DURING THE WINTER.
The winter slipped swiftly away, without making many important changes
in the positions of the people in our story.
Important events were in course of consummation, but no special
incident cropped up to mark the gradual development of the various
circumstances calling for anything more than simple narration.
Earl Verner had taken several opportunities to renew his acquaintance
with Amy, and we must do his lordship the justice to say that her
sudden and unexpected advancement in fortune had little or no influence
upon his course of wooing, for he was hit at that first interview, hit
irredeemably. There was something in Amy besides her good looks which
had fairly fascinated the earl. The idea of a thoroughly companionable
and intellectual woman had never presented itself to him before.
Hitherto women had represented to him trouble, bother, putting yourself
out of the way, and everything that was not being easy and lazy and
lolling about, and grubbing amongst old books, and fadding with ancient
china, and being constantly delighted with pictures. Woman engrossed
all this in herself. She wanted to be old china and books and pictures
and antiquities and everything all in one; and this notion did not suit
Earl Verner; but in Amy he felt that there would not be this autocracy.
She was evidently as much interested in these things as he was himself,
and, considering how much his condescension in marrying her would
elevate her in the social scale, he would have an influence over her
that he could not hope to have over a woman in his own walk of life.
The more he saw of Amy Tallant the more enraptured he became, and
well he might, for Amy spared no pains to make herself charming and
agreeable in his eyes; indeed, Amy had vowed to herself that she would
marry him. She would show Lionel Hammerton what a mistake he had made
when he sported with the deep feelings of a girl like her.
* * * * *
And so in due course his lordship proposed for Amy’s hand, and was
accepted.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Phœbe Somerton had insisted upon staying at the Hall Farm.
Her obstinacy upon this point had appeared at first to give Amy a good
deal of pain; but Phœbe explained that she had marked out a line of
conduct for herself as the line of duty under the circumstances, and,
whatever she might do in the future, at present she would certainly
live with her father and mother. Amy soon saw that there was no pique
in this, that it meant no ill feeling towards herself, and the two
girls understood each other well. Amy was too much engrossed in her
own scheme to let anything else trouble her.
She had written to Paul Somerton a warm, affectionate letter, in which
she had charged herself with his advancement in life; she had asked him
to select his career, and insisted upon bearing all the cost of his
studies and promotion. Paul had consulted his friend Mr. Williamson,
and had discussed the question with him in a hundred different ways.
He had for some time almost resolved upon declining this proffered
aid, but he knew that this would be hurtful in the extreme to Amy’s
feelings, and Mr. Williamson argued the case so well, from a sisterly
point of view, in favour of its acceptance that Paul becomingly thanked
his sometime sister, and left the point open for further consideration.
Finally, Amy requested him to come to the Hall, and there she
introduced him to Earl Verner, and told his lordship the brief story
of the lad’s life; and the end was, with the consent of Mrs. Somerton
and Luke, that a commission in the army was purchased for Paul, and he
commenced his military career as an ensign in the gallant Ninety-fifth,
with fair prospects of rapid promotion.
Mr. Williamson received a magnificent memento of his kindness to Paul
in the shape of a watch exquisitely set with jewels, and a courteous
intimation that if Miss Tallant could at any time render Mr. Williamson
any service she would esteem it a delightful privilege to show her high
appreciation of his conduct.
The barrister treasured her sweet-scented little note quite as much as
he did the valuable jewelled watch, and he sighed and rubbed his hands
over the smouldering fire at his rooms when he heard of her forthcoming
marriage.
“She is such a splendid woman,” he would say. “I had almost persuaded
myself that I was in love with her that first and only time when I saw
her in town; and now that she is going to be married, by Jove, I begin
to think I really am in love with her.”
But the truth is, Mr. Williamson had been hit in early life. There
was a mysterious, vague sort of story, which a few of his old friends
sometimes told each other, concerning a romantic love affair,--a
wedding, a separation and death, under very sad circumstances. Whatever
the story was, nobody ever alluded to it in presence of Williamson; but
they knew who knew him that there was no likelihood of his falling in
love again, or any nonsense of that sort, as others would put it. And
the barrister had only sighed at the mention of Amy’s marriage because
a thought of his own love-dream and its terrible termination occurred
to him at the moment.
* * * * *
Phœbe Somerton and Arthur Phillips were constantly together at the
Hall Farm, and before the winter ended Arthur had summoned sufficient
courage to discharge his heart’s load of love by a full and ample
confession; and Phœbe had looked into his great dark eyes, and
responded to his vows with all the frankness and innocent truth of
Miranda herself.
Thus Arthur was in the sunny path of his existence at last, and he
seemed to become a new being under the influence of his happiness.
Luke Somerton and his wife were calm spectators of all these changes,
and meanwhile they had their own little schemes for the future. There
was a certain farm in the Lincolnshire fens which Mrs. Somerton had
known as a girl, and which, from inquiries that Luke had made, was
likely to be “To Let.” There were no more fertile pastures than those
which surrounded it in all the fen country, not a pleasanter house and
garden, no better shooting than was to be had close by, and with the
advantage of being near an important town, and not far from a railway
station.
Luke and his wife had calculated the prospects of settling down in
their own native county, and the bailiff was full of plans and schemes,
which were an everlasting source of pleasant, hopeful talk.
