Leonore Stubbs Part 5

The return of Leonore was the event of the neighbourhood. Others besides Dr. Craig had seen General Boldero's carriage, with its glittering harness and champing horses, in waiting at the station; and it was noticed that not merely its presence but that of the general himself on the occasion, was designed to give the young widow importance in the public eye. The Reverend Eustace Custance, the rector, and very much the rector, had both seen and understood.

Eustace was one of the excellent of the earth. His spare frame, long neck, and hanging head were to be seen year in year out entering familiarly every door in his parish,--entering with a friend's step, and departing with a note-book, well-worn and blessed by not a few, in his hand.

There were some among his richer parishioners who voted their clergyman a bore, but he was never so thought of by the poor. Their wants, their cares, their welfare was the burden of his thoughts--and we know that such a burden is not always a welcome guest in the seats of the mighty.

General Boldero, for instance, would raise a curt hand to his hat, and mutter something about being in haste, if he chanced upon the rector on the road,--if possible, he would scuffle out of the way. "I never see that man but he has a subscription list in his hand," he would fretfully exclaim,--and though it did not suit his dignity to ignore the list, he would have disliked the person whose fingers thus found their way into his pocket, if it had been possible. Since it was not possible, he yielded a cold esteem, and secretly wondered why so worthy a recipient for promotion did not obtain it.

On the present occasion, however, Mr. Custance did not cross his neighbour's path; voluntarily he never did so, and he had, as it happened, no very pressing case demanding a.s.sistance on hand at the moment.

Wherefore, he only blinked his mild blue eyes as the handsome turn-out, designed to edify all beholders, thundered past him on the station road, and recalled what his sister had told him about the Bolderos that morning at breakfast. Emily was his purveyor of news, and his fondness for her made him often affect an interest in it which he did not feel.

It might be an effort to say "Ah! Indeed?" and follow on with a proper question or comment when his thoughts were wandering; but he never failed to try, and from trying faithfully for many years, he had finally attained some measure of success.

Occasionally, also, Emily's chit-chat bore fruit; the good man had the scent of a sleuth-hound for any event which bore, however remotely, on his life's object; and though he might now have been secretly amused by his sister's excitement over what to him was a very ordinary circ.u.mstance, a single remark in connection with it arrested his coffee-cup on its way to his lips.

"To be sure I had forgotten that," he murmured.

"Forgotten that Leonore made a wealthy marriage, my dear Eustace? Why, it is only three years ago, and we were all full of it."

"Then I suppose she----" he paused and mused.

"You may be sure she brings back her money with her," nodded Emily cheerfully. "Poor dear child, it's all she has left. So sad to be widowed so young, is it not? I don't think you seem quite to take in how sad it is, Eustace," and she cast a gentle look of reproach.

The rector put down his cup and stirred its contents thoughtfully, debating the question within himself. He was so accustomed to sad cases that perhaps--well, perhaps it was as she said: certainly it had not occurred to him to bestow the same pity on a young girl, bereaved indeed, but with a good home to come back to, as he did on Peggy, the ploughman's wife, for instance--that valiant Peggy who, with her ten children, was suddenly reduced from comparative affluence to naked poverty, by the death of the bread-winner of the family.

Peggy was getting on in years, and her strength was not what it had been. She had toiled and moiled, and brought up her boys and girls in a way that won her pastor's heart. His smile would be its kindest, his shake of the hand its heartiest when he entered the ploughman's hut; and there were others;--there was the case of Widow Barnaby whose only son had just returned upon her hands, maimed for life, after starting out into the world a fine, strapping youngster, the best lad in the village, only a year before! No, he had not cla.s.sed the calamity which had befallen pretty little Leonore Boldero as on a plane with these.

But perhaps he was wrong, he was growing hard-hearted? Contact with the very poor, and with material misery, was apt to blunt sympathy with sorrows of another nature. "I daresay you are right, Emily," he said candidly; for once convicted, no one was swifter to acknowledge a fault.

"I had not looked upon it in that light. Yes, it is certainly very sad about Leonore, poor thing."

"People say it is a blessing she does not come back poor and dependent;"

thus encouraged, Emily proceeded with gusto, "for we all know the general."

"Aye, that we do. So Leonore is rich?" and he obviously pondered on the idea.

"My dear brother," Emily laughed, but the laugh was full of affection, "now what is to come first? The Christmas coals, or the Old Folks'

Dinner, or----?"

"Peggy Farmiloe," said he, succinctly. "Her needs at the present time are paramount. The rest can wait."

"So you will call on Leonore?"

"I shall make a point of doing so--presently."

"You will have to get at her when she is alone, you know. It would be no good making it a topic of general conversation."

