THE FIRST MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM.
"DEAR AUNT,--(thus Mrs. Mortomley to Miss Gerace)--I have been a
little ill, and I am here by the doctor's advice for change of air
and scene; but I find that the moaning of the sea and the howling of
the wind depress me at night, and I think I should get well quicker
if I were at Dassell in my own old room.
"May I go to you--will you have me? Lenore is with me at present,
but I will not trouble you with her. She shall go back to her papa
at Homewood, if you say you have a corner still in your house for
your affectionate niece,
"DOLLY."
It is no exaggeration to say Mrs. Mortomley waited with a sickening
impatience for the answer which should justify her in starting forthwith
for Dassell. She believed she should get well there at once. She longed
to hear the solemn silence of the woods; to behold once more the
familiar landscape; to run over to the Court, and talk to Mrs.
Trebasson; in her matronhood, to stop for a moment and rehabilitate the
beauty of her girlish life--where it had once been a breathing presence.
Perhaps in the new notion of economy which possessed her, she desired to
be strengthened in her purpose by a glimpse of the land where she had
been content with so little of the world's wealth. Anyhow, let the
reason be what it might, Dolly wanted to go back home--as she mentally
phrased it--and waited anxiously for Miss Gerace's letter. It came: it
ran as follows:--
"MY DEAR NIECE,--I grieve to hear of your ill-health, although I
cannot marvel you have broken down at last; you know my opinions.
They may be old fashioned; but, at all events, they carry with them
the weight of an experience longer and wiser than my own.
"Health and undue excitement are incompatible. You left me blessed
with a strong constitution; you have ruined it. You were a robust
girl; you are a delicate woman. But I refrain, aware that my remarks
now must be as distasteful as my previous advice has proved.
"When you were married I told you my home, so long as I had one,
should always be yours. Though you have changed, I have not--and
therefore, if you really think this air and place likely to benefit
so _fashionable a lady as yourself_--pray come to me at once.
"Do not send your little girl back to Homewood, because you fear her
giving trouble to a fidgety old maid. If you remember, I was not in
my first youth when I took sole charge of you; and if I failed to
train you into a perfect character, I do not think the blame could
be laid altogether at my door. _But_ I will have none of your
fly-away, fine-lady servants, remember that. You and the child are
welcome; but there is no place in my small house for London maids or
nurses.
"I hope you will take what I have written in the spirit in which it
is meant, and
"Believe me,
"Your affectionate Aunt,
"M. GERACE."
To which epistle, Dolly, in an ecstasy of indignation, replied:--
"MY DEAR AUNT,--(from which commencement Miss Gerace anticipated
stormy weather to follow; 'my' as a prefix to 'dear,' having always
with Dolly been a declaration of hostility)--Of course I cannot tell
in what spirit your letter was written, but I should say in a very
bad one. At all events, I cannot go to Dassell now, and I regret
asking you to have me. I will not visit any one who gives me a
grudging welcome.
"I am not a fashionable lady. I am not a delicate woman. If being
'perfect' includes the power of saying disagreeable things to
unoffending people, I am very thankful to admit I am, spite of your
judicious training, an imperfect character. I suppose you have been
waiting your opportunity to say something unpleasant to me, because
Mrs. Edward Gerace spent a week with us in the Summer. I do not like
her or her husband; but when they offered to visit us, we could not
very well say there were plenty of Hotels within their means in
London.
"And when they did come, I admit we tried to make them comfortable,
which, no doubt assumes in your eyes the proportions of a sin. I
daresay Edward Gerace's father did not treat my father well; but
Edward is not responsible for that. For my part, I think in family
feuds there ought to be a statute of limitations, as I believe there
is for debt; nothing more fatiguing can be imagined, than to go on
acting the Montague and Capulet business through all the days of
one's life. If you had written to propose visiting me, I should have
returned a very different answer; but I suppose people cannot help
their dispositions. More is the pity!
"Your affectionate Niece,
"DOLLABELLA MORTOMLEY."
Which signature was adding insult to injury. 'Dollabella' had always
been an offence in the nostrils of Miss Gerace. 'Dolly' was absurd;
still, between the name and the owner, there was a certain fitness and
unity.
With 'Dollabella' there was none. The "Minerva Press" twang about it had
ever seemed intolerable to the practical spinster, nor did the fact of
Mrs. Mortomley having been left the best part of her Godmother's money,
tend to reconcile Miss Gerace to the polysyllabic appellation, all of
which Mrs. Mortomley knew, and for that very reason she signed it in
full.
