THE LAST.
And so wrong was made right, and justice overtook the evil-doer; and
in a very short time the Belassis family had removed from Thornton
House, taking all their goods with them, and leaving behind no pleasant
regrets in the minds of others, nor even the feeling that they would be
missed from the neighbourhood where they had lived so long.
No, never popular with anyone, the name of Belassis became opprobrious
when the news of his conduct was noised abroad. When once the belief
in his honesty had exploded, everybody had some tale to tell of his
hardness or trickery or deceitfulness, and very heartily was he abused
in all quarters.
‘Serve him right! I hope he will feel it!’ said Miss Marjory, when she
heard of it. ‘For I always did say you let him off far too easily, Mr.
Torwood.’
‘I can’t hit a man when he’s down,’ answered Tor. ‘I had too completely
the whip-hand of him to use it with much force.’
‘If I’d been in your place, I’d not have spared him!’ cried the eager
little gentlewoman. ‘I’d have scared him out of his senses. He’s an old
villain, and doesn’t deserve anybody’s compassion.’
‘No, he doesn’t deserve any consideration at all, I quite admit,’
returned Tor; ‘but the fact is, he was such a pitiable and contemptible
object, that one didn’t care to waste words of any kind over him. You’d
have felt the same if you’d been in my place, Miss Marjory. I am quite
sure you would.’
‘Well, well, perhaps so; but I shall always say and think that Belassis
got off much more easily than he deserved—much more easily than he
would have done if I’d had the handling of him.’
‘Well, Miss Marjory, console yourself with the thought that his wife
has had the handling of him,’ answered Tor, with a smile. ‘I think, if
you had seen the look in her eye, you would have been content. I felt
that I couldn’t leave him in better hands.’
Miss Marjory laughed.
‘Ah yes, there’s something in that; but then I ought to have the
handling of _her_; for she’s almost as bad as her husband, and it’s
more disgraceful in her than in him, for she has good blood in her
veins.’
‘I should think she will be punished enough by the loss of position
and wealth. She is a proud woman, and it will be a bitter pill for her
to swallow, this sudden descent in the social scale. Miss Marjory, I
do really think that you may make your mind easy about the Belassis
family. I think their sins will be well punished.’
‘Well, I hope so, I’m sure; but I shall always say you let them off too
easily.’
Tor certainly behaved generously towards a fallen foe, he and Maud
together; but there was no doubt as to which was the active agent in
all such matters.
The valuation of the estate fell considerably short of the sum owed
by Belassis to Maud; but he was not hardly dealt with when it was
found that he was unable to make up the full amount. A compromise was
effected; and he was even allowed to carry away into retirement the
furniture, plate, glass, and china which belonged to Thornton House,
and which might fairly have been claimed as compensation.
Perhaps there was less generosity in this than some people supposed,
but Maud Debenham’s magnanimity was greatly praised by all in the
neighbourhood.
Poor Matilda and Bertha Belassis were inconsolable, and were certainly
to be pitied. They came up to Ladywell several times during the
‘turn-out,’ and shed oceans of salt tears, and quite distorted their
rather plain faces by the utter abandonment of their grief.
‘Pity us, Maud! do pity us!’ they would say. ‘Fancy, shut up in a
horrid little poky house—quite poor people we shall be—and always _with
mamma_!’ this seemed the climax of horror, and Maud understood it only
too well.
It was a gleam of consolation when they learnt that London was to be
their destination, and that their father intended going into business
of some kind, to re-establish his fallen fortunes.
Maud made the best of this in her attempt to comfort them.
‘You will like London ever so much: there will be such lots to see, and
such heaps of people to make friends with; and when Tor and I are in
town, you shall come and see us, and we will go shopping together, and
to the opera and the park and everywhere. I believe you’ll get to like
it so much, when once you’re settled, that you would never care to come
back any more; and you’ll wonder how it ever was that you were happy at
Ladywell.’
Phil and Tor, in a good-natured way, tried with Maud to comfort the
distressed damsels: and at the last they did go away somewhat cheered.
