Poor Jane was quite overcome. She seemed convinced that it was only by a special intervention of Providence that she had changed her house, and that her successor had been sacrificed instead of herself.
"It might have been me!" she said over and over again that afternoon.
Wishing to give a turn to her thoughts, I began to talk about Sir John"s legacy, in which she had evinced the greatest interest the night before, and, greatly to her delight, showed her the jewels. I had not looked at them since Sir John had given them to me, and I was myself astonished at their magnificence, as I spread them out on the table under the gas-lamp. Jane exhausted herself in admiration; but as I was putting them away again, saying it was time for me to be dressing and going to meet Carr, who was to join me at the Criterion, she begged me on no account to take them with me, affirming that it would be much safer to leave them at home. I was firm, but she was firmer; and in the end I allowed her to lock them up in the tea-caddy, where her small stock of ready money reposed.
I met Carr as we had arranged, and we had a very pleasant evening. Poor Carr, who had seen the papers, had hardly expected that I should turn up, knowing the catastrophe of the previous night had taken place at the house I was going to, and was much relieved to hear that my sister had moved, and had thus been spared all the horror of the event.
The dinner was good, the play better. I should have come home feeling that I had enjoyed myself thoroughly, if it had not been for a little adventure with our cab-driver that very nearly proved serious. We got a hansom directly we came out of the theatre, but instead of taking us to the direction we gave him, after we had driven for some distance I began to make out that the cabman was going wrong, and Carr shouted to him to stop; but thereupon he lashed up his horse, and away we went like the wind, up one street, and down another, till I had lost all idea where we were. Carr, who was young and active, did all he could; but the cabman, who, I am afraid, must have been intoxicated, took not the slightest notice, and continued driving madly, Heaven knows where. At last, after getting into a very dingy neighborhood, we turned up a crooked dark street, unlit by any lamp, a street so narrow that I thought every moment the cab would be overturned. In another moment I saw two men rush out of a door-way. One seized the horse, which was much blown by this time, and brought it violently to a stand-still, while the other flew at the cab, and catching Carr by the collar, proceeded to drag him out by main force. I suppose Carr did his best, but being only an American, he certainly made a very poor fight of it; and while I was laying into the man who had got hold of him, I was suddenly caught by the legs myself from the other side of the cab. I turned on my a.s.sailant, saw a heavy stick levelled at me, caught at it, missed it, beheld a series of fireworks, and remembered nothing more.
The first thing I heard on beginning to come to myself was a series of subdued but evidently heart-felt oaths; and I became sensible of an airy feeling, unpleasant in the extreme, proceeding from an open condition of coat and waistcoat quite unsuited to the time of year. A low chorus of m.u.f.fled whispering was going on round me. As I groaned, involuntarily, it stopped.
"He"s coming to!" I heard Carr say. "Go and fetch some brandy." And I felt myself turned right side uppermost, and my hands were rubbed, while Carr, in a voice of the greatest anxiety, asked me how I felt. I was soon able to sit up, and to become aware that I had a splitting headache, and was staring at a tallow-candle stuck in a bottle. Having got so far I got a little farther, and on looking round found myself reclining on a sack in a corner of a disreputable-looking room, dingy with dirt, and faithful to the memory of bad tobacco. Then I suddenly remembered what had occurred. Carr saw that I did so, and instantly poured forth an account of how we had been rescued from a condition of great peril by the man to whom the house we were in belonged, to whom he hardly knew how to express his grat.i.tude, and who was now gone for some brandy for me. He told me a great deal about it, but I was so dizzy that I forgot most of what he said, and it was not until our deliverer returned with the brandy that I became thoroughly aware of what was going forward. I could not help thinking, as I thanked the honest fellow who had come to our a.s.sistance, how easily one may be deceived by appearances, for a more forbidding-looking face, under its fur cap, I never saw. That of his son, who presently returned with a four-wheeler which Carr had sent for, was not more prepossessing. In fact, they were two as villanous-looking men as I had ever seen. After recompensing both with all our spare cash, we got ourselves hoisted stiffly into the cab, and Carr good-naturedly insisted on seeing me home, though he owned to feeling, as he put it, "rather knocked up by his knocking down." We were both far too exhausted to speak much, until Carr gave a start and a gasp and said, "By Jove!"
