 CHAPTER 53 THE VICKER'S COMPLICATIONS WHICH LIVELY PEOPLE HAD BETTER NOT READ William Wilder's reversion was very tempting, but lawyer Larkin knew the value of the precious metals, and waited for more data. The more he thought over his foreign correspondence and his interview with Lake, the more steadily returned upon his mind the old conviction that the gallant captain was deep in the secret, whatever it might be. Whatever his motive—and he always had a distinct motive, though sometimes not easily discoverable—he was a good deal addicted now to commenting in his confidential talk with religious gossips and others upon the awful state of the poor vicar's affairs, his inconceivable prodigality, the unaccountable sums he had made away with, and his own anxiety to hand over the direction of such a hopeless complication of debt, and abdicate in favour of any competent skipper the command of the water-logged and foundering ship. Why his brother Mark could get him cleverly out of it, could not he, wheezed the pork-butcher? More serious than you suppose, answered Larkin, with a shake of his head. It can't go beyond five hundred, or say nine hundred, eh, at the outside? Nine hundred? Say double as many thousand, and I'm afraid you'll be nearer the mark. You'll not mention, of course, and I'm only feeling my way just now, and speaking conjecturally altogether, but I'm afraid it is enormous. I need not remind you not to mention. I cannot, of course, say how Mr. Larkin's conjectures reached so prodigious in elevation, but I can now comprehend why it was desirable that this surprising estimate of the vicar's liabilities should prevail. Mr. Josiah Larkin had a weakness for enveloping much of what he said and wrote in an honourable mystery. He liked writing private or confidential at top of his notes, without apparent right or even reason to impose either privacy or confidence upon the persons to whom he wrote. There was, in fact, often, in the good attorney's mode of transacting business, just a soup-son or flavour of an arrière-pensée, of a remote and unseen plan, which was a little unsatisfactory. Now with the vicar he was imperative that the matter of the reversion should be strictly confidential, altogether sacred, in fact. You see, the fact is, my dear Mr. Wilder, I never meddle in speculative things. It is not a class of business that I like or would touch with one of my fingers, so to speak, and he shook his head gently, and I may say if I were supposed to be ever so slightly engaged in these risky things, it would be the ruin of me. I don't like, however, sending you into the jaws of the city sharks. I use the term, my dear Mr. Wilder, advisedly, and I make a solitary exception in your case. But the fact is, if I thought you would mention the matter, I could not touch it even for you. There's Captain Lake of Brandon, for instance, I should not be surprised if I lost the Brandon business the day after the matter reached his ears. All men are not like you and me, my dear Mr. Wilder. The sad experience of my profession has taught me that a suspicious man of the world without religion, my dear Mr. Wilder, and he lifted his pink eyes and shook his long head and long hands in unison, without religion will imagine anything. They can't understand us. Now, the fifty pounds which good Mr. Larkin had procured for the improvident vicar bore interest, I am almost ashamed to say, at thirty percent per annum, and ten percent more the first year. But you are to remember that the security was altogether speculative, and Mr. Larkin, of course, made the best terms he could. Annual premium on a policy for one hundred pounds, double insurance being insisted upon by lender to cover contingent expenses, and life not insurable, a delicacy of the lungs being admitted on the ordinary scale, one hundred pounds, annuity payable to lender, year of premium, the security being unsatisfactory, seventy-one pounds, total one hundred seventy-one pounds. Ten pounds of which, the premium, together with four pounds, ten shillings for expenses, etc., were payable in advance, so that thirty-two pounds out of his borrowed fifty were forfeit for these items within a year and a month. In the meantime the fifty pounds had gone, as we know, direct to Cambridge, and he was called upon to pay forth with ten pounds for premium, and four pounds ten shillings for expenses. Quad impossibility, the attorney had nothing for it but to try to induce the lender to let him have another fifty pounds, pending the investigation of title, another fifty of which he was to get, in fact, eighteen pounds. Somehow the racking off of this bitter vintage from one vessel into another did not seem to improve its quality, on the contrary, things were growing decidedly more awful. Now there came from Mr. Burlington and Smith a peremptory demand for the fourteen pounds ten shillings, and an equally summary one for twenty-eight pounds fourteen shillings and eight pence, their costs in this matter. When the poor vicar received this latter blow, he laid the palm of his hand on the top of his head, as if to prevent his brain from boiling over, twenty-eight pounds fourteen shillings and eight pence. Quad impossibility, again. And he saw Larkin that conscientious guardian of his client's interests scrutinized the bill of costs very jealously, and struck out between four and five pounds. He explained to the vicar the folly of borrowing insignificant and insufficient sums, the trouble and consequently the cost of which were just as great as of an adequate one. He was determined, if he could, to pull him through this, but he must raise a sufficient sum for the expense of going into title would be something, and he would write sharply to Burlington Smith and Company, and had no doubt the costs would be settled for twenty-three pounds. And Mr. Josiah Larkin's opinion upon the matter was worthy of respect, in as much as he was himself, under the rose, the company of that firm administered its capital. The fact is you must, my dear Mr. Wilder, make an effort. It won't do peddling and tinkering in such a case. You will be in a worse position than ever, unless you boldly raise a thousand pounds, if I can manage such a transaction upon a security of the kind. Consolidate all your liabilities, and keep a sum in hand. You are well connected, powerful relatives, your brother has huckston four hundred a year whenever all the present incumbent goes, and there are other things beside, but you must not allow yourself to be ruined through timidity, and if you go to the wall without an effort and allow yourself to be slurred in public, what becomes of your chance of preferment? And now, title went up to Burlington, Smith, and Coe to examine and approve, and from that firm I am sorry to say, a bill of costs was coming, when deeds were prepared and all done, exceeding three hundred and fifty pounds, and there was a little reminder from good Josiah Larkin for two hundred and fifty pounds more. This of course was to await Mr. Wilder's perfect convenience. The vicar knew him, he never pressed any man. Then there would be insurances in proportion, and interest as we see was not trifling, and altogether I am afraid our friend the vicar was being extricated in a rather embarrassing fashion. Now I have known cases in which good-natured debauchees have interested themselves charitably in the difficulties of forlorn families, and I think I knew, almost before they suspected it, that their generous interference was altogether due to one fine pair of eyes, and a pretty tourneur in the distressed family circle. Under a like-half delusion Mr. Josiah Larkin, in the guise of charity, was prosecuting his designs upon the vicar's reversion, and often most cruelly and most artfully when he frankly fancied his conduct most praiseworthy. And really I do not myself know that considering poor William's liabilities and his means, and how many chances there were against that reversion ever becoming a fact, that I would not myself have advised his selling it if a reasonable price were obtainable. All this power will I give thee, said the devil, and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will give it. The world belongs to the rascals. It is like the turf where everyone admits an honest man can hardly hold his own. Josiah Larkin looked down on the seedy and distracted vicar from an immense moral elevation. He heard him talk of religion with disgust. He owed him costs, and beside costs also to Burlington Smith and Coe. Was there not talkative in Pilgrim's progress I believe there are few things more provoking than that a man who owes you money and can't pay the interest should pretend to religion to your face, except perhaps his giving sixpence in charity. The attorney was prosperous. He accounted for it by his attributes and the blessing that waits on industry and integrity. He did not see that Larkin's selfishness had anything to do with it. No man ever failed but through his own fault, none ever succeeded but by his deservings. The attorney was in a position to lecture the reverent Mr. Wilder. In his presence religion in the vicar's mouth was in impertinence. The vicar, on the other hand, was all that we know. Perhaps in comparison his trial is in some sort a blessing, and that there is no greater snare than the state of the man with whom all goes smoothly and who mistakes his circumstances for his virtues. The poor vicar in his little following were got pretty well into the fur-que codenay. Mr. Josiah Larkin, if he did not march him out, to do him justice had had no hand in primarily bringing him there. There was no reason, however, why the respectable lawyer should not make whatever was to be fairly made of the situation. The best thing for both was perhaps that the one should sell and the other by the reversion. Larkin had no apprehensions about the nature of the dealing. He was furnished with an excellent character. His checks were always honoured. His tauts always unexceptionable. His vouchers never anything but exact. He had twice been publicly complimented in this sense when managing Lord Hedgerose estate. No man had, I believe, a higher reputation in his walk. Few men were more formidable. I think it was lawyer Larkin's private canon in his dealings with men that everything was moral that was not contrary to an act of parliament. CHAPTER 54 Brandon Chapel on Sunday For a month and three days Mr. Josiah Larkin was left to ruminate without any new light upon the dusky landscape now constantly before his eyes. At the end of that time a foreign letter came for him to the lodge. It was not addressed in Mark Wilder's hand, not the least like it. Mark's was a bold, free hand, and if there was nothing particularly elegant neither was there anything that could be called vulgar in it. But this was a decidedly villainous scrawl. In fact it was written as a self-educated butcher might pen a bill. There was nothing impressed on the wafer but a poke of something like a feral of a stick. The interior corresponded with the address and the lines slanted confoundedly. It was, however, on the whole better spelled and expressed than the penmanship would have led one to expect. It said, Mr. Larkin's respected sir, I write you, sir, to let you know, has how there is no more chance you should ear of poor Mr. Mark Wilder of Hose horrible death I make bold to acquaint you by this writing, which his secret has yet from all he being hid and made away within the dark. It is only right his family should know all, and his sad ending, which I will tell before you, sir, in full, according to my best guess, has been the family lawyer. And, sir, you will find it useful to tell this in secret to Captain Lake of Brandon Hall, but not on no account to any other. It is horrible, sir, to think a young gentleman with everything the world can give should be made away with so cruel in the dark. Though you do not recollect me, sir, I know you well, Mr. Larkin's, haven't seen you often when a boy. I would not wish, sir, no noise made till I come, which I am returning home and will then travel to Gillingdon, straight ways to see you, sir, your obedient servant, James Dutton. This epistle disturbed Mr. Josiah Larkin profoundly. He could recollect no such name as James Dutton. He did not know whether to believe this letter or not. He could not decide what present use to make of it, nor whether to mention it to Captain Lake, nor if he did so how it was best to open the matter. In Lake he was confident, knew James Dutton. Why otherwise should that person have desired his intelligence communicated to him? At least it proved that Dutton assumed the Captain to be specially interested in what concerned Mark Wilder's fate, and in so far it confirmed his suspicions of Lake. Was it better to wait until he had seen Dutton, and heard his story before hinting at his intelligence and his name, or was it wiser to do that at once, and watch its effect upon the gallant Captain narrowly, and trust through inspiration and the moment for striking out the right course? If this letter was true there was not a moment to be lost in bringing the purchase of the vicar's reversion to a point. The possibilities were positively dazzling. They were worth risking something. I am not sure that Mr. Larkin's hand did not shake a little as he took the statement of title again out of the Wilder tin box number two. Now under the pressure of this inquiry a thing struck Mr. Larkin strangely enough which he had quite overlooked before. There were certain phrases in the will of the late Mr. Wilder which limited a large portion of the great estate in strict settlement. Of course an attorney's opinion upon a question of real property is not conclusive. Still they can't help knowing something of the barrister's special province, and these words were very distinct. In fact they stunted down the vicar's reversion