Part 32 (1/2)

Picard hesitated. There was something embarra.s.sing in the other's att.i.tude. It combined civility, defiance, vigilance, all the ingredients, indeed, of an armed neutrality. At last he got out the words, ”Your daughter, Sir Henry--Miss Hallaton.”

”Stop a moment,” interrupted the baronet, still in those guarded, courteous tones; ”how _can_ my daughter be concerned in our present business?”

”Simply,” answered the other, fairly driven into a corner, ”that I had meant--that I had intended--in short, that I had hoped you might be induced to entertain--I mean, to listen favourably. Hang it! Sir Henry, I am devotedly attached to your daughter--there!”

Sir Henry drew himself up. ”You do Miss Hallaton a great honour,” said he, very stiffly, ”and one I beg to decline most distinctly on her behalf. This is a subject which admits of no further discussion between you and me.”

”Are you in earnest?” exclaimed Picard fiercely. ”Do you know what you are doing? Have you counted the cost of making me your enemy? Sir Henry, you must surely have lost your head or your temper?”

”Neither, I a.s.sure you,” answered the other, with provoking calmness; adding, while he laid his hand on the bell-pull--”May I offer you a gla.s.s of sherry, and--and--_bitters_, before you go?”

For the life of him, he could not resist a sarcastic emphasis, while he named that wholesome tonic, nor could he help smiling, as Picard, losing all self-control, flung out of the room, with no more courteous leave-taking than a consignment of the proffered refreshment to a temperature where it would have proved acceptable in the highest degree.

But no sooner had the street-door closed on his visitor, than Sir Henry shook himself, as it were, out of a life's lethargy, and seemed to become a new man. It was his nature to rise against a difficulty; and, although he had never before had such a souse in the cold waters of adversity, he felt braced and strengthened by the plunge. He sat down at once to his writing-table, and immersed himself in calculations as to liabilities, and means of meeting them. Ruin stared him in the face. He was convinced he had nothing to hope from Picard's forbearance, with whom he was inextricably mixed up in money matters. He saw clearly that the latter would use every legal engine in his power to further his revenge; yet Sir Henry's courage failed him not a jot, and he only cursed the scoundrel's impudence in thinking himself good enough for Helen, vowing the while he would be a match for them all, and fight through yet.

Then he wrote many letters to solicitors, money-lenders, and private friends; amongst others, one to Helen, and one to Mrs. Lascelles. It is with this last alone we have to do.

That lady is sitting, somewhat disconsolate and lonely, in the pretty boudoir at No. 40. The bullfinch is moulting, and sulky in the extreme; the pug has been dismissed for the only misdemeanour of which he is ever guilty--indigestion, followed by sickness; the post has just brought Sir Henry Hallaton's letter; Mrs. Lascelles is dissolved in tears; and Goldthred, who has not been near her for a fortnight, is suddenly announced.

All the morning, all the drive hither in a Hansom cab, all the way up-stairs, he has been revolving how he can best carry out Kate Cremorne's precept--”Il faut se faire valoir;” but at the top step the loyalty of a true, disinterested love a.s.serts itself, and he would fain fall p.r.o.ne at the feet of his mistress, bidding her trample him in the dust if she had a mind.

Seeing her in tears, he turned hot and cold, dropped his hat, knocked down a spidery table in trying to recover it, and finally shook hands with the woman he loved stiffly and pompously, as if she had been his bitterest enemy.

The grasp of her hand too seemed less cordial, her manner less kindly than usual. Goldthred, who had yet to learn that the fortress never mans its walls with so much menace as on the eve of surrender, felt chilled, dispirited, even hurt; but, because of her distress, staunch and unwavering to the backbone.

”You find me very unhappy,” said she, drying her eyes (gently, so as not to make them unbecomingly red). ”Why have you never been to see me?”

This, turning on him abruptly, and with a degree of displeasure that ought to have raised his highest hopes.

”I've been away,” he stammered, ”in the North on business. I--I didn't know you wanted me.”

”Oh, it's not _that_!” she answered pettishly. ”Of course, one can't expect people to put off business, or pleasure, or anything else for the sake of their friends. What's the _use_ of friends? What's the use of caring for anything or anybody? I wish I didn't. I shouldn't be so upset now!”

In his entire partic.i.p.ation of her sorrow, he quite lost his own embarra.s.sment.

”Can I do anything?” he exclaimed. ”There's the _will_, you know, even if there isn't the power.”

”Nothing, that I can see,” she answered drearily. ”Here's a letter from Sir Henry Hallaton. They're completely ruined, he tells me; a regular smas.h.!.+ What is to become of them? I'm so wretched, particularly about Helen.”

She put her handkerchief to her face once more, but watched her listener narrowly, nevertheless. It did not escape her that his countenance changed and fell, as if he had been stung.

He recovered himself bravely, though.

”That is distressing enough,” said he, ”and sounds a bad business, no doubt. Still, it is only a question of money, I suppose. It might have been worse.”

”Worse!” she repeated, with impatience. ”I don't see how. From what he says, it seems they won't have a roof to cover them--hardly bread to eat! And what can I do for him? I can't pay off his mortgages, and buy him back Blackgrove, as if it was a baby-house. It _does_ seem so hard!

It makes me hate everything and everybody!”

Goldthred's only reply to this rational sentiment was to rise from his chair, b.u.t.ton his coat, and place himself in a determined att.i.tude on the hearth-rug.