APPREHENSIONS
Sir John Hamblyn was walking up and down in front of his house, fuming,
as usual, and with a look upon his face that betokened acute anxiety.
Why he should be so anxious he hardly knew. There seemed to be no
special reason for it. Everything appeared to be moving along
satisfactorily, and unless the absolutely unexpected happened, there was
no occasion for a moment's worry.
But it was just the off-chance of something happening that irritated
him. The old saying, "There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip," kept
flitting across his brain with annoying frequency. If he could only get
another month over without accident of any kind he would have peace; at
least, so he believed.
Lord Probus was not the man to go back on his word, and Lord
Probus had promised to stand by him, provided he became his--Sir
John's--son-in-law.
It seemed a little ridiculous, for Lord Probus was the older man of the
two, and to call a man his son-in-law who was older than himself was not
quite in harmony with the usual order of things. But then, what did it
matter? There were exceptions to every rule, and such exceptions were of
constant occurrence.
When once the marriage knot was tied, a host of worries that had
harassed him of late would come to an end. He had been foolish, no
doubt. He ought to have lived within his income, and kept out of the way
of the sharks of the Turf and the Stock Exchange. He had a handsome
rent-roll, quite sufficient for his legitimate wants; and if things
improved, he might be able to raise rents all round. Besides, if he had
luck, some of the leases might fall in, which would further increase his
income. But the off-chance of these things was too remote to meet his
present needs. He wanted immediate help, and Lord Probus was his only
hope.
Fortunately for him, Dorothy was not old enough to see the tragedy of
such an alliance. She saw only the social side--the gilt and glitter and
tinsel. The appeal had been made to her vanity and to her love of pretty
and costly things. To be the mistress of Rostrevor Castle, to bear a
title, to have a London house, to have any number of horses and
carriages, to go to State functions, to be a society dame before she was
twenty--all these things appealed to her girlish pride and vanity, and
she accepted the offer of Lord Probus with alacrity, and with scarcely a
moment's serious thought.
No time was lost in hurrying forward arrangements for the wedding. The
sooner the contract was made secure the better. Any unnecessary delay
might give her an excuse for changing her mind. Sir John felt that he
would not breathe freely again until the wedding had taken place.
Now and then, when he looked at his bright-eyed, happy, imperious girl,
his heart smote him. She had turned eighteen, but she was wonderfully
girlish for her years, not only in appearance but in manner, and in her
outlook upon life. She knew nothing as yet of the ways of the world,
nothing of its treachery and selfishness. She had only just escaped from
the seclusion of school and the drudgery of the classroom. She felt free
as a bird, and the outlook was just delightful. She was going to have
everything that heart could desire, and nothing would be too expensive
for her to buy.
She was almost as eager for the wedding to take place as was her father;
for directly the wedding was over she was going out to see the
world--France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Egypt. They were going to
travel everywhere, and travel in such luxury as even Royalty might envy.
Lord Probus had already given her a foretaste of what he would do for
her by presenting her with a beautiful mare. Jess was the earnest of
better things to come.
If Dorothy became imperious and slightly dictatorial, it was not to be
wondered at. Nothing was left undone or unsaid that would appeal to her
vanity. She was allowed her own way in everything.
Sir John was desperately afraid that the illusions might fade before the
wedding day arrived. Financially he was in the tightest corner he had
ever known, and unless he could tap some of Lord Probus's boundless
wealth, he saw before him long years of mean economies and humiliating
struggles with poverty. He saw worse--he saw the sale of his personal
effects to meet the demands of his creditors, he saw the lopping off of
all the luxuries that were as the breath of life to him.
Hence, though deep down in his heart he loathed the thought of his
little girl marrying a man almost old enough to be her grandfather, he
was sufficiently cornered in other ways to be intensely anxious that the
wedding should take place. Lord Probus was the head of a large brewery
and distilling concern. His immense and yearly increasing revenues came
mainly from beer. How rich he was nobody knew. He hardly knew himself.
He had as good as promised Sir John that if the wedding came off he
would hand over to him sufficient scrip in the great company of which he
was head to qualify him--Sir John--for a directorship. The scrip could
be paid for at Sir John's convenience. The directorship should be
arranged without undue delay. The work of a director was not exacting,
while the pay was exceedingly generous.
Sir John had already begun to draw the salary in imagination, and to
live up to it. Hence, if anything happened now to prevent the wedding,
it would be like knocking the bottom out of the universe.
In the chances of human life, it did not seem at all likely that
anything would happen to prevent what he so much desired. It seemed
foolish to worry himself for a single moment. And yet he did worry.
There was always that off-chance. Nobody could ward off accidents or
disease.
Dorothy had gone out riding alone. She refused to have a groom with her,
and, of course, she had to have her own way; but he was always more or
less fidgety when she was out on these expeditions.
And yet it was not the fear of accidents that really troubled him. What
he feared most was that she might become disillusioned. As yet she had
not awakened to the meaning and reality of life. She was like a child
asleep, wandering through a fairyland of dreams and illusions. But she
might awake at any moment--awake to the passion of love, awake to the
romance as well as the reality of life.
