It was about three months after the first friendly interview between
Rees Pennant and Amos Goodhare that, one hot July afternoon, Deborah
Audaer was sitting on the terrace behind Captain Pennant’s house, with
a book in her hand, and her eyes fixed, not upon its pages, but upon
the straggling, untrimmed fruit trees which filled the bottom of the
garden.
Everything about the place--the glimpse of shabby furniture inside the
open French window behind her, the greenish flags and broken
balustrade of the terrace, and wild and uncultivated condition of the
long garden--told of limited means and a pitiful struggle to make both
ends meet. Deborah herself was dressed in the most extraordinarily
ill-fitting frock that ever clothed a beautiful girl. It was made of a
pretty bluish-grey cotton, and set off between the throat and the left
shoulder by a bunch of double poppies. But it was too tight in front,
too loose in the back, garnished everywhere by unexpected puckers, and
giving the idea that it was making its wearer very uncomfortable.
Deborah, who was tall and of a handsome, well-developed figure, looked
in this garment as if she was masquerading in the dress of a
narrow-chested girl with a hump-back. However, her fresh beauty was
too decided to be spoilt by such an accident; she had a rich brunette
complexion, blue eyes, good teeth, a nose a little bit inclined to be
aquiline, and dark-brown hair with strands of a bright copper color.
She had been sitting idly, with rather a melancholy expression of
face, for some time, when Godwin, who had been watching the back of
her head from the open window, stepped out on to the terrace and
seated himself on the balustrade in front of her.
It was not surprising that a young girl should find him less
attractive than Rees, for Godwin was short, sallow, insignificant of
feature, and rather brusque in manner.
“What are you thinking about, Deborah?” he asked with a shrewd look.
“Nothing,” of course, she answered promptly.
“That is a--well, a perversion of the truth. You were thinking of
Rees.”
“I suppose I can think of anything I like.”
“Yes, provided--firstly, that you tell the truth about it; and,
secondly, that you don’t lose your temper over it. Shall I give
another guess, and tell you _what_ you thought about Rees?”
“You can if you like,” said she with an affectation of indifference.
But she turned away to hide the fact that tears were rising to her
eyes.
“Well, we won’t talk any more about him,” said he hastily, distressed
and irritated that she should cry over what he considered an unworthy
object.
“Yes, we will,” cried Deborah, turning suddenly and almost fiercely.
“I can’t bear it all by myself any longer; and you, Godwin, who
understand things, you can perhaps tell me what is the matter.”
“With Rees?”
“Yes. He’s changed lately, changed altogether; it’s been coming on
gradually, but it’s been most plain the last month or six weeks.
Haven’t you noticed it?”
“I’ve noticed that he’s become ill-tempered and discontented, and
doesn’t seem to think any of us good enough for him.”
“Well, he used not to be like that, you know, he used not. He was
always bright and cheerful and happy. But ever since he’s taken this
studious fit, which we thought at first was such a good thing, he’s
quite changed. He seems to avoid me, and everybody; and I’ve heard him
say such ungrateful things of Lord St. Austell, who’s been so good to
him. And yet now, when he isn’t shut up reading in his own room or up
at the library in the town, he’s always up at Llancader.”
“Don’t you know why?” asked Godwin, drily.
The girl grew a little paler and her breath came faster, as if she had
an idea that she was to hear something unpleasant. But she did not
answer.
“Of course you’ll hate me for telling you,” said Godwin rather
bitterly. “And it’s no use to tell you it’s for your own good. Anyhow,
it’s this: Rees is making up to Lady Marion. I’ve told him he’s only
making a fool of himself, and I’ve got snubbed for my pains. There.”
But Deborah had drawn herself up with haughty astonishment.
“And why shouldn’t he ‘make up’ to Lady Marion? He’s a great deal too
good for any of those silly, conceited girls.”
Godwin looked at her attentively.
“Girls _are_ ridiculous creatures,” he said at last, contemptuously.
“They’ll like a man without reason, and they’ll go on liking him
against reason. However, we won’t talk about Rees any more, except
that I’ll just say this: ‘Use all your influence with him to try to
get him to turn his hand to something; for I’m inclined to think this
illness of my poor father’s is more serious than we like to believe,
and if anything happens to him Rees and Hervey will have to put their
shoulders to the wheel, for father’s pension ends with his life, and
his affairs are in a hopeless state of muddle. Now, don’t cry; it had
to be said, and if I haven’t said it in the best way you must forgive
me.”
But Deborah’s tears were flowing fast. There was only one person in
the world whom she loved as well as Rees, and that was Captain
Pennant. The idea of his death, which had forced itself upon her again
and again lately, she could never bear calmly.
“Now, I thought you had more sense than to give way like that,” said
Godwin, trying to be very stern. “I look to you to help me to comfort
my mother, who hasn’t the least notion of what you and I--know.”
Deborah shook her head.
