The Three Clerks Part 24

'I dare say not,' said the captain; 'but take my word, she'll never have him--Lord bless you, Norman knows that as well as I do.'

Alaric knew it very well himself also; but he did not say so.

'Now, the long and the short of it is this--why don't you make up to her? If you'll make up to her and carry the day, all I can say is, I will do all I can to keep the pot a-boiling; and if you think it will help you, you may tell Gertrude that I say so.'

This was certainly an important communication, and one to which Alaric found it very difficult to give any immediate answer. He said a great deal about his affection for Mrs. Woodward, of his admiration for Miss Woodward, of his strong sense of Captain Cutt.w.a.ter's kindness, and of his own unworthiness; but he left the captain with an impression that he was not prepared at the present moment to put himself forward as a candidate for Gertrude's hand.

'I don't know what the deuce he would have,' said the captain to himself. 'She's as fine a girl as he's likely to find; and two or three thousand pounds isn't so easily got every day by a fellow that hasn't a shilling of his own.'

When Alaric took his departure the next morning, he thought he perceived, from Mrs. Woodward's manner, that there was less than her usual cordiality in the tone in which she said that of course he would return at the end of the week.

'I will if possible,' he said, 'and I need not say that I hope to do so; but I fear I may be kept in town--at any rate I'll write.'

When the end of the week came he wrote to say that unfortunately he was kept in town. He thoroughly understood that people are most valued when they make themselves scarce. He got in reply a note from Gertrude, saying that her mother begged that on the following Sat.u.r.day he would come and bring Charley with him.

On his return to town, Alaric, by appointment, called on Sir Gregory. He had not seen his patron yet since his great report on Wheal Mary Jane had been sent in. That report had been written exclusively by himself, and poor Neverbend had been obliged to content himself with putting all his voluminous notes into Tudor's hands. He afterwards obediently signed the report, and received his reward for doing so. Alaric never divulged to official ears how Neverbend had halted in the course of his descent to the infernal G.o.ds.

'I thoroughly congratulate you,' said Sir Gregory. 'You have justified my choice, and done your duty with credit to yourself and benefit to the public. I hope you may go on and prosper. As long as you remember that your own interests should always be kept in subservience to those of the public service, you will not fail to receive the praise which such conduct deserves.'

Alaric thanked Sir Gregory for his good opinion, and as he did so, he thought of his new banker's account, and of the 300 which was lying there. After all, which of them was right, Sir Gregory Hardlines or Undy Scott? Or was it that Sir Gregory's opinions were such as should control the outward conduct, and Undy's those which should rule the inner man?

CHAPTER XIV

VERY SAD

Norman prolonged his visit to his father considerably beyond the month. At first he applied for and received permission to stay away another fortnight, and at the end of that fortnight he sent up a medical certificate in which the doctor alleged that he would be unable to attend to business for some considerable additional period. It was not till after Christmas Day that he reappeared at the Weights and Measures.

Alaric kept his appointment at Hampton, and took Charley with him. And on the two following Sat.u.r.days he also went there, and on both occasions Charley accompanied him. During these visits, he devoted himself, as closely as he could, to Mrs. Woodward. He talked to her of Norman, and of Norman's prospects in the office; he told her how he had intended to abstain from offering himself as a compet.i.tor, till he had, as it were, been forced by Norman to do so; he declared over and over again that Norman would have been victorious had he stood his ground to the end, and a.s.sured her that such was the general opinion through the whole establishment. And this he did without talking much about himself, or praising himself in any way when he did so. His speech was wholly of his friend, and of the sorrow that he felt that his friend should have been disappointed in his hopes.

All this had its effects. Of Norman's rejected love they neither of them spoke. Each knew that the other must be aware of it, but the subject was far too tender to be touched, at any rate as yet.

And so matters went on, and Alaric regained the footing of favour which he had for a while lost with the mistress of the house.

But there was one inmate of Surbiton Cottage who saw that though Alaric spent so much of his tune with Mrs. Woodward, he found opportunity also for other private conversation; and this was Linda. Why was it that in the moments before they dressed for dinner Alaric was whispering with Gertrude, and not with her? Why was it that Alaric had felt it necessary to stay from church that Sunday evening when Gertrude also had been prevented from going by a headache? He had remained, he said, in order that Captain Cutt.w.a.ter might have company; but Linda was not slow to learn that Uncle Bat had been left to doze away the time by himself.

