Wellfield

“ It was a scene such as one rarely beholds, rendered remarkable, too, by ancient historical associations, and by the present fact, that, though within twenty or thirty miles of all the great manufacturing towns and most powerful radical centres of Lancashire, it was a Roman Catholic strong-hold; in matters of religion a conservative nook, where change crept on leaden foot. From this elevated vantage-ground Wellfield saw many things associated with his own family and its history. ”

“ The prospect of them gave one a longing to ascend them, and from their summits to breathe an air which should be free and pure.
After Burnham came one or two little wayside stations, and then Wellfield. The railway here ran over a high viaduct, much raised above the village. Jerome felt his heart throb as he looked out, and saw below him on the right, slumbering amid orchard trees and some fine old elms, some ancient brown walls, two vast and massive gateways—a broken line which showed where the cloisters had formerly run beside the river. ”

“ To a romantic mind and one given to sentimental musings, Wellfield Abbey must have been provocative of much moon-gazing and many reveries. Nita Bolton was romantic, was sentimental, in no small degree, though these qualities had been well kept in check by the healthy and natural though quiet life which she had lived, and by the perpetual shafts of satire directed against all sentiment by her three associates—her father, her Aunt Margery, and her cousin, John Leyburn. ”

“ If Wellfield Abbey and the money of that insolent heretic who lives there now were once more under the control of the Church—it would be a meritorious act in whoever had brought it about—another jewel in Our Lady’s shrine, and,’ with a faint, sarcastic smile, ‘a step upwards for Pablo Somerville. The young [114] man himself is a Wellfield. If I can make him act for our advantage, by playing upon that self of his, it is easy to bring out the whip afterwards, when he has gone too far to retreat.’
[115]
CHAPTER IX.
‘DON’T FRET.’
August was verging slowly towards September ”

“ Excuse my sitting down, Miss Sara. I can stand no more. I’m not a good traveller, you know, especially by sea.’
‘Poor old Ellen! I’ll get you some wine. Loose your shawl and your bonnet-strings. Did you get a rest at Wellfield? ”

“ Wellfield Abbey, then, got into heretic hands, and the heretics continued to be men of mark; while the pious and devout Waddingtons had the ill luck (or the ill grace) to die out, and their representatives, in the year of grace 1794, let their ancient abode on the hill-side at a nominal rent to those Jesuit fathers who were driven from their French college at L—— by the Revolution. ”

“ Sara did not love Falkenberg—she loved Jerome Wellfield; but the former he believed and grasped at. Every sign of devotion on Rudolf’s part put a weapon into his hands for the furtherance of his plan. He heard glowing accounts of Falkenberg’s riches and great possessions; of his status in the world of finance; of his interviews with royal and imperial personages and their ministers; of what changes a word of his could work in the state of the Börse; in short, every word that Frau Goldmark said convinced him that here was a splendid alliance, waiting [258] for Sara Ford to ratify it ”

“ And then, if you really wish for employment, nothing would be easier than to find it. It is always to be bought, if you will pay dear enough for it. Were you but a Catholic, I know of one—two marriages of that kind, which might soon be negotiated through our influence. As it is, I am not Jesuit enough to pretend that I would connive at marrying a Catholic heiress to a heretic, even where the heretic is Jerome Wellfield.’
Jerome laughed a little. ‘It would certainly be a good deal to expect,’ said he. ”

“ As Falkenberg saw this sight–saw this girl crouching and weeping, and heartbroken and desperate in consequence of having been deceived and deserted by Jerome Wellfield, his heart was hot within him. He went up [Pg 99] to her, took her hands from before her face, and as she looked at him she saw that his eyes were full of wrath, and his brow clouded with angry feeling.
‘Sara!’ he said abruptly, and almost sharply, ‘you demean yourself by this behaviour. Listen to me: answer me: You will never cast a thought to that man again. ”

“ Miss Wellfield, for example?’
‘No. Avice has found a life at home. It is astonishing how she develops, how quickly she is growing into a woman, and a thoughtful one. She finds that her sister-in-law needs her presence greatly, [Pg 176] and I gather from her letters, though she evidently has no idea of it herself, that she also will marry before long, and that happily.’
‘Then you will not ask her to come and see you?’
‘No, thank you. I have thought about it, and I am sure that this is the best place for me. Solitude will not drive me mad. ”

