Kitabı oku: «The New Mistress: A Tale», sayfa 14
“How dare” – began Percy, scarlet.
“Eh? What? How dare I? Well, I’ll tell you, boy. It’s because I’m an honest man, and you ain’t. There: you can’t get over that.”
Percy could not get over that. The shot completely dismantled at one blow the whole of his fortifications, and left him at his enemy’s mercy. Giving up on the instant he whimpered pitifully —
“Please don’t be hard on me, sir; I have been a scoundrel, but if you – you – could give me another chance – ”
Boy prevailed, and all Percy Thorne’s manliness went to the winds. He was very young yet in spite of his size, and, try how he would to keep them back, the weak tears came, and he could not say another word.
“Give you another chance, eh?” said the visitor sharply. “That’s all very well, but we’ve got to get you out of this scrape first. Your people, Suthers, Rubley, and Spark, write as if they meant to prosecute you for robbing them.”
“But I meant to pay it again, sir – I did indeed!” cried Percy.
“Yes: of course. That’s what all fellows who go in for a bit of a spree with other people’s coin say to themselves, so as to give them Dutch courage. But it won’t do!”
“But indeed I should have paid it sir.”
“If you had won, which wasn’t likely, boy. Only one in a thousand wins, my lad, and it’s always somebody else – not you. Now then, suppose I set to work and get these people, Suthers, Rubley, and Spark” – he repeated the names with great gusto – “to quash the prosecution on account of your youth and the respectability of your relations, what would you do?”
“Oh, I’d be so grateful, sir! I’d never, never bet again, or put money on horses, or – ”
“Make a fool of yourself, eh?”
“No, sir; indeed, indeed I would not.”
“Well, what sort of people are these Suthers, Rubley, and Spark?”
“Oh! dreadful cads, sir.”
“If you say that again,” cried the ex-butcher sharply, “I won’t make a stroke to get you out of your trouble.”
Percy stared at him with astonishment.
“It’s all very fine!” cried Mr William Forth Burge. “Every one who don’t do just as you like is a cad, I suppose. People have often called me a cad because I’ve not had so good an education and can’t talk and speak like they do; and sometimes the cads are on the other side.”
“I’m very sorry, sir,” faltered Percy.
“Then don’t you call people cads, young fellow. Now then, you mean to give up all your stupid tricks, and to grow into a respectable man, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir; I’ll try,” said Percy humbly.
“Then just you go to your bedroom, brush that streaky hair off your forehead, take out that pin, and put on a different tie; and next time you get some clothes made, don’t have them cut like a stable-boy’s. It don’t fit with your position, my lad. Now, look sharp and get ready, for you’re going along with me.”
“Going with you, sir?”
“Yes, along with me, my lad; and I’m going to keep you till you are out of your scrape. Then we’ll see about what’s to be done next.”
Percy left the room, and his sister came back, to find Mr William Forth Burge looking very serious; but his eyes brightened as he took Hazel’s hand.
“I am going to take your brother away with me, and I sha’n’t let a moment go by without trying to put things square. I think the best thing will be for me to take him right up to London, and go straight to his employers; but I haven’t told him so. If I did, he’d shy and kick; but it will be the best way. And I dare say a bit of a talk with the people will help to put matters right.”
“But will they prosecute, Mr Burge? It would be so dreadful!”
“So it would, my dear; but they won’t. They’ll talk big about wanting to make an example, and that sort of thing, and then they’ll come round, and I shall square it up. Oh, here he comes. There, say good-bye to your sister, young man, for we’ve no time to spare. Now, go in first. Good-bye, Miss Thorne.”
“Mr Burge, I cannot find words to tell you how grateful I am,” cried Hazel in tears.
“I don’t want you to,” he replied bluntly, as he shook hands impressively, but with the greatest deference. “I couldn’t find words to tell you, my dear, how grateful I am to think that you are ready to trust me when you want a friend.”
Here Mr William Forth Burge stuck his hat on very fiercely, and went home without a word, Percy Thorne walking humbly by his side, and checking his desire to say to himself that after all, Mr William. Forth Burge did seem to be a regular cad.
Chapter Thirty.
