Part 20 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXII.

STILL WATERS RUN DEEP.

”This little maxim, for my sake, I pray you be believing: The truest pleasures that we take Are those that we are giving.”

DIBDIN.

For more than twenty years, dating back from the time our story commenced, Richards had been a partner in the firm of Griffiths, Keane, and Co.; yet although he was almost every day in the company of Mr.

Keane, he could neither love nor respect him. Perhaps had he been less with him he might have respected him more. But he knew him too well; knew him to be Keane by name and keen by nature--avaricious, grasping, and miserly in the extreme, and for the sake of adding to his stores of gold, very far indeed from scrupulous. His n.i.g.g.ardly habits had undoubtedly hurried his wife to her grave, when Gerty was little more than a baby, and she was left to the tender mercies of a nurse and governess. In the transaction of his business Richards was constantly at his partner's home, and usually stayed to dine; but for the sake of the child Gerty, he made many and many a visit to the house after her mother's death, when he had no real business to transact. ”Poor little mite!” he thought; ”she is so lonely, and she sees no one; has no one to love save her father, to whom she is merely 'the child.'”

It used to vex poor great-hearted Richards to the core to hear Keane snap out, ”Take away that child; it's troublesome.”

”Nay, nay,” Richards would say, lifting the mite from the hearth-rug to his knee, ”let me have the darling a minute.”

”Richards, you're a fool!” Keane would growl.

And with one arm round her protector's neck, her cheeks wet with tears, the mite would gaze round-eyed and in saddened silence at her unnatural father. It is no wonder that she grew up to love Richards. What stories he used to tell her! what fun he used to make for her! how he entered heart and soul into all her games and romps, as if he himself were but a boy in reality, as he was in his heart of hearts!

But the psychical mystery is how she could have come to love her father so. Yes, as the reader already knows, she did love him, and love him to that extent that she was willing to sacrifice her own happiness to his ambition, and marry a man whom she loathed if she did actually not detest.

A bachelor, with no expenses worth naming, Richards had saved quite a small fortune in his time; and when he came to find out that Keane was going positively to sell his daughter to the worn-out _roue_ Sir Digby, that for his own advancement he might see her ere long a lord's wife, Richards thumped his fist down on his desk--he was alone at the time--till even the big ink-bottle leaped an inch up from the table.

”I'll save that darling child,” he had said, ”if I spend every penny I have earned, and lose my life into the bargain.”

He smiled to himself a moment after.

”Everything is fair in love and war,” he said: ”I'll play a game. The cause is good. Yes, Jack Mackenzie, my open-hearted, frank, brave boy, you shall marry Gerty. I have said it--you--_shall_.”

He laughed aloud next minute at his own enthusiasm.

”What a capital actor I should have made!” he thought. ”How beautifully I could have done heavy fathers!”

Still waters run deep, and Richards was astute, though perhaps he did not look it. So he began at once to shuffle his cards for the game he was about to play--a game which he rightly judged was to be one of life or death. For he shuddered to think of the living death to which the selfishness of her miserly, ambitious father intended condemning Gerty.

”My baby, bless her sweet face,” he added, ”shall never marry that bleach-eyed old Digby.”

Then he shut his ledger with a bang, and went for a walk in the park, where he could think. But the Mackenzies would lose the fine old house and property called Grantley Hall. Keane would a.s.suredly foreclose. Then the place would be Keane's or Gerty's, it was much the same. Keane really meant it to be Sir Digby's and Gerty's, while he, Keane, should live and be honoured and respected there--his son-in-law a lord.

Richards thought he must try by hook or by crook to prevent his partner from foreclosing, if only for the following reason: if Grantley Hall once pa.s.sed into Keane's hands, much though Gerty and Jack loved each other, the latter, being a Mackenzie and a Scot, would be far too proud to propose marriage, seeing that in doing so his desires might be misconstrued, and people would naturally say he was simply marrying back his own property.

The general had told his children that Keane was his only creditor. Yes, because in order to make sure of the estate, the old lawyer had bought up all the others. He could thus come down upon the brave but reckless Scottish soldier, like an avalanche from a mountain's brow.

The day had almost arrived for Keane's foreclosing. The family had already left Grantley Hall, taking little with them save the family jewellery, pictures, and nick-nacks. Flora had gone to Torquay, Jack was in town, and his father preparing to resume his sword, and once more fight for his country. The eventful morning itself came round. Keane was early at his office. He was in an unusually happy frame of mind. Yet perhaps he had a few slight ”stoun's” of conscience, for over and over again he talked to Richards, bringing up the subject next his heart, and excusing himself.

”I had to do it--I had to do it,” he said. ”Pity for the poor Mackenzies. But the general was so improvident, and what could I do?”