Florence Warden

“ Captain Pennant is gone, Rees doesn’t care for me now; I can’t live without any love, in the place where I had so much. I would rather go away among strangers; I could bear that better.”
Mrs. Pennant was touched. At last she felt her heart go out to the brave, frank girl, and she put a trembling hand upon her neck, where the soft brown hair strayed from under the sombre black bonnet.
“Stay, child,” she whispered. “You shall not have to complain.”
Half a word was enough for Deborah, craving, as she did, an affection to replace what she had lost. ”

“ Careful mothers were afraid of him, for there was not a pretty girl in the countryside who would not snub the richest bachelor in the principality for the sake of the supper dance with Rees Pennant.
Nothing was difficult to him. He rode and drove well by instinct, could manage a yacht like any old salt, and always made the biggest bag at a shooting party. He had a voice pleasing without cultivation, and a laugh as musical as a bird’s song. A nature so gifted, generous and genial withal, needed an armor of ideal strength of character and of intellect. ”

“ He looked at her as if he could scarcely believe his ears.
“Restore the jewels!” he repeated, hardly daring to utter the words aloud. Then he added with an abrupt change of tone: “If you know where they are you are bound to give them up.”
“Yes, so I am—to the police,” said Deborah, quietly.
He looked at her askance, with much mistrust. This was a disagreeably sharp young woman.
“Offenders against the law ought to be punished!” he said severely. “I am not the man to compound a felony.”
“Then, your lordship, I am at liberty to make known whatever I have learnt to the police.” ”

“ Instead of the stooping, lean librarian, with the shabby coat and cringing manner, he saw a well-dressed, dignified man, with trim grey beard—the counterpart of himself. One great difference there was between them, one only. The earl’s eyes looked out upon the world with the cynical and languid interest of a man who has tasted and tired of every human pleasure; those of his companion glowed with the ferocity of a wild beast interrupted in a meal of human flesh.
“Why, Amos, rascality seems to agree with you!” exclaimed St. Lord Austell.
Goodhare laughed harshly. ”

“ For months Deborah Audaer suffered from the horrible effect which the incidents of the visit to Rees had left upon her mind. London seemed to her the pestilential centre of all evil, physical and moral. The inky atmosphere, the black, gloomy streets, Rees Pennant’s dingy room, the passage full of deserted, dirty houses, all contributed to form a ghastly background to the picture of evil in which Amos Goodhare, with his cynical stare, and Rees, with his bold, feverish eyes, formed the central figures. ”

“ He made a feint of moving away, but Rees detained him by a gracefully imperious gesture. The lad’s complexion was flushed now with something more than the sun’s heat; his candid face showed a very becoming boyish shame and modesty.
“You do me a lot more than justice, Goodhare,” said he half laughing. “You make me ashamed of my own idleness, not for the first time, I do assure you, though. You see I’ve been spoilt; I know that; but it’s so jolly that one hasn’t the strength of mind to wish people wouldn’t encourage one in one’s evil courses.” ”

“ But Kate, who always liked to worry a subject to death, soon broke out again.
“Betty, why do you think papa wouldn’t let Rees marry Marion? He’s so fond of Rees, he really treats him almost as if he were his own son.”
“You don’t understand papa,” said Elizabeth, with authority. “He always seems so easy-going that people don’t guess that he’s just like a rock underneath. Nobody thinks so much of class distinctions and money distinctions—those are almost the same thing nowadays—as he does. Rees would have no more chance as a son-in-law than—than Amos Goodhare,” she ended contemptuously. ”

“ I repeat: how do you know I’m contented?” asked Rees, swinging his tennis racquet.
“How do I know?” echoed Amos, diffidently, but with some surprise. “Why, because with natures like yours, full of energy, and fire, and daring, to will is to do. And that you have never done anything—anything great, I mean—is proof enough to me that you have never willed to do anything; that, in fact, the air of Carstow is responsible for the waste of a fine nature. Now you said you would not be offended, Mr. Pennant, and I hold you to your word.” ”

“ I was brought up a gentleman and left a beggar. Then, with stupendous generosity you gave me office as librarian—to close my mouth. And all your favors you gave to Rees Pennant, whom for that reason I have ruined. And so I lived near enough to hear the vices condoned in you which in me would have been condemned; to see a beautiful girl repulse my honorable advances with as much horror as she did your dishonorable ones. ”

