Phoebe, Junior Part 22

While these reasonings went on in his mind, his heart dropped down again into its right place; his pulse ceased to beat like the pistons of a steam-engine; he came gradually to himself. After all, what was it? Not such a great matter; a loan of something which would neither enrich him who took, nor impoverish him who, without being aware of it, should give--a nothing! Why people should entertain the prejudices they did on the subject, it was difficult to see, though, perhaps, he allowed candidly to himself, it might be dangerous for any ignorant man to follow the same strain of thinking; but in the hands of a man who was not ignorant, who knew, as he himself did, exactly how far to go, and what might be _innocently_ done; _innocently_ done--in his own mind he put a great stress on this--why, what was it? A thing which might be of use in an emergency, and which was absolutely no harm.

Mr. May was late in leaving his room that night. It was understood in the family that he "was writing," and all was kept very quiet in the house; yet not sufficiently quiet, for Janey, when she brought in the coffee, placing it on the table close to the door, was startled by the fierceness of the exclamation with which her father greeted her entrance.

"What do you want prying here?" he said, dropping his hand over the writing.

"Prying himself!" said Janey, furiously, when she was up again in the cheerful light of the drawing-room; "a great deal there is to pry into in that dreadful old study."

"Hush! he never likes to be disturbed in his writing," said Ursula, soothingly.

And he sat at his "writing" to a much later hour than usual, and he stumbled upstairs to his bed-room in the dead of the night, with the same scared pale face which he had seen in the gla.s.s. Such a look as that when it once comes upon a man's face takes a long time to glide away; but his heart beat more tranquilly, and the blood flowed even in his veins. After all, where was the harm?

CHAPTER XXIII.

TIDED OVER.

Next morning, Cotsdean was mournfully turning over his ledger in the High Street, wondering whether he should go back to Mr. May on another forlorn expedition, or whether he should betray his overwhelming anxiety to his wife, who knew nothing about the state of affairs. The shop was what is called a corn-factor's shop, full of sacks of grain, with knots of wheat-ears done up ornamentally in the window, a stock not very valuable, but sufficient, and showing a good, if not a very important, business. A young man behind, attended to what little business was going on; for the master himself was too much pre-occupied to think of bushels of seed. He was as uneasy as Mr. May had been on the previous night, and in some respects even more unhappy; for he had no resource except a sort of dumb faith in his principle, a feeling that he must be able to find out some way of escape--chequered by clouds of despondency, sometimes approaching despair. For Cotsdean, too, felt vaguely that things were approaching a crisis--that a great many resources had been exhausted--that the pitcher which had gone so often to the well must, at last, be broken, and that it was as likely the catastrophe was coming now as at any other time. He said to himself that never in his previous experience had things seemed so blank as at present; never had the moment of fate approached so nearly without any appearance of deliverance. He had not even the round of possibilities before him which were in Mr. May's mind, however hopeless, at this particular moment, he might find them.

