a fine morning in june. lovely june; with its bright blue skies and its summer flowers. walking about amidst his rose-trees, was mr. north, a rake in his hand. he fancied he was gardening; he knew he was trifling. what did it matter?--his face looked almost happy. the glad sunshine was overhead, and he felt as free as a bird of the air.
the anonymous letter, that had caused so much mischief, was passing into a thing of the past. in spite of richard north's efforts to trace him out, the writer remained undiscovered. timothy wilks was the chief sufferer, and bitterly resentful thereon. to have been openly accused of having sent it by at least six persons out of every dozen acquaintances he met, disturbed the mind and curdled the temper of ill-starred timothy wilks. as to the general public, they were beginning to forget all about the trouble--as it is in the nature of a faithless public to do. only in the hearts of a few individuals did the sad facts remain in all their sternness; and of those, one was jelly.
poor mr. north could afford to be happy to-day, and for many days to come. bessy also. madam had relieved them of her presence yesterday, and gone careering off to paris with her daughter. they hoped she might be away for weeks. in the seductive freedom of the home, richard north had stayed late that morning. mr. north was just beginning to talk with him, when some one called on business, and richard shut himself up with the stranger. the morning had gone on; the interview was prolonged; but richard was coming out now. mr. north put down the rake.
"has wilson gone, richard?"
"yes, sir."
"what did he want? he has stayed long enough."
"only a little business with me, father," was richard's answer in his filial care. it had not been agreeable business, and richard wished to spare his father.
"and now for bessy, sir?" he resumed, as they paced side by side amongst the sweet-scented roses. "you were beginning to speak about her."
"yes, i want to talk to you. bessy would be happier with rane than she is here, dick."
richard looked serious. he had no objection whatever to his sister's marrying oliver rane: in fact, he regarded it as an event certain to take place, sooner or later; but he did not quite see that the way was clear for it yet.
"i have no doubt of that, father."
"and i think, dick, she had better go to him now, whilst we are at liberty to do as we please at home."
"now!" exclaimed richard.
"yes; now. that is before madam comes back again. poor edmund is only just put under the sod; but--considering the circumstances--i think the memory of the dead must give place to the welfare of the living."
"but how about ways and means, sir?"
"ay: how about ways and means. nothing can be spared from the works at present, i suppose, dick."
"nothing to speak of, sir."
mr. north had felt ashamed even to ask the question. in fact, it was more a remark than a question, for he knew as well as richard did that there was no superfluous money to draw upon.
"of course not, dick. rane gets just enough to live upon now, and no more. yesterday, after madam and matilda had driven off, i was at the front-gates when rane passed. so he and i got talking about bessy. he said his income was small now, but that of course it would considerably augment as soon as alexander had left. as he and bessy are willing to try it, i don't see why they should not do so, dick."
richard gave no immediate reply. he had a rose in his hand and was looking at it absently, deep in thought. his father continued:
"it's not as if rane had no expectations whatever. two hundred a-year must come to him at his mother's death. and--dick--have you any idea how mrs. gass's will is left?"
"not the least, sir."
"oliver rane is the nearest living relative to her late husband, mrs. cumberland excepted. he is thomas gass's own nephew--and all the money was his. it seems to me, dick, that mrs. gass is sure to remember him: perhaps largely."
"she may do so."
"yes; and i think will do so. bessy shall go to him; and be emancipated from her thraldom here."
"oliver rane has no furniture in his house."
"he has some. the dining-room and his bedroom are as handsomely furnished as need be. we can send in a little more. there are some things at the hall that were bessy's own mother's, and she shall have them. they have not been thought much of here, dick, amidst the grand things that madam has filled the house with."
"she'll make a fuss, though, at their being removed," remarked dick.
"let her," retorted mr. north, who could be brave as the best when two or three hundred miles lay between him and madam. "those things were your own dear mother's, dick; she bought them with her own money before she married me, and i have always regarded them as heir-looms for bessy. it's just a few plain solid mahogany things, as good as ever they were. it was our drawing-room furniture in the early days, and it will do for their drawing-room now. when rane is making his six or seven hundred a-year, they can buy finer if they choose. we thought great things of it; i know that."
richard smiled. "i remember once when i was a very little fellow, my mother came in and caught me drawing a horse on the centre-table with pen-and-ink. the trouble she had to get the horse out!--and the whipping i had!"
"poor dick! she did not whip often."
"it did me good, sir. i have been scrupulously careful of furniture ever since."
"ah, nothing like the lessons of early childhood for making an impression," spoke mr. north. "'spare the rod and spoil the child!' there was never a truer saying than that."
