Chapter V: Part 5

"Silence!" cried Hallam harshly, and the child shrank away, and covered her face with her hands. "Don't do that! Take down your hands. What have you to cry for now?"

The child dropped her hands in a frightened manner, and looked at him with her large dark eyes, that seemed to be watching for a blow, her face twitching slightly, but there were no tears.

"Any one would think I was a regular brute to the child," he muttered, scowling at her involuntarily, and then sitting very thoughtful and quiet, holding her on his knee, while he thrust back the breakfast things, and tapped the table. At last, turning to her with a smile, "Have a cup of coffee, Julie?" he said.

She shook her head. "I had my breakfast with mamma ever so long since."

He frowned again, looking uneasily at the child, and resuming the tapping upon the table with his thin, white fingers.

The window looking out on the market place was before them, quiet, sunny, and with only two people visible, Mrs Pinet, watering her row of flowers with a jug, and the half of old Gemp, as he leaned out of his doorway, and looked in turn up the street and down.

All at once a firm, quick step was heard, and the child leaped from her father's knee.

"Here's Mr Bayle! Here's Mr Bayle!" she cried, clapping her hands, and, bounding to the window, she sprang upon a chair, to press her face sidewise to the pane, to watch for him who came, and then to begin tapping on the glass, and kissing her hands as Christie Bayle, a firm, broad-shouldered man, nodded and smiled, and went by.

Julia leaped from the chair to run out of the room, leaving Robert Hallam clutching the edge of the table, with his brow wrinkled, and an angry frown upon his countenance, as he ground his teeth together, and listened to the opening of the front door, and the mingling of the curate's frank, deep voice with the silvery prattle of his child.

"Ha, little one!" And then there was the sound of kisses, as Hallam heard the rustle of what seemed, through the closed door, to be Christie Bayle taking the child by the waist and lifting her up to throw her arms about his neck.

"You're late!" she cried; and the very tone of her voice seemed changed, as she spoke eagerly.

"No, no, five minutes early; and I must go up the town first now."

"Oh!" cried the child.

"I shall not be long. How is mamma?"

"Mamma isn't well," said the child. "She has been crying so."

"Hush! hush! my darling!" said Bayle softly. "You should not whisper secrets."

"Is that a secret, Mr Bayle?"

"Yes; mamma's secret, and my Julia must be mamma's well-trusted little girl."

"Please, Mr Bayle, I'm so sorry, and I won't do so any more. Are you cross with me?"

"My darling!" he cried passionately, "as if any one could be cross with you! There, get your books ready, and I'll soon be back."

"No, no, not this morning, Mr Bayle; not books. Take me for a walk, and teach me about the flowers."

"After lessons, then. There, run away."

Hallam rose from his chair, with his lips drawn slightly from his teeth, as he heard Bayle's retiring steps. Then the front door was banged loudly; he heard his child clap her hands, and then the quick fall of her feet as she skipped across the hall, and bounded up the stairs.

He took a few strides up and down the room, but stopped short as the door opened again, and, handsomer than ever, but with a graver, more womanly beauty, heightened by a pensive, troubled look in her eyes and about the corners of her mouth, Millicent Hallam glided in.

Her face lit up with a smile as she crossed to Hallam, and laid her white hand upon his arm.

"Don't think me unkind for going away, dear," she said softly. "Have you quite done?"

"Yes," he said shortly. "There, don't stop me; I'm late."

"Are you going to the bank, dear?"

"Of course I am. Where do you suppose I'm going?"

"I only thought, dear, that--"

"Then don't _only think_ for the sake of saying foolish things."

She laid her other hand upon his arm, and smiled in his face.

"Don't let these money matters trouble you so, Robert," she said. "What does it matter whether we are rich or poor?"

"Oh, not in the least!" he cried sarcastically. "You don't want any money, of course?"

"I do, dear, terribly," she said sadly. "I have been asked a great deal lately for payments of bills; and if you could let me have some this morning--"

"Then I cannot; it's impossible. There, wait a few days and the crisis will be over, and you can clear off."

"And you will not speculate again, dear?" she said eagerly.

"Oh, no, of course not," he rejoined, with the touch of sarcasm in his voice.

"We should be so much happier, dear, on your salary. I would make it plenty for us; and then, Robert, you would be so much more at peace."

"How can I be at peace?" he cried savagely, "when, just as I am harassed with monetary cares--which you cannot understand--I find my home, instead of a place of rest, a place of torment?"

"Robert!" she said, in a tone of tender reproach.

"People here I don't want to see; servants pestering me for money, when I have given you ample for our household expenses; and my own child set against me, ready to shrink from me, and look upon me as some domestic ogre!"

"Robert, dear, pray do not talk like this."

"I am driven to it," he cried fiercely; "the child detests me!"

"Oh no, no, no," she whispered, placing her arm round his neck.

"And rushes to that fellow Bayle as if she had been taught to look upon him as everybody."

"Nay, nay," she said softly; and there was a tender smile upon her lip, a look of loving pity in her eye. "Julie likes Mr Bayle, for he pets her, and plays with her as if he were her companion."

"And I am shunned."

"Oh, no, dear, you frighten poor Julie sometimes when you are in one of your stern, thoughtful moods."

"My stern, thoughtful moods! Pshaw!"

"Yes," she said tenderly; "your stern, thoughtful moods. The child cannot understand them as I do, dear husband. She thinks of sunshine and play. How can she read the depth of the father's love--of the man who is so foolishly ambitious to win fortune for his child? Robert-- husband--my own, would it not be better to set all these strivings for wealth aside, and go back to the simple, peaceful days again?"

