Phoebe, Junior Part 43

"Bill? if it's only a bill what are you so put out about!" cried Mrs.

Tozer. "You'll have dozens again at Christmas, if that is all you want."

But the laugh was unsuccessful, and the old man went back to his room to nurse his wrath and to wonder what had come to him. Why had his granddaughter interfered in his business, and what had he to do with Mr.

May?

Phoebe got up refreshed and comfortable when it was time for the family tea, and came down to her lover, who had come back, and was sitting very dejected by old Mrs. Tozer's side. She was fresh and fair, and in one of her prettiest dresses, having taken pains for him; and notwithstanding Tozer's lowering aspect, and his refusal to speak to her, the meal pa.s.sed over very cheerfully for the rest of the party, and the two young people once more withdrew to the garden when it was over. The presence of Clarence Copperhead protected Phoebe from all attack. Her grandfather dared not fly out upon her as before, or summon her to give up what she had taken from him. Whatever happened, this wonderful rise in life, this grand match could not be interfered with. He withdrew bitter and exasperated to his own den, leaving his poor wife crying and wretched in the family sitting-room. Mrs. Tozer knew that her husband was not to be trifled with, and that, though the circ.u.mstances of Phoebe's betrothal subdued him for the moment, this effect in all probability would not last; and she sat in terror, watching the moments as they pa.s.sed, and trembling to think what might happen when the young pair came in again, or when Clarence at last went away, leaving Phoebe with no protection but herself. Phoebe, too, while she kept her dull companion happy, kept thinking all the while of the same thing with a great tremor of suppressed agitation in her mind; and she did not know what was the next step to take--a reflection which took away her strength. She had taken the bill from her trunk again and replaced it in her pocket. It was safest carried on her person, she felt; but what she was to do next, even Phoebe, so fruitful in resources, could not say. When Northcote came back in the evening she felt that her game was becoming more and more difficult to play. After a brief consultation with herself, she decided that it was most expedient to go in with him, taking her big body-guard along with her, and confiding in his stupidity not to find out more than was indispensable. She took Northcote to her grandfather's room, whispering to him on the way to make himself the representative of Cotsdean only, and to say nothing of Mr. May.

"Then you know about it?" said Northcote amazed.

"Oh, hush, hush!" cried Phoebe; "offer to pay it on Cotsdean's part, and say nothing about Mr. May."

The young man looked at her bewildered; but nodded his head in a.s.sent, and then her own young man pulled her back almost roughly, and demanded to know what she meant by talking to that fellow so. Thus poor Phoebe was between two fires. She went in with a fainting yet courageous heart.

"Pay the money!" said Tozer, who by dint of brooding over it all the day had come to a white heat, and was no longer to be controlled. "Mr.

Northcote, sir, you're a minister, and you don't understand business no more nor women do. Money's money--but there's more than money here.

There's my name, sir, as has been made use of in a way!--me go signing of accommodation bills! I'd have cut off my hand sooner. There's that girl there, she's got it. She's been and stolen it from me, Mr.

Northcote. Tell her to give it up. You may have some influence, you as is a minister. Tell her to give it up, or, by George, she shall never have a penny from me! I'll cut her off without even a shilling. I'll put her out o' my will--out o' my house."

"I say, Phoebe," said Clarence, "look here, that's serious, that is; not that I mind a little pot of money like what the poor old fellow's got; but what's the good of throwing anything away?"

"Make her give it up," cried Tozer hoa.r.s.ely, "or out of this house she goes this very night. I ain't the sort of man to be made a fool of. I ain't the sort of man--Who's this a-coming? some more of your d--d intercessors to spoil justice," cried the old man, "but I won't have 'em. I'll have nothing to say to them. What, who? Mr. Copperhead's father? I ain't ashamed to meet Mr. Copperhead's father; but one thing at a time. Them as comes into my house must wait my time," cried the b.u.t.terman, seeing vaguely the group come in, whom we left at his doors.

"I'm master here. Give up that bill, you brazen young hussy, and go out of my sight. How dare you set up your face among so many men? Give it up!" he cried, seizing her by the elbow in renewed fury. The strangers, though he saw them enter, received no salutation from him. There was one small lamp on the table, dimly lighted, which threw a faint glow upon the circle of countenances round, into which came wondering the burly big Copperhead, holding fast by the shoulder of Mr. May, whose ghastly face, contorted with wild anxiety, glanced at Tozer over the lamp. But the old man was so much absorbed at first that he scarcely saw who the new-comers were.

"What's all this about?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Seems we've come into the midst of another commotion. So you're here, Clar! it is you I want, my boy. Look here, Northcote, take hold, will you? there's a screw loose, and we've got to get him home. Take hold, till I have had a word with Clarence. That's a thing that won't take long."

Clarence cast a glance at Phoebe, who even in her own agitation turned and gave him a tremulous smile of encouragement. The crisis was so great on all sides of her that Phoebe became heroic.

