MR. SCRATCHELL GOES TO LONDON.
THE short days and fireside evenings of December, and the festivities
of Christmas, were to Sir Kenrick Culverhouse brief and fleeting as a
dream when one awakeneth. He had never been so happy in his life. To
ride across the dull brown moorland with Beatrix, looking down upon
the smiling village nestling in the hollow of the dark hills; to sit
by her side in the lamplight listening while she read or played; these
things made the sum of his delight. Life had nothing for him beyond
or above them. And thus the weeks slipped by till February, and the
10th of February was to be Sir Kenrick’s wedding day. He had improved
wonderfully in health by this time. His bent back had straightened
itself. He was able to endure the fatigue of a day’s fishing, in the
wintry wind and rain. He was altogether a changed man. Yorkshire
breezes had done much for him, but happiness had done more.
‘How he loves you!’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer to Beatrix one day, in a
rapture of admiration for her _protégée_. ‘I never saw a man so
devoted.’
‘Do you really think he is so very fond of me?’ asked Beatrix, gravely.
‘My dear, how sad and distressed you look! as if his love were a thing
to be sorry about. Yes, I do think and know so. Can you for a moment
doubt it?’
‘I have fancied that our marriage was on both sides rather one of
convenience than inclination. He can give me the protection of an
honourable name, my fortune can free his estate. We like each other
very much, and, I hope, esteem each other. But I don’t think there is
much love on either side. He makes pretty speeches, of course. That is
a compliment to my sex and my fortune. Don’t you remember Mr. Dulcimer
telling us that Solon made it a law that heiresses should be treated
with particular respect?’
‘I know nothing about Solon,’ exclaimed the Vicar’s wife, getting
angry, ‘but I know that poor young man is passionately in love with
you. Why, child, he idolizes you. One can see it with half an eye.’
‘Then I am very sorry for him,’ said Beatrix, and there was an
earnestness in her tone that startled the easy-tempered Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘Sorry that your affianced husband is devoted to you! My dear Beatrix,
you must be going out of your mind.’
‘I sometimes think I am,’ answered Beatrix, in a low voice.
This conversation occurred about a fortnight before the wedding day. It
made Mrs. Dulcimer very uncomfortable, but she said no word about it to
anybody, not even to her chosen confidante, Rebecca.
Was it possible, poor Mrs. Dulcimer asked herself, that this match, the
crowning glory of all her efforts, was going to turn out ill?
Beatrix sent for Mr. Scratchell next day, and received him alone in her
morning-room.
‘I suppose you know that Sir Kenrick’s estate is heavily encumbered?’
she said.
‘Yes,’ answered the lawyer, ‘of course that will be considered in the
settlements. It will be my care to protect your interests.’
‘Never mind my interests or the settlements, yet awhile. I want to pay
off those mortgages before there is any question of settlements.’
‘You pay them off, before you are Sir Kenrick’s wife! My dear Miss
Harefield, what an extraordinary notion!’
‘I cannot see that. My money is to release the estate sooner or later.
That is an understood thing between Sir Kenrick and me. Why should I
not do it before I am his wife? I, Beatrix Harefield, for him as my
future husband, am surely able to pay off these mortgages.’
‘As the title deeds are deposited with Sir Kenrick’s bankers, under an
engagement to execute a formal deed when requested, anybody can pay off
the mortgage,’ answered the lawyer, ‘but there is some hazard in such
a proceeding. Suppose Sir Kenrick were to die before your wedding day,
or were to offend you. Marriages are sometimes broken off, you know. At
the church door even. Then again, suppose you were married without a
settlement, and Sir Kenrick were to die without having made a will in
your favour. Failing a son of yours, the estate would go to his cousin
Cyril. Ah, I see that fact rather startles you,’ said the unconscious
lawyer, perceiving that Beatrix paled at the mention of her lost
lover’s name.
‘These are serious considerations,’ urged Mr. Scratchell. ‘I should
strongly recommend you not to touch those mortgages with your little
finger until you have two or three sons of your own. Why should you
throw away fifty thousand pounds for Mr. Cyril Culverhouse’s ultimate
benefit?’
‘It will be for Sir Kenrick’s benefit as long as he lives.’
‘Yes, but Sir Kenrick may not be a long-lived man. I don’t want to
make you unhappy about him, but I don’t think he looks like one. And
then there are the fortunes of war. He may be killed in battle. He had
a narrow escape last time. It would be absurd for you to risk fifty
thousand pounds upon such a life as his.’