"You do not understand these things," he said harshly. "There, let me go. I ought to have been at the bank an hour ago, but I could not get a wink of sleep all the early part of the night."

"I know, dear. It was three o'clock when you went to sleep."

"How did you know?"

"The clock struck when you dropped off, dear. I did not speak for fear of waking you."

She did not add that she, too, had been kept awake about money matters, and wondering whether her husband would consent to live in a more simple style in a smaller house.

"There, good-bye," he said, kissing her. "It is all coming right. Don't talk to your father or mother about my affairs."

"Of course I should not, love," she replied; "such things are sacred."

"Yes, of course," he said hastily. "There, don't take any notice of what I have said. I am worried--very much worried just now, but all will come right soon." He kissed her hastily and hurried away, leaving Millicent standing thoughtful and troubled till she heard another step on the rough stones, when a calm expression seemed to come over her troubled face, but only to be chased away by one more anxious as the step halted at the door and the bell rang.

Meanwhile Julia had run upstairs to her own room, where, facing the door, five very battered dolls sat in a row upon the drawers, at which she dashed full of childish excitement, as if to continue some interrupted game.

She stopped short, looked round, and then gave her little foot a stamp.

"How tiresome!" she cried pettishly. "It's that nasty, tiresome, disagreeable old Thibs. I hate her, that I do, and--"

"Oh, you hate me, do you?" cried the object of her anger appearing in the doorway. "Very well, it don't matter. I don't mind. You don't care for anybody now but Mr Bayle."

The child rushed across the room to leap up and fling her arms round Thisbe's neck, as that oddity stood there, quite unchanged: the same obstinate, hard woman who had opposed Mrs Luttrell seven years before.

"Don't, don't, don't say such things, Thibs," cried the child, all eagerness and excitement now, the very opposite of the timid, shrinking girl in the breakfast-room a short time before; and as she spoke she covered the hard face before her with kisses. "You know, you dear, darling old Thibs, I love you. Oh, I do love you so very, very much."

"I know it's all shim-sham and pea-shucks," said Thisbe, grimly; but, without moving her face, rather bending down to meet the kisses.

"No, you don't think anything of the kind, Thibs, and I won't have you looking cross at me like papa."

"It's all sham, I tell you," said Thisbe again. "You never love me only when you want anything."

"Oh! Thibs!" cried the girl with the tears gathering in her eyes; "how can you say that?"

"Because I'm a nasty, hard, cankery, ugly, disagreeable old woman," said Thisbe, clasping the child to her breast; "and it isn't true, and you're my own precious sweet, that you are."

"And you took away my box out of the room, when I had to go down to papa."

"But you can't have a nasty, great, dirty candle-box in your bedroom, my dear."

"But I want it for a doll's house, and I'm going to line it with paper, and--do, Thibs, do, do let me have it, please?"

"Oh, very well, I shall have to be getting the moon for you next. I never see such a spoiled child."

"Make haste then, before Mr Bayle comes, to go on with my lessons. Quick! quick! where is it?"

"In the lumber-room, of course. Where do you suppose it is?"

Thisbe led the way along a broad passage and up three or four stairs to an old oak door, which creaked mournfully on its hinges as it was thrown back, showing a long, sloped, ceiled room, half filled with packing-cases and old fixtures that had been taken down when Hallam hired the house, and had it somewhat modernised for their use.

It was a roomy place with a large fireplace that had apparently been partially built up to allow of a small grate being set, while walls and ceiling were covered with a small patterned paper, a few odd rolls and pieces of which lay in a corner.

"I see it," cried Julia excitedly.

"No, no, no; let me get it," cried Thisbe. "Bless the bairn! why, she's like a young goat. There, now, just see what you've done!"

The child had darted at the hinged deal box, stood up on one end against the wall in the angle made by the great projecting fireplace, and in dragging it away torn down a large piece of the wall paper.

"Oh, I couldn't help it, Thibs," cried the child panting. "I am so sorry."

"So sorry, indeed!" cried Thisbe; "so sorry, indeed, won't mend walls. Why, how wet it is!" she continued, kneeling down and smoothing out the paper, and dabbing it back against the end of the great fireplace from which it had been torn. "There's one of them old gutters got stopped up and the rain soaks in through the roof, and wets this wall; it ought to be seen to at once."

All this while making a ball of her apron, Thisbe, who was the perfection of neatness, had been putting back the torn down corner of paper, moistening it here and there, and ending by making it stick so closely that the tear was only visible on a close inspection. This done she rose and carried the box out, and into the child's bedroom, when before the slightest advance had been made towards turning it into a doll's house, there was the ring at the door, and Thisbe descended to admit the curate, to whom Julia came bounding down.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.

MISS HEATHERY'S OFFERING.

Nature, or rather the adaptation from Nature which we call civilisation, deals very hardly with unmarried ladies of twenty-five for the next ten or a dozen years. Then it seems to give them up, and we have arrived at what is politely known as the uncertain age. Very uncertain it is, for, from thirty-five to forty-five some ladies seem to stand still.

Miss Heathery was one of these, and the mid-life stage seemed to have made her evergreen, for seven years' lapse found her much the same, scarcely in any manner changed.

Poor Miss Heathery! For twenty years she had been longing with all the intensity of a true woman to become somebody's squaw. Her heart was an urn full of sweetness. Perhaps it was of rather a sickly cloying kind that many men would have turned from with disgust, but it was sweetness all the same, and for these long, long years she had been waiting to pour this honey of her nature like a blessing upon some one's head, while only one man had been ready to say, "Pour on," and held his head ready.

