Leonore Stubbs

CHAPTER III.

SPECULATIONS

"I saw old Brown-boots Boldero at the station to-day," quoth Dr. Humphrey Craig, the doctor of the neighbourhood, as he shook himself out of his greatcoat and wiped the October mist from his beard, within the hall of his comfortable house. "Spick and span as usual, and boots as glossy as if there were no such things as muddy lanes in the world. To be sure he had his carriage to-day, though."

"His carriage?" The doctor's cheerful little wife was at once all interest; something in her husband's tone awakened interest.

"He was bringing home that poor girl of his."

"Leonore? Did you speak to them?"

"To him—not to her. We had to stand together on the platform, but I sheered off directly the train came in. He had told me what he was there for."

"But you saw Leonore arrive?"

"I saw her, yes,—poor black little thing. There seemed nothing of her at all beneath her widow's trappings. Handsome trappings they were too; the furs of a millionairess."

"Did she look–?"

"Rather miserable and frightened. Scared at seeing her father, I daresay. Bland and civil as the old ruffian is, every one knows how the girls quake before him. There he was, doing the polite, footman in attendance, big carriage outside—all to be taken note of as evidence that Mrs. Godfrey Stubbs was worth it."

"You are always down on that poor old man."

"Can't help it. I hate him."

"I do think you might give him credit for some fatherly feeling."

"I don't—not a ha'porth. Fatherly feeling? Bless my soul, I can never forget his face at the time of the marriage; it was simply bursting with greedy exultation, and at what? At getting rid of the poor child to such a high bidder. Stubbs wasn't a bad fellow, but it would have been all the same if he had been. Leonore was chucked at his head–"

"Hush—hush!"—Mrs. Craig, with a look of alarm, pointed to the green baize door which shut off the back regions. "You really should be more careful, dear; you can be heard in the kitchen, when you speak so loud."

"Don't care if I am. They know all about it;" but as the doctor had by this time divested himself of his outer garments, and extracted the contents of their various pockets, he suffered himself to be drawn into a side room, his own sanctum, still talking. "Marriages like that are the very deuce, and the law should forbid them."

"Plenty of girls do marry at eighteen," demurred she.

"Plenty of follies are committed,"—but the gruff voice got no further.

"Come, come, old bear, I am not the person to be growled at; I wasn't eighteen when I married you; that's to say, ha—ha—ha!—that's funny,—" and the brisk little woman, who had a sense of humour, laughed heartily. "You don't see? It sounded as if I were younger still,—well, never mind. You have had a horrid day, I know; comfort your poor soul,"—and with the words the wearied man was gently pushed down into his own armchair, that roomy bed of luxury into which he nightly sank when the labours of the day were over. When late like this, he had dined elsewhere, where and when he could.

And next the mistress of the house cast around her eagle eye. She was a born housewife, and particular about all her domain, but woe betide the servant who scamped her work in this room. Mary Craig had what might be called a convincing demeanour when she chose.

And she had not had a moment to run in and see that all was right on the present occasion; and the night was dark and chill, and her husband later than usual, having been far afield on his rounds,—it was just like Eliza to be careless—but Eliza had not been careless.

All was as it should be; a pleasant warmth was diffused throughout the whole snug apartment by a fire which had been lit in time, and was now a mass of glowing coals; the hearth glittered, the curtains were properly drawn, the lamp properly trimmed, and books and papers neatly piled upon the various tables. She had not even to fetch the favourite pipe of the moment, as it and a couple of matchboxes lay handy at the doctor's elbow.

"Eliza's conception of her part," nodded Eliza's mistress, pleasantly familiar with current quotations. "As she forgot a matchbox yesterday, she puts two to-day."

"And that with a fire big enough to roast an ox!" grunted the doctor, scornfully ignoring the extra contribution, and tearing off a strip from the envelope in his hand. "Wasteful hussy—like all the rest of you;" but when he had lit up, and thrown the burning end of paper into the fender, where it was suffered to expire without a motion on his wife's part, he leaned back and his hand stole along the arm of the chair till it found quite naturally another hand, and a round, warm cheek, a dear little cheek, lay presently upon both. For a few minutes neither spoke again.

