Part 6

"There you are, you ought to have seen it two months ago, you'd never believe, a ruin it was!" said Sir Josiah. "Fairly hopeless it looked, said I, keep to the old lines! It's an old house and you've got to make it look like an old house, but a well kept one, renew and restore! If you take away a piece of old moulding that's gone rotten, put back a new piece shaped the same, nothing new, that was my instructions, and they have carried 'em out, and now the rest's up to you, Mr. Davenham. I don't pretend to know what I don't know. But I do know this, that if you were to put say bamboo furniture and Japanese fans and umbrellas in this here old room with that ceiling and them panelled walls, why they'd be out of place, you wouldn't go and make a mistake like that! I've got money, I don't deny, and this house has been a bit of a hobby with me. I want to see it looking like it should look, so just take a look round, make up your mind and put the right stuff into it!"

"My dear sir, if every rich man were as wise as you, the world would certainly look a great deal more pleasant than it does. The house will form an admirable setting for furnishings of the right period. I compliment you on the manner in which the work has been done. I couldn't have done it better myself, the garden in particular is delightful, simply delightful!"

"Markabee here, done it, under Dalabey, a useful man. Dalabey, I don't know what I'd done without him, but it's ready for you now. Mr. Davenham, get ahead, get the place fixed up as it should be, the right furniture, the right decorations. Keep the price reasonable, I don't say stint, nor I don't say launch out too wildly. I leave it to you!"

"It is a commission that I accept with a great deal of pleasure. I think and hope that I shall please you and at a not too terrible expenditure!"

"Get ahead with it!" Sir Josiah said.

"Fine feller Davenham!" he said to Allan. "Knows his business; one thing you'll have a house that you needn't be ashamed to shew to anyone, a fit setting, my boy, a fit setting for a very sweet and lovely young lady, bless her heart, and a lucky fellow you are!"

"To have such a father!" Allan said, in all honest sincerity.

"Bless you, bless you, it's been a pleasure, I don't know when I've put myself heart and soul into a thing like I've done into this! I'm almost sorry I've put it in Davenham's hands now, but then he knows what's right and I don't. Now about the wedding, Allan! His lordship and me was talking last night. Something about St. Margaret's, Westminster, he said. 'I beg your pardon, my lord,' I said. 'St. Georges, Hanover Square, if you don't mind.' I've set my heart on it, Allan; I always had an idea I'd like you to be married at Hanover Square; there's something solid about the very name of it, right down respectable!" he paused. "Then, for the reception afterwards, I'm for taking the Whitehall Rooms at----"

"Father, I want to speak to you!" Allan said. "I--I hate to disappoint you, but in this matter I think the first person to be considered is Kathleen!"

"Bless me, and so it is! What she says goes!"

"She wishes the wedding to be very quiet, very quiet indeed; she wants only our own selves there, my father and hers and no one besides!"

"Why--why, bless me, bless my soul! You don't mean to say----" Sir Josiah's face was almost pitiful.

"She asked me last night, she begged me to side with her and uphold her wishes and I promised. I--I know, father, it's a disappointment to you, but we can't go against her, can we?"

"No, no, we can't go against her, that's right, right enough, no we can't go against her--never think of such a thing, I wouldn't, but I'd a thought that a young girl with all her friends would have liked----"

"It cannot be too quiet for her! And I promised to speak to you about it. Her father is very angry, unnecessarily angry, he spoke to her sharply, almost rudely in my presence last night, in a way----" Allan paused, "that my father would not have spoken to a woman!" he added proudly.

Sir Josiah gripped Allan's hand. "You--you're right, the little girl shall have her way, tell her; give her my love, Allan, and tell her what she says goes. As for his Lordship, his Lordship can--can go to the Dickens----"

Allan smiled. "I think his Lordship has been making for that quarter all his life!"

It was a bitter blow to the Baronet, but he took it like a man. He had counted on a gorgeous spectacle, for which he had been very willing to find the money. He had counted on portraits of the bride and bridegroom and bridegroom's father, to say nothing of the bride's father in the fashionable illustrated papers, as well as the daily illustrated press. He had cut out paragraphs from the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_.

"A marriage has been arranged between Mr. Allan Homewood, only son of Sir Josiah Homewood, Bart., of Homewood, Sussex, and the Lady Kathleen Nora Stanwys, only daughter of the Earl of Gowerhurst."