‘Absurd or not, I am going to run the risk,’ answered Beatrix, with a
firmness that frightened Mr. Scratchell. In a twelvemonth I shall be of
age to do what I like with my money, without consulting anybody. You
may just as well make yourself agreeable while I am in your power, and
let me have my own way.’
Mr. Scratchell hesitated, sorely perplexed. To make himself
disagreeable to Beatrix, even in the endeavour to protect her
interests, might be fatal. Women are such self-willed, unreasonable
creatures, he argued within himself. If he thwarted her in this
ridiculous whim, she might resent his conduct all her life. In a year,
as she had reminded him, she would be sole mistress of her fortune.
She might dismiss him from his agency, which would be simple and
unmitigated ruin. He was as dependent upon the Harefield estate for
sustenance as a barnacle on a ship’s bottom. In a word he could not
afford to offend her.
‘You have another trustee to consult,’ he suggested.
‘Mr. Dulcimer? Oh, I know he will consent.’
‘Because he’s a fool.’
‘No, because he’s a generous-minded man, and would like to see Sir
Kenrick’s estate set free.’
‘Humph!’ muttered the lawyer. ‘It’s a foolish business altogether. And
pray where is the money to come from?’
‘Have I not stocks or shares, or something that can be turned into
money immediately?’
‘Yes, you have a nice little fortune in consols and railway debentures.
We might scrape up about thirty thousand that way, perhaps.’
‘Then you can mortgage the Lincolnshire estate for the other twenty
thousand.’
‘Mortgage one estate--your own--to set free your husband’s! Was there
ever anything so preposterous?’
‘I take a warm interest in one estate, and no interest in the other,’
answered Beatrix. ‘What is the good of property if one cannot do what
one likes with it?’
‘My dear Miss Harefield, that is the spendthrift’s argument.’
‘I am no spendthrift, but I want to gratify myself in this one matter.
Now, dear Mr. Scratchell, pray be agreeable. Go up to London this
afternoon--see Sir Kenrick’s bankers--sell out the stocks and shares
and things--raise the twenty thousand on the Lincolnshire land--and get
everything done by this day week.’
‘Impossible, my dear young lady.’
‘Nothing is impossible to a clever family solicitor; you can do the
preliminary act by deposit of my deeds. Remember, Mr. Scratchell, if
you accomplish this thing for me, I shall always consider myself deeply
bound to you. It is a favour I shall never forget.’
‘I don’t think I shall be serving you well in this business.’
‘You will be doing what I wish. I’ll run and put on my bonnet, and
we’ll go at once to Mr. Dulcimer to get his consent. You must catch the
two o’clock train from Great Yafford. My carriage can drive you over.’
Beatrix rang and ordered the carriage to be got ready immediately,
and to follow them on to the Vicarage. Her impetuosity bewildered
Mr. Scratchell. She ran out of the room, and reappeared in a minute
or so in her bonnet and fur jacket. He felt himself revolving in a
whirlpool. To leave his home at half an hour’s notice, and go tearing
off to London! He was rather pleased at the idea of a visit to London
at a client’s expense. Travelling, hotel charges, everything would be
paid for him on the highest level. He had not seen the metropolis for
ten years. It would be an outing such as he had never had in his life
before. He began to hope that Mr. Dulcimer would consent to his ward’s
wild scheme.
They found the Vicar in his beloved library, surrounded with bulky
folios, his feet on the fender, and his mind a thousand miles away,
with the primitive Aryan races. He was tracing the footsteps of a
nomadic Indian tribe from fertile valleys eastward of the Caspian,
through Persia and Asia Minor, to the shores of the Hellespont, where
they were to crop up by and by as the Heraclidæ.
‘My dear Beatrix,’ he said, ‘the more I ruminate upon the subject, the
more I am convinced that the Mosaic account is true, and that all the
races of men have come from one common centre--in the East.’
‘Then how do you account for the woolly-headed niggers, and the
Laplanders, and the people with pink eyes?’ inquired Mr. Scratchell.
‘Climate, my dear sir, climate. A question of atmospheric influences.’
‘Dear Mr. Dulcimer, I have come to ask you a favour,’ said Beatrix.
‘It is granted beforehand, dear child,’ said the Vicar, kissing her
hand.
