CHAPTER XXXIV.
IMPROVEMENTS
Things were changed now out of doors. There was no dissatisfaction, no complaining. Roy was deposed from his petty authority, and all men were at peace, with the exception, possibly, of Mr. Peckaby. Mr. Peckaby did not, find his shop flourish. Indeed, far from flourishing, so completely was it deserted, that he was fain to give up the trade, and accept work at Chuff the blacksmith's forge, to which employment, it appeared, he had been brought up. A few stale articles remained in the shop, and the counters remained; chiefly for show. Mrs. Peckaby made a pretence of attending to customers; but she did not get two in a week. And if those two entered, they could not be served, for she was pretty sure to be out, gossiping.
This state of things did not please Mrs. Peckaby. In one point of view the failing of the trade pleased her, because it left her less work to do; but she did not like the failing of their income. Whether the shop had been actually theirs, or whether it had been Roy's, there was no doubt that they had drawn sufficient from it to live comfortably and to find Mrs. Peckaby in smart caps. This source was gone, and all they had now was an ignominious fourteen shillings a week, which Peckaby earned. The prevalent opinion in Clay Lane was that this was quite as much as Peckaby deserved; and that it was a special piece of undeserved good fortune which had taken off the blacksmith's brother and assistant in the nick of time, Joe Chuff, to make room for him. Mrs. Peckaby, however, was in a state of semi-rebellion; the worse, that she did not know upon whom to visit it, or see any remedy. She took to passing her time in groaning and tears, somewhat after the fashion of Dinah Roy, venting her complaints upon anybody that would listen to her.
Lionel had not said to the men, "You shall leave Peckaby's shop." He had not even hinted to them that it might be desirable to leave it. In short, he had not interfered. But, the restraint of Roy being removed from the men, they quitted it of their own accord. "No more Roy; no more Peckaby; no more grinding down—hurrah!" shouted they, and went back to the old shops in the village.
All sorts of improvements had Lionel begun. That is, he had planned them: begun yet, they were not. Building better tenements for the labourers, repairing and draining the old ones, adding whatever might be wanted to make the dwellings healthy: draining, ditching, hedging. "It shall not be said that while I live in a palace, my poor live in pigsties," said Lionel to Mr. Bitterworth one day. "I'll do what I can to drive that periodical ague from the place."
"Have you counted the cost?" was Mr. Bitterworth's rejoinder.
"No," said Lionel. "I don't intend to count it. Whatever the changes may cost, I shall carry them out."
And Lionel, like other new schemers, was red-hot upon them. He drew out plans in his head and with his pencil; he consulted architects, he spent half his days with builders. Lionel was astonished at the mean, petty acts of past tyranny, exercised by Roy, which came to light, far more than he had had any idea of. He blushed for himself and for his uncle, that such a state of things had been allowed to go on; he wondered that it could have gone on; that he had been blind to so much of it, or that the men had not exercised Lynch law upon Roy.
Roy had taken his place in the brick-yard as workman; but Lionel, in the anger of the moment, when these things came out, felt inclined to spurn him from the land. He would have done it but for his promise to the man himself; and for the pale, sad face of Mrs. Roy. In the hour when his anger was at its height, the woman came up to Verner's Pride, stealthily, as it seemed, and craved him to write to Australia, "now he was a grand gentleman," and ask the "folks over there" if they could send back news of her son. "It's going on of a twelvemonth since he writed to us, sir, and we don't know where to write to him, and I'm a'most fretted into my grave."
"My opinion is that he is coming home," said Lionel.
"Heaven sink the ship first!" she involuntarily muttered, and then she burst into a violent flood of tears.
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Lionel. "Don't you want him to come home?"
"No, sir. No."
"But why? Are you fearing"—he jumped to the most probable solution of her words that he could suggest—"are you fearing that he and Roy would not agree?—that there would be unpleasant scenes between them, as there used to be?"
The woman had her face buried in her hands, and she never lifted it as she answered, in a stifled voice, "It's what I'm a-fearing, sir."
Lionel could not quite understand her. He thought her more weak and silly than usual.
"But he is not coming home," she resumed. "No, sir, I don't believe that England will ever see him again; and it's best as it is, for there's nothing but care and sorrow here, in the old country. But I'd like to know what's become of him; whether he is alive or dead, whether he is starving or in comfort. Oh, sir!" she added, with a burst of wailing anguish, "write for me, and ask news of him! They'd answer you. My heart is aching for it."
He did not explain to her then, how very uncertain was the fate of emigrants to that country, how next to impossible it might be to obtain intelligence of an obscure young man like Luke; he contented himself with giving her what he thought would be better comfort.
"Mrs. Frederick Massingbird will be returning in the course of a few months, and I think she may bring news of him. Should she not, I will see what inquiries can be made."
"Will she be coming soon, sir?"
"In two or three months, I should suppose. The Misses West may be able to tell you more definitely, if they have heard from her."
"Thank ye, sir; then I'll wait till she's home. You'll not tell Roy that I have been up here, sir?"
"Not I," said Lionel. "I was debating, when you came in, whether I should not turn Roy off the estate altogether. His past conduct to the men has been disgraceful."
"Ay, it have, sir! But it was my fate to marry him, and I have had to look on in quiet, and see things done, not daring to say as my soul's my own. It's not my fault, sir."
Lionel knew that it was not. He pitied her, rather than blamed.
"Will you go into the servants' hall and eat something after your walk?" he kindly asked.
"No, sir, many thanks. I don't want to see the servants. They might get telling that I have been here."
She stole out from his presence, her pale, sad face, her evidently deep sorrow, whatever might be its source, making a vivid impression upon Lionel. But for that sad face, he might have dealt more harshly with her husband. And so Roy was tolerated still.
It was upon these various past topics that Lionel's mind was running as he walked away from Deerham Court after that afternoon's interview with Lucy, which he had made so significant. He had pleaded an engagement, as an excuse for quitting his mother's drawing-room and her guests. It must have been at home, we must suppose, for ho took his way straight towards Verner's Pride, sauntering through the village as if he had leisure to look about him, his thoughts deep in his projected improvements.
Here, a piece of stagnant water was to be filled in; there was the site of his new tenements; yonder, was the spot for a library and reading-room; on he walked, throwing his glances everywhere. As he neared the shop of Mrs. Duff, a man came suddenly in view, facing him; a little man, in a suit of rusty black, and a white neckcloth, with a pale face and red whiskers, whom Lionel remembered to have seen once before, a day or two previously. As soon as he caught sight of Lionel he turned short off, crossed the street, and darted out of sight down the Belvidere Road.
"That looks as though he wanted to avoid me," thought Lionel. "I wonder who he may be? Do you know who that man is, Mrs. Duff?" asked he aloud; for that lady was taking the air at her shop-door, and had watched the movement.
"I don't know much about him, sir. He have been stopping in the place this day or two. What did I hear his name was, again?" added Mrs. Duff, putting her fingers to her temples in a considering fit. "Jarrum, I think. Yes, that was it. Brother Jarrum, sir."
"Brother Jarrum?" repeated Lionel, uncertain whether the "Brother" might be spoken in a social point of view, or was a name bestowed upon the gentleman in baptism.
"He's a missionary from abroad, or something of that sort, sir. He is come to see what he can do towards converting us."
"Oh, indeed," said Lionel, his lip curling with a smile. The man's face had not taken his fancy. "Honest missionaries do not need to run away to avoid meeting people, Mrs. Duff."
"He have got cross eyes," responded Mrs. Duff. "Perhaps that's a reason he mayn't like to look gentlefolks in the face, sir."
"Where does he come from?"
"Well, now, sir, I did hear," replied Mrs. Duff, putting on her considering cap again, "it were some religious place, sir, that's talked of a good deal in the Bible. Jericho, were it? No. It began with a J, though. Oh, I have got it, sir! It were Jerusalem. He conies all the way from Jerusalem."
"Where is he lodging?" continued Lionel.
"He have been lodging at the George and Dragon, sir. But to-day he have gone and took that spare bedroom as the Peckabys have wanted to let, since their custom fell off."
"He means to make a stay, then?"
"It looks like it, sir. Susan Peckaby, she were in here half an hour ago, a-buying new ribbons for a cap, all agog with it. He's a-going to hold forth in their shop, she says, and see how many of the parish he can turn into saints. I say it won't be a bad 'turn,' if it keeps the men from the beer-houses."
Lionel laughed as he went on. He supposed it was a new movement that would have its brief day and then be over, leaving results neither good nor bad behind it; and he dismissed the man from his memory.
He walked on, in the elasticity of his youth and health. All nature seemed to be smiling around him. Outward things take their hue very much from the inward feelings, and Lionel felt happier than he had done for months and months. Had the image of Lucy Tempest anything to do with this? No—nothing. He had not yet grown to love Lucy in that idolising manner, as to bring her ever present to him. He was thinking of the change in his own fortunes; he cast his eyes around to the right and the left, and they rested on his own domains—domains which had for a time been wrested from him; and as his quick steps rung on the frosty road, his heart went up in thankfulness to the Giver of all good.
Just before he reached Verner's Pride, he overtook Mr. Bitterworth, who was leaning against a roadside gate. He had been attacked by sudden giddiness, he said, and asked Lionel to give him an arm home. Lionel proposed that he should come in and remain for a short while at Verner's Pride; but Mr. Bitterworth preferred to go home.
"It is one of my bilious attacks coming on," he remarked, as he went along. "I have not had a bad one for this four months."
Lionel took him safe home, and remained with him for some time, talking; the chief theme being his own contemplated improvements, and how to go to work upon them; a topic which seemed to bring no satiety to Lionel Verner.
CHAPTER XXXV.
BACK AGAIN
It was late when Lionel reached Verner's Pride. Night had set in, and his dinner was waiting.
He ate it hurriedly—he mostly did eat hurriedly when he was alone, as if he were glad to get it over—Tynn waiting on him. Tynn liked to wait upon his young master. Tynn had been in a state of glowing delight since the accession of Lionel. Attached to the old family, Tynn had felt it almost as keenly as Lionel himself, when the estate had lapsed to the Massingbirds. Mrs. Tynn was in a glow of delight also. There was no mistress, and she ruled the household, including Tynn.
The dinner gone away and the wine on the table, Lionel drew his chair in front of the fire, and fell into a train of thought, leaving the wine untouched. Full half an hour had he thus sat, when the entrance of Tynn aroused him. He poured out a glass, and raised it to his lips. Tynn bore a note on his silver waiter.
"Matiss's boy has just brought it. He is waiting to know whether there's any answer."
Lionel opened the note, and was reading it, when a sound of carriage wheels came rattling on to the terrace, passed the windows, and stopped at the hall door. "Who can be paying me a visit to-night, I wonder?" cried he. "Go and see, Tynn."
"It sounded like one of them rattling one-horse flies from the railway station," was Tynn's comment to his master, as he left the room.
Whoever it might be, they appeared pretty long in entering, and Lionel, very greatly to his surprise, heard a sound as of much luggage being deposited in the hall. He was on the point of going out to see, when the door opened, and a lovely vision glided forward—a young, fair face and form, clothed in deep mourning, with a shower of golden curls shading her damask cheeks. For one single moment, Lionel was lost in the beauty of the vision. Then he recognised her, before Tynn's announcement was heard; and his heart leaped as if it would burst its bounds—
"Mrs. Massingbird, sir."
–leaped within him fast and furiously. His pulses throbbed, his blood coursed on, and his face went hot and cold with emotion. Had he been fondly persuading himself, during the past months, that she was forgotten? Truly the present moment rudely undeceived him.
Tynn shut the door, leaving them alone. Lionel was not so agitated as to forget the courtesies of life. He shook hands with her, and, in the impulse of the moment, called her Sibylla; and then bit his tongue for doing it.
She burst into tears. There, as he held her hand. She lifted her lovely face to him with a yearning, pleading look. "Oh, Lionel!—you will give me a home, won't you?"
What was he to say? He could not, in that first instant, abruptly say to her—No, you cannot have a home here. Lionel could not hurt the feelings of any one. "Sit down, Mrs. Massingbird," he gently said, drawing an easy-chair to the fire. "You have taken me quite by surprise. When did you land?"
She threw off her bonnet, shook back those golden curls, and sat down in the chair, a large heavy shawl on her shoulders. "I will not take it off yet," she said in a plaintive voice. "I am very cold."
She shivered slightly. Lionel drew her chair yet nearer the fire, and brought a footstool for her feet, repeating his question as he did so.
"We reached Liverpool late yesterday, and I started for home this morning," she answered, her eyelashes wet still, as she gazed into the fire. "What a miserable journey it has been!" she added, turning to Lionel. "A miserable voyage out; a miserable ending!"
"Are you aware of the changes that have taken place since you left?" he asked. "Your aunt is dead."
"Yes, I know it," she answered. "They told me at the station just now. That lame porter came up and knew me; and his first news to me was that Mrs. Verner was dead. What a greeting! I was coming home here to live with her."
"You could not have received my letter. One which I wrote at the request of Mrs. Verner in answer to yours."
"What news was in it?" she asked. "I received no letter from you."
"It contained remittances. It was sent, I say, in answer to yours, in which you requested money should be forwarded for your home passage. You did not wait for it?"
"I was tired of waiting. I was sick for home. And one day, when I had been crying more than usual, Mrs. Eyre said to me that if I were so anxious to go, there need be no difficulty about the passage-money, that they would advance me any amount I might require. Oh, I was so glad! I came away by the next ship."
"Why did you not write saying that you were coming?"
"I did not think it mattered—and I knew I had this home to come to. If I had had to go to my old home again at papa's, then I should have written. I should have seemed like an intruder arriving at their house, and have deemed it necessary to warn them of it."
"You heard in Australia of Mr. Verner's death, I presume?"
"I heard of that, and that my husband had inherited Verner's Pride. The news came out just before I sailed for home. Of course I thought I had a right to come to this home, though he was dead. I suppose it is yours now?"
"Yes."
"Who lives here?"
"Only myself."
"Have I a right to live here—as Frederick's widow?" she continued, lifting her large blue eyes anxiously at Lionel. "I mean would the law give it me?"
"No," he replied, in a low tone. He felt that the truth must be told to her without disguise. She was placing both him and herself in an embarrassing situation.
"Was there any money left to me?—or to Frederick?"
"None to you. Verner's Pride was left to your husband; but at his demise it came to me."
"Did my aunt leave me nothing?"
"She had nothing to leave, Mrs. Massingbird. The settlement which Mr. Verner executed on her, when they married, was only for her life. It lapsed back to the Verner's Pride revenues when she died."
"Then I am left without a shilling, to the mercy of the world!"
Lionel felt for her—felt for her rather more than was safe. He began planning in his own mind how he could secure to her an income from the Verner's Pride estate, without her knowing whence it came. Frederick Massingbird had been its inheritor for a short three or four months, and Lionel's sense of justice revolted against his widow being thrown on the world, as she expressed it, without a shilling.
"The revenues of the estate during the short time that elapsed between Mr. Verner's death and your husband's are undoubtedly yours, Mrs. Massingbird," he said. "I will see Matiss about it, and they shall be paid over."
"How long will it be first?"
"A few days, possibly. In a note which I received but now from Matiss, he tells me he is starting for London, but will be home the beginning of the week. It shall be arranged on his return."
"Thank you. And, until then, I may stay here?"
Lionel was at a nonplus. It is not a pleasing thing to tell a lady that she must quit your house, in which, like a stray lamb, she has taken refuge. Even though it be, for her own fair sake, expedient that she should go.
"I am here alone," said Lionel, after a pause. "Your temporary home had better be with your sisters."
"No, that it never shall," returned Sibylla, in a hasty tone of fear. "I will never go home to them, now papa's away. Why did he leave Deerham? They told me at the station that he was gone, and Jan was doctor."
"Dr. West is travelling on the Continent, as medical attendant and companion to a nobleman. At least—I think I heard it was a nobleman," continued Lionel. "I am really not sure."
"And you would like me to go home to those two cross, fault-finding sisters!" she resumed. "They might reproach me all day long with coming home to be kept. As if it were my fault that I am left without anything. Oh, Lionel! don't turn me out! Let me stay until I can see what is to be done for myself. I shall not hurt you. It would have been all mine had Frederick lived."
He did not know what to do. Every moment there seemed to grow less chance that she would leave the house. A bright thought darted into his mind. It was, that he would get his mother or Decima to come and stay with him for a time.
"What would you like to take?" he inquired. "Mrs. Tynn will get you anything you wish. I—"
"Nothing yet," she interrupted. "I could not eat; I am too unhappy. I will take some tea presently, but not until I am warmer. I am very cold."
She cowered over the fire again, shivering much. Lionel, saying he had a note to write, sat down to a distant table. He penned a few hasty lines to his mother, telling her that Mrs. Massingbird had arrived, under the impression that she was coming to Mrs. Verner, and that he could not well turn her out again that night, fatigued and poorly as she appeared to him to be. He begged his mother to come to him for a day or two, in the emergency, or to send Decima.
An undercurrent of conviction ran in Lionel's mind during the time of writing it that his mother would not come; he doubted even whether she would allow Decima to come. He drove the thought away from him; but the impression remained. Carrying the note out of the room when written, he despatched it to Deerham Court by a mounted groom. As he was returning to the dining-room he encountered Mrs. Tynn.