That one would-be suitor was old Gemp, and when he said it, poor Miss Heathery recoiled, clasping her hands tightly upon the mouth of the urn and closing it. She could not pour it there, and the love of Gemp had turned into a bitter hate.

If the curate in his disappointment would only have turned to her, she sighed to herself!

"Ah!"

And she went on thinking and working. What comforting fleecy undergarments she could have woven for him! What ornamental braces he should have worn; and, in the sanguine hopes of that swelling urn of sweets, she designed--she never began them--a set of slippers, a set of seven, all beautifully worked in wool and silks, and lined with velvet. Sunday: white with a gold sun; Monday: dominating with a pale lambent golden green, for it was moon's day; Tuesday puzzled her, for it took her into the Scandinavian mythology, and there she was lost hopelessly for a time, but she waded out with an idea that Tuisco was Mars, so the slippers should be red. The Wednesday slippers brought in Mercury, so they were silvery. Thursday was another puzzle till the happy idea came of crossing Thor's hammer, which would give the slippers quite a college look, black hammers on a red ground. Friday--Frega, Venus--she would work a beauteous woman with golden hair on each. She felt rather doubtful about the woman's face; but love would find out the way. Then there was Saturday.

Just as she reached Saturday, she remembered having once heard that Sir Gordon had a set of razors for every day in the week, and the design halted.

Ah! if Sir Gordon would only have looked at her with that sad melancholy air of tenderness, how happy she could have been! How she would have prompted him to keep on that fight of his against time! But he never smiled upon her; and though she paid in all her little sums of money at the bank herself, and changed all her cheques, Mr James Thickens--as he was always called, to distinguish him from a Mr Thickens of whom some one had once heard somewhere--made no step in advance. The bank counter was always between them, and it was very broad.

"What could she do more to show her affection?" she asked herself. She had petitioned him to give her a "teeny weeny gold-fish, and a teeny weeny silver fish," and he had responded at once; but he was close in his ways: he was not generous. He did not purchase a glass globe of iridescent tints and goodly form; he borrowed a small milk tin at the dairy and sent them in that, with his compliments.

But there were the fish, and she purchased a beautiful globe herself, placed three Venus's ear-shells in the bottom, filled it with clear water from the river carefully strained through three thicknesses of flannel, and there the fish lived till they died.

Why they died so soon may have been from over-petting and too much food. For Miss Heathery secretly called the gold-fish James, and the silver fish Letitia, her own name, and she was never so happy as when feeding James and coaxing him to kiss the tips of her thin little fingers.

Perhaps it was from over-feeding, perhaps from too much salt, for as Miss Heathery, after long waiting, had to content herself with the chaste salutes of the gold-fish, dissolved pearls distilled from her sad eyes, and fell in the water like sporadic drops of rain.

Miss Heathery's spirit was low, and yet it kept leaping up strangely, for she had been at the bank one morning to change a cheque, and with the full intention of asking Mr James Thickens to present her with a couple more fish from the store of which she had heard so much, but which she had never seen.

That morning, as she noted how broad the pathway had grown from the forehead upwards, and had seen when he turned his back that it expanded into a circular walk round a bed of grizzle in the back of his crown, and was then continued to the nape, Mr James Thickens seemed to be extremely hard and cold. He looked certainly older too than he used; of that she was sure.

He seemed extremely abrupt and impatient with her when she wished him a sweet and pensive good-morning, which was as near a blessing upon his getting-bald head as the words would allow.

She said afterwards that it was a fine morning, a very fine morning, a fact that he did not deny, neither did he acknowledge, and so abstracted and strange did he seem that the gold-fish slipped out of her mind, and for a few moments she was agitated. She recovered though, and laying down a little bunch of violets beside her reticule, she went through her regular routine, received her change, and with a strange feeling of exultation at the artfulness of her procedure, she had reached the door after a most impressive "good-morning," for Miss Heathery always kept up the fiction of dining late, though she partook of her main meal at half-past one.

She had reached the door, when James Thickens spoke, his voice, the voice of her forlorn hope, thrilling her to the core. It was not a thrilling word, though it had that effect upon her, for it was only a summons--an arrest, a check, to her outward progress.

"Hi!"

That was all. "Hi!" but it did thrill her, and she stopped short with bounding pulses. It was abrupt, but still what of that! Gentlemen were not ladies; and if in their masterful, commanding way, they began their courtship by showing that they were the lords of women, why should she complain? He had only to order her to be his wife, and she was ready to become more--his very submissive slave.

She stopped, and, after a moment's hesitation, turned at that "Hi!" so full of hope to her thirsty soul. Her eyes were humid with pleasurable sensations, and but for that broad mahogany counter, she could have thrown herself at his feet. At that moment she was upon the dazzling pinnacle of joy; the next she was mentally sobbing despairingly in the vale of sorrow and despair into which she had fallen, for James Thickens said coldly:

"Here, you've left something behind."

Her violets! Her sweet offering that she had laid upon the altar behind which her idol always stood. That bunch was gathered by her own fingers, tied up with her own hands, incensed with kisses, made dewy with tears. It was the result of loving and painful thought followed by an inventive flash. It meant an easy confession of her love, and after laying it upon the mahogany altar, her sanguine imagination painted James Thickens lifting it, kissing it, holding it to his breast, searching among the leaves for the note which was not there; and, lastly, wearing it home in his button-hole, placing it in water for a time, and then keeping it dried yet fragrant in a book of poetry--the present of his love.

