When the lawyer had gone, for a while there was silence in Henry’s room. Everybody seemed to wish to speak, and yet no one could find any words to say. Of course Henry was aware that the subject which had been discussed at the last dreadful scene of his father’s life would be renewed on the first opportunity, but he was nervously anxious that it should not be now, when he did not feel able to cope with the bitter arguments which he was sure Ellen was preparing for him, and still less with the pleadings of his mother, should she condescend to plead. After all it was he who spoke the first.
“Perhaps, Ellen,” he said, “you will tell me who were present at our father’s funeral.”
“Everybody,” she answered; adding, with meaning, “You see, the truth about us has not yet come out. We are still supposed to be people of honour and position.”
Her mother turned and made a gesture with her hand, as though to express disapproval of the tone in which she spoke; and, taking the hint, Ellen went on in a dry, clear voice, like that of one who reads an inventory, to give the names of the neighbours who attended the burial, and of more distant friends who had sent wreaths, saying in conclusion:
“Mr. Levinger of course was there, but Emma did not come. She sent a lovely wreath of eucharist lilies and stephanotis.”
At this moment the old butler came in, his face stained with grief—for he had dearly loved Sir Reginald, who was his foster-brother—and announced that Dr. Childs was waiting to see Sir Henry.
“Show him up,” said Henry, devoutly thankful for the interruption.
“How do you do, Captain I mean Sir Henry Graves?” said the doctor, in his quiet voice, when Lady Graves and Ellen had left the room. “I attended your poor father’s funeral, and then went on to see a patient, thinking that I would give you a look on my way back. However, don’t let us talk of these things, but show me your leg if you will. Yes, I thought so: you have given it a nasty jar; you should never have tried to walk up those steps without help. Well, you will have to stop quiet for a month or so, that is all; and I think that it will be a good thing for you in more ways than one, for you seem very much shaken, my dear fellow, and no wonder, with all this trouble after a dangerous illness.”
Henry thanked him; and then followed a little general conversation, in which Dr. Childs was careful not to let him know that he was aware of the scene that had occurred at his father’s death, though as a matter of fact the wildest rumours were floating up and down the country side, based upon hints that had fallen from Lady Graves in her first grief, and on what had been overheard by listeners at the door. Presently he rose to go, saying that he would call again on the morrow.
“By the way,” he added, “I have got to see another patient to-night—your late nurse, Joan Haste.”
“What is the matter with her?” asked Henry, flushing suddenly red, a symptom of interest or distress that did not escape the doctor’s practised eye.
“So the talk is true,” he thought to himself. “Well, I guessed as much; indeed, I expected it all along: the girl has been in love with him for weeks. A pity, a sad pity!”
“Oh! nothing at all serious,” he answered: “a chill and a touch of fever. It has been smouldering in her system for some time, I think. It seems she got soaked about ten days ago, and stood in her wet things. She is shaking it off now, however.”
“Indeed; I am glad to hear that,” Henry answered, in a tone of relief which he could not quite conceal. “Will you remember me to Miss Haste when you see her, and tell her that——”
“Yes?” said the doctor, his hand on the door.
“That I am glad she has recovered, and—that—I was sorry not to be able to say good-bye to her,” he added hurriedly.
“Certainly,” answered Dr. Childs, and went.
Henry saw no more of his mother or his sister that evening, which was a sorrowful one for him. He grieved alone in his room, comforted only by the butler Thomson, who came to visit him, and told him tales of his father’s boyhood and youth; and they grieved elsewhere, each according to her own nature. On the morrow the doctor called early and reported favourably of Henry’s condition. He told him that Joan was doing even better than he had expected, that she sent him her duty and thanked him kindly for his message, and with this Henry was fain to be content. Indeed, what other message could she have sent him, unless she had written? and something told him that she would not write. Any words that could be put on paper would express both too much and too little.