Then Mary looked up. "Very tired to-night, Humpty?"

Oh, if the patients who thought such worlds of their grim, overbearing Scotch doctor, and the nurses who trembled before him at the county infirmary, could have heard him called "Humpty"!—but to do so they must also have beheld the softening brow, the relaxing of the stern lips, the gradual light which crept into the piercing eyes—and only one person was ever suffered to behold these. Her tender accents unveiled what was hidden from the world.

"Tired, darling?"

"Well, may-be." Humpty made an effort and roused himself. "Perhaps I am, a bit. Those idiots at the infirmary let me in for a lot more trouble than I need have had,—but I daresay it will work out all right. I'm worried about a new case, too,—however, no shop. Let's gossip.—What have you been about?"

To meet this invariable question was part of her daily business, and however trifling the happenings of morning and afternoon might be, they were taxed to yield something whereby Humpty might be beguiled from his own thoughts.

To-night, however, was an unlucky night, she had only such very small beer to chronicle that he soon fell back upon them, and they comprised the return of General Boldero's widowed daughter, and her probable future under his roof.

"She won't have a gay time of it—at least she would not, if she had come empty-handed,—perhaps as things are, it may be different."

"You forget, Humpty, that he always made a fuss about Leonore."

"I don't forget;" the doctor shook his head; "but I remember other things as well. It's all very well to try to whitewash that old sinner, but you don't know human nature as I do, my bairn. For that matter, I am not the only one to say nasty things of old Brown-boots. It is common talk that for all his posing as the genial squire and jolly paterfamilias, Brown-boots is as mean a skunk as breathes."

"I know he is rather a martinet at home, but–"

"But what?" He protruded his head eagerly, scenting something in her hesitation.

"The fault is not all on his side. Sue is straight: she is perfectly straight–"

"Oh, aye; we know old Sue, dull as ditch-water, but honest. Well?"

"The other two are just a little—sly."

"Sly? You don't say so? I hadn't thought of that. I daresay they are, I quite believe they are. Sly? And from you? Bless my life, they must be sly indeed for you to say so!" And he chuckled with keen enjoyment.

"What I mean is that they have no sense of duty. They simply pretend to give in to their father—and of course they are afraid of him—but behind his back it is a very different story. I don't like to say so, but it's true."

"Serves him right, the old tom-cat. I only wish they snapped their fingers in his face."

"No, no, Humpty–"

"But I do. However, I daresay they prefer a quiet life; and as for Leonore, I do wonder how Leonore will get on?"—and he puffed a long breath of smoke and looked down at his wife's upturned face. "If you should ever have a chance of doing Leonore Stubbs a good turn, do it. She'll need it," he prophesied.

The return of Leonore was the event of the neighbourhood. Others besides Dr. Craig had seen General Boldero's carriage, with its glittering harness and champing horses, in waiting at the station; and it was noticed that not merely its presence but that of the general himself on the occasion, was designed to give the young widow importance in the public eye. The Reverend Eustace Custance, the rector, and very much the rector, had both seen and understood.

Eustace was one of the excellent of the earth. His spare frame, long neck, and hanging head were to be seen year in year out entering familiarly every door in his parish,—entering with a friend's step, and departing with a note-book, well-worn and blessed by not a few, in his hand.

There were some among his richer parishioners who voted their clergyman a bore, but he was never so thought of by the poor. Their wants, their cares, their welfare was the burden of his thoughts—and we know that such a burden is not always a welcome guest in the seats of the mighty. General Boldero, for instance, would raise a curt hand to his hat, and mutter something about being in haste, if he chanced upon the rector on the road,—if possible, he would scuffle out of the way. "I never see that man but he has a subscription list in his hand," he would fretfully exclaim,—and though it did not suit his dignity to ignore the list, he would have disliked the person whose fingers thus found their way into his pocket, if it had been possible. Since it was not possible, he yielded a cold esteem, and secretly wondered why so worthy a recipient for promotion did not obtain it.

On the present occasion, however, Mr. Custance did not cross his neighbour's path; voluntarily he never did so, and he had, as it happened, no very pressing case demanding assistance on hand at the moment.

Wherefore, he only blinked his mild blue eyes as the handsome turn-out, designed to edify all beholders, thundered past him on the station road, and recalled what his sister had told him about the Bolderos that morning at breakfast. Emily was his purveyor of news, and his fondness for her made him often affect an interest in it which he did not feel. It might be an effort to say "Ah! Indeed?" and follow on with a proper question or comment when his thoughts were wandering; but he never failed to try, and from trying faithfully for many years, he had finally attained some measure of success.

Occasionally, also, Emily's chit-chat bore fruit; the good man had the scent of a sleuth-hound for any event which bore, however remotely, on his life's object; and though he might now have been secretly amused by his sister's excitement over what to him was a very ordinary circumstance, a single remark in connection with it arrested his coffee-cup on its way to his lips.

"To be sure I had forgotten that," he murmured.

"Forgotten that Leonore made a wealthy marriage, my dear Eustace? Why, it is only three years ago, and we were all full of it."

"Then I suppose she–" he paused and mused.

"You may be sure she brings back her money with her," nodded Emily cheerfully. "Poor dear child, it's all she has left. So sad to be widowed so young, is it not? I don't think you seem quite to take in how sad it is, Eustace," and she cast a gentle look of reproach.

The rector put down his cup and stirred its contents thoughtfully, debating the question within himself. He was so accustomed to sad cases that perhaps—well, perhaps it was as she said: certainly it had not occurred to him to bestow the same pity on a young girl, bereaved indeed, but with a good home to come back to, as he did on Peggy, the ploughman's wife, for instance—that valiant Peggy who, with her ten children, was suddenly reduced from comparative affluence to naked poverty, by the death of the bread-winner of the family.

Peggy was getting on in years, and her strength was not what it had been. She had toiled and moiled, and brought up her boys and girls in a way that won her pastor's heart. His smile would be its kindest, his shake of the hand its heartiest when he entered the ploughman's hut; and there were others;—there was the case of Widow Barnaby whose only son had just returned upon her hands, maimed for life, after starting out into the world a fine, strapping youngster, the best lad in the village, only a year before! No, he had not classed the calamity which had befallen pretty little Leonore Boldero as on a plane with these.

But perhaps he was wrong, he was growing hard-hearted? Contact with the very poor, and with material misery, was apt to blunt sympathy with sorrows of another nature. "I daresay you are right, Emily," he said candidly; for once convicted, no one was swifter to acknowledge a fault. "I had not looked upon it in that light. Yes, it is certainly very sad about Leonore, poor thing."

"People say it is a blessing she does not come back poor and dependent;" thus encouraged, Emily proceeded with gusto, "for we all know the general."

"Aye, that we do. So Leonore is rich?" and he obviously pondered on the idea.

"My dear brother," Emily laughed, but the laugh was full of affection, "now what is to come first? The Christmas coals, or the Old Folks' Dinner, or–?"

"Peggy Farmiloe," said he, succinctly. "Her needs at the present time are paramount. The rest can wait."

"So you will call on Leonore?"

"I shall make a point of doing so—presently."

"You will have to get at her when she is alone, you know. It would be no good making it a topic of general conversation."

"I shall be as wise as the serpent, Emily," the good man permitted himself an appreciative sally. "Perhaps I shall not even introduce the subject at all on a first call, eh? It might not be in good taste—not that one should heed that. But if my clumsiness were to prejudice the cause—oh, I must certainly beware of clumsiness. Let me see, to-day is Thursday," and out came the note-book; and after due consideration Monday was fixed upon, whereupon Mr. Custance rose briskly.

"You may depend upon it, I shall go to the Abbey on Monday. And if this poor little widow's heart is in the right place–" a glance shot from his eye.

He foresaw sacks of coal and piles of blankets. He fed and he clothed. He distributed the older Farmiloe orphans hither and thither, and gathered the little ones together under his wing, which, weak before, would now be strong to shelter and support. The Barnaby lad should have better nursing and an easier couch. There was the old couple at the disused toll-gate too. It was a blissful dream; and it is sad to think—but we will not anticipate.

At Claymount Hall, the theme was treated from another point of view. Here dwelt a very fine old lady with a youthful grandson, of whom it may be briefly said that the neighbourhood thought Valentine Purcell a fool, and that Val himself was very much of its opinion.

"She's clever enough for two though, ain't she?" opined he,—and on this point it was the neighbourhood who endorsed his opinion.

The pair were an unfailing source of interest and amusement. Mrs. Purcell's latest word and Val's latest deed invariably went the round, and to their house as a centre every fresh topic made its way.

It was there, we may observe, that the doctor's wife had met the Boldero girls and heard about Leonore, and it might be added that it was there also the Reverend Eustace Custance gained the like intelligence. Let us hear how it was taken by the Purcells themselves.

Val, as usual, grinned from ear to ear, and had nothing to say—but his grandmother had plenty, and directly her guests had departed she summoned the young man to her side.

"What is this I hear about the Bolderos?"

This was Mrs. Purcell's little way of finding out what others had heard. It is true that she was slightly deaf as she was partially blind,—but she heard a great deal more and saw a vast deal further than most of her neighbours, and Val was never in the least taken in by a parade of infirmities. On the present occasion he simply waited for the speaker to proceed.

"Did those girls say their sister was coming back to live with them? I thought they did—but you know how badly I hear, especially if there is a hubbub going on. Were they expecting her to-day? And had their father gone to meet her, and was that why they had to hurry off, so as to be back at home before the carriage returned? I thought so, but those girls gabble like ducks. Eh? I was right then? And this is the end of poor little Leonore's great marriage? At twenty-one she is left a widow, with too much money to know what to do with—what? What did you say?"

"Didn't say anything, ma'am."

"But it is so, is it not? I am sure I heard Maud telling you–?" and Mrs. Purcell paused and peered sharply.

"I didn't, then. But I knew you would tell me afterwards if there was anything to tell."

"Humph!" The old lady paused again, and twisted her cap strings. Val was gazing stupidly out of the window, but whatever the expression of his face might be no one could deny that the face itself was worthy of notice. It was an almost perfect outline which was now cut sharp against the light, the unusually bright light of an autumn sun, setting in a cloudless sky.

Val was looking at the sun, and wondering if a slight haze surrounding it portended rain. He was learned in weather lore and most of his life was passed out of doors,—so that it was important to him to ascertain if he could, the forecast of each day. It meant whether he might expect a hunting, or a shooting, or a fishing day. This was infinitely more interesting than the conversation, though he was always ready for conversation if nothing better offered.

"Humph!" muttered his grandmother a second time, and stole a glance, a long, furtive, appraising glance—not at the sunset, but at the profile which it threw into such bold relief.

Apparently it satisfied her, for her own features relaxed, and her eyes sought the floor in meditation.

("She might be caught by his looks, why not? The other two are always glad to talk to Val, and Heaven knows it is not for anything he says. He contrives to make them laugh—he has a kind of oddity that goes down—but if he were an ugly fellow they would not trouble their heads about that. Now, if Leonore–she is but a child still, and as she could marry a man called Stubbs to begin with, she can't be particular. Anyhow it is worth trying for.")

"Val?"—suddenly the peremptory old voice rang out.

Val yawned and turned round.

"I am so sorry for dear little Leonore, I can't get her out of my head."

"Well, I'm sorry too." With an effort Val recalled what he had to be sorry for, but that done, he assumed a solemn air that did him credit—and indeed we are wrong in using the word "assumed," since directly he remembered or reflected upon the woes of others, Valentine Purcell's kind heart was touched.

"I'm awfully sorry," he reiterated now, shaking his head.

"It is so sad for her, is it not?"

"Awfully sad; I say, do you think she'd join the hunt?" Suddenly his eyes lit up, and he started to attention. "We do want some more subscribers jolly badly. If Leonore–"

"Not just at present, my dear,—but, yes, certainly, by-and-by, when she has settled down here, and left off her weeds."