All that and more she had thought; and now James Thickens had called out, "Hi! you've left something behind."

She crept back to the counter, and said, "Thank you, Mr Thickens," in a piteous voice, her eyes beneath her veil too much blinded by the gathering tears to see Mr Trampleasure passing through the bank, though she heard his words, "Good-day, Miss Heathery," and bowed.

It was all over: James Thickens was not a man, he was a rhinoceros with an impenetrable hide; and, taking up her bunch of flowers, she was about to leave the bank when Thickens spoke again.

"Look here," he said, "I want to talk to you. Can't you ask me to tea?"

The place seemed to spin round, and the mahogany counter to heave and fall like a wave, as she tried to speak but could not for a few moments. Then she mastered her emotion, and in a hurried, trembling, half-hysterical voice, she chirped out:

"Yes; this evening, Mr Thickens, at six."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THREE.

JAMES THICKENS TAKES TEA.

"Rum little woman," said Thickens to himself as he hurried out of the bank. "Wonder whether she'd like another couple of fish."

Some men would have gone home to smarten up before visiting a lady to take tea, but James Thickens was not of that sort. His idea of smartness was always to look like a clean, dry, drab leaf, and he was invariably, whenever seen, at that point of perfection.

Punctually at six o'clock he rapped boldly at Miss Heathery's door, turning round to stare hard at Gemp, who came out eagerly to look and learn, before going in to have a fit--of temper, and then moving round to stare at Mrs Pinet's putty nose, rather a large one when flattened against the pane, as she strained to get a glimpse of such an unusual proceeding.

Several other neighbours had a look, and then the green door was opened. The visitor passed in and was ushered into the neat little parlour where the tea was spread, and Miss Heathery welcomed him, trembling with gentle emotion, and admiring the firmness, under such circumstances, of the animal man.

It was a delicious tea. There were Sally Lunns and toast biliously brimming in butter. Six spoonfuls of the best Bohea and Young Hyson were in the china pot. There was a new cottage loaf and a large pat of butter, with a raised cow grazing on a forest of parsley. There were thin slices of ham, and there were two glass dishes of preserve equal to that of which Mrs Luttrell was so proud; and then there was a cake from Frampton's at the corner, where they sold the Sally Lunns.

"I don't often get a tea like this, Miss Heathery," said Thickens, who was busy with his red and yellow bandanna handkerchief spread over his drab lap.

"I hope you are enjoying it," she said sweetly.

"Never enjoyed one more. Another cup, if you please, and I'll take a little more of that ham."

It was not a little that he took, and that qualifying adjective is of no value in describing the toast and Sally Lunns that he ate solidly and seriously, as if it were his duty to do justice to the meal.

And all the while poor Miss Heathery was only playing with her tea-cup and saucer. The only food of which she could partake was mental, and as she sat there dispensing her dainties and blushing with pleasure, she kept on thinking in a flutter of delight that all the neighbours would know Mr Thickens was taking tea with her, and be talking about this wicked, daring escapade on the part of a single lady.

He had not smiled, but he had seemed to be _so_ contented, _so_ happy, and he had asked her whether she worked that framed sampler on the wall, and the black cat with gold-thread eyes, and the embroidered cushion.

He had asked her if she liked poetry, and how long one of those rice-paper flowers took her to paint. He had admired, too, her poonah painting, and had at last sat back in his chair with one drab leg crossed over the other, and looking delightfully at home.

Still he didn't seem disposed to come to the point, and in the depth and subtlety of her cunning, Miss Heathery thought she would help him by leading the conversation towards matrimony.

"Dr and Mrs Luttrell seem to age very much," she said softly.

"Ah! they do," said Thickens tightening his lips and making a furrow across the lower part of his face. "Yes: trouble, ma'am, trouble."

"But they are a sweet couple, Mr Thickens."

"Models, madam, models," said the visitor, who became very thoughtful, and made a noise that sounded like "Soop!" as there was a pause, during which Mr Thickens took some tea.

"Have you seen Sir Gordon lately?" said Miss Heathery at last.

"No, madam. Back soon, though, I hope."

"Ah!" sighed Miss Heathery, "do you think he will ever--ahem! marry now?"

"Never, ma'am," said Thickens emphatically. "Too old."

"Oh, no, Mr Thickens."

"Oh, yes, Miss Heathery."

There was another pause.

"How beautiful Mrs Hallam grows! So pale, and sweet, and grave. She looks to me always, Mr Thickens, like some lovely lily. Dear Millicent, it seems only yesterday that she was married."

Thickens started and moved uneasily, sending a pang that must have had a jealous birth through Miss Heathery's breast.

"Seven years ago, Mr Thickens."

"Six years, eleven months, two weeks, ma'am."

"Ah, how exact you are, Mr Thickens!"

"Obliged to be, ma'am. Interest to calculate."

"But she looks thin, and not so happy as I could wish."

"Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am," said Thickens, paradoxically.

Again there was an uneasy change, for Mr Thickens's brow was puckered, and a couple of ridgy wrinkles ran across the top of his head.

"And they make such a handsome pair."

Thickens nodded and frowned, but became placid the next moment as his hostess said softly:

"That sweet child!"

"Hah! Yes! Bless her!--Hah! Yes! Bless her!--Hah! Yes! Bless her!"

Miss Heathery stared, for her guest fired these ejaculations and benedictions at intervals in a quick, eager way, smiling the while, and with his eyes brightening.

She stared more the next minute, and trembled as she heard her visitor's next utterance, and thought of a visit of his seven years ago when she was out, and which he had explained by saying that he had come to ask her if she would like a pair of gold-fish, that was all.

