"he is unworthy of either your love or mine," were ethel's parting words to hetty as they stood together in the porch at rose mount. with that she drew the other to her and kissed her, and then hetty went her way with a full heart.
next day she went back home to dulminster and recommenced the round of her daily duties, to all outward seeming as if nothing had happened to her. but for her the romance of life was over. in the darkened chamber of her heart she mourned alone over the corpse of her dead love. some day, in all probability, she would marry; for although her lover had proved false to her, she had no intention of fading into an old maid with no prospect before her beyond that of teaching one generation of children after another. she looked forward to having a home of her own, and a husband to work for her; but, for all that, she did not fail to tell herself that although she would never marry anyone whom she did not like, and even love after a fashion, yet that she could never care for another as she had cared for the man whose vows had been written in water. with the memory of him was associated all the glamour and romance of her young life, which, once gone, can return never more.
on the morning of the day following that of hetty blair's call at rose mount, mr. keymer senior found among his letters one superscribed to his son. its only postmark was that of st. oswyth's. the brewer turned it over more than once, and re-read the address with growing curiosity. "quite a young lady's hand; my first wife used to write almost exactly like it," he muttered. "it must be from her--nay, i'm sure it is. in that case i shall be perfectly justified in opening it. the little affair as between miss ethel thursby and my son is one which concerns me as much as, if not more than, it does launce himself."
without more ado he took his penknife, slit open the envelope, and extracted the enclosure. "ah, as i thought. dated from rose mount, that little white cottage on the shackleford road where i am told the spinsters have gone to reside since their come-down in the world; and signed 'ethel thursby.' i rather expected the young lady would have written long before now. reproaching him for his silence and all that sort of thing, i don't doubt. well, well, poor girl, one can't wonder at it. i wish, for all our sakes, that matters had turned out differently. but providence orders things after its own fashion, and we can but submit."
with that he lay back in his chair and settled his spectacles on his nose. his face was a study as he read.
"if--remembering what passed between you and me only a few hours before you left st. oswyth's--i were to begin by stating that during the weeks which followed your departure i did not look and expect to hear from you, nor fail to wonder at your unaccountable silence, i should be asserting that which was not the fact.
"i did look and expect to hear from you, and was wholly at a loss to understand why i failed to do so. now, i am no longer at a loss. the motive by which you have all along been actuated has at length been made clear to me. the scales have been plucked from before my eyes.
"from what i now know of you, it is impossible for me any longer to doubt that when you asked me to become your wife, it was not because you cared for me for myself, but because you looked forward to my one day becoming the heiress of my dear aunts. when, however, on the evening of my birthday, you gathered from a certain letter which you were allowed to read that my aunts had lost the greater part of their fortune, you at once made up your mind to snap the chain by which you had bound yourself to me such a little while before. the readiest way of effecting this, as it seemed to you, was to abruptly quit st. oswyth's a few hours later without informing me of the place for which you were bound, and to maintain an unbroken silence from that time forward.
"i congratulate you on the success which has crowned your efforts.
"but there remains another point connected with the affair about which it is due to myself that i should say something, although it is one the particulars of which you doubtless hoped could by no possibility reach me.
"when you first induced me to promise to become your wife you begged of me to keep our engagement a secret from everyone till you should give me leave to speak of it. it was a request to which i weakly acceded, although i was made very unhappy thereby. not that i had the faintest notion of the base advantage which you proposed to take of my silence. but i am ignorant no longer. you were afraid that if the fact of our engagement were made public it might reach the ears of one to whom you were already bound by a solemn promise of marriage. it was not that you cared in the least about your promise; your fear was lest certain compromising letters written by you from time to time might be brought up in judgment against you, and not till an opportunity should offer itself for you to regain possession of them were you willing that your engagement to me should become known.
