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LEONORE STUBBS
BY L. B. WALFORD
AUTHOR OF "MR. SMITH," "THE BABY'S GRANDMOTHER," ETC.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 & 93 FIFTH AVENUE,
NEW YORK LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1908
CONTENTS
I. "SHE HAS NO SETTLEMENT, DAMN IT"
II. ON THE STATION PLATFORM
III. SPECULATIONS
IV. A DULL BREAKFAST-TABLE
V. OLD PLAYMATES MEET
VI. A REVELATION
VII. "I HAVE LOST SOMETHING THAT I NEVER HAD"
VIII. A CAT AND MOUSE GAME
IX. "I'D LIKE TO HAVE THINGS ON A SOUNDER BASIS"
X. THE THIRD CASE
XI. DR. CRAIG'S WISDOM
XII. THE PHOTOGRAPH AND THE ORIGINAL
XIII. "I AM TO GIVE YOU A WIDE BERTH, ALWAYS"
XIV. PAUL GOES--AND RETURNS
XV. "YOU'VE BROKEN MY HEART, I THINK"
XVI. TEMPTATION
XVII. A KNIGHT TO THE RESCUE
XVIII. "A TURN OF THE WHEEL"
XIX. EPILOGUE
CHAPTER I.
"SHE HAS NO SETTLEMENT, DAMN IT."
"She can't come."
"But, father----"
"She shan't come, then--if you like that better."
"But, father----"
"Aye, of course, it's 'But father'--I might have known it would be that.
However, you may 'But father' me to the end of my time, you don't move
me. I tell you, Sukey, you're a fool. You know no more than an unhatched
chicken--and if you think I'm going to give in to their imposition--for
it's nothing else--you are mistaken."
"I was only going to say----"
"Say what you will, say what you will; my mind's made up; and the sooner
you understand that, and Leonore understands that, the better. You can
write and tell her so."
"What am I to tell her?"
"What I say. That she has made her own bed and must lie upon it."
"But you gave your consent to her marriage, and never till now----"
"I tell you, girl, you're a fool. Consent? Of course I gave my consent.
I was cheated--swindled. I married my daughter to a rich man, and he
dies and leaves her a pauper! Never knew such a trick in my life. And
you to stand up for it!"
General Boldero and his eldest daughter were alone, as may have been
gathered, and the latter held in her hand, a black-edged letter at which
she glanced from time to time, it being obviously the apple of discord
between them.
It had come by the afternoon post; and the general, having met the
postman in the avenue, and himself relieved him of the old-fashioned
leathern postbag with which he was hastening on, and having further,
according to established precedent, unlocked the same and distributed
the contents, there had been no chance of putting off the present evil
hour.
Instead there had been an instant demand: "What says Leonore? What's the
figure, eh? She must know by this time. Eh, what? A hundred and fifty?
Two hundred? What? Two hundred thousand would be nothing out of the way
in these days. Poor Goff wasn't a millionaire, but money sticks to money
and he had no expensive tastes. He must have been quietly rolling
up,--all the better for his widow, poor child. Little Leonore will
scarcely know what to do with a princely income, and we must see
to it that she doesn't get into the hands of sharpers and
fortune-hunters----" and so on, and so on.
Then the bolt fell. The "princely income" vanished into the air. The
problematic two hundred thousand was neither here nor there, nor
anywhere. As for "Poor Goff," General Boldero was never heard to speak
of his defunct son-in-law in those terms again.
In his rage and disappointment at finding himself, as he chose to
consider it, outwitted by a man upon whom he had always secretly looked
down, the true feelings wherewith he had regarded an alliance welcomed
by his cupidity, but resented by his pride, escaped without let or
hindrance.
"What did we want with a person called Stubbs? What the deuce could we
want with him or any of his kind but their money?" demanded he, pacing
the room, black with wrath. "I never should have let the fellow set foot
within these doors if I had dreamed of this happening. I took him for
an honest man. What? What d'ye say? Humph! Don't believe a word of it;
he _must_ have known; and as for his expecting to pull things round,
that's all very fine. It's a swindle, the whole thing." Then suddenly
the speaker stopped short and his large lips shot out as he faced his
daughter: "Does Leonore say she hasn't a penny?"
"She says she will have to give up everything to the creditors. I
suppose," said Susan, hesitating, "everything may not mean--I thought
marriage settlements could not be touched by creditors?"
"No more they can, that's the deuce of it."
"Then----?" She looked inquiringly, and strange to say, the fierce
countenance before her coloured beneath the look.
