CHAPTER XIII.

THE SQUIRE’S TRIBULATION

What more thankless office is there than to be the bearer of ill news to those we love or regard? Not often in the course of his life had such a duty fallen to the lot of Tom Bristow, and never had the burden seemed so heavy as on this present occasion. He would gladly have given a very fair share of all that he was worth could he but have turned his ill news into good news, or else have imposed upon some one else the telling of those evil tidings of which he was the bearer. From London he had sent a carefully-worded telegram to the Squire, which the latter would know how to interpret, hoping thereby to break in some measure the force of the blow which nothing could much longer avert.

When, on his return to Pincote, Tom was ushered into the Squire’s room, he found the old man, to all appearance, very much better in health than when he had left him. Mental anxiety had gone a long way towards curing, for the time being, the physical ills from which he had been suffering. He held out his hand, and gave a long, searching look into Tom’s face.

“All gone?” he whispered.

“Yes—all gone,” answered Tom.

He gripped Tom’s hand very hard. “I did not think it was quite so bad as that,” he said. “Not quite. My poor Jenny! My poor little girl! What is to become of her after I’m gone? And Bird, too! The confidence I had in that villain!” He sighed deeply, dropped Tom’s hand, and shut his eyes for a few moments, as if in pain.

“You will stay to dinner,” he said, presently.

“If you will excuse me to-day——” began Tom.

“But I won’t excuse you, sir. Why on earth should I?” he answered, with a flash of his old irritability. “The old house is not good enough for you, I suppose, now you know it holds nothing but paupers.”

“Thank you, sir: I will stay to dinner,” said Tom, quietly.

“It will be a charity to Jenny, too,” added the Squire. “She’s been moped up indoors, without a soul to speak to, for I don’t know how long. And it’s more than a month since she heard from young Cope—his letters must have miscarried, you know—and I’m afraid that’s preying on her mind; and so you had better keep her company to-day.”

Tom needed no further pressing, we may be sure. He smiled grimly to himself at the idea of Edward Cope’s long silence being a matter of distress to Jane. He rose to go.

“Just ring that bell, will you?” said the Squire. “And sit down again for another minute or two. There’s something I wanted to say to you, but I can’t call to mind what it is just now.”

Jane answered the bell in person. She gave Tom her hand in silence, but there was a world of meaning in her eyes as she did so.

“My dear, I wish you would see whether Ridley is anywhere about, and send word that I want to see him. What do you think the villain has done?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure, papa.”

“Why, he’s planted a lot of white hyacinths along with the purple ones in your poor mother’s favourite bed opposite the dressing-room window, when he knows very well that I never have any but purple ones there. She never had any but purple ones, and I never will. The scoundrel deserves to be well horsewhipped. I’ll discharge him on the spot I swear I will!”

“I will tell him to come and see you,” said Jane, calmly. She knew of old that her father’s bark was worse than his bite, and that he had no more real intention of discharging Ridley than he had of flying to the moon.

“And now, if you will just give orders to have the basket-carriage brought round, I shall be glad, dear. I feel wonderfully better to-day, and I think a drive would do me good.”

“But would Dr. Davidson approve of your going out to-day, papa?”

“Hang Dr. Davidson I’m not his slave, am I? I tell you that I feel very much better; and, to get out, if only for half an hour, will make me better still.”

“Then you will let me go with you?” said Jane.

“Nothing of the kind. I’ve a great deal to think about while I’m out, and I want to be alone. Besides, I’ve asked Bristow to stay to dinner, and you must do your best to entertain him.”

“If you go out, papa, I shall go with you,” said Jane, in her straightforward, positive way. “Besides which, Briggs is ill to-day, and there’s nobody to drive you—unless you will let Mr. Bristow be your coachman for once, and then we shall all be together.”

With some difficulty the Squire was induced to consent to this arrangement. It was evident that he would have preferred to go out alone, but that was just what Jane would by no means allow him to do. Her woman’s instinct told her that they were in the midst of a thunder-cloud, but where and when the lightning would strike she could not even guess. In any case, it seemed to her well that for some time to come her father should be left alone as little as possible.