"I am here," she said, with all the steadiness of strong emotion, and when he had received this a.s.surance of support, he feared his father no more.

"All right, sir," he said almost with alacrity. He was afraid of nothing with Phoebe standing by.

"Make her give me up my bill," said Tozer; "I'll hear nothing else till this is settled. My bill! It's forgery; that's what it is. Don't speak to me about money! I'll have him punished. I'll have him rot in prison for it. I'll not cheat the law--You people as has influence with that girl, make her give it me. I can't touch him without the bill."

Mr. May had been placed in a chair by the two young men who watched over him; but as Tozer spoke he got up, struggling wildly, almost tearing himself out of the coat by which they held him. "Let me go!" he said.

"Do you hear him? Rot in prison! with hard labour; it would kill me! And it used to be hanging! My G.o.d--my G.o.d! Won't you let me go?"

Tozer stopped short, stopped by this pa.s.sion which was greater than his own. He looked wonderingly at the livid face, the struggling figure, impressed in spite of himself. "He's gone mad," he said. "Good Lord! But he's got nothing to do with it. Can't you take him away?"

"Grandpapa," said Phoebe in his ear, "here it is, your bill; it was _he_ who did it--and it has driven him mad. Look! I give it up to you; and there he is--that is your work. Now do what you please--"

Trembling, the old man took the paper out of her hand. He gazed wondering at the other, who somehow moved in his excitement by a sense that the decisive moment had come, stood still too, his arm half-pulled out of his coat, his face wild with dread and horror. For a moment they looked at each other in a common agony, neither the one nor the other clear enough to understand, but both feeling that some tremendous crisis had come upon them. "He--done it!" said Tozer appalled and almost speechless. "_He_ done it!" They all crowded round, a circle of scared faces. Phoebe alone stood calm. She was the only one who knew the whole, except the culprit, who understood nothing with that mad confusion in his eyes. But he was overawed too, and in his very madness recognized the crisis. He stood still, struggling no longer, with his eyes fixed upon the homely figure of the old b.u.t.terman, who stood trembling, thunderstruck, with that fatal piece of paper in his hand.

Tozer had been mad for revenge two moments before--almost as wild as the guilty man before him--with a fierce desire to punish and make an example of the man who had wronged him. But this semi-madness was arrested by the sight of the other madman before him, and by the extraordinary shock of this revelation. It took all the strength out of him. He had not looked up to the clergyman as Cotsdean did, but he had looked up to the gentleman, his customer, as being upon an elevation very different from his own, altogether above and beyond him; and the sight of this superior being, thus humbled, maddened, gazing at him with wild terror and agony, more eloquent than any supplication, struck poor old Tozer to the very soul. "G.o.d help us all!" he cried out with a broken, sobbing voice. He was but a vulgar old fellow, mean, it might be, worldly in his way; but the terrible mystery of human wickedness and guilt prostrated his common soul with as sharp an anguish of pity and shame as could have befallen the most heroic. It seized upon him so that he could say or do nothing more, forcing hot and salt tears up into his old eyes, and shaking him all over with a tremor as of palsy. The scared faces appeared to come closer to Phoebe, to whom these moments seemed like years. Had her trust been vain? Softly, but with an excitement beyond control, she touched him on the arm.

"That's true," said Tozer, half-crying. "Something's got to be done. We can't all stand here for ever, Phoebe; it's him as has to be thought of.

Show it to him, poor gentleman, if he ain't past knowing; and burn it, and let us hear of it no more."

Solemnly, in the midst of them all, Phoebe held up the paper before the eyes of the guilty man. If he understood it or not, no one could tell.

He did not move, but stared blankly at her and it. Then she held it over the lamp and let it blaze and drop into harmless ashes in the midst of them all. Tozer dropped down into his elbow-chair sniffing and sobbing.

Mr. May stood quite still, with a look of utter dulness and stupidity coming over the face in which so much terror had been. If he understood what had pa.s.sed, it was only in feeling, not in intelligence. He grew still and dull in the midst of that strange madness which all the time was only half-madness, a mixture of conscious excitement and anxiety with that which pa.s.ses the boundaries of consciousness. For the moment he was stilled into stupid idiotcy, and looked at them with vacant eyes. As for the others, Northcote was the only one who divined at all what this scene meant. To Reginald it was like a scene in a pantomime--bewildering dumb show, with no sense or meaning in it. It was he who spoke first, with a certain impatience of the occurrence which he did not understand.

"Will you come home, sir, now?" he said. "Come home, for Heaven's sake!

Northcote will give you an arm. He's very ill," Reginald added, looking round him pitifully in his ignorance; "what you are thinking of I can't tell--but he's ill and--delirious. It was Mr. Copperhead who brought him here against my will. Excuse me, Miss Beecham--now I must take him home."

"Yes," said Phoebe. The tears came into her eyes as she looked at him; he was not thinking of her at the moment, but she knew he had thought of her, much and tenderly, and she felt that she might never see him again.