Mr Burge is Business-Like
“I am the last person in the world, Rebecca, to interfere,” said Beatrice, as she busied herself making a series of holes with some thick white cotton, which she wriggled till something like a pattern was contrived; “but I cannot sit still and see that young person misbehaving as she does.”
“I quite agree with you, dear, and it shocks me to see into what a state of moral blindness poor Henry has plunged.”
“Ah!” sighed her sister, “it is very sad;” and she sighed again and thought of a certain scarlet woman. “What would he say if he knew that Miss Thorne openly sent letters to Mr William Forth Burge?”
“But they might be business letters,” said Rebecca.
“Miss Thorne has no right to send business letters to Mr William Forth Burge,” said Beatrice angrily. “If there are any business matters in connection with the school, the letter, if letter there be – for it would be much more in accordance with Miss Thorne’s duty if she came in all due humility – ”
“Suitably dressed,” said Rebecca.
“Exactly,” assented her sister. ” – to the Vicarage and stated what was required. Or if she wrote, it should be to the vicar, when the letter would be in due course referred to us, and we should see what ought to be done.”
“Exactly so,” assented Rebecca.
“Mr William Forth Burge has been a great benefactor to the schools; but they are the Church schools, and, for my part, I do not approve of everything being referred to him.”
“I – I think you are right, Beatrice,” assented Rebecca; “but Mr William Forth Burge has, as you say, been a great benefactor to the schools.”
“Exactly; a very great benefactor, Rebecca; but that is no reason why Miss Thorne should write to him.”
“I quite agree with you there, Beatrice; and now I have something more to tell you, which I have just heard as I came up the town.”
“About the schools?”
“Well, not exactly about the schools, but about the school-cottage. I heard, on very good authority, that the Thornes have a young man staying in the house.”
“A young man!”
“Yes; he arrived there yesterday afternoon, and Mr Chute, who was my informant, looked quite scandalised.”
“We must tell Henry at once,” cried Beatrice.
“Of what use would it be?” said Rebecca viciously. “He would only be angry, and tell us it was Miss Thorne’s brother, or something of that sort.”
“It is very, very terrible,” sighed Beatrice, “Of what could Henry be thinking to admit such a girl to our quiet country district?”
Just at the same time their brother also was much exercised in his own mind on account of the letter that he had seen in Hazel’s handwriting directed to Mr Burge, and he was troubled the more on finding that she should appeal to Mr Burge instead of to him – the head of the parish, and one who had shown so great a disposition to be her friend – for even then he could not own that he desired a closer intimacy.
The Reverend Henry Lambent knit his brows and asked himself again whether this was not some temptation that had come upon him, similar to those which had attacked the holy men of old; and as he sat and thought it seemed to him that it could not be, for Hazel Thorne grew to him fairer and more attractive day by day, and, fight hard as he would against those thoughts, they grew stronger and more masterful, while he became less able to cope with them.
And all this time Mr William Forth Burge, the stout and plain and ordinary, was working away on Hazel’s behalf. He was showing the business side of his nature, and any one who had studied him now would easily have understood why it was that he had become so wealthy. For there was a straightforward promptness in all he did that impressed Percy a good deal; and when, after keeping him for some hours at his villa, wondering what was to happen next – hours that were employed in copying letters for his new friend – the said new friend announced that they were going up to London, Percy, with all the disposition to resist obeyed without a word, and followed to the station.
“Don’t seem very well off,” thought Percy, as Mr William Forth Burge took a couple of third-class tickets for London.
He read the boy’s thoughts, for he said sharply —
“Six shillings third class; eighteen shillings first class. Going this way saves one pound four.”
Percy said, “Yes, sir,” and subsided moodily into the corner of the carriage opposite to his companion, and but little was said on the journey up. Mr William Forth Burge took the boy to a quiet hotel, and wrote a letter or two, as it was too late to do any business that night. The next morning Percy was left in the coffee-room to look furtively over the sporting news in the Standard while his new friend went off to see Mr Geringer, who, on hearing his business, seemed greatly displeased at any one else meddling with the Thornes’ affairs; and though he did not refuse to go with his visitor to intercede for Percy, he put him off till the next afternoon, and Percy’s champion left his office chuckling to himself.
