Johnny Ludlow, Sixth Series

II

The white mist, giving promise of a hot and glorious day, had hardly cleared itself from the earth, when, at ten o’clock on the Thursday morning, Jane and Oliver Preen set off in the gig for North Villa, both of them as spruce as you please; Jane in that pretty summer dress she had spent so much work over, a straw hat with its wreath of pink may shading her fair face, Oliver with a white rose in his button-hole. The party was first to assemble at Mrs. Jacob Chandler’s, and to go from thence in waggonettes. There had been some trouble about the gig, Mr. Preen wanting it himself that day, or telling Jane and Oliver that he did, and that they could walk. Jane almost cried, declaring she did not care to arrive at North Villa looking like a milkmaid, hot and red with walking; and Mr. Preen gave way. Oliver was to drive himself and Jane, Sam being sent on to Crabb to bring back the gig.

Mr. Preen did not regard the picnic with favour. Mr. Preen could not imagine what anybody could want at one, he said, when ungraciously giving consent to Oliver’s absenting himself from that delightful Buttery for a whole day.

Picnics in truth are nearly all alike, and are no doubt more agreeable to the young than to the old. This one was given conjointly by the Jacob Chandlers, the Letsoms, the Coneys, and the Ashtons of Timberdale. A few honorary guests were invited. I call them honorary because they had nothing to do with finding provisions. Tod got an invitation, myself also; and uncommonly vexed we were not to be able to arrive till late in the afternoon. The Beeles from Pigeon Green were coming to spend the day at Crabb Cot, and the Squire would not let us off earlier.

The picnic was held upon Mrs. Cramp’s farm, not far from Crabb, and a charming spot for it. Gentle hills and dales, shady groves and mossy glens surrounded the house, which was a very good one. So that it may be said we all were chiefly Mrs. Cramp’s guests. Mrs. Cramp made a beaming hostess, and was commander-in-chief at her own tea-table. Tea was taken in her large parlour, to save the bother of carrying things out. Dinner had been taken in the dell, under shade of the high and wide-spreading trees.

They were seated at tea when we got there. Such a large company at the long table; and such tempting things to eat! I found a seat by Emma Paul, the prettiest girl there; Oliver Preen was next her on the other side. Mary MacEveril made room for Tod beside her. The MacEverils were proud, exclusive people, and Miss MacEveril privately looked down on some of her fellow guests; but Tod was welcome; he was of her own order.

Two or three minutes later Tom Chandler came in; he also had not been able to get away earlier. He shook hands with his aunt, Mrs. Cramp, nodded to the rest of us, and deftly managed to wedge himself in between Emma Paul and young Preen. Preen did not seem pleased, Emma did; and made all the room she could, by crushing me.

“I wouldn’t be in your shoes to-morrow morning, young man,” began Mr. Chandler, in a serio-comic tone, as he looked at Dick MacEveril across the table. “To leave the office to its own devices the first thing this morning, in defiance of orders–”

“Hang the musty old office!” interrupted MacEveril, with a genial laugh.

Valentine Chandler had done the same by his office; pleasure first and business later always with both of them; but Valentine was his own master and MacEveril was not. In point of fact, Mr. Paul, not a man to be set at defiance by his clerks, was in a great rage with Dick MacEveril.

I supposed the attractions of the picnic had been too powerful for Dick, and that he thought the sooner he got to it the better. But this proved to be a fallacy. Mrs. Cramp was setting her nephew right.

“My dear Tom, you are mistaken. Mr. MacEveril did not come this morning; he only got here an hour ago—like two or three more of the young men.”

“Oh, did he not, Aunt Mary Ann?” replied Tom, turning his handsome, pleasant face upon her.

“Yes, and if you were not at the office I should like to know what you did with yourself all day, Dick,” severely cried Miss MacEveril, bending forward to regard her cousin.

“I went to see the pigeon-match,” said Dick, coolly.

“To see the pigeon-match!” she echoed. “How cruel of you! You had better not let papa know.”

“If anyone lets him know it will be yourself, Miss Mary. And suppose you hold your tongue now,” cried Dick, not very politely.

This little passage-at-arms over, we went on with tea. Afterwards we strolled out of doors and disposed of ourselves at will. Some of the Chandler girls took possession of me, and I went about with them.

When it was getting late, and they had talked me deaf, I began looking about for Tod, and found him on a bench within the Grove. A sheltered spot. Sitting there, you could look out, but people could not look in. Mary MacEveril and Georgiana Chandler were with him; Oliver Preen stood close by, leaning against the stump of a tree. I thought how sad his look was, and wondered what made it so.

Within view of us, but not within hearing, in a dark, narrow walk Tom Chandler and Emma Paul were pacing side by side, absorbed evidently in one another. The sun had set, the lovely colours in the sky were giving place to twilight. It was the hour when matter-of-fact prosaic influences change into romance; when, if there’s any sentiment within us it is safe to come out.

as Lord Byron says. And who could discourse on love—the true ring of it, mind you—as he did?