"There," she thought to herself as she directed, sealed, and stamped the
letter. "I hope Miss Gerace will like that."
For after the manner of her sex, she was petulant and little in
unimportant matters.
It is the most purely womanly women who are given to similar outbursts.
Mrs. Werner could never so far have forgotten her own dignity as to
indite such an epistle; but then, on the other hand, neither could she
have repented for having done so, as Dolly did.
Barely was the letter posted before that repentance began. First, Mrs.
Mortomley, her anger not yet assuaged, mentally pictured her aunt's
horror and astonishment when she read. She saw the postman come up to
the door. She saw the prim servant receive the letter. She saw her carry
it into the breakfast-parlour. She saw Miss Gerace put on her
spectacles. And at that point Dolly's anger began to ebb, and her regret
to flow; after all, her aunt's innings out of life had been few and her
own many; and she had her opinions just as Dolly had hers; and she had
taken her nephew's child home when he died, and shared her small income
with her, and done her duty faithfully, if not always pleasantly, and by
way of return, Mrs. Mortomley had penned that letter, which by this time
she herself styled nasty and detestable.
She could not send the antidote with the bane, for the early post had
already gone out, taking her letter with it. But she could write by the
night mail, and Miss Gerace would then receive her apology on the
afternoon of the same day, which witnessed her offence.
One of the servants from the Court always went over for the letter bag
twice a day, and it was understood Miss Gerace's correspondence went and
came at the same time.
She need not therefore sleep upon the first letter; Dolly decided she
would not sleep either till the second was written.
"DEAR AUNT,--(so began number two of the same date)--I am so sorry
for the ill-tempered things I said this morning. I did not really
mean one of them. Your letter made me angry for the minute, and I
wrote without stopping to think, indeed I did.
"Dear auntie, forgive me. When I remember all the years during which
you stinted yourself to provide for me, I feel a monster of
ingratitude. I will go to you now if you will have me, and take
Lenore; but _no servant_; and Archie shall fetch me back when I have
made my peace, and you are quite tired of me. I love you better than
a thousand Edward Geraces, and their wives into the bargain, and
their is not a stone in your house, or a plant in your garden that
is not dear to me.
"Your ever affectionate,
"DOLLY."
After which came a postscript.
"A message from home has just arrived. My husband is ill, so I
cannot go to Dassell. Direct to Homewood."
Which Miss Gerace did.
With a good grace she said she was sorry to hear of Mr. Mortomley's
illness and trusted he would soon be restored to health. With a bad
grace she sent Mrs. Mortomley her forgiveness, and regretted Dolly's
tendency to ill-temper was the besetting sin even her course of
education had been unable to rectify. The one thing--she added with her
own peculiar grace--she lamented to find was so strong a taint of
vulgarity in her brother's child. The letter for which she so properly
apologized would not have disgraced a Billingsgate fishwife. For that
trait in her character she must have gone back to some alien blood.
"Poor aunt!" remarked Dolly, putting the letter aside, "she will never
be good friends with me again. If she knew how ill Archie is, I do not
think she would be so hard upon me."
Certainly Mr. Mortomley was very ill. For no light cause would Antonia
Halling have summoned Mrs. Mortomley back as she did, but when she sent
her telegram she really was afraid of the owner of Homewood dying in her
hands.
To Dolly sickness was nothing new. As a clergyman's daughter she had
been with it more or less all her life; less certainly since her
marriage than before that event.
But one strong experience is perhaps enough. She had helped nurse her
father; nay, she had tended him more unweariedly than any one else, and
by reason of those vigils knew how to watch by the sick.
Beside her husband she took her post, and through the valley of the
shadow brought him back to health, or at least what the doctors were
pleased to call health.
They did not understand, though perhaps Dolly might instinctively, that
the man who has once sickened through mental distress will never really
even begin to recover until the mental pressure be removed.
Hot and fast Richard Halling's bills were pouring in. Mr. Mortomley was
beginning fully to understand what "lending a name" means. Unfortunately
he believed he could, as he said to Dolly, "win through"; and in that
belief he was encouraged by the holders of every bill which had his name
on the back of it.
"We will renew, of course," they said, and Mortomley instead of facing
the question put it off; just as you would do, reader, were you
similarly situated and had a great deal to lose.