He had cut out these news items and carried them about with him and shewn them to Jobson and Cuttlewell and Smith and Priestly (of Priestly, Nicholson and Coombe), and others of his City cronies. How proud he had been of them, how he had beamed and swelled with pride! He had hinted that he might ask--might possibly--ask Priestley and the rest to witness the ceremony. It had not been an actual promise, but next door to it, made by him in a moment of joyous enthusiasm following a good lunch and a bottle of excellent port.

And now the marriage was to be a small quiet affair, it was a blow, but he took it like a man! He sought out Kathleen, he took her hand and held it in his moist palm.

"My dear, Allan's told me, he says you're all for a quiet wedding; well I did reckon on something a bit slap up and stylish and like that, but if you're set on a quiet wedding, my dear----"

"I am, I want it very much, Allan understands," she said.

"Then, bless you, my dear, so it shall be, as quiet as you like! It's for you to say, what you say goes with me, Allan told you, that's right--why tears--my dear? Tears! Bless me, my lady, my dear, don't cry!"

"You are very good to me, now I understand why Allan is--is what he is, the fine man he is! He is like his father!"

"Like--like me--bless my soul, Allan like me, my love! My lady I mean--I'm a common old chap! Allan's a gentleman, I made up my mind I'd do my best for him and I done it--I'm what I am, my King, God bless him, saw fit to make a "Sir" of me, but that don't make a gentleman of me, my dear, and I know it!"

"I am going to be frank with you, truthful," Kathleen said. "I am going to--to hurt you perhaps, and then I am going to try and make amends for it--" She paused. "When my father first spoke of my marriage, my marriage with Allan, I shuddered at the thought of it--not because of Allan, but because of you!"

"I know, I know," he said sadly. "I ain't everyone's money, but----"

"No, listen, I looked down on you. I thought you were vulgar and purseproud and boastful, and, oh, I thought a thousand evil things of you and pretended to shudder when your name was mentioned!"

"My dear, I know, I know; don't, tell me more--I know!"

"But I am going to tell you more, I am going to tell you this!" She caught his hand and held it. "It isn't what you have given and what you are giving us, it isn't money--oh you know that, don't you? I was wrong, wrong all the time! I know you better now and I like and respect you and I envy Allan his father--yes, envy him his father and so I have told him and--please kiss me because I am going to be your daughter, aren't I? And because I want you to like me and be my friend!"

"God bless me!" he said. "God bless my--oh, my lady, my, my dear--Kiss you? I'd be proud and happy!"

She laughed a little, she held up her face, there were tears on her lashes. "Then kiss me, Allan's father!" she said.

My Lord had counted on an expensive and fashionable wedding, even more than Sir Josiah had. He had specially ordered a frock coat of a peculiar and delicate shade of grey, which would become him handsomely. That he would easily outshine everyone present he knew with certainty. He would give his daughter away, everyone would remark on his appearance, the exquisite sensibility that would mark his every action. They would not compare him with the Baronet, it was no question of comparison. People would see with their own eyes how immeasurably superior he was to Sir Josiah.

That the limelight would be mainly on himself, His Lordship had decided. He had even rehearsed the part he would play. He would be the tender, loving father, heart-broken and bereaved at losing his darling child, and yet he would bear up bravely, carry himself proudly, with a touch of tender gaiety. His speech at the reception he had written and re-written--and now he was in a furious passion, shaking with rage, he sought out Kathleen and swore viciously at her.

"What devil's tomfoolery is this?" he shouted. "What new pose have we here? What's this confounded rotten, absurd business about, a twopenny ha'penny housemaid's wedding, hey? Haven't I asked, unofficially of course, but asked all the same a hundred people? Haven't Bellendon and the Cathcarts and--and George Royhills and his wife practically delayed their departure from Town for this wedding, and now--now what rotten nonsense have you got in your head now, hey?"

She eyed him steadily. "Please don't swear at me, father?" she said. "There is no need. I asked Allan----"

"Asked Allan, hang and confound Allan! Ain't I anyone? Don't I count? I'm only your father! Haven't I planned this for you, haven't I cherished the idea of making you a rich woman, haven't I----?" He paused, floundering wildly in his fury.

