FAMILY POLITICS.
"Was I a-dreamin', or did my Ann really tell me that somebody'd come
down late last night in a po'-shay and driven to the Tower?" asked
Mrs. Powler, the morning after her little supper-party, of Mrs. Jupp,
who, whenever she could find a minute to spare from the troubles of
housekeeping, was in the habit of "dropping-in" to gossip with her
older and less active neighbour.
"You weren't dreamin', dear; at least, I should say not, unless you
have dreams like them chief butlers and bakers, and other cur'ous
pipple in the Bible one reads of, which had their dreams 'terpreted.
It's quite true--not that it's made more so by your Ann having said it;
for a more shameful little liar there don't talk in this parish!" said
Mrs. Jupp, getting very red in the face.
"You never took kindly to that gell, Mrs. Jupp," said the old lady
placidly--she was far too rich to get in a rage--"you never took kindly
to that gell from the first, when I took her out of charity, owin' to
her father's being throwed out of work on account of Jupp's cousin
stoppin' payment."
Though said in Mrs. Fowler's calmest tones, and without a change of
expression on the speaker's childish old face, this was meant to be a
hard hit, and was received as such by Mrs. Jupp.
"I don't know nothin' 'bout stoppin' payment, nor Jupp's cousins," said
that lady, with a redundancy of negatives and a very shrill voice; "my
own fam'ly has always paid their way, and Jupp has a 'count at the
Devon Bank, where his writin' is as good as gold, and will be so long
as I live. But I _du_ know that I've never liked that gell Ann Bradshaw
since she told a passil o' lies about my Joey and the hen-roost!"
"Well, well, never mind Ann Bradshaw," said Mrs. Powler, who had had
vast experience of Mrs. Jupp's powers of boredom in connection with the
subject of her Joey and the hen-roost; "never mind about the gell; I
allays kip her out o' your way, and I must ha' been main thoughtless
when I let her name slip out just now before you. So someone did come
in a po'-shay last night, then, and did drive to the Tower? Do you know
who it was?"
"Not of my own knowledge," replied Mrs. Jupp in a softened voice--it
would never have done to have quarrelled with Mrs. Powler, from
whom she derived much present benefit, and from whom she expected a
legacy--"but Groper, who was up there this morning wi' the sallt water
for the Captain's bath, says it's the Doctor."
"Lor', now!" said Mrs. Powler, lifting up her hands in astonishment;
"I can't fancy why passons go messin' wi' sallt water, and baths, and
such-like. They must be main dirty, one would think, to take such a lot
o' washin'. I'm sure Powler and I never did such redick'lous nonsense,
and we was always well thought of, I believe. Lor', now, I've bin and
forgotten who you said it was come down. Who was it, Harriet?"
"The Doctor from London--Wheelwright, or some such name; he that comes
down three or four times a-year just to look at Mrs. Derinzy."
"He must be a cliver doctor, I du 'low, if his lookin' at her is enough
to do her good," said Mrs. Powler, who was extremely literal in all
things; "not but what she's that bad, poor soul, that anything must be
a comfort to her."
"Did you ever hear tell what was ezackly the matter wi' the Captain's
lady, Mrs. Powler?" asked Mrs. Jupp mysteriously.
"Innards," said the old lady in a hollow voice, laying her hand on the
big mother-o'-pearl buckle by which her broad sash was kept together.
"Ah, but what sort of innards?" demanded Mrs. Jupp, who was by no means
to be put off with a general answer on such an important subject.
"That I dunno," said Mrs. Powler, unwillingly confessing her ignorance.
"Dr. Barton attends her in a or'nary way, but I niver heerd him say."
"It must be one of them obstinit diseases as we women has," said Mrs.
Jupp, "as though--not to fly in the face of Providence--but as though
child-bearin' wasn't enough to have us let off all the rest!"