“ By doing this, you will receive it twelve hours before my arrival with Miss Wellfield. I called at Miss Ford’s house yesterday, and found her at home. Do you know, once it came into my head that Miss Ford might be the lady to [259] whom you told me honour bound you, but I very soon abandoned that idea, for all the world credits her with being betrothed, or about to be betrothed, to Rudolf Falkenberg, the great Frankfort banker. You know whom I mean. If I may judge from my own observation, I should say report was right. ”

“ And meantime, before we face Manchester and ruin, there is Elberthal to be passed.’
The following day they departed by the afternoon boat from Ober-Lahnstein for Cologne, thence to take the train to Elberthal. It was a gorgeous afternoon, at the very end of July. The sun was hot, the river was smooth, the scenery was glowing, the boat was full of gay parties of travellers of all nations, when Wellfield and his sister went upon it. A little after six they arrived at Elberthal, and went to an hotel.
[163]
CHAPTER VII.
LIFE’S FULLEST STREAM.
The daylight lasts late in July. ”

“ She was still seated upon the cloak-draped root, but she had drawn herself tense, like a cat before a mouse-hole. Her head was thrust forward, so far that her neck extended almost horizontally. Her dilated eyes were turned in the direction from which the whining and crooning had come. They had a strange clarity in them, as if they could pierce the twigs and leaves and meet there an answering, understanding gaze.
"Susan!" I cried.
Still she gave no sign that she heard me, if hear me she did. She leaned farther forward, as if ready to spring up and run. ”

“ Along quite early in the mornin', before the show commenced, I went in to see Wellington.
He lay there calm and peaceful, with a look on his face as if he had got away at last from a atmosphere of show and sham, and had got into the great Reality of life. ”

“ You mean that a new mind, as well as a new body, may invest the werewolf—or ectoplasmic medium—at time of change."
I jerked my head in agreement.
"Then Susan Gird, as she is normally, must be innocent. Come, Mr. Wills! Would you blame poor old Doctor Jekyll for the crimes of his alter ego, Mr. Hyde?"
"I wouldn't want to live in the same house with Doctor Jekyll."
Judge Pursuivant burst into a roar of laughter, at which William, bringing fresh supplies from the kitchen, almost dropped his tray. "So romance enters the field of psychic research!" the judge crowed at me. ”

“ Isobel's white was relieved with gold trimmings; she looked sumptuous. "I shouldn't like it," she answered.
"What has all this got to do with the practical problem?" Wellgood demanded. "Our trade with the Colonies is no more than thirty per cent—"
"I agree with you, Mr. Wellgood. The gentlemen had much better have kept to their politics," Mrs. Belfield interposed with suave placidity. "They understand them. When they begin to talk about women—"
"Need of Lethe—whisky and Lethe-water!" chuckled Harry. "In a large glass, eh, Andy?"
Wellgood turned suddenly on Andy. "You've lived in Canada. ”

“ Wellingsford was my little world. I knew everybody in it. I had grown to regard myself as the repository of all its gossip. The fraction of it that I retailed was a matter of calculated discretion. I made a little hobby—it was a foible, a vanity, what you will—of my omniscience. I knew months ahead the dates of the arrivals of young Wellingsfordians in this world of pain and plenitude. I knew of maidens who were wronged and youths who were jilted; of wives who led their husbands a deuce of a dance, and of wives who kept their husbands out of the bankruptcy court. ”

“ Gird and Zoberg complied, and stood up in their shirt-sleeves. I searched and felt them both all over. Gird was a trifle bleak in manner, Zoberg gay and bright-faced. Neither had any concealed apparatus, I made sure. My next move was to set a chair against the parlor door, seal its legs to the floor, and instruct Gird to sit in it. He did so, and I produced a pair of handcuffs from my bag and shackled his left wrist to the arm of the chair.
"Capital!" cried Zoberg. "Do not be so sour, Mr. Gird. I would not trust handcuffs on Mr. Wills—he was once a magician and knows all the escape tricks." ”

