Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

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Isabel's imagination was busily at work, and she was in haste to make
use of her husband's permission; but it was so difficult to see Clara
alone, that some days passed before the two sisters were left
together in the sitting-room, while James was writing a letter for
his uncle. Isabel's courage began to waver, but she ventured a
commencement.

'Mr. Dynevor entertains me with fine stories of your conquests,
Clara.'

Clara laughed, blushed, and answered bluntly, 'What a bother it was!'

'You are very hard-hearted.'

'You ought to remember the troubles of young ladyhood enough not to
wonder.'

'I never let things run to that length; but then I had no fortune.
But seriously, Clara, were all these people objectionable?'

'Do you think one could marry any man, only because he was not
objectionable? There was no harm in one or two; but I was not going
to have anything to say to them.'

'Really, Clara, you make me curious. Had you made any resolution?'

'I know only two men whom I could have trusted to fulfil my
conditions,' said Clara.

'Conditions?'

'Of course! that if Cheveleigh was to belong to any of us, it should
be to the rightful heir.'

'My dear, noble Clara! was that what kept you from thinking of
marriage?'

'Wasn't it a fine thing to have such a test? Not that I ever came to
trying it. Simple no answered my purpose. I met no one who tempted
me to make the experiment.'

'Two men!' said Isabel, 'if you had said one, it would have been
marked.'

'Jem and Louis, of course,' said Clara.

'Oh! that is as good as saying one.'

'As good as saying none,' said Clara, with emphasis.

'There may be different opinions on that point,' returned Isabel, not
daring to lift her eyes from her work, though longing to study
Clara's face, and feeling herself crimsoning.

'Extremely unfounded opinions, and rather--'

'Rather what?'

'Impertinent, I was going to say, begging your pardon, dear Isabel.'

'Nay, I think it is I who should beg yours, Clara.'

'No, no,' said Clara, laughing, but speaking gravely immediately
after, 'lookers-on do not always see most of the game. I have always
known his mind so well that I could never possibly have fallen into
any such nonsense. I respect him far too much.'

Isabel felt as if she must hazard a few words more--'Can you guess
what he will do if Mr. Ponsonby's reports prove true?'

'I do not mean to anticipate misfortunes,' said Clara.

Isabel could say no more; and when Clara next spoke, it was to ask
for another of James's wristbands to stitch. Then Isabel ventured to
peep at her face, and saw it quite calm, and not at all rosy; if it
had been, the colour was gone.

Thus it was, and there are happily many such friendships existing as
that between Louis and Clara. Many a woman has seen the man whom she
might have married, and yet has not been made miserable. If there be
neither vanity nor weak self-contemplation on her side, nor trifling
on his part, nor unwise suggestions forced on her by spectators, the
honest, genuine affection need never become passion. If intimacy is
sometimes dangerous, it is because vanity, folly, and mistakes are
too frequent; but in spite of all these, where women are truly
refined, and exalted into companions and friends, there has been much
more happy, frank intercourse and real friendship than either the
romantic or the sagacious would readily allow. The spark is never
lighted, there is no consciousness, no repining, and all is well.

Fresh despatches from Lima arrived; and after a day, when Oliver had
been so busy overlooking the statement from Guayaquil that he would
not even take his usual airing, he received Clara with orders to
write and secure his passage by the next packet for Callao.

'Dear uncle, you would never dream of it! You could not bear the
journey!' she cried, aghast.

'It would do me good. Do not try to cross me, Clara. No one else can
deal with this pack of rascals. Your brother has not been bred to
it, and is a parson besides, and there's not a soul that I can trust.
I'll go. What! d'ye think I can live on him and on you, when there
is a competence of my own out there, embezzled among those
ragamuffins?'

'I am sure we had much rather--'

'No stuff and nonsense. Here is Roland with four children already--
very likely to have a dozen more. If you and he are fools, I'm not,
and I won't take the bread out of their mouths. I'll leave my will
behind, bequeathing whatever I may get out of the fire evenly between
you two, as the only way to content you; and if I never turn up
again, why you're rid of the old man.'

'Very well, uncle, I shall take my own passage at the same time.'

'You don't know what you are talking of. You are a silly child, and
your brother would be a worse if he let you go.'

'If Jem lets you go, he will let me. He shall let me. Don't you
know that you are never to have me off your hands, uncle? No, no, I
shall stick to you like a burr. You may go up to the tip-top of
Chimborazo if you please, but you'll not shake me off.'

