Phoebe, Junior Part 37

"How that? If you think I am one to go lending my pictures about, or leaving them to the nation when I'm done for, that's not my sort. No, I keep them to myself. If I consent to have all that money useless, it is for myself, you may depend, and not for other people. And I'll leave it to my boy Clarence, if he behaves himself. He's a curiosity, too, and has a deal of money laid out on him that brings no interest, him and his mother. I'll leave it to Clar, if he doesn't make a low marriage, or any folly of that kind."

"You should make it an heir-loom," said Sir Robert, with sarcasm too fine for his antagonist; "leave it from father to son of your descendants, like our family diamonds and plate."

Anne and Sophy looked at each other and smiled, the one sadly, the other satirically. The Dorset family jewels were rose-diamonds of small value, and the plate was but moderate in quant.i.ty, and not very great in quality. Poor Sir Robert liked to blow his little trumpet too, but it was not so blatant as that of his visitor, whose rude senses did not even see the intended malice.

"By George! I think I will," he said. "I'm told it's as safe as the bank, and worth more and more every year, and if it don't bring in anything, it don't eat anything; eh, May? Look here; perhaps I was hasty the other day," he said, pushing the clergyman a little apart from the group with a large hand on his shoulder. "Clarence tells me you're the best coach he ever saw, and that he's getting on like a house on fire."

"He does make progress, I think," answered the tutor, thus gracefully complimented.

"But all the same, you know, I had a right to be annoyed. Now a man of your sense--for you seem a man of sense, though you're a parson, and know what side your bread's b.u.t.tered on--ought to see that it's an aggravating thing when a young fellow has been sent to a coach for his instruction, and to keep him out of harm's way, to find him cheek by jowl with a nice-looking young woman. That's not what a father has a right to expect."

"You couldn't expect me to do away with my daughter because I happened to take a pupil?" said Mr. May, half-amused; "but I can a.s.sure you that she has no designs upon your son."

"So I hear, so I hear," said the other, with a mixture of pique and satisfaction. "Won't look at him, Clar tells me; got her eye on some one else, little fool! She'll never have such a chance again. As for having no designs, that's bosh, you know; all women have designs. I'm a deal easier in my mind when I'm told she's got other fish to fry."

"Other fish to fry?" said Mr. May; this time he was wholly amused, and laughed. "This is news to me. However, we don't want to discuss my little Ursula; about your son it will be well that I should know, for I might be forming other engagements. This moment is a time of pecuniary pressure with me," he added, with the ingratiating smile and half-pathetic frankness of the would-be borrower. "I have not taken pupils before, but I want money for the time. My son's settlement in life, you see, and--but the father of a large family can always find good reasons for wanting money."

"That's it," said Mr. Copperhead, seriously. "Why are you the father of a large family? That's what I ask our ministers. It's against all political economy, that is. According as you've no money to give 'em, you go and have children--when it should be just the other way."

"That may be very true; but there they are, and can't be done away with; and I do want money, as it happens, more now than I shall want it a year hence, or, perhaps, even six months hence."

"Most people do," said Mr. Copperhead, withdrawing his hand from his pocket, and placing his elbow tightly against the orifice of that very important part of him. "It's the commonest thing in the world. I want money myself, for that matter. I've always got a large amount to make up by a certain date, and a bill to pay. But about Clar, that's the important matter. As he seems to have set his mind on it, and as you a.s.sure me there's no danger--man-traps, or that sort of thing, eh?"

The colour came to Mr. May's cheek; but it was only for a moment. To have his own daughter spoken of as a man-trap gave him a momentary thrill of anger; but, as he would have applied the word quite composedly to any other man's daughter, the resentment was evanescent. He did not trust himself to answer, however, but nodded somewhat impatiently, which made the millionnaire laugh the more.

"Don't like the man-trap?" he said. "Bless you, they're all alike, not yours more than the rest. But as I was saying, if it's warranted safe I suppose he'll have to stay. But I don't stand any nonsense, May; and look here, your music and all that ain't in the agreement. He can have a master for his music, he's well enough able to pay for it; but I won't have a mistress, by George, to put folly into his head."

"I am to forbid him the drawing-room, I suppose, and take his fiddle from him! I have no objections. Between ourselves, as I am not musical, it would be very agreeable to me; but perhaps he is rather over the age, don't you think, for treatment of that kind?"

Clarence had come in, and stood watching the conversation, with a look Mr. Copperhead was not prepared for. Those mild brown eyes, which were his mother's share in him, were full a-stare with sullen resolution, and his heavy mouth shut like that of a bull-dog. He lingered at the door, looking at the conversation which was going on between his father and his tutor, and they both noticed him at the same moment, and drew the same conclusion. Mr. May was in possession of the _parole_, as the French say, and he added instinctively in an undertone,

"Take care; if I were you I would not try him too far."

Mr. Copperhead said nothing; but he stared too, rather aghast at this new revelation. What! his porcelain, his Dresden figure of a son, his crowning curiosity, was _he_ going to show a will of his own? The despot felt a thrill go over him. What kind of a sentiment love was in his mind it would be hard to tell; but his pride was all set on this heavy boy.