Cotsdean, for his part, had nothing to think of but Mr. May. Would he find some way out of it still, he who was always so clever, and must, in his position, have always "good friends?" How the poor man wished that he had never been led into this fatal course--that he had insisted, long ago, on the settlement which must come some time, and which did not get any easier by putting it off; but then, who was he to stand against his clergyman? He did not feel able now to make any stand against him. If he had to be ruined--he must be ruined: what could he do? The man who had brought him to this, held him in such subjection that he could not denounce or accuse him even now. He was so much better, higher, abler, stronger than himself, that Cotsdean's harshest sentiment was a dumb feeling of injury; a feeling much more likely to lead him to miserable tears than to resistance. His clergyman--how was he to stand against his clergyman? This was the burden of his thoughts. And still, perhaps, there might be salvation and safety in the resources, the power, and cleverness, and superior strength of the man for whom, in his humility, he had risked everything. Poor Cotsdean's eyes were red with sleeplessness and thinking, and the constant rubbings he administered with the sleeve of his rough coat. He hung helpless, in suspense, waiting to see what his chief would say to him; if he would send for him--if he would come. And in the intervals of these anxious thoughts, he asked himself should he tell poor Sally--should he prepare her for her fate? She and her children might be turned out of house and home, very probably would be, he said to himself, leaping to the extreme point, as men in his condition are apt to do. They might take everything from him; they might bring all his creditors on him in a heap; they might sell him up; his shop by which he made his daily bread, and everything he had, and turn his children out into the streets. Once more he rubbed his sleeve over his eyes, which were smarting with sleeplessness and easily-coming tears. He turned over the pages of the ledger mechanically. There was no help in it--no large debts owing to him that could be called in; no means of getting any money; and nothing could he do but contemplate the miseries that might be coming, and wait, wait, wondering dully whether Mr. May was doing anything to avert this ruin, and whether, at any moment, he might walk in, bringing safety in the very look of his bold eyes. Cotsdean was not bold; he was small and weakly, and nervous, and trembled at a sharp voice. He was not a man adapted for vigorous struggling with the world. Mr. May could do it, in whose hands was the final issue. He was a man who was afraid of no one; and whose powers n.o.body could deny. Surely now, even at the last moment, he would find help somehow. It seemed profane to entertain a doubt that he would be able to do it even at the very last.

But Cotsdean had a miserable morning; he could do nothing. Minute by minute, hour by hour, he waited to be called to the Parsonage; now and then he went out to the door of his shop and looked out wistfully down the street where it ended in the distance of Grange Lane. Was that the maid from the Parsonage coming up across the road? Were these the young ladies, who, though they knew nothing about the matter at issue, very frequently brought a note, or message, from their father to Cotsdean?

But he was deceived in these guesses as well as in so many others. All the world seemed out of doors that morning, but n.o.body came. The ruddy sunshine shone full down the street, glorifying it with rays of warm gold, and tinting the mists and clouds which lurked in the corners. It had been heavy and overcast in the morning, but at noon the clouds had cleared away, and that big red globe of fire had risen majestically out of the mists, and everybody was out. But no one, except humble people in the ordinary way of business, came to Cotsdean. Bushels of grain for chickens, pennyworths of canary seed--oh! did any one think he could pay a hundred pounds out of these?--a hundred pounds, the spending of which had not been his, poor man; which was indeed spent long ago, and represented luxuries past and over, luxuries which were not Cotsdean's.

Strange that a mere lump of money should live like this, long after it was, to all intents and purposes, dead, and spent and gone!

Then came the hour of dinner, when his Sally called him to the room behind the shop, from which an odour of bacon and fine big beans--beans which were represented in his shop in many a sackful. He went in unwillingly in obedience to her command, but feeling unable to eat, soon left the table, sending the young man to fill his place, with whose appet.i.te no obstacle of care or thought interfered. Poor Cotsdean felt that the smell of the dinner made him sick--though he would have liked to eat had he been able--the smell of the bacon which he loved, and the sight of the small children whom he loved still better, and poor Sally, his wife, still red in the face from dishing it up. Sally was anxious about her husband's want of appet.i.te.

"What ails you, John?" she said, pathetically; "it wasn't as if you were out last night, nor nothing o' that sort. A man as is sober like you don't ought to turn at his dinner."

She was half sorry, and half aggrieved, poor woman, feeling as if some blame of her cookery must be involved.

"It's the bile," said poor Cotsdean, with that simplicity of statement which is common in his cla.s.s. "Don't you take on, Sally, I'll be a deal better by supper-time----or worse," he added to himself. Yes, he would make an effort to eat at supper-time; perhaps it might be the last meal he should eat in his own comfortable home.