So Mr. Mortomley, according to the doctors, was once again strong and
able to attend to business. Nevertheless, his wife noticed he stayed a
good deal in his laboratory after his attack, whilst his nephew went to
town to look after affairs there. Indeed, the man's nerves were so
shaken, his organization being delicate, that Dolly felt very glad to
see any one, even Rupert, take his place in the City.
The doctors had their own way at last, and Homewood was quiet. In the
face of her husband's illness, Dolly could not prove a gadabout. With
unusual embarrassments surrounding him, Mortomley could not entertain as
his fathers had done before he was thought of.
Nevertheless, there were occasional dinner-parties, and at one of these
Dolly first saw Mr. Forde.
In deference to a suggestion of Mr. Werner's, who now interested and
busied himself not a little with the concerns of his old friend, he had
been asked to the house.
When he came no one knew exactly what to do with him. A stranger amongst
strange people is rarely to be envied his lot; but perhaps the position
of strange people when a stranger ventures amongst them is more
unenviable still.
Mrs. Mortomley felt their modest establishment must seem poor in the
eyes of a man who talked so glibly of the fine seats possessed by this
alderman and that retired tallow-chandler. Although affably anxious to
descend to the position, Mr. Forde lost no opportunity of letting the
Mortomleys know Homewood seemed a mere doll's-house in comparison with
the mansions to which he was daily invited. He and Mr. Werner had the
bulk of the talk to themselves, and it related principally to City
incidents and City men, to the fortune left by this merchant and the
_fiasco_ made by his neighbour, with other pleasing incidents of a like
nature interspersed with political observations that made Dolly yawn
frightfully behind her handkerchief.
Notwithstanding which pretences of under-rating Homewood and its
occupiers, Mr. Forde was impressed by both. The unities of decent
society always do impress men who have lived during the whole of their
earlier years on the edge of society or below it.
After that first visit Mr. Forde came frequently to Homewood, but of
this Mrs. Mortomley took little notice until one day when having, for
reasons of her own, suggested putting off his proposed visit, Rupert
remarked,
"I am afraid that would scarcely be a safe move. At any inconvenience to
ourselves, we must be civil to him."
"Why?" asked Dolly.
"Well; for various reasons. If a man gets into Queer Street, he can
scarcely afford to quarrel with the people who live there."
"Do you mean that Archie is in Queer Street?" Mrs. Mortomley inquired.
"In something very like it, at any rate," was the reply.
"How does it happen?"
"I cannot tell," he answered in all sincerity.
"When will he be out of it?"
"That is what puzzles me. We ought to have been out of it long ago."
Misfortune, like age, comes differently upon different people. There are
those whose hair turns white in a single night, and those again to whom
grey hairs come almost one by one, and in similar fashion ruin
overwhelms some in an hour, whilst others are reduced to beggary by a
slow and almost imperceptible process, the beginning and progress of
which it seems impossible to trace.
The end every one understands, the commencement is usually
unintelligible to those who ought to know most about it.
In the February of that year in which this story opens, came the first
thunderclap heralding very bad weather to come.
For reasons best known to himself, Rupert had neglected to meet a
somewhat important acceptance and had failed to take sufficient notice
of a writ of which he, in Mr. Mortomley's absence, accepted service. The
option had lain with the holder of proceeding against his debtor in
Essex, or The City, and he selected the former as being likely to give
the greatest annoyance.
To do him justice, Rupert was only vaguely acquainted with the nature of
writs, and the spectacle of a sheriff's officer appearing at Homewood,
proved as great a shock to him as it did to Miss Halling and Mortomley
and Dolly and the servants.
They were all so perfectly new to business of the kind that they did not
even try to keep the matter secret. From the cook to the page boy, from
the lady's-maid to the groom, from the foreman manager in the works to
the youngest lad employed about the place, every creature knew that a
"man in possession" had taken up his residence in Homewood.
It was then the principal of Dolly's fortune proved of service. Within
twenty-four hours the money was raised, the debt paid, and the man
despatched to herald ruin to some other family, but the evil was
wrought. Mortomley's credit had gone; and not all the sops thrown to
fate out of Mrs. Mortomley's _dot_ could pacify the wolves which now
came howling round that doomed estate.
For a time, however, Mrs. Mortomley entertained no fear that their ship
was sinking.
So far as she saw, beyond a certain gravity in her husband's face, a
certain discontent in that of Miss Halling, and a retrenchment which she
accepted as just and necessary in her own expenditure, there was no
cause to anticipate danger. Things went on much as usual, the waters
over which they floated seemed calm enough, and the winds fair and
favourable.