"the wished-for opportunity came at last, and you, who doubtless would be highly indignant if anyone were to speak of you as other than a gentleman and a man of honour--you condescended to break open and rifle the workbox of her into whose ear, only a few hours before, you had been whispering false vows of love and constancy! but you had your reward; you got back your letters; you had no longer anything to fear, or so you flattered yourself. you hurried back to me and told me smilingly that the need for keeping our engagement a secret no longer existed. i have taken the trouble of writing to you at so much length in order to prove to you that the full measure of your baseness is known to me. how utterly mean and despicable you have become in my eyes, in what utter loathing and contempt i hold you, i leave you to imagine for yourself--and you could scarcely imagine anything that exceeds the reality.
"ethel thursby."
the hot colour mounted to mr. keymer's face as he read the concluding lines of ethel's epistle. he had always regarded himself as a man of honour and of the strictest integrity in his dealings with others, as one careful never to overpass that thin line which in but too many instances is all that divides trade morality from that other commodity, often hardly to be distinguished from it, of which the law takes cognisance; but there was that in some of miss thursby's phrases which stung him to the quick, not merely on launce's account, but on his own. when, acting on the information imparted to him that the miss thursbys had willed all they possessed to their niece, he had urged his son to endeavour to secure the heiress for his wife; and when, on its being subsequently shown that she was an heiress no longer, he had given a helping hand in the rupture of the engagement--it had seemed to him that he had only acted as any sensible man of the world, who had his son's welfare at heart, would have acted. all at once, however, a fresh and entirely different light had been thrown on his action in the affair, and, for the first time, he seemed to see it in its true colours and to recognise it for the despicable and dishonourable piece of business it really was. the brewer was not used to blushing for himself, or his actions, and the sensation was by no means a pleasant one.
but before long all such unpleasant personal considerations became, to a great extent, merged in a feeling of annoyed wonder, originating in certain statements in the letter which seemed clearly to implicate his son in some more or less discreditable transactions with some other female, of which he, his father, knew absolutely nothing. of what folly had launce been guilty?
without more ado he at once despatched a brief telegram to his son, who was still sojourning with his uncle in cornwall: "return by first train without fail."
indeed, now that miss thursby had rejected launce of her own accord, there was no valid reason why he should not at once come back home. the engagement had never been made public; neither miss thursby nor her aunts would, for their own sakes, care to speak of it, and the whole episode might be regarded as over and done with by all concerned. in so far miss thursby's stinging epistle had served to put an end to a state of affairs the climax of which, in any case, could hardly have been devoid of unpleasant features of some kind.
launce keymer did not reach home till the afternoon of next day he had been away on a fishing expedition when the telegram arrived and, as a consequence, had missed the last through train to london. he had not found the journey a pleasant one, his father's curt telegram having served to utterly unnerve him. what had happened to cause him to be so peremptorily summoned?
launce took a cab at the station and drove straight to his father's office. the brewer was alone.
"anything the matter, dad? all well at home, i hope?" queried launce as he extended a hand which his father made believe not to see.
"there's a great deal the matter; more, perhaps, than you will find it easy to explain away," responded the brewer gruffly. "take that chair and read this." as he spoke he took ethel's letter from under a paperweight at his elbow and tossed it across the table to his son.
launce read it to the end without a word. when he had done, he refolded it slowly, and then lifted his eyes and looked at his father, who was grimly watching him.
"well, sir, what have you to say for yourself?" demanded the latter.
"nothing much, except to confess that i have made a precious idiot of myself," replied launce with an uneasy laugh. "now that matters have come to this pass, i need scarcely say that any questions you may choose to put to me shall be answered truthfully and to the best of my ability."
and so by degrees, and by way of answers to his father's interrogatories, the story of hetty blair was told.