"Her what?" he stared.

"Her widow's weeds, dear boy. The poor child must wear them, you know. White collars and cuffs, and that kind of thing. Happily she need not disfigure her sweet face by a frightful cap as I had to do."

"Oh, Lor! Do you mean Leo will have to turn out in a thing like that?"

"My dear, I just said she would not."

"But she might, he-he-he!" he chuckled, but the next moment was again preternaturally grave. "I had no idea. Poor Leo!"

This was better. The old lady sighed sympathetically. "Yes, indeed. Poor Leo! You always liked Leo, Val?"

"Rather. I can't imagine her in a beastly widow's cap, he-he-he! It's a beastly shame, but I can't help laughing."

"It does seem incongruous. I don't wonder that you can hardly picture that bright little sunbeam of a face with those golden curls hanging round it–"

"She's not as good-looking as Maud, you know."

"Indeed I think she is a great deal better looking," said Mrs. Purcell, shortly.

But she knew better than to argue the point, and resorted to one more likely to yield a favourable result.

"You were talking about Leonore's joining the hunt; and I fancy if you are content to wait a little and approach the matter delicately, she is quite likely to be persuaded. Every one knows that it is only stinginess on General Boldero's part which stands in the way of his daughters' hunting. That need not affect Leonore, who will now be quite independent, and can keep as many horses as she chooses."

"You don't say so? Yoicks! I'll be at her like a shot."

"And you can offer to pilot her, you know. She will be nervous at first."

"Oh, I'll pilot her. But she can ride all right, for we used to have great larks when they were out on their ponies, and Leo was always the best of the bunch. It will be fun if I can get her to follow hounds, and the hunt will be awfully obliged to me."

"Don't let any one else—it is your idea, and you ought to have the benefit of it."

"Trust me for that, ma'am," looking very wise. "I've never brought them a subscriber yet, and it would be jolly mean of any one to try to cut me out."

"If it is suggested, you must pooh-pooh the notion."

"How can I though, when I'm thinking of it all the time myself?"

"Leonore might be prevailed upon by you, by an old friend for whom she has a kindly feeling, and on whose judgment she could rely," replied Mrs. Purcell, softly; "while at the same time she would not think nor dream of such a thing if left to herself. And certainly she would resent being approached on the subject by strangers. Therefore it would be quite correct, absolutely correct, to say that no such approach would have a chance of success. You see that, my dear boy?"

He was further instructed that, in order to prepare the ground for his future mission, he was to take an early opportunity of calling at the Abbey, and of being especially respectful and sympathetic in his manner towards poor dear little Leo.

He was to show that as an old friend and playmate he felt for her; and he might, if he saw his way to it, intimate delicately that though he might grieve on her account at her return to dwell among them, he could not do so on his own.

"Well, I can say that, you know," Val brightened up. He did not much like being on the respectful and sympathetic lay, he told himself; he was pretty sure to make a mess of it there;—but if it came to saying he was glad–

"You can't say such a thing, my dear, you can only infer it. You can look it; look kind and—and tender."

"And jolly well show old Maud she needn't book me too sure as her man, eh?"

At last he seemed to have caught up what she was struggling against heavy odds to inculcate. It was up-hill work teaching Val anything, especially anything requiring finesse—but occasionally he would startle his mentor. He would emit a flash of intelligence when such was least expected, and there was now such a humorous light in his grey eyes that the old lady laughed in her heart. Dear, dear—how naughty he was! So he had the vanity to suppose that Maud Boldero reckoned him an admirer?

Whereat Val complacently knew she did.

By degrees he was led to reveal all his artless thoughts upon the subject, and somehow found it more engrossing than he had ever done before.

In truth, his grandmother had never encouraged mention of it before. She had ignored the Boldero girls when she could, and bracketed them together in faint, damning praise when to ignore was impossible. She knew exactly how to treat Val. An incipient flame could be warmed, cooled, or blown out by her breath—and as hitherto she had had no intention of receiving a daughter-in-law out of Boldero Abbey, she had simply never permitted a spark to be lit.