For all at once Mr Thickens exclaimed with his eyes glittering:

"If I had married I should have liked to have had a little girl like that."

There was a terrible pause here, terrible to only one though: and then, in a hesitating voice, Miss Heathery went on, with that word "marriage" buzzing in her ears, and making her feel giddy.

"Do you--do you think it's true, Mr Thickens?"

"What, that I never married?" he said sharply.

"No, no; oh, dear me, no!" cried Miss Heathery; "I mean that poor Mrs Hallam is terribly troubled about money matters, and that they are very much in debt?"

"Don't know, ma'am; can't say, ma'am; not my business, ma'am."

"But they say the doctor is terribly pinched for money too."

"Very likely, ma'am. Every one is sometimes."

"How dreadful!" exclaimed Miss Heathery.

"Very, ma'am. No: nothing more, thank you. Get these things taken away, I want to talk to you."

As the repast was cleared away, Miss Heathery felt that it was coming now, and as she grew more flushed, her head with its curls and great tortoise-shell comb trembled like a flower on its stalk. She got out her work, growing more and more agitated, but noticing that Thickens grew more cold and self-possessed.

"The way of a great man," she thought to herself as she felt that she had led up to what was coming, and that she had never before been so wicked and daring in the whole course of her life.

"It was the violets," she said to herself; and then she started, trembled more than ever, and felt quite faint, for James Thickens drew his chair a little nearer, spread his handkerchief carefully across his drab legs, and said suddenly:

"Now then, let's to business."

Business? Well yes, it was the great business of life, thought Miss Heathery, as she held her hands to her heart, ready to pour out the long pent-up sweetness with which it was charged.

"Look here, Miss Heathery," he went on, "I always liked you."

"Oh! Mr Thickens," she sighed, but she could not "look here" at the visitor, who was playing dumb tunes upon the red and lavender check table-cover, as if it were a harpsichord.

"I've always thought you were an extremely good little woman."

"At last," said Miss Heathery to herself.

"You've got a nice little bit of money in our bank, and also the deeds of this house."

"Don't--don't talk about money, Mr Thickens, please."

"Must," he said abruptly. "I'm a money man. Now look here, you live on your little income we have in the bank."

"Yes, Mr Thickens," sighed the lady.

"Ah! yes, of course. Then look here. Dinham's two houses are for sale next week."

"Yes; I saw the bill," she sighed.

"Let me buy them for you."

"Buy them? They would cost too much, Mr Thickens."

"Not they. You've got nearly enough, and the rest could stay on. They always let; dare say you could keep on the present tenants."

"But--"

That "but" meant that she would not have those excuses for going to the bank.

"You'll get good interest for your money then, ma'am, and you get little now."

"But, Mr Thickens--"

"I wish you to do it, ma'am, and I hope that you will."

"Oh! if you wish it, Mr Thickens, of course I will," she said eagerly.

"That's right; I do wish it. May I buy them for you?"

"Oh, certainly, Mr Thickens."

"All right, ma'am, then I will. Now I must get home and feed my fishes. Good evening."

He caught up his hat, shook hands, and was gone before his hostess had recovered from her surprise and chagrin.

"But never mind," she said, rubbing her hands and making two rings click.

The contact of those two rings made her gaze down and then take and fondle one particular finger, while, in spite of the abruptness of her visitor, she gazed down dreamily at that finger, and sighed as she sank into a reverie full of golden dreams.

"So odd and peculiar," she sighed; "but so different to any one else I ever knew; and, ah me! how shocking it all is: so many people must have seen him come."

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.

DR LUTTRELL'S TROUBLES.

Dr Luttrell had taken a rake, and gone down the garden, according to his custom, and, as soon as he had left the house, Mrs Luttrell went to the window and watched him; after which, with a sorrowful face, she walked back into the drawing-room, to sit down and weep silently for a few minutes.

"It breaks my heart to see her poor sad face, and it's breaking his, though he's always laughing it off, and telling me it's all my nonsense. Oh, dear me! oh, dear me! How is it all to end?"

She sat rocking herself to and fro for a few minutes, and then jumped up hastily.

"It's dreadful, that it is!" she sighed; "but I can't stop here alone. Yes! I thought so!" she cried, as she went to the window, where she could catch sight of the doctor, rake in hand, but not using it, according to his wont, for he was resting upon it, and thinking deeply.

Mrs Luttrell snatched at a great grey ball of worsted and her needles, and went down the garden, making the doctor start as she reached his side.

"Eh? What is it?" he exclaimed. "Anything wrong at the Manor?"

"Wrong! what nonsense, dear!" said the old lady cheerily. "I'm sure, Joseph, you ought to take some medicine. You grow quite nervous!"

"What made you come, then?" he cried, beginning to use his rake busily.

"Why, I thought I'd come and chat while you worked, and--Joseph, my dear, don't--don't look like that!"

"It's of no use, old girl," said the doctor with a sigh; "we may just as well look it boldly in the face. I'm sick of all this make-believe."

"And so am I, dear. Let us be open."

"Ah, well! I will. Who is a man to be open to if not to his old wife?"

"There!" sobbed Mrs Luttrell, making a brave effort over herself, and speaking cheerfully. "I'm ready to face everything now."

"Even poverty, my dear?"

"Even poverty! What does it matter to us? Is it so very bad, dear?"

"It could not be worse. We must give up this house, and sell everything."

"But Hallam?"