Henry was not the only person at Rosham whose rest was troubled this night, seeing that Ellen also did not sleep well. She had loved her father in her own way and sorrowed for him, but she loved her family better than any individual member of it, and mourned still more bitterly for its sad fate. Also she had her own particular troubles to overcome, for she was well aware that Edward imagined her to possess the portion of eight thousand pounds which had been allotted to her under the will, and it was necessary that he should be undeceived and enlightened on various other points in connection with the Rosham affairs, which could no longer be concealed from him. On the morrow he rode over from Upcott, and very soon gave Ellen a chance of explanation, by congratulating her upon the prospective receipt of the eight thousand. Like a bold woman she took her opportunity at once, though she did not care about this task and had some fears for the issue.
“Don’t congratulate me, Edward,” she said, “for I must tell you I have discovered that this eight thousand pounds is very much in the clouds.”
Edward whistled. “Meaning——?” he said.
“Meaning, my dear, that after you left the lawyer explained our financial position. To put it shortly, the entail has been cut, the estate has been mortgaged for more than its value, and there is not a farthing for anybody.”
“Indeed!” answered Edward: “that’s jolly good news. Might I ask what is going to happen then?”
“It all depends upon Henry. If he is not a fool, and marries Miss Levinger, everything will come right, except my eight thousand pounds of course, for she holds the mortgages, or her father does for her. If he is a fool—which I have reason to believe is the case—and declines to marry Miss Levinger, then I suppose that the estate will be made bankrupt and that my mother will be left to starve.”
At this announcement Edward uttered an indignant grunt.
“Look here, Ellen,” he said; “it is all very fine, but you have been playing it pretty low down upon me. I never heard a word of this mess, although, of course, I knew that you were embarrassed, like most people nowadays. What I did not know—to say nothing of your not having a penny— was that I am to have the honour of marrying into a family of bankrupts; and, to tell you the truth, I am half inclined to reconsider my position, for I don’t wish to be mixed up with this sort of thing.”
“About that you must do as you like, Edward,” she answered, with dignity; “but let me tell you that this state of affairs is not my fault. In the first place, it is the fault of those who are dead and gone, and still more is it the fault of my brother Henry, whose wickedness and folly threaten to plunge us all into ruin.”
“What do you mean by his ‘wickedness and folly’?”
“I mean that matter of which I spoke to you before—the matter of this wretched girl, Joan Haste. It seems that he has become involved in some miserable intrigue with her, after the disgusting fashion of you men, and on this account he refuses to marry Emma Levinger. Yes, although my father prayed him to do so with his dying breath, he still refuses, when he knows that it would be his own salvation and that of his family also.”
“He must be mad,” said Edward—“stark, staring mad: it’s no such great wonder about the girl, but that he should decline to marry Miss Levinger is sheer insanity; for, although I don’t think much of her, and the connection is a bad one, it is clear that she has got the dollars. What does he mean to do, then? Marry the other one?”
“Very possibly, for all I know to the contrary. It would be quite in keeping with his conduct.”
“Oh, hang it, Ellen!—that I could not stand. It is not to be expected of any man that he should come into a family of which the head will be a bankrupt, who insists upon marrying a barmaid.”
“Again I say that you must please yourself, Edward; but if you feel so strongly about Henry’s conduct—and I admit that it is quite natural that you should do so—perhaps you had better speak to him yourself.”
“All right: I will,” he answered. “Although I don’t like meddling with other people’s love affairs, for I have quite enough to do to manage my own, I will give him my mind pretty straight. He’s a nasty customer to tackle; but if he doesn’t know before he is an hour older that there are other people to be considered in the world besides himself, it sha’n’t be my fault, that’s all.”
“I am sure it is very brave of you, dear,” said Ellen, with veiled sarcasm. “But, if I may venture to advise, I would suggest what my poor father used to call the suaviter in modo in preference to the fortiter in re.”
“Oh, bother your Latin!” said Edward. “Please speak English.”
“I mean that were I you I should go fair and softly; for, as you remarked just now in your own classic tongue, Henry is a ‘nasty customer to tackle.’ Well, I happen to know that he is up and alone just now, so you cannot have a better opportunity.” Then she rang the bell, which was almost immediately answered by the butler, and added, “Will you be so good, Thomson, as to show Mr. Milward to Sir Henry’s room?”
Edward hesitated, for, like another hero, he felt his courage oozing out of his finger-tips. Looking up, he saw Ellen watching him with a little smile, and remembered that to draw back now would mean that for many a long day to come he must be the target of the bitter arrows of her irony. So he set his teeth and went as to a forlorn hope.
