LAUNCE KEYMER
Launce Keymer was a good-looking young fellow, with an insinuating
manner and a plausible tongue. Being possessed of so many advantages,
it was scarcely to be wondered at that he was extremely popular among
the marriageable young ladies of St. Oswyth’s and its neighbourhood. He
was the son of a local brewer, and assisted his father in the business.
He had been spoiled and indulged while young, and, as an only son, had
been allowed a free rein in his extravagances. But, with a second
family growing up, and an expensive wife half his own age, the elder
Keymer found it a difficult matter nowadays to meet Launce’s frequent
demands on his purse. In short, the only thing left for the latter to
do—and it was a point as to which both father and son were in thorough
accord—was to marry a girl with money.
Now, it so happened that Keymer _père_ had a cousin, who was a clerk in
the office of Mr. Linaway, the chief lawyer in St. Oswyth’s—a man with
a large family and a very limited income, whom the brewer had more than
once been able to help, at little or no cost to himself. This cousin,
Tuttle by name, not ungrateful for past favours, and with an eye,
perhaps, to any which the future might have in store for him, and
having some reason to believe that Launce was looking out for a wife
with a fortune, determined to do the brewer what he termed “a good
turn,” in confiding to him a certain professional secret which he had
learnt by accident, and of which he was supposed to be wholly ignorant.
“The very man I’ve been wanting to see for the last week or more,” said
Tuttle to the elder Keymer, next time they met. “Rather a curious thing
happened to me about ten days ago, which I want to tell you about. I’ll
turn and walk part of the way with you, if you don’t mind. Well, you
must know that one forenoon I had occasion to visit the strong room
which opens out of the governor’s private office, in order to obtain
some title-deeds which were wanted, but which I was not at once able to
find, owing to their having been misplaced. While thus engaged, the
governor rang his bell for Mr. Dix, the managing clerk. I suppose the
old boy, who is beginning to break up, and whose memory fails him
strangely at times, had quite forgotten that I was there within
hearing. But be that as it may, he proceeded to give Dix instructions
for the drawing up of a couple of wills, the particulars of which he
was to keep strictly to himself. The wills in question were those of
the two Miss Thursbys of Vale View House. The governor talks in a low
voice, and mumbles a good deal, so that I was not able to catch all he
said; but I picked up enough to satisfy myself that, with the exception
of a few hundreds, to be distributed amongst various charities, an
annuity to an old servant, and a few minor legacies, the whole of the
property of both sisters is bequeathed to the young lady known as Miss
Ethel Thursby—their niece, I believe she is. Of course, I can only make
a rough guess as to the value of the property in question, which seems
to consist chiefly of securities of various kinds; but there’s no doubt
in my mind that, if realised, it would mount up to a respectable number
of thousands. That being the case, Cousin Bob, it might be worth your
boy’s while to make up to the heiress, who is, I believe, a very pretty
girl into the bargain. But not a word to a soul of what I’ve just told
you, unless you want me to lose my berth and be ruined for life.”
The hint thus afforded was too precious not to be followed up and acted
upon.
Launce Keymer had already been introduced to Ethel, he having met her
on two or three occasions at garden parties and other gatherings of
young people. He had admired her for the time being, as he admired
every pretty girl he met, and had thought no more about her. Truth to
tell, Ethel was not the kind of girl to attract more than a passing
glance of admiration from the brewer’s son. She was too quietly
dignified and “stand-offish”; she was lacking in dash and “go”; she was
one of those girls whom he felt instinctively it would be unwise to
talk slang to; there was something about her which, when in her
company, compelled him to be upon his best behaviour; he never felt
quite what he termed “at home” with her; as a consequence of which,
while always smilingly polite to her, he had rather shunned than sought
her society.
When the brewer had told his son that he must either change his mode of
life, or marry a girl with money, the latter had pertinently asked:
“Where am I to find her?” That there was an overplus of marriageable
young women at St. Oswyth’s, as there is in all small provincial towns,
was a melancholy fact which could not be gainsaid, nor that many of
them were nice girls, carefully brought up, well educated, and in every
way fitted to make a reasonable man happy; but, alas! they were one and
all comparatively poor. Several of them had small dowries, and would
inherit something considerable at the death of their parents; but ’tis
ill waiting for dead men’s shoes, and Launce Keymer’s needs were those
of the immediate future. Meantime, while waiting for the coming
heiress, he flirted to his heart’s content, but, so far as was known,
contrived to steer clear of any serious entanglement.
And now, lo and behold! the heiress was here—had been here, at his
elbow all the time, without his having had the least suspicion of the
fact.
No long time was allowed to elapse after the interview between Mr.