“Asks me to wait till next day,” he said, “so that he may go and see the state of the market for himself. Won’t do, Mr Geringer, sir. That’s not William Forth Burge’s way of doing business.” And he went straight to the firm, gave his card, and was shown in to Mr Spark, a dull, heavy man, remarkable in the business for his inertia.
Yes, of course they should prosecute Percy Thorne, if that was what the visitor wanted to know; and if the said visitor wanted to know anything else, would he be kind enough to be quick, for Mr Spark’s time was very valuable?
“Quick as you like, sir,” said Mr William Forth Burge, who showed the new side of his character. “I’ve been in trade, and I know what’s what. Now, sir, I’m the friend of the boy’s sister; father dead – mother a baby. Business is business. Prosecute the boy, and you put him in prison, and spend more money; you get none back. Forgive him, and take him on again, and, if it’s fifty pounds, I’ll pay what’s lost.”
Then followed a long argument, out of which Mr William Forth Burge came away a hundred pounds poorer, and with Percy Thorne free to begin the world again, but handicapped with a blurred character.
That evening they were back at Plumton.
“But there’s going to be no prosecution, or anything of that sort, Miss Thorne; and, till we hear of something to suit him, he shall stop at my house and do clerk’s work in my office.”
“But I feel sure you have been paying away money to extricate him from this terrible difficulty, Mr Burge,” cried Hazel.
“Well, and suppose I have,” he said, smiling; “I’ve a right to do what I like with my own money, and it’s all spent for the benefit of our schools.”
“But, Mr Burge,” cried Hazel eagerly, and speaking with the tears running down her cheeks, “how can I ever repay you?”
“Oh, I’ll send in my bill some day,” he said hastily. “But as I was going to say, Master Percy shall stay at my place for the present. I could easily place him at a butcher’s or a meat salesman’s, but that ain’t genteel enough for a boy like him. So just you wait a bit and – ”
“See,” he would have said, but all this time he had been backing towards the door to avoid Hazel’s thanks, and he escaped before his final word was spoken.
“There’s something about that man I don’t quite like,” said Mrs Thorne as soon as their visitor had gone.
“Not like him, dear?” cried Hazel wonderingly.
“No, my dear; there’s a sort of underhandedness about him that isn’t nice.”
“But, my dear mother, he has been up to town on purpose to extricate Percy from a great difficulty, and, I feel sure,” said Hazel warmly, “at a great expense to himself.”
“Yes, that’s it!” exclaimed Mrs Thorne triumphantly. “And you mark my words, Hazel, if he don’t try to make us pay for it most heavily some day.”
“Oh, really, mother dear!”
“Now, don’t contradict, Hazel, because you really cannot know so well as I do about these things. Has he not taken Percy to his house?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Then you will see if he doesn’t make that boy a perfect slave and drudge, and work him till – Well, there now, how lucky! What can have brought Edward Geringer down now?”
Hazel turned pale, for at her mother’s exclamation she had turned sharply, just in time to see Mr Geringer’s back as he passed the window, and the next moment his knock was heard at the door.
“Well, my dear,” exclaimed Mrs Thorne, as Hazel stood looking greatly disturbed, “why don’t you go and let Mr Geringer in? And, for goodness sake, Hazel, do be a little more sensible this time. Edward Geringer has come down, of course, on purpose to see you, and you know why.”
Further speech was cut short by the children relieving their sister of the unpleasant duty of admitting the visitor, who came in directly after, smiling and looking bland, with one of the little girls on each side.
“Ah, Hazel!” he exclaimed, loosing his hold of the children.
Hazel tried to master the shrinking sensation that troubled her, and shook hands. Her manner was so cold that Geringer could not but observe it; still, he hid his mortification with a smile, and turned to Mrs Thorne.
“And how are you, my dear madam?” he exclaimed effusively as he took both the widow’s hands, to stand holding them with a look that was a mingling of respect and tenderness, the result being that the widow began to sob, and it was some little time before she could be restored to composure.
“I had a visit,” he said at last, “from a gentleman who resides in this place, and upon thinking over your trouble I have engaged to go with him to-morrow afternoon to see poor Percy’s employers; but I felt bound to run down here first and have a little consultation with you both before taking any steps.”