“ But when the days grew shorter, and the black shadows of the night began to lengthen out under the grey walls early in the evening, Amos Goodhare, now installed in his little house adjoining the new library of Carstow, would spend his every spare hour in rambles round the old fortress, now this, now the other side of the winding river. Walking slowly, with eyes always cast down, and feet that appeared reluctant to rise, even for a moment, from the precious earth, he seemed to worship each blade of grass, each broken stone. ”

“ Rees Pennant’s brain was growing heated under the spell which the glittering fancy cast upon him. With stealthy feet he soon was pacing underneath the walls, as Amos Goodhare had done the winter and the summer long, now caressing the rugged old stones, now tearing away the ivy which covered them, maddened by that idea of hidden treasure to be had for the finding, which has played havoc with the reason of stronger men. ”

“ Pennant, shocked beyond measure at this irreverent treatment of her divinity, “you must not speak like that to our dear Rees! He knows there is nothing we would not, any of us, gladly do to help him to get well, and to wile away the tedious hours before he does get well.”
“You don’t quite seem to understand, Godwin, my boy,” said Rees, with a touch of haughtiness, holding up his hand languidly to stop his mother. “I should be the last man in the world to take advantage of any girl’s devotion to me. I am going to marry Deborah.” ”

“ It was on Rees Pennant that Amos Goodhare, in search of a tool and catspaw, had cast his eyes. The librarian was, perhaps, the only man in Carstow who disliked Rees; who not only saw through the lad’s bright, affectionate manner to the growing selfishness and egotism beneath, but found no charm in his grace and brightness. He was, besides, intensely jealous of the earl’s fondness for the young fellow, and of Deborah’s passionate attachment. ”

“ Lady Marion?” asked Goodhare lightly.
“Lady Marion! No, d—— Lady Marion. I mean Deborah—my beautiful Deborah! I will see her—I must! If she will have me, I’ll give up all thoughts of that lanky caricature of a woman, beg her to forgive me, and marry her.”
“Too late, too late, my impulsive young friend. ‘Your’ beautiful Deborah is on her way back to Carstow, too utterly disgusted with you to give you another thought.”
“But, Goodhare, she did not understand. She is too pure, too good to believe that men can be such blackguards as you have made me. ”

“ Rees, exhausted by excitement and manual labour of an unaccustomed kind, and flushed by a sense of achievement, was incensed by the question and by this familiar manner of address.
“The feeling which possesses me,” he answered promptly, “is indignation that I should associate myself in any work with an impudent and lazy rascal, who waits outside for the result of other people’s labor.”
Instead of resenting this insolence, Goodhare listened with his head bent down, as if with remorse, and made full and ample apology for his impatience. ”

“ It was Rees Pennant!”
Lord St. Austell was by no means a dull person when an important occasion arose for the exercise of his wits. He had been told where to find his daughter by a servant who knew better than to say what reason took her to Mrs. Walker’s, and until this moment he had not had the least suspicion of her attachment to Rees and her secret correspondence with him. But he had caught sight of a slight, well-formed figure he recognised behind the reed curtain, for neither Rees nor Lady Marion had remembered that a small lamp was burning at the back of the second room. ”

“ Lady Kate mused for some time on this point, until at length it occurred to her to get a peep at Mr. Goodhare by the light of her new suspicions. She knew where he was to be found, for, to do him justice, the librarian loved his books, and appeared to live for nothing else. He had lately been employed in collecting papers and documents and books of reference bearing on the history of Carstow Castle, of which most interesting ruin Lady Marion proposed to compile an exhaustive chronicle.
No subject more fascinating could well have been chosen. ”

“ And there must be madness in the family, or Captain Pennant would never have adopted a fisherman’s baby and brought it up as his own child.”
“Deborah’s very pretty,” said Lady Kate, thoughtfully. “If we were half as good-looking we should have been photographed all over the place as beauties.”
“Pretty! Do you think so?” asked her sister, with an air of matter-of-fact impartiality. “I don’t admire those big, coarse-looking women. I like a face which shows signs of the higher intelligence, a face which lights up. And Deborah has no conversation. I can’t admire a girl without conversation.” ”

