Fenton's Quest Part 44

"Would you, my la.s.s?" he asked grimly. "But, you see, I do want you for something particular, something uncommon particular; so there's no call for you to be in a hurry. Sit down yonder," he added, pointing to the chair opposite his own. "I've got something to say to you, something serious."

"Father," said the girl, looking him full in the face, pale to the lips, but very firm, "I don't think you're in a state to talk seriously of anything."

"O, you don't, don't you, Miss Impudence? You think I'm drunk, perhaps.

You'll find that, drunk or sober, I've only one mind about you, and that I mean to be obeyed. Sit down, I tell you. I'm not in the humour to stand any nonsense to-night. Sit down."

Ellen obeyed this mandate, uttered with a fierceness unusual even in Mr.

Carley, who was never a soft-spoken man. She seated herself quietly on the opposite side of the hearth, while her father took down his pipe from the chimney-piece, and slowly filled it, with hands that trembled a little over the accustomed task.

When he had lighted the pipe, and smoked about half-a-dozen whiffs with a great a.s.sumption of coolness, he addressed himself to his daughter in an altered and conciliating tone.

"Well, Nelly," he said, "you've had a rare day at Wyncomb, and a regular ramble over the old house with Steph's cousin. What do you think of it?"

"I think it's a queer gloomy old place enough, father. I wonder there's any one can live in it. The dark bare-looking rooms gave me the horrors.

I used to think this house was dull, and seemed as if it was haunted; but it's lively and gay as can be, compared to Wyncomb."

"Humph!" muttered the bailiff. "You're a fanciful young lady, Miss Nell, and don't know a fine substantial old house when you see one. Life's come a little too easy to you, perhaps. It might have been better for you if you'd seen more of the rough side. Being your own missus too soon, and missus of such a place as this, has spoiled you a bit. I tell you, Nell, there ain't a better house in Hampshire than Wyncomb, though it mayn't suit your fanciful notions. Do you know the size of Stephen Whitelaw's farm?"

"No, father; I've never thought about it."

"What do you say to three hundred acres--over three hundred, nigher to four perhaps?"

"I suppose it's a large farm, father. But I know nothing about such things."

"You suppose it's large, and you know nothing about such things!" cried the bailiff, with an air of supreme irritation. "I don't believe any man was ever plagued with such an aggravating daughter as mine. What do you say to being mistress of such a place, girl?--mistress of close upon four hundred acres of land; not another man's servant, bound to account for every blade of gra.s.s and every ear of corn, as I am, but free and independent mistress of the place, with the chance of being left a widow by and by, and having it all under your own thumb; what do you say to that?"

"Only the same that I have always said, father. Nothing would ever persuade me to marry Stephen Whitelaw. I'd rather starve."

"And you shall starve, if you stick to that," roared William Carley with a blasphemous oath. "But you won't be such a fool, Nell. You'll hear reason; you won't stand out against your poor old father and against your own interests. The long and the short of it is, I've given Whitelaw my promise that you shall be his wife between this and Easter."

"What!" exclaimed Ellen, with a faint cry of horror; "you don't mean that you've promised that, father! You can't mean it!"

"I can and do mean it, la.s.s."

"Then you've made a promise that will never be kept. You might have known as much when you made it. I'm sure I've been plain-spoken enough about Stephen Whitelaw."

"That was a girl's silly talk. I didn't think to find you a fool when I came to the point. I let you have your say, and looked to time to bring you to reason. Come, Nell, you're not going against your father, are you?"

"I must, father, in this. I'd rather die twenty deaths than marry that man. There's nothing I wouldn't rather do."

"Isn't there? You'd rather see your father in gaol, I suppose, if it came to that?"

"See you in gaol!" cried the girl aghast. "For heaven's sake, what do you mean, father? What fear is there of your being sent to prison, because I won't marry Stephen Whitelaw? I'm not a baby," she added, with a hysterical laugh; "you can't frighten me like that."

"No; you're a very wise young woman, I daresay; but you don't know everything. You've seen me downhearted and out of sorts for this last half-year; but I don't suppose you've troubled yourself much about it, except to worry me with silly questions sometimes, when I've not been in the humour to be talked to. Things have been going wrong with me ever since hay-harvest, and I haven't sent Sir David sixpence yet for last year's crops. I've put him off with one excuse after another from month to month. He's a careless master enough at most times, and never over-sharp with my accounts. But the time has come when I can't put him off any longer. He wants money badly, he says; and I'm afraid he begins to suspect something. Any way, he talks of coming here in a week or so to look into things for himself. If he does that, I'm ruined."