in the greater part of the property to a strict life estate. Long did the attorney pour over his copy of the will, with his finger and thumb closed on his underlip. The language was quite explicit, there was no way out of it. It was strictly a life estate. How could he have overlooked that? His boy, indeed, would take an estate tale, and could disentail whenever, if ever, he came of age. But that was in the clouds. Mackelston on the Moor, however, and the great Barnford estate, were unaffected by these limitations, and the rental which he now carefully consulted, told him these jointly were in round numbers worth twenty three hundred pounds a year, and improvable. This letter of Dutton's, to be sure, may turn out to be all a lie or a blunder, but it may prove to be strictly true, and in that case it will be everything that the deed should be executed and the purchase completed before the arrival of this person and the public notification of Mark Wilder's death. What a world it is to be sure, thought Mr. Larkin, as he shook his long head over Dutton's letter. How smoothly and simply everything would go, if only men would stick to truth. Here's this letter. How much time and trouble it costs me. How much opportunity, possibly sacrificed, simply by reason of the incurable mendacity of men. And he knocked the back of his finger bitterly on the open page. Another thought now struck him for the first time. Was there no mode of hedging, so that whether Mark Wilder were living or dead the attorney should stand to win? Down came the Brandon-boxes, the prudent attorney turned the key in the door, and forth came the voluminous marriage settlement of Stanley Williams Lake, of Slauberly, in the county of Devon, late Captain, etc., etc., of the second part, and Dorcas Adderley Brandon of Brandon Hall, in the county of etc., etc., of the second part, and so forth. And as you read this pleasant composition through, he two or three times murmured approvingly, Yes, yes, yes. His recollection had served him quite rightly. There was the Five Oaks estate, specially excluded from settlement, worth fourteen hundred pounds a year. But it was conditioned that the said Stanley Williams Lake was not to deal with the said lands, except with the consent in writing of the said Dorcas, etc., who was to be the consenting party to the deed. If there was really something unsound in the state of Lake's relations, and that he could be got to consider lawyer Larkin as a friend worth keeping, that estate might be had a bargain. Yes, a great bargain! Larkin walked off to Brandon, but there he learned that Captain Brandon Lake, as he now chose to call himself, had gone that morning to London. Business, I venture to say, and he went into that electioneering without ever mentioning it, either. So thought Larkin, and he did not like this. It looked ominous, and like an incipient sliding away of the Brandon business. Well, no matter, all things worked together for good. It was probably well that he should not be too much shackled with considerations of that particular kind in the important negotiation about Five Oaks. That night he posted a note to Burlington Smith & Company, and by Saturday night's post there came down to the sheriff an execution for a hundred and twenty-three pounds in some odd shillings upon a judgment, on a warrant to confess at the suit of that firm for costs and money advanced against the poor vicar, who never dreamed, as he conned over his next-day sermon with his solitary candle, that the blow had virtually descended, and that his homely furniture, the silver spoons his wife had brought him, and the two shelves half full of old books which he had brought her, and all the rest of their little frugal trumpery, together with his own thin person, had passed into the hands of Messers Burlington Smith & Company. The vicar, on his way to the chapel, passed Mr. Josiah Larkin on the green, not near enough to speak, only to smile and wave his hand kindly, and look after the good attorney with one of those yearning grateful looks which cling to straws upon the drowning stream of life. The sweet chapel bell was just ceasing to toll, as Mr. Josiah Larkin stalked under the antique ribbed arches of the little aisle. Slim and tall he glided, a chastened dignity in his long upturned countenance, and a faint halo of sainthood round his tall bald head. Having whispered his horizons into his well-brushed hat and taken his seat, his dove-like eyes rested for a moment upon the Brandon seat. There was but one figure in it, slender, light-haired, with his yellow mustache and pale face, grown of late a little fatter. Captain Brandon Lake was a very punctual church gore since the idea of trying the county at the next election had entered his mind. Dorcas was not very well. Mr. Chelford had taken his departure, and your humble servant, who pens these pages, had gone for a few days to Malwych. There was no guest just then at Brandon, and the captain sat alone on that devotional dais, the elevated floor of the great Oaken-Brandon seat. There were old Brandon and wilder monuments built up against the walls. Figures cut in stone and painted in gilded and tarnished splendor, according to the gorgeous barbarism of Elizabeth and the first James Age. Tablets and brass, marble-pillared monuments, and a couple of life-sized knights, armed cappa-pee on their backs in the isle. There is a stained window in the east which connoisseurs in that branch of medieval art admire. There is another very fine one over the Brandon pew, a freak, perhaps, of some of those old brandons or wilders, who had a strange spirit of cynicism mingling in their profligacy and violence. Here you have looked on Hans Holbein's Dance of Death, that grim phantasmal pageant symbolic as a dream of Pharaoh. And perhaps you bear in mind that design called the Elector, in which the prince, emerging from his palace gate, with a cloud of court-shears behind, is met by a poor woman, her little child by the hand, appealing to his compassion, despising whom he turns away with a serene disdain. Beneath, in black letter, is inscribed the text, Prince Induitor Merore eques cere facium superpiam pontentium, and gigantic death lays his fingers on the great man's ermine tippet. It is a copy of this, which, in very splendid colouring, fills the window that lights the Brandon state seat in the chapel. The guils and gold were reflected on the young man's head, and with a vain augury the attorney read again the solemn words from Holy Rit, Prince Induitor Merore. The golden glare rested like a glory on his head, but there was also a gorgeous stain of blood that bathed his ear in temple. His head was busy enough at that moment, though it was quite still, and his sly eyes rested on his prayer-book. For Sparks the millionaire clothier, who had purchased Beverly, and was a potent voice in the Darlington Bank, and whose politics were doubtful and relations amphibious, was sitting in the pew nearly opposite, and showed his red-fat face and white whiskers over the oak-wainscotting. Josiah Larkin, like the rest of the congregation, was by this time praying, his elbows on the edge of the pew, his hands clasped, his thumbs under his chin, and his long face and pink eyes raised heavenward, with now and then a gentle downward dropping of the latter. He was thinking of Captain Lake, who was opposite and like him, praying. He was thinking how aristocratic he looked, and how well in externals he became the Brandon seat, and there were one or two trifles in the captain's attitude and costume, of which the attorney, who, as we know, was not only good, but elegant, made a note. He respected his audacity and his mystery, and he wondered intensely what was going on in that small skull under the light and glossy hair, and anxiously guessed how vitally it might possibly affect him, and wondered what his schemes were after the election. Cuisery facium suburbium potentium, and more darkly about his relations with Mark Wilder, princeps induitor merori. His eye was on the window now, and then it dropped, with a vague presage upon the sleek head of the daring and enigmatical captain, reading the litany, from battle, murder, and sudden death, good Lord deliver us, and he almost fancied he saw a yellow skull over his shoulder, glowering cynically on the prayer-book. So the good attorney prayed on, to the edification of all who saw, and mothers in the neighbouring seats were specially careful to prevent their children from whispering or fidgeting. When the service was over, Captain Lake went across to Mr. Sparks, and asked him to come to Brandon to lunch, but the clothier could not, and his brome whirled him away to Naughton Friars. So Stanley Lake walked up the little isle toward the communion table, thinking, and took hold of the railing that surrounded the brass monument as Sir William de Brandon, and seemed to gaze intently on the effigy, but was really thinking profoundly of other matters, and once or twice his sly, side-long glance stole ominously to Josiah Larkin, who was talking at the church door with the good vicar. In fact he was then and there fully uprising him of his awful situation, and poor William Wilder, looking straight at him with white face and damp forehead, was listening stunned, and hardly understanding a word he said, and only the dreadful questions rising to his mouth. Can anything be done? Will the people come to-day? Mr. Larkin explained the constitutional respect for the Sabbath. It would be better, sir, the publicity of an arrest. It was a hard word to utter. In the town would be very painful. It would be better, I think, that I should walk over to the prison. It is only six miles, and see the authorities there, and give myself up. And his lip quivered. He was thinking of the leave-taking of poor Dolly and little fairy. I have a great objection to speak of business to-day, said Mr. Larkin wholly, but I may mention that Burlington and Smith have written very sternly, and the fact is, my dear sir, we must look the things straight in the face. They are determined to go through with it, and you know my opinion all along about the fallacy. You must excuse me. Seeing all the trouble it has involved you in, the infatuation of hesitating about the sale of that miserable reversion which they could have disposed of on fair terms. In fact, sir, they look upon it that you don't want to pay them, and of course they are very angry. Oh! I'm sure I was wrong! I'm such a fool! I must only go to the sheriff the first thing in the morning, and beg of him to hold over that thing, you know, until I have heard from Burlington and Smith, and I suppose I may say to them that you see the necessity of disposing of the reversion and agree to sell it if it be not too late. The vicar assented. Indeed, he had grown under this urgent pressure as nervously anxious to sell as he had been to retain it. And they can't come to-day? Certainly not. And poor William Wilder breathed again in the delightful sense of even momentary escape, and felt he could have embraced his preserver. I'll be very happy to see you to-morrow if you can conveniently look in, say at twelve or half past, to report progress. So that was arranged, and again in the elusive sense of deliverance the poor vicar's hopes brightened and expanded. Hitherto his escapes had not led to safety, and he was only raised from the pit to be sold to the Ishmaelites. CHAPTER 55 The Captain and the Attorney Converse Among the Tooms I cannot tell whether that slender, silken machinator, Captain Lake, loitered in the chapel for the purpose of talking to or avoiding Josiah Larkin, who was standing at the doorway, in sad but gracious converse with the vicar. He was certainly observing him from among the tombs in his sly way, and the attorney, who had a way like him, of noting things without appearing to see them, was conscious of it, and was perhaps decided by this trifle to accost the gallant Captain. So he glided up the short aisle with a sad religious smile, suited to the place, and inclined his lank back and his tall bald head toward the Captain in ceremonious greeting as he approached. How do you do, Larkin? The fog makes one cough a little this evening. Larkin's answer, thanks, and inquiries came gravely in return, and with the same sad smile he looked round on the figures, from marble, some painted stone, of departed brandons and wilders, with garrulous epitaphs, who surrounded them in various costumes, quite a family group, in which the attorney was gratified to mingle. Ancestry, Captain Lake, your ancestry, noble assemblage, monuments and timber, timber like the brandon oaks and monuments like these, these are things which, whatever else he may acquire, the novus homo, Captain Brandon Lake, the parvenu, can never command. Mr. Josiah Larkin had a smattering of school-latin and knew half a dozen French words which he took out on occasion. Certainly our good people do occupy some space here. More regular attendance in church than I fear they formerly were, and their virtues more remarked, perhaps, than before the stone-cutter was instructed to publish them with his chisel, answered Lake, with one of his quiet sneers. Beautiful chapel this, Captain Lake? Beautiful chapel, sir, said the attorney, again looking round with a dreary smile of admiration, but though his accents were engaging and he smiled, of course a Sabbath-day smile, yet Captain Lake perceived that it was not the doves, but the rat's eyes that were doing duty under that tall bald brow. Solemn thoughts, sir, solemn thoughts, Captain Lake, silent mentors, eloquent monitors, and he waved his long, lank hand toward the monumental groups. Yes, said Lake, in the same mocking tone that was low and sweet and easily mistaken for something more amiable. You and they go capitely together, so solemn and eloquent and godly. Capital fellows! I'm not