He glanced at Hazel, and their eyes met; and Hazel read plainly that she was the price of his interference to save Percy, and as she mentally repeated his letter, she met his eye bravely, while her heart throbbed with joy as she felt ready to give him a triumphant look of defiance. He started, in spite of himself, as Mrs Thorne exclaimed —
“It is just like you, Mr Geringer – so kind and thoughtful! But Mr William Forth Burge has settled the matter with those dreadful people. They kept a great deal of it from me, but I know all, now it is well over; and it is very kind of you, all the same.”
“I try to be kind,” he said bitterly, “but my kindness seems to be generally thrown away. Miss Thorne, I am going to the hotel to stay to-night. A note will bring me back directly. Mrs Thorne, you must excuse me now.”
He spoke in a quiet very subdued voice, and left the house, lest they should see the mortification he felt and he should burst out into a fit of passionate reproach, so thoroughly had he hoped that, by coming down, he might work Percy’s trouble to his own advantage, and gain so great a hold upon Hazel’s gratitude that he might still win the life-game he had been playing so long. But this was check and impending mate, and had he not hurried away he felt that he would have lost more ground still.
He walked up to the hotel in a frame of mind of no very enviable character, fully intending to stay for a few days; but on reaching the place he found that it was possible to catch the night-train back to town.
“Better let her think I am offended now,” he muttered. “It is the best move I can make;” and he went straight back to the station, so for the present Hazel saw him no more, and to her great relief.
Percy only came to the cottage once a week, saying that Mr William Forth Burge kept him hard at work writing, and he should be very glad to get a post somewhere in town, for he was sick of Plumton, it was so horribly slow, and Mr William Forth Burge was such a dreadful cad.
Percy’s stay proved to be shorter than he expected, for at the end of a month he was one morning marched up to Ardley, and brought face to face with George Canninge, who was quiet and firm with him, asking him a few sharp questions, and ending by giving him a couple of five-pound notes and a letter to a shipping firm in London, the head of which firm told him to come into the office the very next day, and was very short, but informed him that his salary as clerk would begin at once at sixty pounds a year, and that if he did his duty he should rise.
Chapter Thirty One.
Another Trouble
It was, some will say, a childish, old-fashioned way of keeping cash, but all the same it was the plan adopted by Hazel, who every week dropped the amounts she had received from the school pence, after changing the coppers into silver, through the large slit of an old money-box that had been given her when a child. It was a plain, oak-wood box, with ordinary lock and key, and the slit at the top was large enough to admit of each week’s shillings and sixpences being tied up in note-paper, in the ladylike way adopted by the fair sex – that is to say, a neat packet is made and tied up with cotton. After the tying up Hazel used to put the amount it contained upon the packet, enter the said amount in a memorandum-book, drop the packet through the slit, and lock up the drawer in which the box reposed.
During the early portion of her stay at Plumton, as previously shown, Mr Chute went on changing the pence for her from copper to silver, but after a time Hazel felt a certain amount of diffidence in charging the schoolmaster with the task, and made an arrangement with the grocer and draper of the place, who readily made the exchange.
Then there was the monthly payment to the blanket fund, which was also placed in the same receptacle, after being duly noted; and there were times when Hazel thought that it would be a good thing when she could get rid of an amount that was rather a burden to her, and she even went so far as to think that she would ask Mr William Forth Burge to take charge of the amount, but for certain reasons she declined.
It was no uncommon thing for Hazel to run very short of money for housekeeping purposes, and several times over it would have been a great convenience to have made use of a portion of the school pence and replaced it from her salary; but she forbore, preferring that the sums she held in charge should remain untouched as they had come into her hands.
After expecting for what seemed a very great length of time, she at last received a beautifully written but ill-spelt letter from one of the churchwardens, requesting her to send him in a statement of the amounts received for the children’s pence, and to be prepared to hand over the money at a certain appointed time.
The letter came like a relief to her as she sat at dinner; and upon Mrs Thorne asking, in a somewhat ill-used tone, who had been writing that she was not to know of, her daughter smilingly handed her the letter.