"your conduct has indeed been that of an idiot--no milder term is applicable to it," remarked the brewer when he had brought his string of questions to an end. "that you have been headstrong and extravagant, i have long known--known it to my cost--but that you should have displayed such an utter lack of common sense in your dealings with this governessing girl, is what i should have found it impossible to believe had not facts, coupled with your own confession, proved to me how utterly mistaken i was. i have lost every atom of confidence in you, and from to-day----"
"it does not follow, because a man has made an egregious ass of himself once, that he must necessarily do so a second time," broke in launce, a little sullenly. "indeed, after the lesson i have just had read me, it would be absurd to suppose that i should ever commit myself in a similar way again."
"not in the same way, perhaps, but in some other way equally as reprehensible. it is only wise men who profit by experience. fools never learn. in which of the two categories do you assume to class yourself?"
launce bit his lip, but refrained from replying.
launce keymer had scarcely been twenty-four hours at home before the nursemaid, doris king, who was under promise to do so, had intimated the fact by letter to miss hetty blair. other notes followed, in which hetty was informed that her former lover was going about just as he had been in the habit of doing before he left home, as gay, as smiling, and apparently as free from care as ever he had been. and so, indeed, he was, for launce never dreamt that hetty either could or would trouble him further. when all was said and done, he looked upon it that he had escaped handsomely out of both his entanglements, and as the particulars in neither case had come to the knowledge of the little world in which he habitually lived and moved, it seemed to him that he was perfectly at liberty to revert to that pleasant, social, dégagé mode of life to which all his inclinations tended, and of which unlimited and irresponsible flirtation formed an essential factor.
ethel thursby had said to hetty: "the service you have done me is greater than you know. not only have you shown me the kind of man launce keymer is, but you have opened my eyes to something else. when he asked me to become his wife it was in the belief that i should one day inherit my aunts' money, but within a few hours of his discovery that they had lost nearly all they were worth and that, consequently, there was no prospect of my inheriting anything, he left home suddenly and without coming to bid me goodbye, and from then till now no word of any kind has reached me from him. the reason of his silence is now made plain to me. he intends me to understand by it that he wishes our engagement to be considered as at an end--and so, indeed, from this hour it is."
these words recurred to hetty again and again, and the oftener she thought them over the more clearly she saw that, instead of having, as she had hoped and intended, inflicted on her former lover an injury from which he would not readily recover, she had unwittingly rendered him an essential service by causing miss thursby of her own accord to break off an engagement towards the rupture of which he himself had already taken the first steps. the reflection was a mortifying one, and hetty ground her sharp white teeth in impotent anger as often as it forced itself upon her. then, one day, she bethought herself that two of launce keymer's letters were still in her possession, which, as breathing a more ardent attachment and being studded with more terms of endearment, she had chosen from the others to place under her pillow at night and help to bring her happy dreams. "if i have failed to make him suffer in the way i intended," she said to herself; "that is all the more reason why i should make him suffer in some other way."
hetty had flirted with more than one would-be lover before launce keymer appeared on the scene and carried all before him. the one she had been most inclined to favour was a young solicitor's clerk, ambrose lydd by name. a week seldom went by without their passing each other in the street, and in the glances he cast on her hetty read clearly enough that he was still no less infatuated with her than he had ever been. to him she now wrote a brief note, asking him to call upon her at her home the first evening he should find himself disengaged.
three days later mr. keymer senior was waited upon by ambrose lydd, whose employer had granted him a few hours' leave of absence. the brewer, who was always affable and easy of access to possible customers, having glanced at his visitor's card, which showed him nothing but the other's name, requested him to be seated, and then looked blandly and inquiringly at him; but scarcely had the young solicitor's clerk opened his lips before mr. keymer's expression changed in a most remarkable degree.
"i am here to-day, mr. keymer, as representing the interests of a certain young lady, by name miss hetty blair. it is a name, sir, that probably is not wholly strange to you."
the brewer considered before answering. he was unable to see that anything would be gained by his denial of any knowledge of the name, while, on the other hand, there was a possibility that his doing so might lead to his detection in a fib, which would be decidedly unpleasant. besides, he was anxious to learn what lay in the background.