"But the money, father--the money for the crops--how has it gone? You had it, haven't you?"

"Yes," the bailiff answered with a groan; "I've had it, worse luck."

"And how has it gone?"

"What's that to you? What's the good of my muddling my brains with figures to-night? It's gone, I tell you. You know I'm fond of seeing a race, and never miss anything in that way that comes-off within a day's drive of this place. I used to be pretty lucky once upon a time, when I backed a horse or bet against one. But this year things have gone dead against me; and my bad luck made me savage somehow, so that I went deeper than I've been before, thinking to get back what I'd lost."

"O, father, father! how could you, and with another man's money?"

"Don't give me any of your preaching," the bailiff answered gloomily; "I can get enough of that at Malsham Chapel if I want it. It's in your power to pull me through this business if you choose."

"How can I do that, father?"

"A couple of hundred pounds will set me square. I don't say there hasn't been more taken, first and last; but that would do it. Stephen Whitelaw would lend me the money--give it me, indeed, for it comes to that--the day he gets your consent to be his wife."

"And you'd sell me to him for two hundred pounds, father?" the girl asked bitterly.

"I don't want to go to gaol."

"And if you don't get the money from Stephen, what will happen?"

"I can't tell you that to a nicety. Penal servitude for life, most likely. They'd call mine a bad case, I daresay."

"But Sir David might be merciful to you, father. You've served him for along time."

"What would he care for that? I've had his money, and he's not a man that can afford to lose much. No, Nell, I look for no mercy from Sir David; those careless easy-going men are generally the hardest in such a business as this. It's a clear case of embezzlement, and nothing can save me unless I can raise money enough to satisfy him."

"Couldn't you borrow it of some one else besides Stephen Whitelaw?"

"Who else is there that would lend me two hundred pounds? Ask yourself that, girl. Why, I haven't five pounds' worth of security to offer."

"And Mr. Whitelaw will only lend the money upon one condition?"

"No, curse him!" cried William Carley savagely. "I've been at him all this afternoon, when you and that woman were out of the room, trying to get it out of him as a loan, without waiting for your promise; but he's too cautious for that. 'The day Ellen gives her consent, you shall have the money,' he told me; 'I can't say anything fairer than that or more liberal.'"

"He doesn't suspect why you want it, does he, father?" Ellen asked with a painful sense of shame.

"Who can tell what he may suspect? He's as deep as Satan," said the bailiff, with a temporary forgetfulness of his desire to exhibit this intended son-in-law of his in a favourable light. "He knows that I want the money very badly; I couldn't help his knowing that; and he must think it's something out of the common that makes me want two hundred pounds."

"I daresay he guesses the truth," Ellen said, with a profound sigh.

It seemed to her the bitterest trial of all, that her father's wrong-doing should be known to Stephen Whitelaw. That hideous prospect of the dock and the gaol was far off as yet; she had not even begun to realise it; but she did fully realise the fact of her father's shame, and the blow seemed to her a heavy one, heavier than she could bear.

For some minutes there was silence between father and daughter. The girl sat with her face hidden in her hands; the bailiff smoked his pipe in sullen meditation.

"Is there no other way?" Ellen asked at last, in a plaintive despairing tone; "no other way, father?"

"None," growled William Carley. "You needn't ask me that question again; there is no other way; you can get me out of my difficulties if you choose. I should never have been so venturesome as I was, if I hadn't made sure my daughter would soon be a rich woman. You can save me if you like, or you can hold-off and let me go to prison. There's no good preaching about it or arguing about it; you've got the choice and you must make it. Most young women in your place would think themselves uncommon lucky to have such a chance as you've got, instead of making a trouble about it, let alone being able to get their father out of a sc.r.a.pe. But you're your own mistress, and you must do as you please."

"Let me have time to think," the girl pleaded piteously; "let me have only a little time to think, father. And you do believe that I'm sorry for you, don't you?" she asked, kneeling beside him and clasping his unwilling hand. "O father, I hope you believe that!"