"then you really intend them to marry at once," said richard, returning to the question.
"i do," replied mr. north in more decisive tones than he usually spoke. "they both wish it: and why should i hold out against them? bessy's thirty this year, you know, dick: if girls are not wives at that age, they begin to think it hard. it's better to marry tolerably young: a man and woman don't shake down into each other's ways if they come together late in life. you are silent, dick."
"i was thinking, sir, whether i could not manage a couple of hundred pounds for them from myself."
"you are ever generous, dick. i don't know what we should all do without you."
"the question is--shall i give it over to them in money, or spend it for them in furniture?"
"in money; in money, dick," advised mr. north. "the furniture can be managed; and cash is cash. spend it in chairs and tables and it seems as if there were nothing tangible to show for it."
richard smiled. "it strikes me that the argument lies the other way, sir. however, i think it will be better to do as you advise. bessy shall have two hundred pounds handed to her after her marriage, and they can do what they consider best with it."
"to be sure; to be sure, dick. let them be married. bessy has a miserable life of it here; and she'll be thirty on the twenty-ninth of this month. oliver rane was thirty the latter end of march."
"only thirty!" cried richard. "i think he must be more than that, sir."
"but he's not more," returned mr. north. "i ought to know; and so ought you, dick. don't you remember they are both in the tontine? all the children put into that tontine were born in the same year."
"oh, was it so? i had forgotten," returned richard carelessly, for the tontine had never troubled him very much. he could just recollect that when they were children he and his brother were wont to teaze little bessy, saying if she lived to be a hundred she would come into a fortune.
"that was an unlucky tontine, dick," said mr. north, shaking his head. "of ten children who were entered for it, only three remain. the other seven are dead. four of them died in the first or second year."
"how came oliver rane to be put into the tontine?" asked richard. "i thought he came to life in india--and lived there for the first few years of his life. the tontine children were all whitborough children."
"thomas gass did that, richard. when he received news that his sister had this baby--oliver--he insisted upon putting him into the tontine. it was a sort of salve to tom gass's conscience; at least i thought so: what his sister and the poor baby wanted then was money--not to be put into a useless tontine. ah, well, rane has got on without any one's assistance, and i dare say will flourish in the end."
richard glanced at his watch; twelve o'clock; and increased his pace; a hundred and one things were wanting him at the works. mr. north walked with him to the gate.
"yes, it's all for the best, dick. and we'll get the wedding comfortably over while madam's away."
"what has been her motive, sir, for opposing bessy's engagement to rane?"
"motive!" returned mr. north. "do you see that white butterfly, dick, fluttering about?--as good ask me what its motive is, as ask me madam's. i don't suppose she has any motive--except that she is given to opposing us all."
richard concluded it was so. something might lie also in bessy's patient excellence as a housekeeper; madam, ever selfish, did not perhaps like to lose her.
as they reached the iron gates, mrs. cumberland passed, walking slowly. she looked very ill. mr. north arrested her, and began to speak of the projected marriage of oliver and bessy. mrs. cumberland changed colour and looked almost frightened. unobservant mr. north saw nothing. richard did.
"has oliver not told you what's afoot?" said the former. "young men are often shyer in these matters than women."
"it's a very small income for them to begin upon," she observed presently, when mr. north had said his say--and richard thought he detected some private objection to the union. "so very small for bessy--who has been used to dallory hall."
"it won't always remain small," said mr. north. "his practice will increase when alexander goes; and he'll have other money, may be, later. oh, they'll get on, fanny. young couples like to be sufficiently poor to make struggling upwards a pleasure. i dare say you married upon less."
"of course, if you are satisfied--it must be all right," murmured mrs. cumberland. "you and bessy."
she drew her veil over her grey face, said good-morning, and moved away. not in the direction of dallory--as she was previously walking--but back to the ham. mr. north turned into his grounds again; richard went after mrs. cumberland.
"i beg your pardon," he said--he was not as familiar with her as his father was--"will you allow me a word. you do not like this proposed marriage. have you anything to urge against it?"
"only for bessy's sake. i was thinking of her."
"why for bessy's sake?"
there was some slight hesitation in mrs. cumberland's answer. she appeared to be drawing her veil straight.
"their income will be so small. i know what a small income is, and therefore i feel for her."
"is that all your hesitation, mrs. cumberland?--the narrowness of the income?"
"all."
"then i think, as my father says, you may safely leave the decision with themselves. but--was this all?" added richard: for an idea to the contrary had taken hold of him. "you have no personal objection to bessy?"
"certainly it was all," was mrs. cumberland's reply. "as to any personal objection to bessy, that i could never have. when oliver first told me they were engaged, i thought how lucky he was to win bessy north; i wished them success with all my heart.
