“Bravo, Charlie!” said Lady Jane. “I never knew anything better or
quicker done. My congratulations! You have proved yourself a man of
sense and business. Now you’ve got to tackle the old man.”
“Nothin’ of th’ sort,” said Sir Charles, with a dull blush covering all
that was not hair of his countenance. “Sweet on little girl. Like her
awf’lly; none of your business for me.”
“So much the better, and I respect you all the more; but now comes the
point at which you have really to show yourself a hero and a man of
mettle--the old father----”
Sir Charles walked the whole length of the great drawing-room and back
again. He pulled at his moustache till it seemed likely that it might
come off. He thrust one hand deep into his pocket, putting up the
corresponding shoulder. “Ah!” he said with a long-drawn breath, “there’s
the rub.” He was not aware that he was quoting anyone, but yet would
have felt more or less comforted by the thought that a fellow in his
circumstances might have said the same thing before him.
“Yes, there’s the rub indeed,” said his sympathetic but amused friend
and backer-up. “Stella is the apple of his eye.”
“Shows sense in that.”
“Well, perhaps,” said Lady Jane doubtfully. She thought the little prim
one might have had a little consideration too, being partially
enlightened as to a certain attractiveness in Katherine through the
admiration of Algy Scott. “Anyhow, it will make it all the harder. But
that’s doubtful too. He will probably like his pet child to be Lady
Somers, which sounds very well. Anyhow, you must settle it with him at
once. I can’t let it be said that I let girls be proposed to in my
house, and that afterwards the men don’t come up to the scratch.”
“Not my way,” said Sir Charles. “Never refuse even it were a harder jump
than that.”
“Oh, you don’t know how hard a jump it is till you try,” said Lady Jane.
But she did not really expect that it would be hard. That old Tredgold
should not be pleased with such a marriage for his daughter did not
occur to either of them. Of course Charlie Somers was poor; if he had
been rich it was not at all likely that he would have wanted to marry
Stella; but Lady Somers was a pretty title, and no doubt the old man
would desire to have his favourite child so distinguished. Lady Jane was
an extremely sensible woman, and as likely to estimate the people round
her at their just value as anybody I know; but she could not get it out
of her head that to be hoisted into society was a real advantage,
however it was accomplished, whether by marriage or in some other way.
Was she right? was she wrong? Society is made up of very silly people,
but also there the best are to be met, and there is something in the
Freemasonry within these imaginary boundaries which is attractive to the
wistful imagination without. But was Mr. Tredgold aware of these
advantages, or did he know even what it was, or that his daughters were
not in it? This was what Lady Jane did not know. Somers, it need not be
said, did not think on the subject. What he thought of was that old
Tredgold’s money would enable him to marry, to fit out his old house as
it ought to be, and restore it to its importance in his county, and, in
the first place of all, would prevent the necessity of going to India
with his regiment. This, indeed, was the first thing in his mind, after
the pleasure of securing Stella, which, especially since all the men in
the house had so flattered and ran after her, had been very gratifying
to him. He loved her as well as he understood love or she either. They
were on very equal terms.
Katherine did not give him any very warm reception when the exciting
news was communicated to her; but then Katherine was the little prim
one, and not effusive to any one. “She is always like that,” Stella had
said--“a stick! but she’ll stand up for me, whatever happens, all the
same.”
“I say,” cried Sir Charles alarmed--“think it’ll be a hard job, eh? with
the old man, don’t you know?”
“You will please,” said Stella with determination, “speak more
respectfully of papa. I don’t know if it’ll be a hard job or not--but
you’re big enough for that, or anything, I hope.”
“Oh, I’m big enough,” he said; but there was a certain faltering in his
tone.
He did not drive with the two girls on their return to the Cliff the
morning after the ball, but walked in to Sliplin the five miles to pull
himself together. He had no reason that he knew of to feel anxious. The
girl--it was by this irreverent title that he thought of her, though he
was so fond of her--liked him, and her father, it was reported, saw
everything with Stella’s eyes. She was the one that he favoured in
everything. No doubt it was she who would have the bulk of his fortune.