"She niver takes no med'cine," said Mrs. Powler, who firmly believed
in the virtues of the Pharmacopoeia, and whose pride it was that
the deceased Powler, in his last illness, had swallowed "quarts and
quarts." "I know that from that fair-haired young chap that mixes
Barton's drugs,--his mother was a kind o' c'nexion o' Fowler's, and I
had 'im up to tea a Sunday week, and asked him."
"Well, I'd like very much to know what is the matter wi' Mrs. Derinzy,"
said Mrs. Jupp, harking back. "I ha' my own idea on the subjick; but
I'd like to know for sure."
"If you're so cur'ous, you'd better ask Dr. Barton. He's just gone
passt the window, and I 'spose he'll look in;" and almost before
Mrs. Powler had finished her sentence there came a soft rap at the
room-door, the handle was gently turned, and Dr. Barton presented
himself.
He was a short, thickset, strongly-built man of about fifty-five, with
close curly gray hair, bright eyes, mottled complexion, large hooked
nose. He was dressed in a black cut-away coat, stained buff waistcoat,
drab riding-breeches, and top-boots. He had a way of laying his head on
one side, and altogether reminded one irresistibly of Punch.
"_Good_-morning, ladies," said the doctor, in a squeaky, throaty little
voice, which tended to heighten the resemblance; "I seem to ha' dropped
in just in the nick o' time, by the looks of ye. Mayhap you were
talking about me. Mrs. Jupp, you don't mean to say that----" and the
little man whispered the conclusion of the sentence behind his hat to
Mrs. Jupp, while he privately winked at Mrs. Powler.
"Get 'long wi' ye, du!" said Mrs. Jupp, her face suffused with crimson.
"I niver see such a man in all my born days," said old Mrs. Powler,
with whom the doctor was a special favourite, laughing until the tears
made watercourses of her wrinkles, and were genially irrigating her
face. "No; no such luck, I tell her."
"Well, as to luck, that all a matter o' taste," said Mrs. Jupp; "we
were talking about something quite different to that."
"What was it?" asked the doctor.
"'Bout Mrs. D'rinzy's health Harriet was asking," explained Mrs. Powler.
"A-h!" said the doctor, shaking his head, and looking very solemn.
"Is she so bad as all that?" asked Mrs. Jupp, who was visibly impressed
by the medico's pantomime.
"Great sufferer, great sufferer!" said the little man, with a
repetition of the head-shake.
"Well, but she gets about; comes down into t' village, and such-like,"
argued Mrs. Powler.
"Oh yes; no reason why she shouldn't; more she gets about, indeed, the
better," said the doctor.
"It's innards, I suppose?" asked Mrs. Jupp, whose craving for
particulars of Mrs. Derinzy's disorder was yet unsatisfied.
"Well, partially, partially," said the doctor, slowly rubbing the side
of his nose with the handle of his riding-whip; "it's a complication, a
mixture, which it would be difficult to get an unprofessional person to
understand."
"Talkin' o' that, Barton," said Mrs. Powler, "I s'pose you know the
London doctor came down last night?"
"Dr. Wainwright? Oh yes; I was up at the Tower just now to meet him.
As I'm left in charge of Mrs. Derinzy, we always have a consultation
whenever he comes down."
"I s'pose he's a raal cliver man, this Wheelwright, or they wouldn't
have him come all this way to see her," said Mrs. Powler.
"Clever!" echoed the doctor; "the very first man of the day; the very
first!"
"Then why wasn't he sent for to see Sir Herc'les when he was laid up
that bad last spring?" asked Mrs. Jupp; "there was another one come
down from London then."
"That was quite a different case, my dear madam. Sir Hercules Dingo
was laid up with gout; Mrs. Derinzy's complaint is not gout; and Dr.
Wainwright is the first man of the day in--well, in such cases as Mrs.
Derinzy's."