If he could have evaded it, General Boldero would have let the question
remain unanswered, although it was only Sue, Sue who knew her parent as
no one else knew him--before whom he made no pretences, assumed no
disguises--who had now to learn an ugly truth;--as it was, he shot it at
her with as good an air as he could assume.
"She has no settlement, damn it."
"No settlement?" In her amazement the open letter fell from the
listener's hands. She recollected, she could never forget, the glee
with which her father had rubbed his hands over the "clinking
settlement" he had anticipated from Leonore's wealthy suitor, nor the
manner in which it had insinuated itself into every announcement of the
match. No settlement? She simply stared in silence.
"If you will have it, it was my doing," owned General Boldero
reluctantly; "and I could bite my tongue off now to think of it! But
what with four of you on my hands, and the rents going down and
everything else going up, I had nothing to settle--that is, I had
nothing I could _conveniently_ settle, and it might have been awkward,
uncommonly awkward. I could hardly have got out of it if Godfrey had
expected a _quid pro quo_. And he might--he very well might. A man of
his class can't be expected to understand how a man of ours has to live
decently and keep up appearances while yet he hasn't a brass farthing to
spare. I'll say that for Godfrey Stubbs, he seemed sensible on the point
when I tried to explain; and--and somehow I was taken in and thought:
'You may be a bounder, but you are a very worthy fellow'."
He paused, and continued. "Then he suggested--it was his own idea, I
give you my word for it--that we should have no greedy lawyers lining
their pockets out of either of our purses. What he said was--I've as
clear a recollection of it as though it were yesterday--'Oh, bother the
settlement, I'll make a will leaving everything I possess to
Leonore,'--and I, like a numskull, jumped at the notion. It never
occurred to me that the will of a business man may be so much waste
paper. His creditors can snap their fingers at any will. That's what
Leonore means. She's found it out, and flies post haste to her desk to
write that she must come back here."
"So she must."
"So she must _not_. I won't have it. The whole neighbourhood would ring
with it."
"By your own showing," said Sue quietly, "in order to free yourself from
the necessity of making any provision on your part when the marriage
took place, you precluded----" but she got no further.
"Provision on my part?" burst forth her father, who was now himself
again, and ready to browbeat anybody; "what need had the girl of any
provision on my part? She was marrying a fellow with tenfold my income.
The little I could have contrived to spare would have been a mere drop
in the bucket to him, and I should have been ashamed to mention it. I
can tell you I felt monstrous uncomfortable having to approach the
subject at all; and never was more thankful than when the young man,
like the decent fellow I took him then to be, pitchforked the whole
business overboard."
"All the same, it is quite plain," persevered she, "that it was with
your consent and approbation that Leonore had no money settled on her,
so that it could not be taken from her now;--and that being the case,
you have no choice but to provide for her in the future."
"You mean to say that it's due to me your sister's left a pauper on our
hands?"
"That's exactly what I do mean. And you must either give her enough to
enable her to live properly elsewhere, or receive her back among us, as
she herself suggests. Besides which, you must make her the same
allowance you make the rest of us," and the speaker rose, closing the
controversy.
Only she could have carried it on to such a close, indeed only General
Boldero's eldest daughter--and only daughter by his first
marriage--would have engaged in it at all. The younger girls, of whom
there were still two unmarried and living at home, never, in common
parlance, stood up to their father--though, if he had not been as blind
as such an autocrat is wont to be, he would have easily detected that
they had their own ways of rendering his tyrannical rule tolerable, and
that while he fancied himself the sole dictator of his house, he had in
fact neither part nor lot in its real existence.
What is more easily satisfied than the vanity of stupid importance
always upon its perch? The general's habits and hours were known, also
the few points upon which he was really adamant. He was proud, and he
was mean. He liked to live pompously, and fare luxuriously,--he made it
his business to cut off every expense that did not affect his own
comfort, or dignity. But that done, other matters could go on as they
chose for him.
So that while it was not to be thought of that Boldero Abbey should
exist without a full staff of retainers without and within, it was all
that his eldest daughter--the family manager--could do to get her own
and her sisters' allowances paid with any regularity--and whereas the
stables were well supplied with horses, and a new carriage was no
uncommon purchase, it was as much as any one's place was worth to hire a
fly from the station on an unexpectedly wet day.
When, exactly three years before the date on which our story opens,
there had appeared on the scene a suitor for the hand of the youngest
Miss Boldero, in the shape of a rich young Liverpool gentleman--General
Boldero always talked of young Stubbs as "a Liverpool gentleman," and
his hearers knew what he meant--he was accorded a free hand in reality,
though demur was strewn on the surface like cream on a pudding.
"I have had to give in," quoth the general with a rueful
countenance--but he spread the news right and left, and Leonore was
kissed and bidden make the "Liverpool gentleman" a good wife.
Whereupon Leonore laughed and promised. Godfrey Stubbs was her very
first admirer, and she thought him as nice as he could be. At first the
Boldero girls had been somewhat surprised at the encouragement shown a
stranger to come freely among them, but when it became clear that Mr.
Godfrey Stubbs was a privileged person, they found it wonderfully
pleasant to have a man about the place, where a pair of trousers was a
rare sight--and the inevitable happened.
The engagement concluded, Leonore trod on air. She who had never been
anywhere, who was never supposed to have a wish or thought of her own,
was all at once a queen. Godfrey assented to everything, and of himself
drew up the plan--oh, glorious! of a prolonged wedding tour. His little
bride was to go wherever she chose, see the sights she selected,
and--shop in Paris. She was actually to stay a whole fortnight in Paris
to buy clothes.
"Very right, very proper;" nodded her father to this.
He was so smiling and genial over everything at this juncture that
Leonore's tongue wagged freely in his presence, and on hearing the above
she turned to him with a saucy air, which under the circumstances he
found quite pretty and pleasant:--
"So you see, there will be no need to dive deep into _your_ pocket,
father, and my things will be ever so much smarter and more up-to-date
besides."
"Ha, ha, ha!"--laughed the general.
It all came back to him now--all that rainbow period, which had just
dissolved into the grim blackness of night. He could see the merry
little chit--(as he called her then)--rustling in her new-found state
like a puffed-out Jenny Wren; he could hear her calling to Godfrey over
the stairs, and after him across the lawn; most distinctly of all, there
rose before his mind's eye the wedding day, and the round baby face
solemnised for the occasion, with its large eyes and pursed-up lips,
whence emanated the bold "I will" which startled him by its loudness and
clearness,--and yet again his own sigh of satisfaction as the well-known
march pealed out, and the pair walked down the aisle, and the thing was
done.
The thing was done, and could not be undone--he was in spirits to play
his part gloriously.
"Terrible business this, Lady St. Emeraud. Poor little girl, to have to
be called 'Mrs. Stubbs,' eh, what? Oh, bless you, yes; it's her own
doing, entirely her own doing--quite a love match,--but, well----" and
there was a shrug of the shoulders, which, however, neither took in Lady
St. Emeraud nor any one else.
"The horrid old wretch is simply gloating, and all the other girls may
follow Leonore's example with his blessing;" was her ladyship's comment.
"Stubbs--Tubbs--or Ubbs--if there is money enough, come one, come all to
the Abbey." But the speaker turned with a more kindly air to the
white-robed figure of the youthful bride, and wished her well with a
kiss--and even that kiss added to the sting of General Boldero's present
ruminations.
He had woven it into his remarks on many subsequent occasions. He called
Leonore "Lady St. Emeraud's pet". And he would put himself in her
ladyship's way when he had news of her "Pet," and tell the news with an
air of its being of special interest. "Hang it all, her ladyship ought
to have been the child's godmother, if we had had our wits about us;" he
had exclaimed within the home circle.
What would Lady St. Emeraud say now? She was a woman of the world, and
although she might choose to take up a girl after a fashion--(even he
could not magnify the passing notice bestowed into more, since it never
led to anything further)--she certainly would not care to--"I wish we
could keep this fiasco from her knowledge," he muttered.
Had it been possible, he would have dropped the hapless young widow out
of sight and ken, like a pebble in a pond. Her name should never have
been mentioned by him or his,--and if by others, he would have replied
curtly and conclusively that she had gone to live with her husband's
people.
Confound it all, there must be _some_ people to hang on to? It had of
course been a great point at the beginning of the connection that young
Stubbs stood alone in the world, and his not having a soul belonging to
him had been emphasised as one of the assets of the match,--but with the
new change of affairs, surely some vulgar old uncle or cousin could be
unearthed to be made use of?
His auditor, however, had steadily shaken her head. She did not
repudiate the suggestion on any ground other than that of its
impossibility--but on this she took her stand with that accurate
knowledge of her father which provided her influence over him.
He had just yielded the point, and she had mooted the idea of receiving
her sister back to the home of her childhood, when we are admitted to
hear the explosive "She _can't_ come," with which our chapter opens.
