While Rees Pennant and his two confederates in evil were passing an
existence of feverish excitement in London, life at Carstow rippled on
with the monotony of a brook in a plain. The only break that ever
occurred in the quiet uniformity of Deborah’s daily duties was on the
occasion of Godwin’s visits, which had become more frequent of late.
He was thinking seriously of “settling down,” so he told Deborah soon
after Christmas. He now spent every second Sunday at his mother’s
house, and, by Deborah’s imperatively express command, had altogether
given up making her his matter-of-fact offers of marriage, and spent
much of his time at Carstow, away from the house.
“Settling down?” echoed Deborah, laughing, when he made this
announcement. “That seems rather an odd expression to apply to
yourself, Godwin. You’ve never been anything else than settled down.
Now you might, with some sense, apply that term to Rees.”
“Rees, Rees, Rees,” repeated Godwin, impatiently. “You don’t mean to
say that after all this time, you have Rees as much on the brain as
ever.”
“‘Out of sight’ is not ‘out of mind’ with us women,” answered Deborah,
didactically.
“Not when you live in the country, perhaps. If you lived in a big town
you’d learn better how to rate people at their proper value.”
“And you would go up, you think, and poor Rees down?”
“Certainly, if you used the educational advantages of town life as you
ought. But to come back to the point--when I say I intend to settle
down, I mean to marry. I didn’t tell you about it before, because I
knew it would distress you.”
“Distress me, why?”
“Well, everyone thinks more highly of the prize they’ve lost. So I
knew that you, when you found I was engaged to somebody else, would
have some regrets, however transient, at having thrown away your
chances.”
“You are very good, and in consideration of that goodness, I’ll shed
all my tears in private.”
“But if I don’t mind seeing them? If I should _like_ to see them?”
“Then I shall know that you are a mere monster of selfish cruelty, and
I shall keep them to myself all the more.”
“Well, don’t you want to know who I’m engaged to?”
“I _do_ know.”
Godwin looked much astonished.
“To the second Miss Brownlow.”
He sat down in the next chair to Deborah, and stared at her in blank
amazement.
“But--but you’ve never seen me with her! I’m perfectly certain that in
your presence I’ve never exchanged half a dozen words with her.”
“No, but she is the very girl mamma and I picked out for you, as being
admirably suited to you in every way--sensible, practical,
straightforward and quite nice-looking enough.”
“Quite nice-looking enough for me; I see.”
“Now don’t be angry. The fact that you’ve chosen her proves that she
_is_ nice-looking enough for you. And knowing how sensible you are,
and how you always do the right thing, it was quite natural to expect
that you would choose the right woman. When are you going to be
married?”
“I don’t know,” answered Godwin, shortly, “it depends on who my wife
is.”
“What! I thought you said you were engaged!”
“I am--or very near it. But I am going to give you one more chance.”
“And Miss Brownlow?”
Godwin shrugged his shoulders.
“She’ll suffer less at the loss of such an ordinary admirer as I than
she would by gaining such an ordinary husband as I should make--to
her.”
“And do you think,” asked Deborah, looking full at him with an
expression of great scorn, “that that would be honorable conduct? You
who know what an opportunity of marriage means to a girl in a country
town?”
Godwin returned her look very straightforwardly.
“Isn’t that rather a low point of view to look at the matter from?”
“It is probably hers.”
“Well, that admission condemns you. For I decline to think that the
well-being and happiness of a girl whose only aim in existence is to
catch a husband by any means she can is of so much consequence
as--well, as mine. Is that frank enough?”
Deborah was a little taken aback by this straightforward egotism.
“Then you must logically deny any sort of equality between men and
women?”
“I do, emphatically. Women are our superiors or our inferiors, never
our equals. And better education for them will not alter this fact; it
will accentuate it.”
“Now you are running right away from the point, which is this. Is the
inequality between the sexes so great that a man may jilt a girl for
his own happiness without losing his right to be considered an
honorable man?”
“Well, he loses the first freshness of his honor; but if he gets rid
of a girl who could be nothing better than his housekeeper, to get one
who will be, in the noblest sense of the word, his wife, he gains a
great deal more than he loses.”
“And if she brings an action for breach of promise?”
“Then she loses the cloak which has so far covered her natural want of
delicacy.”
“You are as hard and didactic as ever.”
“I’m not hard; but I have a few gleams of sense left shining through
the mass of cobwebs with which you have filled my head.”
“I don’t understand the simile.”
“Well, I’m in love with you; I love you so much that I’d rather come
to you without a rag of honor left than be saluted as the noblest man
in the world by any other woman. Just as you, who know that Rees has
turned out such a scamp that we daren’t inquire into his actions,
would think nothing of lowering yourself to the point of forgiving
him.”
Deborah got up and touched the bell for tea, too much agitated to
answer him. Godwin had not only spoken to her with less reserve than
ever before, but had looked at her with passion, and finally poured
out his words with a vehemence quite in sharp contrast with his
accustomed matter-of-fact manner.
“Well,” said he, rising quickly and leaning over her as she rang the
bell; “do you think more of me now than you did before?”
“No. Less,” she answered sharply.