"I asked Allan to humor me, I wanted a very quiet wedding, he was quite willing, as eager as I almost. He spoke to his father and his father has agreed----"

"His father! that confounded old City shark, that common, vulgar old brute, who--who----"

"Whom you are very pleased and glad to take money from, who has treated me with every kindness and respect and gave way at once to my wishes, though they were opposed to his own. Yes, a common old man, but generous and kind and good and--and I could wish, I could wish that my father was as fine a gentleman!" And with a stately curtsey, she left him.

"Well, I'll be damned!" His Lordship said in utter amazement.

*CHAPTER XII*

*THE HANDS OF ABRAM LESTWICK*

"You've got my wishes, Abram, you have!" said Mrs. Hanson.

He nodded. "I know," he said gloomily.

Abram Lestwick was of that curious, foreign type that one comes on unexpectedly in our English country villages. He was about thirty-two years of age, five feet nine in height and of a strong wiry build. His complexion was swarthy, the skin sallow and drawn with a strange suggestion of tightness, over the high and prominent cheek bones. The eyes were small, black and very bright and deeply set beneath heavy brows. No razor had ever touched the lower part of his face, which was covered with a thin and straggling growth of coarse black hair, that could scarcely be described as a "beard," for so thinly and far apart did the hairs grow that the contour of a weak chin was clearly visible.

The whole appearance of the man suggested nervous unquiet and restlessness, which particularly found expression in the constant agitation of his hands. He had a restless, nervous habit of fingering things within his reach.

At this moment he was sitting on the one "easy" chair at Mrs. Hanson's little parlour. He had dragged down the antimacassar that usually adorned the chair back and was plucking at the threads and rolling the edge of it into a tight curl. Mrs. Hanson watched his face; she did not look at his hands. There was something hateful about Abram Lestwick's hands, the fingers were long, flexible and thin, save at the ends, where they suddenly thickened out and flattened in a strange, unsightly manner. But it was their restlessness, their never ceasing movement that was so remarkable. Never for a moment were they still.

Mrs. Hanson, favouring the young man, yet knew she hated his hands!

"I feel, I du," she said to herself, "as I want to scream if I set and watch them, but I du know he be a good man and a hard worker, with no love for the alehouse and reg'lar to Church and like to make Betty a good husband, and after all, what du a man's hands matter? So be as he du work with them and earn his living honourable and upright in the state of life which it du please God to call him!"

"I've got your wishes, I hev," he said, "I know that, but what be the use of your wishes to me, Mrs. Hanson, so I haven't got Betty's liking?"

"You mustn't take too much notice of the maid; maids be strange and fickle things, aye and vain they be! The man as praises a maid to her face and tells her she be nice looking be the one as goes best with they!"

"What do 'ee want I to do?" he said sullenly. "I know there beain't a maid to compare wi' Betty, there beain't one as be fit to tie her shoes!" A dull red crept into his checks, his voice shook, his fingers worked more nervously and more rapidly at the destruction of the antimacassar.

"Slow of speech I be," he said thickly, "and difficult it du be for me to find words--there be a thousand things I would say to she--they be here all in my brain, but my tongue won't utter them! I--I try--" he paused, choking, "I try, I look at she dumblike and stupid and knowing it, aye, curse it, knowing it!" His voice rose, he wrenched at the antimacassar, he tore a piece away; his fingers were hideous to see at this moment and Mrs. Hanson looked resolutely at his face. Yet she was all the time conscious of the havoc his fingers were making.

"Do 'ee think I don't want to tell she? I du! I du, I try to, but my tongue won't do me sarvice. I love her!" He paused. "I love her!" He said it again. "Love her, I mean to tell her, yet like as not her'll laugh at me!" He stood up, he flung the antimacassar to the floor, his hands worked up and down his coat, tearing and fingering at the buttons and the buttonholes.

"There bain't a maid in all the world like she, not a man fit to kiss the grounds she treads on. If a man, a man in this village did look at she wi' harmful eyes, I'd kill him!" He nodded. "Kill him!" He said. "I'd get my hands on his throat and never let go! Sometimes when I think of her I feel that I be going mad like, I see red--red passion before my eyes. I tell 'ee, Mrs. Hanson, ma'am, I've got your wishes, I know, I know! But I must hev that maid; no one else shall, as God hears me, no one else shall!"

He went to the door, swinging his arms violently, his fingers clenched and unclenching.