In another minute he was in the presence of the man whom he came to annihilate. Henry was seated in a chair, against which his crutches were resting, looking out of the window, with an open book upon his knee, and it cannot be said that he appeared pleased on hearing the name of his visitor. Indeed, he was about to tell Thomson that he was engaged, when Edward blundered in behind him, leaving him no option but to shake hands and ask his visitor to sit down. Then ensued this conversation.
“How do you do, Graves? I have come to see you on business.”
“As well as I can expect, thank you.”
A pause.
“Beautiful weather, isn’t it?”
“It seems fine; but as you have been out, you will know more about it than I do.”
Another pause.
“The pheasants ought to do well this year; they have had a wonderful fine time for hatching.”
“Indeed. I think you said that you wished to speak to me about some business.”
“You are not rearing any this season, are you?”
“No: I am sorry to say that I have other chicks to hatch at present. But about the business?”
“All right, Graves; I am coming to that. The pheasants lead up to it. Fortiter in modo, as Ellen says.”
“Does she? Well, it is not a bad motto for her, though it’s wrong. Well, if we have done with the pheasants——”
There was yet another pause, and then Edward said suddenly, and with effort:
“You are not rearing any pheasants, Graves, because you can’t afford to; in fact, I have just found out that you are bankrupt, and the whole thing is a swindle, and that Ellen won’t have a farthing of her eight thousand pounds. She has sent me up here to talk to you about it.”
“Has she? That is fortiter in modo and no mistake. Well, talk on, Mr. Milward. But, before you begin, let me remind you that I asked you to stop and hear what passed after the reading of the will yesterday, and you would not.”
“Oh, bother the will! It is a fraud, like everything else in this place. I tell you, Graves——”
“One moment. Pray lower your voice, keep your temper, and remember that you are speaking to a gentleman.”
“Speaking to a gentleman? A nice sort of gentleman! You mean an uncertificated bankrupt, who won’t do the right thing by his family and marry the girl who could set them on their legs again; a pious humbug who preaches to everybody else, but isn’t above carrying on a low intrigue with a barmaid, and then having the impudence to say that he means to disgrace us by marrying her.”
“I have asked you to lower your voice, Mr. Milward.”
“Lower my voice? I think it is high time to raise it when I find myself let in for an engagement with the sister of a man who does such things. You needn’t look at me, Sir Henry Graves,—Sir Henry indeed! I repeat, ‘let in.’ However, you must mend your manners, or Ellen will suffer for it, that is all; for I shall throw her over and wash my hands of the whole show. The bankruptcy is bad enough, but I’m hanged if I will stand the barmaid. Edward Milward of Upcott with a barmaid for a sister-in-law! Not if he knows it.”
Then Henry answered, in a quiet and ominous voice: “You have been so good, Mr. Milward, doubtless more in kindness than in anger, as to point out to me with great directness the errors, or assumed errors, of my ways. Allow me, before I say anything further, to point out to you an error in yours, about which there is no possibility of doubt. You say that you propose ‘to throw over’ my sister, not on account of anything that she has done, but because of acts which I am supposed to have done. In my judgment it will indeed be fortunate for her should you take this course. But not the less do I feel bound to tell you, that the man who behaves thus towards a woman, having no cause of offence against her, is not what is usually understood by the term gentleman. So much for my sister: now for myself. It seems to me that there is only one answer possible to conduct and language such as you have thought fit to make use of; and were I well, much as I dislike violence, I should not hesitate to apply it. I should, Mr. Milward, kick you out of this room and down yonder stairs, and, should my strength not fail me, across that garden. Being crippled at present, I am unable to advance this argument. I must, therefore, do the best I can.” And, taking up the crutch that stood by his chair, Henry hurled it straight at him. “Now go!” he thundered; and Mr. Milward went.