No more specific information than this could Mrs. Jupp obtain from the
doctor, who was "that close when he liked," as his friends said of him,
that even the blandishments of Mrs. Barton failed to extract any of his
professional secrets. So Mrs. Jupp gave it up in despair, and began
talking on general topics. Be sure the conversation did not progress
far without the Derinzys again cropping up in it. They were staple
subjects of discussion in Beachborough, and the most preposterous
stories regarding them and their origin, whence and why they came to
the remote Devonshire village, and the reason for their enforced stay
there, obtained, if not credence, at least circulation. What their real
history was, I now propose to tell.
Five-and-twenty years before the date of this story, the firm of
Derinzy and Sons was well known and highly esteemed in the City
of London. They were supposed to have been originally of Polish
extraction, and their name to have been Derinski; but it had been
painted up as Derinzy for years on the door-posts of their warehouse in
Gough Square, Fleet Street, and it was so spelt on all the invoices,
bill-heads, and other commercial literature of the firm. Warehouses,
invoices, and bill-heads? Yes, despite their Polish extraction and
distinguished name, the Derinzys were neither more nor less than
furriers--wholesale, and on a large scale, it was true, but still
furriers. Their business was enormous, and their profits immense. The
old father, Peter Derinzy, who had founded the firm, and whose business
talent and industry were the main causes of its success, had given up
active attendance, and was beginning to take life leisurely. He came
down twice a week, perhaps, in a handsome carriage-and-pair, to Gough
Square, just glanced over the books, and occasionally looked at some
samples of skins, on which his opinion--still the most reliable in
the whole trade--was requested by his son, and then went back to his
mansion at Muswell Hill, where his connection with business was unknown
or ignored, and where he was Squire Derinzy, dwelling in luxury, and
passing his time in the superintendence of his graperies and pineries,
his forcing-houses and his farm.
The affairs of the house did not suffer by the old gentleman's absence.
In his eldest son Paul, on whom the command devolved in his father's
absence, the senior partner had a representative possessing all the
experience and tact which he had gained, combined with the youth and
energy which he had lost. Men of high standing in the City of London,
many years his seniors, were glad to know Paul Derinzy, eager to
ask his advice, and, what is quite a different matter, frequently
not unwilling to take it in regard to the great speculations of the
day. The merchants from the North of Europe with whom he transacted
business--and to all of whom he spoke in their own language, without
the slightest betrayal of foreign accent or lack of idiom--looked upon
him as an absolute wonder, more especially when contrasted with his
own countrymen, who for the most part spoke nothing but English, and
little of that beyond oaths, and spread his renown far and wide. He
was a tall, high-shouldered, big-boned man, prematurely bald, and,
being very short-sighted, wore a large pair of spectacles, which
impelled his younger brother Alexis, then fresh from school, and just
received into the counting-house, to be initiated into the mysteries
of trade preparatory to being made a partner, to call him "Gig-lamps."
Paul Derinzy was not a good-tempered man, and at any time would have
disliked this impertinence; but addressed to him as it was, before the
clerks, it nettled him exceedingly. He forbade its repetition under
pain of summary punishment, and when it was repeated, being a big
strong man, he caught his younger brother by the collar, dragged him
out of the counting-house to a secluded part of the warehouse, and then
and there thrashed him to his heart's content. It was, perhaps, this
summary treatment, combined with a dislike for desk-work and indoor
confinement, that induced Master Alexis to resign his clerical stool
and to suggest to his father the propriety of purchasing for him a
commission in the army. Old Derinzy was by no means disposed to act
upon this idea, but his wife, who worshipped and spoiled her youngest
son, urged it very strongly; and as Paul, who was of course consulted,
recommended it as by far the best thing that could be done for his
brother, the old gentleman at last gave way, and in a very short time
young Alexis was gazetted as cornet in a hussar regiment then on its
way home from India, and joined the depot at Canterbury.