half good enough for such company, and the place is growing rather cold. Is not it? A great many-wilder, sir, a great many-wilders! The attorney dropped his voice and paused at this emphasis, pointing a long finger toward the surrounding effigies. Captain Lake, after his custom, glared a single full look upon the attorney, sudden as the flash of a pair of guns from their embrasures in the dark, and he said quietly with a wave of his cane in the same direction. Yes, a precious lot of wilders! Is there a wilder vault here, Captain Brandon Lake? Hanged, if I know. What the devil's that to you or me, sir? answered the captain, with a peevish sullenness. I was thinking, Captain Lake, whether in the event of its turning out that Mr. Mark Wilder was dead, it would be thought proper to lay his body here. Dead, sir! And what the plague puts that in your head? You are corresponding with him, aren't you? I'll tell you exactly how that is, Captain Lake. May I take the liberty to ask you for one moment to look up? As between these two gentlemen, this it must be allowed, was an impertinent request. But Captain Lake did look up, and there was something extraordinarily unpleasant in his yellow eyes, as he fixed them upon the contracted pupils of the attorney, who nothing daunted went on. Pray, excuse me, thank you, Captain Lake, they say one is better heard when looked at than when not seen, and I wish to speak rather low, for reasons. Each looked the other in the eyes, with that uncertain and sinister gaze which has a character both of fear and menace. I have received those letters, Captain Lake, of which I spoke to you when I last had the honour of seeing you, as furnishing, in certain circumstances connected with them, grave matter of suspicion, since when I have not received one with Mr. Wilder's signature. But I have received, only the other day, a letter from a new correspondent, a person signing himself James Dutton, announcing his belief that Mr. Mark Wilder is dead. Is dead, and has been made away with by foul means, and I have arranged, immediately on his arrival at his desire, to meet him professionally and to hear the entire narrative both of what he knows and of what he suspects. As Desi Alarkin delivered this with stern features and emphasis, the Captain's countenance underwent such a change as convinced the attorney that some indescribable evil had befallen Mark Wilder, and that Captain Brandon Lake had a guilty knowledge thereof. With this conviction came a sense of superiority and a pleasant confidence in his position, which betrayed itself in a slight frown and a pallid smile as he looked steadily in the young man's face, with his small, crafty, hungry eyes. Lake knew that his face had betrayed him. He had felt the livid change of colour, and that twitching at his mouth and cheek which he could not control. The mean, tyrannical, triumphant gaze of the attorney was upon him, and his own countenance was his accuser. Lake ground his teeth, and returned Josi Alarkin's intimidating smirk with a look of fury, which, for now he believed he held the winning cards, did not appall him. Lake cleared his throat twice, but did not find his voice, and turned away and read half through the epitaph on Lady Mary Brandon, which is a pious and somewhat puritanical composition. I hope it did him good. "'You know, sir,' said Captain Lake, but a little huskily, turning about and smiling at last, that Mark Wilder is nothing to me. We don't correspond. We have not corresponded. I know, upon my honour and soul, sir, nothing on earth about him, what he's doing, where he is, or what's become of him. But I can't hear a man of business like you assert upon what he conceives to be reliable information situated as the Brandon title is, depending, I mean, in some measure upon his life, that Mark Wilder is no more, without being a good deal shocked. I quite understand, sir, quite, Captain Lake. It is very serious, sir, very. But I can't believe it has gone that length quite. I shall know more, of course, when I've seen James Dutton. I can't think, I mean, he's been made away with in that sense, nor how that could benefit any one, and I'd much rather, Captain Lake, move in this matter, since move I must, in your interest, I mean, as your friend and man of business, than in any way, Captain Lake, that might possibly involve you in trouble. You are my man of business, aren't you? And have no grounds for ill-will, eh? said the Captain dryly. No ill-will, certainly, quite the reverse. Thank heaven I think I may truly say I bear ill-will to no man living, and wish you, Captain Lake, nothing but good, sir. Nothing but good. Except a hasty word or two I know no reason you should not, said the Captain, in the same tone. Quite so. But, Captain Brandon Lake, there is nothing like being completely aboveboard. It has been my rule through life, and I will say, it would not be frank and candid to say anything else, that I have of late been anything but satisfied with the position which, ostensibly your professional adviser and confidential man of business, I have occupied. Have I been consulted? I put it to you. Have I been trusted? Has there been any real confidence, Captain Lake, upon your part? You have certainly had relations with Mr. Mark Wilder, correspondence for anything I know. You have entertained the project of purchasing the reverend William Wilder's reversion, and you have gone into electioneering business, and formed connections of that sort, without once doing me the honour to confer with me on the subject. Now, the plain question is, do you wish to retain my services? Certainly, said Captain Lake, biting his lip with a sinister little frown. Then, Captain Lake, upon the same principle, and speaking quite aboveboard, you must dismiss it once from your mind the idea that you can do so, upon the terms you have of late seen fit to impose. I am speaking frankly when I say there must be a total change. I must be, in reality, what I am held out to the world as being, your trusted and responsible and sole adviser. I don't aspire to the position I am willing at this moment to retire from it, but I never yet knew a divided direction come to good. It is an office of great responsibility, and I, for one, will not consent to touch it on any other conditions than those I have taken the liberty to mention. These are easily complied with, in fact, I undertake to show you they have never been disturbed, answered Lake, rather sullenly. So that being understood, eh, I suppose we have nothing particular to add? And Captain Lake extended his gloved hand to take leave. But the attorney looked down, and then up, with a shadow on his face, and his lip in his finger and thumb, and he said, That's all very well, and a sine qua non, so far as it goes, but my dear Captain Lake, let us be plain. You must see, my dear sir, with such rumours possibly about to get afloat, and such persons about to peer as this James Dutton, that matters are really growing critical, and there's no lack of able solicitors who would, on speculation, undertake a suit upon less evidence, perhaps, than may be forthcoming, to upset your title unto the will, through Mrs. Dorcas Branden Lake, your joint title, in favour of the reversioner. Lake only bit his lip, and shook his head. The attorney knew, however, that the danger was quite appreciated, and went on. You will, therefore, want a competent man, who has the papers at his fingers ends, and knows how to deal ably—ably, sir, with a fellow of James Dutton's stamp, at your elbow. The fact is, to carry you safely through, you will need pretty nearly the undivided attention of a well-qualified, able, and confidential practitioner, and I need not say such a man is not to be had for nothing. Lake nodded a seeming assent, which seemed to say, I have found it so. Now, my dear Captain Lake, I just mention this—I put it before you—that is, because you know the county is not to be contested for nothing, and you'll want a very serious sum of money for the purpose, and possibly a petition, and I can, one way or another, make up, with an effort, about fifteen thousand pounds. Now, it strikes me, that it would be a wise thing for you, the wisest thing, perhaps, my dear Captain Lake, you ever did, to place me in the same boat with yourself. I don't exactly see. I'll make it quite clear. The attorney's tall forehead had a little pink flash over it at this moment, and he was looking down a little and poking the base of Sir William de Brandon's monument with the point of his umbrella. I wish, Captain Lake, to be perfectly frank, and as I said, above board, you'll want the money, and you must make up your mind to sell five oaks. Captain Lake shifted his foot, as if he had found it on a sudden, on a hot flag. "'Sell five oaks. That's fourteen hundred a year,' said he. Hardly so much. But nearly, perhaps. Forty-three thousand pounds were offered for it. Old Chudworth offered that about ten years ago. Of course, Captain Lake, if you are looking for a fence you price from me, I must abandon the idea. I was merely supposing a dealing between friends, and in that sense I ventured to name the extreme limit to which I could go. No more than five percent for my money, if I ensure, and possibly to defend an action before I've been six months in possession. I think my offer will strike you as a great one, considering the posture of affairs. Indeed, I apprehend my friends will hardly think me justified in offering so much. The sexton was walking back and forward near the door, making the best clatter he decently could, and wondering the captain and lawyer Larkin could find no better place to talk in than the church. In a moment, in a moment, said the lawyer, signalling to him to be quiet, as loftily as if chapel, hall, and sexton were his private property. It was one of those moments into which a good deal of talk is fitted, and which seems somewhat of the longest to those who await its expiration. The chapel was growing dark, and its stone and marble company of bygone wilders and brandons were losing themselves in shadow. Part of the periwig and cheek of Sir Marcus Brandon still glimmered whitish, as at a little distance did also the dim marble face and arm of the young Countess of Lidingworth mourning these hundred and thirty years over her dead baby. Sir William Wilder, in rough rosettes and full dress of James I's fashion, on his back, defunct with children in cloaks kneeling at head and foot, was hardly distinguishable, and the dusky crimson and tarnished gold had gone out of view till morning. The learned Archbishop Brandon, a cadet who filled the Sea of York in his day, and was the only unexceptionably godly personage of that long line, was praying, as usual, at his desk, perhaps to the saints and virgin, for I believe he was before the Reformation, in beard and skull-cap, as was evident from the black profile of head and uplifted hands against the dim sky seen through the chapel window. A dusky glow from the West still faintly showed Hans Holbein's proud Elector in the Brandon window, fading with death himself and the dread inscription, Princepts Induitor Merori into utter darkness. The ice once broken, Josiah Larkin urged his point with all sorts of arguments, always placing the proposed transaction in the most plausible lights and attitudes, and handling his subject in round and flowing sentences. This master of persuasion was not aware that Captain Lake was arguing the question for himself on totally different grounds, and that it was fixed in his mind pretty much in these terms. That old villain, once an exorbitant bribe, is he worth it? He knew what the lawyer thought he did not know. That Five Oaks was held by the lawyers to be possibly without those unfortunate limitations which affected all the rest of the estate. It was only a moot point, but the doubt had led Mr. Josiah Larkin to the selection. I'll look in upon you between eight and nine in the morning, and I'll say yes or no then, said the Captain, as they parted under the old stone porch, the attorney with a graceful inclination, a sad smile, and a wave of his hand, the Captain with his hands in the pockets of his loose coat, and a side-long glance from his yellow eyes. The sky, as he looked toward Brandon, was draped in black cloud, intensely black, meeting a black horizon, except for one little rent of deep crimson which showed westward behind those antique gables and lordly trees, like a lake of blood. CHAPTER 56 The Brandon Conservatory Captain Lake did look in at the lodge in the morning, and remained an hour in conference with Mr. Josiah Larkin. I suppose everything went off pleasantly, for although Stanley Lake looked very pale and vicious as he walked down to the iron gate of the lodge among the evergreens and bas-mats, the good attorney's countenance shone with a serene and heavenly light, so pure and bright indeed that I almost wonder his dazzled servants sitting along the wall while he read and expounded that morning, did not respectfully petition that a veil, after the manner of Moses, might be suspended over the seraphic effulgence. Somehow his times did not interest him at breakfast. These parliamentary wrangles, commercial speculations, and foreign disputes, are they not, after all, but melancholy and dreary records of the merest worldliness? And are there not moments when they become almost insipid? Josiah Larkin tossed the paper upon the sofa. French politics, relations with Russia, commercial treaties, party combinations, how men can so wrap themselves up in these things! And he smiled ineffable pity over the crumpled newspaper on the poor souls in that sort of worldly limbo. In which frame of mind he took from his coat pocket a copy of Captain Lake's marriage settlement, and read over again a covenant on the captain's part that with respect to this particular estate of five oaks he would do