But it was not true. No woman thinks less of a man for letting her
into the secrets of his innermost feelings. Godwin retreated, however,
without guessing this, and made no further reference to their
conversation until the following morning, when he was on the point of
starting on his journey back to his work.
“You needn’t tell my mother anything about Miss Brownlow,” he said
hurriedly, in a low voice, with his hat in his hand and his eyes on
the floor.
“But why not? I think she would be pleased. Mamma likes her. And poor
mamma wants cheering just now.”
“Yes; but it might not come off, you know, and then she’d be
disappointed. Well, you’ll see me again in a fortnight.”
“You’re more assiduous in your courtship of Miss Brownlow than you
were in my case.”
“Yes, there’s more work to do in getting up the excitement.”
“Godwin, I have something serious to say to you about mamma. You know
how reserved she is.”
“Yes.”
“And don’t you notice a difference in her from visit to visit.”
“I am afraid I do. And I know the reason of it--Rees.”
Deborah’s voice dropped to an emphatic whisper.
“She is breaking her heart about him.”
Godwin began to move restlessly from one foot to the other.
“Well, well; perhaps that sad ignorance is better than full knowledge
would be.”
Deborah shuddered.
“There is nothing to be done, Godwin, is there?”
He shook his head.
“Not until the prodigal comes back--as he will do sooner or later, to
oust the dutiful son,” he answered bitterly.
Deborah said nothing to this--did not even look at him--but her cheeks
flushed guiltily.
“Well, good-bye, you’ll miss your train,” she said at last.
“Good-bye,” said he curtly.
And he turned abruptly, without again offering to shake hands, and
started on his way to the station.
It was true that Mrs. Pennant brooded over the defection of her eldest
son. Without having discussed the matter with any one, she knew that
there was something discreditable in his mode of life, something which
none of the artfully worded suggestions in her own letters could
induce him to confess. Belonging, as she did, to that numerous class
of women who would allow their sons any latitude and spend their time
in efforts, not to reform their darlings, but to shield them, she
lived in perpetual terror lest Rees should “get into trouble;” and
when, three days after Godwin’s confession to Deborah, Lord St.
Austell was announced one morning while Mrs. Pennant was taking her
breakfast in her bed-room, the old lady sprang up from her chair with
an intuitive conviction that this visit concerned her son.
Deborah thought so too. Wishing therefore to spare the old lady as
much as she could of any coming shock, she cried out, as Mrs. Pennant
hurried towards the door.
“What, mamma, you are surely not going to let Lord St. Austell see
_you_ in your dressing-gown!”
The old lady stopped. The habits of her life conquered even her
impatience for news of her son. Stepping back to the looking-glass and
catching sight of her haggard old face and unsmoothed hair, she said:
“You go down, Deborah, and tell his lordship I shall be ready to
receive him in ten minutes.”
But Deborah thought she could reckon on a good half-hour. She was
white and agitated herself when she entered the morning-room, where
the earl was standing by the fire. His expression told her that her
fears were well-founded.
“I don’t know how to break the news to you,” he said at once, in a low
voice, as they shook hands. “But have you heard anything? You look as
if you had.”
“Nothing. I have only guessed by your face, and in fact from your
coming, so early, so unexpectedly. Mamma guessed too.”
“The old lady? She isn’t up yet, is she?” asked he anxiously.
“Yes. She will be down in a few minutes.”
“Then I must make haste. For I could not meet her. You know it is
about--Rees.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, unhappily, I might almost say. He is concerned in a stupendous
robbery.”
Deborah listened with surprising outward calmness. She had expected
some calamity of this sort for such a long time that it almost seemed
to her that she was hearing old news.
“Is he in the hands of the police?” she asked quietly.
“No. They have not even been informed of the robbery yet, except
perhaps unofficially. For the great object is to get the jewels back
without noise.”
“Jewels?”
“Crown jewels.”
Deborah started. She had not expected anything so sensational as that.
“What are you going to do?” she whispered.
“I am going to try home influence, your influence, if you will help
us.”
“Of course.”
“Put on your things.” He looked at his watch. “We have twenty-eight
minutes before the train starts. No time to lose. If by to-night we
are not in the way to recover the jewels we must trust to the police.”
Deborah ran to the door, but, with her fingers on the handle, she
turned with a white face.
“Mamma!” she whispered, scarcely doing more than form the words with
her lips, “she is outside.”
She rattled the handle, but still she heard the sound of heavy
breathing on the other side. At last, very gently, she opened the
door, and found, as she had begun to fear, Mrs. Pennant on her knees,
with half-closed eyes, in a kind of fit. The old lady had known that
an attempt would be made to keep from her something concerning her
son, and had had recourse to eavesdropping to find out the truth.
“I can’t go up to London now,” said Deborah quietly, but in a tone of
despair.
“We will see,” said the earl.
Before she could say another word he was out of the house. In five
minutes the family doctor had arrived, and in ten minutes Mrs. Kemp,
the admiral’s widow, was standing by the bed to which her old friend
had been carried. It was a stroke of paralysis, the first, and not a
very severe one. Within an hour Mrs. Pennant had recovered
sufficiently to remember what she had heard, and to insist on her
adopted daughter’s going up to town.
By the next train, therefore, Lord St. Austell and Deborah Audaer were
on their way to London.