After that little episode, Paul Derinzy took small heed of his
brother's proceedings, or, indeed, of anything save his business, in
which he seemed to be entirely absorbed. He was there early and late,
taking his dinner at a tavern, and retiring to chambers in Chancery
Lane, where he read philosophical treatises and abstruse foreign
philosophical works until bedtime. He had no intimate friends, and
never went into society. Even after his mother's death, when he spent
most of his leisure time, such as it was, at Muswell Hill, with his
father, then become very old and feeble, he shrank from meeting the
neighbours, and was looked upon as an oddity and a recluse. In the
fulness of time old Peter Derinzy died, leaving, it was said, upwards
of a hundred thousand pounds. By his will he bequeathed twenty thousand
pounds to his second son, Captain Alexis Derinzy, while the whole
of the rest of his fortune went to his son Paul, who was left sole
executor.
Captain Alexis Derinzy made use of very strong language when he learned
the exact amount of the legacy bequeathed to him by his father's will.
He had been always given to understand, he said, that the governor
was a hundred-thousand-pound man, and he thought it deuced hard that
he shouldn't have had at least a third of what was left, specially
considering that he was a married man with a family, whereas that
money-grubbing old tradesman, his elder brother, had nobody but himself
to look after. The statement of Captain Derinzy's marriage was so far
correct. About two years previous to his father's death, the Captain
being at the time, like another captain famed in song, "in country
quarters," had made the acquaintance of a young lady, the daughter
of a clever, ne'er-do-weel, pot-walloping artist, who, when sober,
did odd bits of portrait-painting, and, among other jobs, had painted
correct likenesses of Captain Derinzy's two chargers. Captain Derinzy's
courtship of the artist's daughter, unlike that of his prototype in
verse, was carried on with the strictest decorum, not, one is bound
to say, from any fault of the Captain's, who wished and intended to
assimilate it to scores of other such affairs which he had had under
what he considered similar circumstances. But the truth was that he
had never met anyone like Miss Gertrude Skrymshire before. A pretty
woman, delicate-looking, and thoroughly feminine, she was far more of
an old soldier than the Captain, with all his barrack training and his
country-garrison experience. Years before, when she was a mere child of
fourteen, she had made up her mind, after experience of her father's
career and prospects, that Bohemianism, for a woman at least, was a
most undesirable state, and she had determined that she would marry
either for wealth or position; the latter preferable, she thought, as
the former might be afterwards attainable by her own ready wit and
cleverness; while if she married a _bon bourgeois_, she must be content
to remain in Bloomsbury, Bedfordshire, or wherever she might be placed,
and must abandon all hope of rising. When Captain Derinzy first came
fluttering round her, she saw the means to her end, and determined to
profit thereby. She was a very pretty young woman of her style, red
and white, with black eyes and flattened black hair, altogether very
like those Dutch dolls fashionable at that period, who were made of
shiny composition down to their busts, but then diverged abruptly into
calico and sawdust. She had a trim waist and a neat ankle, and what
is called nowadays a very "fetching" style, and she made desperate
havoc with Captain Derinzy's heart; so much so, that when she declined
with scorn to listen to any of the eccentric--to say the least of
them--propositions which he made to her, and forbade him her presence
for daring to make them, he, after staying away one day, during which
he was intensely wretched, and would have taken to drinking but that he
had tried it before without effect, and would have drowned himself but
that he did not want to die, came down and made an open declaration of
his love to Gertrude, and a formal proposal for her hand to Skrymshire
_père_.
Alick Derinzy had had Luck for his friend several times in his life; he
had "pulled off" some good things in sweepstakes, and been fortunate in
his speculations on "events;" but he never made such a _coup_ as when
he took Gertrude Skrymshire for his wife. She undertook the _ménage_
at once, sold off his unnecessary horses, and paid off outstanding
ticks; made him get an invitation for himself and her to Muswell Hill,
and spent a week there, during which she ingratiated herself with the
old gentleman, and specially with Paul; speedily took the reins of
government into her hands, and drove her husband skilfully, without
ever letting him feel the bit. When his father died, and Alick was for
crying out at the smallness of his legacy, Gertrude stopped his mouth,
pointing out that they had a sufficiency to live on, to which the sale
of her husband's commission would add; that they could go and live in
a small house in a good suburb of town, where they could make it very
comfortable for Paul, who would doubtless see a good deal of them,
and who, as he was never likely to marry, would most probably leave
his enormous fortune to _their_ Paul, their only son, who, of course
without any definite views, had been named after his uncle.