"Is a scoundrel!--no, no! I won't say that of my child's husband. But I cannot get a shilling of him; and when I saw him yesterday, and threatened to go to Sir Gordon--"

"Well, dear?"

"He told me to go if I dared."

"And did you go?"

"Did I go, mother? Did I go?--with poor Milly's white face before my eyes, to denounce her husband as a cheat and a rogue! He has had every penny I possessed for his speculations, and they seem all to have failed."

"But you shouldn't have let him have it, dear!"

"Not let him have it, wife! How could I refuse my own son-in-law? Well, there, our savings are gone, and we must eat humble pie for the future. I have not much practice now, and I don't think my few patients will leave me because I live in a cottage."

"Do you think if I went and spoke to Robert it would do any good?"

"It would make our poor darling miserable. She would be sure to know. As it is, she believes her husband to be one of the best of men. Am I, her father, to be the one who destroys that faith? Hush, here is some one coming!"

For there was a quick, heavy step upon the gravel walk, and Christie Bayle appeared.

"I thought I should find you," he said, shaking hands warmly. "Well, doctor, how's the garden? Why, Mrs Luttrell, what black currants! There! you may call me exacting, but tithe, ma'am, tithe--I put in my claim at once for two pots of black currant jam. Those you gave me last year were invaluable."

Mrs Luttrell held his hand still, and laughed gently.

"Little bits of flattery for a very foolish old woman, my dear."

"Flattery! when I had such sore throats I could hardly speak, and yet had to preach! Not much flattery, eh, doctor?"

"Flattery! No, no," said the doctor, dreamily.

He glanced at Mrs Luttrell, then at Bayle, who went on chatting pleasantly about the garden, and then checked him suddenly.

"No one can hear us, Bayle. We want to talk to you--my wife and I."

"Certainly," said Bayle; and his tone and manner changed. "Is it anything I can do for you?"

"Wait a moment--let me think," said the doctor sadly. "Here, let's go and sit down under the yew hedge."

Bayle drew Mrs Luttrell's hand through his arm, and patted it gently, as she looked up tenderly in his face, a tenderness mingled with pride, as if she had part and parcel in the sturdy, manly Englishman who led her to the pleasant old rustic seat in a nook of the great, green, closely-clipped wall, with its glorious prospect away over the fair country side.

"I do love this old spot!" said Bayle, enthusiastically, for a glance at the doctor showed that he was nervous and hesitating, and he thought it well to give him time. "Mrs Luttrell, it is one of my sins that I cannot master envy. I always long for this old place and garden."

"Bayle!" cried the doctor, laying his hand upon the curate's knee, and with his former hesitancy chased away by an eager look, "are you in earnest?"

"In earnest, my dear sir? What about?"

"About--about the old place--the garden."

"Earnest!--yes. But I am going to fight it down," cried Bayle, laughing.

"Don't laugh, man. I am serious--things are serious with me."

"I was afraid so; but I dared not ask you. Come, come, Mrs Luttrell," he continued gently, "don't take it to heart. Troubles come to us all, and when they do there is their pleasant side, for then we learn the value of our friends, and I hope I am one."

"Friend, my dear!" said Mrs Luttrell, weeping gently, "I'm sure you have always seemed to me like a soil. Do: pray do, Joseph, tell him all."

"Be patient, wife, and I will--all that I can."

The doctor paused and cleared his throat, while Mrs Luttrell sat with her hand in the curate's.

"You have set me thinking," said the doctor at last; "and what you said is like a ray of sunshine in my trouble."

"He's always saying things that are like rays of sunshine to us in our trouble, Joseph," said Mrs Luttrell, looking up through her tears at the earnest countenance at her side.

"Bayle, I shall have to lose the old place--the wife's old home, of which she is so proud--and my old garden. It's a bitter blow at my time of life, but it must come."

"I was afraid there was something very wrong," said Bayle; "but suppose we look the difficulties in the face. I'm a bit of a lawyer, you know, my dear doctor. Let's see what can be done. I want to be delicate in my offer, but I must be blunt. I am not a poor man, my wants are very simple, and I spend so little--let me clear this difficulty away. There, we will not bother Mrs Luttrell about money matters. Consider it settled."

"No," said the doctor firmly, "that will not do. I appreciate it all, my dear boy, truly; but there is only one way out of this difficulty-- the old place must be sold."

"Oh, Joseph, Joseph!" sighed Mrs Luttrell, and the tears fell fast.

"It must be, wife," said the doctor firmly. "Bayle, after what you said, will you buy the old home? I could bear it better if it fell into your hands."

"Are you sure it must be sold?"

"There is no other way out of the difficulty, Bayle. Will you buy it?"

"If you tell me that there is certainly no other way out of the difficulty, and that it is your wish and Mrs Luttrell's, I will buy the place."

"Just as it stands--furniture--everything?"

"Just as it stands--furniture--everything."

"Ah!" ejaculated the doctor with a sigh of relief. "Thank God, Bayle!" he cried, shaking the curate's hand energetically. "I have not felt so much at rest for months. Now I want, you to tell me a little about the town--about the people. What do they say?"

"Say?"

"Yes: say about us--about Hallam--about Millicent, about our darling?"

"My dear doctor, I shall have to go and fetch old Gemp. He will point at game, and tell you more in half-an-hour than I shall be able to tell you in a year. Had we not better change the conversation?--here is Mrs Hallam with Julia."

As he spoke the garden gate clicked, and Millicent came into sight, with her child, the one grave and sad, the other all bright-eyed eagerness and excitement.

"There they are, mamma--in the yew seat!" And the child raced across the lawn, bounded over a flowerbed, and leaped upon the doctor's knee.

