CHARLOTTE EAST'S PRESENT.
Towards dusk, that same evening, Charlotte East went over to Mrs.
Buffle's for some butter. After she was served, Mrs. Buffle--who was a
little shrimp of a woman, with a red nose--crossed her arms upon the
counter and bent her face towards Charlotte's. "Have you heered the
news?" asked she. "Mary Ann Cross is going to make a match of it with
Ben Tyrrett."
"Is she?" said Charlotte. "They had better wait a few years, both of
them, until they shall have put by something."
"They're neither of them of the putting-by sort," returned Mrs. Buffle.
"Them Crosses is the worst girls to spend in all the Fair: unless it's
Carry Mason. She don't spare her back, she don't. The wonder is, how she
gets it."
"Young girls will dress," observed Charlotte, carelessly.
Mrs. Buffle laughed. "You speak as if you were an old one."
"I feel like one sometimes, Mrs. Buffle. When children are left, as I
and Robert were, with a baby brother to bring up, and hardly any means
to do it upon, it helps to steady them. Tom----"
Eliza Tyrrett burst in at the door, with a violence that made its bell
twang and tinkle. "Half-a-pound o' dips, long-tens, Dame Buffle, and be
quick about it," was her order. "There's such a flare-up, in at
Mason's."
"A flare-up!" repeated Mrs. Buffle, who was always ripe and ready for a
dish of scandal, whether it touched on domestic differences, or on young
girls' improvidence in the shape of dress. "Is Mason and her having a
noise?"
"It's not him and her. It's about Carry. Hetty Mason locked Carry up
this afternoon, and Mason never came home at all to tea; he went and had
some beer instead, and a turn at skittles, and she wouldn't let Carry
out. He came in just now, and his wife told him a whole heap about
Carry, and Mason went up to the cock-loft, undid the door, and
threatened to kick Carry down. They're having it out in the kitchen, all
three."
"What has Carry done?" asked Mrs. Buffle eagerly.
"Perhaps Charlotte East can tell," said Eliza Tyrrett, slyly. "She has
been thick with Carry lately. _I_ am not a-going to spoil sport."
Charlotte took up her butter, and bending a severe look of caution on
the Tyrrett girl, left the shop. Anthony Dare's reputation was not a
brilliant one, and the bare fact of Caroline Mason's allowing herself to
walk with him would have damaged her in the eyes of Honey Fair. As well
keep it, if possible, from Mrs. Buffle and other gossips.
As Charlotte crossed to her own door, she became conscious that some one
was flying towards her in the dusk of the evening: a woman with a fleet
foot and panting breath. Charlotte caught hold of her. "Caroline, where
are you going?"
"Let me alone, Charlotte East"--and Caroline's nostrils were working,
her eyes flashing. "I have left their house for ever, and am going to
one who will give me a better."
Charlotte held her tight. "You must not go, Caroline."
"I will," she defiantly answered. "I have chosen my lot this night for
better or for worse. Will I stay to be taunted without a cause? To be
told I am what I am not? No! If anything should happen to me, let them
reproach themselves, for they have driven me on to it."
Charlotte tried her utmost to restrain the wild girl. "Caroline," she
urged, "this is the turning-point in your life. A step forward, and you
may have passed it beyond recall; a step backwards, and you may be saved
for ever. Come home with me."
Caroline in her madness--it was little else--turned her ghastly face
upon Charlotte. "You shan't stop me, Charlotte East! You go your way,
and I'll go mine. Shall Mark and she go on at me without cause, I say,
calling me false names?"
"Come home with me, Caroline. You shall stay with me to-night; you
shan't go back to Hetty. My bed's not large, but it will hold us."
"I won't, I won't!" she uttered, struggling to be free.
"Only for a minute," implored Charlotte. "Come in for a minute until you
are calm. You are mad just now."
"I am driven to it. There!"
With a jerk she wrenched herself from Charlotte's grasp, passion giving
her strength: and she flew onwards and was lost in the dark night.
