That afternoon Gilbert Eversleigh went over, as he had intended, to
Ivydene, his father's residence in Surbiton, a large and commodious
villa standing among trees and shrubs in its own grounds on the road
from Kingston to Thames Ditton, about three-quarters of a mile from the
market-place of the former. From its upper windows there were to be got
pleasant glimpses of the river and of the Home Park beyond. The
Eversleighs were very fond of their house, and, in an unassertive way,
proud of it. Certainly it was the centre of as sweet and well-ordered a
home-life as any in England.
Gilbert's telegram to his mother had prepared her for his coming, and
when he arrived he was warmly greeted by her and his sister Helen, a
fair girl with the family good-looks, who inquired if he was going to
spend the rest of the day with them. Gilbert replied that he did not
purpose returning to town till the last train, and suggested it would be
"very nice on the river."
While he was speaking, Miss Kitty Thornton made her appearance, and as
she shook hands with him his eyes sparkled with admiration--and small
wonder!
For Miss Kitty was a splendid piece of flesh and blood, full of life and
the joy and the spirit of youth. A little over twenty-one, she was old
enough to be a woman and young enough to be a girl. She was not too tall
nor too slim. She belonged to the dark type. She had black hair and
plenty of it, and big black expressive eyes which often spoke her
thoughts when her tongue was silent; on each cheek glowed a spot of
bright colour as large as a half-opened wild rose, but of a deeper
shade; her lips were of a deeper shade still; her skin was of a warm
dusky tint.
It was a strikingly brilliant face, but it had a delicacy of feature, a
fineness of line not common in dark women. When it was in repose it was
beautiful, yet somehow it hinted sorrow, melancholy, unhappy love,
tragedy; but it was seldom in repose, and when it was lit up with
animation, with feeling or laughter, as it usually was, it was as
radiantly lovely as mortal man could wish to see.
There was a great heart in her too, but it had not yet been tried and
proved. Hitherto she had moved in a sheltered world; of evil, and the
unending struggle and strife of men and women outside, she had only a
faint conception; the din of life had never clashed upon her ears.
Her father, on the death of her mother, had brought her over from Canada
to Mrs. Eversleigh, begging the wife of his old friend to take care of
her for him. And Mrs. Eversleigh, a gracious woman, had gladly assented
to his request. Kitty thus became a member of the family, and was
educated along with Helen both in England and on the continent. The
girls were like sisters. Kitty was deeply attached to Mrs. Eversleigh,
and, in a less degree, to Francis Eversleigh. She was very happy with
the Eversleighs.
"Have they told you the good news, Gilbert?" asked Kitty, a note of
rejoicing in her voice.
"Not yet," interposed Helen Eversleigh; "there hasn't been time."
"Tell me," said Gilbert, with a smile. "What is it?"
"I got a letter from my father this morning, and he says that he is
returning to England very soon," said Kitty, gleefully.
"That is indeed good news for you," Gilbert agreed. "I thought you
looked very much pleased about something," he added.
"Pleased! I should say I am!"
"And when is he coming?" asked Gilbert.
"He says he will be here very soon," answered Kitty--"in a few days
after his letter. He does not say quite when, but he writes, 'I will pop
in and surprise you some day in the week next after that in which you
receive this.' The very uncertainty as to the date," remarked the girl,
brightly, "gives a keener edge to one's pleasure."
"I dare say that is what he intended," said Mrs. Eversleigh.
The three ladies looked delighted--as indeed they were. Gilbert seemed
delighted also, but inwardly the news made him feel downcast.
Passionately as he loved Kitty Thornton, the thought of the large
fortune she would inherit, which Morris Thornton's approaching visit
brought home to him afresh, had been a check upon him; so, too, was the
fact that she was the ward, in a measure, of his father. These
considerations had imposed upon him silence and a certain self-control;
still he had an idea that Kitty could not be altogether unconscious of
his love for her. He knew she liked him, and it was his fond hope that
he might "drive this liking to the name of love." But so far he had not
ventured to voice his hope in words. And now he wondered if her father's
return would make a difference, and what her father would think of him
and his suit.
"He will think I am not good enough for her," he said to himself, "and
of course I'm not. Besides, as she's a great heiress, he will expect her
to make some splendid match--and I am only a young barrister with my
career just beginning."
All this passed through his mind on hearing Kitty's "good news," which
he felt might not be equally good news so far as he was concerned, but
he strove to look as happy over it as she was.
"We shall all be very glad to see him," said he to the girl,
mendaciously.
"What shall we do with ourselves this afternoon?" asked Kitty, changing
the topic. "Now you are here, Gilbert, we must make some use of you."
"He was talking of going on the river," remarked Helen.
"Yes, yes," said Kitty, eagerly. "I never tire of the river."
"Will you come, mother?" inquired Gilbert of Mrs. Eversleigh.
But Mrs. Eversleigh declined on the plea of having some household
matters to attend to.
"I can't go with you," she said, "but I'll tell you what to do. You two
girls can take your cycles, and Gilbert can borrow his brother Ernest's
wheel, and ride to Molesey."
"And get a punt there. The very thing," said Gilbert, in the mood to
welcome hard exercise, and so to work off his trouble. "I suppose," he
said to his mother, "I'll find some of Ernie's boating things in his
room?"
"Oh yes," said Mrs. Eversleigh, and he went off to change his clothes.