"Dear old grandpa!" she cried, throwing her arms round his neck and kissing him effusively, but only to leap down and climb on Mrs Luttrell's lap, clasping her neck, and laying her charming little face against the old lady's cheek. "Dear, sweet old grandma!" she cried.

Then, in all the excitement of her young life, she was down again to seize Bayle's hand.

"Come and get some fruit and flowers. We may, mayn't we, grandpa?"

"I'm sure we may," said Bayle, laughing, "only I must go."

"Oh!" cried the child pouting, "don't go, Mr Bayle! I do like being in the garden with you so very, very much!"

Mrs Hallam turned her sweet, grave face to him.

"Can you give her a few minutes? Julie will be so disappointed."

"There," cried Bayle merrily, "you see, doctor, what a little tyrant she grows! She makes every one her slave!"

"I don't!" said the child, pouting. "Mamma always says a run in the garden does me so much good, and it will do Mr Bayle good too. Thibs says he works too hard."

"Come along, then," he cried laughing; and the man seemed transformed, running off with the child to get a basket, while Millicent gazed after them, her countenance looking brighter, and the old people seemed to have forgotten their troubles, as they gazed smilingly after the pair.

"Bless her!" said Mrs Luttrell, swaying herself softly to and fro, and passing her hands along her knees.

"Yes, that's the way, Milly. Give her plenty of fresh air, and laugh at me and my tribe."

Then quite an eager conversation ensued, Mrs Hallam brightening up; and on both sides every allusion to trouble was, by a pious kind of deception, kept out of sight, Millicent Hallam being in the fond belief that her parents did not even suspect that she was not thoroughly happy, while they were right in thinking that their child was ignorant of the straits to which they had been brought.

"Why, we are quite gay this morning!" cried Mrs Luttrell; "or, no: perhaps he comes as a patient, he looks so serious. Ah, Sir Gordon, it is quite an age since you were here?"

"Yes, madam; I'm growing old and gouty, and--your servant, Mrs Hallam," he said, raising his hat. "Doctor, I wish I had your health. Ah, how peaceful and pleasant this garden looks! They told me--old Gemp told me--that I should find Bayle here. I called at his lodgings--bless my soul! how can a man with his income live in such a simple way! The woman said he was out visiting, and that old scoundrel said he was here. Egad! I believe the fellow lies in wait to hear everything. Eh? Ah, I'm right, I see!"

Just then there was a silvery burst of childish laughter, followed by a deep voice shouting, "Stop thief! stop thief!" Then there was a scampering of feet, and Julia came racing along, with her dark curls flying, and Christie Bayle in full pursuit, right up to the group by the yew hedge.

"She ran off with the basket!" cried Bayle. "Did you ever see--Ah, Sir Gordon!" he cried, holding out a currant-stained hand.

"Humph!" cried Sir Gordon grimly, raising his glass to his eye, and looking at the big, brown, fruit-stained fingers; "mighty clerical, 'pon my honour, sir! Who do you think is coming to listen to a parson on Sundays who spends his weeks racing about gardens after little girls? No, I'm not going to spoil my gloves; they're new."

"I--I don't think you ought to speak to--to Mr Bayle like that, Sir Gordon!" cried Mrs Luttrell, flushing and ruffling up like a hen. "If you only knew him as we do--"

"Oh, hush, mamma dear!" said Mrs Hallam, smiling tenderly, and laying her hand upon her mother's arm.

"Yes, my dear; but I cannot sit still and--"

"Know him, ma'am!" said Sir Gordon sharply. "Oh, I know him by heart; read him through and through! He was never meant for a parson; he's too rough!"

"Really, Sir Gordon, I--"

"Don't defend me, Mrs Luttrell," said Bayle merrily. "Sir Gordon doesn't like me, and he makes this excuse for not coming to hear me preach."

"Well, little dark eyes!" cried Sir Gordon, taking Julia's hand, and leading her to the seat. "Ah, that's better! I do get tired so soon, doctor. Well, little dark eyes!" he continued, after seating himself, and drawing the child between his knees, after which he drew a clean, highly-scented, cambric handkerchief from his breast pocket, and leaned forward. "Open your mouth, little one," he said.

Julia obeyed, parting her scarlet lips.

"Now put out your tongue."

"Is grandpa teaching you to be a doctor?" said the child innocently.

"No; but I wish he would, my dear," said Sir Gordon, "so that I could doctor one patient--myself. Out with your tongue."

The child obeyed, and the baronet gravely moistened his handkerchief thereon, and, taking the soft little chin in one gloved hand, carefully removed a tiny purple fruit-stain.

"That's better. Now you are fit to kiss." He bent down, and kissed the child slowly. "Don't like me much, do you, Julia?"

"I don't know," said the child, looking up at him with her large serious eyes. "Sometimes I do, when you don't talk crossly to me; but sometimes I don't. I don't like you half so well as I do Mr Bayle."

"But he's always setting you hard lessons, and puzzling your brains, isn't he?"

"No," said the child, shaking her head. "Oh, no! we have such fun over my lessons every morning! But I do like you too--a little."

"Come, that's a comfort!" said Sir Gordon, rising again. "There, I must go. I want to carry off Mr Bayle--on business."

Mrs Hallam glanced sharply from one to the other, and then, to conceal her agitation, bent down over her child, and began to smooth her tangled curls.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.

SIR GORDON BOURNE ASKS QUESTIONS.

"I want a few words with you, Bayle," said Sir Gordon, as the pair walked back towards the town.