It was her fixed purpose to accompany him, and she was not solicitous
to dissuade him from going, for she could be avaricious for James's
children, and had a decided wish for justice on the guilty party;
and, besides, Clara had a private vision of her own, which made her
dance in her little room. Mary had written in her father's stead-
there was not a word of Mr. Ward--indeed, Mr. Ponsonby was evidently
so ill that his daughter could think of nothing else. Might not
Clara come in time to clear up any misunderstanding--convince Mr.
Ponsonby--describe Louis's single-hearted constancy during all these
five years, and bring Mary home to him in triumph? She could have
laughed aloud with delight at the possibility; and when the other
alternative occurred to her, she knit her brows with childish
vehemence, as she promised Miss Mary that she would never be her
bridesmaid.

Presently she heard Fitzjocelyn's voice in the parlour, and, going
down, found him in consultation over a letter which Charlotte had
brought to her master. It was so well written and expressed, that
Louis turned to the signature before he could quite believe that it
was from his old pupil. Tom wrote to communicate his perplexity at
the detection of the frauds practised on his employers. He had
lately been employed in the office at Lima, where much had excited
his suspicion; and, finally, from having 'opened a letter addressed
by mistake to the firm, but destined for an individual, he had
discovered that large sums, supposed to be required by the works, or
lost in the Equatorial failure, had been, in fact, invested in
America in the name of that party.' The secret was a grievous
burthen. Mr. Ponsonby was far too ill to be informed; besides that,
he should only bring suspicion on himself; and Miss Ponsonby was so
much occupied as to be almost equally inaccessible. Tom had likewise
reason to believe that his own movements were watched, and that any
attempt to communicate with her or her father would be baffled; and,
above all, he could not endure himself to act the spy and informer.
He only wished that, if possible, without mentioning names, Charlotte
could give a hint that Mr. Dynevor must not implicitly trust to all
he heard.

James was inclined to suppress such vague information, which he
thought would only render his uncle more restless and wretched in his
helplessness, and was only questioning whether secrecy would not
amount to deceit.

'The obvious thing is for me to go to Peru,' said Louis.

'My uncle and I were intending to go,' said Clara.

'How many more of you?' exclaimed James.

'I would not change my native land
For rich Peru and all her gold;'

chanted little Kitty from the corner, where she was building houses
for the 'little ones.'

'Extremely to the purpose,' said Louis, laughing. 'Follow her
example, Clara. Make your uncle appoint me his plenipotentiary, and
I will try what I can to find out what these rogues are about.'

'Are you in earnest?'

'Never more so in my life.'

James beckoned him to the window, and showed him a sentence where Tom
said that the best chance for the firm was in Miss Ponsonby's
marriage with Mr. Ward, but that engagement was not yet declared on
account of her father's illness.

'The very reason,' said Louis, 'I cannot go on in this way. I must
know the truth.'

'And your father?'

'It would be much better for him that the thing were settled. He
will miss me less during the session, when he is in London with all
his old friends about him. It would not take long, going by the
Isthmus. I'll ride back at once, and see how he bears the notion.
Say nothing to Mr. Dynevor till you hear from me; but I think he will
consent. He will not endure that she should be left unprotected; her
father perhaps dying, left to the mercy of these rascals.'

'And forgive me, Louis, if you found her not needing you!'

'If she be happy, I should honour the man who made her so. At least,
I might be of use to you. I should see after poor Madison. I have
sent him to the buccaneers indeed! Good-bye! I cannot rest till I
see how my father takes it!'

It was long since Louis had been under an excess of impetuosity; but
he rode home as fast as he had ridden to Northwold to canvass for
James, and had not long been at Ormersfield before his proposition
was laid before his father.

It was no small thing to ask of the Earl, necessary as his son had
become to him; and the project at first appeared to him senseless.
He thought Mary had not shown herself sufficiently sensible of his
son's merits to deserve so much trouble; and if she were engaged to
Mr. Ward, Fitzjocelyn would find himself in an unpleasant and
undignified position. Besides, there was the ensuing session of
Parliament! No! Oliver must send out some trustworthy man of
business, with full powers.

Louis only answered, that of course it depended entirely on his
father's consent; and by-and-by his submission began to work. Lord
Ormersfield could not refuse him anything, and took care, on parting
for the night, to observe that the point was not settled, only under
consideration.

And consideration was more favourable than might have been expected.
The Earl was growing anxious to see his son married, and of that
there was no hope till his mind should be settled with regard to
Mary. It would be more for his peace to extinguish the hope, if it
were never to be fulfilled. Moreover, the image of Mary had awakened
the Earl's own fatherly fondness for her, and his desire to rescue
her from her wretched home. Even Mr. Ponsonby could hardly withstand
Louis in person, he thought, and must be touched by so many years of
constancy. The rest might be only a misunderstanding which would be
cleared up by a personal interview. Added to this, Lord Ormersfield
knew that Clara would not let her uncle go alone, and did not think
it fit to see her go out alone with an infirm paralytic; James could
not leave his wife or his chaplaincy, and the affair was unsuited to
his profession; a mere accountant would not carry sufficient
authority, nor gain Madison's confidence; in fact, Fitzjocelyn, and
no other, was the trustworthy man of business; and so his lordship
allowed when Louis ventured to recur to the subject the next morning,
and urge some of his arguments.

The bright clearing of Louis's face spoke his thanks, and he began at
once to detail his plans for his father's comfort, Lord Ormersfield
listening as if pleased by his solicitude, though caring for little
until the light of his eyes should return.

'The next point is that you should give me a testimonial that I _am_
a trustworthy man of business.'

'I will ride into Northwold with you, and talk it over with Oliver.'

Here lay the knotty point; but the last five years had considerably
cultivated Fitzjocelyn's natural aptitude for figures, by his
attention to statistics, his own farming-books, and the complicated
accounts of the Ormersfield estate,--so that both his father and
Richardson could testify to his being an excellent man of business;
and his coolness, and mildness of temper, made him better calculated
to deal with a rogue than a more hasty man would have been.

They found, on arriving, that James had been talking to Mr. Walby,
who pronounced that the expedition to Lima would be mere madness for
Mr. Dynevor, since application to business would assuredly cause
another attack, and even the calculations of the previous day had
made him very unwell, and so petulant and snappish, that he could be
pleased with nothing, and treated as mere insult the proposal that he
should entrust his affairs to 'such a lad.'

Even James hesitated to influence him to accept the offer. 'I
scruple,' he said, drawing the Earl aside, 'because I thought you had
a particular objection to Fitzjocelyn's being thrown in the way of
speculations. I thought you dreaded the fascination.'

'Thank you, James; I once did so,' said the Earl. 'I used to believe
it a family mania; I only kept it down in myself by strong
resolution, in the very sight of the consequences, but I can trust
Fitzjocelyn. He is too indifferent to everything apart from duty to
be caught by flattering projects, and you may fully confide in his
right judgment. I believe it is the absence of selfishness or
conceit that makes him so clear-sighted.'

'What a change! what a testimony!' triumphantly thought James. It
might be partial, but he was not the man to believe so.

That day was one of defeat; but on the following, a note from James
advised Fitzjocelyn to come and try his fortune again; Mr. Dynevor
would give no one any rest till he had seen him.

Thereupon Louis was closeted with the old merchant, who watched him
keenly, and noted every question or remark he made on the accounts;
then twinkled his eyes with satisfaction as he hit more than one of
the very blots over which Oliver had already perplexed himself. So
clear-headed and accurate did he show himself, that he soon perceived
that Mr. Dynevor looked at him as a good clerk thrown away; and he
finally obtained from him full powers to act, to bring the villain to
condign punishment, and even, if possible, to dispose of his share in
the firm.

Miss Ponsonby was much relieved to learn that Lord Fitzjocelyn was
going out, though fearing that he might meet with disappointment;
but, at least, her brother would be undeceived as to the traitor in
whom he was confiding. No letters were to announce Louis's
intentions, lest the enemy should take warning; but he carried
several with him, to be given or not, according to the state of
affairs; and when, on his way through London, he went to receive Miss
Ponsonby's commissions, she gave him a large packet, addressed to
Mary.

'Am I to give her this at all events!' he asked, faltering.

'It would serve her right.'

'Then I should not give it to her. Pray write another, for she does
not deserve to be wounded, however she may have decided.'

'I do not know how I shall ever forgive her,' sighed Aunt Melicent.

'People are never so unforgiving as when they have nothing to
forgive.'

'Ah! Lord Fitzjocelyn, that is not your case. This might have been
far otherwise, had I not misjudged you at first.'

'Do not believe so. It would have been hard to think me more foolish
than I was. This probation has been the best schooling for me; and,
let it end as it may, I shall be thankful for what has been.'

And in this spirit did he sail, and many an anxious thought followed
him, no heart beating higher than did that of little Charlotte, who
founded a great many hopes on the crisis that his coming would
produce. Seven years was a terrible time to have been engaged, and
the little workhouse girl thought her getting almost as old as Mrs.
Beckett. She wondered whether Tom thought so too! She did not want
to think about Martha's first cousin, who was engaged for thirty-two
years to a journeyman tailor, and when they married at last, they
were both so cross that she went out to service again at the end of a
month. Charlotte set up all her caps with Tom's favourite colour,
and 'turned Angelina' twenty times a-day.

Then came the well-known Peruvian letters, and a thin one for
Charlotte. Without recollecting that it must have crossed Lord
Fitzjocelyn on the road, she tore it open the instant she had carried
in the parlour letters. Alas! poor Charlotte!

'I write to you for the last time, lest you should consider yourself
any longer bound by the engagements which must long have been
distasteful. When I say that Mr. Ford has for some months been my
colleague, you will know to what I allude, without my expressing any
further. I am already embarked for the U. S. My enemies have
succeeded in destroying my character and blighting my hopes. I am at
present a fugitive from the hands of so-called justice; but I could
have borne all with a cheerful heart if you had not played me false.
You will never hear more of one who loved you faithfully.

'TH. MADISON.'

Poor Charlotte! The wound was a great deal too deep for her usual
childish tears, or even for a single word. She stood still, cold,
and almost unconscious till she heard a step, then she put the cruel
letter away in her bosom, and went about her work as usual.

They thought her looking very pale, and Jane now and then reproached
her with eating no more than a sparrow, and told her she was getting
into a dwining way; but she made no answer, except that she 'could do
her work.' At last, one Sunday evening, when she had been left alone
with the children, her mistress found her sitting at the foot of her
bed, among the sleeping little ones, weeping bitterly but silently.
Isabel's kindness at length opened her heart, and she put the letter
into her hand. Poor little thing, it was very meekly borne: 'Please
don't tell no one, ma'am,' she said; 'I couldn't hear him blamed!'

'But what does he mean? He must be under some terrible error. Who
is this Ford?'

'It is Delaford, ma'am, I make no doubt, though however he could have
got there! And, oh dear me! if I had only told poor Tom the whole,
that I was a silly girl, and liked his flatteries now and then, but
constant in my heart I always was!'

Isabel could not but suppose that Delaford, if it were he, might have
exaggerated poor Charlotte's little flirtation; but there was small
comfort here, since contradiction was impossible. The U. S., over
which the poor child had puzzled in vain, was no field in which to
follow him up--he had not even dated his letter; and it was a very,
very faint hope that Lord Fitzjocelyn might trace him out, especially
as he had evidently fled in disgrace; and poor Charlotte sobbed
bitterly over his troubles, as well as her own.

She was better after she had told her mistress, though still she
shrank from any other sympathy. Even Jane's pity would have been too
much for her, and her tender nature was afraid of the tongues that
would have discussed her grief. Perhaps the high-toned nature of
Isabel was the very best to be brought into contact with the poor
girl's spirit, which was of the same order, and many an evening did
Isabel sit in the twilight, beside the children's beds, talking to
her, or sometimes reading a few lines to show her how others had
suffered in the same way. 'It is my own fault,' said poor Charlotte;
'it all came of my liking to be treated like one above the common,
and it serves me right. Yes, ma'am, that was a beautiful text you
showed me last night, I thought of it all day, and I'll try to
believe that good will come out of it. I am sure you are very good
to let me love the children! I'm certain sure Miss Salome knows that
I'm in trouble, for she never fails to run and kiss me the minute she
comes in sight; and she'll sit so quiet in my lap, the little dear,
and look at me as much as to say, 'Charlotte, I wish I could comfort
you.' But it was all my own fault, ma'am, and I think I could feel
as if I was punished right, so I knew poor Tom was happy.'

'Alas!' thought Isabel, after hearing Charlotte's reminiscences; 'how
close I have lived to a world of which I was in utter ignorance! How
little did we guess that, by the careless ease and inattention of our
household, we were carrying about a firebrand, endangering not only
poor Walter, but doing fearful harm wherever we went!'

CHAPTER XXI.

STEPPING WESTWARD.

On Darien's sands and deadly dew.
Rokeby.

Enterprise and speed both alike directed Fitzjocelyn's course across
the Isthmus of Panama, which in 1853 had newly become practicable for
adventurous travellers. A canal conducted him as far as Cruces,
after which he had to push on through wild forest and swamp, under
the escort of the muleteers who took charge of the various travellers
who had arrived by the same packet.

It was a very novel and amusing journey, even in the very discomforts
and the strange characters with whom he was thrown, and more
discontented travellers used to declare that Don Luis, as he told the
muleteers to call him, always seemed to have the best success with
the surly hotel-keepers, though when he resigned his acquisitions to
any resolute grumbler, it used to be discovered that he had been
putting up with the worst share.

A place called Guallaval seemed to be the most squalid and forlorn of
all the stations--outside, an atmosphere of mosquitoes; inside, an
atmosphere of brandy and smoke, the master an ague-stricken Yankee,
who sat with his bare feet high against the wall, and only deigned to
jerk with his head to show in what quarter was the drink and food,
and to 'guess that strangers must sleep on the ground, for first-
comers had all the beds'--hammocks slung up in a barn, or unwholesome
cupboards in the wall.

At the dirty board sat several of the party first arrived, washing
down tough, stringy beef with brandy. Louis was about to take his
place near a very black-bearded young man, who appeared more
civilized than the rest, and who surprised him by at once making room
for him, leaving the table with an air of courtesy; and when, in his
halting Spanish, he begged 'his Grace' not to disturb himself, he was
answered, in the same tongue, 'I have finished.'

After the meal, such as it was, he wandered out of the hut, to escape
the fumes and the company within; but he was presently accosted by
the same stranger, who, touching his slouched Panama hat, made him a
speech in Spanish, too long and fluent for his comprehension, at the
same time offering him a cigar. He was civilly refusing, when, to
his surprise, the man interrupted him in good English. 'These swamps
breed fever, to a certainty. A cigar is the only protection; and
even then there is nothing more dangerous than to be out at sunset.'

'Thank you, I am much obliged,' said Louis, turning towards the hut.
'Have you been long out here?'

'The first time on the Isthmus; but I know these sort of places.
Pray go in, my Lord.'

The title and the accent startled Louis, and he exclaimed, 'You must
be from the Northwold country?'

He drew back, and said bluntly, 'Never mind me, only keep out of this
pestiferous air.'

But the abrupt surliness completed the recognition, and, seizing his
hand, Louis cried, 'Tom! how are you?' You have turned into a
thorough Spaniard, and taken me in entirely.'

'Only come in, my Lord; I would never have spoken to you, but that I
could not see you catching your death.'

'I am coming: but what's the matter? Why avoid me, when you are the
very man I most wished to see?'

'I'm done for,' said Tom. 'The fellows up there have saddled their
rogueries on me, and I'm off to the States. I--'

'What do you say? There, I am coming in. Be satisfied, Tom; I am
come out with a commission from Mr. Dynevor, to see what can be
arranged.'

'That's right,' cried Tom, 'now poor Miss Ponsonby will have one
friend.'

'Your letter to Charlotte brought me out--' began Louis; but Madison
broke in with an expression of dismay and self-reproach at seeing him
walking somewhat lame.

'It is only when I am tired, and not thinking of it,' said Louis; 'do
you know that old ash stick, Tom, my constant friend? See, here are
the names of all the places I have seen cut out on it.'

'I knew it, and you, the moment you sat down by the table,' said Tom,
in a tone of the utmost feeling, as Louis took his arm. 'You are not
one to forget.'

'And yet you were going to pass me without making yourself known.'

'A disgraced man has no business to be known,' said Tom, low and
hoarsely. 'No, I wish none of them ever to hear my name again; and
but for the slip of the tongue that came so naturally, you should
not, but I was drawn to you, and could not help it. I am glad I have
seen you once more, my Lord--'

He would have left him at the entrance, but Louis held him fast.

'You are the very man I depend on for unravelling the business. A
man cannot be disgraced by any one but himself, and that is not the
case with you, Tom.'

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