"I've got your wishes, I hev, I'm glad of them, ma'am. I thank 'ee, I du--your good wishes, Ma'am, and I be obliged greatly, I be--and--please don't mind my tempers! 'Tis thinking of the maid makes me so; a peaceful man I be, and begging your pardon, Ma'am, that I did forget myself, but 'tis thinking of the maid that--that drives me like you see me, Ma'am! But I beg your pardon I du, most politely!"

He was gone and Mrs. Hanson sighed and stooped and picked up from the ground the work of her own busy fingers--and his! She sighed again, looking at the destruction of it.

"A terribul man he be--in his wrath, fit to kill anyone belike!" she said. "All tore it be, all tore and wrenched and broke apart--powerful fingers he must hev! Ill would it go wi' man or maid that angered he and did him hurt!"

Down the road in a tempest of passion went Abram Lestwick, swinging his arms and muttering to himself like a madman, and yet at Farmer Patchams, where he worked, they counted him as a man of an even and equable temper. A foreman, he never cursed and swore at those under him. Little things moved him not; his grim, glum, gloomy face never darkened with rage. A polite tongue he had, though a slow one, a steady man and quiet, and yet he himself knew of the tempest of unbridled passion, the mad tumult that his brain was capable of.

Rarely did his passions master him before others. They had to-night, before Mrs. Hanson, but he had her wishes, he was safe with her.

"If any man did look at she wi' wishful eyes," he repeated, "by God's Heaven I would kill him!" He clenched at the air with his nervously working hands. "Get my hands on his throat and kill him, grip and crash it till the life were gone out o' he, I would!"

He stopped suddenly, bathed in perspiration, but the fury gone. She stood before him in the gloaming of the evening.

"I be come from your house, Betty," he said, and his voice was mild as a voice may be. "A pleasant half hour I did have along wi' your grandmother, Betty!"

"I hope 'ee enjoyed yourself, Abram," she said with a little contemptuous laugh.

"Aye, I did in a way, for I were talking about 'ee, Betty!"

She frowned.

"Betty!" He felt as if he were suddenly choking, he lifted those working, restless hands of his to his own throat. They made as to tear open his shirt, so that he might breathe the more freely.

"Betty, do 'ee know what I and your grandmother were talking about?"

"I doan't and I bain't curus to hear!" she said. She made to pass him, but he held his ground.

"'Twere about 'ee!"

"Then 'twere nothing good," she said. "My left ear were burning cruel and now I know!"

"Betty," he said, "wait, 'ee shall, 'ee shall I say, wait, there's summut I must say to 'ee!"

"Let me--pass!"

"No, no." He caught her by the arm and held her.

"Betty, I du love 'ee so, I want 'ee to wife! If I don't have 'ee no one else shall, no one, I swear! Look at me, stubborn o' tongue I be--and difficult it be for me to speak the words I want to say, but 'tis all in this: 'I love 'ee better than life, better than death. I love 'ee mad; mad I be, I tell 'ee wi' love for 'ee! My maid, I'd die for 'ee and live for 'ee and kill they as come between us! Betty, Betty, give yourself to me--to--cherish--" He paused, the words of the marriage service came to him uncertainly, "to hold and to keep, to cherish until death us du part. Give yourself to me, for never and you go through the whole world will 'ee find a man as loves 'ee half so well!"

"I bain't a marrying maid!" she said. "And I'll not marry 'ee or anyone else and 'ee last and leastest of all, Abram Lcstwick. I'll never marry 'ee, never, never!"

"And I swear by Heaven 'ee shall!" he cried. His fingers were at work on her arm, she felt and hated the touch of them. Hateful fingers--long and sinuous, with their horrible, spatulated tips, they reminded her of writhing snakes, with their venomous, flattened heads, just that! She tried to break away from him.

"A great coward 'ee be, to so beset a maid. I hate 'ee, I du. Let me be, let me be!"

"I'll never let 'ee be, for I du love 'ee mad, mad," he cried, "and 'ee shall never belong to anyone else, never and----"

And then she broke from him, she lifted her strong young arm and smote him across the face with all her strength. Abram Lestwick fell back apace, his sallow skin went deathly white, he stood and stared at her.

"'Ee, 'ee made me du it!" she panted. "I--I had to du it, Abram, I didn't mean it, I be sorry in my heart, I did strike 'ee!"