It was a notable scheme, well-planned and well-executed, but it failed.
Alick sold out, and they took a pleasant little house at Brompton,
a suburb then not much known, and principally inhabited, as now, by
actors and authors; and they furnished it charmingly, and Gertrude
herself went down in her deep mourning into the City, and penetrated
to Paul's sanctum in Gough Square, and insisted on his coming to stay
a day or two with them, and gained his promise that he would come. On
her return she said she had found Paul very much altered, but when
her husband asked her in what manner, she could not explain herself.
Alick himself explained it in his own peculiar barrack-room and
billiard-table phraseology, after he had seen his brother, expressing
his opinion that that worthy was "going off his head, by G--!"
No doubt Paul Derinzy was a changed man. It was not that he looked
much older than his years--that he had always done; but his skin was
discoloured, his eyes lustreless, his head bowed, his spirit gone. He
said himself that twenty years' incessant labour without any holiday
had told upon him, and that he was determined at last to take some
rest. He should start immediately with Herr Schadow, one of their
largest customers, for Berlin and St. Petersburg, and should probably
be away for some months. Dockress, who had been brought up from boyhood
in Gough Square, and who knew every trick and turn of the trade, would
manage the business during his absence, and he should go away perfectly
satisfied that things would go on just as smoothly as if he were there
to overlook them.
Paul Derinzy carried out his intention. He went away to the Continent
with Herr Schadow, and Mr. Dockress took charge of the business in
Gough Square. He heard several times from his principal within the
next few weeks, letters dated from various places, their contents
always relating to business. Mrs. Alick had also several letters
from her brother-in-law, but to her he wrote on different topics. He
seemed to be in wonderful spirits, wrote long descriptions of the
places he had visited, and humorous accounts of people he had met;
said he felt himself quite a different man, that he had just begun to
enjoy life, and looked upon all his earlier years as completely lost
to him. He loathed the very name of business, he said, and hated the
mere idea of coming back to England. He should certainly go as far
as St. Petersburg, and prolong his stay abroad as long as he felt
amused by it. He arrived in St. Petersburg. Dockress heard of him from
there relative to consignment of some special skins which he had been
lucky enough to get hold of, and which his old business instinct,
not to be so easily shaken off as he imagined, prompted him to buy.
Mrs. Alick also heard from him a fortnight later; he described the
place as delightful, the society as charming, said he was "going out
a good deal," and was thoroughly enjoying himself. Then nothing was
heard of him for weeks by the family in the pretty little house at
Brompton, and Mrs. Alick became full of wonderment as to his movements.
Dockress could have given her some information. It is true that he had
had no letters from his chief, but a nephew of Schadow's, who was a
clerk in the Gough Square house, had had a hint dropped to him by his
uncle that it was not improbable that the head of the house would,
on his return, which would be soon, bring with him a wife, as he was
supposed to be very much in love with a young French lady, a governess
in a distinguished Russian family where he visited. Schadow junior
communicated this intelligence to Dockress junior, who sat at the same
desk with him, who communicated it to Dockress senior, who whistled,
and, as soon as his son was out of hearing, muttered aloud that it was
"a rum go."
"Rum" as it was, though, it was true. A short time afterwards Dockress
received official intimation of the fact, and the same post brought the
news to Mrs. Alick. Paul's note to his sister-in-law was very short.
It simply said that she and Alexis would probably be surprised to hear
that he was about to be married to Mdlle. Delille, a young French lady,
whom he had met in society at St. Petersburg. They were to be married
at once, and would shortly after set out for England, not, however,
with the intention of remaining there. He infinitely preferred living
abroad, so that he should merely return for the purpose of settling his
business, and should then retire to the Continent for the rest of his
life.
