for my wife as well as myself when I tell you that, if you wish us to be a happy couple, you must come back to your own."

Richard rose, and returned the strong grasp; but before he could utter a word Pratt brought his hand down bang upon the table, exclaiming--

"Mother Hubbard, by Jove!"

Every face was directed at the door, where, standing, in her black hat and scarlet shawl, with her hands resting upon the horn handle of her umbrella, was the little grey old woman of Plymouth Station.

"It's dear Aunt Price," cried Polly, jumping up; and, regardless of her finery, she ran to the severe-looking old lady, hugged her affectionately, and then began to unpin her shawl, and take off her hat. "Oh, aunty, I'm _so_ glad you've come."

"And are you married, look you?" said the old lady.

"Married, yes," cried Humphrey, heartily; "we couldn't wait, you know, or it would have been too late. Give's your umbrella, and come and sit down. Why didn't you come last night?"

"It was too far, my poy," said the old lady; "and I was tired. It's a long way, look you, from Caerwmlych, and I'm a very old woman now. Well, Lloyd--well, Chane, you're both looking older than when I was here last, close upon thirty years ago, and nursed you through two illnesses."

"We are quite well," said Mrs Lloyd; "but didn't expect you here."

"P'r'abs not, p'r'abs not," said the old lady; "put Polly here wrote to me to come, and I thought it was time, for she's peen telling me strange news, look you."

Lloyd shuffled in his chair, Mrs Lloyd was silent, and Richard's brow knit as he glanced across the table at Pratt, while Humphrey busied himself in supplying the old lady's plate.

"I cot Polly's letter, look you, and I teclare to cootness, if I'd been tead and perried, I think I should have cot up and t come, look you. And so you're married to Humphrey! Ah, well, he was a tisacreeable paby; but he's grown, look you, into a fine lad, and I wish you poth choy."

The old lady took a glass of wine and ate a little, and then grew more garrulous than ever, while no one else seemed disposed to speak.

"And I'm glad to see you again," said the old lady, looking at Richard. "I tidn't expect it when I left you at the railway place; and yet I seemed to know you again, look you. I felt I knew the face, and I teclare to cootness I couldn't tell where I'd seen it, but I rememper now."

"Come, aunt, darling," said Polly, "make a good breakfast."

"Tinner you mean, child," said the old lady.

"Well, dinner, dear," said Polly, "because I want a long talk with you before we go."

"You're coing away, then?"

"Yes, aunt, for a month; but you'll stay till we come back?"

"Well, I ton't know, look you," said the old lady, sturdily. "Chane Lloyd and I never tid get on well together; but if Mr Richard Trevor there isn't too prout to ask a poor old woman off the mountains--who nursed his poor mother, and tantled him in her arms when he was a paby-- I teclare to cootness I will stay."

A dead silence fell upon the group at the table. Humphrey seemed uncomfortable, Polly clung to his arm, Mrs Lloyd looked white and downcast, and her husband glanced at the door, and motioned a servant who was entering to retire.

Richard broke the silence, after giving a reassuring smile to Humphrey and his wife, by saying, gravely--

"I would ask you to stay with pleasure, Mrs Price, if I were master here, but you are mistaken. There sits Mr Humphrey Trevor; I am your own kith and kin, Richard Lloyd."

"Chut!--chut!--chut!" exclaimed the old lady, starting up and speaking angrily, as she pointed at him with one finger. "Who ever saw a Lloyd or a Price with a nose like that? Ton't tell me! You're Mr Richard Trevor, your father's son, and as much like him, look you, as two peas."

The Lloyds rose, Mrs Lloyd looking like ashes as she clung to her husband's arm; while Pratt left his place, and stood behind the chair of his friend.

"I'd forgotten all about it, look you," said the old lady, prattling away, "till Polly wrote to me from her school; and then it all came back about Chane Lloyd and her paby, and her having the fever when her mistress died. Why, look you, tidn't I go up to the nursery after peing town to see the funeral, and find Chane Lloyd hat peen up there, and put her paby in the young master's cratle? and, look you, titn't I go town to chite her, and find her all off her heat, and she was ill for weeks? I thought she'd tone it without knowing, or, peing wild-like, had liked to see her little one in the young master's clothes. I put that all right again, and nursed poth pabies till she cot well. Lloyd--Trevor-- tidn't I see them poth as soon as they came into the worlt, and to you think I ton't know them? Why, look at them!"

She turned to Pratt, who was nearest to her; but she cried out in alarm, for the little fellow had caught her in his arms and kissed her on both cheeks, as he cried--

"It isn't Mother Hubbard, Dick, but the good fairy out of the story-book. God bless you! old lady, for this. Here, Humphrey, see to your mother."

But Humphrey was pumping away at both Richard Trevor's arms, as he cried, excitedly--

"Hooray! Master Dick. I never felt so happy in my life. Polly, lass, we shall get the cottage after all."

He saw the next moment, though, that Mrs Lloyd had fainted dead away; and his were the arms that carried her to her bedroom, while Polly crept to the old Welshwoman's side.

"I came, look you, Master Richard, to put all this right," said the old lady. "Putt it was all nonsense, I teclare to cootness. Anypody might have seen."

