A Dog with a Bad Name Part 29

It was a left-off suit of Mr Rimbolt's clothes, with the following polite note: "As Mr Jeffreys does not appear disposed to accept Mrs Rimbolt's advice to provide himself with clothes suitable for the post he now occupies at Wildtree Towers, she must request him to accept the accompanying parcel, with the wish that she may not again have occasion to refer to so unpleasant a subject."

Jeffreys flushed scarlet as he read this elegant effusion, and, greatly to Walker's astonishment crushed the letter up into a ball and flung it out of the window.

"Take that away!" he shouted, pointing to the parcel.

"The mistress sent it for--"

"Take it away, do you hear?" shouted Jeffreys, starting up with a face so terrible that Walker turned pale, and evacuated the room with the offending parcel as quickly as possible.

Jeffreys' outburst of temper quickly evaporated, and indeed gave place to a much more prolonged fit of shame. Was this like conquering the evil in his nature, to be thus thrown off his balance by a trifle?

As it happened, he had ordered a suit of clothes in Overstone some days back, and was expecting them that very afternoon.

Mr Rimbolt, on the day after his engagement, had as delicately as possible offered him a quarter's salary in advance, which Jeffreys, guessing the source which inspired the offer, had flatly refused. Mr Rimbolt's gentlemanly urging, however, and the consciousness that his present clothes were disreputable, as well as another consideration, induced him to accept a month's stipend; and on the strength of this he had visited the Overstone tailor.

But before doing so he had discharged his mind of a still more important duty. The sense of the debt still due to Bolsover had hung round his neck night and day. It was not so much on Mr Frampton's account. He came gradually to hate the thought of Bolsover, and the idea of being a defaulter to the place worried him beyond measure. It seemed like an insult to the memory of poor young Forrester to owe money to the place which had witnessed that terrible tragedy; and the hope of washing his hands once for all of the school and its a.s.sociations was the one faint gleam of comfort he had in looking back on the events of last year. It was therefore with a feeling of almost fierce relief that he procured a post-office order for the balance of his debt on the very afternoon of receiving the money, and enclosing it with merely his name added--for he wanted no receipt, and felt that even Mr Frampton's letters would now no longer be of service to him--he posted it with his own hands, and hoped that he was done with Bolsover for ever. After that, with very different emotions, he visited the tailor.

The clothes arrived on the same afternoon which had witnessed the summary rejection of Mrs Rimbolt's gift. That lady, from whom Walker had considered it prudent to keep back some of the particulars of his interview with the librarian, merely reporting "that Mr Jeffreys was much obliged, but did not require the things," took to herself all the credit of his improved appearance when that evening Mr Rimbolt brought him in from the library to have coffee in the drawing-room.

Jeffreys, aware that he was undergoing inspection, felt very shy and awkward, but could not quite do away with the improvement, or conceal that, despite his ugly face and ungainly figure there was something of the gentleman about him.

Mrs Rimbolt by no means approved of her husband bringing his librarian into the drawing-room. She considered it a slight to herself and dangerous to Percy and Raby to have this person added to their family circle; and she most conscientiously made a point of lessening that danger on every occasion, by reminding him of his place and rendering his temporary visits to exalted lat.i.tudes as uncomfortable as possible.

Mr Rimbolt, good easy-going gentleman, shrugged his shoulders and felt powerless to interfere, and when, after a week or two, his librarian generally pleaded some pressing work as an excuse for not going in to coffee, he understood it quite well and did not urge the invitation.

Percy, however, had a very different way of comporting himself. What he liked he liked; what he did not like he most conveniently ignored. He was anything but a model son, as the reader has discovered. He loved his parents, indeed, but he sadly lacked that great ornament of youth--a dutiful spirit. He was spoiled, and got his own way in everything. He ruled Wildtree Towers, in fact. If his mother desired him to do what he did not like, he was for the time being deaf, and did not hear her. If he himself was overtaken in a fault, he changed the subject and talked cheerily about something else. If one of his great "dodges" came to a ridiculous end, he promptly screened it from observation by a new one.

From the day of the kidnapping adventure he was a sworn ally of Jeffreys. It mattered nothing to him who else snubbed the new librarian, or who else made his life uncomfortable. Percy liked him and thought much of him. He established a claim on his afternoons, in spite of Mrs Rimbolt's protests and Mr Rimbolt's arrangements. Even Jeffreys' refusal to quit work at his bidding counted for nothing. He represented to his mother that Jeffreys was necessary to his safety abroad, and to his father that Jeffreys would be knocked up if he did not take regular daily exercise. He skilfully hinted that Jeffreys read Aeschylus with him sometimes; and once, as a crowning argument, produced a complete "dodge," perfected and mechanically clever, "which," he a.s.serted, "Jeff made me stick to till I'd done."