He had been out at the shop door, gazing despairingly down the road; he had come in and sold some birdseed, wondering--oh, what good would that penny do him?--he who wanted a hundred pounds? and was standing listening with a sad heart to the sound of the knives and forks and chatter of the children, when suddenly all at once Mr. May walked into the shop, changing dismay into hope. What a thing it was to be a gentleman and a clergyman. Cotsdean could not but think! The very sight of Mr. May inspired him with courage; even though probably he had no money in his pocket, it was a supporting thing only to see him, and hear the sound of his free unrestrained step. He came in with a friendly nod to his humble helper; then he glanced round the shop, to see that no one was present, and then he said, "All right, Cotsdean," in a voice that was as music to the little corn-factor's ears. His heart, which had been beating so low, jumped up in his bosom; his appet.i.te came back with a leap; he asked himself would the bacon be cold? and cried, "G.o.d be praised, sir," in a breath.

Mr. May winced slightly; but why should it be wrong to be grateful to G.o.d in any circ.u.mstances? he asked himself, having become already somewhat composed in his ideas on this particular point.

"Are we quite alone?" he said. "n.o.body within hearing? I have not brought you the money, but a piece of paper that is as good as the money. Take it: you will have no difficulty in discounting this; the man is as well known as the Carlingford Bank, and as safe, though I dare say you will be surprised at the name."

Cotsdean opened out the new bill with trembling hands. "Tozer!" he said faintly, between relief and dismay.

"Yes. You must know that I am taking a pupil--one who belongs to a very rich Dissenting family in London. Tozer knows something about him, from his connection with the body, and through this young man I have got to know something of _him_. He does it upon the admirable security of the fees I am to receive with this youth; so you see, after all, there is no mystery about it. Better not wait for to-morrow, Cotsdean. Go at once, and get it settled. You see," said Mr. May, ingratiatingly, "it is a little larger than the other--one hundred and fifty, indeed--but that does not matter with such an excellent name."

"Tozer!" said Cotsdean, once more bewildered. He handled the piece of paper nervously, and turned it upside down, and round about, with a sense that it might melt in his hold. He did not like the additional fifty added. Why should another fifty be added? but so it was, and there seemed nothing for him but to take the immediate relief and be thankful.

"I'd rather, sir, as Tozer hadn't known nothing about it; and why should he back a bill for me as ain't one of my friends, nor don't know nothing about me? and fifty more added on," said Cotsdean. It was the nearest he had gone to standing up against his clergyman; he did not like it. To be Mr. May's sole stand-by and agent, even at periodical risk of ruin, was possible to him; but a pang of jealousy, alarm, and pain came into his mind when he saw the new name. This even obliterated the immediate sense of relief that was in his mind.

"Come three months it'll have to be paid," said Cotsdean, "and Tozer ain't a man to stand it if he's left to pay; he'd sell us up, Mr. May.

He ain't one of the patient ones, like--some other folks; and there's fifty pounds put on. I don't see my way to it. I'd rather it was just the clear hundred, if it was the same to you."

"It is not the same to me," said Mr. May, calmly. "Come, there is no cause to make any fuss. There it is, and if you don't like to make use of it, you must find some better way. Bring the fifty pounds, less the expenses, to me to-night. It is a good bit of paper, and it delivers us out of a mess which I hope we shall not fall into again."

"So you said before, sir," said the corn-factor sullenly.

"Cotsdean, you forget yourself; but I can make allowance for your anxiety. Take it, and get it settled before the bank closes; pay in the money to meet the other bill, and bring me the balance. You will find no difficulty with Tozer's name; and what so likely as that one respectable tradesman should help another? By the way, the affair is a private one between us, and it is unnecessary to say anything to him about it; the arrangement, you understand, is between him and me."

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Cotsdean, with a deprecatory movement of his hand to his forehead; "but it is me as will be come upon first if anything happens, and that fifty pounds--"

"Have you ever found me to fail you, Cotsdean? If you knew the anxiety I have gone through, that you might be kept from harm, the sleepless nights, the schemes, the exertions! You may suppose it was no ordinary effort to ask a man like Tozer."

