Cursed by a Fortune Part 26

"That's right," said Pierce, with a faint sigh.

"Let her find out naturally what you are; and she is finding it out, for don't you make any mistake about it, Miss Katherine Wilton is young, but she has plenty of shrewd common sense, as I soon found out, and little as I have seen of her I soon saw that she was quite awake to her position. Girls of sense who have fortunes soon smell out people's motives; and if they think they are going to marry her right off to that out-door sport, Claud, they have made a grand mistake."

"But you have not dared to talk about your foolish ideas to her, Jenny?"

"Not a word. Oh, timid, modest frere! I put on my best frock and my best manners when we went there to dinner, and I was as nice and ladylike as a girl could be. Reward:--Kate took to me at once, and we became friends."

Leigh uttered a sigh of relief.

"But if I had dared I could have told her what a coward you are, and how ashamed I am of you."

"For not playing the part of a contemptible schemer, Sis?"

"Who wants you to, sir? Why, money has nothing to do with it. Now, answer me this, Pierce. If she were only Miss Wilton without a penny, wouldn't you propose for her at once?"

"No, Sis; I would not."

"You wouldn't?"

"No, I wouldn't be so contemptible as to take such a step when I am little better than a pauper."

"Boo! What nonsense. You a pauper! An educated gentleman, acknowledged to be talented in his profession. But I know you'd marry her to-morrow and turn your poor little sister out of doors if you had an income. Bother incomes and money! It's all horrid, and causes all the misery there is in the world. Pierce, you shan't run away from here and leave the poor girl to be married to that wretched boy."

"Jenny, dear, be serious. I really must get away from here as soon as I can."

"Oh, Pierce! Don't talk about it, dear. It is only to make yourself miserable through these silly ideas of honour; and it is to make me wretched, too, just when I am so well and so happy, and all that nasty London cough gone. I declare if you take me away I'll pine away and die."

"No, you shan't, Sissy. You can't, with your own clever special physician at your side," he said merrily.

"Not if you could help it, I know. But Pierce, darling, don't be such a coward. It's cruel to her to run away, and leave her unprotected."

"Hold your tongue!" said Leigh peremptorily. "I tell you that is all imagination on your part."

"And I tell you it is a fact I've seen and heard quite enough. Old Wilton is very poor, and he wants to get the money safe in his family.

Mrs Wilton is only the old puss whose paws he is using for tongs. As for Claud--Ugh! I could really enjoy existence if I might box his big ears. Now look here, big boy," cried Jenny, impulsively s.n.a.t.c.hing up the agent's letter: "I am going to burn this, for you shan't go away and make a medical martyr of yourself, just because the dearest girl in the world--who likes you already for your straightforward manly conduct towards her--happens to have a fortune, and your practice beginning to improve, too."

"My practice beginning to improve!" he cried, contemptuously.

"Yes, sir, improve; didn't you have a broken boy to mend yesterday? and haven't you a chance of the parish practice, which is twenty pounds a year? and oh, hooray, hooray! I am so glad, there's somebody ill at the Manor again. I hope it's Clodpole Claud this time," and she wildly waltzed round the room, waving the letter over her head, before stopping by the fire, throwing the paper in, and plumping down in a chair, looking demure and solemn as a nun.

For Tom Jonson, the groom from the Manor, had driven over in the dog-cart, pulled up short, and now rang sharply at the bell.

Leigh turned pale, for the man's manner betokened emergency, and he could only a.s.sociate this with the patient to whom he had been called before.

"Will you come over at once, sir, please?"

"Miss Wilton worse?"

"Oh, no, sir. Something wrong with young Master." Leigh uttered a sigh of relief, and stepped back for his hat.

"Mr Wilton, junior, taken ill, dear," he said. "I heard, Pierce. Do kill him, or send him into a consumption."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

Leigh hardly heard his sister's words, for he hurried out and sprang into the dog-cart, where the groom was full of the past day's trouble, and ready to pour into unwilling ears what he had heard from Samuel, who knew that Mr Garstang, the solicitor from London, knocked down young Master about money, he thought, and that he had heard Mr Claud say something about his father kicking him.

"Missus wanted to send for you last night, sir, but Master wouldn't have it, and this morning they couldn't make him hear in his room. Poor chap, I expect he's very bad."

The man would have gone on talking, but finding his companion silent and thoughtful, he relapsed into a one-sided conversation with the horse he drove, bidding him "come on," and "look alive," and "be steady," till he turned in at the avenue and cantered up to the hall door.

Mrs Wilton was there, tearful and trembling.

"Oh, do make haste, Mr Leigh," she cried. "How long you have been!"

"I came at once, madam; is your son in his room?"

"Yes, yes--dead by this time. Pray, come up."

He sprang up the stairs in a very unprofessional way, forgetting the necessity for a medical man being perfectly calm and cool, and Wilton met him on the landing.

"Oh, here you are. Haven't got the door open yet. Curse the old wood!

It's like iron. Maria, go and get all the keys you can find."

"Yes, dear, but while the men are doing that hadn't we better try and get poor Claud's door open?"

"No, hers first," cried Wilton, and Leigh started.

"I understood that it was your son who needed help," he said.

"Never mind him for a bit. You must see to my niece first;" and in a few seconds Leigh was in possession of the fact that the maid had been unable to make her mistress hear; that since then they could get no response to constant calling and knocking, and the door had resisted all their efforts to get it open.

On reaching the end of the corridor Leigh found the maid, white and trembling, holding her ap.r.o.n pressed hard to her lips, while the footman and two gardeners, after littering the floor with unnecessary tools, were now trying to make a hole with a chisel large enough to admit the point of a saw, so as to cut round the lock.

"Wood's like iron, sir," said the gardener, who was operating.

"But would it not be easier to put a ladder to the window, and break a pane of gla.s.s?" said Leigh, impatiently.

"Oh, Lord!" cried Wilton, "who would be surrounded with such a set of fools! Come along. Of course. Here, one of you, go and fetch a ladder."

The second gardener hurried off down the back stairs, while his master led the way to the front, leaving Mrs Wilton and the maid tapping at the bedroom door.

"Oh, do, do speak, my darling," sobbed Mrs Wilton. "If it's only one word, to let us know you are alive."

"Oh, don't, don't pray say that ma'am," sobbed the maid. "My poor dear young mistress! What shall I do--what shall I do?"

Mrs Wilton made no reply, but, free from her husband's coercion now, she hurried along the corridor to the other wing, to begin knocking at her son's door, and then went down upon her knees, with her lips to the keyhole, begging him within to speak.