"forgive me, mrs. cumberland. thank you. good-morning."
reassured, richard north turned, and strode hastily away in the direction of dallory. he fancied she had heard bessy would have no fortune, and was feeling disappointed on her son's account. it struck him that he might as well confirm this; and he wheeled round.
mrs. cumberland had gone on and was already seated on the bench before spoken of, in the shady part of the road. richard, in a few concise words, entering into no details of any sort, said to her that his sister would have no marriage portion.
"that i have long taken as a matter of course; knowing what the expenses at the hall must be," she answered with a friendly smile. "bessy is a fortune in herself; she would make a good wife to any man. provided they have sufficient for comfort--and i hope oliver will soon be making that--they can be as happy without wealth as with it, if your sister can only think so. have you--pardon me for recalling what must be an unpleasant topic, richard--have you yet gained any clue to the writer of that anonymous letter?"
"not any. it presents mystery on all sides."
"mystery?"
"as it seems to me. going over the various circumstances, as i do on occasion when i have a minute to myself, i try to fit the probability into another, and i cannot compass it. we must trust to time, mrs. cumberland. good-morning."
richard raised his hat, and left her. she sat on with her pain. mrs. cumberland was as strictly rigid a woman in tenets as in temperament; her code of morality was a severe one. over and over again had she asked herself whether--it is of no use to mince the matter any longer--oliver had or had not written that anonymous letter which had killed edmund north: and she could not answer the question. but, if he had done it, why then surely he ought not to wed the sister. it would be little less than sin.
since this secret trouble had been upon her, more than a month now, her face had seemed to assume a greyer tinge. how grey it looked now, as she sat on the bench, passers-by saw, and almost started. one of them was mr. alexander. arresting his quick steps--he always walked quickly--he inquired after her health.
"not any better and not much worse," she answered. "complaints, such as mine, are always tediously prolonged."
"they are less severe to bear, however, than sharper ones," said the doctor, willing to administer a grain of comfort if he could. "what a lovely day! and madam's off for a couple of months, i hear."
"have the two any connection with each other, mr. alexander?"
"i don't know," he said laughing. "her presence makes winter at the hall, and her absence its sunshine. if i had such a wife, i'm not sure that i should think it any sin to give her an overdose of laudanum some day, out of regard to the general peace. did you hear of her putting miss bessy's wrist out?"
"no."
"she did it, then. something sent her into a passion with miss bessy; she caught her hand and flung it away so violently that the wrist began to swell. i was sent for to bind it up. why such women are allowed to live, i can't imagine."
"i suppose because they are not fit to die," said mrs. cumberland. "when are you leaving?"
"sometime in july, i think, or during august. i enter on my new post the first of september, so there's no especial hurry in the matter."
mrs. cumberland rose and continued her slow way homewards. passing her own house, she entered that of her son. dr. rane was engaged with a patient, so she went on to the dining-room and waited.
he came in shortly, perhaps thinking it might be another patient, his face bright. it fell a little when he saw his mother. her visits to him were so exceedingly rare that some instinct whispered him nothing pleasant had brought her there. she rose and faced him.
"oliver, is what i hear true--that you are shortly to be married?"
"i suppose it is, mother," was his answer.
"but--is there no impediment that should bar it?" she asked in a whisper.
"well--as to waiting, i may wait to the end, and not find the skies raining gold. if bessy's friends see no risk in it, it is not for me to see it. at any rate, this will be a more peaceful home for her than the hall."
"i am not talking of waiting--or of gold--or of risk, oliver," she continued solemnly, placing both her hands on his arm. "is there nothing on your mind that ought to bar this marriage? is your conscience at rest? if--wait and let me speak, my son; i understand what you would say; what you have already told me--that you were innocent--and i know, that i ought to believe you. but a doubt continually flashes up in my mind, oliver; it is not my fault; truth knows my will is good to bury it for ever. bear with me a moment; i must speak. if the death of edmund north lies at your door, however indirectly it was caused, to make his sister your wife will be a thing altogether wrong; little less than a sin in the sight of heaven. i do not accuse you, oliver; i suggest this as a possible case; and now i leave it with you for your own reflection. oh, my son, believe me--for it seems to me as though to-day i spoke with a prophet's inspiration! if your conscience tells you that you were not innocent, to bring bessy north home to this roof will be wrong, and i think no blessing will rest upon it."
she was gone. before oliver rane in his surprise could answer a word, mrs. cumberland was gone. passing swiftly out at the open window, she stepped across the garden and the wire-fence, and so entered her own home.