So they drove out together, all three of them. The Squire was unusually silent, but did not otherwise seem different from his ordinary mood, and neither Tom nor Jane was much inclined for talking. On the road they found a child of six, a little girl who had wandered away from home and lost herself, who was sitting by the roadside crying bitterly. The Squire would have the child on his knee, although she was neither very neatly dressed nor very pretty. He kissed her, and soothed away her tears, and made her laugh, and found out where she lived. Then, in a little while, still sitting on his knee, she fell asleep, and the old man wrapped the thickest rug around her, and sheltered her from the cold as tenderly as though she had been his own child. And when the girl’s mother was found, and the girl herself had to be given up, he made her kiss him, and put half-a-crown into her hand, and promised to call and see her in a day or two. Tom, watching him narrowly all the time, said to himself, “I don’t understand him at all to-day. I thought my news would have overwhelmed him, but it seems to have had far less effect upon him than it had upon me. I’m fairly puzzled.” But there are some troubles so overwhelming that, for a time at least, they numb and deaden the feelings by their very intensity. All the more painful is the after-waking.

“I think, dear, that I will go and lie down for a little while,” said the Squire, when they had reached home. “You will wake me up in time for dinner.”

But there was Blenkinsop, his steward, waiting by appointment, who wanted his signature to the renewal of a lease.

“Yes, yes, to be sure, Blenkinsop,” said he Squire, in his old business-like way, as he sat down at his writing-table and spread out the paper before him and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he paused.

“Just your name, sir, nothing more—on that line,” said the steward, deferentially, marking the place with his finger.

“Just so, Blenkinsop, just so,” said the Squire, tremulously. “But what is my name? Just for the moment I don’t seem as if I could recollect it.”

A look of horror flashed from Jane’s eyes into the eyes of Tom. She was by her father’s side in a moment. He looked helplessly up at her, and tried to smile, but his lips quivered and tears stood in his eyes.

“What is it, dear?” she said, as she stooped and pressed her lips to his forehead.

“I want to sign this lease, and for the life of me I can’t recollect my own name.”

“Titus Culpepper, dear,” she whispered in his ear.

“Of course. What an idiot I must be!” he exclaimed with a laugh, as he dashed off the name in his usual rapid style, and ended with a bigger flourish than usual.

“Won’t you go to bed, papa?” said Jane, insinuatingly, as soon as Blenkinsop was gone. “You will rest so much better there, you know.”

“Go to bed at this time of day, indeed! What are you thinking about? No, I’ll just have a little snooze on the sofa—nothing more. And be sure you wake me up in time for dinner.”

In less than two minutes he had gone off to sleep, as calmly and quietly as any little child. Jane rejoined Tom in the drawing-room.

“I am afraid that papa has heard some very bad news, Mr. Bristow,” she said.

“Yes, and I was the unfortunate bearer of it,” answered Tom.

“He sent you to London the other day to make certain private inquiries for him?”

“He did.”

“And the ill news you brought this morning is the result of those inquiries?”

“It is.”

There was a pause, which Tom was the first to break. “I think it only right, Miss Culpepper,” he said, “that you should be made acquainted with the nature of the business which took me to London. You have no brother, and I know that you have had the practical management of many of your father’s affairs for a long time. It is only right that you should know.”

“But I would rather not know, Mr. Bristow, if you think that papa would prefer, in the slightest degree, that I should not be told.”

“I think it highly desirable that you should be told,” said Tom. “No doubt Mr. Culpepper himself will tell you everything before long.”

“I am not so sure on that point,” interrupted Jane. “As regards his pecuniary affairs, I know little or nothing, although I have long had my suspicions that there was something wrong somewhere.”

“In such a matter as this there should be nothing hidden from you—at least not now; and I will take on myself the responsibility of telling you all that I know. Should Mr. Culpepper himself tell you subsequently, there will be no harm done, while you will have had time to think the affair over, and will be better able to advise him as to what ought to be done under the circumstances. Should he not choose to tell you, I still maintain that it will be better, both for himself and for you, that you should rest in ignorance no longer.”

Tom then told her all about his visit to London, its object, and its result.

“Thank heaven that it’s nothing more serious than the loss of a few thousand pounds!” said Jane, with an air of relief, when Tom had done. “Papa will soon get over that, and we shall be as happy again as ever we have been.”

“I am by no means certain that Mr. Culpepper will get over it as easily as you imagine,” said Tom, gravely. “I suspect that the entire savings of many years have gone in this crash; and that alone, to a man of your father’s time of life, is something very serious indeed.”

“Don’t think, Mr. Bristow, that I want to make too light of the loss,” said Jane, earnestly. “Still, after all, it is nothing but money.”

Her spirits had risen wonderfully during the last few minutes, and she could not help showing it. “Dinner will be ready in half an hour,” she added. “I will go and see whether papa is awake.”

Presently she came back. “He is still fast asleep,” she said.

“I think I would not disturb him if I were you,” said Tom. “Sleep, just now, is his best medicine.”