Keymer and his cousin before Launce began to seize every opportunity
that came in his way to pay assiduous court to the heiress of Vale
View. There was a good deal of quiet gaiety in St. Oswyth’s that winter
and spring, and they met on a number of occasions. It is not needful
that we should linger over what came to pass. Launce, with a cleverness
which, in a better cause, would have done him credit, did his best to
adapt himself to what he called Ethel’s “Quaker-like ways,” toning
himself down, so to speak, when in her presence, content to feel his
way gradually, and not to startle her by too premature a declaration of
his love, or what he wished her to regard as such. As already stated,
he was both handsome and plausible. Ethel had never had such attentions
paid her by any one else, and, almost before she knew what had befallen
her, her heart had capitulated. When he had, as he conceived,
sufficiently paved the way, Launce seized an opportunity to press his
suit with well-simulated ardour, and succeeded in winning from the
shrinking girl a half-reluctant consent, which, as soon as the glamour
of his presence was removed, sent her to her chamber, there to shed
tears which had in them a sting of poignant regret.
But she had passed her word, and she was too loyal to attempt to recall
it. As the days went on, she strove to persuade herself that she had
not made a mistake, but that she really did love Launce, and it may be
that she gradually succeeded in hoodwinking herself into such a belief.
Yet at times there was a strange aching void in her heart which puzzled
and frightened her. She had always understood that when people were in
love it was for them a season of unalloyed happiness; but she, alas!
was far from happy.
And then there was that hateful promise which Launce had extracted from
her, not to speak of their engagement to any one till he should give
her leave to do so. It was only for a few weeks, he told her, probably
a month at the most, that he asked her to keep unbroken silence.
Private reasons of an imperative nature compelled him to ask this
favour at her hands. She had yielded to his importunity, but none the
less did she realise how disloyal it was on her part to have a
secret—and such a secret—locked up from her aunts.
The fact was that Launce Keymer, unknown to his father, or any one at
St. Oswyth’s, had for some time past been making love to a pretty
nursery governess at Dulminster, the county town, a dozen miles away,
to which place he ran over by train on a couple of evenings in each
week. Furthermore, he had been infatuated enough—and he now reviled
himself in bitter terms for his folly—to write her a number of
compromising letters, such as if produced in an action for breach of
promise would infallibly land him in heavy damages. He knew that Hetty
Blair had more than one correspondent in St. Oswyth’s, and that, if the
news of his engagement with Ethel Thursby were once made public, it
could scarcely fail to reach her ears. Not that he would have minded
that in the least, if Hetty had only burnt or otherwise destroyed those
fatal letters. But, as he was well aware, she had done nothing of the
kind. He had seen them with his own eyes, tied round with white ribbon,
where they lay in the girl’s old-fashioned workbox which stood on the
top of the bureau in her mother’s little parlour, and his object was to
get them back into his own hands before his engagement to Ethel got
noised abroad. That once accomplished, he felt that he could afford to
snap his fingers at Miss Hetty Blair.
It may seem strange that such a cool, calculating, mercenary fellow as
Launce Keymer should so far have run counter to all the principles by
which it was his ambition to regulate his life as to permit himself to
fall in love with a young person who was compelled to work for her
daily bread. But it was just one of those things which occasionally
come to pass, as if to upset all one’s preconceived notions of what we
poor mortals think ought to happen, and to prove by what contradictory
impulses hearts the most calculating and unemotional are sometimes
swayed, as by a force they are powerless to resist.
Hetty Blair was a pretty brunette, with sparkling black eyes, full ripe
lips, and a vivacious, not to say saucy, manner. She was genuinely in
love with Keymer, and jealously miserable, although she strove to hide
the fact from her lover, because for five evenings out of seven she saw
nothing of him, and had no assurance that he was not making love to
some one else at St. Oswyth’s—which was precisely what he was doing.
Miss Blair, who at this time was filling the post of day-governess to
the two young children of a major on half-pay, had her home with her
mother in a little cottage in a suburb of Dulminster. Keymer was in the
habit of visiting Hetty twice a week, on Wednesdays, when the girl’s
pupils were allowed a half-holiday, and on Saturdays, when business
with the young brewer was over at an early hour; consequently, when he
made an unexpected appearance at the cottage on a certain Thursday
afternoon, when he was fully aware that Hetty was from home, Mrs. Blair
could not refrain from expressing her surprise. His explanation was,
that having to come to Dulminster on business for his father, he could
not resist the temptation of arranging a little surprise for Hetty.
Accordingly, he had brought her a bouquet of hothouse flowers, and one
of those delicious Madeira cakes of which she was so fond, and if Mrs.
Blair would so far oblige him as to step upstairs, where she kept her
little cellaret, and bring down one of those half dozen of choice
bottles of port he had once sent her, he should feel that his little
surprise was complete.
Mrs. Blair did not object in the least. She had a weakness for port, as
Launce, who was a great favourite with her, was quite aware.
Accordingly she trotted slowly upstairs, for she was somewhat infirm,
leaving Keymer alone, smoking his cigar in the little parlour, and he
was still occupied in the same harmless fashion when she returned, ten
minutes later. But in the interim he had contrived either to pick or
force the lock of Hetty’s workbox and obtain possession of his letters.
Presently he took his leave. His father, he explained, would expect him
back by six o’clock at the latest; but of course he should see Hetty as
usual on Saturday.
It was on the day prior to Ethel Thursby’s birthday that Launce Keymer
regained possession of his letters.