Lewis was living in London, and he would probably be a well-to-do man
in time; and, altogether, the rising generation of the Belassis family
felt that there might be brighter days in store for them yet.
‘Well, I’m glad they’ve gone away in better spirits, poor things!’
said Maud, after the final adieu, made the very day of the journey to
London. ‘I am sorry for those two, because it isn’t their fault; but
somehow one can never feel _interested_ in Matilda and Bertha.’
‘Perhaps they will find some one to be interested in them in the great
metropolis,’ suggested Tor, smiling. ‘I hope, for their sakes, that
they will.’
Tor’s humane wish was presently realized; and, before two years were
over, Matilda and Bertha had both found husbands, infinitely to their
own satisfaction.
* * * * *
Thornton House was at once re-named, and Ladywell Lodge became a
centre for the united energy of architect, mason, and decorator. Tor’s
prediction, that the place would soon be changed past recognition, was
amply fulfilled; and Ladywell Lodge became the envy and admiration of
the neighbourhood.
Not within, alone, did the transformation scene take place. As soon as
the season of the year permitted it, down came Miss Marjory from her
northern home, and planting, transplanting, turfing, and changes of all
descriptions went on as if by magic.
‘I can’t think how you know how to do it all, Miss Marjory,’ cried the
delighted Maud, when she came round to see what was going on. ‘It’s not
like the same place. It will be perfectly lovely when the spring comes,
and the summer. I can’t think how you do it all—it’s like magic!’
‘If I didn’t know how to lay out a garden by this time, I should be a
bright specimen,’ returned Miss Marjory, amused and pleased. ‘I mean
Mr. Torwood to have the best laid-out place in the county, because, my
dear, I am very fond of him; I always feel something like a mother to
him.’
Everyone agreed that Miss Marjory had achieved her object before she
left; and when she did so, she carried off Maud to spend a month with
her at Whitbury.
Tor had a general invitation to come whenever he pleased; and, to do
justice to the ‘Torwood impudence,’ he was not shy in availing himself
of the privilege accorded to him.
‘I believe he comes more to see you than to see me, Miss Marjory,’ said
Maud, one day. ‘I always tell him I am awfully jealous of you.’
With the twinkle in her eye, which all who knew her liked to see, Miss
Marjory answered:
‘Well, my dear, of course when he begins comparing you and me, it is
impossible not to be aware beforehand at what conclusion he will be
bound to arrive.’
* * * * *
Phil was married at the beginning of the new year. He and Roma made, as
Miss Marjory said, a very handsome, but not a very interesting couple.
They were absolutely absorbed in one another, which was very right and
proper; but such people are not exciting company, and it was considered
an advantage when they were safely started off for Italy, to spend
their honeymoon.
Ten days later, when the bridal couple were, no one knew where, Michael
Meredith was found dead in his bed one morning; and the funeral had to
take place before it was possible for Phil and Roma to get back.
Tor wrote to his friend, strongly advising him to keep Roma abroad for
many months, until the shock and her first grief had worn themselves
out.
This he did with very successful results, and Miss Marjory was bold
enough to put into words what everybody else really thought.
‘Poor old man, it is well he is taken. He was a dreadful burden
upon that poor girl, although she did not know it; and his sublime
selfishness would have been a great trial to her and to Philip in
their married life, and would have raised continual complications and
difficulties. It is really a great mercy things have turned out as they
have; and Roma will be a different being as Philip’s wife, from what
she has been as Meredith’s daughter.’
The letters which reached Maud from Roma at frequent intervals, as well
as those from Phil to Tor, all seemed to point to the fact that Miss
Marjory’s conclusion had been a correct one.
* * * * *
In June, Maud and Tor were married. They had seen each other so
constantly that the rather long waiting had passed quickly. Tor was
anxious that Ladywell Lodge should be in perfect order before he
brought his young bride home to it; and it takes a long time to get a
place to the state of perfection desired by an exacting man.