"What?" I inquired.
"They are gone!" he said, tremulously--"my sapphires. They are gone!
Stolen! I had them in a bag round my neck, as you told me. They must have been taken from me when I was knocked down. I say," he added, quickly, "how about yours? Have you got them all right?"
Involuntarily I raised my hand to my throat. A horrid qualm pa.s.sed over me.
"Thank Heaven!" I replied, with a sigh of relief. "They are safe at home with Jane. What a mercy! I might have lost them."
"_Might!_" said Carr. "You would have lost them to a dead certainty; mine _are_ gone!" And he stamped, and clinched his fists, and looked positively furious.
Poor Carr! I felt for him. He took the loss of his stones so to heart; and I am sure it was only natural. I parted from him at my own door, and was glad on going in to find Jane had stayed up for me. I soon figured in her eyes as the hero of a thrilling adventure, while her clever hands applied sticking-plaster _ad libitum_. We were both so full of the events of the evening, and the letter which I was to write to the _Times_ about it the next day, that it never entered the heads of either of us, on retiring to bed, to remove Sir John"s jewels from the tea-caddy into which they had been temporarily popped in the afternoon.
CHAPTER IV.
I really think adventures, like misfortunes, never come single. Would you believe it? Our house was broken into that very night. Nothing serious came of it, wonderful to relate, owing to Jane"s extraordinary presence of mind. She had been unable to sleep after my thrilling account of the cab accident, and had consoled herself by reading Baxter"s "Saint"s Rest" by her night-light, for the canary became restless and liable to sudden bursts of song if a candle were lighted.
While so engaged she became aware of a subdued grating sound, which had continued for some time before she began to speculate upon it. While she was speculating it ceased, and after a short interval she distinctly heard a stealthy step upon the stair, and the handle of the pa.s.sage door before-mentioned was gently, very gently turned.
Jane has some of that quickness of perception which has been of such use to myself through life. In a moment she had grasped the situation. Some one was in the house. In another moment she was hanging out of her bedroom window, springing the policeman"s rattle which she had had by her for years with a view to an emergency of this kind, and at the same time--for she was a capable woman--blowing a piercing strain on a cabman"s whistle.
To make a long story short, her extraordinary presence of mind was the saving of us. With her own eyes she saw two dark figures fly up our area steps and disappear round the corner, and when a policeman appeared on the scene half an hour later, he confirmed the fact that the house had been broken into, by showing us how an entrance had been effected through the kitchen window.
There was of course no more sleep for us that night, and the remainder of it was pa.s.sed by Jane in examining the house from top to bottom every half hour or so, owing to a rooted conviction on her part that a burglar might still be lurking on the premises, concealed in the cellaret, or the jam cupboard, or behind the drawing-room curtains.
By that morning"s post I heard, as I expected I should do, from Sir George Danvers, but the contents of the letter surprised me. He wrote most cordially, thanking me for my kindness in undertaking such a heavy responsibility (I am sure I never felt it to be so) for an entire stranger, and ended by sending me a pressing invitation to come down to Stoke Moreton that very day, that he and his son, whose future wife was also staying with them, might have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of one to whom they were so much indebted. He added that his eldest son Charles was also going down from London by a certain train that day, and that he had told him to be on the lookout for me at the station in case I was able to come at such short notice. I made up my mind to go, sent Sir George a telegram to that effect, and proceeded to fish up the jewels out of the tea-caddy.
Jane, who had never ceased for one instant to comment on the event of the night, positively shrieked when she saw me shaking the bag free from tea-leaves.
"Good gracious! the burglars," she exclaimed. "Why, they might have taken them if they had only known."
Of course they had _not_ known, as I had been particularly secret about them; but I wished all the same that I had not left them there all night, as Jane would insist, and continue insisting, that they had been exposed to great danger. I argued the matter with her at first; but women, I find, are impervious as a rule to masculine argument, and it is a mistake to reason with them. It is, in fact, putting the s.e.xes for the moment on an equality to which the weaker one is unaccustomed, and consequently unsuited.