Sir Charles magnanimously resolved that he would not see the other
wronged--that she should always have her share, whatever happened. He
remembered long afterwards the aspect of the somewhat muddy road, and
the hawthorn hedges with the russet leaves hanging to them still, and
here and there a bramble with the intense red of a leaf lighting up the
less brilliant colour. Yes, she should always have her share! He had a
half-conscious feeling that to form so admirable a resolution would do
him good in the crisis that was about to come.
Mr. Tredgold stood at the door to meet his daughters when they came
home, very glad to see them, and to know that everybody was acquainted
with the length of Stella’s stay at Steephill, and the favour shown her
by Lady Jane, and delighted to have them back also, and to feel that
these two pretty creatures--and especially the prettiest of the
two--were his own private property, though there were no girls like
them, far or near. “Well,” he said, “so here you are back again--glad
to be back again I’ll be bound, though you’ve been among all the
grandees! Nothing like home, is there, Stella, after all?” (He said
’ome, alas! and Stella felt it as she had never done before.) “Well, you
are very welcome to your old pa. Made a great sensation, did you, little
’un, diamonds and all? How did the diamonds go down, eh, Stella? You
must give them to me to put in my safe, for they’re not safe, valuable
things like that, with you.”
“Dear papa, do you think all that of the diamonds?” said Stella. “They
are only little things--nothing to speak of. You should have seen the
diamonds at Steephill. If you think they are worth putting in the safe,
pray do so; but I should not think of giving you the trouble. Well, we
didn’t come back to think of the safe and my little _rivière_, did we,
Kate? As for that, the pendant you have given her is handsomer of its
kind, papa.”
“Couldn’t leave Katie out, could I? when I was giving you such a thing
as that?” said Mr. Tredgold a little confused.
“Oh, I hope you don’t think I’m jealous,” cried Stella. “Kate doesn’t
have things half nice enough. She ought to have them nicer than mine,
for she is the eldest. We amused ourselves very well, thank you, papa.
Kate couldn’t move without Algy Scott after her wherever she turned.
You’ll have him coming over here to make love to you, papa.”
“I think you might say a word of something a great deal more important,
Stella.”
“Oh, let me alone with your seriousness. Papa will hear of that fast
enough, when you know Charlie is---- I’m going upstairs to take off my
things. I’ll bring the diamonds if I can remember,” she added, pausing
for a moment at the door and waving her hand to her father, who followed
her with delighted eyes.
“What a saucy little thing she is!” he said. “You and I have a deal to
put up with from that little hussy, Katie, haven’t we? But there aren’t
many like her all the same, are there? We shouldn’t like it if we were
to lose her. She keeps everything going with her impudent little ways.”
“You are in great danger of losing her, papa. There is a man on the
road----”
“What’s that--what’s that, Katie? A man that is after my Stella? A man
to rob me of my little girl? Well, I like ’em to come after her, I like
to see her with a lot at her feet. And who’s this one? The man with a
handle to his name?”
“Yes; I suppose you would call it a handle. It was one of the men that
were out in the boat with her--Sir Charles----”
“Oh!” said Mr. Tredgold, with his countenance falling. “And why didn’t
the t’other one--his lordship--come forward? I don’t care for none of
your Sir Charleses--reminds me of a puppy, that name.”
“The puppies are King Charles’s, papa. I don’t know why the Earl did not
come forward; because he didn’t want to, I suppose. And, indeed, he was
not Stella’s sort at all.”
“Stella’s sort! Stella’s sort!” cried the old man. “What right has
Stella to have a sort when she might have got a crown to put on her
pretty head. Coronet? Yes, I know; it’s all the same. And where is this
fellow? Do you mean that you brought him in my carriage, hiding him
somewhere between your petticoats? I will soon settle your Sir Charles,
unless he can settle shilling to shilling down.”
“Sir Charles is walking,” said Katherine; “and, papa, please to remember
that Stella is fond of him, she is really fond of him; she is--in love
with him. At least I think so, otherwise---- You would not do anything
to make Stella unhappy, papa?”
“You leave that to me,” said the old man; but he chuckled more than
ever.