“It was such a thorough business letter, dear, that I thought you would not care to read it.”
But Mrs Thorne took it, read it through, and passed it back without a word.
“I think you seem a good deal better, dear,” said Hazel, smiling.
“Indeed, I am not, child,” replied Mrs Thorne sharply. “I never felt worse. My health is terrible: Plumton does not agree with me, and I must have a change.”
“A change, dear?” said Hazel, sighing.
“Yes. It is dreadful this constant confinement in a little poking place. I feel sometimes as if I should be stifled. Good gracious, Hazel! what could you be thinking about to come and live in a town like this? Let’s go, my dear, and find some occupation more congenial to your spirit. I cannot bear to go on seeing how you are wasted here.”
“My dear mother!” exclaimed Hazel wonderingly.
“I repeat it, Hazel – I repeat it, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs Thorne excitedly. “You are not fit for this place, and the wretched people down here do not appreciate you. Let us go away at once.”
“But, my dear mother, it is impossible. I should, even if I thought it best, be obliged to give some months’ notice; and besides, it would be ungrateful to Mr and Miss Burge, and to the vicar, who is most kind and considerate.”
“Oh yes; I know all that,” whimpered Mrs Thorne. “But all the same, we must go.”
“Must go, mother dear?”
“Yes, child – must go. It is a cruelty to you to keep you here.”
“But I have been so well, mother; and I seem to be winning the confidence of the people, and the children begin to like me.”
“Oh yes – yes – yes; of course they are bound to like you, Hazel, seeing what a slave you make yourself to them. But all the same, my dear, I protest against your stopping here any longer.”
“My dear mother,” said Hazel, rising and going to her side to bend down and kiss her, “pray – pray don’t be so unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable? – unreasonable? Am I to be called unreasonable for advising you for your benefit? For shame, Hazel – for shame!”
“But my dear mother, suppose I accede to your wishes and decide to leave: where are we to go? I should have to seek for another engagement.”
“And you would get it, Hazel. Thousands of school managers would be only too glad to obtain your services.”
Hazel shook her head and smiled.
“No, mother dear; you are too partial. Engagements are not so plentiful as that. Think it over, and you will look at the matter differently. We have not the means at our command to think of moving now.”
“But we must leave, Hazel, and at once,” cried Mrs Thorne excitedly. “I cannot and I will not stay here.”
“But it would be unreasonable and foolish, dear, to think of doing so under our present circumstances. For the children’s sake – for Percy’s sake, pray be more considerate. We must not think of it at present. After a time, perhaps, I may have the offer of a better post and the change may be such a one as you will like. Come, dear, try and be content a little longer, and all will be right in the end.”
“Hazel,” cried Mrs Thorne angrily, “I insist upon your giving up this school at once!”
“My dear mother!”
“Now, no excuses, Hazel I say I insist upon your giving up this school at once, and I will be obeyed. Do you forget that I am your mother? Is my own child to rise up in rebellion against me? How dare you? How dare you, I say?”
“But my dear mother, if we decide to leave, where are we to go? Where is the money to pay for our removal? You know as well as I do that, in spite of my care, we are some pounds in the tradespeople’s debt.”
“Now she throws that in my face, when I have worked so hard to make both ends meet, and cut and contrived over the housekeeping, thinking and striving and straining, and now this is my reward!”
“I do not blame you, dear,” said Hazel sadly; “I only think it was a pity that you should have ordered goods for which we had not the money to pay.”
“And was I – a lady – to go on living in the mean, sordid, penurious way you proposed, Hazel? Shame upon you! Where is your respect for your wretched, unhappy parent?”
It was in Hazel’s heart to say, half angrily, “Oh, mother, dear mother, pray do not go on so!” but she simply replied, “I know, dear, that it is very hard upon you, but we are obliged to live within our means.”
“Yes: thanks to you, Hazel,” retorted her mother. “I might be living at ease, as a lady should, if my child were considerate, and had not given her heart to selfishness and a downright direct love of opposition to her parent’s wishes.”
“Dear mother,” cried Hazel piteously, “indeed I do try hard to study you in everything.”