A few hours later I was rolling swiftly towards Stoke Moreton in a comfortable smoking carriage, only occupied by myself and Mr. Charles Danvers, a handsome young fellow with a pale face and that peculiar tired manner which (though, as I soon found, natural to him) is so often affected by the young men of the day.
"And so Ralph has come in for a legacy in diamonds," he said, listlessly, when we had exchanged the usual civilities, and had become, to a certain degree, acquainted. "Dear me! how these good steady young men prosper in the world. When last I heard from him he had prevailed upon the one perfect woman in the universe to consent to marry him, and his aunt (by-the-way, you will meet her there, too--Lady Mary Cunningham) had murmured something vague but gratifying about testamentary intentions. A week later Providence fills his br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup with a legacy of jewels, estimated at----" Charles opened his light sleepy eyes wide and looked inquiringly at me. "What are they estimated at?" he asked, as I did not answer.
I really had no idea, but I shrugged my shoulders and looked wise.
"Estimated at a fabulous sum," he said, closing his eyes again. "Ah! had they been mine, with what joyful alacrity should I have ascertained their exact money value. And mine they ought to have been, if the sacred law of primogeniture (that special Providence which watches over the interests of eldest sons) had been duly observed. Sir John had not the pleasure of my acquaintance, but I fear he must have heard some reports--no doubt entirely without foundation--respecting my career, which had induced him to pa.s.s me over in this manner. What a moral! My father and my aunt Mary are always delicately pointing out the difference between Ralph and myself. I wish I were a good young man, like Ralph. It seems to pay best in the long-run; but I may as well inform you, Colonel Middleton, of the painful fact that I am the black sheep of the family."
"Oh, come, come!" I remarked, uneasily.
"I should not have alluded to the subject if you were not likely to become fully aware of it on your arrival, so I will be beforehand with my relations. I was brought up in the way I should go," he continued, with the utmost unconcern, as if commenting on something that did not affect him in the least; "but I did not walk in it, partly owing to the uncongenial companionship that it involved, especially that of my aunt Mary, who took up so much room herself in the narrow path that she effectually kept me out of it. From my earliest youth, also, I took extreme interest in the parable of the Prodigal, and as soon as it became possible I exemplified it myself. I may even say that I acted the part in a manner that did credit to a beginner; but the wind-up was ruined by the lamentable inability of others, who shall be nameless, to throw themselves into the spirit of the piece. At various intervals," he continued, always as if speaking of some one else, "I have returned home, but I regret to say that on each occasion my reception was not in any way what I could have wished. The flavor of a fatted calf is absolutely unknown to me; and so far from meeting me half-way, I have in extreme cases, when impelled homeward by urgent pecuniary considerations, found myself obliged to walk up from the station."
"Dear me! I hope it is not far," I said.
"A mere matter of three miles or so uphill," he resumed; "nothing to a healthy Christian, though trying to the trembling legs of the unG.o.dly after a long course of husks. There, now I think you are quite _au fait_ as to our family history. I always pity a stranger who comes to a house ignorant of little domestic details of this kind; he is apt to make mistakes." "Oh, pray don"t mention it,"--as I murmured some words of thanks--"no trouble, I a.s.sure you; trouble is a thing I don"t take.
By-the-way, are you aware we are going straight into a nest of private theatricals at Stoke Moreton? To-night is the last rehearsal; perhaps I had better look over my part. I took it once years ago, but I don"t remember a word of it." And after much rummaging in a magnificent silver-mounted travelling-bag, the Prodigal pulled out a paper book and carelessly turned over the leaves.
I did not interrupt his studies, save by a few pa.s.sing comments on the weather, the state of the country, and my own health, which, I am sorry to say, is not what it was; but as I only received monosyllabic answers, we had no more conversation worth mentioning till we reached Stoke Moreton.
CHAPTER V.
Stoke Moreton is a fine old Elizabethan house standing on rising ground.
