MRS. MORTOMLEY BREAKS THE NEWS.
Mrs. Werner, clad in the deepest of mourning, in the most unbecoming of
caps, sat in that small room where Dolly had overheard Mr. Werner's
utterances concerning her husband. Her cousin had been closeted with her
for nearly an hour. Faithfully he agreed with Mrs. Mortomley that he
would break the news of the dead man's embarrassments to his widow, and,
indeed, it was plain no time ought to be lost in acquainting Mrs. Werner
with the actual state of her finances.
"She has ordered mourning for the whole household," observed Lord
Darsham, "and she has intimated her wish that a milliner should go to
Dassell to see the children's dresses are properly made. Now, with every
wish--"
"I comprehend, my Lord, and have already countermanded her orders, or,
at least, have requested that their execution may be delayed."
Something in the tone of her voice, something in the stress she laid on
the words my lord, struck the person she addressed with a sense of
uneasiness.
"Good Heavens! Mrs. Mortomley, you don't suppose I grudge Leonora this
small expense. You do not think so meanly of me as that, I hope. But,
still, with an execution in the house I cannot imagine that Leonora--"
"If Leonora knew how she is situated," Mrs. Mortomley again interrupted,
"she would clothe herself in sackcloth; she would have all her coloured
dresses dyed black rather than incur one penny of needless expense, and
she ought to know, and you ought to tell her."
Which Lord Darsham finally agreed to do, and then left the revelation to
Mrs. Mortomley.
"She must be told, and at once," thought Dolly, as she dragged wearily
up the staircase, to find Mrs. Werner sitting in her widow's weeds, all
alone.
"Lenny," she began, "I want to speak to you very seriously. I think you
ought to go back to Dassell without any unnecessary delay."
Mrs. Werner half rose from her seat.
"Are any of the children ill," she asked, "or is it my mother?"
"Your mother is well as far as I know," answered Mrs. Mortomley, "and so
are the children; but there are evils almost as hard to bear as illness,
and--"
"You know, Dolly, I can bear anything better than suspense," said Mrs.
Werner.
"I know nothing of the kind," was the reply. "My own impression is, you
or any woman could endure suspense better than bad news, and my news is
bad."
"What is it like?"
"It is very like a change of fortune," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "Did it
never occur to you, Lenny, that of late you have been living at a
tremendous rate?"
"I was aware we spent a considerable sum of money," said Mrs. Werner;
"but Mr. Werner wished it; and his business was good, and--"
"My dear," interrupted Dolly, "his business, poor man, was not good. He
was forced to keep up an appearance in order to preserve his credit, and
he was far from being rich when he died."
"You are not in earnest?" asked Mrs. Werner, an expression of horror
coming into her face, for which her friend knew too well how to account;
then added, "Oh! Dolly, tell me the worst at once?"
"I do not know either the best or the worst myself yet," was the answer.
"Only of one thing I am certain, that you and the children are not left
so well off as we might have hoped would be the case."
"That was what Charley came to tell me a little while since," remarked
Mrs. Werner.
"Yes, his heart failed him as mine would have done, Leonora, but I felt
you ought to know."
"Dolly, do you think this had anything to do with his death?" asked Mrs.
Werner, so suddenly that the question taking Dolly unprepared she stood
mute, unable to answer.
"You _do_ think so then?" said Mrs. Werner.
"I only think, remember, Leonora. God alone knows."
"Leave me," entreated the miserable woman. "I will try to bear it, but,
oh! leave me to bear it alone."
Dolly crept down to the drawing-room, where Lord Darsham anxiously
awaited her return.
"Have you told her?" he asked. "Has she decided on her future plans?"
"I have told her as much as I can tell her at present," was the reply.
"When she has recovered a little from the shock, she will form her
plans, no doubt. Meantime, my Lord, I think I could help you, and
Leonora too, if you would tell me your plans with regard to your cousin
and her family."