“It ought to want no trying, Hazel. It ought to be the natural outcome of your heart if you were a good and affectionate child. Study me, indeed! See what you have brought me to! Did I ever expect to go about in these wretched, shabby, black things, do you suppose – I – I, who had as many as two dozen dresses upon the hooks in my wardrobe at one time? Oh, Hazel, if you would conquer the stubbornness of that heart!”
“My dear mother, I must go and put away the dinner-things; but I do not like to leave you like this.”
“Oh, pray go, madam; and follow your own fancies to the top of your bent. I am only your poor, weak mother, and what I say or do matters very little. Never mind me, I shall soon be dead and cold in my grave.”
“Oh, my dear mother, pray, pray do not talk like this!”
“And all I ask is, that there may be a simple headstone placed there, with my name and age; and, if it could possibly be managed, and not too great an expense and waste of money for so unimportant a person, I should like the words to be cut deeply in the marble, – or, no, I suppose it would be only stone, common stone – just these simple words: ‘She never forgot that she was a lady.’”
Here Mrs Thorne sighed deeply, and began to strive to extricate herself from her child’s enlacing arms.
“No, no, no, Hazel; don’t hold me – it is of no use. I can tell, even by the way you touch me, that you have no affection left for your poor suffering mother.”
“How can you say that dear?” said Hazel firmly.
“Nor yet in your words, even. Oh, Hazel, I never thought I should live to be spoken to like this by my own child!”
“My dear mother, I am ready to make any sacrifice for your sake.”
“Then marry Mr Geringer,” said the lady quickly.
“It is impossible.”
“Move from here at once. Take me away to some other place. Let me be where I can meet with some decent neighbours, and not be Chuted to death as I am here.”
Mrs Thorne was so well satisfied with the sound of the new word which she had coined that she repeated it twice with different emphases.
“My dear mother, we have no money; we are in debt and it might be months before I could obtain a fresh engagement. Mother, that too, is impossible.”
“There – there – there!” cried Mrs Thorne, with aggravating iteration. “What did I say? Everything I propose is impossible, and yet in the same breath the child of my bosom tells me that she is ready to do anything to make me happy, and to show how dutiful she is.”
“Mother,” said Hazel gravely, “how can you be so cruel? Your words cut me to the heart.”
“I am glad of it, Hazel – I am very glad of it; for it was time that your hard, cruel heart should be touched, and that you should know something of the sufferings borne by your poor, bereaved mother. A little real sorrow, my child, would make you very, very different, and teach you, and change you. Ah, there is nothing like sorrow for chastening a hard and thoughtless heart!”
“Mother dear,” said Hazel, trying to kiss her. “I must go into the school.”
“No, no! don’t kiss me, Hazel,” said the poor, weak woman with a great show of dignity; “I could not bear it now. When you can come to me in all proper humility, as you will to-night, and say, ‘Mamma, we will leave here to-morrow,’ I shall be ready to receive you into my embrace once more.”
“My dear mother, you drive me to speak firmly,” said Hazel quietly. “I shall not be able to come to you to-night and to say that we will leave here. It is impossible.”
“Then you must have formed some attachment that you are keeping from me. Hazel, if you degrade yourself by marrying that Chute I will never speak to you again.”
“Hush, mother! the children will hear.”
“Let them hear my protests,” cried Mrs Thorne excitedly. “I will proclaim it on the housetops, as Mr Lambent very properly observed last Sunday in his sermon. I will let every one know that you intend to degrade yourself by that objectionable alliance, and against it I now enter my most formal protest.”
Mrs Thorne’s voice was growing loud, and she was shedding tears. Her countenance was flushed, and she looked altogether unlovely as well as weak.
Hazel hesitated for a moment, her face working, and the desire to weep bitterly uppermost, but she mastered it, and laying her hand upon her mother’s shoulder, bent forward once again to kiss her.
It was only to be repulsed; and as, with a weary sigh, she turned to the door, Mrs Thorne said to her angrily —
“It is time I resumed my position, Hazel – the position I gave up to you when forced by weakness and my many ills. Now I shall take to it once again, and I tell you that I will be obeyed. We shall leave this place to-morrow morning, and I am going to begin to pack up at once.”