“ It seemed to Rees that a thin mist, rising like curls of filmy smoke, came out of the blackness of this opening continually, and mounting slowly to just above his head, obscured his view of the walls. Was there some intoxicating property in this vapor, that, in spite of his precautions, perhaps began to cloud his brain? For, as he looked at the walls, he saw again the effect which had dazzled him before; on every side the rock shone like gold in the light of the lantern. ”

“ When the opening of the entrance for some hours had allowed fresh air to mingle with the poisonous gases in the passage, which Rees’s intrusion had moreover helped to disperse, in the cold grey light of the early morning Goodhare himself ventured to go down, followed by Sep, and, pushing aside the body with avaricious, ruthless hands, began to drag up one of the chests with long, lean, clutching fingers. Lord Hugh’s dead body fell to the ground with very little noise, his long cloak in a moment losing its shroud-like dignity and splitting into ragged strips. ”

“ For it was apparent to everyone that the young man’s injuries were of a dangerous, if not fatal description.
On learning from the questions of the constables how important a factor her own evidence against Goodhare would be, poor Deborah could not suppress a little cry of horror. Strong as were her mistrust and dislike of the ex-librarian, the thought that it might be her words which would convict him was so terrible that, as he passed her on his way out, she gave him a look as if to implore his forgiveness. ”

“ A dash of the kindly prig there was about Hervey, perhaps, and a little too strong a sense that other people didn’t count for much when he was about. But he was fond of Deborah, and he thought that he and she would make quite the grandest couple in the world, if only that unappreciative beast, Rees, were out of the way.
Godwin, the second son, was twenty-one; a matter-of-fact young man, of strictly moderate abilities, plenty of common sense, who never did anything that he did not do well, but in a plodding, methodical manner, without show or fuss. ”

“ But how about the treasure lost in the Civil War?”
“Treasure!” echoed Rees, with a long, loud laugh of scornful amusement, which his intense excitement enabled him to simulate quite naturally. “Oh, if you believe that story, of course you can believe anything. If you were to hear I was a murderer, you would take it for granted. I think you will feel easier if I relieve you of my presence. It’s not pleasant for a lady to be alone with a rogue so late in the evening.” ”

“ Goodhare’s face turned the ugly grey color to which any strong feeling brought it, and his eyes flashed.
“You are wasting your time waiting for Rees Pennant, Miss Audaer,” he said, coolly; “he has other aims in view. In fact, perhaps I may say you have seen the last of him. If he does ever see you again, however, don’t be surprised if he makes you proposals less honorable than those you have so very prettily rejected to-day.”
Deborah broke away from him with an exclamation of disgust, and ran home as fast as she could, humiliated beyond expression by the man’s offensive words and manner. ”

“ As soon as the altercation between Goodhare and Rees grew warm, Deborah, hearing the tramp of footsteps on the pavement outside the house, had crept to the cellar window, and, unheard by the two men in their excited discussion, had torn away one of the boards from the nail which fastened it, and succeeded in attracting the attention of a passer-by, who proved to be policeman.
“Get in! break in! get in somehow!” she cried, “there are two men quarrelling here, and I’m afraid they will do each other harm.” ”

“ All women, when they have had their belief in man in the abstract destroyed by the perfidy of one particular individual, like to visit their disappointment and resentment upon some other individual whom they at the bottom of their hearts know that they can implicitly trust. If he had known it, therefore, Deborah’s snappishness, which she reserved for him alone, was only the natural expression of her indignation that he, the man she did not love, was sound to the core, while the man she did love had proved himself a contemptible wretch. ”

“ She left the room, and the earl turned to Deborah in great agitation.
“Now do you know who is the prime mover in all this?” he asked, almost fiercely, when the door closed.
“Amos Goodhare,” she answered quietly. “He has been Rees’s evil genius for the last eighteen months.”
“And mine for a much longer time than that. But,” he added gloomily, after a pause, “I would have avoided meeting him if I could. It can do no good. He is a rascal, but I cannot charge him, and he knows it.” ”

“ For Lady Marion shared the common mistrust of Amos Goodhare, which was, perhaps, only a result of his extreme reserve.
“He looks wickeder than ever, at any rate,” murmured Kate, as the sisters went softly up the stairs together.
“Look here,” whispered Marion, when they had reached the upper floor, and come in sight of the tower staircase at the other end of a long, dark corridor. “You call him out suddenly, as if something had happened, and I’ll watch him on the stairs from the space between the staircase and the window. ”