"Before I answer your question, will you answer one of mine? What have I
done, Mrs. Mortomley, that your tone and manner have changed towards me
so utterly? You are misjudging me in some way. You fancy because
Leonora is poor, I shall not be so willing to help her as if she had
been left well-dowered. Is it not so?"
"'Conscience makes cowards of us all,'" remarked Dolly, with a bitter
little laugh. "It is you who have changed. Poverty and money; these two
things are the touchstones of love, esteem, friendship. Have I not seen
it? Do I not know it? I was wrong to expect a miracle; but I did hope
for better things from you."
"And what have I done to forfeit your good opinion?" he asked. "Could a
brother have taken more responsibility upon himself than I have done? I
would have paid out that fellow downstairs, but you advised me not to
part with money which might be useful to Leonora. Have not I told you I
will see to her and the children? Is it not merely to save her annoyance
I urge the necessity for her departure from this wretched house? Surely,
you are hard to please?"
"I am not at all hard to please, and you know that," she answered. "When
first you heard of Mr. Werner's reverses, you were goodness itself; you
were as utterly unworldly and disinterested as--well, as my own husband
is.
"But you had not then stood face to face with that ruin which overtakes
a commercial man. A loss of income; the reduction of a household; having
to live frugally, and dress plainly; these things never seem terrible to
friends and acquaintances who are not called upon to practise such
economy in their own persons. What has tried you is just what tries
every one who is privileged to see the process by which men, unable to
meet their engagements, are stripped of everything they possess.
"That man in possession horrified you almost as much as he did Williams.
Being brought into contact with Mr. Forde disgusted you. Lord Darsham
began to wonder with how much of this sort of thing he might become
connected, and, though quite willing to do his duty, he could not avoid
thinking duty a very unpleasant necessity."
"You are exhaustive, Mrs. Mortomley."
"It is a subject I have studied," she said. "Do you suppose any human
being could pass through all this, as I have done, and come out
innocent and believing. The bulk of friends I class under two
heads:--those who know, and those who do not know what ruin means. The
first simply turn their backs on the ruined man altogether; the second
ask him to dinner, or to stay with them for a week, a fortnight, or a
month."
"I am not going to ask my cousin to dinner, neither do I intend to turn
my back on her," he remarked, unable, angry though he was, to avoid
smiling at Dolly's sweeping assertions.
"No, but what are you about to do for her; what are you able and willing
to do for her? If you mean--supposing she is utterly beggared--to say, I
will allow you so much a year certain, say so to her soon. If, on the
other hand, you are uncertain as to what you can do in the future, let
her think if there be any way in which she can help herself, and assist
her to the best of your ability. You would be doing her a greater
kindness to leave her to let lodgings or keep a school, than to make her
a pensioner on your--kindness shall we say?--for an uncertain income."
Lord Darsham took a turn or two up and down the room, then he said,
"You hit hard, but you hit fair. I will consider what I ought to do, and
can do; and then--"
"It will not cost you much," she observed as he paused. "A woman may
care for these things," with a gesture she indicated the furniture and
appointments of that stately room. "Most women, I suppose, do like
pretty and costly surroundings, but if she be a woman like Leonora she
can give them all up when she knows it is right she should. You cannot
imagine how much we can do with a little when necessary. Do you
recollect sending Leonora a hundred pounds last Christmas?"
"I do, and she gave it away, and I was angry with her in consequence."
"She gave it to me," said Dolly boldly, though her face flushed a little
as she made the confession. "And do you know what I did with it? I
started a business--a colour manufactory--and we are living on the
profits of that factory now, and when my dear husband gets strong
again, I shall be able to begin and pay that hundred pounds back to
Leonora."
"She won't take a penny of it," he exclaimed.