The Aryan races had been particularly amenable to Mr. Dulcimer
that morning, and the Vicar, always good-tempered, was absolutely
overflowing with benevolence.
‘Oh, but this is a very serious matter,’ interposed Mr. Scratchell,
anxious to do his duty. ‘You’ll have to give it your grave
consideration.’
‘I’m all attention,’ replied Mr. Dulcimer, with one eye on the
Heraclidæ.
Beatrix explained her desire to set Sir Kenrick’s estate free.
‘Well, my love, you have always intended to pay off those charges after
your marriage, have you not?’ asked the Vicar, with a business-like air.
‘Certainly.’
‘Then I cannot see that it makes any difference whether you pay them
off before or after. Scratchell can protect your future interests in
framing your marriage settlements. Be sure you see to that, Scratchell.
It is somewhat Quixotic, my dear Beatrix, to take time by the forelock
in this way, but it can do no harm, and it will afford Kenrick another
evidence of your generous character.’
Mr. Scratchell did not feel himself called upon to explain to the Vicar
all those objections which he had already expounded to Beatrix. If
these people liked to make fools of themselves, it was not for him to
hinder them. His own interest clearly lay in pleasing Miss Harefield.
To do otherwise would be to take the bread out of the mouths of his
innocent offspring. And then there was the tempting idea of a holiday
in London, and the prospect of a longish bill of costs at the end of
all. Decidedly it would be sheer madness stubbornly to oppose this
romantic young lady’s caprice.
Miss Harefield’s carriage was waiting at the Vicarage gate.
‘It’s a quarter past twelve,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘You
have just an hour and three quarters to pack your carpet bag and drive
to the station. Pray don’t miss the two o’clock train. You know where
to find Sir Kenrick’s lawyers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Remember, Sir Kenrick is to know nothing about what we are doing. You
are to make that a condition with his bankers. He is to know nothing
till I choose to tell him. It will not be later than our wedding-day.’
‘But the settlement?’
‘I will have no settlements,’ said Beatrix, impatiently.
‘My dear Miss Harefield, you must be mad.’
‘At any rate I will have no settlement that can interfere with my
payment of those incumbrances. That is a free gift to Sir Kenrick, as
much as if I were to give you a hundred-pound note. I never want to
hear about it, or to think about it. I look upon the fifty thousand
pounds as gone--sunk at the bottom of a well.’
‘You are a most extraordinary young lady.’
‘If you waste your time in wondering at me, you will lose the London
train.’
Mr. Scratchell got into the carriage obediently, and was driven to
his own house, where his apparition in a landau drawn by a pair of
spirited horses caused wonder and consternation in all the household.
That wonder increased when Mr. Scratchell informed his family that he
was going to London on particular business for Miss Harefield, that he
wanted a carpet bag packed with three or four shirts--his best--meaning
those that were not too conspicuously frayed at the edges of the pleats
and collars--and that his wife and children were to look sharp, and
were not to bother him with questions.
Poor Mrs. Scratchell ran off in a flutter to explore her husband’s
wardrobe, in which everything was more or less the worse for wear,
except the new suit he had bought for his daughter’s wedding. The
girls and boys meanwhile surrounded their father, like the merchant’s
daughters in the story of Beauty and the Beast, each anxious that he
should bring something from London.
‘Bring me a new dress, papa. If you are going on Miss Harefield’s
business you will get lots of money,’ pleaded Clementina.
‘Do bring me a winter bonnet, papa, black velvet lined with pink,’
asked Flora.
‘You might get us a cricket bat, father,’ said Adolphus, a boy who
always spoke of himself in the plural, as if to give prominence to his
insignificance.
‘Go and cut me some sandwiches, girls, and mix me a little weak gin and
water in a bottle,’ said Mr. Scratchell. ‘It will be night before I get
to London.’
‘And then you will go to an hotel, I suppose? Won’t you be grand!’
cried Clementina, who fancied that the people who stayed at hotels were
a splendid and luxurious race apart from the mass of mankind.
‘I shall stay at Sam’s Coffee-house in the Strand,’ said Mr.
Scratchell, with a conscientious air. ‘I am not going to waste Miss
Harefield’s money on fine hotels.’
A quarter of an hour later and Mr. Scratchell had torn himself from the
bosom of his family, and was being driven at a brisk trot towards Great
Yafford.