George Manville Fenn

“ I never felt till just now that I was a poor man; my wants have been so simple. Yes, by-and-by, you might offer me a partnership if you found me worthy, and you should, sir; I swear you should.”
“And with it my daughter’s hand?”
“I was coming to that, Mr Gartram,” said Chris flushing, and with a proud, happy look in his eyes, as he sat gazing straight out of the window to sea. “I felt, naturally, a shrinking about speaking of that, but Claude and I were boy and girl together. I always liked her, and that liking has grown into a man’s honest, true love. ”

“ Claude turned to her, and looked rather vacantly in her face.
“The tide is going out fast, Mary,” she said, in a low, dreamy whisper. “Don’t you ever feel that there may be some truth in what they say, that people who are near the end pass away from us with the falling tide?”
“Claudie, dear, are you going to be ill?”
“I hope not.”
“And so do I; but do you know you are talking a lot of dreamy nonsense, such as is most distressing at a time like this. We haven’t got anybody near the end. Oh, what nonsense! It’s all old-fashioned silliness.” ”

“ Claude reluctantly allowed herself to be led out of the room, and then, as she stood in the great sombre-looking hall; she in turn staggered and would have fallen, but for Sarah Woodham’s arm, and she suffered herself to be led into the drawing-room, where, with the awful truth beginning to grow and grow till it overshadowed her like a cloud she was about to fling herself sobbing in a chair, when a low sigh caught her ear. ”

“ Oh, Mary, darling, pray that you may never have to listen to a man who loves you.”
“When you love somebody else, you mean?”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” cried Claude excitedly.
“Poor darling coz,” said Mary affectionately; “but I need not pray, dear. There’s no need. No man will ever sit down by me and take my hand and tell me he loves me. I shall be spared all that.”
“And now I’ve wounded you with my thoughtless speech, Mary, dear. Ah, my darling, if you only would not think of your appearance; I never do.” ”

“ Glyddyr gave the orders to unmoor and make sail, after a great deal of hesitation, and then countermanded those orders, and went down into his cabin. There he made the man who acted as steward and valet open for him a pint of champagne, which he tossed off as if suffering from a burning thirst.
That seemed to do him good. His hand ceased to shake, and the peculiar sensation of sinking passed off for the time as he sat by the cabin window, lit a cigar, and let it out again while he watched the Fort, with its drawn-down blinds, and thought over the last night’s proceedings. ”

“ The next minute she listened to his retiring steps as he went along the granite terrace, talking to himself.
“I did not think I could have done it,” he said; “but I have only to keep on, and the rest will come easy. I am too much a man of the world to be frightened at shadows after all.”
“It was perfect,” thought Mary Dillon, as she stood alone in the darkened drawing-room, “nothing could have been better, but I hate him and distrust him. Somehow he makes me shrink away with horror. But its only prejudice for poor Claude’s sake. I’d kill him first. ”

“ How long she sat like that she could not tell, but hours must have passed unnoted—hours during which, with eyes unvisited by sleep, she had gone on and on through her old life, and the scenes, when her husband had returned from his work, bitterly reviling Gartram for some real or fancied wrong, and then a light seemed to flash into the room like the light she had been expecting, and the doctor stood before her with a curious, intense look in his countenance, one she recalled vividly as having been there on the day her husband died. ”

“ Why not?”
“Shall I stand up and walk round, so that you may see all my graces and action?” said Mary banteringly.
“A young man looks at the outward graces of form and complexion,” said the doctor gravely; “a man of my age looks for those of the mind. He wants a companion who can talk.”
“Oh, I can talk,” said Mary merrily; “can’t I, Claude?”
“Mary, dear, I must request that you will not speak like this,” said Claude, very gravely. “You hurt me; and would you mind going in again and seeing if papa is awake.” ”

“ Claude shrank away from him, and her convulsed face hardened, with the faint resemblance to her father beginning to appear.
“You are unjust to him.”
“It is false, madam,” he cried excitedly, with his brow beginning to grow knotty. “I know the scoundrel by heart, and as you are refusing to meet me on the terms full of gentleness and love which I propose, you must be prepared for firmness. Now, please understand. It is the dearest wish of my heart that you should marry Parry Glyddyr. I like him; he is the man I wish to have for my son-in-law; and he loves you. ”

“ That night Sarah Woodham lay long awake, suffering a mental agony such as comes to the lot of few. Her woman’s nature rebelled against her fate, for beneath the hard, morose shell there was an abundance of the gentle milk of human kindness; but her long married training in the hard letter of the sect to which her husband belonged had placed her self-styled duty so to the front that it had become an idol—a stern, tyrannical idol, who must at all costs be obeyed, and she shrank with horror, as at a sin of the most terrible nature, from daring to disobey the injunction laid upon her by the dead. ”

“ Claude—Mary, all this was not my seeking. Good-bye.”
“Not his seeking!” cried Gartram, sinking into a chair and dabbing his face with his handkerchief. “He wants to kill me: that’s what he’s trying to do. How are you now, Glyddyr? Pray forgive me for bringing this upon you. The scoundrel must be mad.”
“Getting better now, sir,” said Glyddyr; and, as his enemy had gone, beginning with a great show of suffering and effort to suppress it, as his eyes sought sympathy from Claude. He found none, so directed his eyes at Mary, who offered him her hand as he made slowly for the nearest easy chair. ”