* * * * *
All this time Richard Tallant was up to his neck in the great game of
financial speculation, and rumour had over and over again predicted
his downfall. The Eastern Bank, notwithstanding his father’s noble
contribution towards its shaken capital, had failed. The Indian
branches had suffered serious losses, and the retirement of Mr. Tallant
from the directory had led to other resignations, and Stock Exchange
rumours had eventually shaken the confidence of depositors and others,
and the Bank went to the wall. The Meter Iron Works continued to
flourish, but with diminished dividends and gradually falling stock.
Mr. Tallant had been mixed up with some of the greatest failures of the
day, and people said that by-and-by, when he really came to understand
his own position, he would find himself insolvent; but people said this
about dozens of others whose possessions had not even been shaken in
the panic, and who could show a _bonâ fide_ income of many thousands a
year from real property.
What did Richard Tallant care for all this? Nothing, so far as the
world could judge; but it made him irritable and ill-tempered in his
own house. His valet could have told you a good deal about this, and so
could the servants; but to the outside world, whatever else he might
be, he was a straightforward, independent, good-tempered fellow. There
were those who said this was all “put on,” and that he was a designing
sneak; but his high-stepping horses and his splendid dinners soon
silenced these doubtful ones, whom the great man entertained for that
purpose only, cursing them in his heart whilst he smiled upon them and
called them friends.
Mr. and Mrs. Dibble had returned together to London, to their little
lodging-house at Pimlico, but by no means to live a happy life; for
Dibble had been persuaded to lend the showman fifty pounds the morning
after that introduction at Severntown, and the money had been lost
irretrievably; for within a fortnight afterwards Digby Martin had
presented himself at their house a ruined, ragged, dissipated fellow.
His daughter had eloped with some vagabond, and left him; business
had waned from that moment until it dwindled away almost to nothing.
The skeleton had declined to enter into the proposed contract, and
his “traps” had been sold to pay the rent of the ground at the “Blue
Posts.” He had walked all the way to London, friendless and a beggar,
his only means of subsistence being in the money earned by Momus. The
dawg, he said, had behaved like a Christian to him, and he was sure his
friend Dibble would do no less, considering how Dibble had been treated
in the palmy days of the Temple.
This was all very well, and Mrs. Dibble would perhaps not have
complained had the showman taken his departure after the first visit,
and not presented himself for renewed charity; but he came again and
again, and Mrs. Dibble and her husband had serious disagreements
about it. The lodgers were scandalised at the visits of this low
person and his dawg, and one of them had given up his rooms at a day’s
notice because he had seen this friend of Dibble’s going through a
performance with his dog, and begging coppers, in a back street.
Dibble had appealed to the showman to leave the neighbourhood, and had
bribed him too. But Digby Martin, _alias_ Digger, _alias_ Smith, knew
a trick worth two of that. He only spent the bribe in drink, and came
back to Still Street and abused Mrs. Dibble for being proud and stuck
up.
To think that she should come to this, with her boarding-school
education and her semi-architectural contracting father; it was a blow
which Mrs. Dibble could not possibly have dreamed of, and she upbraided
herself for her weakness in following Dibble and releasing him from his
degraded position.
“He never asked you, marm,” said the showman, with a drunken leer. “It
wash not our wish you should come and sheek ush out--you old catamaran!”
“Catamaran!” exclaimed Mrs. Dibble, dashing the tears from her eyes.
“Catamaran!--Dibble, if you don’t punch that breuth head I will--so
there!”
“Then I must do it, I suppose,” said Dibble. “Now, look’e ’ere,
friend,” said Dibble; “I baint goin’ to stand any more o’ this; so
clear out.”
“Dy’e hear that, Momush?” said the showman; “we’re to clear out,” and
thereupon the drunken magician prepared for the coming engagement.
There was the shank-end of a leg of mutton on the table. Dibble,
nodding to his wife to make her comprehend his plan, took up the
bone and held it to the “dawg’s” nose. Momus immediately stood upon
her hind-legs and followed Dibble to the back kitchen, where she was
speedily locked in with her supper.
The showman, hardly comprehending this scheme for removing the
protector, by whose side he was so valiant, darted towards the door
before Dibble had time to turn round; but not before Mrs. Dibble had
time to insert her arm between the drunkard and Dibble, the result of
which was that the magician rolled over, and Dibble was saved the pain
and trouble of knocking his old friend down himself.
It was an easy matter to put the showman into the street after this,
and when a policeman came up Momus was let out, to walk on her
hind-legs, by the side of the man in blue.
A facetious reporter at the police court the next day made a funny
paragraph out of the showman’s appearance, the magistrate having
requested the “dawg” to be brought into court. Momus made a bow to the
bench, and stood upon her hind-legs; which put the magistrate in such a
good humour, that he let off the showman with a caution.
The incident was anything but a funny one to the Dibbles, for they lost
their lodgers, and Mrs. Dibble lost her respectability and her control
of the street; so she gave vent to her feelings by upbraiding Thomas,
and the end was that they were exceedingly miserable, and Mrs. Dibble
talked of a “judicious separation,” which was a thing that her “wortht
dreamth had never brought to her mind; and oh! if her poor father could
only rithe and thee her!” Poor Dibble, he could think of nothing but
getting into the Thames, or thrusting his head into the water-butt. He
thought better of this by-and-by, however; but not until he had looked
at the Thames by gas-light and dipped his head a little way into the
water-butt. If the water had not been so cold, we believe Dibble would
have put his head deeper into it; but, oh, it was so very cold!
Meanwhile Mr. Jefferson Crawley, _alias_ Shuffleton Gibbs, and the
showman’s daughter, were spending their honeymoon, and the ex-swell was
educating the young lady, and introducing her into a new world.