Cursed by a Fortune Part 35

sobbed Mrs Wilton. "She didn't like him."

"No; absurd," cried Wilton.

"But he'd have gone away with her, guv'nor."

"You were seen with her last night."

"Oh, was I? All right, then. If you say so I suppose I was, guv'nor, but I'm going back to London after ferreting out all I can. You're on the wrong scent, dad,--him! I never thought of that."

"You're wrong, Claud; you're wrong."

"Yes, mother, deucedly wrong," cried the young man fiercely. "Why didn't I think of it? I might have done the same, and now it's too late. Perhaps not. She'd hold out after he got her away, and we might get to her in time. No, I know Harry Dasent. It's too late now."

"Look here, Claud, boy, I want to believe in you," said Wilton, who was once more impressed by his son's earnestness; "do you tell me you believe that Harry Dasent has taken her away by force?"

"Force, or some trick. It was just the sort of time when she might listen to him. There; you may believe me, now."

"Then who was the lady you were seen with last night? Come, be honest.

You were seen with someone. Who was it?"

"Mustn't kiss and tell, guv'nor," said Claud, with a sickly grin.

"Look here," said Wilton huskily. "There are a hundred and fifty thousand pounds at stake, my boy. Was it Kate?"

"No, father," cried the young man earnestly; "it wasn't, 'pon my soul."

"Am I to believe you?"

"Look here, guv'nor, do you think I want to fool this money away? What good should I be doing by pretending I hadn't carried her off? I told you I'd have done it like a shot if I had had the chance; and what's more, you'd have liked it, so long as I had got her to say yes. I did not carry her off, once for all. It was Harry Dasent, and if he has choused me out of that bit of coin, curse him, if I hang for it, I'll break his neck!"

"Oh! Claud, Claud, my darling," wailed Mrs Wilton, "to talk like that when your cousin's lying cold and motionless at the bottom of that pond!"

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

For the better part of two days Pierce Leigh went about like one who had received some terrible mental shock; and Jenny's pleasant little rounded cheeks told the tale of the anxiety from which she suffered, while her eyes followed him wistfully, and she seemed never weary of trying to perform little offices for him which would distract his attention from the thoughts which were sapping his vitality.

The life at the quiet little cottage home was entirely changed, for brother and sister were playing parts for which they were quite unsuited in a melancholy farce of real life, wearing masks, and trying to hide their sufferings from each other, with a miserable want of success.

And all the time Leigh was longing to open his heart to the loving, affectionate little thing who had been his companion from a child, his confidante over all his hopes, and counsellor in every movement or plan.

She had read and studied with him, helped him to puzzle out abstruse questions, and for years they had gone on together leading a life full of happiness, and ready to laugh lightly over money troubles connected with the disappointment over the purchase of the Northwood practice through a swindling, or grossly ignorant, agent.

"Don't worry about it, Pierce dear," Jenny had said, "it is only the loss of some money, and as it's in the country we can live on less, and wear out our old clothes over again. I do wish I could cut up and turn your coats and trousers. You men laugh at us and our fashions, but we women can laugh at you and yours. Granted that our hats and dresses are flimsy, see how we can re-trim and unpick, and make them look new again, while your stupid things get worn and shiny, and then they're good for nothing. They're quite hopeless, for I daren't try to make you a new coat out of two old ones."

There was many a merry laugh over such matters, Jenny's spirits rising, as the country life brought back the bloom of health that had been failing in Westminster; and existence, in spite of the want of patients, was a very happy one, till the change came. This change to a certain extent resembled that in the yard of the amateur who was bitten by the fancy for keeping and showing those great lumbering fowls--the Brahmas, so popular years ago.

He had a pen of half-a-dozen c.o.c.kerels, the result of the hatching of a clutch of eggs laid by a feathered princess of the blood royal; and as he watched them through their infancy it was with high hopes of winning prizes--silver cups and vases, at all the crack poultry shows. And how he tended and pampered his pets, watching them through the various stages pa.s.sed by this kind of fowl--one can hardly say feathered fowl in the earlier stages of their existence, for through their early boyhood, so to speak, they run about in a raw unclad condition that is pitiful to see, for they are almost "birds of a feather" in the Dundreary idea of the singularity of plumage; and it is not until they have arrived pretty well at full growth that they a.s.sume the heavy ma.s.sive plumage that makes their skeleton lanky forms look so huge. These six young Brahmas masculine grew and throve in their pen, innocent, happy, and at peace, till one morning their owner gazed upon them in pride, for they were all that a Brahma fancier could wish to see--small of comb, heavy of hackle, tail slightly developed, broad in the beam, short-legged, and without a trace of vulture hock. "First prize for one of them," said the owner, and after feeding them he went to town, and came back to find his hopes ruined, his c.o.c.kerels six panting, ragged, bleeding wrecks, squatting about in the pen, half dead, too much exhausted to spur and peck again.

