TIDINGS OF HOME.
It was late when Mr. Lowther came home from his friend the magistrate’s.
The faint flush that lighted up his face, and the unwonted lustre of his
eyes, bore testimony to the merits of Mr. Corbett’s tawny port. All
Sandemann’s choicest vintages would not have tempted Harcourt Lowther to
sit listening to a prosy old magistrate’s civil-service experiences, in
Europe; but on this side of the world a bottle of good wine and a
tolerably civilised companion were not entirely to be despised. The
ensign was in a very good temper when he came into the little parlour,
where a swinging lamp burned brightly, and where a tobacco-jar, a
meerschaum, a case-bottle of Schiedam, a tumbler, and a jug of water,
were set upon the table ready for the master of the domain. Mr. Lowther
was in excellent temper, and inclined to be especially civil to his
valet.
“No Schiedam to-night, Tredethlyn,” he said, throwing himself into the
wicker easy-chair, and stretching his feet upon a smaller chair that
stood opposite to him; “I’ve had a little too much of that old fellow’s
port. Devilish good stuff it is too, if it hadn’t a tendency to spoil a
man’s complexion, and concentrate itself in his nose. I’ll take a pipe,
though. Just give me a light, will you, Tredethlyn?”
He sat in a lazy attitude, with his head thrown back against the rail of
the chair, and daintily arranged the stray shreds of tobacco in the bowl
of his pipe with the delicate tip of his little finger; while the
private lighted a long strip of folded paper and handed it to his
master.
“Oh, by the bye,” muttered Mr. Lowther, speaking with his mouth shut
upon the amber mouthpiece of his pipe, “I’ve got some news for you,
Tredethlyn. Just put your hand in my coat-pocket, and take out the paper
you’ll find there. Goodness knows what it means,--a legacy of fifty
pounds or so, I suppose. Anyhow, you’re a lucky devil. I should be glad
enough to get even such a windfall as that; but I never hear of anything
to my advantage.”
Francis Tredethlyn had taken the paper from his master’s pocket by this
time; it was an old copy of the “Times;” and he presented it to the
ensign, but the other pushed it away impatiently.
“_I_ don’t want it,” he said; “I think I read every line of it while old
Corbett was snoring after dinner. Look at the third advertisement in the
second column of the Supplement.”
The soldier did as he was directed, and read the advertisement aloud
very slowly and in a tone of unmitigated wonder.
“Francis Tredethlyn, nephew of the late Oliver Tredethlyn, of Tredethlyn
Grange, near Landresdale, Cornwall. If the above-mentioned will apply to
Messrs. Krusdale and Scardon, solicitors, 29, Verulam Buildings, Gray’s
Inn, he will hear of something to his advantage.”
“The late Oliver Tredethlyn!” cried Francis, staring blankly at the
paper; “my uncle’s dead, then!”
“Was he alive when you left England?” asked the ensign.
“He was alive when I left Cornwall. Dead! my uncle Oliver?” the young
man said, in a dreamy voice; “and I pictured him to-night in my fancy,
plodding home from the outlying lands, as hale and stern and sturdy as
ever. Dead! and he may have been dead ever so long, for all this tells
me,” added Francis Tredethlyn, pointing to the advertisement.
“You were uncommonly fond of your uncle, I suppose, from the way you
talk of him,” Mr. Lowther remarked, carelessly. He was in good humour
to-night, and ready to talk about anything,--inclined to take almost an
interest in the affairs of another man, and that man his valet!
“Fond of him!” exclaimed Francis Tredethlyn, “fond of my uncle Oliver! I
don’t think the creature ever lived that was fond of him, or whose love
he’d have cared to have. He liked folks to obey him, and cut things as
close as he wanted ’em cut; but beyond that, he didn’t care what they
thought or what they did. I suppose he did love his daughter though,
after a fashion, but it was a very hard fashion. No, sir, I wasn’t
particularly fond of my uncle Oliver Tredethlyn, but I’m struck all of a
heap by the news of his death coming upon me so sudden; and I’m thinking
of the effect that it will have on my cousin Susy,--she’s all alone in
the world now,--poor little Susy!”
The ensign looked up quickly. “Susy!” he said, “who the deuce is your
cousin Susy?”