Mr Rimbolt did not conceal the satisfaction with which he noticed the good influence on the boy of his new friend, and readily fell in with the arrangement that Jeffreys' afternoons should be placed at his own (which meant Percy's) disposal. As for Mrs Rimbolt, she groaned to think of her boy consorting with quondam tramps, yet consoled herself with the knowledge that Percy had now some one who would look after him and keep him out of danger, even with a vulgar right arm.

Jeffreys accepted this new responsibility cheerfully, and even eagerly.

It sometimes came over him with a shock, what would these people say if they knew about young Forrester? Yet was not this care of a boy given to him now as a means, if not of winning back his good name, at least of atoning in some measure by the good he would try to do him, and the patience with which he would bear with his exacting ways for what was past? It was in that spirit he accepted the trust, and felt happy in it.

As the summer pa.s.sed on, Wildtree, the moors around which were famous for their game, became full of visitors. The invasion did not disturb Jeffreys, for he felt that he would be able to retire into private life and avoid it. The company numbered a few boys of Percy's age, so that even that young gentleman would not be likely to require his services for a while. He therefore threw himself wholly into his work, and with the exception of an hour each afternoon, when he took a turn on the hill-side, showed himself to no one.

On one of these occasions, as he was strolling through the park towards the moor, he encountered Miss Atherton, very much laden with a camp- stool, a basket, a parasol, and a waterproof. Shy as he was, Jeffreys could hardly pa.s.s her without offering to relieve her of part of her burden. "May I carry some of those things?" said he.

He had scarcely exchanged words with Raby since the day of his first arrival; and though he secretly numbered her among his friends, he had an uncomfortable suspicion that she looked down on him, and made an effort to be kind to him.

"Thanks, very much," said she, really glad to get rid of some of her burdens; "if you wouldn't mind taking the chair. But I'm afraid you are going the other way."

"No," said Jeffreys, taking the chair, "I was going nowhere in particular. May I not take the waterproof and basket too?"

"The basket is far too precious," said Raby, smiling; "it has grapes in it. But if you will take this horrid waterproof--"

"There is not much use for waterproofs this beautiful weather," said Jeffreys, beginning to walk beside her. Then, suddenly recollecting himself, with a vision of Mrs Rimbolt before his mind, he fell back, and said awkwardly,--

"Perhaps I had better--I must not detain you, Miss Atherton."

She saw through him at once, and laughed.

"You propose to follow me with those things as if I was an Eastern princess! Perhaps I had better carry them myself if you are afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid of you," said Jeffreys.

"But you are afraid of auntie. So am I--I hope she'll meet us. What were you saying about the weather, Mr Jeffreys?"

Jeffreys glanced in alarm at his audacious companion. He had nothing for it after this challenge but to walk with her and brave the consequences. There was something in her half-mutinous, half-confiding manner which rather interested him, and made the risk he was now running rather exhilarating.

"Percy seems to have forsaken you," said she, after a pause, "since his friends came. I suppose he is sure to be blowing his brains out or something of the sort on the moors."

"Percy is a fine fellow, and certainly has some brains to blow,"

observed Jeffreys solemnly.

Raby laughed. "He's quite a reformed character since you came," said she; "I'm jealous of you!"

"Why?"

"Oh, he cuts me, now he has you! He used about once a week to offer to show me what he was doing. Now he only offers once a month, and then always thinks better of it."

"The thing is to get him to work at one thing at a time," said Jeffreys, to whom Percy was always an interesting study. "As soon as he has learned that art he will do great things."

"I think Percy would make a fine soldier," said Raby, with an enthusiasm which quite captivated her companion, "he's so brave and honest and determined. Isn't he?"

"Yes, and clever too."

"Of course; but my father always says a man needn't be clever to be a good soldier. He says the clever soldiers are the least valuable."

"Was your father a soldier?"

"Was? He is. He's in Afghanistan now."

"In the middle of all the fighting?"

"Yes," said Raby, with a shade across her bright face. "It's terrible, isn't it? I half dread every time I see a letter or a newspaper. Mr Jeffreys!" added the girl, stopping short in her walk, "my father is the best and bravest man that ever lived."

"I know he is," said Jeffreys, beginning to wonder whether some of the father's good qualities were not hereditary.

Raby looked up curiously and then laughed.

"You judge of him by seeing how heroic I am braving my aunt's wrath! Oh dear, I do hope she meets us. It would be such a waste of courage if she doesn't."

"I have benefited by your courage," said Jeffreys, quite staggered at his own gallantry.

"I expect you're awfully dull in that old library," said the girl; "you should hear how uncle praises you behind your back! Poor auntie--"

At that moment they turned a corner of the shrubbery leading up to the house, and found themselves suddenly face to face with Mrs Rimbolt with a gentleman and two or three of her lady guests. Jeffreys flushed up as guiltily as if he had been detected in a highway robbery, and absolutely forgot to salute. Even Raby, who was not at all sure that her aunt had not overheard their last words, was taken aback and looked confused.

Mrs Rimbolt bridled up like a cat going into action. She took in the situation at a glance, and drew her own inferences.