Phoebe would have liked him to know what she had done, and to know that what she had done was for him chiefly--in order to recompense him a little, poor fellow, for the heart he had given her, which she could not accept, yet could not be ungrateful for. And yet she was glad, though there was a pang in it, that he should never know, and remain unaware of her effort, for his own sake; but the tears came into her eyes as she looked at him, and he caught the gleam of the moisture which made his heart beat. Something moved her beyond what he knew of; and his heart thrilled with tenderness and wonder; but how should he know what it was?

"Give my love to Ursula," she said. "I shall not come to-night as she has a nurse, and I think he will be better. Make her rest, Mr. May--and if I don't see her, say good-bye to her for me----"

"Good-bye?"

"Yes, good-bye--things have happened--Tell her I hope she will not forget me," said Phoebe, the tears dropping down her cheeks. "But oh, please never mind me, look at him, he is quite quiet, he is worn out.

Take him home."

"There is nothing else to be done," said poor Reginald, whose heart began to ache with a sense of the unknown which surrounded him on every side. He took his father by the arm, who had been standing quite silent, motionless, and apathetic. He had no need for any help, for Mr. May went with him at a touch, as docile as a child. Northcote followed with grave looks and very sad. Tozer had been seated in his favourite chair, much subdued, and giving vent now and then to something like a sob. His nerves had been terribly shaken. But as he saw the three gentlemen going away, nature awoke in the old b.u.t.terman. He put out his hand and plucked Northcote by the sleeve. "I'll not say no to that money, not now, Mr.

Northcote, sir," he said.

CHAPTER XLIV.

PHBE'S LAST TRIAL.

"Now if you please," said Mr. Copperhead. "I think it's my turn. I wanted May to hear what I had got to say, but as he's ill or mad, or something, it is not much good. I can't imagine what all these incantations meant, and all your play, Miss Phoebe, eyes and all. That sort of thing don't suit us plain folks. If you don't mind following your friends, I want to speak to old Tozer here by himself. I don't like to have women meddling in my affairs."

"Grandpapa is very tired, and he is upset," said Phoebe. "I don't think he can have any more said to him to-night."

"By George, but he shall though, and you too. Look here," said Mr.

Copperhead, "you've taken in my boy Clarence here. He's been a fool, and he always was a fool; but you're not a fool, Miss Phoebe. You know precious well what you're about. And just you listen to me; he shan't marry you, not if he breaks his heart over it. I ain't a man that thinks much of breaking hearts. You and he may talk what nonsense you like, but you shan't marry my boy; no, not if there wasn't another woman in the world."

"He has asked me," said Phoebe; "but I certainly did not ask him. You must give your orders to your son, Mr. Copperhead. You have no right to dictate to me. Grandpapa, I think you and I have had enough for to-night."

With this Phoebe began to close the shutters, which had been left open, and to put away books and things which were lying about. Tozer made a feeble attempt to stop her energetic proceedings.

"Talk to the gentleman, Phoebe, if Mr. Copperhead 'as anything to say to you--don't, don't you go and offend him, my dear!" the old man cried in an anxious whisper; and then he raised himself from the chair, in which he had sunk exhausted by the unusual commotions to which he had been subjected. "I am sure, sir," Tozer began, "it ain't my wish, nor the wish o' my family, to do anything as is against your wishes--"

"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, interrupting him ruthlessly, "Mr. Copperhead's wishes may be a rule to his own family, but they are not to be a rule to yours. For my part I won't submit to it. Let him take his son away if he pleases--or if he can," she added, turning round upon Clarence with a smile. "Mr. Clarence Copperhead is as free as I am to go or to stay."

"By Jove!" cried that young man, who had been hanging in the background, dark and miserable. He came close up to her, and caught first her sleeve and then her elbow; the contact seemed to give him strength. "Look here, sir," he said, ingratiatingly, "we don't want to offend you--_I_ don't want to fly in your face; but I can't go on having coaches for ever, and here's the only one in the world that can do the business instead of coaches. Phoebe knows I'm fond of her, but that's neither here nor there.

Here is the one that can make something of me. I ain't clever, you know it as well as I do--but she is. I don't mind going into parliament, making speeches and that sort of thing, if I've got her to back me up.

But without her I'll never do anything, without her you may put me in a cupboard, as you've often said. Let me have her, and I'll make a figure, and do you credit. I can't say any fairer," said Clarence, taking the rest of her arm into his grasp, and holding her hand. He was stupid--but he was a man, and Phoebe felt proud of him, for the moment at least.

"You idiot!" cried his father, "and I was an idiot too to put any faith in you; come away from that artful girl. Can't you see that it's all a made-up plan from beginning to end? What was she sent down here for but to catch you, you oaf, you fool, you! Drop her, or you drop me. That's all I've got to say."

"Yes, drop me, Clarence," said Phoebe, with a smile; "for in the mean time you hurt me. See, you have bruised my arm. While you settle this question with your father, I will go to grandmamma. Pardon me, I take more interest in her than in this discussion between him and you."