A CATASTROPHE.
Mr. May left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the warm invitation
which was given to him to stay. He was rather restless, and though it
was hard to go out into the dark just as grateful odours began to steal
through the house, it suited him better to do so than to spend the night
away from home. Besides, he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook was
not first-rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation. It was a
long walk to the station, for they had no horses at liberty to drive
him, a fact at which he was slightly offended, though he was aware that
Sir Robert's stable was but a poor one. He set out just as the
dressing-bell began to ring, fortified with a glass of sherry and a
biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with
the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he
went on; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were
somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious
dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at
all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he
trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct
figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing
past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew
there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or
illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct
wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him
in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was
all quite plain before him what to do,--to go to the Bank, to tell them
what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible.
The consciousness of having this to do acted upon him like a gentle
opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into
a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of
light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware now far he was going, or
where he was going, across the country; and even when he arrived at
Carlingford he roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he
had to get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a
sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and
half-asleep. "If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have
blamed that," he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy,
amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he scarcely could tell
how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and
looked up at the lights in the windows. There was music going on; Phoebe,
no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house
looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of
that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an
appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the
house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness
stealing over him for Clarence too.
Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phoebe
"had not intended to come," but was there notwithstanding, persuaded by
Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had
celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was
still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote
had "not intended to come." Indeed, he had gone further than this, he
had intended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner,
he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up
and down in forlorn contemplation of the lighted windows, had been spied
by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were
together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general
criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation.
Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was
occupying, but she was keenly interested in all that was going on, very
eager to understand the relationships in which the others stood, and to
see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was
absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the
features, expressed a totally different phase of existence from that
which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears, and
watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the
half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a
soft response fluttering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was
not destined to be spoken to-night; and it was she who made Phoebe's
music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no
danger. Phoebe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even
Phoebe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey
been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and
incipient; they could not come to anything; there were no hairbreadth
escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her
best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with
all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything,
neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the
condition of Ursula and Phoebe to one of absolute safety. They were all
kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful
observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement and
mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young
men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness for Janey's bed-time.
"Do you let her sit up till midnight every night?" said Reginald, with
indignation.
"Let me sit up!" cried Janey, "as if I was obliged to do what she tells
me!"
Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked at the
clock.
"It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock," she said, with a sigh.
"I should have thought papa would have come home before now. Can he be
staying at the Hall all night?"
Just then, however, there was the well-known ring at the bell, and
Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper. Why couldn't
Janey make herself useful and do that, the little company thought
indignantly and with one accord, instead of staying here with her sharp
eyes, putting everybody out? Mr. May's little dinner, or supper, served
on a tray, was very comfortable, and he ate it with great satisfaction,
telling Ursula that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.
"The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead was a
little less disagreeable than he always is; and you may look for
Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not going to leave us. You
must take care that he does not fall in love with you, Ursula. That is
the chief thing they seem to be afraid of."
"Fall in love with _me_!" cried Ursula. "Oh, papa, where are your eyes?
He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't you see it? It is Phoebe he
cares for."
Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious smile in his
eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully whether her father had taken
much wine at the Hall.
"Ah, ha! is that what they are frightened for?" he said, and then he
shrugged his shoulders. "She will show bad taste, Ursula; she might do
better; but I suppose a girl of her class has not the delicacy--So that
is what they are frightened for! And what are the other fish _you_ have
to fry?"
"Papa!"
"Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you; that you had other fish
to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that?
Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door--just a whiff
of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go
into the study and get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed."
"Won't you come upstairs to the drawing-room?" said Ursula, faltering,
for she was appalled by the idea of explanations. What had she to
explain, as yet? Mr. May shook his head, with that smile still upon his
face.
"No, you'll get on excellently well without me. I've had a long walk,
and I think I'll go to bed."
"You don't look very well, papa."
"Oh, yes, I'm well enough; only confused in the head a little with
fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good-night. Don't keep
those young fellows late, though one of them is your brother. You can
say I'm tired. Good-night, my dear."
It was very seldom that he called her "my dear," or, indeed, said
anything affectionate to his grown-up children. If Ursula had not been
so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so sure that "they" would
miss her, she would have been anxious about her father; but as it was,
she ran upstairs lightly when he stopped speaking, and left him going
into the study, where already his lamp was burning. Betsy passed her as
she ran up the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held
between two folds of her apron. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome
parish business to bother him, when he was tired already. But Ursula did
not stop for that. How she wanted to be there again, among "them all,"
even though Janey still made one! She went in breathless, and gave her
father's message only half-articulately. He was tired. "We are never to
mind; he says so." They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May
being tired, what did that matter? He would, no doubt, be better
to-morrow; and in the mean time those sweet hours, though so hampered by
Janey, were very sweet.
Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on his table. He was
just taking out his medicine from the drawer, and he made a wry face at
the note and at the pills together.
"Parish?" he said, curtly.
"No, sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He came this morning, after you'd
gone, and he sent over little Bobby."
"That will do."