“ I am going up to the house,” cried the Doctor.
“I will walk with you,” said Trevithick quietly.
“And I am to be left out in the cold,” muttered Glyddyr, as he followed them slowly out, only to stop hesitating, as he caught sight of the principal object of his thoughts.
“That don’t look like guilt, Mr Trevithick,” said Asher, who had seen Chris before Glyddyr had caught sight of him.
“Might be clever cunning,” said the lawyer quietly.
“Might be, but it is not. Oh, hang it all, sir, don’t let us harbour the thought for a moment. The young man’s as innocent as you are. Good-morning, Mr Lisle.” ”

“ Just then Claude stepped softly toward the open doorway, and sank upon her knees with her hands clasped, and her face turned up appealingly toward the sunny sky, while all around seemed full of life, and hope, though the black shadow of death was closing in upon the humble roof. And as Glyddyr saw the sweet, pure, upturned face, with its closed eyes, he involuntarily took off his hat, and gazed wistfully, with something very near akin to love seeming to swell within his breast. ”

“ I want my men; and there’s no trusting that other stuff, or they’re not fit to be trusted with it. Now go, and don’t come here again without being summoned.”
“Too grand for the likes o’ me, eh, Master Gartram?”
“Will you have the goodness to recollect that you are speaking to a gentleman, sir?”
“I’m speaking to another man, I being a man,” said Woodham sturdily. “I don’t know nothing about no gentlemen. I’m speaking to Norman Gartram, quarry-owner, who lives here in riches and idleness upon what we poor slaves have made for him by the sweat of our brows.” ”

“ Sleep is the best thing for him.”
“Sleep is the best thing for him,” said Sarah Woodham in a hoarse whisper, as she went slowly back into the hall, and then into the servants’ quarters, from whence, after a few minutes, she returned to go about in a silent way like a dark shadow, closing and fastening doors, before listening for awhile on the study mat, and then going into the dining-room, where she seated herself on one of the chairs, resting her chin upon her hands, and gazing straight before her in the darkness. ”

“ To a woman, sir, it is nothing of the kind. A woman cannot help it, sir; it is born in her, but to her, sir, a beard is simply dirt.”
“Hah!” ejaculated the gardener, and he thought deeply.
“Yes, sir; I’ve often heard them call it so. Even on the properest man, it is, in their eyes—dirt.”
Brime paid and took his departure, while Wimble plunged at once among his own dark thoughts.
“That man is blind as a mole,” he said, “and can see nothing which is not just before his eyes. He can dig a garden, but he cannot dig down into his own brain. ”

“ Hang it all, Claude, don’t look at me like that!”
“My dearest father,” she cried, after a moment’s hesitation, and she threw herself upon his breast and nestled to him, “are you not making a mistake?”
“No; I am too much of a business man, my dear. I am not making a mistake, unless it is in being too easy with you, and pleading when I might command. There, I’m glad you agree with me.”
“No, no, papa; I cannot,” she said tearfully.
“Now, Claude, my darling, don’t make me angry. You know what my health is, and how, if I am crossed, it irritates me. ”

“ His way was always west, but he went east, so as to pass Chris Lisle’s lodgings; and as he did so, staring hard at the drawn-down blinds, and the chimney pot innocent as yet of smoke, he gnashed his teeth softly, for there were two new flowers in Chris’s bedroom window—a fuchsia and a geranium, in pots of dazzling red, and the mignonette box, full of nasturtiums, which flowed over and hung down, had been newly painted a delicate green.
Fresh attentions to the lodger. ”

“ I’ve always been a gentleman to you, Mr Glyddyr, and you’ve always been a bully to me. I wanted to be friends, and I’ve helped you with money till I’ve pinched myself, and I’ve helped you to throw your wife off the scent.”
“She is not my wife.”
“I don’t know anything about that. Out of politeness one is bound to believe a lady, and she says she is your wife, sir.”
“It is false.”
“Ah, well, that’s nothing to me, sir. That’s your own affair. Settle it between you. Why, I consider that I’ve put two fortunes in your way, sir. You’ve kicked over one; what are you going to do with the other?” ”

“ Then pink, pink, pink, pink came the sharp cry of the blackbird from the tangle of bramble and whortleberry high up the cliff slope, and from the grassy level above, the clear loud song of the lark, as it rose high in the pale morning sky, telling that come sorrow come joy, the world still goes round, and that Nature will have her way, even though murder be on the wing. ”

“ He sat back with the perspiration gathering on his forehead, and the look of excitement on his face changing slowly into horror as bit by bit the meaning of the name on the back of that note gradually unfolded itself till he was gazing upon a picture of horror that appalled him.
“No, no, no! It’s too shocking,” he cried at last, as he wiped his brow. The man could not be such a wretch.
“But he is a wretch! A cold-blooded, swearing, drinking brute; and with all his flash and show, and yacht, I know that he was always hard up for money, and being hunted by that usurious scoundrel Gellow.” ”

“ She did not wait for a response, but sank down, covering her face with her hands, and completely prostrated by her grief.
“No, no,” whispered Claude, going to her, kneeling by her side, and, hungering for love and sympathy, drawing the weeping girl to her breast. “Doctor Asher said that it was not so, Mary darling,” she whispered; “help me to pray. He must not—he cannot die.” ”