crime, to disgrace," sternly spoke the Rector. "And he would do that in
marrying Margaret Rymer. Remember what the son did, that ill-doing
Benjamin," added he, dropping his voice. "You know all about it, Johnny.
The affair of the bank-note, I mean."
And if Herbert Tanerton had said to me the affair of the moon and
planets, I could not have been more surprised. "How did you get to know
of it?" I asked, when speech came to me.
"Mr. Rymer told me on his death-bed. I was attending him spiritually. Of
course, I have never spoken of it, even to my wife--I should not think
of speaking of it; but I consider that it lies in my duty to disclose
the facts to Mr. Sale."
"Oh no, don't--don't, please, Mr. Tanerton!" I cried out, starting up in
a sort of distress, for the words seemed to take hold of me. "No one
knows of it: no one but the Squire, and I, as you say, and Mrs. Rymer,
and you, and Ben himself; Jelf's dead, you know. It need never be
brought up again in this world; and I dare say it never will be. Pray
don't tell Mr. Sale--for Margaret's sake."
"But I have said that I consider it my duty to tell him," replied the
parson, steadily. "Here he comes!"
I turned to the window, and saw Sale trudging up to the parsonage
through the snowy field pathway, his black hair and red rugged face
presenting a sort of contrast to the white glare around. Ugly, he might
be called; but it was a face to be liked, for all that. And the ring of
his voice was true and earnest.
The affair of the bank-note had helped to kill Thomas Rymer, and sent
Mr. Ben off on his wanderings again. It was a bit of ill-luck for Ben,
for he had really pulled up, was reading hard at his medical books, and
become as steady as could be. Never since then--some ten months ago
now--had Ben been heard of; never had it been spoken of to man or woman.
_Need_ Herbert Tanerton disclose it to the curate? No: and I did not
think he would do it.
"We were just talking of you," was the Rector's greeting to Mr. Sale, as
the curate came into the room. "Bring a chair to the front of the fire:
Johnny, keep your seat. I'm sure it's cold enough to make one wish to be
in the fire to-day, instead of before it."
"What were you saying about me?" asked Mr. Sale, drawing forward the
chair to sit down, as bidden, and giving me a nod in his short way.
"Have you come to tell me your decision--to go or stay?" asked the
Rector, neglecting to answer the question.
"Not this morning. My decision is not yet made. I came to tell you how
very ill Jael Batty is. I'm not at all sure that she will get over this
bout."
"Oh," said the Rector, in a slighting tone, as if Jael Batty had no
right to intrude herself into more momentous conversation. "Jael Batty
is careless and indifferent in her duties, anything but what she ought
to be, and makes her deafness an excuse for not coming to church. I'll
try and get out to see her in the course of the day. She is always
having these attacks. What we were speaking of was your friendship with
Miss Rymer."
Herbert Tanerton, as I have said, meant to be kind, and I believe
he had people's welfare at heart; but he had a severe way of saying
things that seemed to take all the kindness out of his words. He was a
great stickler for "duty," and if once he considered it was his duty
to tell a fellow of his faults, tell he did, face to face, in the most
uncompromising manner. He had decided that it was his duty to hold
forth to Mr. Sale, and he plunged into the discourse without ceremony.
The curate did not seem in the least put out, but talked back again,
quietly and freely. I sat balancing the tongs over the fender and
listening.
"Miss Rymer is not my equal, you say," observed Sale. "I don't know
that. Her father was a curate's son: I am a curate's son. Circumstances,
it would seem, kept Mr. Rymer down in the world. Perhaps they will keep
me down--I cannot tell."
"But you are a gentleman in position, a clergyman; Rymer served
customers," retorted Mr. Tanerton, harping upon that _bête noire_ of
his, the chemist's shop. "Can't you perceive the difference? A gentleman
ought to be a gentleman."
"Thomas Rymer was a gentleman, as I hear, in mind and manners and
conduct; educated, and courteous, and----"
"He was one of the truest gentlemen I ever met," I could not help
putting in, though it interrupted the curate. "For my part, when
speaking with him I forgot the counter he served at."
"And a true Christian, I was about to say," added Mr. Sale.
There was a pause. Herbert Tanerton, who had been fidgeting in his
chair, spoke:
"Am I mistaken in assuming that your acceptance of this chaplaincy
depends upon Miss Rymer?"
"No, you are not mistaken," said Sale, readily. "It does depend upon
her. If she will go with me--my wife--I shall accept it; if she will
not, I remain at home."