Why, on the following Monday, had Gertrude been down so early, and why had Alaric been over from the inn full half an hour before his usual time? Linda saw and knew all this, and was disgusted. But even then she did not, could not think that Alaric could be untrue to her; that her own sister would rob her of her lover. It could not be that there should be such baseness in human nature!

Poor Linda!

And yet, though she did not believe that such falseness could exist in this world of hers at Surbiton Cottage, she could not restrain herself from complaining rather petulantly to her sister, as they were going to bed on that Sunday evening.

'I hope your headache is better,' she said, in a tone of voice as near to irony as her soft nature could produce.

'Yes, it is quite well now,' said Gertrude, disdaining to notice the irony.

'I dare say Alaric had a headache too. I suppose one was about as bad as the other.'

'Linda,' said Gertrude, answering rather with dignity than with anger, 'you ought to know by this time that it is not likely that I should plead false excuses. Alaric never said he had a headache.'

'He said he stayed from church to be with Uncle Bat; but when we came back we found him with you.'

'Uncle Bat went to sleep, and then he came into the drawing-room.'

The two girls said nothing more about it. Linda should have remembered that she had never breathed a word to her sister of Alaric's pa.s.sion for herself. Gertrude's solemn propriety had deterred her, just as she was about to do so. How very little of that pa.s.sion had Alaric breathed himself! and yet, alas! enough to fill the fond girl's heart with dreams of love, which occupied all her waking, all her sleeping thoughts. Oh! ye ruthless swains, from whose unhallowed lips fall words full of poisoned honey, do ye never think of the bitter agony of many months, of the dull misery of many years, of the cold monotony of an uncheered life, which follow so often as the consequence of your short hour of pastime?

On the Monday morning, as soon as Alaric and Charley had started for town--it was the morning on which Linda had been provoked to find that both Gertrude and Alaric had been up half an hour before they should have been--Gertrude followed her mother to her dressing-room, and with palpitating heart closed the door behind her.

Linda remained downstairs, putting away her tea and sugar, not in the best of humours; but Katie, according to her wont, ran up after her mother.

'Katie,' said Gertrude, as Katie bounced into the room, 'dearest Katie, I want to speak a word to mamma--alone. Will you mind going down just for a few minutes?' and she put her arm round her sister, and kissed her with almost unwonted tenderness.

'Go, Katie, dear,' said Mrs. Woodward; and Katie, speechless, retired.

'Gertrude has got something particular to tell mamma; something that I may not hear. I wonder what it is about,' said Katie to her second sister.

Linda's heart sank within her. 'Could it be? No, it could not, could not be, that the sweet voice which had whispered in her ears those well-remembered words, could have again whispered the same into other ears--that the very Gertrude who had warned her not to listen to such words from such lips, should have listened to them herself, and have adopted them and made them her own! It could not, could not be!' and yet Linda's heart sank low within her.

'If you really love him,' said the mother, again caressing her eldest daughter as she acknowledged her love, but hardly with such tenderness as when that daughter had repudiated that other love--'if you really love him, dearest, of course I do not, of course I cannot, object.'

'I do, mamma; I do.'

'Well, then, Gertrude, so be it. I have not a word to say against your choice. Had I not believed him to be an excellent young man, I should not have allowed him to be here with you so much as he has been. We cannot all see with the same eyes, dearest, can we?'

'No, mamma; but pray don't think I dislike poor Harry; and, oh!

mamma, pray don't set him against Alaric because of this----'

'Set him against Alaric! No, Gertrude. I certainly shall not do that. But whether I can reconcile Harry to it, that is another thing.'

'At any rate he has no right to be angry at it,' said Gertrude, a.s.suming her air of dignity.

'Certainly not with you, Gertrude.'

'No, nor with Alaric,' said she, almost with indignation.

'That depends on what has pa.s.sed between them. It is very hard to say how men so situated regard each other.'

'I know everything that has pa.s.sed between them,' said Gertrude.

'I never gave Harry any encouragement. As soon as I understood my own feelings I endeavoured to make him understand them also.'

'But, my dearest, no one is blaming you.'

'But you are blaming Alaric.'

'Indeed I am not, Gertrude.'