About a year and a half before Hazel Thorne had the task of conducting
her school for the first time to Plumton church, she was in her home at
Kensington, leading the every-day pleasant life of the daughter of a
stockbroker, who was reputed among his friends as being "warm," that
being the appropriate term for a man who is said to have a pretty good
store of money well invested in solid securities.
"Fred Thorne will buy mining shares for you, or shares in any bubble
that is popular at the time; but catch him putting his coin in anything
doubtful."
That is what people said; and as he had a good home at Kensington, and
gave nice, quiet little dinners, he and his were pretty well courted.
"Well, yes, I don't mind, Archy," said old Graves, the wholesale cork
merchant of Tower Hill. "Hazel Thorne is a very nice girl--very pretty
and ladylike, so I suppose we must swallow the mother for her sake."
The boa-constrictor-like proposition was naturally enough taken
by Archibald Graves in its slango-metaphorical sense, and
slango-metaphorically Mrs Frederick Thorne was swallowed by the whole
of the Graves family, and she did not agree with them.
For Mrs Thorne was not a pleasant woman. Tall, handsome, and
thoroughly ladylike in appearance, she was very proud of having been
considered a beauty, and was not above reminding her husband of the fact
that she might have married So-and-so and What's-his-name, and
You-know-whom, all of which gentlemen could have placed her in a better
position than that she occupied; and as she grew older these references
were more frequent. Each child she had seemed to be looked upon by her
as a fresh grievance--a new cause for tears, and tears she accordingly
shed to an extent that might have made any one fancy this was the reason
why the Thorne home generally seemed damp and chilly, till Hazel entered
the room like so much sunshine, when the chill immediately passed away.
Gradually growing weaker in act and speech, the unfortunate woman
received a shock which completed the change that had been gradually
heretofore advancing, for Fred Thorne--handsome, bright, cheery, and
ever ready to laugh at mamma's doldrums, as he called them--went out as
usual one morning to the City, saying that he should be back a little
earlier to dinner that day, as he had stalls for the opera.
"I'll come back through Covent Garden, Hazel, and bring you a bouquet,"
he cried merrily.
"You need not bring flowers for me, Frederick," said Mrs Thorne, in an
aggrieved tone. "I am growing too old for flowers now."
"Too old? Ha, ha, ha!" he cried. "Why, you look younger than ever.
Smithson asked me the other day if you and Hazel were my daughters."
"Did he, Frederick," said Mrs Thorne, in a rather less lachrymose tone.
"To be sure he did; and of course I am going to bring you a bouquet as
well."
He bought the two bouquets, and they were kept fresh in water, taken to
pieces, and spread over his breast, as he lay cold and stern in his
coffin: for as he was carefully bearing the box containing the flowers
across Waterloo Place on his way home that evening, there was a cry, a
shout, the rush of wheels, and the trampling of horses; a barouche came
along Pall Mall at a furious rate, with two ladies therein clinging to
the sides, and the coachman and footman panic-stricken on the box. One
rein had broken, and the horses tore round the corner towards Regent
Street as if mad with fear.
It was a gallant act, and people said at the inquest that it saved the
ladies and the servants, but it was at the sacrifice of his own life.
For, dropping the box he was carrying, Fred Thorne, a hale strong man of
five-and-forty, dashed at the horses' heads, caught one by the bit and
held on, to be dragged fifty or sixty yards, and crushed against the
railings of one of the houses.
He stopped the horses, and was picked up by the crowd that gathered
round.
"Stop a moment, he wants to say something--he is only stunned--here, get
some water--what say, sir!"
"My--poor--darlings!"
They were Fred Thorne's last words, uttered almost with his last breath.
The shock was terrible.
Mrs Thorne took to her bed at once, and was seriously ill for weeks,
while Hazel seemed to have been changed in one moment from a merry
thoughtless girl to a saddened far-seeing woman.
For upon her the whole charge of the little household fell. There was
the nursing of the sick mother, the care and guidance of Percy, a
clever, wilful boy of sixteen, now at an expensive school, and the
management of the two little girls, Cissy and Mabel.
For the first time in her life she learned the meaning of real trouble,
and how dark the world can look at times to those who are under its
clouds.
The tears had hardly ceased to flow for the affectionate indulgent
father, when Hazel had to listen to business matters, a friend of her
father calling one morning, and asking to see her.