"Margaret is as nice as her father was; she is exactly like him," I
said. "Were I you, Mr. Sale, I should just take her out of the place and
end it."
"But if she won't come with me?" returned he, with a half-smile.
"She is wanted at home," observed Herbert Tanerton, casting a severe
look at me with his cold light eyes. "That shop could not get on without
her." But Sale interrupted:
"I cannot imagine why the son is not at home to attend to things. It is
his place to be there doing it, not his sister's. He is inclined to be
wild, it is said, and given to roving."
"Wildness is not Benjamin Rymer's worst fault, or roving either," cried
the Rector, in his hardest voice, though he dropped it to a low key. And
forthwith he opened the ball, and told the unfortunate story in a very
few words. I let the tongs fall with a rattle.
"I would not have mentioned this," pursued he, "but that I consider
it lies in my duty to tell you of it. To any one else it would never
be allowed to pass my lips; it never has passed them since Mr. Rymer
disclosed it to me a day or two before he died. Margaret Rymer may be
desirable in herself; but there's her position, and--there's _this_. It
is for your own sake I have spoken, Mr. Sale."
Sale had sat still and quiet while he listened. There was nothing
outward to show that the tale affected him, but instinct told me that it
_did_. Just a question or two he put, as to the details, and then he
rose to leave.
"Will you not let it sway you?" asked the Rector, perseveringly, as he
held out his hand to his curate. And I was sure he thought he had been
doing him the greatest good in the world.
"I cannot tell," replied Mr. Sale.
He went out, walked across the garden, and through the gate to the
field, with his head down. A dreadful listlessness--as it seemed to
me--had taken the place of his brisk bearing. Just for a minute I stood
in the parlour where I was, feeling as though I had had a shower of
ice thrown down upon me and might never be warm again. Saying a short
good-morning, I rushed out after him, nearly upsetting Mrs. Tanerton in
the hall, and a basin of soup she was carrying in on a plate. How cruel
it seemed; how cruel! Why can't people let one another alone? He was
half-way across the field when I overtook him.
"Mr. Sale, I want to tell you--I ought to tell you--that the story, as
repeated to you by Mr. Tanerton, bears a worse aspect than the reality
would warrant. It is true that Benjamin Rymer did change the note in the
letter; but that was the best and the worst of it. He had become mixed
up with some reckless men when at Tewkesbury, and they persuaded him to
get the stolen note changed for a safe one. I am sure he repented of it
truly. When he came home later to his father's, he had left all his
random ways and bad companions behind him. Nobody could be steadier
than he was; kind to Margaret, considerate to his father and mother,
attentive to business, and reading hard all his spare time. It was only
through an ill fellow coming here to hunt him up--one Cotton, who was
the man that induced him to play the trick with the note--that he was
disturbed again."
"How disturbed?"
"He grew frightened, I mean, and went away. That fellow Cotton deserved
hanging. When he found that Ben Rymer would have nothing more to do with
him, or with the rest of the bad lot, he, in revenge, told Jelf, the
landlord of the Plough and Harrow (where Cotton ran up a score, and
decamped without paying), saying that it was Ben Rymer who had changed
the note--for, you see, it had always remained a mystery to Timberdale.
Jelf--he is dead now--was foolish enough to let Ben Rymer know what
Cotton had said, and Ben made off in alarm. In a week's time Mr. Rymer
was dead. He had been ailing in mind and body for a long while, and the
new fear finished him up."
A pause ensued. Sale broke it. "Did Miss Rymer know of this?"
"Of Ben and the bank-note? I don't believe she knows of it to this
hour."
"No, I feel sure she does not," added Sale, speaking more to himself
than to me. "She is truth and candour itself; and she has repeatedly
said to me she cannot tell why her brother keeps away; cannot imagine
why."
"You see," I went on, "no one knows of it, except myself, but Squire
Todhetley and Mr. Tanerton. We should never, never think of bringing it
up, any one of us; Mr. Tanerton only spoke of it, as he said, because he
thought he ought to tell you; he will never speak of it again. Indeed,
Mr. Sale, you need not fear it will be known. Benjamin Rymer is quite
safe."
"What sort of a man is he, this Benjamin?" resumed Sale, halting at the
outer gate of the field as we were going through it. "Like the father,
or like the mother?"
"Like the mother. But not as vulgar as she is. Ben has been educated;
she was not; and though he does take after her, there's a little bit of
his father in him as well. Which makes a great difference."