Katherine did not quite understand her father, but she concluded that he
was not angry--that he could not be going to receive the suitor
unfavourably, that there was nothing to indicate a serious shock of any
kind. She followed Stella upstairs, and went into her room to comfort
her with this assurance; for which I cannot say that Stella was at all
grateful.
“Not angry? Why should he be angry?” the girl cried. “Serious? I never
expected him to be serious. What could he find to object to in Charlie?
I am not anxious about it at all.”
Katherine withdrew into her own premises, feeling herself much humbled
and set down. But somehow she could not make herself happy about that
chuckle of Mr. Tredgold’s. It was not a pleasant sound to hear.
Sir Charles Somers felt it very absurd that he should own a tremor in
his big bosom as he walked up the drive, all fringed with its rare
plants in every shade of autumn colour. It was not a long drive, and the
house by no means a “place,” but only a seaside villa, though (as Mr.
Tredgold hoped) the costliest house in the neighbourhood. The carriage
had left fresh marks upon the gravel, which were in a kind of a way the
footsteps of his beloved, had the wooer been sentimental enough to think
of that. What he did think of was whether the old fellow would see him
at once and settle everything before lunch, comfortably, or whether he
would walk into a family party with the girls hanging about, not
thinking it worth while to take off their hats before that meal was
over. There might be advantage in this. It would put a little strength
into himself, who was unquestionably feeling shaky, ridiculous as that
was, and would be the better, after his walk, of something to eat; and
it might also put old Tredgold in a better humour to have his luncheon
before this important interview. But, on the other hand, there was the
worry of the suspense. Somers did not know whether he was glad or sorry
when he was told that Mr. Tredgold was in his library, and led through
the long passages to that warm room which was at the back of the house.
A chair was placed for him just in front of the fire as he had foreseen,
and the day, though damp, was warm, and he had heated himself with his
long walk.
“Sit down, sit down, Sir Charles,” said the old gentleman, whose
writing-table was placed at one side, where he had the benefit of the
warmth without the glare of the fire. And he leant amicably and
cheerfully across the corner of the table, and said, “What can I do for
you this morning?” rubbing his hands. He looked so like a genial
money-lender before the demands of the borrower are exposed to him,
that Sir Charles, much more accustomed to that sort of thing than to a
prospective father-in-law, found it very difficult not to propose,
instead of for Stella, that Mr. Tredgold should do him a little bill. He
got through his statement of the case in a most confused and complicated
way. It was indeed possible, if it had not been for the hint received
beforehand, that the old man would not have picked up his meaning; as it
was, he listened patiently with a calm face of amusement, which was the
most aggravating thing in the world.
“Am I to understand,” he said at last, “that you are making me a
proposal for Stella, Sir Charles? Eh? It is for Stella, is it, and not
for any other thing? Come, that’s a good thing to understand each other.
Stella is a great pet of mine. She is a very great pet. There is nobody
in the world that I think like her, or that I would do so much for.”
“M’ own feelings--to a nicety--but better expressed,” Sir Charles said.
“That girl has had a deal of money spent on her, Sir Charles, first and
last; you wouldn’t believe the money that girl has cost me, and I don’t
say she ain’t worth it. But she’s a very expensive article and has been
all her life. It’s right you should look that in the face before we get
any forwarder. She has always had everything she has fancied, and she’ll
cost her husband a deal of money, when she gets one, as she has done
me.”
This address made Somers feel very small, for what could he reply? To
have been quite truthful, the only thing he could have said would have
been, “I hope, sir, you will give her so much money that it will not
matter how expensive she is;” but this he could not say. “I know very
well,” he stammered, “a lady--wants a lot of things;--hope Stella--will
never--suffer, don’t you know?--through giving her to me.”
Ah, how easy it was to say that! But not at all the sort of thing to
secure Stella’s comfort, or her husband’s either, which, on the whole,
was the most important of the two to Sir Charles.