“I hope that Ellen will feel pleased with the effect of her embassy,” thought Henry; then suddenly he turned white, and, choking with wrath, said aloud, “Great Heaven! to think that I should have come so low as to be forced to suffer such insults from a cur like that! What will be the end of it? One thing is clear: I can’t stand much more. I’m done for in the Service; but I dare say that I could get a billet as mate on a liner, or even a command of some vessel in the Canadian or Australian waters where I am known. Unless there is a change soon, that is what I’ll do, and take Joan with me. Nobody will sneer at her there, anyway —at least, nobody who sees her.”
Meanwhile Ellen was standing in the hall making pretence to arrange some flowers, but in reality waiting, not without a certain sense of anxiety, to learn the result of the interview which she had been instrumental in bringing about. She hoped that Henry would snub her fiancé in payment of sundry remarks that Edward had made to her, and which she had by no means forgotten, although she was not at present in a position to resent them. She hoped also, with some lack of perspicuity, that Henry would be impressed by Edward’s remonstrances, and that, when he came to understand that her future was imperilled, he would hasten to sacrifice his own. But here she make her great mistake, not foreseeing that a man of Milward’s moral fibre could not by any possibility neglect to push a fancied vantage home, any more than he could refrain from being insolent and brutal towards one whom he thought at his mercy; for, even in the upper walks of life, individuals do exist who take pleasure in grinding the heads of the fallen deeper into the mire.
Presently Ellen was alarmed to hear Henry’s words “Now go” echo through the house, followed by the sound of a banging door. Next instant Edward appeared upon the stairs, and the expression of his features betrayed a wondrous mixture of astonishment, fear and indignation.
“What have you been doing, Edward?” she said, as he approached. “You do not mean to tell me that you have been brawling, and in this house?”
“Brawling? Oh yes, say that I have been brawling,” gasped Edward, when at last he managed to speak. “That infernal brother of yours has thrown a crutch at me; but by all means say that I have been brawling.”
“Thrown a crutch? And what had you been doing to make him throw a crutch?”
“Doing? Why, nothing, except tell him that he was a fraud and a bankrupt. He took it all quite quietly till the end, then suddenly he said that if he wasn’t a cripple he would kick me downstairs, and threw a crutch at my head; and, by George! I believe from the look of him that if he could he would have done it too!”
“It is very possible,” said Ellen, “if you were foolish enough to use such language towards him. You have had an escape. Henry has a fearful temper when roused.”
“Then why on earth didn’t you say so before you sent me up there? Do you suppose that I enjoy being pelted with crutches by a mad sailor? Possible! Yes, it seems that anything is possible in this house; but I will tell you one thing that isn’t, and it is that I should stay here any longer. I scratch, now, on the spot. Do you understand, Ellen? The game is up, and you can marry whom you like.”
At this point Ellen touched him on the shoulder, and said, in a cold voice:
“Perhaps you are not aware that there are at least two servants listening to you? Will you be so kind as to follow me into the drawing-room?”
Edward obeyed. When Ellen put on her coldest and most imperious manner he always did obey, and it is probable that he will always continue to do so. He was infuriated, and he was humbled, still he could not resist that invitation into the drawing-room. It was a large apartment, and by some oversight the shutters that were closed for the funeral had never been reopened, therefore its aspect could not be called cheerful, though there was sufficient light to see by.
“Now, Mr. Milward,” said Ellen, stationing herself in the centre of a wide expanse of floor, for there were no little tables and knickknacks at Rosham, “I will ask you to be so good as to repeat what you were saying.”
Thus adjured, Edward looked around him, and his spirits sank. He could be vociferous enough in the sunlit hall, but here in this darkened chamber, that reminded him unpleasantly of corpses and funerals, with Ellen, of whom he was secretly afraid, standing cool and collected before him, a sudden humility fell upon him.
“Why do you call me Mr. Milward?” he asked: “it doesn’t sound right; and as for what I was saying, I was saying that I could not stand this sort of thing any more, and I think that we had better shut up the shop.”
“If you mean by ‘shutting up the shop’ that our engagement is at an end, Mr. Milward, so be it. But unfortunately, as you must understand, questions will be asked, and I shall be glad to know what explanation you propose to furnish.”
“Oh! you can settle that.”