Without another word, Mr. Sale turned abruptly off to the right, as
though he were going for a country ramble. I shut the gate, and made the
best of my way home, bearing back the message from the Rector and
Grace--that they would come and help eat the codfish.
* * * * *
The Reverend Isaac Sale was that day sorely exercised in mind. The story
he had heard shook his equanimity to the centre. To marry a young lady
whose brother stood a chance of being prosecuted for felony looked like
a very black prospect indeed; but, on the other hand, Margaret at least
was innocent, and he loved and respected her with his whole heart and
soul. Not until the evening was his mind made up; he had debated the
question with himself in all its bearings (seated on the stump of a
snowy tree); and the decision he arrived at, was--to take Margaret all
the same. He _could not_ leave her.
About nine o'clock he went to Mrs. Rymer's. The shop was closed, and Mr.
Sale entered by the private door. Margaret sat in the parlour alone,
reading; Mrs. Rymer was out. In her soft black dress, with its white
frilling at the throat, Margaret did not look anything like her nearly
twenty years. Her mild brown eyes and tale-telling cheeks lighted up at
the entrance of the curate. Letting her nervous little hand meet his
strong one, she would have drawn a chair forward for him, but he kept
her standing by him on the hearthrug.
"I have come this evening to have some final conversation with you,
Margaret, and I am glad your mother is out," he began. "Will you hear
me, my dear?"
"You know I am always glad to hear you," she said in low, timid tones.
And Mr. Sale made no more ado, but turned and kissed her. Then he
released her hand, sat down opposite to her on the other side of the
hearth, and entered on his argument.
It was no more, or other, than she had heard from him before--the whole
sum and substance of it consisted of representations why he must accept
this chaplaincy at the Bahamas, and why she must accompany him thither.
In the midst of it Margaret burst into tears.
"Oh, Isaac, why prolong the pain?" she said. "You know I _cannot_ go: to
refuse is as painful to me as to you. Don't you see that I have no
alternative but to remain here?"
"No, I do not see it," replied Mr. Sale, stoutly. "I think your mother
could do without you. She is an active, bustling woman, hardly to
be called middle-aged yet. It is not right that you should sacrifice
yourself and your prospects in life. At least, it seems to me that it is
not."
Margaret's hand was covering her face; the silent tears were dropping.
To see him depart, leaving her behind, was a prospect intensely bitter.
Her heart ached when she thought of it: but she saw no hope of its being
otherwise.
"It is a week and a day since I told you that the promotion was at
length offered me," resumed Mr. Sale, "and we do not seem to be any
nearer a decision than we were then. I have kept it to myself and said
nothing about it abroad, waiting for you to speak to me, Margaret; and
the Rector--to whom I at length spoke yesterday--is angry with me, and
says I ought to have told him at once. In three days from this--on
Thursday next--I _must_ give an answer: accept the post, or throw it
up."
Margaret took her hand from her face. Mr. Sale could see how great was
the conflict at work within her.
"There is nothing to wait for, Isaac. I wish there was. You must go by
yourself, and leave me."
"I have told you that I will not. If you stay here, I stay."
"Oh, pray don't do that! It would be so intense a disappointment to you
to give it up."
"The greatest disappointment I have ever had in life," he answered. "You
must go with me."
"I wish I could! I wish I could! But it is impossible. My duty lies
here, Isaac. I wish you could see that fact as strongly as I see it. My
poor father always enjoined me to do my duty, no matter at what personal
cost."
"It is your brother's duty to be here, Margaret; not yours. Where is
he?"
"In London, I believe," she replied, and a faint colour flew into her
pale face. She put up her handkerchief to hide it.
It had come to Margaret's knowledge that during the past few months her
mother had occasionally written to Benjamin. But Mrs. Rymer would not
allow Margaret to write or give her his address. It chanced, however,
that about a fortnight ago Mrs. Rymer incautiously left a letter on
the table addressed to him, and her daughter saw it. When, some days
subsequently, Mr. Sale received the offer of the chaplaincy, and laid it
and himself before Margaret, urging her to accompany him, saying that he
could not go without her, she took courage to write to Benjamin. She
did not ask him to return and release her; she only asked him whether he
had any intention of returning, and if so, when; and she gave him in
simple words the history of her acquaintanceship with Mr. Sale, and said
that he wanted her to go out with him to the Bahamas. To this letter
Margaret had not received any answer. She therefore concluded that it
had either not reached her brother, or else that he did not mean to
return at all to Timberdale; and so she gave up all hopes of it.
