G. A. Henty

“ Frank marries a little Irish girl without a halfpenny. She, I have no doubt, to use his own expression, a most loveable little woman; and he is as proud of his marriage as if he had made the best match conceivable. Fred, on the other hand, without a tithe of Frank's natural advantages, marries a girl with a fortune, and without a father to look after her. I shall be interested, Alice, in watching the different way in which the young couples will go on. ”

“ Now, my dear Carry, if you had a mother you would tell her, and she would advise you and talk to you as I cannot do. You are very unfortunately placed, dear—unfortunate in being so much alone, very unfortunate that the only person upon whom you can rely is a poor nervous man like myself. But do not think of this, Carry, only think that your old father loves you with all his heart, only think that your happiness is his only object in life, and open your heart to him, dear, as you would to a mother. ”

“ It is not true. Frank might, though I do not think it, have done what the man accuses him of, but I feel sure he did not. But, uncle, Frank is not mercenary. He never built on your death. No, no, uncle; nothing in the world will make me believe it of him. I am as certain as I am of my own life that he did not.”
“My dear Alice,” the old man said, sadly, “do you think I should be apt to believe anything against Frank rashly? But there can be no question here. Do you think a man would come from the side of his dead daughter to tell me lies?”
“Oh, uncle! uncle!” Alice cried, pitifully. ”

“ Fred looked up almost contemptuously. How stupid this big strong man was to be sure.
“And what do you suppose she could have said, Frank? She had just heard you say you did not love her, and would not marry her; and do you think that a girl like Alice Heathcote could have done anything else under the circumstances? Do you think she could have burst out crying and told you she loved you and prayed you to marry her?”
Frank sat down in his chair in sheer dismay. ”

“ She went mad, sir; and her body was picked up in the Thames yesterday! The scoundrel who did it was your son, Frederick Bingham!”
Mr. Bingham had listened throughout without moving, without changing a muscle. The bland expression had died out from his face; otherwise he manifested no emotion. But all the time Stephen Walker had been speaking his brain had been busily at work. Mr. Bingham was not a very hard-hearted man, but his susceptibilities had been much blunted with long contact with the world; and he was accustomed in his business to what the world calls sharp practice. ”

“ Katie was silent still, then she rose quietly from her husband's knee, and looked him fully in the face with those clear honest eyes of hers. “Frank, dear, you are my husband now, and I know you love me very truly, whatever you may once have done any other. Frank, dear, I am not a child, I know men—do things—before they are married—you know what I mean, Frank? ”

“ A man I don't like at first sight I never like. A man I do like, I like very much; and I always find I am right. It is an instinct, or a prejudice, if you like, Frank, but in some things instinct is stronger than reason.”
Frank was vexed, but he only said, “Well, Katie, one can't argue against a prejudice. Only, remember I like Fred Bingham, and have always found him a very good fellow, and I have known him for many years. Besides, [252] Katie, you know your prejudices are sometimes erroneous.”
His wife made a gesture of dissent. ”

“ And how is that unfortunate woman, my dear? Dear me, dear me, I cannot understand why men will neglect their business and go about talking about affairs which don't concern them. [79] I cannot see, Carry, upon my life I cannot, what good can possibly come of it. I told William Holl so. I cautioned him that he would find out his mistake too late. But there, I might as well have talked to the wind. These all but uneducated young fellows have an idea that the whole wisdom of the nation is centred in their heads. ”

“ I should not like a husband of mine to marry me in that sort of way, as if he were ashamed of the whole affair.”
“I don't suppose he's ashamed, Alice. I am afraid though, very much afraid by the name, Oldham you see, that he has married into the cotton mills. It doesn't matter much in his case. He's a railway contractor, and I suppose not particular. Had it been Frank, it would have been a serious matter. I shouldn't like to think of a cotton spinner's daughter at Wyvern Hall. As it is, her money—you see he says she has a snug fortune—will be very useful to him. There's no romance about Fred.” ”

“ Miss Drake was something like her sister Sarah in appearance, but was more quiet and subdued. Sarah, he thought, was really very pretty, and seemed as full of spirits and fun as her brother. Kate O'Byrne was, as has been [10] said, short and rather plump. Her hair was jet black, and her head set gracefully on to her neck. Her features were not particularly good, but her eyes were beautiful; large eyes of uncertain colour, now hazel, now grey, generally very soft and trusting in their expression, but frequently lighting up with an arch ripple of fun, and when indignant flashing out defiantly ”