But he said nothing, he only looked at her, then without a word turned and walked away down the road and she stood looking after him. Even now she could see the restless, nervous working of his hands.

"I hate--hate and I be afeared o' him tu!" she said. "I be terribul afeared o' him!" She broke down, sobbing and crying. "'Tisn't fair as a maid should be so bothered as I be! I don't want to marry anyone, leastest of all he, for I du hate him most mortally, I du!"

Her grandmother was waiting for her.

"Did 'ee see Abram Lestwick down the road?" she asked.

"Aye, I did see him!"

"Well?"

"Well?"

"Didn't he speak to 'ee, tell 'ee his mind?"

"Yes, he did and--and I hate him!"

"Hate?" said Mrs. Hanson. "Still filled wi' hate, 'ee be, which bain't seemly in a young maid! What wi' your hating first this one and then t'other, fair fed up I be wi' your hates, my maid, and 'tis time to put a stop to all such nonsense! Abram Lestwick hev been wi' me to-night and talking wi' me he hev been, and about you--moreover. And he be willing to marry 'ee and a good match it'll be, my maid, which Mrs. Colley have been angling for for that putty-faced 'Lizbeth o' hers, though Abram would never look twice at she. But 'tis you he be after, an upright, godly young man with thirty-five shillings a week and a cottage and all, and a rare chance for the likes of 'ee, Betty Hanson, wi'out a shillin' to your name!"

"I hate him and I'll never, never marry him; I hate him and am afeared of him as well! And sooner than marry he I'd go and drownd myself in the river, aye, that, I would, and that I will, for marry him I never will!"

"That's what 'ee say, but hark to me, marry him I say 'ee shall and I have told him, he has my wishes!"

A defiant white face, with big glittering eyes faced the wrinkled, angry old face.

"Drownd myself I will gladly and willingly afore I marry he!"

"Go 'ee in!" said Mrs. Hanson. "A perilous bad maid 'ee be and 'shamed of 'ee I be, and asking myself I be all the time--Be this my son Garge's child, or be she a changeling? For such temper no Hanson ever did hev yet--Go 'ee in, but mark this, marry him 'ee shall!"

"Mark this!" Betty cried. "Marry him I never will! I'll drownd myself first! Aye and blithely and gaily--for I du hate and fear him more than any mortal man and they fingers o' his that touched me--ugh! That touched me and--" And then suddenly she broke down in a passion of sobs and ran into the house.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*THE HOMECOMING*

Sir Josiah was performing his last friendly offices. Davenham had finished his part of the work and had done it, as the Baronet knew he would, with a complete and thorough knowledge and good taste.

Who, to look about one now, seeing those beautiful rooms with their exquisite furnishing, that garden, a thing of delight and perfect beauty, could reconcile it all with the desolate and derelict wilderness of a place it had been three short months before?

"I'd like that there Van Norden, or whatever his name is, to see it, I would!" Sir Josiah thought. "Hang me, I'd like him to take a stroll around now! Them Americans are smart and wonderful skilful, aye, and what's more a fine nat'ral taste they've got, appreciating fine things and old things more than we do! I say all that and admit all that, but this here Van Norden, he couldn't have beat what I've done in the time, he couldn't! He'd own it, too, for I've yet to meet the American who wasn't frank to admit the truth!"

Sir Josiah here was like a small king in great state. He was to interview potential servants, advertisements appeared in the London and the local papers, inviting cooks and housemaids, parlourmaids, footmen, grooms, scullery maids, still room maids and the like to present themselves at Homewood Manor on a certain day, when all their expenses would be paid by Sir Josiah Homewood, who would engage the most suitable persons. His own man Bletsoe was here to do honour to the occasion.

"How many are there, Bletsoe?"

"Nine young women, three old ones, two fellers and an old man as come about the gardener's place, only I understand as you're keeping that old feller, old Markabee, Sir Josiah!"

"That's right, keeping him on I am, a sensible man and clever at his work, that garden's a credit to him! Old very likely, but I've known men as weren't old, yet fools, Bletsoe!"

"Quite so, sir!" said Bletsoe. "And now about h'interviewing 'em?"

Sir Josiah frowned to hide his nervousness.

"How many old ones did you say, Bletsoe?"

"Three, sir, and one of 'em with a wonderful fine moustache as I ever see!"