This was a Mr Edward Geringer, a gentleman in the same way of business
as Mr Thorne, and who had been fully in his confidence.
He was a thin, fair, keen-looking man of eight-and-thirty or forty, with
a close, tight mouth, and a quick, impressive way of speaking; his
pale-bluish eyes looking sharply at the person addressed the while. He
looked, in fact, what he was--a well-dressed clear-headed man, with one
thought--how to make money; and he found out how it was done.
That is hardly fair, though. He had another thought, one which had come
into his heart--a small one--when the late Mr Thorne had brought him
home one day to dinner and to discuss some monetary scheme. That
thought had been to make Hazel Thorne his wife, and he had nursed it in
silence till it grew into a great plant which overshadowed his life.
He had seen Hazel light and merry, and had been a witness, at the little
evenings at the house in Kensington, of the attentions to her paid by
Archibald Graves. He knew, too, that they pleased Hazel; and as he saw
her brightened eyes and the smiles she bestowed, the hard, cold City man
bit his lips and felt sting after sting in his heart.
"Boy-and-girl love," he muttered though, when he was alone. "It will
not last, and I can wait."
So Edward Geringer waited, and in his visits he was in Hazel's eyes only
her father's friend, to whom she was bright and merry, taking his
presents of fruit and flowers, concert tickets, and even of a ring and
locket, just as one of her little sisters might have taken a book or
toy. "Oh, _thank_ you, Mr Geringer; it was so good of you!" That was
all; and the cold calm, calculating man said to himself: "She's very
young--a mere child yet; and I can wait."
And now he had come, as soon as he felt it prudent after the funeral, to
find that he had waited and that Hazel Thorne was no longer a child; and
as he saw her in her plain, close-fitting mourning, and the sweet pale
face full of care and trouble, he rose to meet her, took both her hands
in his, and kissed them with a reverence that won her admiration and
respect. "My dear Hazel," he said softly.
She did not think it strange, but suffered him to lead her to a chair
and saw him take one before her. He was her father's old friend, and
she was ready to look up to him for help and guidance in her present
strait.
For some minutes they sat in silence, for she could not trust herself to
speak, and Geringer waited till she should be more composed.
At last he spoke.
"Hazel, my dear child," he said.
"My dear child!" What could have been kinder and better! It won her
confidence at once. Her father's old friend would help and counsel her,
for she needed the help much; and Archibald had seemed since those
terrible days to be thoughtless and selfish instead of helpful.
"I have come to talk to you, Hazel, on very grave matters," Geringer
went on; and she bowed her head for him to continue. "I have to say
things to you that ought by rights to be spoken to your mother; but I
find here that in future you will be the head of this household, and
that mother, brother, sisters will turn to you."
"Poor mamma! she is broken-hearted," sighed Hazel. "I shall try to do
my best, Mr Geringer."
"I know you will, Hazel, come what may."
"Yes, come what may," she replied, with another sigh.
"Shall I leave what I have to say for a few weeks, and then talk it
over? I can wait."
"I would rather hear it now," replied Hazel. "No trouble could be
greater than that we have had to bear, and I see you have bad news for
us, Mr Geringer."
"I regret to say I have--very bad news."
"Tell me," said Hazel sadly, as she gazed in her visitor's face.
"It is about the future, my dear child," he said slowly; and he watched
the effect of his words. "You and your brother and sisters have been
brought up here quite in luxury."
"Papa was always most indulgent and kind."
"Always," assented Geringer. "There, I will not hesitate--I will not go
roundabout to tell you. I only ask you, my dear Hazel, to try and bear
with fortitude the terrible news I have to inflict upon you, and to beg
that you will not associate it in future with me."
"I shall always think of you as my father's most trusted friend. But
pray, pray tell me now, and--and--I will try to bear it as I should."
She was choked now by her sobs, and as Geringer tenderly took one of her
hands, she let him retain it while he spoke.
"My dear Hazel," he said, "your late father always passed for a wealthy
man, but I grieve to say that of late he had embarked in some most
unfortunate speculations."
"Poor papa!"
"They were so bad that at last all depended upon one change in the
market--a change that did not take place till after his death."
Hazel sobbed.
"If he had lived two days longer he would have known that he was a
ruined man."