no act and execute no agreement, deed, or other instrument whatsoever, in any wise affecting the same without the consent and writing of the said Dorcas Brandon, and a second covenant binding him and the trustees of the settlement against executing any deed, etc., without a similar consent, and especially directing that in the event of alienating the estate the said Dorcas must be made an assenting party to the deed. He folded the deed and replaced it in his pocket with a peaceful smile and closed eyes murmuring, I'm much mistaken if the Grey Mares the better horse in that stud. He laughed gently, thinking of the captain's formidable and unscrupulous nature, exhibitions of which he could not fail to remember. No, no, Miss Dorky won't give us much trouble. He used to call her Miss Dorky, playfully to his clerks. It gave him consideration, he fancied, and now with this five oaks to begin with, fourteen hundred pounds a year, a great capability, immensely improvable, he would stake half his worth on making it more than two thousand pounds within five years, and with other things at his back an able man like him might be for long look as high as she, and visions of the grand jury rose dim and splendid, an heiress and a seat for the county. Perhaps he and Lake might go in together, though he'd rather be associated with the Honourable James Clutworth or young Lord Grittlestone. Lake, you see, wanted weight, and not withstanding his connections was, it could not be denied, a new man in the county. So Wilder, Lake, and Josiah Larkin had each projected for himself pretty much the same career, and probably each saw glimmering in the horizon the golden round of a coronet. And I suppose other modest men are not always proof against similar flatteries of imagination. Josiah Larkin had also the vicar's business and reversion to attend to. The Reverend William Wilder had a letter containing three lines from him at eight o'clock, to which he sent an answer, whereupon the solicitor dispatched a special messenger, one of his clerks, to Dollington, with a letter to the Sheriff's Deputy, from whom he received duly a reply, which necessitated a second letter with a formal undertaking, to which came another reply, whereupon he wrote to Burlington Smith and Company, acquainting them respectfully in diplomatic fashion with the attitude which affairs had assumed. With this went a private and confidential non-official note to Smith, desiring him to answer stiffly and press for an immediate settlement, and to charge costs fairly, as Mr. William Wilder would have ample funds to liquidate them. Smith knew what fairly meant, and his entries went down accordingly. By the same post went up to the same firm a proposition, an afterthought sanctioned by a second miniature correspondence with his client, now sailing before the wind, to guarantee them against loss consequent against staying the execution in the Sheriff's hands for a fortnight, which if they agreed to, they were further requested to send a draft of the proposed undertaking by return, at foot of which, in pencil, he wrote, N. B. Yes. This arrangement necessitated his providing himself with a guarantee from the vicar, and so the little account is between the vicar and Josiah Larkin's solicitor, and the vicar and Mr. Burlington Smith and company, solicitors, grew up and expanded with a tropical luxurience. About the same time, while Mr. Josiah Larkin, I mean, was thinking over Miss Dorky's share in the deed, with a complacent sort of interest anticipating a struggle, but sure of victory, that beautiful young lady was walking slowly from flower to flower in the splendid conservatory which projects southward from the house, and rears itself in glacial arches high over the short-sward and flowery patterns of the outer garden of Brandon. The unspeakable sadness of wounded pride was on her beautiful features, and there was a fondness in the gesture with which she laid her fingers on these exotics and stooped over them, which gave to her solitude a sentiment of the pathetic. From the high-glass doorway, communicating with the drawing-rooms at the far end, among towering ranks of rare and gorgeous flowers, over the encaustic tiles and through this atmosphere of perfume, did Captain Stanley Lake in his shooting-coat glide smiling toward his beautiful young wife. She heard the door close, and looking half over her shoulder in a low tone indicating surprise, she merely said, oh, receiving him with a proud sad look. Yes, Dorky, I'm here at last. I've been for some week so insufferably busy, and he laid his white hand lightly over his eyes, as if they and the brain within were alike weary. How charming this place is! The temple of Flora and you the divinity! And he kissed her cheek. I'm now emancipated, for I hope a week or two. I've been so stupid and inattentive. I'm sure, Dorky, you must think me a brute. I've been shut up so in the library, and keeping such tiresome company, you've no idea. But I think you'll say it was time well spent. At least I'm sure you'll approve the result. And now that I have collected the facts, and can show you, darling, exactly what the chances are, you must consent to hear the long story, and when you have heard, give me your advice. Dorky has smiled and only plucked a little flowery tendril from a plant that hung in a natural festoon above her. I assure you, darling, I am serious. You must not look so incredulous, and it is the more provoking because I love you so. I think I have a right to your advice, Dorky. Why don't you ask Rachel? She's cleverer than I, and you are more in the habit of consulting her. Now, Dorky is going to talk her wicked nonsense over again as if I had never answered it. What about Raddy? I do assure you, so far from taking her advice and thinking her in Oracle, as you suppose, I believe her, in some respects, very little removed from a fool. I think her very clever on the contrary, said Dorky's enigmatically. Well, she is clever in some respects. She is gay. At least she used to be, before she fell into that transcendental parson's hands. I mean, poor dear William Wilder, and she can be amusing and talks very well, but she has no sense. She's utterly quixotic. She's no more capable of advising than a child. I should not have fancied that, although you say so, Stanley. She answered carelessly, adding a geranium to her bouquet. You are thinking, I know, because you have seen us once or twice talking together. Stanley paused, not knowing exactly how to construct the remainder of his sentence. Dorky's added another blossom. I think that blue improves it wonderfully, don't you? The blue? Oh, yes, certainly. And now that little star of yellow will make it perfect, said Dorky's. Yes, yellow, quite perfect, said Stanley. But when you saw Rachel and me talking together, or rather Rachel talking to me, I do assure you, Dorky's, upon my sacred honor, one half of what she said I do not to this moment comprehend, and the whole was based on the most preposterous blunder. And I will tell you, in a little time, everything about it. I would this moment, I'd be delighted, only just until I have got a letter which I expect, a letter, I assure you, nothing more, and until I have got it, it would be simply to waste your time and patience to weary you with any such, any such. Secret, said Dorky's. Secret then, if you will have it so, retorted Stanley, suddenly, with one of those glares that lasted for just one fell moment, but he instantly recovered himself. Secret, yes, but no secret in the evil sense, a secret only awaiting the evidence which I daily expect, and then to be stated fully and frankly to you, my only darling, and is completely blown to the winds. Dorky's looked in his strange face with her proud, sad gaze, like one guessing at a funereal allegory. He kissed her cheek again, placing one arm round her slender waist, and with his other hand taking hers. Yes, Dorky's my beloved, my only darling, you will yet know all it has cost me to retain from you even this folly, and when you have heard all, which upon my soul and honor you shall the moment I am enabled to prove all, you will thank me for having braved your momentary displeasure to spare you a great deal of useless and miserable suspense. I trust you, Dorky's, in everything implicitly. Why won't you credit what I say? I don't urge you, I never have, to reveal that which you describe so strangely as a concealment, yet no secret, as an absurdity, and yet fraught with miserable suspense. Ah, Dorky's, why will you misconstrue me? Why will you not believe me? I long to tell you this, which, after all, is an utter absurdity a thousand times more than you can desire to hear it, but my doing so now, unfortified by the evidence I shall have in a very few days, would be attended with a danger which you will then understand. Won't you trust me? And now for my advice, said Dorky, smiling down in her mysterious way upon a crimson exotic near her feet. Yes, darling, thank you. In sober earnest your advice, answered Lake, and you must advise me, several of our neighbours, the Hilliards, the Lead witches, the Windermere's, and ever so many more, have spoken to me very strongly about contesting the county on the old wig-principles at the election which is now imminent. There is not a man with a chance of acceptance to come forward if I refuse. Now you know what even moderate success in the house, when family and property go together, may accomplish. There are the Dodminsters. Do you think they would ever have got their title by any other means? There are the Foresters. I know it all, Stanley, and at once I say, go on, I thought you must have formed some political project. Mr. Wilden has been with you so often, but you tell me nothing, Stanley. Not, darling, till I know it myself. This plan, for instance, until you spoke this moment, was but a question, and one which I could not submit until I had seen Wilden, and heard how matters stood, and what chances of success I should really have. So darling, you have it all, and I am so glad you advise me to go on. It is five and thirty years since anyone connected with Brandon came forward, but it will cost a great deal of money, dorky. Yes, I know. I've always heard it cost my uncle and Sir William Camden fifteen thousand pounds. Yes, it will be expensive, Wilden thinks. Very this time. The other side will spend a great deal of money. It often struck me as a great mistake that where there is a good income and a position to be maintained there is not a little put by every year to meet cases like this, what they call a reserve fund in trading companies. I do not think there is much money, you know, Stanley. Whatever there is, is under settlement, and we cannot apply it, dorky. The only thing to be done, it strikes me, is to sell a part of five oaks. I'll not sell any property, Stanley. And what do you propose, then? I don't know. I don't understand these things, but there are ways of getting money by mortgages and loans, and paying them off without losing the property. I have the greatest possible objection to raising money in that way. It is, in fact, the first step towards ruin, and nobody has ever done it who has not regretted that he did not sell instead. I won't sell five oaks, Stanley, said the young lady seriously. I only said a part, replied Stanley. I won't sell at all. Oh! And I won't mortgage, said Stanley. Then the thing can't go on. I can't help it. But I'm resolved it shall, answered Stanley. I tell you, Stanley, plainly, I will not sell. The brand and estate shall not be diminished in my time. Why, you perverse idiot, don't you perceive you impair the estate as much by mortgaging as by selling, with ten times the ultimate danger? I tell you, I won't mortgage, and you shall sell. This, sir, is the first time I have been spoken to in such terms. And why do you contradict and thwart me upon business of which I know something and you nothing? What object on earth can I have in impairing the estate? I've as deep an interest in it as you. It is perfectly plain we should sell, and I am determined we shall. Come now, Dorcas, I'm sorry. I'm such a brute you know when I'm vexed. You mustn't be angry, and if you'll be a good girl, and trust me in matters of business, Stanley, I tell you plainly once more, I never will consent to sell one acre of the brand and estates. Then we'll see what I can do without you, Dorcas. He said in a pleasant, musing way. He was now looking down, with a sly, maligned smile, and Dorcas could almost fancy two yellow lights reflected upon the floor. I shall protect the property of my family, sir, from your folly or your machinations, and I shall write to Chelford as my trustee to come here to advise me. And I snap my fingers at you both, and meet you with defiance, and Stanley's singular eyes glared upon her for a few seconds. Dorcas turned in her grand way and walked slowly toward the door. Stay a moment, I'm going! said Stanley, overtaking and confronting her near the door. I've only one word. I don't think you quite know me. It will be an evil day for you, dorky, when you quarrel with me. He looked steadily on her, smiling for a second or two more, and then glided from the conservatory. It was the first time Dorcas had seen Stanley Lake's features in that translated state which indicated the action of his evil nature and the apparition haunted her for many a day and night. CHAPTER 57 CONCERNING A NEW DANGER WHICH THREATENED CAPTAIN STANLEY LAKE The ambitious captain walked out, sniffing, white, and incensed. There was an air of immovable resolution in the few words which Dorcas had spoken which rather took him by surprise. The captain was a terrorist. He acted instinctively on the theory that any good that was to be got from human beings was to be extracted from their fears. He had so operated on Mark Wilder and so sought to coerce his sister