A presentiment of pain stole over him. He gave Betsy a nod of dismissal,
and went on with what he was doing. After he had finished, he took up
the little note from the table with a look of disgust. It was badly
scrawled, badly folded, and dirty. Thank Heaven, Cotsdean's
communications would soon be over now.
Janey had proposed a round game upstairs. They were all humble in their
desire to conciliate that young despot. Reginald got the cards, and
Northcote put chairs round the table. He placed Ursula next to himself,
which was a consolation, and sat down by her, close to her, though not a
word, except of the most commonplace kind, could be said.
Just then--what was it? an indescribable thrill through the house, the
sound of a heavy fall. They all started up from their seats to hear what
it was. Then Ursula, with a cry of apprehension, rushed downstairs, and
the others after her. Betsy, alarmed, had come out of the kitchen,
followed by her assistant, and was standing frightened, but irresolute;
for Mr. May was not a man to be disturbed with impunity. And this might
be nothing--the falling of a chair or a table, and nothing more.
"What is it?" cried Ursula, in an anxious whisper.
She was the leader in the emergency, for even Reginald held back. Then,
after a moment's pause, she opened the door, and with a little cry
rushed in. It was, as they feared, Mr. May who had fallen; but he had so
far recovered himself as to be able to make efforts to rise. His face
was towards them. It was very pale, of a livid colour, and covered with
moisture, great beads standing on his forehead. He smiled vaguely when
he saw the circle of faces.
"Nothing--nothing--a faintness," he faltered, making again an effort to
rise.
"What is it, papa? Oh, what's the matter?" cried Janey, rushing at him
and seizing him by the arm. "Get up! get up! what will people think? Oh,
Ursula, how queer he looks, and he feels so heavy. Oh, please get up,
papa!"
"Go away," said Mr. May, "go away. It is--a faintness. I am very well
where I am--"
But he did not resist when Reginald and Northcote lifted him from the
floor. He had a piece of paper tightly clasped in his hand. He gave them
a strange suspicious look all round, and shrank when his eyes fell upon
Phoebe. "Don't let her know," he said. "Take me away, take me away."
"Reginald will take you upstairs, papa--to your room--to bed; you ought
to go to bed. It is the long walk that has worn you out. Oh, Reginald,
don't contradict him, let him go where he pleases. Oh, papa, where _are_
you going?" cried Ursula, "the other way; you want to go to bed."
"This way, take me--somewhere," said the sufferer; though he could not
stand he made a step, staggering between them, and an effort to push
towards the hall door, and when they directed him in the other direction
to the staircase which led to his room, he struggled feebly yet
violently with them. "No, no, no, not there!" he cried. The sudden
confusion, dismay, and alarm into which the family was plunged, the
strange sense of a catastrophe that came upon them, cannot be told.
Ursula, calling out all the time that they were not to contradict him,
insisted imperiously with words and gestures that he should be taken
upstairs. Janey, altogether overcome, sat down on the lower steps of the
staircase and cried. Reginald almost as pale as his father, and not
saying a word, urged him towards the stairs. To get him up to his room,
resisting as well as he could, and moaning inarticulate remonstrances
all the way, was no easy business. As the procession toiled along Phoebe
was left below, the only one in possession of her faculties. She sent
the housemaid hurriedly off for the doctor, and despatched Betsy to the
kitchen.
"Hot water is always wanted," said Phoebe; "see that you have enough in
case he should require a bath."
Then with her usual decision she stepped back into the study. It was not
vulgar curiosity which was in Phoebe's mind, nor did it occur to her that
she had no right to investigate Mr. May's private affairs. If she could
find what had done it, would not that be a great matter, something to
tell the doctor, to throw light on so mysterious a seizure? Several bits
of torn paper were lying on the floor; but only one of these was big
enough to contain any information. It was torn in a kind of triangular
shape, and contained a corner of a letter, a section of three lines,
"must have mistaken the date
presented to-day,
paid by Tozer,"
was what she read. She could not believe her eyes. What transactions
could there be between her grandfather and Mr. May? She secured the
scrap of paper, furtively putting it into her pocket. It was better to
say nothing either to the doctor, or any one else, of anything so
utterly incomprehensible. It oppressed Phoebe with a sense of mystery and
of personal connection with the mystery, which even her self-possession
could scarcely bear up against. She went into the kitchen after Betsy,
avowedly in anxious concern for the boiling of the kettle.
"Hot water is good for everything," said Phoebe; "mamma says a hot bath
is the best of remedies. Did Mr. May have anything--to worry him, Betsy?
I suppose it is only fatigue, and that he has taken too long a walk."
"I don't believe in the long walk, Miss," said Betsy, "it's that
Cotsdean as is always a-tormenting with his dirty letters. When that man
comes bothering here, master is always put out."
"Cotsdean? I don't know the name."
"Don't say nothing, Miss," said Betsy, sinking her voice, "but you take
my word it's money. Money's at the bottom of everything. It's something,
as sure as you're alive, as master has got to pay. I've been a deal with
gentlefolks," added Betsy, "and ne'er a one of them can abide that."