The appeal as yet had been to her vanity--to her sense of
self-importance. There had been no appeal to her heart or affections.
She did not know what love was, and if she married Lord Probus it would
be well for her if she never knew. But love might awake when least
expected; her heart might be stirred unconsciously. Some Romeo might
cross her path, and with one glance of his eyes might change all her
life and all her world; and a woman in love was more intractable than a
comet.
Sir John would not like to be brought into such a position that he would
have to coerce his child. Spendthrift that he was, and worse, with a
deep vein of selfishness that made him intensely unpopular with all his
tenants, he nevertheless loved Dorothy with a very genuine affection.
Geoffrey, his son and heir, had never appealed very strongly to his
heart. Geoffrey was too much like himself, too indolent and selfish. But
Dorothy was like her mother, whose passing was as the snapping of a
rudder chain in a storm.
The gritting of wheels on the gravel caused Sir John to turn suddenly on
his heel, and descending the steps at the end of the terrace, he walked
a little distance to meet the approaching carriage.
Lord Probus was not expected, but he was not the less welcome on that
account.
"The day is so lovely that I thought I would drive across to have a peep
at you all," Lord Probus said, stepping nimbly out of the landau.
He was a dapper man, rather below the medium height, with a bald head
and iron-grey, military moustache. He was sixty years of age, but looked
ten years younger.
"I am delighted to see you," Sir John said, with effusion, "and I am
sure Dorothy will be when she returns."
"She is out, is she?"
"She is off riding as usual. Since you presented her with Jess, she has
spent most of her time in the saddle."
"She is a good horsewoman?"
"Excellent. She took to riding as a duck takes to water. She rode with
the hounds when she was ten."
"I wish I could ride!" Lord Probus said, reflectively. "I believe horse
exercise would do me good; but I began too late in life."
"Like skating and swimming, one must start young if he is to excel," Sir
John answered.
"Yes, yes; and youth passes all too quickly." And his lordship sighed.
"Well, as to that, one is as young as one feels, you know." And Sir John
led the way into the house.
Lord Probus followed with a frown. Sir John had unwittingly touched him
on a sore spot. If he was no younger than he felt, he was unmistakably
getting old. He tried to appear young, and with a fair measure of
success; tried to persuade himself that he was still in his prime; but
every day the fact was brought painfully home to him that he had long
since turned the brow of the hill, and was descending rapidly the other
side. Directly he attempted to do what was child's play to him ten years
before, he discovered that the spring had gone out of his joints and the
nerve from his hand.
He regretted this not only for his own sake, but in some measure for
Dorothy's. He never looked into her fresh young face without wishing he
was thirty years younger. She seemed very fond of him at present. She
would sit on the arm of his chair and pat his bald head and pull his
moustache, and call him her dear, silly old boy; and when he turned up
his face to be kissed, she would kiss him in the most delightful
fashion.
But he could not help wondering at times how long it would last. That
she was fond of him just now he was quite sure. She told him in her
bright, ingenuous way that she loved him; but he was not so blind as not
to see that there was no passion in her love. In truth, she did not know
what love was.
He was none the less anxious, however, on that account, to make her his
wife, but rather the more. The fact that the best part of his life was
gone made him all the more eager to fill up what remained with delight.
He might reckon upon another ten years of life, at least, and to possess
Dorothy for ten years would be worth living for--worth growing old for.
"You expect Dorothy back soon?" Lord Probus questioned, dropping into an
easy-chair.
"Any minute, my lord. In fact, I expected her back before this."
"Jess has been well broken in. I was very careful on that point." And
his lordship looked uneasily out of the window.
"And then, you know, Dorothy could ride an antelope or a giraffe. She is
just as much at ease in a saddle as you are in that easy-chair."
"Do you know, I get more and more anxious as the time draws near," his
lordship said absently. "It would be an awful blow to me if anything
should happen now to postpone the wedding."
"Nothing is likely to happen," Sir John said grimly, but with an
apprehensive look in his eyes. "Dorothy is in the best of health, and so
are you."
"Well, yes, I am glad to say I am quite well. And Dorothy, you think,
shows no sign of rueing her bargain?"
"On the contrary, she has begun to count the days." And Sir John walked
to the window and raised the blind a little.
"I shall do my best to make her happy," his lordship said, with a smile.
"And, bachelor as I am, I think I know what girls like."
"There's no doubt about that," was the laughing answer. "But who comes
here?" And Sir John ran to the door and stepped out on the terrace.
A boy without coat, and carrying his cap in his hand, ran eagerly up to
him. His face was streaming with perspiration, and his eyes ready to
start out of their sockets.
"If you please, sir," he said, in gasps, "your little maid has been and
got killed!"
"My little maid?" Sir John questioned. "Which maid? I did not know any
of the servants were out."
"No, not any servant, sir; but your little maid, Miss Dorothy."
"My daughter!" he almost screamed. And he staggered up against the porch
and hugged one of the pillars for support.
"Thrown from her horse, sir, down agin Treliskey Plantation," the boy
went on. "Molly Udy says she reckons her neck's broke."
Sir John did not reply, however. He could only stand and stare at the
boy, half wondering whether he was awake or dreaming.