Rachel. He had hopes, too, of ultimately catching the good attorney napping and leading him, too, bound and docile into his ergastulum. Although he was himself just now in jeopardy from that quarter. James Dutton, too, sooner or later he would get Master Jim into a fix and hold him also spellbound in the same sort of nightmare. It was not from Malice the worthy attorney had much more of that leave-in than he. Stanley Lake did not care to smash any man except such as stood in his way. Yet a mercantile genius and never exercised his craft, violence and ferocity on men or objects when no advantage was obtainable by so doing. When, however, fortunes so placed them that one or other must go to the wall, Captain Stanley Lake was awfully unscrupulous. But having disabled and struck him down and won the stakes he would have given what remained of him his cold, white hand to shake or sipped claret with him at his own table and told him stories and entertained him with sly, sarcastic sallies and thought how he could make use of him in an amicable way. Stanley Lake's cold, commercial genius, his craft and egotism were frustrated occasionally by his temper, which I am afraid, with all its external varnish, was of the sort which is styled diabolical. People said also what is true of most terrorists, that he was himself quite capable of being frightened, and also that he lied with too fertile an audacity, and like a man with too many bills afloat forgot his endorsements occasionally, and did not recognize his own acceptances when presented after an interval. Which were some of this dangerous fellow's weak points. But on the whole it was by no means a safe thing to cross his path, and few who did so came off altogether skateless. He pursued his way with a vague feeling of danger and rage, having encountered an opposition of so much more alarming a character than he had anticipated, and found his wife not only competent, fairer aspectum, to endure his maniacal glare and scowl, but serenely to defy his violence and his wrath. He had abundance of matter for thought and perturbation, and felt himself when the images of Larkham, Larkin, and Jim Dutton crossed the retina of his memory, some thrill of the fear which hath torment, the fear of a terrible coercion which he liked so well to practice in the case of others. In this mood he paced, without minding in what direction he went, under those great rows of timber which overarch the pathway leading toward Redmond's Dell, the path that he and Mark Wilder had trod in that misty, moonlight walk on which I had seen them set out together. Before he had walked five minutes in this direction, he was encountered by a little girl in a cloak, who stopped and dropped a courtesy. The captain stopped also, and looked at her with a stare which I suppose had something forbidding in it, for the child was frightened. But the wild and menacing look was unconscious, and only the reflection of the dark speculations and passions which were tumbling and breaking in his soul. Well, child, said he gently, I think I know your face, but I forget your name. Will Marjorie please, sir, from Miss Lake at Redmond's farm? She replied with a courtesy. Oh, to be sure, yes! And how is Miss Rachel? Very bad with a headache, please, sir. Is she at home? Yes, sir, please. Any message? Yes, sir, please, a note for you, sir, and she produced a note, rather, indeed, a letter. She desired me, sir, please, to give it into your own hand if I could, and not to leave it, please, sir, unless you were at home when I reached. She read the direction, and dropped it unopened into the pocket of a shooting-coat. The peevish glance with which he eyed it, betrayed a pre-sentiment of something unpleasant. Any answer required? No, sir, please, only to leave it. And Miss Lake is quite well? No, sir, please, a bad headache today. Oh, I'm very sorry, indeed. Tell her so. She is at home, is she? Yes, sir. Very well, that's all. Say I am very sorry to hear she is suffering, and if I can find time I hope to see her to-day, and remember to say I have not read her letter, but if I find it it requires an answer it shall have one. He looked round like a man newly awakened, and up among the great bows an interlacing foliage of the noble trees, and the child made him two courtesies, and departed towards Redmond's farm. Lake sauntered back slowly toward the hall. On his way a rustic seat under the shadow invited him, and he sat down, drawing Rachel's letter from his pocket. What a genius they have for teasing! How women do contrive to waste our time and patience over nonsense! How ingeniously perverse their whimsies are! I do believe Bale'sabab employs them still, as he did in Eden, for the special plague of us, poor devils. Here's a lecture or an exhortation from Miss Raddy, and a quantity of infinitely absurd advice, all which I am to read, and inwardly digest, and discuss with her whenever she pleases, of a great mind to burn it quietly. But he applied his match instead to his cigar, and having got it well lighted, he leaned back, and broke the seal, and read this letter, which I suspect notwithstanding his preliminary thoughts, he fancied might contain matter of more practical import. I write to you, my beloved, and only brother Stanley, in an altered state of mind, and with clearer views of duty than I think I have ever had before. Just as I conjectured, muttered Stanley with a bitter smile, as he shook the ashes off the top of his cigar, a woman's homily. He read on, and a livid frown gradually contracted his forehead, as he did so. I do not know, Stanley, what your feelings may be. Mine have been the same, ever since that night in which I was taken into a confidence so dreadful. The circumstances are fearful, but far more dreadful to me the mystery in which I have lived ever since. I sometimes think I have only myself to blame. But you know, my poor brother, why I consented, and with what agony. Ever since I have lived in terror, and worse, in degradation. I did not know, until it was too late, how great was my guilt. Heaven knows when I consented to that journey I did not comprehend its full purpose, though I knew enough to have warned me of my danger, and undertook it in great fear and anguish of mind. I can never cease to mourn over my madness. O Stanley, you do not know what it is to feel as I do the shame and treachery of my situation, to try to answer the smiles of those who at least once loved me, and to take their hands to kiss Dorcas and good Dolly, and feel that all the time I am a vile impostor stained incredibly, from whom if they knew me they would turn in horror and disgust. Now, Stanley, I can bear anything but this baseness, anything but the lifelong practice of perfidy. That I will not and cannot endure. Dorcas must know the truth. That there is a secret, jealously guarded from her she does know. No woman could fail to perceive that. And there are few Stanley who would not prefer the certainty of the worst to the anguish of such relations of mystery and reserve with a husband. She's clever. She's generous, and has many noble qualities. She will see what is right, and do it. Me she may hate, and must despise, but that were to me more endurable than friendship gained on false pretenses. I repeat therefore, Stanley, that Dorcas must know the whole truth. Do not suppose, my poor brother, that I write from impulse I have deeply thought on the subject. Deeply repeated, Stanley, with a sneer. And the more I reflect, the more am I convinced, if you will not tell her, Stanley, that I must. But it will be wiser and better, terrible as it may be, that the revelation should come from you, whom she has made her husband. The dreadful confidence would be more terrible from any other. Be courageous, then, Stanley. You will be happier when you have disclosed the truth and released at all events one of your victims. Your sorrowful and only sister, Rachel. On finishing the letter, Stanley rose quickly to his feet. He had become gradually so absorbed in reading it that he laid his cigar unconsciously beside him, and suffered it to go out. With downcast look and an angry contortion he tore the sheets of note paper across, and was on the point of reducing them to a thousand little snowflakes, and giving them to the wind, when on second thoughts he crumpled them together and thrust them into his breast pocket. His excitement was too intense for foul terms, or even blasphemy. With the edge of his nether-lip, nipped in his teeth, and his clenched hands in his pockets, he walked through the forest trees to the park, and in his solitudes hurried onward as if his life depended on his speed. Gradually he recovered his self-possession. He sat down under the shade of a knot with beech-trees, overlooking that ill-oamened tarn, which we have often mentioned, upon a like and stained rock, his chin resting on his clenched hand, his elbow on his knee, and the heel of his other foot stamping out bits of the short green sod. That damned girl deserves to be shot for her treachery! was the first sentence that broke from his white lips. It certainly was an amazing outrage upon his self-esteem, that the secret which was the weapon of terror by which he meant to rule his sister Rachel, should by her slender hand be taken so easily from his grasp, and lifted to crush him. The captain's plans were not working by any means so smoothly as he had expected. That sudden stab from Josiah Larkin, whom he always despised and now hated, whom he believed to be a fifth-rate, pluckless rogue without audacity, without invention, whom he was on the point of tripping up, that he should have turned short and garreted the gallant captain was a provoking turn of fortune. That when a dire necessity subjugated his will, his contempt, his rage, and he inwardly decided that the attorney's extortion must be submitted to, his wife, whom he never made any account of in the transaction, whom he reckoned carelessly on turning about as he pleased, by a few compliments and conjolleries, should have started up, cold and inflexible as marble, in his path to forbid the payment of the blackmail, and expose him to the unassertained and formidable consequences of Dutton's story, and the disappointed attorney's vengeance, was another stroke of luck which took him altogether by surprise. And to crown all, Miss Raddy had grown tired of keeping her own secret, and must needs bring to light the buried disgraces which all concerned were equally interested in hiding away forever. Stanley Lake's position, if all were known, was at this moment formidable enough. But he had been fifty times over during his brief career in scrapes of a very menacing kind, once or twice indeed of the most alarming nature. His temper, his craft, his impetus, were always driving him into projects and situations more or less critical. Sometimes he won, sometimes he failed, but his audacious energy hitherto had extricated him. The difficulties of his present situation were, however, appalling, and almost daunted his semi-diabolical energies. From Rachel to Dorcas, from Dorcas to the attorney, and from him to Dutton and back again, he rambled in the infernal litany he muttered over the inauspicious tarn among the enclosing banks and undulations and solitary and lonely woods. Lake Avernus said a hollow voice behind him, and a long grisly hand was laid on his shoulder. A cold breath of horror crept from his brain to his heel, as he turned about and saw the large blanched features and glassy eyes of Uncle Lorne bent over him. "'Oh! Lake Avernus is it,' said Lake, with an angry sneer, and raising his hat with a mock reverence. "'Aye! It is the window of hell, and the spirits in prison come up to see the light of it. Did you see him looking up?' said Uncle Lorne with his pallid smile. Of course! Napoleon Bonaparte leaning on old Dr. Simcock's arm answered Lake. It was odd in the sort of ghastly banter in which he played off his old man. How much hatred was perceptible! No, not he. It is Mark Wilder, said Uncle Lorne. His face comes up like a white fish within a fathom of the top. It makes me laugh. That's the way they keep holiday. Can you tell by the sky when it is holiday in hell? I can. And he laughed and rubbed his long fingers together softly. Look! Ha-ha! Look! Ha-ha-ha! Look! He resumed pointing with his cadaverous forefinger towards the middle of the pool. I told you this morning it was a holiday, and he laughed very quietly to himself. Look how his nostrils go like a fish's gills. It is a funny way for a gentleman, and he's a gentleman. Every fool knows the Wilder's a gentleman, all gentlemen in misfortune. He has a brother that is walking about in his coffin. Mark has no coffin. It is all marrable steps. And a wicked seraph received him, and blessed him till his hair stood up. Let me whisper you. No, not just at this moment, please," said Lake, drawing away, disgusted, from the maniacal leer and titter of the gigantic old man. Aye, aye, another time. Some night there's aurora borealis in the sky. You know this goes underground all the way to Valembrosa. Thank you! I was not aware. That's very convenient. Had you not better go down and speak to your friend in the water? Young man, I bless you for remembering," said Uncle Lauren solemnly. What was Mark Wilder's religion that I may speak to him comfortably? An anabaptist I conjecture, from his present situation, replied Lake. No, that's in the Lake of Fire where the wicked seraphim and cherubim baptize and anabaptize and hold them under with a great stone laid across their breasts. I only know two of their clergy, the African vicar, quite a gentleman, and speaks through his nose, and the archbishop with wings. His face is so burnt. He's all eyes and mouth, and on one hand has only one finger, and he tickles me with it till I almost give up the ghost. The ghost of Miss Bailey is a lie, he