Alick Derinzy gave a great guffaw as his wife read out this epistle to
him, and chaffed her in his ponderous way, referring to the counting of
chickens before they were hatched, and the hallooing before you were
out of the wood, and other apposite proverbs.
"That's rather a bust-up for your scheme, Gertrude," he said with
a loud laugh, "old Paul going to marry; and he's just one of those
fellows that have a large family late in life; and a neat chance for
_our_ Paul's coming in for any of the old boy's money. That game is
u-p, Mrs. Derinzy."
But Mrs. Derinzy, though she looked serious at the news which the
letter contained, and shook her head at her husband's speech, said
there was no knowing what Time had in store for them, and they must
wait and see.
They waited, and in due course they saw--Paul's wife, Mrs. Derinzy:
a pretty, slight, fragile little woman, with large black eyes,
olive complexion, and odd restless ways. Mrs. Alick set her down as
"thoroughly French;" Alick spoke of her as a "rum little party;"
but they neither of them saw much of her. Paul brought her to dine
two or three times, and the women called upon each other, but the
newly-married pair were so thoroughly occupied with theatre-goings, and
opera-visitings and society-frequenting, that it was with the greatest
difficulty they could be induced to find a free night during the month
they stayed in town. London did not seem capable of producing enough
pleasure or excitement for Paul Derinzy. He was like a boy in the
ardour of his yearning for fresh amusement, he entered into everything
with wild delight, and seemed as though he should never tire of taking
his pretty little wife about, and what Alexis called "showing her off."
During that month the great house of Derinzy and Sons ceased to
exist, and in the next issue of the great red book, the _Post-Office
Directory_, the name which had been so respected and so highly thought
of was not to be found. Certainly Paul Derinzy retained a share in its
fortunes, but he sold the largest part of the business to Dockress and
Schadow, whose friends came forth nobly to help them in the purchase,
and it was under their joint names that the house was in future
conducted.
Then Paul and his wife went away, and were only occasionally heard of.
It had been their intention to travel about, and they were apparently
carrying it out, for Paul's letters to Mrs. Alick, with whom he still
corresponded, were dated from various places, and he could only give
her vague addresses where to reply. They were passing the winter at
Florence, when he wrote to his sister-in-law that a little daughter
had been born to them, but that his wife had been in great peril, for
some time her life had been despaired of, and even then, at the time
of writing, she was seriously ill. Alick Derinzy guffawed again at
this news, remarking that their Paul's nose was out of joint now, and
no mistake. Their Paul, then a stalwart boy of four years old, who
was playing about the room at the time, exclaimed, "No, my nose all
right!" at the same time grasping that organ with his chubby hand;
and Mrs. Derinzy checked her husband's unseemly mirth, and remarked
that since his brother had married, it was more to their interest that
his child should be a girl than a boy. There was an interval of six
months before another letter arrived to say that Mrs. Paul remained
very ill, that her constitution had received a shock which it was
doubtful whether it would ever recover, but that the little girl was
thriving well. Paul added that he was in treaty for a place on the Lake
of Geneva of which he had heard, and that if it suited him the family
would most probably settle down there. After another six months Mrs.
Alick heard from her brother-in-law that they had settled on the Swiss
lake, with a repetition of the statement that his wife was helplessly
ill, and the little girl thriving apace. During the four succeeding
years very nearly the same news reached the Alick Derinzys at the
same intervals--Paul was still located in the Swiss chateau, his wife
remained in the same state of illness, and his little girl still throve.
"No chance for our Paul," said Alexis Derinzy disconsolately.
"Our Paul" was growing into a fine boy, and his father gave himself
much mental exercitation as to whether he could "stand the racket" of
educating him at Eton or Harrow.