As we drove up the straight wide approach between two rows of ancient fantastically clipped hollies, I was impressed by the stately dignity of the place, which was not lessened as we drew up before a great arched door-way, and were ushered into a long hall supported by ma.s.sive pillars of carved white stone. A roaring log-fire in the immense fireplace threw a ruddy glow over the long array of armor and gleaming weapons which lined the walls, and made the pale winter twilight outside look bleak indeed. Charles, emerging slim and graceful out of an exquisite ulster, sauntered up to the fire, and asked where Sir George Danvers was. As he stood inside the wide fireplace, leaning against one of the pillars which supported the towering white stone chimney-piece, covered with heraldic designs and coats of arms, he looked a worthier representative of an ancient race than I fear he really was.
"So they have put the stage at that end, in front of the pillars," he remarked, nodding at a wooden erection. "Quite right. I could not have placed it better myself. What, Brown? Sir George is in the drawing-room, is he? and tea, as I perceive, is going in at this moment. Come, Colonel Middleton." And we followed the butler to the drawing-room.
I am not a person who easily becomes confused, but I must own I did get confused with the large party into the midst of which we were now ushered. I soon made out Sir George Danvers, a delicate, but irascible-looking old gentleman, who received me with dignified cordiality, but returned Charles"s greeting with a certain formality and coldness which I was pained to see, family affection being, in my opinion, the chief blessing of a truly happy home. Charles I already knew, and with the second son, Ralph, a ruddy, smiling young man with any amount of white teeth, I had no difficulty; but after that I became hopelessly involved. I was introduced to an elderly lady whom I addressed for the rest of the evening as Lady Danvers, until Charles casually mentioned that his mother was dead, and that, until the Deceased Wife"s Sister Bill was pa.s.sed, he did not antic.i.p.ate that his aunt Mary would take upon herself the position of step-mother to her orphaned nephews. The severe elderly lady, then, who beamed so sweetly upon Ralph, and regarded Charles with such manifest coldness, was their aunt Lady Mary Cunningham. She had known Sir John slightly in her youth, she said, as she graciously made room for me on her sofa, and she expressed a very proper degree of regret at his sudden death, considering that he had not been a personal friend in any way.
"We all have our faults, Colonel Middleton," said Lady Mary, with a gentle sigh, which dislodged a little colony of crumbs from the front of her dress. "Sir John, like the rest of us, was not exempt, though I have no doubt the softening influence of age would have done much, since I knew him, to smooth acerbities of character which were unfortunately strongly marked in his early life."
She had evidently not known Sir John in his later years.
As she continued to talk in this strain I endeavored to make out which of the young ladies present was the one to whom Ralph was engaged. I was undecided as to which it was of the two to whom I had already been introduced. Girls always seem to me so very much alike, especially pretty girls; and these were both of them pretty. I do not mean that they resembled each other in the least, for one was dark and one was fair; but which was Miss Aurelia Grant, Ralph"s _fiancee_, and which was Miss Evelyn Derrick, a cousin of the family, I could not make out until later in the evening, when I distinctly saw Ralph kiss the fair one in the picture-gallery, and I instantly came to the conclusion that she was the one to whom he was engaged.
I asked Charles if I were not right, as we stood in front of the hall-fire before the rest of the party had a.s.sembled for dinner, and he told me that I had indeed hit the nail on the head in this instance, though for his own part he never laid much stress himself on such an occurrence, having found it prove misleading in the extreme to draw any conclusion from it. He further informed me that Miss Derrick was the young lady with dark hair who had poured out tea, and whom he had favored with some of his conversation afterwards.
I admired Ralph"s taste, as did Charles, who had never seen his future sister-in-law before. Aurelia Grant was a charming little creature, with a curly head and a dimple, and a pink-and-white complexion, and a suspicion of an Irish accent when she became excited.
Charles said he admired her complexion most because it was so thoroughly well done, and the coloring was so true to nature.
I did not quite catch his meaning, but it certainly was a beautiful complexion; and then she was so bright and lively, and showed such pretty little teeth when she smiled! She was quite delightful. I did not wonder at Ralph"s being so much in love with her, and Charles agreed with me.
"There is nothing like a good complexion," he remarked, gravely. "One may be led away to like a pale girl with a mind for a time, but for permanent domestic happiness give me a good complexion, and--a dimple,"