said, by my soul, and he likes you, he loves you. Shall I write it all in a book and give it you? I meet Mark Wilder in three places sometimes. Don't move till I go down. He's as easily frightened as a fish. And Uncle Lauren crept down the bank, tacking and dodging, and all the time laughing softly to himself, and sometimes winking with a horrid, wildly grimace at Stanley, who fervently wished him at the bottom of the tarn. I say, said Stanley, addressing the keeper, whom by a back he had brought to his side. You don't allow him, surely, to go alone now. No, sir, since your order, sir, said the stern reserve official. Nor to come into any place but this, the park, I mean. No, sir. And do you mind? Try and get him home always before nightfall. It is easy to frighten him. Find out what frightens him, and do it, or say it. It is dangerous, don't you see? And he might break his damned neck any time among those rocks and gullies, or get away altogether from you in the dark. So the keeper, at the water-sprink, joined Uncle Lauren, who was talking after his fashion into the dark pool, and Stanley Lake, a general in difficulties, retraced his steps toward the park gate through which he had come, ruminating on his situation and resources. CHAPTER 58 Miss Rachel Lake becomes violent. So soon as the letter, which had so surprised an incense Stanley Lake was dispatched, and beyond recall, Rachel, who had been indescribably agitated before, grew all at once calm. She knew that she had done right. She was glad the die was cast, and that it was out of her power to retract. She kneeled at her bedside and wept and prayed, and then went down and talked with Old Tamar, who was knitting in the shade by the porch. Then the young lady put on her bonnet and cloak and walked down to Gillingdon with an anxious but still a lighter heart to see her friend Dolly Wilder. Dolly received her in a glad sort of fuss. I'm so glad to see you, Miss Lake. Call me, Rachel, and won't you let me call you, Dolly? Well, Rachel, dear, replied Dolly, laughing, I'm delighted you're come. I have such good news, but I can't tell it till I think for a minute. I must begin at the beginning. Anywhere, everywhere, only if it is good news, let me hear it at once. I'll be sure to understand. Well, Miss—I mean, Rachel, dear, you know, I may tell you now, the vicar, my dear Willie, he and I, we've been in great trouble—oh, such great trouble, heaven only knows—and she dried her eyes quickly. Money, my dear, and she smiled with a bewildered shrug. Some debts at Cambridge. No fault of his. You can't imagine what a saving darling he is, but these were a few old things that mounted up with interest, my dear. You understand? And law costs? Oh, you can't think. And indeed, dear Miss—well, Rachel, I forgot, I sometimes thought we must be quite ruined. Oh, Dolly, dear, said Rachel, very pale. I feared it. I thought you might be troubled about money. I was not sure, but I was afraid, and to say truth, it was partly to try your friendship with a question on that very point that I came here, and not indeed Dolly, dear, from impertinent curiosity, but in the hope that maybe you might allow me to be of some use. How wonderfully good you are! How friends are raised up, and with a smile that shone like an April sun through her tears, she stood on tiptoe and kissed the tall young lady, who, not smiling, but with a pale and very troubled face, bowed down and returned her kiss. You know, dear, before he went, Mark promised to lend dear Willie a large sum of money, while he went away in such a hurry that he never thought of it. And though he constantly wrote to Mr. Larkin, you have no idea, my dear Miss Lakewood, a blessed angel that man is. Oh, such a friend, as has been raised up to us in that holy and wise man, words cannot express. But what was I saying? Oh, yes, Mark, you know, it was very kind, but he has so many things on his mind it quite escaped him. And he keeps, you know, wandering about on the continent, and never gives his address, so he can't, you see, be written to, and the delay. But Rachel, darling, are you ill? She rang the bell and opened the window and got some water. My darling, you walked too fast here. You were very near fainting. No, dear nothing, I am quite well now. Go on. But she did not go on immediately, for Rachel was trembling in a kind of shivering fit, which did not pass away till after poor Dolly, who had no other stimulant at command, made her drink a cup of very hot milk. Thank you, darling, you are too good to me, Dolly. Oh, Dolly, you are too good to me. Rachel's eyes were looking into hers with a careworn and treating gaze, and her cold hand was pressed on the back of Dolly's. Only ten minutes passed before the talk was renewed. Well, now what do you think? That good man, Mr. Larkin, just as things were at the worst, found a way to make everything a-blessed mercy, the hand of heaven, my dear, quite right again, and will be so happy, like a bird I could sing and fly almost, a foolish old thing, ha-ha-ha, such an old goose, and she wiped her eyes again. Hush! Is that fairy? Oh, no, it is on the and singing. Little man has not been well yesterday and today. She won't eat and looks pale, but he slept very well, my darling man, and Dr. Buttle, I met him this morning, so kindly took him into his room and examined him, and says it may be nothing at all, please heaven, and she sighed, smiling still. Dear little fairy, where is he? asked Rachel, her sad eyes looking toward the door. In the study with his wopsy, Mrs. Williston, she is such a kind soul, lent him such a beautiful old picture-book, Woodward's eccentricities, it is called, and he's quite happy, little fairy, on his little stool at the window. No headache or fever, asked Miss Lake cheerfully, though she knew not why there seemed something ominous in this little ailment. None at all. Oh, none, thank you, none in the world, I'd be so frightened if there was, but thank heaven Dr. Buttle says there's nothing to make us at all uneasy, my blessed little man, and he has his canary in the cage in the window, and his kitten to play within the study, he's quite happy. Please heaven, he'll be quite well tomorrow, the darling little man, said Rachel, all the more fondly for that vague omen that seemed to say, he's gone. Here's Mr. Larkin, cried Dolly, jumping up and smiling and nodding at the window to that long and natty apparition who guided to the hall door with a sad smile, raising his well-brushed hat as he passed, and with one grim glance beyond Mrs. Wilder, for his sharp eye half detected another presence in the room. He was followed, not accompanied, for Mr. Larkin knew what a gentleman he was, by a young and bilious clerk with black hair and a melancholy countenance, and by old bugs his conducting man, always grinning, whose red face glared in the little garden like a great bunch of hollyhocks. He was sober as a judge all the morning, and proceeded strictly on the principle of business first and pleasure afterward. But his orgies went off duty were such as to cause the good attorney, when complaints reached him, to shake his head and sigh profoundly, and sometimes to lift up his mild eyes and long hands. And indeed so scandalous and appendage was, Bugs, that if he had been less useful, I believe the pure attorney, who, in the uncomfortable words of John Bunyan had found a cleaner road to hell, would have cashiered him long ago. There is that awful Mr. Bugs, said Dolly with a look of honest alarm. I often wonder so Christian a man as Mr. Larkin can countenance him. He is hardly ever without a black eye. He has been three nights together without once putting off his clothes. Think of that. And my dear, on Friday week he fell through the window of the fancy emporium at two o'clock in the morning. And Dr. Buttle says, if the cut on his jaw had been half an inch lower, he would have cut some artery and lost his life, wretched man. They have come about law business, Dolly, inquired the young lady, who had a profound instinctive dread of Mr. Larkin. Yes, my dear, most important windfall. Only for Mr. Larkin it never could have been accomplished, and indeed I don't think it would ever have been thought of. I hope he has someone to advise him, said Miss Lake anxiously. I think Mr. Larkin a very cunning person, and you know your husband does not understand business. Is it Mr. Larkin, my dear? Mr. Larkin? Well, my dear, if you knew him as we do, you'd trust your life in his hands. But there are people who know him still better, and I think they fancy he is a very crafty man. I do not like him myself, and Dorcas Brandon dislikes him, too, and though I don't think we could either give a reason, I don't know, Dolly, but I should not like to trust him. But my dear, he is an excellent man, and such a friend, and he has managed all this most troublesome business so delightfully. It is what they call a reversion. William Wilder is not selling his reversion, said Rachel, fixing a wild and startled look on her companion. Yes, reversion, I am sure, is the name, and why not, dear? It is most unlikely we should ever get a farthing of it any other way, and it will give us enough to make us quite happy. But, my darling, don't you know the reversion under the will is a great fortune? He must not think of it. An upstarted Rachel, and before Dolly could interpose a remonstrate, she had crossed the little hall and entered the homely study where the gentlemen were conferring. William Wilder was sitting at his desk, and a large sheet of lost scrivenery on thick paper with a stamp in the corner was before him. The bald head of the attorney, as he leaned over him, and indicated an imaginary line with his gold pencil case, was presented toward Miss Lake as she entered. The attorney had just said, There, please, and replied to the vicar's question, Where do I write my name? And red bugs grinning with his mouth open like an overheated dog, and the sad and billious young gentleman stood by to witness the execution of the cleric's autograph. Tall Josiah Larkin looked up, smiling with his mouth also a little open as was his want when he was particularly affable. But the rat's eyes were looking at her with a hungry suspicion, and smiled not. William Wilder, I am so glad I'm in time, said Rachel, rustling across the room. There, said the attorney very peremptorily, and making a little furrow in the thick paper with a seal end of his pencil. Stop, William Wilder, don't sign, have a word to say. You must pause. If it affects our business, Miss Lake, I do request that you address yourself to me. If not, may I beg Miss Lake that you will defer it for a moment. William Wilder, lay down that pen, as you love your little boy, lay it down, and hear me, continued Miss Lake. The vicar looked at her with his eyes wide open, puzzled, like a man who is not quite sure whether he may not be doing something wrong. I really miss Lake, pardon me, but this is very irregular, and in fact unprecedented, said Josiah Larkin. I think, I suppose, you can hardly be aware, ma'am, that I am here as the Reverend Mr. Wilder's confidential solicitor, acting solely for him in a matter of a strictly private nature. The attorney stood erect, a little flushed, with that peculiar contraction mean and dangerous in his eyes. Of course, Mr. Wilder, if you sir desire me to leave, I shall instantaneously do so, and indeed, unless you proceed to sign, I had better go, as my time is generally, I may say, a little pressed upon, and I have, in fact, some business elsewhere to attend to. What is this law paper, demanded Rachel, laying the tips of her slender fingers upon it? Am I to conclude that you withdraw from your engagement to ask Mr. Larkin? I had better then communicate with Burlington and Smith by this post, as also with the sheriff, who has been very kind. Oh, no! Oh, no, Mr. Larkin, pray, I am quite ready to sign. No, William Wilder, you shan't sign until you tell me whether this is a sale of your reversion. The young lady had her white hand firmly pressed upon the spot where he was to sign, and the ring that glittered on her finger looked like a talisman interposing between the poor vicar and the momentous act he was meditating. I think, Miss Lake, it is pretty plain you are not acting for yourself here. You have been sent, ma'am, said the attorney, looking very vicious, and speaking a little huskily and hurriedly. I quite conceived by whom. I don't know what you mean, sir, replied Miss Lake with grave disdain. You have been commissioned, ma'am, I venture to think, to come here to watch the interests of another party. I say, sir, I don't in the least comprehend you. I think it is pretty obvious, ma'am, Miss Lake, I beg pardon. You have had some conversation with your brother, answered the attorney, with a significant sneer. I don't know what you mean, sir, I repeat. I have just heard in the other room from your wife, William Wilder, that you were about selling your reversion in the estates. And I want to know whether that is so, for if it be it is the act of a madman and I'll prevent it if I possibly can. Upon my word! Possibly, said the vicar, his eyes very wide open, and looking with a hesitating gaze from Rachel to the attorney, there may be something in it which neither you nor I know. Does it not strike you, had we not better consider? Under what, sir? said the attorney, with a snap and losing his temper somewhat. It is simply, sir, that this young lady represents Captain Lake who wishes to get the reversion for himself. That is utterly false, sir, said Miss Lake, flashing and blushing with indignation. You, William, are a gentleman, and such inconceivable meanness cannot enter your mind. The attorney, with what he meant to be a polished sarcasm, bowed and smiled toward Miss Lake. Little fairy, sitting before his picture-book, was watching the scene with round eyes and