"I shall be as wise as the serpent, Emily," the good man permitted himself an appreciative sally. "Perhaps I shall not even introduce the subject at all on a first call, eh? It might not be in good taste--not that one should heed that. But if my clumsiness were to prejudice the cause--oh, I must certainly beware of clumsiness. Let me see, to-day is Thursday," and out came the note-book; and after due consideration Monday was fixed upon, whereupon Mr. Custance rose briskly.

"You may depend upon it, I shall go to the Abbey on Monday. And if this poor little widow's heart is in the right place----" a glance shot from his eye.

He foresaw sacks of coal and piles of blankets. He fed and he clothed.

He distributed the older Farmiloe orphans. .h.i.ther and thither, and gathered the little ones together under his wing, which, weak before, would now be strong to shelter and support. The Barnaby lad should have better nursing and an easier couch. There was the old couple at the disused toll-gate too. It was a blissful dream; and it is sad to think--but we will not antic.i.p.ate.

At Claymount Hall, the theme was treated from another point of view.

Here dwelt a very fine old lady with a youthful grandson, of whom it may be briefly said that the neighbourhood thought Valentine Purcell a fool, and that Val himself was very much of its opinion.

"_She's_ clever enough for two though, ain't she?" opined he,--and on this point it was the neighbourhood who endorsed his opinion.

The pair were an unfailing source of interest and amus.e.m.e.nt. Mrs.

Purcell's latest word and Val's latest deed invariably went the round, and to their house as a centre every fresh topic made its way.

It was there, we may observe, that the doctor's wife had met the Boldero girls and heard about Leonore, and it might be added that it was there also the Reverend Eustace Custance gained the like intelligence. Let us hear how it was taken by the Purcells themselves.

Val, as usual, grinned from ear to ear, and had nothing to say--but his grandmother had plenty, and directly her guests had departed she summoned the young man to her side.

"What is this I hear about the Bolderos?"

This was Mrs. Purcell's little way of finding out what others had heard.

It is true that she was slightly deaf as she was partially blind,--but she heard a great deal more and saw a vast deal further than most of her neighbours, and Val was never in the least taken in by a parade of infirmities. On the present occasion he simply waited for the speaker to proceed.

"Did those girls say their sister was coming back to live with them? I thought they did--but you know how badly I hear, especially if there is a hubbub going on. Were they expecting her to-day? And had their father gone to meet her, and was that why they had to hurry off, so as to be back at home before the carriage returned? I thought so, but those girls gabble like ducks. Eh? I was right then? And this is the end of poor little Leonore's great marriage? At twenty-one she is left a widow, with too much money to know what to do with--what? What did you say?"

"Didn't say anything, ma'am."

"But it _is_ so, is it not? I am sure I heard Maud telling you----?" and Mrs. Purcell paused and peered sharply.

"_I_ didn't, then. But I knew you would tell me afterwards if there was anything to tell."

"Humph!" The old lady paused again, and twisted her cap strings. Val was gazing stupidly out of the window, but whatever the expression of his face might be no one could deny that the face itself was worthy of notice. It was an almost perfect outline which was now cut sharp against the light, the unusually bright light of an autumn sun, setting in a cloudless sky.

Val was looking at the sun, and wondering if a slight haze surrounding it portended rain. He was learned in weather lore and most of his life was pa.s.sed out of doors,--so that it was important to him to ascertain if he could, the forecast of each day. It meant whether he might expect a hunting, or a shooting, or a fishing day. This was infinitely more interesting than the conversation, though he was always ready for conversation if nothing better offered.

"Humph!" muttered his grandmother a second time, and stole a glance, a long, furtive, appraising glance--not at the sunset, but at the profile which it threw into such bold relief.

Apparently it satisfied her, for her own features relaxed, and her eyes sought the floor in meditation.

("She might be caught by his looks, why not? The other two are always glad to talk to Val, and Heaven knows it is not for anything he says. He contrives to make them laugh--he has a kind of oddity that goes down--but if he were an ugly fellow they would not trouble their heads about that. Now, if Leonore----she is but a child still, and as she could marry a man called Stubbs to begin with, she can't be particular.

Anyhow it is worth trying for.")

"Val?"--suddenly the peremptory old voice rang out.

Val yawned and turned round.

"I am so sorry for dear little Leonore, I can't get her out of my head."

"Well, I'm sorry too." With an effort Val recalled what he had to be sorry for, but that done, he a.s.sumed a solemn air that did him credit--and indeed we are wrong in using the word "a.s.sumed," since directly he remembered or reflected upon the woes of others, Valentine Purcell's kind heart was touched.

"I'm awfully sorry," he reiterated now, shaking his head.

"It is so sad for her, is it not?"