As the Squire still slept on, they dined alone, and alone they spent the evening together. They talked of a thousand things, and they seemed to have a thousand more to talk about when the time for parting had come. This evening Tom seemed to care no longer about hiding his feelings. He sat nearer to Jane, he bent more closely over her at the piano; once or twice his lips seemed to touch her hair lightly, but she was not quite sure on the point, and consequently did not care to reprove him. His eyes sought hers more persistently and boldly than they had ever done before, and beneath those ardent glances her own eyes fell, troubled and confused.

When it was time to go, Jane went with him to the door. Said Tom, as he stood on the threshold, hat in hand, “Should Mr. Culpepper speak to you about what I have told you this evening, and should he seem at all troubled in his mind about it, will you kindly suggest that he should send for me? It may seem rather conceited on my part to ask you to do this, but as your father has honoured me by taking me into his confidence so far, there can be no harm in my expressing a hope that he will do so still further. It may be in my power to help him through his difficulties or, at least, through part of them.”

“You are very kind,” said Jane, with tears in her eyes, as she pressed his hand, gratefully.

“And now—good-night,” said Tom.

Still holding her hand, he looked earnestly into her face. They were standing together just under the hall lamp, and every shade of expression was plainly visible. Her eyes met his for a moment. He read something there—I know not what—that emboldened him. His arm stole round her waist. He pressed her unresisting form to his heart. His lips touched hers for one brief instant. It was the first kiss of love. “Good-night, my darling,” he whispered; and almost before Jane knew what had befallen her, he was gone.

Her father being still asleep, Jane, all in a sweet confusion, took her work upstairs, and sat down by the dressing-room fire to wait till he should awake. But he still slept on, and by-and-by it grew late, so she sent the servants to bed, and made up her mind to sit by his side till morning. Just then nothing could have been more grateful to her. No thought of sleep would be possible to her for hours to come. She wanted to think over the events of that wonderful evening—to think over them in silence and alone. The time to analyze her feelings had not yet come: she did not care to make the attempt: she only wanted to realize quietly to herself the one sweet blissful fact, that she was loved, and by the one person in the whole world to whom her own love could be given in return. What happy thoughts nestled round her young heart in the midnight quietude of the old house! “He loves me!” she whispered to herself. But the night wind, listening at the window, caught the syllables and whispered them back, and then rushed gleefully away to tell the trees and the flowers, that began already to feel the warmth of spring in their veins, and the little birds sleeping cosily in their nests beneath the winter moon, and Jane’s secret was a secret no longer.

It was nearly three o’clock when the Squire woke up from his long sleep. It was a minute or two before he could collect his thoughts, and call to mind all that had happened.

“You are no better than a little simpleton for sitting up,” he said, gruffly. “As if I couldn’t take care of myself when I awoke!” Then he drew her on to his knee and kissed her tenderly. “Get me some bread and cheese and ale,” he said. “I’ll have supper and breakfast in one.”

“Won’t you have something different from bread and cheese, papa?” she asked. “There is some game pie and——”

“No, nothing but bread and cheese,” he said, gloomily. “That seems about the only thing I shall be able to afford in time to come.”

So Jane went down into the lower part of the house, and brought up some bread and cheese and ale; but she brought some game pie also, and when she put a plateful of the latter article before her father, he ate it without a word, and without seeming to know what it was he was eating. He did not speak another word till he had done.

“Jenny, you are a clever girl,” he said abruptly, at last, “but do you think you are clever enough to earn your own living?”

Jane laughed. “Your question is rather a strange one,” she said. “I will answer it as a woman answers most questions—by asking another. Why do you ask me?”

“Because if I were to die to-morrow, or next month, or next year, that is certainly what you would have to do.”

“And I don’t doubt my ability to do it,” said Jane, with spirit. “Only, papa, you are not going to die either next month, or next year, so that the subject is one which we need not discuss further.”

“But it is a subject that must be discussed, and discussed very fully, too. Jane, my girl, you are a pauper, neither more nor less than a pauper!” He spoke in a dry harsh voice, as if he had made up his mind that his emotion should on no account over-master him.

“Well, papa dear, even if such be the case, I don’t suppose that either you or I will love each other any the less on that account.”

“That is not the question, girl. It was always a happiness to me to know that I should be able to give you fifteen or twenty thousand on your wedding day. In trying to turn that fifteen into fifty thousand, I have lost every penny of it, and in so doing I have altogether ruined your prospects in life.”

“I can’t see that at all, papa. What you did you did for the best, and if I ever do get married, I hope to marry some one who will love me for myself, and not for any money I might be possessed of.”