“She won’t let me comfort her. She has never--never looked upon me as
anything but an intruder, and when our poor father dies I shall have
to go. It is only right, too, of course. It’s only lately I’ve begun
to see and know what a burden I must have been upon them all these
years----”
“Nonsense, Deb. You may be sure my father--and all of us--never
considered you that.”
“Of course he didn’t, he is too good,” said the girl, with a caressing
tone. “But it’s true, all the same. And you needn’t look like that at
me. I shall be glad to earn my own living, and I don’t care how. See,
I’ve begun to make my own dresses; I made this one.”
With the tears still rolling down her cheeks, she sat upright with
some pride.
“The back of the bodice looks a little like the waves of the sea in a
pantomime,” said Godwin, who was a critic on the subject of woman’s
dress. “However, no doubt the intention was better than the sewing.”
Then he came to a sudden stop, and presently said, “There’s something
else to be thought of when you talk about going away. You know we all
want to marry you.”
“Rees doesn’t,” burst from her lips.
The next moment she hung her head, crimson and confused.
But Godwin took this outburst beautifully.
“He couldn’t just now, however much he wanted to,” said he,
soothingly. “But he will by-and-bye, if he isn’t even a more
thundering idiot than I think him,” he added with a burst of
irritation. “And if he shouldn’t----”
She interrupted him hastily, with a look almost of fear in her eyes,
as she put her hand affectionately on his arm.
“Look here, Godwin,” she began hurriedly. “I know what you’re going to
say; but you mustn’t say it. It’s of no use pretending things to you,
for you notice everything. Well, and you know I love Rees, and I’m not
ashamed of it--no, not a bit,” she added, raising her blushing face
fearlessly to his. “He has faults, I know, but there is enough good in
him to love, and I do love him. And if he marries any other girl I
shall never marry at all; but if he ever marries me, even if he were
to be always cross and cold to me, as he has been lately, and if he
were to lose all his handsomeness and brightness, and be miserable,
and old, and dull, I should be happier as his wife than as the wife of
the best man that ever lived.”
“Oh, of course; I don’t doubt it. A good character in a man is a
scarecrow which would frighten any woman away.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Yes, I do, unfortunately. I always had a secret belief that girls
were idiots. Now it’s an open belief. That’s all.”
Deborah rose, and leaned over the balustrade, against which Godwin was
kicking his heels and knocking off pieces of the mouldering stone.
“I can’t help it, Godwin,” she said, with a sigh.
“And I can’t help being just as fond of you as if you were a woman of
sense,” said he, with another sigh. “And the worst of it is, that
loving you has reduced me to your own level. For I know that there
isn’t any hope for me, and that all the same I shall go on hoping, so
that, without any fault on your side or my side, you will be the bane
of my life.”
“Oh, Godwin, how can you say such dreadful things?” said the girl,
with a scared face.
“You will forget them, and everything else--as soon as Rees comes in,”
said Godwin, bitterly.
Before she could utter another protest, he had gone back into the
house, leaving Deborah unhappy and self-reproachful. And yet those
last words of his were true, as she knew. Lord St. Austell, who had
been in town for the season, was expected to arrive at Llancader that
day for a short stay, before joining his yacht for a long cruise. Rees
had been so feverishly anxious to meet him that Deborah had become
deeply interested as to the object of the interview. That Rees was not
actuated merely by gratitude and affection she knew, as he had been
lately in the habit of casting on the earl all the blame of his own
idleness.
The fact was that Amos Goodhare, having devoted himself to the study
of Rees Pennant’s character, and especially of its weaknesses, had
managed by degrees to get such a hold upon him, and to use it in such
a diabolical manner, that the lad’s good impulses were being gradually
choked and the evil encouraged, while even the loving women of his own
household were unable to trace the true source of the change, the
effects of which were plain to one at least of them.
Swallowing the bait which the cunning Goodhare held out to his vanity,
he persistently avoided Deborah, for whom he had a natural
inclination, and hung about Marion, whose unabashed adoration at heart
rather disgusted than attracted him. Why should he not become the
earl’s son-in-law, as the librarian, by insinuation rather than by
direct speech, so constantly suggested? Lord St. Austell had no sons,
and had never shown for any man, young or old, so great a partiality
as he constantly did for him. He was handsome, brilliant, and more
like the ideal conception of what a nobleman’s son ought to be than
any eldest son in the whole aristocracy. Rees knew this, and felt more
than a modest confidence in the fact. He even began to think that in
the earl’s constant indulgence, which had indeed greatly increased the
lad’s aversion from the thought of serious work, he saw a long-fixed
determination to provide for his future in some brilliant manner.
So that, by the time of the earl’s return to Llancader, Rees had quite
prepared himself for an encouraging answer to his proposals. He went
to meet him at the station, and everything seemed to favor his wishes.
Lord St. Austell was more than kind, he was most affectionate in his
greeting, in his inquiries after all the family, not forgetting
Deborah. Then, saying that he would like a walk, he dismissed the
dog-cart that had been sent to meet him, and, thrusting his arm
through that of Rees, started with him towards Llancader.