Presently the three young people were cycling to Molesey, which they
soon reached. A punt was quickly procured, and, in a few seconds more,
Gilbert was poling it up-stream with remarkable vigour considering the
heat of the day.
"You are working hard," said Kitty, noting his extraordinary exertions.
"Oh, never mind him," sweetly remarked his sister. "It's good for him."
"But won't you over-heat yourself, Gilbert?" asked Kitty. And though he
replied with thanks that he was all right, she insisted after a short
while that he must take an easy, and moor the punt under a shady bank.
He obeyed her, and then Kitty, to his secret discomfiture, must needs
talk about the coming of her father, her heart being full of the
subject. And as she talked his trouble seemed to melt away, for she
spoke of the happy times they all would have when Morris Thornton was in
England, and obviously included Gilbert in her notion of these happy
times. The three chatted gaily for an hour, and then they set off
down-stream.
They had gone several hundred yards, perhaps, when they met, moving at
top speed, a racing-skiff, the occupant of which bowed to them with a
rapid inclination of his head, but did not stop.
"It's Harry Bennet," said Helen Eversleigh, gazing after him, and waving
her hand.
"How are you, Harry?" Gilbert had shouted, as the boat went past.
Bennet, now some distance away, rested on his oars, and waved his hand
to Helen, who was still regarding him, as was also Kitty; but it was the
latter at whom he looked. However, he did not seek to talk, but watched
the punt until it disappeared round a bend of the stream. His face
thereupon expressed mingled feelings--a tremendous admiration of Kitty
Thornton, and an intense hatred of Gilbert Eversleigh, whom he proceeded
to curse aloud when out of sight, being the chief.
"He's a fine oarsman, a fine athlete," observed Helen, as the punt went
on down-stream. She referred to Harry Bennet, whom she had known all her
life, and for whom she had a liking. "I can't believe he is the bad lot
they say he is. If only he was not so keen on racing and betting! It's
said that he is losing all his money and ruining himself. It seems such
a pity!" And she sighed.
"Yes," said Kitty, glancing at her friend; but she did not continue the
conversation. She knew of Helen's feeling for Bennet, but it was a
feeling she herself did not share.
As for Gilbert, he said nothing at all either good or bad about the man
whom he understood very well was his rival. But he had heard what was
being said about Bennet quite openly, the sum and substance of which was
that Harry had become a reckless and inveterate gambler.
The girls had heard something of this too, but only in the most general
way. All three, however, were cognisant of the main facts of Bennet's
life: how his father had died when he was a child, and how he had been
petted, spoiled, and indulged by a foolish doting mother; how he had
consequently grown into a wilful, headstrong, intractable boy; how, as
he neared man-hood, he showed a gift of marvellous physical strength, in
the development of which there for a time lay an illusory hope of his
improvement; how, in his first year at the university, he had been a
member of the crew which, after a long series of Oxford triumphs, had at
last given a victory to the light blues; and how, on coming into his
property a few months later, he had forthwith left Cambridge and taken
to racing with frantic zest.
"It is such a pity," Helen went on; "but I think that so long as he
keeps up his rowing there is a chance for him."
But now they were back at Molesey, and nothing more was said of Bennet
at the time. At dinner in the evening, however, Helen spoke of their
having seen him on the river, and repeated what she had said about it
being a hopeful sign that he kept up his rowing.
"I think he doesn't row very much now," said her brother Ernest, who was
a solicitor like his father, and expected soon to be a partner in the
Lincoln's Inn firm. "He simply can't have the time. His stable and his
horses and his betting-book absorb him entirely. I wonder what that new
horse of his--he calls it 'Go Nap'--will do for him. He's sure to back
it heavily."
"'Go Nap'!" said Gilbert. "That's rather suggestive of a plunge."
"Isn't it? Harry is a terrific plunger anyway."
"Oh, don't let us talk about Harry Bennet," said Francis Eversleigh,
from the head of the table, where he had been sitting in moody silence.
He was so utterly unlike himself, indeed, that his wife was alarmed, but
when she asked what ailed him he said he had "a rather bad headache"--a
statement which scarcely reassured her, as she knew he never had
headaches; and when she pressed him further, he replied sharply and
irritably. But the wretched man hardly knew what he was saying or doing.
One part of Silwood's advice he had made up his mind to accept and act
upon, and this was that he would do nothing to forestall the fate which
must over-take the firm, but to let things drift till the crash came.
And, having come to this conclusion, the unfortunate solicitor told
himself that he must try to behave as usual in his family circle. But he
found it impossible. The tragic swiftness and completeness of the stroke
dealt him by Silwood was too much for him. Now, as he thought of his
home, and of his wife and children, and of the frightful secret he
carried in his breast of the ruin hanging over them, a bitterness worse
than that of death possessed him. Generally full of easy agreeable
small-talk, that night he was gloomy and dumb.
He made one effort only to talk.
Kitty mentioned having had a letter from her father, whereupon he stated
that the firm had also had one from Mr. Thornton.
"By the way," he said, striving to speak in his ordinary tones, "your
father made a curious omission in his letter to us; he does not specify
when he is coming--gives no precise date. I dare say it was an
oversight. I suppose he tells you in your letter just when to expect
him, Kitty?"
"No, he doesn't, Mr. Eversleigh--at least, not very precisely. He says
he'll come soon after his letter, but he does not fix any date, as he
wants to give me a little surprise. Still, I think he'll be here some
day next week."
"Next week!" said Eversleigh, slowly and painfully. To him it was the
voice of doom, and he relapsed into silence again.