Charlotte East ran home. Her brothers were there. "Tom," said she, "put
this butter in the cupboard for me;" and out she went again. At the end
of Honey Fair, a road lay each way. Which should she take? Which had
Caroline taken?
She chose the one to the right--it was the most retired--and went
groping about it for twenty minutes. As it happened, as such things
generally do happen, Caroline had taken the other.
In a sheltered part of that, which lay back, away from the glare of the
gas lamps, Caroline had taken refuge. She had expected some one would be
there to meet her; but she found herself mistaken. Down she sat on a
stone, and her wild passion began to diminish.
Nearly half an hour afterwards, Charlotte found her there. Caroline was
talking to Anthony Dare, who had just come up. Charlotte grasped
Caroline.
"You must come with me, Caroline."
"Who on earth are you, and what do you want intruding here?" demanded
Anthony Dare, turning round with a fierce stare on Charlotte.
"I am Charlotte East, sir, if it is any matter to you to know my name,
and I am a friend of Caroline Mason's. I am here to take her out of
harm's way."
"There's nothing to harm her here," haughtily answered young Anthony.
"Mind your own business."
"I am afraid there is one thing to harm her, sir, and that's you," said
brave Charlotte. "You can't come among us people in Honey Fair for any
good. Folks bent on good errands don't need to wait till dark before
they pay their visits. You had better give up prowling about this place,
Mr. Anthony Dare. Stay with your equals, sir; with those that will be a
match for you."
"The woman must be deranged!" uttered Anthony, going into a terrible
passion. "How dare you presume to say such things to me?"
"How dare you, sir, set yourself out to work ill?" retorted Charlotte.
"Come along, Caroline," she added to the girl, who was now crying
bitterly. "As for you, sir, if you mean no harm, as you say, and it is
necessary that you should condescend to visit Honey Fair, please to pay
your visits in the broad light of day."
No very pleasant word broke from Anthony Dare. He would have liked to
exterminate Charlotte. "Caroline," foamed he, "order this woman away. If
I could see a policeman, I'd give her in charge."
"Sir, if you dare attempt to detain her, I'll appeal to the first
passer-by. I'll tell them to look at the great and grand Mr. Anthony
Dare, and to ask him what he wants here, night after night."
Even as Charlotte spoke, footsteps were heard, and two gentlemen,
talking together, advanced. The voice of one fell familiarly on the ear
of Anthony Dare, familiarly on that of Charlotte East. The latter
uttered a joyful cry.
"There's Mr. Ashley! Loose her, sir, or I'll call to him."
To have Mr. Ashley "called to" on the point would not be altogether
agreeable to the feelings of young Anthony. "You fool!" he exclaimed to
Charlotte East, "what harm do you suppose I meant, or thought of? You
must be a very strange person yourself, to get such a thing into your
imagination. Good night, Caroline."
And turning on his heel haughtily, Anthony Dare stalked off in the
direction of Helstonleigh. Mr. Ashley passed on, having noticed nothing,
and Charlotte East wound her arm round the sobbing girl, subdued now,
and led her home.
Anthony went straight to Pomeranian Knoll, and threw himself on to a
sofa in a very ill humour. Lord Hawkesley was occupied with Adelaide and
her singing, and paid little attention to him.
At the close of the evening they left together, Anthony going out with
Lord Hawkesley, and linking arms as they proceeded towards the Star
Hotel, Lord Hawkesley's usual quarters when in Helstonleigh.
"I have got two hundred out of the governor," began Anthony in a
confidential tone. "He will give me the cheque to-morrow."
"What's two hundred, Dare?" slightingly spoke his lordship. "It's
nothing."
"It was of no use trying for more to-night. The two hundred will stop
present worry, Hawkesley; the future must be provided for when it
comes." And they walked on with a quicker step.