Nothing could be more propitious, so thought Rees, who felt too
hopeful to spoil his effect by rushing at the subject. It was not
until they were in sight of the first lodge that Rees, emboldened to
make a very spirited appeal, formally asked the earl’s consent to his
marriage with Lady Marion.
Lord St. Austell listened in complete, attentive silence. Rees thought
it was all right, when, at the end of his carefully prepared and
beautifully delivered speech, the earl burst into a fit of laughter.
“Oh, you boys and girls!” he said, indulgently, but with great
amusement, “when will you learn a little sense?”
And again he began to laugh.
When Rees had recovered from his first impulse of rage and
mortification, he asked, in his haughtiest manner--
“Am I to understand from this strange reception that you refuse my
proposals?”
“No, no, dear boy, we won’t put it like that,” said the earl, seeing
that he had hurt the young fellow’s feelings, and laying on his
shoulder a kindly hand, which Rees instantly shook off, as if by an
accidental stumble. “We’ll forget all about it, we’ll decide that you
never for a moment dreamt of such folly as asking for one of my poor
dowerless, unattractive girls. Why, lad, what would you live on?”
“I may be rich some day,” said Rees quietly.
“Well, well, so you may, and then you can marry a beautiful woman, and
treat her a great deal better than most of us treat our wives. And
mind, my boy, I like the impulse which made you feel you would like to
be something nearer to me; for that, I am sure, was what first put
this mad notion into your head. And I have a proposal to make to you,
which I hope may lead to something more satisfactory than this unlucky
one of yours. I have an opening for a steward on my Midland property,
and you, with your love of the open air, and of riding and driving,
would find it an easy and pleasant berth. I need not tell you that I
should treat you in a very different spirit from that which I should
show to anybody else. And I should overlook any shortcomings which
might arise from want of experience----”
“You may save yourself the trouble of making excuses for me, my lord,”
interrupted Rees, whose handsome face was white with passion. “You
will not have me for a son-in-law; well, at any rate, you shall not
have me for a servant, and I wish your ugly daughters better
husbands.”
Lord St. Austell looked up in pain and amazement. But Rees had left
him, and was speeding back towards Carstow. The earl’s face grew very
grave as he asked himself what miracle could have wrought such a
hideous change in the frank, generous-spirited lad.
In the meantime, Rees reached the little town, still in a tempest of
passion. He called in at the library; Goodhare was out. He hurried
home, dashed through the garden, and into the house by one of the back
windows, without noticing that there seemed to be an unusual silence
and stillness about the place. A servant whom he met ran out of his
way, as if afraid to meet him. Deborah burst out crying at sight of
him, and tried to detain him at the foot of the stairs. But she could
not speak, and after waiting by her side impatiently for a few
seconds, Rees gently pushed her aside, and mounted the staircase to
his mother’s room.
With her he was sure of sympathy, no matter what he had done; no
matter, too, how much in the wrong he might be.
He burst open the door, and dashed into the room.
Mrs. Pennant was there, but she was not sitting as usual, knitting in
her low armchair by the window. She had his father’s desk on her
knees, and was busy, with Godwin, reading over the papers it
contained. Her eyes were red with crying, but her face wore a set,
stern expression of responsibility and anxiety. Godwin also looked sad
and anxious. Both mother and son started at his abrupt entrance, and
the former, holding out her arms towards him, tried to smile as she
asked him where he had been.
“To meet Lord St. Austell,” answered Rees, bewildered by the strange
reception he met with from every one. “And what do you think, mother,
he presumed to offer me?”
“I don’t know, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Pennant, caressing his curly
head with a trembling hand.
“He wanted me to become his steward--his land steward. What do you
think of that?”
Godwin sprang up from the seat by his mother’s side.
“For heaven’s sake, Rees, don’t tell us you were such a fool as to
refuse?”
“I did refuse, of course. It is not for me, the prospective head of
the Pennant family, to become the paid dependent of any man.”
“Well, it’s better than being a pauper, head of the family or not. And
that’s what mother and I have just discovered you to be.”
Mrs. Pennant’s tears began to flow again.
“He is right, Rees, I am afraid,” said she, in a sad, low voice. “Your
father never would let us know the real state of his affairs, and we
have just found out enough to make us fear that we are absolutely
ruined.”
Rees looked from one face to the other in utter bewilderment. His
mother drew his head tenderly to her breast.
“Your poor father, Rees, fell down dead in the drawing-room two hours
ago.”
Rees tore himself from his mother’s clasp with wild eyes. For a moment
he saw the reckless folly of the course he had been pursuing, and the
ruin to which it had brought him. The next, his mind was again
clouded. For the poison of delicate flattery had been subtle, and had
penetrated his system thoroughly.
Half an hour later he was walking up the hill, with unsteady steps,
towards Amos Goodhare’s lodgings.