“Do sing,” said Tod to Miss MacEveril; and I found they had been teasing her to do so for the last five minutes. She had a pleasant voice and sang well.

“I’m sure you don’t care to hear me, Mr. Todhetley.”

“But I’m sure I do,” answered Tod, who would flirt with pretty girls when the fit took him. Flirt and flatter too.

“We should have everyone coming round us.”

“Not a soul of them. They are all away somewhere, out of hearing. Do sing me one song.”

She began at once, without more ado, choosing an old song that Mrs. Todhetley often chose; one that was a favourite of hers, as it was of mine: “Faithless Emma.” Those songs of the old days bore, all of them, a history.

“I think all Emmas are faithless,” exclaimed Georgiana, speaking at random, as the last sounds of the sweet song died away.

“A sweeping assertion, Miss Georgie,” laughed Tod.

“Any way, I knew two girls named Emma who were faithless to their engaged lovers, and one of them’s not married yet to any one else,” returned Georgie.

“I think I know one Emma who will be true for ever and a day,” cried Tod, as he pointed significantly to Emma Paul, still walking side by side with Tom Chandler in the distance.

“I could have told you that before now,” said Mary MacEveril. “I have seen it for a long time, though Miss Emma will never confess to it.”

“And now, I fancy it will soon be a case,” continued Tod.

“A case!” cried Georgie. “What do you mean?”

“A regular case; dead, and gone, and done for,” nodded Tod. “Church bells and wedding gloves, and all the rest of the paraphernalia. Looks like it, anyhow, to-night.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Georgie, “then how sly Tom has been over it, never to tell us! Is it really true? I shall ask Valentine.”

“The last person likely to know,” said Tod. “You’ll find it’s true enough, Georgie.”

“Then–” Georgie began, and broke off. “Listen!” she cried. “They are beginning to dance on the lawn. Come, Mary.” And the two girls moved away, attracted by the scraping of the fiddle.

Oliver Preen moved a step forward from the tree, speaking in a low, calm tone; but his face was white as death.

“Were you alluding to them?” he asked, looking across to those two pacing about. “Why do you say it is a ‘case’?”

“Because I am sure it is one,” answered Tod. “They have been in love with one another this many a day past, those two, months and months and years. As everyone might see who had eyes, except old Paul. That’s why, Preen.”

Oliver did not answer. He had his arm round the trunk of a tree looking across as before.

“And I wouldn’t stake a fortune that Paul has not seen it also,” went on Tod. “All the same, I had a rumour whispered to me to-day that he sees it now, and has said, ‘Bless you, my children.’ Tom Chandler is to be made his partner and to marry Emma.”

“We are too many girls there, and want you for partners,” cried Eliza Letsom, dashing up. “Do come and dance with us, Johnny!”

What else could I do? Or Tod, either.

It was nearly eleven o’clock when the party separated. The waggonettes held us all, and nice scrambling and crowding we had for seats. One of the vehicles, after setting down some of its freight—ourselves and the Miss Chandlers—continued its way to Duck Brook with Jane and Oliver Preen.

It was a lovely night. The moon had risen, and was flooding the earth with its soft light. Jane sat looking at it in romantic reverie. Suddenly it struck her that her brother was unusually still; he had not spoken a single word.

“How silent you are, Oliver. You are not asleep, are you?”

Oliver slowly raised his bent head. “Silent?” he repeated. “One can’t talk much after a tiring day such as this.”

“I think it must be getting on for twelve o’clock,” said Jane. “What a delightfully happy day it has been!”

“The one bad day of all my life,” groaned Oliver, in spirit. But he broke into the two lines, in pretended gaiety, that some one had sung on the box-seat of the waggonette when leaving Mrs. Cramp’s:

III

“My Dear Sir,—Robert Derrick is getting troublesome. He has been here three times in as many days, pressing for ten pounds, the instalment of your debt now due to him. Will you be good enough to transmit it to me, that I may pay and get rid of him.

This letter, written by Lawyer Paul of Islip, came to Mr. Preen by the Thursday morning post, just a week after the picnic. It put him into a temper.

“What do Paul’s people mean by their carelessness?” he exclaimed angrily, as he snatched a sheet of paper to pen the answer.

“Dear Mr. Paul,—I don’t know what you mean. I sent the money to you ten days ago—a bank-note, enclosed in a letter to yourself.

Calling Oliver from his breakfast, Mr. Preen despatched this answer by him at once to the post-office. There was no hurry whatever, since the day mail had gone out, and it would lie in Mrs. Sym’s drawer until towards evening, but an angry man knows nothing of patience.

The week since the picnic had not been productive of any particular event, except a little doubt and trouble regarding Dick MacEveril. Mr. Paul was so much annoyed, at Dick’s taking French leave to absent himself from the office that day, that he attacked him with hot words when he entered it on the Friday morning. Dick took it very coolly—old Paul said “insolently,” and retorted that he wanted a longer holiday than that, a whole fortnight, and that he must have it. Shortly and sharply Mr. Paul told him he could not have it, unless he chose to have it for good.