To see him a man of note, in Parliament, his name in the papers, his speeches printed in the "Times," was the very heaven of his expectations. "Son of the famous Copperhead, the great contractor." He did not care about such distinction in his own person; but this had been his dream ever since Clarence came into being. And now there he stood gloomy, obdurate. If he had made up his mind to make a low marriage, could his father hinder him--could anything hinder him? Mr.

Copperhead looked at his son and quailed for the first time in his life.

"May," he said, hurriedly, "do the best you can; he's got all his mother's d----d obstinacy, you can see, can't you? but I've set my heart on making a man of him--do the best you can."

Mr. May thought to himself afterwards if he had only had the vigour to say, "Pay me six months in advance," the thing would have been done. But the lingering prejudices of breeding clung about him, and he could not do it. Mr. Copperhead, however, was very friendly all the rest of the day, and gave him private looks and words aside, to the great admiration of the Dorsets, to whom the alliance between them appeared remarkable enough.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

A CATASTROPHE.

Mr. May left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the warm invitation which was given to him to stay. He was rather restless, and though it was hard to go out into the dark just as grateful odours began to steal through the house, it suited him better to do so than to spend the night away from home. Besides, he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook was not first-rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation. It was a long walk to the station, for they had no horses at liberty to drive him, a fact at which he was slightly offended, though he was aware that Sir Robert's stable was but a poor one. He set out just as the dressing-bell began to ring, fortified with a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he went on; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was all quite plain before him what to do,--to go to the Bank, to tell them what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible.

The consciousness of having this to do acted upon him like a gentle opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware now far he was going, or where he was going, across the country; and even when he arrived at Carlingford he roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he had to get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and half-asleep. "If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have blamed that," he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy, amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he scarcely could tell how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and looked up at the lights in the windows. There was music going on; Phoebe, no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness stealing over him for Clarence too.

Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phoebe "had not intended to come," but was there notwithstanding, persuaded by Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote had "not intended to come." Indeed, he had gone further than this, he had intended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner, he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up and down in forlorn contemplation of the lighted windows, had been spied by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation.

Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was occupying, but she was keenly interested in all that was going on, very eager to understand the relationships in which the others stood, and to see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the features, expressed a totally different phase of existence from that which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears, and watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a soft response fluttering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was not destined to be spoken to-night; and it was she who made Phoebe's music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no danger. Phoebe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even Phoebe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and incipient; they could not come to anything; there were no hairbreadth escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything, neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the condition of Ursula and Phoebe to one of absolute safety. They were all kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement and mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness for Janey's bed-time.

"Do you let her sit up till midnight every night?" said Reginald, with indignation.

"Let me sit up!" cried Janey, "as if I was obliged to do what she tells me!"

Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked at the clock.

"It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock," she said, with a sigh.

"I should have thought papa would have come home before now. Can he be staying at the Hall all night?"

Just then, however, there was the well-known ring at the bell, and Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper. Why couldn't Janey make herself useful and do that, the little company thought indignantly and with one accord, instead of staying here with her sharp eyes, putting everybody out? Mr. May's little dinner, or supper, served on a tray, was very comfortable, and he ate it with great satisfaction, telling Ursula that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.

"The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead was a little less disagreeable than he always is; and you may look for Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not going to leave us. You must take care that he does not fall in love with you, Ursula. That is the chief thing they seem to be afraid of."

"Fall in love with _me_!" cried Ursula. "Oh, papa, where are your eyes?

He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't you see it? It is Phoebe he cares for."

Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious smile in his eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully whether her father had taken much wine at the Hall.

"Ah, ha! is that what they are frightened for?" he said, and then he shrugged his shoulders. "She will show bad taste, Ursula; she might do better; but I suppose a girl of her cla.s.s has not the delicacy--So that is what they are frightened for! And what are the other fish _you_ have to fry?"

"Papa!"

"Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you; that you had other fish to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that?

Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door--just a whiff of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go into the study and get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed."

"Won't you come upstairs to the drawing-room?" said Ursula, faltering, for she was appalled by the idea of explanations. What had she to explain, as yet? Mr. May shook his head, with that smile still upon his face.

"No, you'll get on excellently well without me. I've had a long walk, and I think I'll go to bed."

"You don't look very well, papa."

"Oh, yes, I'm well enough; only confused in the head a little with fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good-night. Don't keep those young fellows late, though one of them is your brother. You can say I'm tired. Good-night, my dear."

It was very seldom that he called her "my dear," or, indeed, said anything affectionate to his grown-up children. If Ursula had not been so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so sure that "they" would miss her, she would have been anxious about her father; but as it was, she ran upstairs lightly when he stopped speaking, and left him going into the study, where already his lamp was burning. Betsy pa.s.sed her as she ran up the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held between two folds of her ap.r.o.n. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome parish business to bother him, when he was tired already. But Ursula did not stop for that. How she wanted to be there again, among "them all,"

even though Janey still made one! She went in breathless, and gave her father's message only half-articulately. He was tired. "We are never to mind; he says so." They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May being tired, what did that matter? He would, no doubt, be better to-morrow; and in the mean time those sweet hours, though so hampered by Janey, were very sweet.

Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on his table. He was just taking out his medicine from the drawer, and he made a wry face at the note and at the pills together.

"Parish?" he said, curtly.

"No, sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He came this morning, after you'd gone, and he sent over little Bobby."

"That will do."