MR. VERNER'S ESTRANGEMENT.
The former chapters may be looked upon somewhat in the light of an
introduction to what is to follow. It was necessary to relate the events
recorded in them, but we must take a leap of not far short of two years
from the date of their occurrence.
John Massingbird and his attendant, Luke Roy, had arrived safely at
Melbourne in due course. Luke had written home one letter to his mother,
and there his correspondence ended; but John Massingbird wrote
frequently, both to Mrs. Verner and to his brother Frederick. John,
according to his own account, appeared to be getting on all one way. The
money he took out had served him well. He had made good use of it, and
was accumulating a fortune rapidly. Such was his statement; but whether
implicit reliance might be placed upon it was a question. Gay John was
apt to deceive himself; was given to look on the bright side, and to
imbue things with a tinge of _couleur de rose_; when, for less sanguine
eyes, the tinge would have shone out decidedly yellow. The time went on,
and his last account told of a "glorious nugget" he had picked up at the
diggings. "Almost as big as his head," a "fortune in itself," ran some
of the phrases in his letters; and his intention was to go down himself
to Melbourne and "realise the thousands" for it. His letter to Frederick
was especially full of this; and he strongly recommended his brother to
come out and pick up nuggets on his own score. Frederick Massingbird
appeared very much inclined to take the hint.
"Were I only sure it was all gospel, I'd go to-morrow," observed
Frederick Massingbird to Lionel Verner, one day that the discussion of
the contents of John's letter had been renewed, a month or two
subsequent to its arrival. "A year's luck, such as this, and a man might
come home a millionaire. I wish I knew whether to put entire faith in
it."
"Why should John deceive you?" asked Lionel.
"He'd not deceive me wilfully. He has no cause to deceive _me_. The
question is, is he deceived himself? Remember what grand schemes he
would now and then become wild upon here, saying and thinking he had
found the philosopher's stone. And how would they turn out? This may be
one of the same calibre. I wonder we did not hear again by the last
month's mail."
"There's a mail due now."
"I know there is," said Frederick. "Should it bring news to confirm
this, I shall go out to him."
"The worst is, those diggings appear to be all a lottery," remarked
Lionel. "Where one gets his pockets lined, another starves. Nay,
ten--fifty--more, for all we know, starve for the one lucky one. I
should not, myself, feel inclined to risk the journey to them."
"_You!_ It's not likely you would," was the reply of Frederick
Massingbird. "Everybody was not born heir to Verner's Pride."
Lionel laughed pleasantly. They were pacing the terrace in the sunshine
of a winter's afternoon, a crisp, cold, bright day in January. At that
moment Tynn came out of the house and approached them.
"My master is up, sir, and would like the paper read to him," said he,
addressing Frederick Massingbird.
"Oh, bother, I can't stop now," broke from that gentleman involuntarily.
"Tynn, you need not say that you found me here. I have an appointment,
and I must hasten to keep it."
Lionel Verner looked at his watch.
"I can spare half an hour," he observed to himself; and he proceeded to
Mr. Verner's room.
The old study that you have seen before. And there sat Mr. Verner in the
same arm-chair, cushioned and padded more than it had used to be. What a
change there was in him! Shrunken, wasted, drawn: surely there would be
no place very long in this world for Mr. Verner.
He was leaning forward in his chair, his back bowed, his hands resting
on his stick, which was stretched out before him. He lifted his head
when Lionel entered, and an expression, partly of displeasure, partly of
pain, passed over his countenance.
"Where's Frederick?"
"Frederick has an appointment out, sir. I will read to you."
"I thought you were going down to your mother's," rejoined Mr. Verner,
his accent not softening in the least.
"I need not go for this half hour yet," replied Lionel, taking up the
_Times_, which lay on a table near Mr. Verner. "Have you looked at the
headings of the news, sir; or shall I go over them for you, and then you
can tell me what you wish read?"
"I don't want anything read by you," said Mr. Verner. "Put the paper
down."
Lionel did not immediately obey. A shade of mortification had crossed
his face.
"Do you hear me, Lionel? Put the paper down. You know how it fidgets me
to hear those papers ruffled, when I am not in a mood for reading."
Lionel rose, and stood before Mr. Verner. "Uncle, I _wish_ you would let
me do something for you. Better send me out of the house altogether,
than treat me with this estrangement. Will it be of any use my asking
you, for the hundredth time, what I did to displease you?"
"I tell you I don't want the paper read," said Mr. Verner. "And if you'd
leave me alone I should be glad. Perhaps I shall get a wink of sleep.
All night, all night, and my eyes were never closed! It's time I was
gone."
The concluding sentences were spoken as in soliloquy; not to Lionel.