She did not know, neither did her husband, neither did Rupert, that
there was a leak in their vessel which it would have required very
different hands from theirs to stop.
Had Mr. Werner stood in Mr. Mortomley's shoes, he could have done it,
and would have made matters remarkably unpleasant for any one who tried
to prevent his doing so.
When the evil day came, Mr. Werner said Mortomley was a fool, with an
extremely strong adjective prefixed to this flattering appellation; but
he did not call him a rogue.
Neither did any-body else for the matter of that, except Mr. Forde.
Which was of the less consequence, because as a wag remarked, speaking
of his violent vituperations against the colour-maker,
"Poor Forde's experience has as yet been too one-sided to enable him to
distinguish good from evil."
Indeed, after all, when a man is down it makes very little difference
what the world thinks of him, unless in this way: the world always helps
a rogue, because it has a justifiable faith in his helping himself,
whereas a fool or a fool's equivalent in the opinion of society--an
honest man--though weak may, if once thrown, lie for ever like a sheep
on the broad of his back, unless some Samaritan help him to his feet
again.
And Samaritans are scarce now-a-days; and when they do appear are
generally as scarce of pennies as rich people are of inclination to give
them.
One evening in the early summer time, Dolly, putting aside the muslin
curtains which draped one of the French windows leading on the lawn,
entered that cool and pleasant drawing-room of which, under her
_régime_, many a man and woman had carried away happy memories.
As she stood with the light muslin parted above her head, she saw that
her husband and Rupert sat with chairs close together, the latter
talking earnestly; and she would have retreated by the way she came, for
Dolly never cared to intrude on the _tête-à-tête_ of any two persons,
but Mortomley said, "You had better stay, dear. It is only right you
should hear what we are saying."
"What is the matter?" asked Dolly, stepping up to the pair and looking
from one to the other with a quick apprehension of something being
wrong.
Her husband rose, and walking to the hearth, stood leaning with his back
against the mantel-piece. Rupert rose likewise and looked out of the
window nearest to where he stood; his hands plunged deep in his pockets,
his dress dusty as when he returned from town, his hair, worn long as
was the artist fashion he affected; looking rough and unkempt, and an
expression on his face no one probably had ever seen there before, not
even when Mr. Gideon told him he must make a slight inventory of a few
articles and leave behind him the first creature, gentle or simple, to
whom the owners of Homewood grudged extending hospitality.
How the room, the flowers, the soft evening light, the figures of the
two men were photographed into her mind at that moment Mrs. Mortomley
never knew until the months had come and the months had gone, and
Homewood, its shady walks, its smooth lawns, its banks of flowers, its
wealth of foliage, its modest luxury of appointment, its utter comfort
and sweet simplicity, were all part and parcel of a past which could
return--ah! nevermore.
"What is the matter?" she repeated. "What has gone wrong?"
"I do not know that anything has gone wrong," Rupert answered. "It may
be, for aught I can tell, the beginning of greater peace than we have
had for some time past. I have been telling Archie I think he ought to
stop."
"I have thought so often lately," said Mortomley with quiet resignation.
"Stop what--stop when!" his wife interrogated; then she suddenly paused,
adding the instant after, "Do you mean fail?"
"Certainly not," replied the younger man. "I merely mean that he should
go into liquidation."
"What on earth is liquidation?"
"It is nothing very dreadful," said Mr. Halling reassuringly. "Nothing,
of course, will be changed here--the works will go on as usual--you can
live just as we have been doing lately; we could not expect to
entertain, of course, until every one to whom anything is owing is paid
off, and then we can do what we like. That is about the English of it,
is it not?" he said turning to Mr. Mortomley, who replied with a set
face,
"I do not know. I have never been in liquidation."
"But you know plenty of fellows who have."
"I cannot say that I do," was the answer; and he turned a little aside
and began toying absently with the articles on the chimney-piece.
"At all events, you see quite clearly we cannot go on as we have been
doing," persisted Rupert.
"I wonder we have been able to go on so long--"
"It would not be such a hopeless fight if we were not daily and hourly
getting involved more deeply with the General Chemical Company."
"Yes; that is the worst feature of the position; and I confess I cannot
understand how it happens."
"But I have explained the whole thing to you fully," said Rupert,
looking angry and excited.
"Yes, according to your idea; but I tell you such a system is impossible
in any respectable business."
"Do you consider the General Chemical Company a respectable concern?"