round mouth, and that mixture of interest, awe, and distress, with which children witnessed the uncomprehended excitement and collision of their elders. My dear Miss Lake, I respect and esteem you. You quite mistake I am persuaded, my good friend, Mr. Larkin, and indeed I don't quite comprehend, but if it were so, and that your brother really wished, do you think he does, Mr. Larkin? To buy the reversion he might think it more valuable, perhaps. I can say with certainty, sir, that from that quarter you would get nothing like what you have agreed to take. And I must say once for all, sir, that quite setting aside every consideration of honour and of conscience, and of the highly prejudicial position in which you would place me as a man of business by taking the very short turn which this young lady Miss Lake suggests, your letters amount to an equitable agreement to sell, which, on petition, the court would compel you to do. So you see, my dear Miss Lake, there's no more to be said, said the vicar with a careworn smile, looking upon Rachel's handsome face. Now, now, we are all friends, aren't we? said poor Dolly, who could not make anything of the debate and was staring with open mouth from one speaker to another. We are all agreed, are we not? You are all so good and fond of Willie that you are actually ready almost to quarrel for him. But her little laugh produced no echo except a very joyless and flushed effort from the attorney as he looked up from consulting his watch. "'Eleven minutes past three,' said he, and I have a meeting at my house at half past. So unless you complete that instrument now, I regret to say I must take it back unfinished, and the result may be to defeat the arrangement altogether. And if the consequences should prove serious, I at least am not to blame. Don't sign, I entreat, I implore of you, William Wilder, you shant. But, my dear Miss Lake, we have considered everything, and Mr. Larkin and I agree that my circumstances are such as to make it inevitable." "'Really, this is child's play. There, if you please,' said the attorney once more. Rachel Lake, during the discussion, had removed her hand. The faintly traced line on which the vicar was to sign, was now fairly presented to him. "'Just in your usual way,' murmured Mr. Larkin. So the vicar's pen was applied. But before he had time to trace the first letter of his name, Rachel Lake resolutely snatched the thick bluest sheet of scrivenery with its handsome margins and red ink lines from before him, and tore it across and across with the quickness of terror. And in fewer seconds than one could fancy, it lay about the floor and grate in pieces little bigger than dominoes. The attorney made a hungry snatch at the paper, over William Wilder's shoulder, nearly bearing that gentleman down on his face, but his clutch fell short. "'Hello, Miss Lake, ma'am, the paper!' But Wilde words were of no avail. The whole party, except Rachel, were aghast. The attorney's small eye glanced over the ground in Hearthstone, where the bits were strewn like lady's smocks all silver-white that paint the meadows with the light. He had nothing for it but to submit to fortune with his best air. He stood erect, a slanting beam from the window, glimmered on his tall bald head, and his face was black and menacing as the summit of a thunder-crowned peak. You are not aware, Miss Lake, of the nature of your act and of the consequences to which you have exposed yourself, madam. But that is a view of the occurrence in which, except as a matter of deep regret, I cannot be supposed to be immediately interested. I will mention, however, that your interference, your violent interference, madam, may be attended with most serious consequences to my reverend client, for which, of course, you constituted yourself fully responsible when you entered on the course of unauthorized interference which has resulted in destroying the Articles of Agreement prepared with great care and labor for his protection, and retarding the transmission of the document by at least four and twenty hours to London. You may, madam, I regret to observe have ruined my client. Saved him, I hope. And run yourself, madam, into a very serious scrape. Upon that point you have said quite enough, sir. Olly, William, don't look so frightened. You'll both live. To thank me for this. All this time, little fairy, unheeded, was bawling in great anguish of soul, clinging to Rachel's dress and crying, Oh! He'll hurt her! He'll hurt her! He'll hurt her! Don't let him! Don't let him, Wopsie! Don't let him! Oh! The frightly man! Don't let him! He'll hurt her! The frightly man! The little man's cheeks were drenched in tears and his wee feet danced in an agony of terror on the floor. As bawling he tried to pull his friend Rachel into a corner. Nonsense, little man! cried his father with quick reproof on hearing this sacrilegious uproar. Mr. Larkin never heard anyone. Tut, tut! Sit down and look at your book. But Rachel, with a smile of love and gratification, lifted the little man up in her arms and kissed him, and his thin little legs were clasped about her waist, and his arms round her neck, and he kissed her with his wet face devouringly, scrubbering, The frightly man, you dodie, the frightly man! Then, Mr. Wilder, I shall have the document prepared again from the draft. You'll see to that, Mr. Bunkes, please, and perhaps it will be better that you should look in at the lodge. When he mentioned the lodge, it was in so lofty a way that a stranger would have supposed it something very handsome, indeed, and one of the sights of the county. Say about nine o'clock to-morrow morning. Farewell, Mr. Wilder, farewell. I regret the enhanced expense, I regret the delay, I regret the risk, I regret, in fact, the whole scene. Farewell, Mrs. Wilder. In with a silent bow to Rachel, perfectly polished, perfectly terrible, he withdrew, followed by the sallow clerk, and by that radiant scamp old Bugs, who made them several evasances at the door. Oh, dear Miss Lake, Rachel, I mean, Rachel dear, I hope it won't be all off. Oh, you don't know, heaven only knows the danger we are in. Oh, Rachel dear, if this is broken off, I don't know what is to become of us. I don't know. Dolly spoke quite wildly with her hands on Rachel's shoulders. It was the first time she had broken down, the first time at least the ficker had seen her anything but cheery, and his head sank, and it seemed as if his last light had gone out and he was quite benighted. Do you think, said he, there's much danger of that, do you really think so? Now don't blame me, said Miss Lake, and don't be frightened till you have heard me. Let us sit down here. We shan't be interrupted, and just answer your wretched friend Rachel to her three questions and hear what she has to say. Rachel was flushed and excited and sat with the little boy still in her arms. So in reply to her questions the vicar told her frankly how he stood. And Rachel said, while you must not think of selling your reversion. Oh, think of your little boy. Think of Dolly if you were taken away from her. But, said Dolly, Mr. Larkin heard from Captain Lake that Mark is privately married, and actually has, he says, a large family. And he, you know, has letters from him, and Mr. Larkin thinks knows more than anyone else about him, and if that were so, none of us would ever inherit the property, so— Do they say that Mark is married? Nothing can be more false. I know it is altogether a falsehood. He neither is nor ever will be married. If my brother dared say that in my presence I would make him confess before you that he knows it cannot be. Oh! My poor little fairy, my poor Dolly, my poor good friend William, what shall I say? I am in great distraction of mind. And she hugged and kissed the pale little boy. She herself paler. Listen to me. Good and kind as you are, you are never to call me your friend, mind-fat. I am a most unhappy creature, forced by circumstances to be your enemy for a time. Not always. You have no conception how, and may never even suspect. Don't ask me, but listen. Wunderstricken and pained was the countenance with which the vicar gazed upon her, and Dolly looked both frightened and perplexed. I have a little more than three hundred a year. There is a little annuity charged on Sir Hugh Langdon's estate, and his solicitor is written, offering me six hundred pounds for it. I will write to-night, accepting that offer, and you shall have the money to pay those debts which have been pressing so miserably upon you. Don't thank, not a word, but listen. I would so like Dolly to come and live with you. We could unite our incomes. I need only bring poor old Tamar with me, and I can give up Redmond's farm in September next. I should be so much happier, and I think my income in yours joined would enable us to live without any danger of getting into debt. Will you agree to this, Dolly, dear? And promise me, William Wilder, that you will think no more of selling that reversion, which may be the splendid provision of your dear little boy. Don't thank me. Don't say anything now. And oh, don't reject my poor entreaty. Your refusal would almost make me mad. I would try, Dolly, to be of use. I think I could. Only try me. She fancied she saw, in Dolly's face, under all her gratitude, some perplexity and hesitation, and feared to accept a decision then, so she hurried away with a hasty and kind goodbye. A fortnight before, I think, during Dolly's jealous fit, this magnificent offer of Rachel's wood notwithstanding the dreadful necessities of the case, have been coldly received by the poor little woman. But that delusion was quite cured, now. No reserve or doubt or coldness left behind, and Dolly and the vicar felt that Rachel's noble proposal was the making of them. End of Chapter fifty-eight. Chapter fifty-nine of Wilder's Hand. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kathy Barrett. Chapter fifty-nine. An Enemy in Redmond's Dell. Josiah Larkin grew more and more uncomfortable about the unexpected interposition of Rachel Lake as the day wore on. He felt, with an unerring intuition, that the young lady both despised and suspected him. He also knew that she was impetuous and clever, and he feared from that small white hand a fatal mischief he could not tell exactly how, to his plans. Jim Dutton's letter had somehow an air of sobriety and earnestness which made way with his convictions. His doubts and suspicions had subsided, and he now believed, with a profound moral certainty, that Mark Wilder was actually dead, within the precincts of a mad-house or of some lawless place of detention abroad. What was that to the purpose? Dutton might arrive at any moment. Low fellows are always talking, and the story might get abroad before the assignment of the vicar's interest. Of course, there was something speculative in the whole transaction, but he had made his book well, and by his arrangement with Captain Lake, whichever way the truth lay, he stood to win. So the attorney had no notion of allowing this highly satisfactory arithmetic to be thrown into confusion by the Philip of a small gloved finger. On the whole he was not altogether sorry for the delay. Everything worked together, he knew. One or two covenants and modifications in the articles had struck him as desirable on reading the instrument over with Wilhelm Wilder. He also thought a larger consideration should be stated and acknowledged as paid, say, twenty-two thousand pounds. The vicar would really receive just twenty-two hundred pounds. Costs would do something to reduce the balance, for Josiah Larkin was one of those oxen who, when treading out corn, declined to be muzzled. The remainder was, the vicar would clearly understand, one of those ridiculous pedantries of law upon which our system of crotchets and fictions insisted. And Wilhelm Wilder, whose character simply and sensitively honourable, Mr. Larkin appreciated, was to write to Burlington and Smith a letter for the satisfaction of their speculative and nervous client, pledging his honour as a gentleman and his conscience as a Christian, that in the event of the sale being completed he would never do, countenance or permit any act or proceeding whatsoever, tending on any ground to impeach or invalidate the transaction. I've no objection, have I, to write such a letter, asked the vicar of his adviser. Why, I suppose you have no intention of trying to defeat your own act, and that is all the letter would go to. I look on it as wholly unimportant, and it is really not a point worth standing upon for a second. So that also was agreed to. Now while the improved instrument was in preparation, the attorney strolled down in the evening to look after his clerical client, and keep him straight for the meeting at which he was to sign the articles next day. It was by the drowsy faded light of a late summer's evening that he arrived at the quaint little personage. He maintained his character as a nice spoken gentleman, by inquiring of the maid who opened the door how the little boy was. Not so well, gone to bed, but would be better, every one was sure in the morning. So he went in and saw the vicar, who had just returned with Dolly from a little ramble. Unpromised fairly, the quiet mind was returning, the good time coming, all the pleasanter for the storms and snows of the night that was over. Well, my good and valuable friend, you will be glad, you will rejoice with us, I know, to learn that after all the sale of our reversion is unnecessary. The attorney allowed his client to shake him by both hands, and he smiled a sinister congratulation as well as he could, grinning in reply to the vicar's pleasant smile as cheerfully as was feasible, and woefully puzzled in the meantime. Had James Dutton arrived and announced the death of Mark? No. It could hardly be that. Decently had not yet quite taken leave of the earth, and