“Very pretty, and very sentimental,” said the Squire, gruffly, “but confounded rubbish for all that. And how hard on young Cope! He will be quite justified in breaking off the engagement.”

“What a splendid opportunity Mr. Cope will now have for proving the sincerity of his affection!” said Jane, with a little contemptuous curl of the lip.

“You are talking rank nonsense, Janet. Edward Cope loves you; there’s no doubt of that; but his father will never consent to his marrying a beggar, which is just about what you are at the present moment; and Edward has been too well brought up to go in opposition to his father. I confess it will be a great disappointment to me.”

“But none to me, papa dear!” cried Jane, impulsively, as she flung her arms round her father’s neck and kissed him—“no disappointment to me! Rather let us call it a happy release.”

“I don’t understand you,” said the old man, as he took her by the shoulders and gazed into her face. “I thought you loved Edward Cope as much as he loved you. You don’t mean to tell me that I have been mistaken.”

“There has been a mistake somewhere, papa,” faltered Jane, as she drew one of his arms round her neck, and nestled her head on his shoulder. “I—I almost fancy that it must have been on my side. I allowed myself to drift into an engagement with Mr. Cope almost without knowing what I was about. I liked Mr. Cope very well, and I thought that I could be happy as his wife, but I have found out my mistake since then. For me to marry Mr. Cope would be to condemn myself to a life of hopeless misery. I could never love him, papa, as a wife ought to love her husband.”

“Tut—tut—tut, girl! What romantic rubbish have you got into your head? Cope’s a nice young fellow, and when you were his wife you would soon learn to love him well enough, I warrant. All I’m afraid of is that he won’t have you for a wife—and all through my fault—all through my fault!”

Jane saw that the present was no time to say more on the point, and wisely held her tongue. For a little while the silence between them was unbroken.

“But I haven’t told you the worst yet, Jenny,” he said at last.

“Oh! papa.”

“Five thousand pounds of your Aunt Fanny’s money has been lost in the crash. She had entrusted me with the money to do the best I could for her, and that’s the result. She will be at Pincote in less than a week from now, and the first thing she will do, after she has taken off her bonnet and changed her boots, will be to ask me for her money. She will ask me for her money, and what am I to say to her?”

“Good gracious, papa! Aunt Fanny is your own sister, and surely she, of all people in the world, would be the last to trouble you for her money.”

“She would be the first,” said the Squire, fiercely. “I’d sooner, far sooner, be indebted to the veriest stranger than to her. You don’t know your aunt as I know her. I should never hear the last of it. I should have no peace of my life. Day and night my turpitude—my vile criminality, as she would call it—would be dinned into my ears, till I should be driven half crazy. And not only that: your Aunt Fanny is a woman who can never keep a secret. To one confidential friend after another the whole affair would be whispered, with sundry embellishments of her own, till at last the whole country side would know of it, and I could never hold up my head in society again.”

“As I understand the case, papa, you want to raise five thousand pounds within the next few days?”

“That is precisely what I want.”

“Then why not ask Mr. Cope? Surely he would not refuse to lend it to you.”

“I am not so sure about that,” said Mr. Culpepper, dryly. “Cope has not been like the same man to me of late that he used to be. The old ship is beginning to leak, and the rats are deserting it. I suppose I shall be compelled to ask him, but I would almost sooner lose my right hand than do it.”

“There’s Mr. Bristow,” suggested Jane, timidly. “Why not speak to him? He might, perhaps, find some means of helping you out of your difficulty.”

“How can a man that’s not worth five thousand pence be of any use to a man who wants five thousand pounds?” asked the Squire, contemptuously. “No, no; Bristow’s all very well in his way. A decent, good-natured young fellow, with all his wits about him, but of no use whatever at a crisis like the present.”

“Is there not such a thing as a mortgage?” asked Jane. “Could you not raise some money on the estate?”

“When my father lay on his deathbed,” said the Squire, gravely, “he made me take a solemn oath that I would never raise a penny by mortgage on the estate, and I would rather suffer anything and everything than break that promise. But it’s high time we were both in bed. You look worn-out for want of sleep, and I don’t feel over bright myself. Kiss me, dearie, and let us say good-night, or rather good-morning. We must hope for the best, and at present that seems the only thing we can do.”

The following post brought a letter from Mrs. McDermott. After mentioning on what day and by what train she might be expected to arrive, she wrote: “You won’t forget the five thousand pounds, brother. I have bought some house property, and want to remit the money immediately on my arrival. I suppose it would not be reasonable to expect more than five per cent. interest on the amount?” The Squire tossed the letter across the table to Jane without a word.

END OF VOL. II.

BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY