“Yes,” he said. “I will be open with you, Sis, for you mean well; but you speak like the pretty child you have always been to me. Has it ever crossed your mind that I have never spoken to this lady, and that she is a rich heiress, and that I am a poor doctor who is making a failure of his life?”
“What!” cried the girl proudly. “Why, if she were a princess she would not be too grand for my brave noble brother.”
“Hah!” he cried, with a scornful laugh; “your brave noble brother! Well, go on and still think so of me, little one. It’s very pleasant, and does not hurt anyone. I hope I’m too sensible to be spoiled by my little flatterer. Only keep your love for me yet awhile,” he said meaningly. “Let’s leave love out of the question till we can pay our way and have something to spare, instead of having no income at all but what comes from consols.”
“But Pierce – ”
“That will do. You’re a dear little goose. We must want the Queen’s Crown from the Tower because it’s pretty.”
“Now you’re talking nonsense, Pierce,” she said, firmly, and she held his arm tightly between her little hands. “You can’t deny it, sir. You fell in love with her from the first.”
“Jenny, my child,” he said quietly. “I promised our father I would be an honorable man and a gentleman.”
“And so you would have been, without promising.”
“I hope so. Then now listen to me; never speak to me in this way again.”
“I will,” she cried flushing. “Answer me this; would it be acting like an honorable man to let that sweet angel of a girl marry Claud Wilton?”
“What!” he cried, starting, and gazing at his sister intently. “Her own cousin? Absurd.”
“I’ve heard that it is to be so.”
“Nonsense!”
“People say so, and where there’s smoke there’s fire. Cousins marry, and I don’t believe they’ll let a fortune like that go out of the family.”
“They’re rich enough to laugh at it.”
“They’re not rich; they’re poor, for the Squire’s in difficulties.”
“Petty village tattle. Rubbish, girl. Once more, no more of this. You’re wrong, my dear. You mean well, but there’s an ugly saying about good intentions which I will not repeat. Now listen to me. The coming down to Northwood has been a grave mistake, and when people blunder the sooner they get back to the right path the better. I have made up my mind to go back to London, and your words this morning have hastened it on. The sooner we are off the better.”
“No, Pierce,” said the girl firmly. “Not to make you unhappy. You shall not take a step that you will repent to the last day of your life, dear. We must stay.”
“We must go. I have nothing to stay for here. Neither have you,” he added, meaningly.
“Pierce!” she cried, flushing.
“Beg pardon, sir; Mr Leigh, sir.”
They had been too much intent upon their conversation to notice the approach of a dog-cart, or that the groom who drove it had pulled up on seeing them, and was now talking to them over the hedge.
“Yes, what is it?” said Leigh, sharply.
“Will you come over to the Manor directly, sir? Master’s out, and Missus is in a trubble way. Our young lady, sir, Miss Wilton, took bad – fainting and nervous. You’re to come at once.”
Jenny uttered a soft, low, long-drawn “Oh!” and, forgetful of everything he had said, Pierce Leigh rushed into the house, caught up his hat, and hurried out again, to mount into the dog-cart beside the driver.
“Poor, dear old brother!” said Jenny, softly, as with her eyes half-blinded by the tears which rose, she watched the dog-cart driven away. “I don’t believe he will go to town. Oh, how strangely things do come about. I wish I could have gone too.”
Chapter Three
John Garstang stood with his back to the fire in his well furnished office in Bedford Row, tall, upright as a Life Guardsman, but slightly more prominent about what the fashionable tailor called his client’s chest. He was fifty, but looked by artificial aid, forty. Scrupulously well-dressed, good-looking, and with a smile which won the confidence of clients, though his regular white teeth were false, and the high foreheaded look which some people would have called baldness was so beautifully ivory white and shiny that it helped to make him look what he was – a carefully polished man of the world.
The clean japanned boxes about the room, all bearing clients’ names, the many papers on the table, the waste-paper basket on the rich Turkey carpet, chock full of white fresh letters and envelopes, all told of business; and the handsome morocco-covered easy chairs suggested occupancy by moneyed clients who came there for long consultations, such as would tell up in a bill.
John Garstang was a family solicitor, and he looked it; but he would have made a large fortune as a physician, for his presence and urbane manner would have done anyone good.
The morning papers had been glanced at and tossed aside, and the gentleman in question, while bathing himself in the warm glow of the fire, was carefully scraping and polishing his well-kept nails, pausing from time to time to blow off tiny scraps of dust; and at last he took two steps sideways noiselessly and touched the stud of an electric bell.
A spare-looking, highly respectable man answered the summons and stood waiting till his principal spoke, which was not until the right hand little finger nail, which was rather awkward to get at, had been polished, when without raising his eyes, John Garstang spoke.
“Mr Harry arrived?”
“No, sir.”
“What time did he leave yesterday?”
“Not here yesterday, sir.”
“The day before?”
“Not here the day before yesterday, sir.”
“What time did he leave on Monday?”
“About five minutes after you left for Brighton, sir.”
“Thank you, Barlow; that will do. By the way – ”
The clerk who had nearly reached the door, turned, and there was again silence, while a few specks were blown from where they had fallen inside one of the spotless cuffs.
“Send Mr Harry to me as soon as he arrives.”
“Yes, sir,” and the man left the room; while after standing for a few moments thinking, John Garstang walked to one of the tin boxes in the rack and drew down a lid marked, “Wilton, Number 1.”
Taking from this a packet of papers carefully folded and tied up with green silk, he seated himself at his massive knee-hole table, and was in the act of untying the ribbon, when the door opened and a short, thick-set young man of five-and-twenty, with a good deal of French waiter in his aspect, saving his clothes, entered, passing one hand quickly over his closely-shaven face, and then taking the other to help to square the great, dark, purple-fringed, square, Joinville tie, fashionable in the early fifties.
“Want to see me, father?”
“Yes. Shut the baize door.”
“Oh, you needn’t be so particular. It won’t be the first time Barlow has heard you bully me.”
“Shut the baize door, if you please, sir,” said Garstang, blandly.
“Oh, very well!” cried the young man, and he unhooked and set free a crimson baize door whose spring sent it to with a thud and a snap.
Then John Garstang’s manner changed. An angry frown gathered on his forehead, and he placed his elbows on the table, joined the tips of his fingers to form an archway, and looked beneath it at the young man who had entered.
“You