"Yes she will," answered Mrs. Mortomley, "because we understand each
other, Leonora and I! Shall I ever forget that Christmas Eve! I had five
sovereigns between us and nothing. A husband making nothing, and ill,
and obliged to go up each day to see the trustee of his Estate. I was
miserable. I was lonely. I was wishing I had been brought up to work of
any kind, so that I might earn a few shillings a week, when Leonora
came,--Leonora in her silks and furs, with her dear kind face; and she
would make me take your cheque, and I declare, when I opened and looked
at it, after she drove away, I felt as if it and she had come straight
from God."
"Dolly," he said, "had I only known--"
"You might have brought me more," she went on; "but you could never have
brought it in the same way. She knew all; she had seen the bailiffs at
Homewood; she had seen friend after friend desert us; she had seen
insults heaped on our heads; she had seen her own husband turn against
mine when misfortunes overtook us; but it made no difference with her,
and for that reason I shall stand between Leonora and trouble so long as
I am able."
It was inconsequent language; but Lord Darsham knew well enough what she
meant by it. He had felt that if being mixed up with business and Mr.
Werner's affairs, and Mrs. Werner's adversity, included executions for
debt, and interviews with such men as Mr. Forde, and taking the sole
charge of his cousin and her children for life, then indeed he had
become involved in an affair much more disagreeable and of considerably
greater magnitude than could prove pleasant, and he had felt compassion
for himself at being placed in such a situation.
But Dolly, the Dolly he remembered when she was but a tiny bit of a
child--in the days in which his cousin Leonora called her Sunbeam--had
put the matter in its true light before him.
If he was going to do anything for his cousin, he ought to do it
efficiently. Dolly, as he himself said, hit hard; but she did hit
fairly. As she put it, he was free to do or he was free to leave undone;
but he was not free to allow Leonora to feel his kindness a burden, her
position insecure.
No, Dolly was right; the matter ought to be put on a proper footing. It
would never do for him to pay this, that, and the other, and in his
heart feel Mrs. Werner, whom he once wished to marry, was spending too
much money. Even in that matter of dress, Dolly's common sense had
stepped in to the rescue.
"Mrs. Mortomley," he said at length, "will you go with Leonora to
Dassell, and when I have arranged affairs here so far as they are
capable of arrangement, I can follow you and we shall be able together
to decide on our future plans?"
"I should not like to go," Dolly answered; "but if she and you wish it I
will go."
As it proved, however, nothing on earth was further from Leonora's
desires.
"I cannot return to Dassell yet," she said to her friend. "Mamma's
questions would kill me. Dolly, will you take me home with you,
to-morrow?"
"Aye, that I will, darling," answered the brave little woman, utterly
regardless of ways and means in her anxiety to pleasure that distracted
heart.
"Stay with me for a little while, please," whispered Mrs. Werner. She
was afraid, now she had once looked upon the face of her trouble, of
being left to contemplate it through the darksome hours of the summer
night.
"I am going to sleep on the sofa, and if you want me at any hour or
minute you have but to say 'Dolly.'"
Next morning a curious discovery was made. Mrs. Werner's jewellery,
which she never took with her to Dassell, had all disappeared.
This led to an investigation of the contents of the plate closet, which
seemed extremely short of silver, but this Williams explained by stating
that when the family went to Brighton the previous winter, his master
had for greater security removed the bulk of the plate to his bankers.
These matters were not mentioned to Mrs. Werner, but they filled Lord
Darsham with a terrible uneasiness.
He felt thankful that his cousin was leaving that huge town house which
lawyers and auctioneers, and bankruptcy messengers, were soon to fill
with their pervading presence.
"May I come and see you, Mrs. Mortomley?" he asked, as he bade her
good-bye at the Great Eastern terminus.
"Certainly," she answered. "Our cottage is a small one, but, as the
Americans say, it opens into all out of doors."
He retained her hand for a moment, looked earnestly in her face as she
said this, then the train was off, and, she smiling at him, bowed and
kissed her finger in acknowledgment of his uplifted hat.
They were gone, and he walked slowly out of the station full of a fancy
her words had conjured up.