Dick took him at his word. Catching up his hat and stick, he went out of the office there and then, and had not since appeared at it. Not only that: during the Friday he disappeared also from Islip. Nobody knew for certain whither he had gone, or where he was: unless it might be London. He had made no secret of what he wanted a holiday for. Some young fellow whom he had known in Australia had recently landed at the docks and was in London, and Dick wanted to go up to see him.

Deprived of his friend, and deprived of his heart’s love, Oliver Preen was in a bad case. The news of Emma Paul’s engagement to Thomas Chandler, and the news that Chandler was to have a share in her father’s business, had been made public; the speedy marriage was already talked of. No living person saw what havoc it was making of Oliver Preen. Jane found him unnaturally quiet. He would sit by the hour together and never say a word to her or to anyone else, apparently plunged in what might be either profound scientific calculations or grim despondency. It was as if he had the care of the world upon his mind, and at times there would break from him a sudden long-drawn sigh. Poor Oliver! Earth’s sunshine had gone out for him with sweet Emma Paul.

She had not been faithless, like the Faithless Emma of the song, for she had never cared for anyone but Tom Chandler, had never given the smallest encouragement to another. Oliver had only deluded himself. To his heart, filled and blinded with its impassioned love, her open, pleasing manners had seemed to be a response, and so he had mistaken her. That was all.

But this is sentiment, which the world, having grown enlightened of late years, practically despises; and we must go on to something more sensible and serious.

The answer sent by Mr. Preen to John Paul of Islip brought forth an answer in its turn. It was to the effect that Mr. Paul had not seen anything of the letter spoken of by Mr. Preen, or of the money it was said to contain.

This reached Duck Brook on the Saturday morning. Mr. Preen, more puzzled this time than angry, could not make it out.

“Oliver,” said he, “which day was it last week that I wrote that letter to Paul of Islip, enclosing a ten-pound note?”

“I don’t remember,” carelessly replied Oliver. They had not yet settled to work, and Oliver was stretched out at the open window, talking to a little dog that was leaping up outside.

“Not remember!” indignantly echoed Mr. Preen. “My memory is distracted with a host of cares, but yours has nothing to trouble it. Bring your head in, sir, and attend to me properly.”

Oliver dutifully brought his head in, his face red with stooping. “What was it you asked me, father? I did not quite catch it,” he said.

“I asked you if you could remember which day I sent that money to Paul. But I think I remember now for myself. It was the day after I received the bank-note from Mr. Todhetley. That was Monday. Then I sent the letter to Paul with the bank-note in it on the Tuesday. You sealed it for me.”

“I remember quite well that it was Tuesday—two days before the picnic,” said Oliver.

“Oh, of course; a picnic is a matter to remember anything by,” returned Mr. Preen, sarcastically. “Well, Paul says he has never received either money or letter.”

“The letter was posted–” began Oliver, but his father impatiently interrupted him.

“Certainly it was posted. You saw me post it.”

“It was too late for the evening’s post; Dame Sym said it would go out the next morning,” went on Oliver. “Are Paul’s people sure they did not receive it?”

“Paul tells me so. Paul is an exact man, and would not tolerate any but exact clerks about him. He writes positively.”

“I suppose Mrs. Sym did not forget to forward it?” suggested Oliver.

“What an idiot you are!” retorted his father, by way of being complimentary. “The letter must have gone out safely enough.”

Nevertheless, after Mr. Preen had attended to his other letters and to two or three matters they involved, he put on his hat and went to Mrs. Sym’s.

The debt for which the money was owing appeared to be a somewhat mysterious one. Robert Derrick, a man who dealt in horses, or in anything else by which he could make money, and attended all fairs near and far, lived about two miles from Islip. One day, about a year back, Derrick presented himself at the office of Mr. Paul, and asked that gentleman if he would sue Gervais Preen for a sum of money, forty pounds, which had been long owing to him. What was it owing for, Mr. Paul inquired; but Derrick declined to say. Instead of suing him, the lawyer wrote to request Mr. Preen to call upon him, which Mr. Preen did. He acknowledged that he did owe the debt—forty pounds—but, like Derrick, he evaded the question when asked what he owed it for. Perhaps it was for a horse, or horses, suggested Mr. Paul. No, it was for nothing of that kind, Mr. Preen replied; it was a strictly private debt.

An arrangement was come to. To pay the whole at once was not, Mr. Preen said, in his power; but he would pay it by instalments. Ten pounds every six months he would place in Mr. Paul’s hands, to be handed to Derrick, whom Mr. Preen refused to see. This arrangement Derrick agreed to. Two instalments had already been paid, and one which seemed to have now miscarried in the post was the third.

“Mrs. Sym,” began Mr. Preen, when he had dived into the sweet-stuff shop, and confronted the post-mistress behind her counter, “do you recollect, one day last week, my asking you to give me back a letter which I had just posted, addressed to Mr. Paul of Islip, and you refused?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” answered Mrs. Sym. “I was sorry, but–”

“Never mind that. What I want to ask you is this: did you notice that letter when you made up the bag?”