But at last all was ready. Mr. and Mrs. Debenham had returned, and a
grand wedding from Ladywell took place, which made the excitement and
talk of the place for weeks.
Miss Marjory was there, of course, in all her glory, and her present,
the wedding-veil, was a marvel of antique workmanship, and almost
overawed Maud by its beauty and costliness.
She tried hard to persuade her ‘fairy godmother’ to be first
bridesmaid, but this wish was laughed to scorn.
‘It’s all very well for you to laugh; but I tell you there is more
truth in old-fashioned sayings than you young people believe. “Three
times a bridesmaid, never a bride.” I’ve been bridesmaid twice in my
life before, and do you think I’m going to throw away my chance of a
husband on a slip of a girl like you?’
The wedding, however, was a brilliant success, owing, as everybody
said, a great deal of its brightness to Miss Marjory’s unceasing
energy and unfailing flow of spirits.
The bride and bridegroom only spent a short three weeks in Switzerland,
and then returned to England, and settled down in blissful tranquillity
at Ladywell Lodge.
Mrs. Lorraine remained an inmate of the Manor House, where her gentle
yet practical presence was of great value to the young Squire and his
artist-wife, and where she was greatly beloved by all. She visited her
favourite, Maud, almost daily, and would sometimes say, with tears of
feeling in her eyes, that it was quite a picture and a poem to see how
happy were both the children of Philip Debenham.
Certainly life seemed to flow very smoothly at Ladywell now; and the
days fled by, they hardly knew how. Upon most fine evenings four people
might be seen pacing the terrace or the gardens of the Manor House;
Roma and Maud deep in talk, Phil and Tor arm-in-arm, sometimes talking,
always smoking, ever seeming sublimely contented with themselves and
their surroundings.
‘This is a fine realization of all our wildest dreams—eh, Phil?’ Tor
would sometimes say. ‘We’ve seen some odd passages in life, you and I;
but this is a famous wind-up to it all.’
‘Yes; and a much better one than it ever could have been, if you had
not spent three months of your life as Philip Debenham.’
Then Tor would grin with that sense of the ridiculous which
recollections of this episode always brought.
‘Ah! what a time I had of it, what with one thing, and what with
another! I’m glad enough I did it now; but you’ll never catch me
playing that game a second time, not for anyone. My recollections of
some of the situations are far too vivid!’
‘And what an ass I was!’ Phil would say, with a fervour that showed how
genuine was the sentiment. ‘Just to think I could ever have been such a
fool as to believe you wished to supplant me! Just to think the bother
and worry and pain I gave myself believing you to be an arch-traitor
and deceiver—you, mine own familiar friend!’
* * * * *
Four years have come and gone since then, and Ladywell Lodge is
still as happy a home as ever. There is a tiny baby Phil there now,
reigning supreme over all, save only the big ‘papa’ he adores and
tries to tyrannize over with all his small might. There is, too, a
prattling, laughing little Marjory, as self-willed and imperious as the
‘godmother’ she is continually chattering about, and who seems to hold
a very high place in her infant estimation.
Miss Marjory’s visits to Ladywell are a source of increasing delight
and satisfaction to everybody in the place, only to be rivalled in
felicity by the annual excursion of the Torwood family to the Minster
House, Whitbury, where a delightful fortnight is spent year by year, in
the height of the summer.
Miss Marjory is as strong and bright and imperious as ever, and quite
as fully convinced that the world is rapidly coming to an end, which
theory is much strengthened by the precocious utterances of her
god-daughter. People say that she grows younger instead of older, and
they also say that the new orchidhouse which her landlord has built
for her, is one of the finest in the kingdom, and has a great deal to
do with her never-failing health and happiness.
NOTE.
A case came under the author’s notice some few years ago, in which a
man, having sustained injury to the head, by the combined effects of a
sunstroke and a fall, remained in a helpless and torpid state for above
three months, and then suddenly made a steady recovery. Except for the
length of time the state of torpor lasted, there is nothing, to members
of the medical profession, specially remarkable in the case.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
_G., C. & Co._