We know how the battle went, and to what was due the victory, if such it
could be called, on the part of Miss Boldero. She had discovered a
secret--a shabby secret which the general had hitherto been careful to
lock tight within his own breast--and armed with this she could do as
she chose about Leonore--but her triumph cost her dear.
No one would have believed how dear. No one would have supposed that the
person who of all others knew the ill-conditioned old soldier best, who
knew him in and out and through and through, could retain for so poor a
creature a spark of feeling other than that engendered by the tie of
blood. To Maud and Sybil their father was simply "He,"--and to catch him
out, or catch him tripping on any occasion, the best fun imaginable--but
their half-sister suffered from every exposure, and when possible hid
the offence out of that charity which is love.
She was not a clever woman, she was in some respects a fool. People
would exclaim, "Oh, _that_ Miss Boldero!" on finding which of the three
it was who had been met and talked with. There was nothing worth hearing
to be got out of poor old Sue. No gossip, no chatter--not even sly
details of the general's "latest" wherewith her sisters were willing to
regale their friends. Sue was dull as ditch-water and silent as the
grave where family affairs were concerned.
She was not ill-looking, nay, she was handsome, as were all the
Bolderos; and, curiously, she was better turned-out than the younger
ones, for she had the knack of suiting herself in her clothes, which
they had not,--but with it all, with her good appearance and respectable
air, she belonged to the ranks of the uninteresting, and the weight she
carried with her father was voted unaccountable.
No one, however, disputed it; and when the two withdrew together no one
followed.
"Well, what does Leo say?" demanded Maud, who with Sybil had been lying
in wait for their half-sister while the conversation above narrated was
going on in the library. "What a time you have been! You might have
known Syb and I were on thorns to hear what was in that great fat
letter? Where is she going to live? Or is she going to travel? And is
she going to invite one of us to go with her? If she does----"
"It ought to be me," struck in Sybil eagerly. "I am nearest her age, and
Leo and I were always pals. I shouldn't at all mind going with her."
"Which of us would? It would be splendid. Can't you speak?" to Sue. "You
are such a slow coach,--and surely you might have broken loose before,
when you knew we were waiting."
"You have been nearly an hour;" Sybil glanced at the clock.
"We thought you might have called us in," added Maud.
"Anyhow, do for heaven's sake let us have it out now," continued Sybil
impetuously. She had been giving little tweaks at the letter in her
sister's hand, and a faint apprehension crept into her accents as she
found it firmly withheld; "and don't look so owl-like. There is nothing
to be owl-like about, I suppose?"
Hitherto neither had noted Sue's expression; now for the first time they
simultaneously paused long enough to enable her to open her lips.
"I am afraid you will be disappointed," she said slowly. "I am so sorry
to tell you, but--but things are not as you suppose. Poor Godfrey----"
she paused.
"Poor Godfrey, well, poor Godfrey?"
Both exclaimed at once, and each alike made a movement of impatience.
"He had been very unfortunate of late. He had--speculated. He----"
"We don't care twopence about _him_, get on."
"He has been unable to leave Leonore----"
"Never mind what he has been _un_able to do--what has he been able?"
"He was ruined," said Sue at last, in a dull, matter-of-fact tone. "It
appears he did not himself know it, for which Leonore is very
thankful--but though he died in the belief that he was going to be
richer than ever, when his affairs came to be looked into----"
"Oh, how long you are in telling it. You do love to harangue;" with a
sudden petulance Sybil shook her sister's shoulder and seized the
letter, whose perusal was the work of a minute.
"So that's how the cat jumps!" quoth she, suddenly as cool as she had
been warm before. "Poor brat! Well, it will be nice to have her here."
"Here?" ejaculated Maud. "Is she coming here? To live?"
"Even so. Isn't she, Sue? Of course she is. She can't help it. Though,
I say--no wonder you were ages in the library--how does _he_ take it?
Oh, you need not pretend, my dear, we can imagine the scene. Our revered
parent is not given to mincing matters, and to have Godfrey Stubbs, his
dear bloated son-in-law, collapse like a pricked balloon is rough on
him. He was so pleased--that's to say he took poor Goff's death so very
philosophically, that one knew perfectly how he felt. The money and not
the man--it was an ideal consummation. He would have condoled with his
poor little Leo, and petted and pampered her--and grinned whenever he
was alone. She might have come to live with us _then_----"
"A nice jumble you are making of it." It was Maud who interposed, with a
vexed face. "It is nothing but a huge joke to you--but upon my word, I
don't see a pleasant time ahead for any of us. The bare sight of Leo
will be a perpetual grievance, and we shall all reap the benefit."
By the evening's post, however, Leo was bidden to come.