Lionel, who knew his uncle's every mood, quitted the room. As he closed
the door, a heavy groan, born of displeasure mingled with pain, as the
greeting look had been, was sent after him by Mr. Verner. Very
emphatically did it express his state of feeling with regard to Lionel;
and Lionel felt it keenly.
Lionel Verner had remained in Paris six months, when summoned thither by
the accident to his brother. The accident need not have detained him
half that period of time; but the seductions of the gay French capital
had charms for Lionel. From the very hour that he set foot in Verner's
Pride on his return, he found that Mr. Verner's behaviour had altered to
him. He showed bitter, angry estrangement, and Lionel could only
conceive one cause for it--his long sojourn abroad. Fifteen or sixteen
months had now elapsed since his return, and the estrangement had not
lessened. In vain Lionel sought an explanation. Mr. Verner would not
enter upon it. In fact, so far as direct words went, Mr. Verner had not
expressed much of his displeasure; he left it to his manner. That said
enough. He had never dropped the slightest allusion as to its cause.
When Lionel asked an explanation, he neither accorded nor denied it, but
would put him off evasively; as he might have put off a child who asked
a troublesome question. You have now seen him do so once again.
After the rebuff, Lionel was crossing the hall when he suddenly halted,
as if a thought struck him, and he turned back to the study. If ever a
man's attitude bespoke utter grief and prostration, Mr. Verner's did, as
Lionel opened the door. His head and hands had fallen, and his stick had
dropped upon the carpet. He started out of his reverie at the appearance
of Lionel, and made an effort to recover his stick. Lionel hastened to
pick it up for him.
"I have been thinking, sir, that it might be well for Decima to go in
the carriage to the station, to receive Miss Tempest. Shall I order it?"
"Order anything you like; order all Verner's Pride--what does it matter?
Better for some of us, perhaps, that it had never existed."
Hastily, abruptly, carelessly was the answer given. There was no
mistaking that Mr. Verner was nearly beside himself with mental pain.
Lionel went round to the stables, to give the order he had suggested.
One great feature in the character of Lionel Verner was its complete
absence of assumption. Courteously refined in mind and feelings, he
could not have presumed. Others, in his position, might have deemed they
were but exercising a right. Though the presumptive heir to Verner's
Pride, living in it, brought up as such, he would not, you see, even
send out its master's unused carriage, without that master's sanction.
In little things as in great, Lionel Verner could but be a thorough
gentleman: to be otherwise he must have changed his nature.
"Wigham, will you take the close carriage to Deerham Court. It is wanted
for Miss Verner."
"Very well, sir." But Wigham, who had been coachman in the family nearly
as many years as Lionel had been in the world, wondered much, for all
his prompt reply. He scarcely ever remembered a Verner's Pride carriage
to have been ordered for Miss Verner.
Lionel passed into the high road from Verner's Pride, and, turning to
the left, commenced his walk to Deerham. There were no roadside houses
for a little way, but they soon began, by ones, by twos, until at last
they grew into a consecutive street. These houses were mostly very poor;
small shops, beer-houses, labourers' cottages; but a turning to the
right in the midst of the village led to a part where the houses were of
a superior character, several gentlemen living there. It was a new road,
called Belvedere Road; the first house in it being inhabited by Dr.
West.
Lionel cast a glance across at that house as he passed down the long
street. At least, as much as he could see of it, looking obliquely. His
glance was not rewarded. Very frequently pretty Sibylla would be at the
windows, or her vain sister Amilly. Though, if vanity is to be brought
in, I don't know where it would be found in an equal degree, as it was
in Sibylla West. The windows appeared to be untenanted, and Lionel
withdrew his eyes and passed straightly on his way. On his left hand was
situated the shop of Mrs. Duff; its prints, its silk neckerchiefs, and
its ribbons displayed in three parts of its bow-window. The fourth part
was devoted to more ignominious articles, huddled indiscriminately into
a corner. Children's Dutch dolls and black-lead, penny tale-books and
square pink packets of cocoa, bottles of ink and india-rubber balls,
side combs and papers of stationery, scented soap and Circassian cream
(home made), tape, needles, pins, starch, bandoline, lavender-water,
baking-powder, iron skewers, and a host of other articles too numerous
to notice. Nothing came amiss to Mrs. Duff. She patronised everything
she thought she could turn a penny by.
"Your servant, sir," said she, dropping a curtsy as Lionel came up; for
Mrs. Duff was standing at the door.
He merely nodded to her, and went on. Whether it was the sight of the
woman or of some lavender prints hanging in her window, certain it was,
that the image of poor Rachel Frost came vividly into the mind of
Lionel. Nothing had been heard, nothing found, to clear up the mystery
of that past night.