"I have always supposed so; but whether respectable or not, the errors,
to use a mild term, you speak of are simply impossible in an
establishment where there are clerks employed, and checks kept, and
experienced book-keepers always engaged on the accounts."
Having made which observation, in a much more decided manner than it was
his custom usually to employ, Mr. Mortomley walked out of the room,
leaving his wife and Rupert alone together.
Rupert, looking after him, shrugged his shoulders, and thrusting his
hands deeper into his pockets and planting one shoulder well up against
the window shutter, remarked to Dolly,
"He won't believe those people have been cheating him right and left,
and I don't know that any good purpose would be served if I could make
him believe it. Because, owing to my stupidity, we never can prove the
fact. If you and Lenore are beggared," he added, with a poor attempt at
mirth, "I give you full leave to blame me for the whole of it."
"Do not be absurd," answered Mrs. Mortomley uneasily. "Archie is quite
right, of course. People could not cheat, and if they could they would
not be so wicked."
Rupert laughed outright. "Would they not, Mrs. Mortomley? Much you know
of the world and its ways--I say and shall say to the end of my life,
that the General Chemical Company has, by a system of splendid
book-keeping, been robbing us of I should be afraid to say how much; and
I say further, no system of book-keeping we could devise would be of the
slightest use in preventing it. But it might have been stopped ere this
by our stoppage. Nothing else will do it now. Remember what I say to
you, Dolly; and they are not my words alone--they are the words of men
who know far more about business and City matters than I ever want to
do. If Archie is to do any good for himself and you and Lenore" (Rupert
kept his own name and that of his sister discreetly out of sight) "he
must stop now. If he speaks to you about it, don't dissuade him, Dolly;
for God's sake don't try to induce him to put off the evil day any
longer."
Vehemence of manner or expression was unusual at Homewood, and, for a
moment, Rupert's words and looks startled Mrs. Mortomley. After that
moment she answered,
"I shall not dissuade or persuade him, for I know nothing really about
the matter."
"Do you mind coming with me into the works?" asked Rupert in reply.
"No." Dolly said she would go with him if he wished; and accordingly the
pair went out together on to the lawn and across the flower-garden and
so to the laurel-walk which people averred was the crowning beauty of
Homewood. Who had first planted it no one knew, but tradition ascribed
that virtuous deed to a far-away dignitary of the Church of Rome, who
had considered Homewood, then a mere cottage and lands on the borders of
the forest, a sort of hermitage to which, from the din of party and the
clamour of men's tongues, he might retire to pray and meditate in peace.
And this view is confirmed by the fact, that in another country I
remember well seeing in grounds belonging to an old monastic institution
similar arcades of greenery, thick hedges to right and left, and
overarching branches inter-twining and overlapping, till the light of
day was shut out and the paths made dark as night.
At Homewood this inconvenience had been obviated by cutting at intervals
openings in one of the hedges in the form of pointed arches; and the
effect produced was consequently somewhat akin to that left on the mind
by walking along some cloister in an ancient cathedral.
Quiet as any monastic pavement was the laurel-path at Homewood; and the
frequent glimpses of emerald green and bright-hued flowers afforded by
the openings mentioned, in no way detracted from the solemn feeling
produced by the stillness of that remarkable passage.
Of late many a bitter thought and wearying anxiety had kept Mortomley
company as he paced along it to the postern gate giving admission to his
works; and this, Dolly's quick instinct enabled her to realise as she
tried with her short uneven steps to keep up with Rupert's long careless
stride.
"Oh! I wish I had known sooner," she said mentally; "I wish--I wish--I
wish I had."
"It is a sweet place, Dolly," remarked Rupert, who possessed a keen
sense of the beautiful in nature, women, and children, though his
artistic power of reproducing beauty on canvas was meagre.
"Ay," she answered with a little gasp, "that it is."
"We must not risk losing it."
She did not answer, but she touched his arm with her hand entreatingly.
Looking down at the face upraised to his, he saw her eyes were full of
tears. Lose Homewood! why it had never looked fairer than it did at that
moment, with the evening sun shining athwart its lawns. Lose Homewood!
where she had been so happy; it would be worse than death.
"Oh! Rupert," she cried at last, and she clung to him entreatingly, "you
did not mean it--say you did not."
"I declare Dolly, you are prettier than Lenore," he answered
irrelevantly, as it may seem; but the fact was, all at once, in that
moment of mental anguish, of pathetic helplessness, he saw something in
the woman's face he had never beheld there before--something grief had
developed already, a grace and a beauty hitherto concealed.