"Life is not very long, Margaret, and God has placed us in it to do
the best we can in all ways; for Him first, for social obligations
afterwards. But He has not meant it to be all trial, all self-denial. If
you and I part now, the probability is that we part for ever. Amidst the
world's chances and changes we may never meet again, howsoever our wills
might prompt it."
"True," she faintly answered.
"And I say that you ought not to enforce this weighty penance upon me
and yourself. It is for your brother's sake, as I look upon it, that you
are making the sacrifice, and it is he, not you, who ought to be here.
Why did he go away?"
"I never knew," said Margaret, lifting her eyes to her lover's, and
speaking so confidingly and earnestly that, had he needed proof to
convince him she was ignorant of the story he had that day been regaled
with, it would have amply afforded it. "Benjamin was at home, and so
steady and good as to be a comfort to papa; when quite suddenly he left
without giving a reason. Papa seemed to be in trouble about it--it was
only a few days before he died--and I have thought that perhaps poor
Benjamin was unexpectedly called upon to pay some debt or other, and
could not find the money to do it. He had not always been quite so
steady."
"Well, Margaret, I think----"
A loud bang of the entrance-door, and a noisy burst into the room,
proclaimed the return of Mrs. Rymer. Her mass of scarlet curls garnished
her face on either side, and looked particularly incongruous with her
widow's cap and bonnet. Mr. Sale, rising to hand her a chair, broke off
what he had been about to say to Margaret, and addressed Mrs. Rymer
instead; simply saying that the decision, as to her going out with him,
or not going, could no longer be put off, but must be made.
"It has been made," returned Mrs. Rymer, disregarding the offered chair,
and standing to hold her boots, one after the other, to the fire.
"Margaret can't go, Mr. Sale; you know it."
"But I wish her to go, and she wishes it."
"It's a puzzle to me what on earth you can see in her," cried Mrs.
Rymer, flinging her grey muff on the table, and untying her black
bonnet-strings to tilt back the bonnet. "Margaret won't have any money.
Not a penny piece."
"I am not thinking about money," replied the curate; who somehow could
never keep his temper long in the presence of this strong-minded Amazon.
"It is Margaret that I want; not money."
"And it's Margaret, then, that you can't have," she retorted. "Who is to
keep the shop on if she leaves it?--it can't go to rack and ruin."
"I see you serving in it yourself sometimes."
"I can serve the stationery--and the pickles and fish sauce--and the
pearl barley," contended she, "but not the drugs. I don't meddle with
them. When a prescription comes in to be made up, if I attempted to do
it I might put opium for senna, and poison people. I have not learnt
Latin, as Margaret has."
"But, Mrs. Rymer----"
"Now we'll just drop the subject, sir, if it's all the same to you,"
loudly put in Mrs. Rymer. "I have told you before that Margaret must
stay where she is, and keep the business together for me and her
brother. No need to repeat it fifty times over."
She caught up her muff, and went out of the room and up the stairs as
she delivered this final edict. Mr. Sale rose.
"You see how it is," said Margaret, in a low tone of emotion, and
keeping her eyelids down to hide the tears. "You must go without me. I
cannot leave. I can only say, God speed you."
"There are many wrongs enacted in this world, and this is one," he
replied in a hard voice--not hard for her--as he took her hands in his,
and stood before her. "I don't know that I altogether blame you,
Margaret; but it is cruel upon you and upon me. Good-night."
He went out quite abruptly without kissing her, leaving her alone with
her aching heart.
* * * * *
Tuesday afternoon, and the ice and the snow on the ground still. We were
to dine at five o'clock--the London codfish and a prime turkey--and the
Coneys were coming in as well as the Rector and his wife.
But Mrs. Coney did not come; old Coney and Tom brought in word that she
was not feeling well enough; and the Tanertons only drove up on the
stroke of five. As I helped Grace down from the pony-chaise, muffled up
to the chin in furs, for the cold was enough to freeze an Icelander's
nose off, I told her her aunt was not well enough to come.
"Aunt Coney not well enough to come!" returned Grace. "What a pity! Have
I time to run in to see her before dinner, Johnny?"
"That you've not. You are late, as it is. The Squire has been telling us
all that the fish must be in rags already."
Grace laughed as she ran in; her husband followed her unwinding the
folds of his white woollen comforter. There was a general greeting and
much laughter, especially when old Coney told Grace that her cheeks were
as purple as his Sunday necktie. In the midst of it Thomas announced
dinner.