"I--I thank you--I'm contused--dazed, rather," said Trevor, looking from one to the other. "Polly, my poor girl, I'll try to make up to you for this disappointment."

"I'm not disappointed, please, Mr Richard, sir," said Mrs Humphrey, bobbing a curtsey, and then trying a boarding-school salute and failing, and blushing terribly.

"I'm very happy indeed, and I'm sure Humphrey is--he said so, and he always tells the truth. And if you please, sir, aunt and I will go now into the housekeeper's room."

"That you won't, if I have any influence with some one here," said Pratt. "No, my pretty little wife; you and your brick of a husband shall go off in triumph; and oh, by Jove! here's the present I brought down for you."

Frank Pratt's present was a handsome ring, and he was placing it above the plain one already on her finger, when Humphrey came back.

"She's all right again," he said, huskily. "I was obliged to come away, for she wanted to go on her knees--and I couldn't stand it. Polly--Aunt Price--she wants you both. Master Dick, sir, isn't this a day?"

Volume 3, Chapter XX.

CONCLUSION.

Everybody said, as a matter of course, afterwards, that the whole affair was perfectly absurd, and that anybody could see with half an eye that Humphrey was not a Trevor. All the same, though, he had been accepted for many months as the owner of the estate.

The young couple went off on their wedding trip, for Mrs Lloyd's illness was of only a transitory nature; and soon after the carriage had taken them to the station, the old housekeeper sent a message to Trevor, asking leave to see him.

What took place at that interview Richard Trevor never said; but the result was that a couple of hours after she and her husband had left the place, having refused Trevor's offer to let them stay, though living on his bounty to the end.

In writing, it needs but a stroke of the pen to carry the reader now to a year ago or the reverse; so let us say that a year has elapsed, and there is once more a dinner-party at Penreife, where there are visitors staying. It is to meet them that Sir Hampton and Lady Rea are coming from Tolcarne. One of the visitors is with her sister beneath one of the shady trees on the lawn; and the other, a little solemn-looking man, her husband, has been making a tour of the place with Richard Trevor.

They stopped at the pretty keeper's lodge, with its little farm, to drink new milk, tempered from a flask, offered in glasses by pretty Mrs Humphrey Lloyd, who looked wonderfully important with the new baby. Then they visited the stables, where an old friend was enjoying a pipe after seeing to the comforts of the horses; for Sam Jenkles, when poor Ratty was obstinate for the last time, and insisted upon dying of old age in the road instead of at peace in the stables, gladly accepted the offer made to him to take the superintendence of the little stud at Penreife; while his wife lived in one of the prettiest cottages on the estate, and was always busy at the house during company times.

Sam's news when he came down was that Mrs Fiddison had changed her name, having been proposed to by a widower who fancied she was one of the bereaved; also that one Barney had got into some little difficulty with the police, and had gone abroad for change of air.

On returning to the house for dressing, the ladies were already prepared, and the gentlemen had only time to hurry on their things before there was a loud "Er-rum" in the hall, and Sir Hampton Rea was ready to button-hole his sons-in-law, telling the Cornish one that the new greenhouse was a great success, and that Sanders should come over the next day to see the wistaria.

As for Lady Rea, she was being heartily kissed, every kiss budding into a smile on her pleasant face, till Tiny made the discovery that the plump, affectionate little dame was coming undone, when she had her whisked away and pinned, volubly telling her daughter the while that Pepine was so ill, Aunt Matty had not the heart to come.

At eleven precisely the last "Er-rum" is heard in the hall, and peace-- truly a blessed peace--falls on the pleasant Cornish home.

Three months after we have the return visit, Richard Trevor and Valentina, his wife, being up at Frank Pratt's old-fashioned house at Highgate, where the only trouble happy little Fin can complain of is that Frank is so bunted by the solicitors that he has no peace. Fin has quite made up her mind that he will be Lord Chancellor; but Frank thinks it more than doubtful, and is very fond of teasing his wife, his great coup being to tell her that she asked him to marry her at last.

There is a quiet, grave look in the faces of Richard and his wife, for they have paid two visits that day--one to the living, one to the dead.

Mrs Vanleigh is living in a pleasant little cottage in a Highgate lane, and from her they learn that Sir Felix Landells marries the daughter of an earl in a few weeks; also that Captain, now Major, Vanleigh is still in India, where he is likely to stay; but that he writes regularly to his neglected wife, and has devoted himself heart and soul to his profession.

The visit to the dead was made in Highgate Cemetery, where there is a neat little railing round a grave--green in summer, purple in spring with violets; and as husband and wife stand hand in hand there, the tears of the latter fall fast, while his eyes are blurred and misty as he pictures the past, and seems to see the slight, fragile form slowly wasting day by day, till once more, for the thousandth time, he conjures up the dimly-lit room, and the solemn scene wherein he was an actor. He knows that the long, dark tress of hair lies upon his wife's bosom; and he knows, too, that in her gentle heart there is no tinge of jealous feeling, or want of faith; for as he raises his head with a muttered "God rest her!" he meets the loving look of a sweet, trusting pair of eyes. Lastly, they gaze together at the simple headstone, but his are even now too blurred to read the simple inscription--"Netta."

The End.

End of Project Gutenberg's Thereby Hangs a Tale, by George Manville Fenn