“ It was evening when Frank Maynard arrived home from his honeymoon with his wife. He had taken a house in the then new neighbourhood, Thurloe Square, Brompton; and Katie, despite the fatigue of the journey from Paris, insisted on immediately going over it all, and in admiring all its arrangements. Very proud was the young husband of the trim little figure, as it tripped through the rooms. ”

“ He could no longer swing himself upstairs to his bedroom, but slept in the little room on the ground-floor, which John Holl and his wife had resigned to him. Sarah Holl grieved sadly over the change; she loved the lad more than her own children; for had she not done more for him? Palpably, James was fading. He was not dying of a broken heart, but he was giving up life because he no longer cared about living. He had loved Carry, as an ordinary man could not have loved her. Other men would have their pursuits and their pleasures, and their duties ”

“ That's the couple I name for six pair of kid gloves against the other.”
“Ah, well,” Katie said, “then if what you say about yourself is true, our bet will never be decided. He dislikes me, I'm sure of it, and certainly I dislike him. Why, he's always making fun of me. He never even says a civil word to me, and I'm sure I don't want him to.”
“My dear Katie, I don't say the affair is coming off at once. I don't even say that I believe, or rather that I have any reason to believe, that Frank is in love with you. I only say, as you challenged me to fix on one of the bridesmaids, I fix upon you. ”

“ He might, for instance, laughingly ask her to open his letters, and tell him what they were about; your letter especially, knowing your handwriting, he would suppose could contain nothing she might not read. Imagine the poor girl's feelings. Her happiness would be destroyed for life. Surely, uncle, Frank's punishment would be too severe. Now, if you were to write a letter, using any language you like towards him—abusing him as much as you please, telling him he has forfeited all place in your esteem, and is henceforth to be a stranger—such a letter would not have the same effect upon her. ”

“ Teddy, what did you take us in that way at all for?”
“'Pon my life, Katie, it's as true as could be. It's the whiskers have made the difference to him.”
“Nonsense, Teddy. Don't believe him, Miss Drake; he has been making fun of you on purpose. Teddy was always great at romancing.”
“Don't you mind what these young people say, Mr. Maynard; they are very rude,” Mrs. Drake said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Drake, I am pretty well able to take care of myself, and I know Teddy of old.”
When they were fairly seated at dinner, Frank had time to examine his new acquaintances more accurately. ”

“ Oh, uncle, there must surely be some mistake.”
“No, Fred; there is no mistake. It is too true. There was no mistaking the man's manner. He was terribly in earnest.”
Fred Bingham said no more for a while, but sat thinking deeply on the course to pursue. At last he said,—
“And what do you mean to do about Frank, uncle? Do you mean to write and tell him what you have discovered?”
“I have been writing this afternoon: I have not sealed the letter. There, you can read what I have said. If he has any excuse to offer for himself—not that he can possibly have any—he will write and urge it.” ”

“ Katie O'Byrne was not nearly so pretty, so far as prettiness went, as her cousin Sarah: hers was one of those faces which do not strike greatly at first sight, but grow gradually upon one. A face with a good deal of character and firmness; altogether, as Frank said to himself at the end of the evening, “a very loveable face.”
The conversation at dinner was sustained with [11] unflagging spirit, principally by Frank, Teddy Drake, and his sister Sarah. Miss O'Byrne did not talk much, and indeed, Frank found afterwards that she seldom took much share in general conversation. ”

“ I never built upon Uncle Bradshaw's money, although if I had been asked, I should certainly have answered that I expected him to leave me, at any rate, half. Well, four or five thousand a year is [227] no trifle, Katie. We have enough to live upon, darling, but for the sake of our heirs we must regret it.”
“If you talk nonsense, Frank, I shan't listen to you.”
“I did not know I was talking nonsense, Katie; a man surely may talk of his heirs. Well then, for their sake one naturally does not care suddenly to lose all chance of a fine fortune simply because one's uncle has gone out of his mind.” ”

“ She is quiet, and takes after her father. Sarah is one of the jolliest girls you will meet in a day's journey, and Katie's a darling.”
“I remember your speaking of your two elder sisters at Cambridge, Teddy, but I do not think I heard you mention the youngest.”
“Oh, Katie is not a sister at all, Frank. She is a cousin—a downright Irish girl. She has lost her father and mother, and has been living with us for the last two years. Now, Frank, make haste with your dressing, and draw it as mild as you conveniently can, for the girls' sake. It is not fair, Frank; upon my life, it is not. ”