“That’s just what we’ve got to make sure of,” said old Tredgold,
chuckling more than ever. There was no such joke to the old man as this
which he was now enjoying. And he did not look forbidding or malevolent
at all. Though what he said was rather alarming, his face seemed to mean
nothing but amiability and content. “Now, look here, Sir Charles, I
don’t know what your circumstances are, and they would be no business of
mine, but for this that you’ve been telling me; you young fellows are
not very often flush o’ money, but you may have got it tied up, and that
sort of thing. I don’t give my daughter to any man as can’t count down
upon the table shillin’ for shillin’ with me.” This he said very
deliberately, with an emphasis on every word; then he made a pause, and,
putting his hand in his pocket, produced a large handful of coins, which
he proceeded to tell out in lines upon the table before him. Sir Charles
watched him in consternation for a moment, and then with a sort of
fascination followed his example. By some happy chance he had a quantity
of change in his pocket. He began with perfect gravity to count it out
on his side, coin after coin, in distinct rows. The room was quite
silent, the air only moved by the sound of a cinder falling now and then
on the hearth and the clink of the money as the two actors in this
strange little drama went on with the greatest seriousness counting out
coin after coin.
When they had both finished they looked up and met each other’s eyes.
Then Mr. Tredgold threw himself back in his chair, kicking up his
cloth-shod feet. “See,” he cried, with a gurgle of laughter in his
throat, “that’s the style for me.”
He was pleased to have his fine jest appreciated, and doubly amused by
the intense and puzzled gravity of his companion’s face.
“Don’t seem to have as many as you,” Sir Charles said. “Five short, by
Jove.”
“Shillin’s don’t matter,” said the old man; “but suppose every shillin’
was five thousand pounds, and where would you be then? eh? perhaps you
would go on longer than I could. What do I know of your private affairs?
But that’s what the man that gets Stella will have to do--table down his
money, cent for cent, five thousand for five thousand, as I do. I know
what my little girl costs a year. I won’t have her want for anything, if
it’s ever so unreasonable; so, my fine young man, though you’ve got a
handle to your name, unless you can show the colour of your money, my
daughter is not for you.”
Sir Charles Somers’s eyes had acquired a heavy stare of astonishment and
consternation. What he said in his disappointment and horror he did not
himself know--only one part of it fully reached the outer air, and that
was the unfortunate words, “money of her own.”
“Money of her own!” cried old Tredgold. “Oh, yes, she’s got money of her
own--plenty of money of her own--but not to keep a husband upon. No, nor
to keep herself either. Her husband’s got to keep her, when she gets
one. If I count out to the last penny of my fortune he’s got to count
with me. I’ll give her the equal. I’ll not stint a penny upon her; but
give my money or her money, it’s all the same thing, to keep up another
family, her husband and her children, and the whole race of them--no,
Sir Charles Somers,” cried Mr. Tredgold, hastily shuffling his silver
into his pocket, “that’s not good enough for me.”
Saying which he jumped up in his cloth shoes and began to walk about the
room, humming to himself loudly something which he supposed to be a
tune. Sir Charles, for his part, sat for a long time gazing at his money
on the table. He did not take it up as Tredgold had done. He only stared
at it vacantly, going over it without knowing, line by line. Then he,
too, rose slowly.
“Can’t count with you,” he said. “Know I can’t. Chance this--put down
what I put down--no more. Got to go to India in that case. Never mind,
Stella and I----”
“Don’t you speak any more of Stella. I won’t have it. Go to India,
indeed--my little girl! I will see you--further first. I will see you at
the bottom of the sea first! No. If you can count with me, something
like, you can send your lawyer to me. If you can’t, do you think I’m a
man to put pounds again’ your shillin’s? Not I! And I advise you just
to give it up, Sir Charles Somers, and speak no more about Stella to
me.”
It was with the most intense astonishment that Charlie Somers found
himself out of doors, going humbly back along that drive by which he had
approached so short a time before, as he thought, his bride, his
happiness, and his luncheon. He went dismally away without any of them,
stupefied, not half conscious what had happened; his tail more
completely between his legs, to use his own simile, than whipped dog
ever had. He had left all his shillings on the table laid out in two
shining rows. But he did not think of his shillings. He could not think.
His consternation made him speechless both in body and in soul.
It was not till late in the afternoon, when he had regained his
self-command a little, that he began to ask himself the question, What
would Stella do? Ah, what would Stella do? That was another side of the
question altogether.