stupid as the vicar was, he would hardly announce the death of his brother to a Christian gentleman in a fashion so outrageous. Had Lord Chelford been invoked, and answered satisfactorily? Or Dorcas? Or had Lake, the diabolical sneak, interposed with his long purse and a plausible hypocrisy of kindness, to spoil Larkin's plans? All these fanciful queries flitted through his brain as the vicar's hands shook both his, and he labored hard to maintain the cheerful grin with which he received the news, and his guileful, rapacious little eyes searched narrowly the countenance of his client. So after a while Dolly assisting, and sometimes both talking together, the story was told, Rachel blessed and panagerized, and the attorney's congratulations challenged and yielded once more. But there was something not altogether joyous in Josiah Larkin's countenance, which struck the vicar, and he said, You don't see any objection? And paused. Objection? Why, objection, my dear sir, is a strong word, but I fear I do see a difficulty, in fact several difficulties. Perhaps you would take a little turn on the green. I must call for a moment at the reading-room, and I'll explain. Will forgive me, I hope, Mrs. Wilder, he added, with a playful condescension, for running away with your husband, but only for a few minutes. The shadow was upon Josiah Larkin's face, and he was plainly meditating a little uncomfortably as they approached the quiet green of Gillingdon. What a charming evening, said the vicar, making an effort at cheerfulness. Delicious evening, yes, said the attorney, throwing back his long head, and letting his mouth drop. But though his face was turned up towards the sky, there was a contraction, and a darkness upon it, not altogether heavenly. The offer, said the attorney, beginning rather abruptly, is no doubt a handsome offer at the first glance, and it may be well meant. But the fact is, my dear Mr. Wilder, six hundred pounds would leave little more than a hundred remaining after Burlington and Smith have had their costs. You have no idea of the expense and trouble of title, and the inevitable costliness, my dear sir, of all conveyancing operations. The deeds, I have little doubt, in consequence of the letter you directed me to write, have been prepared. That is, in draft, of course, and then, my dear sir, I need not remind you that there remain the costs to me. Those, of course, await your entire convenience, but still it would not be either for your or my advantage that they should be forgotten in the general adjustment of your affairs, which I understand you to propose. The vicar's countenance fell. In fact, it is idle to say that, being unaccustomed to the grand scale on which law costs present themselves on occasion, he was unspeakably shocked, and he grew very pale and silent on hearing these impressive sentences. And as to Miss Lake's residing with you. I speak now you will understand in the strictest confidence, because the subject is a painful one. As to her residing with you, as she proposes, Miss Lake is well aware that I am cognizant of circumstances which render any such arrangement absolutely impracticable. I need not, my dear sir, be more particular—at present, at least. In a little time you will probably be made acquainted with them by the inevitable disclosures of time which, as the wise men says, discovers all things. But what stammered the pale vicar, altogether shocked and giddy? You will not press me, my dear sir. You'll understand that just now I really cannot satisfy any particular inquiry. Miss Lake has spoken, in charity I will hope and trust, without thought. But I am much mistaken, or she will herself, on half an hour's calm consideration, see the moral impossibilities which interpose between her, to me, most amazing plan in its realization. There was a little pause here, during which the tread of their feet on the soft grass alone was audible. You will quite understand, resumed the attorney, the degree of confidence with which I make this communication, and you will please, especially not to mention it to any person whatsoever. I do not accept, in fact, any. You will find, on consideration, that Miss Lake will not press her residence upon you. No, I've no doubt Miss Lake is a very intelligent person, and when not excited, we'll see it clearly. The attorney's manner had something of that reserve, and grim sort of dryness which supervene whenever he fancied a friend or client on whom he had formed designs, was becoming impracticable. Everything affected him so much as that kind of unkindness. Desai Alarkin took his leave a little abruptly. He did not condescend to ask the vicar whether he still entertained Miss Lake's proposal. He had not naturally a pleasant temper, somewhat short, dark, and dangerous, but by no means noisy. This temper, an intense reluctance ever to say thank you, and a profound and quiet egotism, were the ingredients of that pride on which, a little inconsistently perhaps, in so eminent a Christian, he peaked himself. It must be admitted, however, that his pride was not of that stamp which would prevent him from listening to other men's private talk, or reading their letters if anything were to be got by it, or from prosecuting his small spites with a patient and virulent industry, or from stripping a man of his possessions and transferring them to himself by processes from which most men would shrink. Well, thought the vicar, that munificent offer is unavailing, it seems, the sum insufficient great as it is, and other difficulties in the way. He was walking homewards, slowly and dejectedly, and was now beginning to feel alarm lest the purchase of the reversion should fail. The agreement was to have gone up to London by this day's mail, and now could not reach till the day after to-morrow, four and twenty hours later than was promised. The attorney had told him it was a touch-and-go affair, and the whole thing might be off in a moment, and if it should miscarry what inevitable ruin yawned before him. Ah! the fatigue of these monotonous agitations, this never-ending suspense! Ah! the yearning unimaginable for quiet and rest! How awfully he comprehended the reasonableness of the thanksgiving which he had read that day in the churchyard! We give the hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world. With the attorney it was different, making the most of his height, which he fancied added much to the aristocratic effect of his presence, with his head thrown back and swinging his walking-cane easily between his finger and thumb by his side, he strode languidly through the main street of Gillingdon, in the happy belief that he was making a sensation among the denizens of the town. And so he moved on to the mill road, on which he entered, and was soon deep in the shadows of Redmond's dell. He opened the tiny garden-gate of Redmond's farm, looking about him with a supercilious benevolence, like a man conscious of bestowing a distinction. He was inwardly sensible, of a sort of condescension in entering so diminutive and homely a place, a kind of half-amusing disproportion between Josiah Lark and Asquire of the Lodge, worth already twenty-seven thousand pounds, and on the high road to Greatness, and the trumpery little place in which he found himself. Old Tamar was sitting in the porch, with her closed Bible upon her knees. There was no longer light to read by. She rose up, like the grim white woman who haunts Yon Wood, before him. Her young lady had walked up to Brandon, taking the little girl with her, and she supposed would be back again early. Mr. Larkin eyed her for a second, to ascertain whether she was telling lies. He always thought everyone might be lying. It was his primary impression here. But there was a recluse and unearthly character in the face of the crone which satisfied him that she would never think of fencing with such weapons with him. Very good. Mr. Larkin would take a short walk, and as his business was pressing, he would take the liberty of looking in again in about half an hour, if she thought her mistress would be at home then. So although the weird white woman who leered after him so strangely as he walked with his most lordly air out of the little garden, and down the darkening road towards Gillingdon could not say, he resolved to make trial again. In the meantime Rachel had arrived at Brandon Hall, Dorcas, whom if the truth were spoken she would rather not have met, encountered her on the steps. She was going out for a lonely twilight walk upon the terrace, where many a beautiful Brandon of other days, the sunshine of whose smile glimmered only on the canvas that hung upon those ancestral walls, and whose sorrows were hid in the grave and forgotten by the world, had walked in other days, in the pride of beauty or in the sadness of desertion. Dorcas paused upon the door steps, and received her sister-in-law upon that elevation. Have you really come all this way, Rachel, to see me this evening, she said, and something of sarcasm thrilled in the cold musical tones? No, Dorcas, said Rachel, taking her preferred hand in the spirit in which it was given, and with the air rather of a defiance than of a greeting, I came to see my brother. You are frank at all events, Rachel, and truth is better than courtesy, but you forget that your brother could not have returned so soon. Returned, said Rachel, I did not know he had left home. It's strange he should not have consulted you. I, of course, knew nothing of it until he had been more than an hour upon his journey. Rachel Lake made no answer, but a little laugh. He'll return to-morrow, and perhaps your meeting may still be in time. I was thinking of a few minutes' walk upon the terrace, but you are fatigued. You had better come in and rest. No, Dorcas, I won't go in. But Rachel, you are tired. You must come in with me, and drink tea, and then you can go home in the brome, said Dorcas more kindly. No, Dorcas, no. I will not drink tea, nor go in, but I am tired, and as you are so kind I will accept your offer of the carriage. Larkham had, that moment, appeared in the vestibule, and received the order. I'll sit in the porch if you will allow me, Dorcas. You must not lose your walk. Then you won't come into the house. You won't drink tea with me, and you won't join me in my little walk. And why not any of these? Dorcas smiled coldly and continued, Well, I shall hear the carriage coming to the door, and I'll return and bid you good night. I'll explain, Rachel, you do not like my company. True, Dorcas, I do not like your company. You are unjust. You have no confidence in me. You prejudge me without proof, and you have quite ceased to love me. Why should I like your company? Dorcas smiled a proud and rather sad smile at this sudden change from the conventional to the passionate, and the direct and fiery charge of her kinswoman was unanswered. She stood meditating for a minute. You think I no longer love you, Rachel, as I did. This young lady's friendships are never very enduring, but if it be so, the fault is not mine. No, Dorcas, the fault is not yours, nor mine. The fault is in circumstances. The time is coming, Dorcas, when you will know all, and maybe judge me mercifully. In the meantime, Dorcas, you cannot like my company, because you do not like me, and I do not like yours just because, in spite of all, I do love you still. And in yours I only see the image of a lost friend. You may be restored to me soon. Maybe never, but till then I have lost you. Well, said Dorcas, it may be there is a wild kind of truth in what you say, Rachel, and no matter, time as you say, and light. I don't understand you, Rachel, but there is this in you that resembles me. We both hate hypocrisy, and we are both, in our own ways, proud. I'll come back when I hear the carriage, and see you for a moment as you won't stay, or come with me, and bid you good-bye. So Dorcas went her way, and alone on the terrace, looking over the stone balustrade, over the rich and somber landscape, dim and vaporous in the twilight, she still saw the pale face of Rachel, paler than she liked to see it. Was she ill? And she thought how lonely she would be if Rachel were to die. How lonely she was now. There was a sting of compunction, a yearning, and then started a few bitter and solitary tears. In one of the great stone vases that arranged along the terrace there flourished a beautiful and rare rose. I forget its name. Some of my readers will remember, it is first to bloom, first to wither. Its fragrant petals were now strewn upon the terrace underneath. One blossom only remained untarnished, and Dorcas plucked it, and with it in her fingers she returned to the porch where Rachel remained. You see, I have come back a little before my time, said Dorcas. I have just been looking at the plant you used to admire so much, and the leaves are shed already, and it reminded me of our friendship, Braddy. But I am sure you are right. It will all bloom again, after the winter, you know. And I thought I would come back and say that, and give you this relic of the bloom that is gone, the last token, and she kissed Rachel as she placed it in her fingers, a token of remembrance and of hope. I will keep it, Dorcas. It was kind of you, and their eyes met regretfully. And I think I do trust you, Braddy, said the heiress of Brandon, and I hope you will try to light me on till spring comes, you know, and I wish— She sighed softly. I wish we were as we used to be. I am not very happy, and—here's the carriage. And it drew up close to the steps, and Rachel entered, and her little handmaid of up in the seat behind. And Dorcas and Rachel kissed their hands and smiled, and away the carriage glided, and Dorcas, standing on the steps, looked after it very sadly. And when it disappeared, she sighed again heavily, still looking in its track, and I think, she said, Darling. End of chapter 59.