“ This was all the witnesses could say about the matter, and the magistrate told Mrs. Welldone, she had done ill in committing the first assault.
"I admit it, your worship," said Mrs. Welldone, "but it was enough to make any woman mad to have the bread taken out of one's mouth by stratygim in that manner. Howsever, I don't know that I should have minded that so much if she had not undersold me."
"Sold under you, you mean," said his worship—"If you sold in the parlour, and she sold in the cellar, she sold under you, of course." ”

“ He touched with his forefinger an eye, and I could see that it was bruised and swollen half shut. "A citizen with too ready a fist and too slow a mind has that to answer for."
"I'm partly responsible," I said. "You were trying to help me, I understand, when it happened."
More noise behind him, and two more shapes pushed into the clearing. I recognized Judge Pursuivant, nodding to me with his eyes bright under his wide hat-brim. The other man, angular, falcon-faced, one arm in a sling, I had also seen before. It was Constable O'Bryant. ”

“ Westover?"
Westover confirmed in general Jeff's report of the cleanliness of Paris.
"And beautiful! You don't know what a good-looking town is till you strike Paris. And they're proud of it, too. Every man acts as if he owned it. They've had the statue of Alsace in that Place de la Concorde of yours, Mr. Whitwell, where they had the guillotine all draped in black ever since the war with Germany; and they mean to have her back, some day."
"Great country, Jombateeste!" Whitwell shouted to the Canuck. ”

“ Scrope drew alongside of Pursuivant, peering. "Judge, were you and I seeing things? Both of us?"
Pursuivant actually grinned, and shook his tawny head. "No chance of that, Scrope. People who see things don't see the same things at the same time."
"Group-hypnotism," began Scrope, as though the word might be a comfort, but again Pursuivant gestured a demur.
"I believe in many strange things, Scrope, but not in that. Don't go back into the hall. Sit here, in the kitchen. I begin to understand—to guess, at least."
They sought their chairs. Pursuivant faced the door. ”

“ I think every one ought to earn a living, and when past it ought to be pensioned by the state, and let live in comfort after his own fancy; but failing this ideal, I wish the rich with us would multiply foundations after the good old English fashion, in which the pensioners, though they dwelt much in common, could keep a semblance of family life and personal independence.
Of course Wells, as its name says, was once a watering-place, though never of so much resort as Bath; but now its healing springs bubble or ooze forth in forgottenness, with not a leper or even a rheumatic to avail of them. ”

“ In a few minutes they will be down upon the Row. ‘Look out, Ruari!’ whispers the minister. ‘Stand by the sheets!’ cries Rory to the boys, who, seated on the ballast, gaze on him like statues, watching his face and eagerly listening in silence. ‘Ready!’ is their only reply. Down come the seas, rolling, rising, breaking; falling, rising again, and looking higher and fiercer than ever. The tide is running like a race-horse and the gale meets it ”

“ I managed to blurt, though my voice was drying up in my throat. "Come on, show your face."
"I'm not here to fight you," a good-natured voice assured me. "Why, I seldom even argue, except with proven friends."
I relaxed a trifle, but did not lower my club. "Who are you?"
"Judge Keith Pursuivant," was the level response, as though I had not just finished trying to kill him. "You must be the young man they're so anxious to hang, back in town. Is that right?" ”

“ Now, there's that young Welling. He's about here under my feet all the time; and he's got a way lately of coming in through the window from the piazza that's very intimate. He's a nice fellow enough, and sweet, as you say. I suppose he has talent, too, but I never heard that he had set any of the adjacent watercourses on fire; and I don't know that he could give the Apollo Belvedere [Pg 15] many points in beauty and beat him."
Mrs. Campbell: "I do. Mrs. and Miss Rice accept, and her friend Miss Greenway, who's staying with her, and—yes! here's one from Mr. Welling! ”

“ Two may prosper where one dare only linger on the threshold," she rose. "Come."
She led him to the study, as if it were her study and he was the guest. There Nostradame, converted to the spirit of her wish, rummaged in the closet and found for her another brass tripod stool like his, and a figured robe which he had discarded for its tatters a year before. From a laurel branch in a corner he cut a forked stick and showed her how to hold it.
"Now," he said.
They sat facing each other across the herb-fuming basin. He showed her how to moisten the fringe of the robe. ”