"Dolly," he went on vehemently, "if I can keep Homewood for you I will;
but you must help, you must not let Archie turn back from the battle. It
is true, dear, I do not go on my own judgment; if he is not firm now, we
shall all be lost!"
As he spoke he was unlocking the postern door, which admitted them to a
small court which, in its turn, gave ingress to the foreman's office as
well as to the more private offices of the establishment, Mr.
Mortomley's own room and laboratory included.
When they entered the court, Hankins, the foreman, was fastening his
door and came to meet them, swinging a great bunch of keys on his
fingers in a _debonnaire_ manner the while.
Out of respect or, shall we say, gallantry he raised his hat to Mrs.
Mortomley. Rupert's "Good evening," he answered with a nod. Mr. Hankins
was a working-man of the very advanced type, who thought much of
himself, and but little consequently of any one else. He was a clever
fellow, as all Mortomley's picked men were, and fairly faithful and
honest as the world goes now-a-days, which is not perhaps far.
But he understood his business and he did his work, and he saw that
others did it also. Now that the day's labour was over, he had been, as
he informed his visitors, "just taking as usual a look round to see
everything was right."
"Mr. Lang gone?" asked Rupert.
"Yes, sir, not five minutes ago;" and Mr. Hankins swung his bunch of
keys again as a polite intimation to Mr. Halling that it was not part of
his contract to stand talking to him all night.
"You got some more barytes in to-day," remarked Rupert, wilfully
disregarding the hint.
"You can call it barytes, of course, sir, if you like," was the reply,
"I call it stuff."
"It is not good then?"
"Good! Now I should just wish you to see it. Naturally, not having been
brought up to the business, you cannot be supposed to know all the ins
and outs of our trade, but a child might tell the inferiority of this.
If not detaining you, sir, I really should feel obliged by your stepping
this way," and with an air he flung open the door of his office, and
pointing to a powder of a whity-brown colour lying on the desk, asked
ironically,
"That is a first-rate article, ain't it, sir?"
Rupert shook his head; and Mr. Hankins thus encouraged, pressed his
point.
"Here, ma'am," he said, taking up an other parcel and opening it, "is
something like. Look at the difference. I declare, upon my conscience,"
continued Mr. Hankins, turning to Rupert and forgetting in his energy
the presence of his employer's wife, "it is enough to drive a man out of
his mind to be obliged to sign a receipt-note for such rubbish. I often
think things here might make people believe that old story the parsons
tell about the Israelites being ordered to make bricks without straw.
After what I have seen this last eighteen months I fancy I could almost
swallow anything," finished Mr. Hankins with that advanced and almost
unconscious scepticism which is so curious an adjunct to skilled labour
at this period of the world's history.
Rupert looked uneasily at his companion. At any other time she might
have felt inclined to enter into a controversy with Mr. Hankins on the
religious question, but at that moment her heart was so full of her
husband's position that the orthodoxy or non-orthodoxy of any person's
opinions seemed quite a secondary matter in her eyes.
"Surely," she began, "Mr. Mortomley is the only person to say here what
is good or bad. If he approves of this," and she pointed to the barytes,
"it is not fitting any one else should disapprove."
"_Mr. Mortomley won't look at it, ma'am_," was the ominous answer. "If I
go to him, he says, 'I am busy now,' or, 'you must do the best you can
with it,' or, 'I will write and complain;' and all the while as fine a
business as there is in the Home counties is going to the devil. I beg
your pardon, ma'am, but I can't help saying it. You heard, sir, I
suppose, that Traceys had sent back all the ten tons of Brunswick
green," (Rupert nodded) "and if things go on much longer as they have
been going, we shall have everything sent back. If it wasn't for the
respect I have to Mr. Mortomley, I would not stay here an hour; and as
it is, I do not know as how I can bear it much longer."
Which last was intended as a side blow to be carried by Mrs. Mortomley
to her husband. Mr. Hankins folded up his samples, took his keys, said,
"Evening, sir," "Good evening, ma'am," touched the brim of his hat, and
sauntered leisurely across the yard leaving his visitors alone.
"I wanted you to hear, Dolly," said Rupert, "but I fear in my wisdom I
have been a brute."
She did not answer, but she walked back steadily to the house. She
dressed for dinner; and when that meal was served, they all sat down as
people might the evening before an execution.
So far this narrative has been preliminary and introductory. In the next
chapter the real story of Mortomley's Estate begins.