"I hear Mrs. Massingbird has arrived, sir," cried she.
"Yes," replied Lionel. "She will like some tea presently. She appears very much fatigued."
"Is the luggage to be taken upstairs, sir?" she continued, pointing to the pile in the hall. "Is she going to stay here?"
Lionel really did not know what answer to make.
"She came expecting to stay," he said, after a pause. "She did not know but your mistress was still here. Should she remain, I dare say Lady Verner, or my sister, will join her. You have beds ready?"
"Plenty of them, sir, at five minutes' notice."
When Lionel entered the room, Sibylla was in the same attitude, shivering over the fire. Unnaturally cold she appeared to be, and yet her cheeks were brilliantly bright, as if with a touch of fever.
"I fear you have caught cold on the journey to-day," he said.
"I don't think so," she answered. "I am cold from nervousness. I went cold at the station when they told me that my aunt was dead, and I have been shivering ever since. Never mind me; it will go off presently."
Lionel drew a chair to the other side of the fire, compassionately regarding her. He could have found in his heart to take her in his arms, and warm her there.
"What was that about a codicil?" she suddenly asked him. "When my aunt wrote to me upon Mr. Verner's death, she said that a codicil had been lost: or that, otherwise, the estate would have been yours."
Lionel explained it to her, concealing nothing.
"Then—if that codicil had been forthcoming, Frederick's share would have been but five hundred pounds?"
"That is all."
"It was very little to leave him," she musingly rejoined.
"And still less to leave me, considering my nearer relationship—my nearer claims. When the codicil could not be found, the will had to be acted upon: and five hundred pounds was all the sum it gave me."
"Has the codicil never been found?"
"Never."
"How very strange! What became of it, do you think?"
"I wish I could think what," replied Lionel. "Although Verner's Pride has come to me without it, it would be satisfactory to solve the mystery."
Sibylla looked round cautiously, and sunk her voice. "Could Tynn or his wife have done anything with it? You say they were present when it was signed."
"Most decidedly they did not. Both of them were anxious that I should succeed."
"It is so strange! To lock a paper up in a desk, and for it to disappear of its own accord! The moths could not have got in and eaten it?"
"Scarcely," smiled Lionel. "The day before your aunt died, she—"
"Don't talk of that," interrupted Mrs. Massingbird. "I will hear about her death to-morrow. I shall be ill if I cry much to-night."
She sank into silence, and Lionel did not interrupt it. It continued, until his quick ears caught the sound of the groom's return. The man rode his horse round to the stables at once. Presently Tynn came in with a note. It was from Lady Verner. A few lines, written hastily with a pencil:—
"I do not understand your request, Lionel, or why you make it. Whatever may be my opinion of Frederick Massingbird's widow, I will not insult her sense of propriety by supposing that she would attempt to remain at Verner's Pride now her aunt is dead. It is absurd of you to ask me to come; neither shall I send Decima. Were I and Decima residing with you, it would not be the place for Sibylla Massingbird. She has her own home to go to."
There was no signature. Lionel knew his mother's handwriting too well to require the addition. It was just the note that he might have expected her to write.
What was he to do? In the midst of his ruminations, Sibylla rose.
"I am warm now," she said. "I should like to go upstairs and take this heavy shawl off."
Lionel rang the bell for Mrs. Tynn. And Sibylla left the room with her.
"I'll get her sisters here!" he suddenly exclaimed, the thought of them darting into his mind. "They will be the proper persons to explain to her the inexpediency of her remaining here. Poor girl! she is unable to think of it in her fatigue and grief."
He did not give it a second thought, but snatched his hat, and went down himself to Dr. West's with strides as long as Jan's. Entering the general sitting-room without ceremony, his eyes fell upon a supper-table and Master Cheese; the latter regaling himself upon apple-puffs to his heart's content.
"Where are the Misses West?" asked Lionel.
"Gone to a party," responded the young gentleman, as soon as he could get his mouth sufficiently empty to speak.
"Where to?"
"To Heartburg, sir. It's a ball at old Thingumtight's, the doctor's. They are gone off in gray gauze, with, branches of white flowers hanging to their curls, and they call that mourning. The fly is to bring them back at two in the morning. They left these apple-puffs for me and Jan. Jan said he should not want any; he'd eat meat; so I have got his share and mine!"
And Master Cheese appeared to be enjoying the shares excessively. Lionel left him to it, and went thoughtfully back to Verner's Pride.