For there had been battle royal in that pen, the young birds engaging in a furious melee. For what reason? Because, as good old Doctor Watts said, "It is their nature to." They did not know it till that morning, but there was the great pa.s.sion in each one's breast, waiting to be evoked, and transform them from pacific pecking and scratching birds into perfect demons of discord.

There was wire netting spread all over the top of their carefully sanded pen, and till then they had never seen others of their kind. It was their world, and as far as they knew there was neither fowl nor chicken save themselves. The memory of the mother beneath whose plumage they had nestled had pa.s.sed away, for the gallinaceous brain cavity is small.

That morning, a stray, pert-looking, elegantly spangled, golden Hambro'

pullet appeared upon the wall, looked down for a moment on the pen of full-grown, innocent young Brahmas, uttered the monosyllables "Took, took!" and flew away.

For a brief s.p.a.ce, the long necks of the c.o.c.kerels were strained in the direction where that vision of loveliness had appeared for a brief instant; the fire of jealous love blazed out, and they turned and fought almost to the death. It would have been quite, had there been strength.

The owner of these six cripples did not take a prize.

So at Northwood, women, save as sister or friend, had been non-existent to Pierce Leigh. Now the desire to rend his human brother was upon him strong.

Jenny knew it, and for more than one reason she trembled for the time that must come when Pierce should first meet Claud Wilton, for it had rapidly dawned upon her that the long-deferred grand pa.s.sion of her brother was the stronger for its sudden growth.

In her anxiety, she went out during those two days a great deal for the benefit of her health, but really on the qui vive for the news that she felt must soon come of Claud's proceedings with his cousin; and twice over she had started the subject of their projected leaving, making Leigh raise his eyebrows slightly in wonder at the sudden change in his sister's ideas. But it was not till nearly evening that, during her brother's temporary absence, she heard the news for which she was waiting.

One of Leigh's poor patients called to see him--one of the cla.s.s suffered by most young doctors, who go through life believing they are very ill, and that it is the duty of a medical man to pay extra attention to their ailments, and lavish upon them knowledge and medicine to the fullest extent, without a thought of payment entering their heads.

Betsy Bray was the lady in question, and as was her custom, Jenny saw the woman, ready to hear her last grievance, and tell her brother when he returned.

Betsy was fifty-five, and possessed of the strong const.i.tution which bears a great deal of ease; but in her own estimation she was very bad.

From frequenting surgeries, she had picked up a few medical terms, and larded her discourse with them and others of a religious tendency, her attendance at church dole-giving, and other charitable distributions being of the most regular description.

"Doctor at home, miss?" she said, plaintively, as she slowly and plumply subsided upon the little couch in the surgery, the said piece of furniture groaning in all its springs, for Betsy possessed weight.

"No, Mrs Bray. He has gone to call on the Dudges, at West Gale."

"Ah, he always is calling on somebody when I've managed to drag my weary bones all this way up from the village."

"I am very sorry. What is the matter now?" said Jenny, soothingly.

"Matter, miss? What's allus the matter with me? It's my chronics. Not a wink of sleep have I had all the blessed night."

"Well, I must give you something."

"Nay, nay, my dear; you don't understand my troubles. It's the absorption is all wrong; and you'd be giving me something out of the wrong bottles. You just give me a taste of sperrits to give me strength to get home again, and beg and pray o' the doctor to come on and see me as soon as he comes home, if you don't want me to be laid out stark and cold afore another day's done."

"But I have no spirits, Mrs Bray."

"Got none? Well, I dessay a gla.s.s o' wine might do. Keep me alive p'raps till I'd crawled home to die."

"But we have no wine."

"Dear, dear, dear, think o' that," said the woman fretfully. "The old doctor always had some, and a drop o' sperrits, too. Ah, it's a hard thing to be old and poor and in bad health, carrying your grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; and all about you rich and well and happy, rolling in money, and marrying and giving in marriage and wearing their wedding garments, one and all. You've heard about the doings up at the Manor House?"

"Yes, yes, something about them, Mrs Bray; but I'll tell my brother, and he will, I know, come and see you."

"Yes, you tell him; not as I believe in him much, but poor people must take what they can get--He's come back, you know?"