“She’s my uncle Oliver’s only daughter, sir; his only child, too, for
the matter of that. We were engaged to be married, sir; but things went
wrong with me at home, and I ran away and enlisted.”
“Ah! How long ago did all that happen?”
“Nearly five years, sir.”
“And you’ve kept up some sort of a correspondence with your cousin since
then, I suppose?”
“Not I, sir; her father wasn’t the man to let her write a letter that
would cost a lump of money for postage, or to write any letter to such a
scamp as me, either; and poor Susy was too close watched, and too
obedient into the bargain, to write without his leave. _I’ve_ written to
her now and then, but I’ve had no news from home since the day I left
it, except this that you’ve brought me to-night.”
“And I suppose your uncle has left you a legacy?”
“I suppose so, sir; it isn’t likely to be much anyhow, for I never was
any great favourite of his.”
“You’d better write to these lawyers, though. There’s a mail to-morrow;
bring out your desk, and write at once.”
“Here, sir?”
“Yes, here.”
Francis Tredethlyn hesitated for a moment, but seeing that his master
was resolute, he brought a clumsy old-fashioned mahogany desk from his
chamber at the back of the cottage, and seated himself at a corner of
the table with the desk before him. He had placed himself at a very
respectful distance from Mr. Harcourt Lowther; but that gentleman,
having finished his pipe, got up, and began to walk slowly up and down
the room, while his valet squared his elbows and commenced a laborious
inscription of his address at the top of the page.
“Tell them that you are Francis Tredethlyn, nephew of Oliver Tredethlyn,
and that you can bring forward plenty of witnesses to prove your
identity, and so on, as soon as you can get back to England. I don’t
suppose they’ll let you have your legacy till they see you. Ask them to
tell you what the amount is, at any rate.”
Mr. Lowther did not confine himself to giving his valet these hints upon
the composition of his letter; he was good enough to stand behind the
young man’s chair, and look over his shoulder as he wrote; but as
Francis Tredethlyn’s penmanship was not of a very rapid order, the
ensign’s eyes soon wandered from the page, and straying to an open
division of the desk, lighted on something that looked like a
water-coloured sketch, covered with silver paper.
“Why, you sly dog,” he cried with a laugh, “you’ve got a woman’s picture
in your desk!”
Francis Tredethlyn blushed and looked very sheepish as he took the
little water-coloured sketch out of its silver-paper envelope and handed
it submissively to his master.
“It’s my cousin Susan’s portrait, sir,” he said; “it was taken by a
travelling artist, who came down our way one summer. It isn’t much of a
likeness, but it pleases me to look at it sometimes, for I can fill up
all that’s wanting in the face out of my own mind, and see my cousin
smiling at me, as if I was at home again.”
Mr. Lowther stood behind his servant’s chair looking at the portrait,
while the soldier went on writing. It was not the work of a very
brilliant artist; there was none of those deliciously careless touches,
none of that transparent lightness, which a clever painter’s
manipulation would have displayed. It was a stiff, laborious little
portrait of a girl with hazel brown eyes and smooth banded brown hair,
and an innocent childish mouth, rosy and fresh and smiling as a summer’s
morning in the country. It was only the picture of a country girl, who
seemed to have looked shyly at the artist as he painted her.
“So that’s your cousin Susy,” said Mr. Lowther, laying the picture down
upon the table by Tredethlyn’s elbow. “I shan’t stop while you address
your letter, and I don’t want any thing more, so you can go to bed at
once if you like. Good night.”
The ensign took a candle from a little side-table as he spoke, lighted
it at the lamp above Tredethlyn’s head, and went out of the room.
Francis finished his letter, and placed it on the mantelpiece, where
some letters of his master’s were lying ready for the next day’s mail.
He did not go to bed at once, though it was late, and he was free to do
so, but sat for some time with his cousin Susan Tredethlyn’s portrait in
his hand, looking at the girlish face, and thinking of the changes that
had come to pass in his old home.
“The old chap was hard and stern with her, and her life was a dull one,
poor little girl,” thought the soldier; “and she’ll have a fine fortune,
I suppose, now he’s gone; but somehow I don’t like to think of her left
lonely in the world; she’s too young and too pretty, and too innocent
for that. Innocent! why, bless her poor tender little heart, I don’t
think she knows there’s such a thing as wickedness upon this earth.”
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