The codfish came up all right, and the oyster sauce was in Molly's best
style--made of cream, and plenty of oysters in it. The turkey was fine:
the plum-pudding better than good. Hugh and Lena sat at the table; and
altogether we had a downright merry dinner. Not a sober face amongst us,
except Herbert Tanerton's: as to his face--well, you might have thought
he was perpetually saying "For what we are going to receive----" It had
struck eight ever so long when the last nut was eaten.
"Will you run over with me to my aunt's, Johnny?" whispered Grace as she
passed my chair. "I should like to go at once, if you will."
So I followed her out of the room. She put her wraps on, and we went
trudging across the road in the moonlight, over the crunching snow.
Grace's foot went into a soft rut, and she gave a squeal.
"I shall have to borrow a shoe whilst this dries," said she. "Do you
care to come in, Johnny?"
"No, I'll go back. I can run over for you presently."
"Don't do that. One of the servants will see me safe across."
"All right. Tell Mrs. Coney what a jolly dinner it was. We were all
sorry she did not come."
Grace went in and shut the door. I was rushing back through our own
gate, when some tall fellow glided out of the laurels, and put his hand
on my arm. The moonlight fell upon his face and its reddish beard--and,
to my intense surprise, I recognized Benjamin Rymer. I knew him then for
the man who had been dodging in and out of the shrubs the night but one
before.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "It is, as I am well aware, a very unusual
and unceremonious way of accosting you, or any one else, but I want
particularly to speak with you, in private, Mr. Ludlow."
"You were here on Sunday night!"
"Yes. I saw the Squire and the rest of them go out to church, but I did
not see you go, and I was trying to ascertain whether you were at home
and alone. Tom Coney's coming in startled me and sent me away."
We had been speaking in a low key, but Ben Rymer dropped his to a lower,
as he explained. When he went away ten months before, it was in fear and
dread that the truth of the escapade he had been guilty of, in regard to
the bank-note, was coming out to the world, and that he might be called
upon to answer for it. His mother had since assured him he had nothing
to fear; but Ben was evidently a cautious man, and preferred to
ascertain that fact before showing himself openly at Timberdale. Knowing
I was to be trusted not to injure a fellow (as he was pleased to say),
he had come down here to ask me my opinion as to whether the Squire
would harm him, or not. There was no one else to fear now Jelf was dead.
"Harm you!" I exclaimed in my enthusiasm, my head full of poor, patient
Margaret; "why, the Squire would be the very one to hold you free of
harm, Mr. Rymer. I remember his saying, at the time, Heaven forbid that
he, having sons of his own, should put a stumbling-block in your path,
when you were intending to turn over a new leaf. He will help you on,
instead of harming you."
"It's very good of him," said Ben. "I was an awful fool, and nothing
else. That was the only dangerous thing I ever did, and I have been
punished severely for it. I believe it was nothing but the fear and
remorse it brought that induced me to pull up, and throw ill ways behind
me."
"I'm sure I am glad that you do," I answered, for something in Ben's
tone seemed to imply that the bad ways were thrown behind him for good.
"Are you thinking of coming back to Timberdale?"
"Not until I shall have passed for a surgeon--which will not be long
now. I have been with a surgeon in London as assistant, since I left
here. It was a letter from Margaret that induced me to come down.
She--do you know anything about her, Mr. Johnny?"
"I know that a parson wants her to go out with him to the Bahamas; he
is Tanerton's curate; and that the pills and powders stand in the way
of it."
"Just so. Is he a good fellow, this parson?"
"Good in himself. Not much to look at."
"Maggie shall go with him, then. I should be the last to stand willingly
in her way. You see, I have not known whether it was safe for me at
Timberdale: or I should never have left Maggie to the shop alone. Does
any one know of the past--my past--besides you and the Squire?"
"Yes; Herbert Tanerton knows of it; and--and the curate, Mr. Sale."
And I told him what had passed only on the previous day, softening the
Rector's speeches--and it seemed a curious coincidence, taken with
this visit of Ben's, that it should have passed. His mouth fell as he
listened.
"It is another mortification for me," he said. "I should like to have
stood as well as might be with Margaret's husband. Perhaps, knowing
this, he will not think more of her."
"I don't believe he will let it make any difference. I don't think he is
the man to let it. Perhaps--if you were to go to him--and show him how
straight things are with you now--and----"