"Shall we talk here, or will you come to my rooms?" and he indicated Mrs Pinet's house, to which he had moved when Hallam married.

"Your rooms! No, man; I never feel as if I can breathe in your stuffy lodgings. How can you exist in them?"

"I do, and very happily," said Bayle, laughing. "Shall we go to your private room at the bank?"

"Bless my soul! no, man!" cried Sir Gordon hastily. "The very last place. Let's get out in the fields, and talk there. More room, and no tattling, inquisitive people about. No Gemps."

"Very good," said Bayle, wondering, and very anxious at heart, for he knew the baronet's proclivities.

They turned off on to one of the footpaths, chatting upon indifferent matters, till all at once Sir Gordon exclaimed:

"'Pon my honour, I don't think I like you, Bayle."

"I'm very sorry, Sir Gordon, because I really do like you. I've always found you a true gentleman at heart, and--"

"Stuff, sir! Silence, sir! Egad, sir, will you hold your tongue? Talking such nonsense to a confirmed valetudinarian with a soured life, and--pish! I don't want to talk about myself. I was going to say that I did not like you."

"You did say so," replied the curate, smiling.

"Ah! well, it's the truth. Why do you stop here?"

"To annoy you, perhaps," said Bayle laughing. "Well, no: I like my people, and I'm vain enough to think I am able to do a little good."

"You do, Bayle, you do," said Sir Gordon, taking his arm and leaning upon him in a confidential way. "You're a good fellow, Bayle; and Castor here would miss you horribly, if you left."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"It is not nonsense, sir. Why, you do more good among the people in one year than I have done in all my life."

"Well, I think I have amerced you pretty well lately for my poor, Sir Gordon."

"Yes, man, but it was your doing. I shouldn't have given a shilling. But look here, I was going to say, why is it that I come to you, and make such a confidant of you?"

"Do you wish to confide something to me now?"

"Yes, of course; one can't go to one's solicitor, and I've no friends. Plenty of club acquaintances: but no friends. There, don't shake your head like that, man. Well, only a few. By-the-way, charming little girl that."

"What, little Julie?" cried Bayle, with his cheeks flushing with pleasure.

"Yes; and your prime favourite, I see. I don't like her, though. Too much of her father."

"She has his eyes and hair," said Bayle thoughtfully; "but there is the sweet grave look in her face that her mother used to wear when I first came to Castor."

"Hush! Silence! Hold your tongue!" cried Sir Gordon impatiently. "Look here--her father--I want to talk about him."

"About Mr Hallam?"

"Yes. What do you think of him now?"

Bayle laid his hand upon Sir Gordon's.

"We are old friends, Sir Gordon; I know your little secret; you know mine. Don't ask me that question."

"As a very old trusty friend I do ask you. Bayle, it is a duty. Look here, man; I hold an important trust in connection with that bank. I'm afraid I have not done my duty. It is irksome to me, a wealthy man, and I am so much away yachting. Let me see; you never have had dealings with us."

"No, Sir Gordon, never."

"Well, as I was saying, I am so much away. You are always feeling the pulses of the people. Now, as you are a great deal at Hallam's, tell me as a friend in a peculiar position, what do you think of Hallam?"

"Do you mean as a friend?"

"I mean as a business man, as our manager. What do the people say?"

"I cannot retail to you all their little tattle, Sir Gordon. Look here, sir, what do you mean? Speak out."

Sir Gordon grew red and was silent for a few minutes.

"I will be plain, Bayle," he said at last. "The fact is I am very uneasy."

"About Hallam?"

"Yes. He occupies a position of great trust."

"But surely Mr Trampleasure shares it."

"Trampleasure shares nothing. He's a mere dummy: a bank ornament. There, I don't say I suspect Hallam, but I cannot help seeing that he is living far beyond his means."

"But you have the books--the statements?"

"Yes; and everything is perfectly correct. I do know something about figures, and at our last audit there was not a penny wrong."

Bayle drew a breath full of relief.

"Every security, every deed was in its place, and the bank was never in a more prosperous state."

"Then of what do you complain?"

"That is what I do not know. All I know, Bayle, is that I am uneasy, and dissatisfied about him. Can you help me?"

"How can I help you?"

"Can you tell me something to set my mind at rest, and make me think that Hallam is a strictly honourable man, so that I can go off again yachting. I cannot exist away from the sea."

"I am afraid I can tell you nothing, Sir Gordon."

"Not from friend to friend?"

"I am the trusted friend of the Hallams'. I am free of their house. They have entrusted a great deal of the education of their child to me!"

"Well, tell me this. You know the people. What do they say of Hallam in the town?"

"I have never heard an unkind word respecting him unless from disappointed people, to whom, I suppose from want of confidence in their securities, he has refused loans."

"That's praising him," said Sir Gordon. "Do the people seem to trust him?"

"Oh! certainly."

"More praise. But do they approve of his way of living? Hasn't he a lot of debts in the town?"

Bayle was silent.

"Ah! that pinches. Well, now does not that seem strange?"

"I know nothing whatever of Mr Hallam's private affairs. He may perhaps have lost his own money, and his indebtedness be due to his endeavours to recoup himself."

"Yes," said Sir Gordon, dryly. "What a lovely day!"

"It is delightful," said the curate, with a sigh of relief, as they turned back.

"I was going to start to-morrow for a run up the Norway fiords."

"Indeed; so soon?"

"Yes," said Sir Gordon, dryly; "but I am not going now."

They parted at the entrance of the town, and directly after the curate became aware of the fact that old Gemp was looking at him very intently.