“ Fred Bingham's friends, his work-people, everyone with whom he associated, should know that the pleasant, laughing young gentleman was a [177] heartless scoundrel. “No doubt he had imagined that there was nothing to fear from Carry's father, that the nervous old man would do him no harm, would give him no trouble. Ha, ha!—we shall see.” And Stephen Walker laughed fiercely aloud, and shook his clenched fists as he strode along across Sloane Street into Hans Place. With the dignity of a great passion in him, he felt, and was, more of a man than he had ever before been during his life. ”

“ Just the thing to suit you if you are in the humour.”
“What is it, Perkins?”
“Well, sir, you must keep it dark, or it wouldn't do me any good in my business; but the Slogger and I are going,”—and here he bent over the bar with an air of great mystery,—“we're going to a Chartist meeting to-night. The Slogger knows a fellow who is hot about it, and he's put him up to the pass-word. So we're going, and if you and Mr. Prescott are game, you can go with us. We can easily get up a row if we like, and it's hard if us four can't fight our way out of it.” ”

“ To think that my son, Fred Bingham, could have acted in such an insane way as this—with a girl, too, in his own neighbourhood—and, above all, should have allowed his connection with Captain Bradshaw to be known to her. It is beyond all human comprehension. ”

“ After his long absence on the Continent, there was a great charm in the unrestrained and familiar intercourse with a number of young English girls as lively, innocent, and fearless as young fawns. But if he flirted, he flirted generally, dividing his attentions with perfect impartiality among the bridesmaids, and, with the assistance of Teddy Drake, keeping up a perpetual state of fun and laughter with them. Miss Drake and himself were great allies. After the first few days they had, by mutual consent, taken to call each other Frank and Sarah. ”

“ Stephen Walker shed no tears. He sat immovable, crushed and hopeless. When Mrs. Holl recovered, she went outside and put up the shutters, and then closing the door, went back into the parlour.
“Don't take on so, there's a dearie; let me pour you out a little tea. You must not give way. If it is true, poor child, she's happy now. Whatever has happened, she was as good a girl as ever lived, and if she has sinned, she has suffered.” The old man did not seem to hear that he was spoken to; and Mrs. Holl, feeling powerless before this great grief, prepared to leave him to himself. ”

“ You don't suppose a woman is like a peach, and that you only have to open your mouth for her to fall into it. Katie is a good deal too great a prize to jump at the first bait. Besides Katie and I fought so, and, I confess, I teazed her so much, that she got to look upon everything I said as chaff, and if I had told her I loved her, the chance was she would have laughed in my face, and serve me right too. ”

“ Prescott was there, as was his custom in the evening, when Frank was at home.
“Now, Evan, tell us all about it.”
“If you please, sir, Uncle Will has got transported.”
“Got transported, Evan! Why, what has your Uncle Will been doing?”
“Please, sir, he's been going and being a Chartist.”
“Oh, is the Holl who was tried to-day your uncle, Evan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Whew,” whistled Frank, “that is a bad business; how the deuce could the man have made such a fool of himself?” ”

“ Katie's face flushed up, and she was about to burst out indignantly, but seeing by her husband's face that he was grieved as well as angry, she only said,—
“Never mind, Frank, it is no use our worrying ourselves about it; you can do nothing more after this refusal to hear you. We have a good conscience, dear, and can afford to wait. As you said at first, Frank, there can be no doubt that your uncle has worried himself so much about the upset of his plans for you to marry that Miss Heathcote, that he has really gone a little out of his mind about it. ”

“ But Alice gave but slight encouragement to any of them. She was one of those girls with whom a partner very soon gets upon pleasant terms. She was perfectly natural, straightforward, and unaffected; sensible herself, and expecting some amount of sense from others, the sort of girl with whom a flirtation is next to impossible. Nor upon those evenings, when they had no engagements, were Captain Bradshaw and Alice often alone; for in proportion as the visits of Frank had decreased in frequency during the last three months, those of Fred Bingham had increased. ”

“ Well, my dear, frankly it's not nice; and as I said, if Fred were going to have Wyvern Hall, I shouldn't like it at all. Still, Alice, I think you are inclined to be a little too hard upon Fred. He is a shrewd man of the world, no doubt, but you see you don't know anything about men of the world, and so these things go a little against your grain. I like Fred Bingham very much; he's a pleasant, amiable, chatty young fellow, although he has not been brought up, so to speak, in the traditions of a gentleman. ”