Mrs. Dare had looked at her watch as they departed. It was half-past
eleven. She said she supposed they might as well be going to bed, and
Mr. Dare roused himself. For the last half-hour he had been half-asleep;
quite asleep he did not choose to fall, in the young man's presence. A
viscount to Lawyer Dare was a viscount. "Where's Herbert?" asked he,
stretching himself. Master Herbert, Joseph answered, had had supper
served (not being able to recover from the short allowance at dinner),
and had gone to bed. The rest, excepting Adelaide, had gone before, free
from want, from care, full of the good things of this life. The young
Halliburtons, their cousins once removed, had knelt and thanked God for
the day's good, even though that day to them had been what all their
days were now, one of poverty and privation. Not so the Dares. As
children, for they were not in a heathen land, they had been taught to
say their prayers at night; but as they grew older, the custom was
suffered to fall into disuse. The family attended church on Sundays,
fashionably attired, and there ended their religion.
To bed and to sleep went they, all the household, old and young--Joseph,
the manservant, excepted. Sleepy Joseph stretched himself in a large
chair to wait the return of Mr. Anthony: sleepy Joseph had so to stretch
himself most nights. Mr. Anthony might come in in an hour's time, or Mr.
Anthony might not come in until it was nearly time to commence the day's
duties in the morning. It was all a chance; as poor Joseph knew to his
cost.
Nine o'clock was the breakfast hour at Mr. Dare's, and the family were
in general pretty punctual at it. On the following morning they were all
assembled at the meal, Anthony rather red about the eyes, when Ann, the
housemaid, entered.
"Here's a parcel for you, Mr. Anthony."
She held in her arms a large untidy sort of bundle, done round with
string. Anthony turned his wondering eyes upon it.
"That! It can't be for me."
"A boy brought it and said it was for you, sir," returned Ann, letting
the cumbersome parcel fall on a chair. "I asked if there was any answer,
and he said there was not."
"It must be from your tailor, Anthony," said Mrs. Dare.
Anthony's consequence was offended at the suggestion. "My tailor send me
a parcel done up like that!" repeated he. "He had better! He would get
no more of my custom."
"What an extraordinary direction!" exclaimed Julia, who had got up, and
drawn near, in her curiosity: "'Young Mister Antony Dare!' Just look,
all of you."
Anthony rose, and the rest followed, except Mr. Dare, who was busy with
a county paper, and paid no attention. A happy thought darted into
Minny's mind. "I know!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Cyril and George
are playing Anthony a trick, like the one they played Miss Benyon."
Anthony, too hastily taking up the view thus suggested, and inwardly
vowing a not agreeable chastisement to the two, as soon as they should
rush in to breakfast from school, took out his penknife and severed the
string. The paper fell apart, and the contents rolled on to the floor.
What on earth were they? What did they mean? A woman's gown, tawdry but
pretty; a shawl; a neck-scarf, with gold-coloured fringe; two pairs of
gloves, the fingers worn into holes; a bow of handsome ribbon; a cameo
brooch, fine and false; and one or two more such articles, not new,
stood disclosed. The party around gazed in sheer amazement.
"If ever I saw such a collection as this!" exclaimed Mrs. Dare. "It is a
woman's clothing. Why should they have been sent to you, Anthony?"
Anthony's cheek wore rather a conscious colour just then. "How should I
know?" he replied. "They must have been directed to me by mistake. Take
the rags away, Ann"--spurning them with his foot--"and throw them into
the dust-bin. Who knows what infected place they may have come from?"
Mrs. Dare and the young ladies shrieked at the last suggestion, gathered
their skirts about them, and retired as far as the limits of the room
allowed. Some enemy of malicious intent must have done it, they became
convinced. Ann--no more liking to be infected with measles or what not
than they--seized the tongs, gingerly lifted the articles inside the
paper, dragged the whole outside the door, and called Joseph to carry
them to the receptacle indicated by Mr. Anthony.
Charlotte East had thought she would not do her work by halves.