Cotsdean was moved by the touching tone in which his partner in trouble spoke; but terror gave him a certain power. He grumbled still, not altogether vanquished.

"I don't say nothing against that, sir," he said, not meeting Mr. May's eye; "but when it comes to be paid, sir, I'm the first in it, and where is that other fifty to come from? That's what I'm a thinking for--for I'm the first as they'd haul up after all."

"You!" said Mr. May, "what could they get from you? You are not worth powder and shot. Don't be ridiculous, my good fellow. I never avoid my responsibilities, as you know. I am as good, I hope, for that fifty as for all that went before. Have you ever known me leave you or any one in the lurch?"

"No, sir, I can't say as--I don't suppose I have. I've always put my trust in you like in Providence itself," he cried, hastily, holding his breath.

"Then do as I tell you," said Mr. May, waving his hand with careless superiority; and though his heart was aching with a hundred anxious fears, he left the shop with just that mixture of partial offence and indifference which overawed completely his humble retainer. Cotsdean trembled at his own guilty folly and temerity. He did not dare to call his patron back again, to ask his pardon. He did not venture to go back to the table and s.n.a.t.c.h a bit of cold bacon. He was afraid he had offended his clergyman, what matter that he was hungry for his dinner?

He called the young man from the bacon, which was now cold and all but eaten up, and s.n.a.t.c.hed at his hat and went out to the bank. It was all he could do.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A VISIT.

"DEAR MAY,

"Young Copperhead, the young fellow whom you have undertaken to coach, is coming to the Hall for a few days before he enters upon his studies, and Anne wishes me to ask you to come over on Tuesday to dine and sleep, and to make acquaintance with him. You can carry him back with you if it suits you. In my private opinion, he is a cub of the most disagreeable kind; but the girls like his mother, who is a kind of cousin, as you know. It is not only because he has failed to take his degree (you know how I hate the hideous slang in which this fact is generally stated), but that his father, who is one of the rich persons who abound in the lower circles of society, is ambitious, and would like to see him in Parliament, and that sort of thing--a position which cannot be held creditably without some sort of education: at least, so I am myself disposed to think.

Therefore, your pleasing duty will be to get him up in a little history and geography, so that he may not get quite hopelessly wrong in any of the modern modifications of territory, for instance; and in so much Horace as may furnish him with a few stock quotations, in case he should be called upon, in the absence of any more hopeful neophyte, to move the Address. He is a great hulking fellow, not very brilliant, you may suppose, but not so badly mannered as he might be, considering his parentage. I don't think he'll give you much trouble in the house; but he will most probably bore you to death, and in that case your family ought to have a claim, I should think, for compensation. Anyhow, come and see him, and us, before you begin your hard task.

"Very truly yours, "R. DORSET."

"Anne makes me open my letter to say that Ursula must come too. We will send a carriage to meet you at the station."

This letter caused considerable excitement in the Parsonage. It was the first invitation to dinner which Ursula had ever received. The dinner-parties in Carlingford were little frequented by young ladies.

The male population was not large enough to afford a balance for the young women of the place, who came together in the evening, and took all the trouble of putting on their pretty white frocks, only to sit in rows in the drawing-room, waiting till the old gentlemen came in from the dining-room, after which everybody went away. There were no young gentlemen to speak of in Carlingford, so that when any one was bold enough to attempt a dancing-party, or anything of an equally amusing description, friends were sent out in all directions, as the beaters are sent into the woods to bring together the unfortunate birds for a _battue_, to find men. These circ.u.mstances will explain the flutter in Ursula's innocent bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr.

May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened at periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially "cross." On this occasion there was no black mark against him in the family reckoning, and yet he was more kind than any one had ever known him.

Instead of making any objections, he decided at once that Ursula must go, and told her to put on her prettiest frock, and make herself look very nice.

"You must let Anne Dorset see that you care to please her," he said.

"Anne is a very good woman, and her approval is worth having."