"really, sir, it is too much to expect that i should charge my memory with every name that may be casually mentioned in my presence," was his cautious reply. "but, assuming that i may at some time or other have heard the name, what then?"
"merely this, sir: that the lady in question, who resides at dulminster, was, till some six or seven weeks ago, engaged to be married to your son, mr. launce keymer, a fact of which you are possibly aware."
"i am most certainly unaware of anything of the kind, for the very good reason that no such engagement as you speak of ever existed." there was an angry sparkle in his eyes, but his tone was as dry and deliberate as ever. "that there may have been some silly harmless flirtation between the two, of a kind common enough among young people, i am willing to admit; but nothing more than that."
"it was very much more than a harmless flirtation, mr. keymer, as your son, were he here, would scarcely have the effrontery to deny. it was a formal engagement, duly sanctioned by miss blair's mother, at whose house your son was a frequent visitor, and by whom he was looked upon as her daughter's future husband."
"if some old woman chooses to make an ass of herself, that's no concern of mine. i repeat, that the affair, as between my son and miss blair, was nothing more than a silly flirtation."
"if that were the case, mr. keymer, why should your son have been so terribly anxious to get back certain letters addressed by him to miss blair, that he resorted to the extreme step of breaking open her workbox, an act which, had the lady been of a vindictive disposition, might have landed him in a very serious predicament indeed?"
the brewer shrugged his shoulders. "that is a question for my son to answer. and let me tell you, sir, that i am not in the habit of discussing his, or anybody's affairs with strangers; which reminds me that i am still in the dark as to the nature of the business which brought you here."
"very few words will serve to enlighten you. when your son robbed miss blair of her letters he was doubtless under the impression that he had regained possession of all that he had ever written to her. such, however, was not the case. miss blair still retains two letters, both of them couched in language with which it would be impossible to find fault on the score of its ambiguity; in point of fact, they breathe a most fervent devotion, and abound with terms of endearment such as none but accepted lovers are privileged to make use of. now, sir, there can be little doubt that if miss blair chose to enter an action for breach of promise against your son, the letters in question would of themselves go far towards securing her a verdict with heavy damages. but, while determined that the wrong which has been inflicted on her shall not go unpunished, she has no wish to proceed to extremities, unless driven thereto. what, therefore, she has empowered me to do, is to offer to give up the two letters in return for a cheque, signed by you, for three hundred guineas."
"what!" shrieked the brewer, as he sprang to his feet, a patch of purple mantling in either cheek. "three hundred guineas for a couple of worthless scrawls! what do you take me for? get out of my office this instant and never let me set eyes on your ugly face again."
ambrose lydd did not offer to stir.
"i beg to remark, mr. keymer, that i am usually considered to be rather good-looking," he said with a quaint smile; "but in moments of excitement i am aware that we are liable to say things which we afterwards see reason to regret. but to come back to business. the letters in question, sir, if read in open court, as they undoubtedly will be if my client's very reasonable offer is met by a refusal, will prove to be anything rather than worthless scrawls. i have brought copies of them with me for your perusal. here they are, sir; read them through carefully, after which, i venture to assert that your opinion as to their worthlessness will be considerably modified."
speaking thus, the solicitor's clerk produced the copies he had brought with him, and rising, laid them on the brewer's blotting-pad.
without a word more mr. keymer went back to his chair, his face still corrugated with a frown. he was annoyed with himself at having been surprised into a display of temper. ambrose lydd watched him keenly while he read the copies, but his features betrayed nothing. when he had come to the end of the second letter, looking lydd steadily in the face, he said: "sir, i find that my son is a more egregious ass than i believed him to be. leave these documents with me, and let me have your address. you shall hear from me in the course of the week."
a few days later miss hetty blair had the satisfaction of opening an account with the dulminster banking company, who placed to her credit a cheque for three hundred guineas which bore the signature of robert keymer.