“Very well; I presume you admit that I am not to blame, therefore we must fall back upon the cause which you have given: that you insulted my brother, who—notwithstanding his crippled condition—inflicted a physical punishment upon you. Indeed, unless I can succeed in stopping it, thanks to your own indiscretion, the story will be all over the place before to-morrow, and I must leave you to judge what will be thought of it in the county, or let us say at the militia mess, which I believe you join next Wednesday.”
Edward heard and quailed. He was excessively sensitive to public opinion, and more especially to the chaff of his brother-officers in the militia, among whom he was something of a butt. If it became known there that Sir Henry Graves, a man with a broken leg, had driven him out of the room by throwing crutches at his head, he felt that his life would speedily become a burden to him.
“You wouldn’t be so mean as that, Ellen,” he said.
“So mean as what? To some people it might seem that the meanness is on the other side. There are difficulties here, and you have quarrelled with my brother; therefore, as I understand, you wish to desert me after being publicly engaged to me for some months, and to leave me in an utterly false position. Do so if you will, but you must not be surprised if you find your conduct called by strong names. For my part I am indifferent, but for your own sake I think that you would do well to pause. Do not suppose that I shall sit still under such an affront. You know that I can be a good friend; you have yet to learn that I can be a good enemy. Possibly, though I do not like to think it of you, you believe that we are ruined and of no account. You will find your mistake. There are troubles here, but they can be overcome, and very soon you will live to regret that you dared to put such a deadly affront upon me and my family. You foolish man!” she went on, with gathering vehemence, “have you not yet realized the difference between us? Have you not learned that with all your wealth you are nobody and I am somebody—that though I can stand without you, without me you will fall? Now I am tired of talking: choose, Edward Milward, choose whether you will jilt me and incur an enmity that shall follow you to your death, or whether you will bide by me and be placed where of late it has been the object of my life to set you.”
If Edward had quailed before, now he positively trembled, for he knew that Ellen spoke truth. Hers was the master mind, and to a great extent he had become dependent on her. Moreover he had ambitions, for the most part of a social and personal nature—which included, however, his entry into Parliament, where he hoped that his power of the purse would ultimately earn him some sort of title—and these ambitions he felt sure would never be gratified without the help of Ellen. Lastly, he was in his own way sincerely attached to her, and quite appreciated the force of her threats to make of him an object of ridicule among his neighbours and brother-officers. Smarting though he was under a sense of moral and physical injury, the sum of these considerations turned the balance in favour of the continuance of his engagement. Perhaps Ellen was right, and her family would ride out this trouble; but whether they did so or not, he was convinced that without Ellen he should sink below his present level, and what was more, that she would help him on his downward career. So Edward gave in; indeed, it would not be too much to say that he collapsed.
“You shouldn’t speak so harshly, dear,” he said, “for you know that I did not really mean what I told you about breaking off our engagement. The fact is that, what between one thing and another, I scarcely knew what I was saying.”
“Indeed!” answered Ellen. “Well, I hope that you know what you are saying now. If our engagement is to be continued, there must be no further talk of breaking it off on the next occasion that you happen to have a quarrel with my brother, or to be angry about the mortgages on this property.”
“The only thing that I bargain about your brother is, that I shall not be asked to see him, or have anything to do with him. He can go to the deuce his own way so far as I am concerned, and we can cut him when we are married—that is, if he becomes bankrupt and the rest of it. I am sorry if I have behaved badly, Ellen; but really and truly I do mean what I say about our engagement, and I tell you what, I will go home and put it on paper if you like, and bring you the letter this afternoon.”
“That is as you like, Edward,” she answered, with a perceptible softening of her manner. “But after what has happened, you may think yourself fortunate that I ever consent to see you again.”
Edward attempted no reply, at least in words, for he was crushed; but, bending down, he imprinted a chaste salute upon Ellen’s smooth forehead, which she acknowledged by touching him frostily on the cheek with her lips.
This, then, is the history of the great quarrel between these lovers, and of their reconciliation.
“Upon my word,” said Ellen to herself, as she watched him depart, “I am by no means certain that Henry’s obstinacy and violence have not done me a good turn for once. They have brought things to a crisis, there has been a struggle, and I have won the day. Whatever happens, I do not think it likely that Edward will try to match himself against me again, and I am quite certain that he will never talk any more of breaking off our engagement.”