One evening a cab drove up to the door, and a gentleman alighted and
asked for Mrs. Derinzy. Alick was, according to his usual practice,
at the club, enjoying that pleasant hour's gossip so dear to married
gentlemen who are kept rather tightly in hand at home, and which they
relinquish with such looks of envy at the happy bachelors or more
courageous Benedicks whom they leave behind. But Mrs. Alick was in her
very pretty little boudoir, into which she desired the stranger might
be shown.
He came in; a man who had probably been tall, but was now bent double,
walking with a stick, and then making but slow progress; a man with
snow-white hair and long beard of the same hue, wrapped from head to
foot in a huge fur coat of foreign make. Mrs. Derinzy saw that he was a
gentleman, but did not recognise him. It was not until he advanced to
her and mentioned his name that she knew him for her brother-in-law,
Paul. She received him very warmly, and he seemed touched and
gratified, so far as lay in him. Where were his wife and his little
daughter? she asked. They were--over there, in Switzerland, he said
with an effort. He was alone, then, in London? He must come and stay
with them. No; he had been in London three or four days. He came over
on some special business, and he was about to return to the Continent
the next day, but he did not like to go without having seen her. He
fidgeted about while he stopped, and seemed nervously anxious to be
off; but Mrs. Alick, with a woman's tact, began to ask him questions
about his child, and he quieted down, and spoke of her with rapture.
She was the joy of his soul, he said, the one bright ray in his life,
of which, indeed, he spoke in very melancholy terms. Alick came home
from his club in due course, and was as surprised as his wife had
been at the alteration in Paul's appearance, and took so little pains
to disguise his impressions, that Paul himself made allusion to his
white hair and his bowed back, and said he had had trouble enough to
have broken a much younger and stronger man. He did not say what the
trouble was, and they did not like to ask him. Alick had thought it
was pecuniary worry; that his brother had "dropped his money," as he
phrased it. Mrs. Alick saw no reason to ascribe it to any such source.
But she noticed that her brother-in-law said very little about his
wife, and she felt certain that the marriage which had promised so
brilliantly had turned out a disappointment, and that the shadow which
darkened his life was of home creation.
Paul Derinzy bade adieu to his brother and his sister-in-law that
night, and they never saw him again. About a month afterwards he
wrote from Switzerland that his wife was dead, that he should give
up the château on the lake, and travel for a time, taking the child
with him. Ten years passed away, during which news of the travellers
came but rarely to the residents in Brompton, who, indeed, thought
but little of them. The ex-captain of dragoons had settled down into
a quiet, whist-playing, military-club-frequenting fogey; Mrs. Derinzy
managed him with as much tact as usual, and with rather a slacker rein;
and young Paul, now eighteen years old, was just appointed to the
Stannaries Office, when an event occurred which entirely changed the
aspect of affairs. This was the elder Paul Derinzy's death, which was
communicated to his brother by a telegram from Pau, where it happened.
By this telegram Alick was bidden to come to Pau instantly, to take
charge of Miss Derinzy, and to be present at the reading of the will.
Alick went to Pau, and his wife went with him. They found Annette
Derinzy--a tall girl of fourteen, "a little too foreign, and good deal
too forward," Mrs. Derinzy pronounced her--prostrated with grief at her
recent loss. And they were present at the reading of the will, under
which they found themselves constituted guardians of the said Annette
Derinzy, who inherited all her father's property, with the exception
of a thousand a-year, which was to be paid to them for their trouble
during their lives, and five thousand pounds legacy to their son Paul
at his father's death. Their authority over Annette was to cease when
she came of age at twenty-one, but up to that time they had the power
of veto on any marriage engagement she might contract, and any defiance
on her part was to be punished by the loss of her fortune, which was to
be divided amongst certain charities duly set forth in the will.
"Only five thou. for our poor boy, and that not till we're dead! and
Paul must have left over eighty thousand!" said Captain Derinzy to his
wife, when they were in their own room at the hotel after the will had
been read.
"Our Paul shall have the eighty thousand," said Mrs. Derinzy in reply.
"The devil he shall!" said the Captain. "Who will give it him?"
"The guardians of his wife!" said Mrs. Derinzy.