"My--! Miss Hallam, do you know what you are saying?"
"I do. My brother has left England. He is ruined."
"I told you, Page!" said Thorley, with much irritation; "but you would believe the rascal."
Elizabeth colored painfully, and Mr. Thorley said, "You must excuse me, Miss Hallam--"
"This is not a question for politeness, but business. I will pay the bills. You know I am sole proprietor of Hallam."
"Yes."
"The case is this. If you suffer the notes to be protested, and the law to take its course, you will get nothing. You may punish Mr.
Hallam, if you succeed in finding him; but will not the money be better for you?"
"We have duties as citizens, Miss Hallam."
"There has been no wrong done which I cannot put right. No one knows of this wrong but ourselves. I might plead mercy for so young a man, might tell you that even justice sometimes wisely pa.s.ses by a fault, might remind you of my father and the unsullied honor of an old name; yes, I might say all this, and more, but I only say, will you let me a.s.sume the debt, and pay it?"
"How do you propose to do this, Miss Hallam?"
"The income from the estate is about L5,000 a year. I will make it over to you."
"How will you live?"
"That is my affair."
"There may be very unpleasant constructions put upon your conduct--for it will not be understood."
"I am prepared for that."
"Will you call for our answer in three hours?"
"Will you promise me to take no steps against my brother in the interim?"
"Yes; we can do that. But if we refuse your offer, Miss Hallam?"
"I must then ask your forbearance until I see Lord Eltham and Squire Horton. The humiliation will be very great, but they will not refuse me."
She asked permission to wait in an outer office, and Mr. Page, pa.s.sing through it an hour afterward, was so touched by the pathetic motionless figure in deep mourning, that he went back to his partner, and said, "Thorley, we are going to agree to Miss Hallam"s proposal; why keep her in suspense?"
"There is no need. It is not her fault in any way."
But Elizabeth was obliged to remain two days in London before the necessary papers were drawn out and signed, and they were days of constant terror and anguish. She went neither to Antony"s house, nor to his place of business; but remained in her hotel, so anxious on this subject, that she could not force her mind to entertain any other.
At length all was arranged, and it did comfort her slightly that both Page and Thorley were touched by her grief and unselfishness into a spontaneous expression of their sympathy with her:
"You have done a good thing, Miss Hallam," said Mr. Page, "and Page and Thorley fully understand and appreciate your motives;" and the kind faces and firm hand-clasps of the two men brought such a look into Elizabeth"s sorrowful eyes, that they both turned hurriedly away from her. During her journey home she slept heavily most of the way; but when she awoke among the familiar hills and dales, it was as if she had been roused to consciousness by a surgeon"s knife. A quick pang of shame and terror and a keen disappointment turned her heart sick; but with it came also a sense of renewed courage and strength, and a determination to face and conquer every trouble before her.
Jasper met her, and he looked suspiciously at her. For his part, he distrusted all women, and he could not understand why his mistress had found it necessary to go to London. But he was touched in his way by her white, weary face, and he busied himself in making the fire burn bright, and in setting out her dinner table with all the womanly delicacies he knew she liked. If Elizabeth could only have fully trusted him, Jasper would have been true as steel to her, a very sure and certain friend; but he resented trouble from which he was shut out, and he was shrewd enough to feel that it was present, though hidden from him.
"Has any one been here while I was, absent, Jasper?"
"Ay, Squire Fairleigh and Miss Fairleigh called; and Martha Craven was here this morning. I think Martha is talking wi" Nancy Bates now--she looked a bit i" trouble. It"s like Ben"s wife hes hed a fuss wi" her!"
"I think not, Jasper. Tell her I wish to see her."
The two women stood looking at each other a moment, Elizabeth trembling with anxiety, Martha listening to the retreating steps of Jasper.
"It is a" as you wished, Miss Hallam."
"Is Ben back?"
"Ay, early this morning."
"Did he meet any one he knew?"
"He met Tim Hardcastle just outside Hallam, _that night_. Tim said, "Thou"s late starting wheriver to, Ben;" and Ben said, "Nay, I"m early. If a man wants a bit o" good wool he"s got to be after it."
This morning he came back wi" tax-cart full o" wool."
"And my brother?"
"He sailed from Whitehaven yesterday."
"To what place?"
"Ben asked no questions. If he doesn"t know where Mr. Hallam went to, he can"t say as he does. It"s best to know nowt, if you are asked."
"O Martha!"
"Hush, dearie! Thou must go and sleep now. Thou"s fair worn out.
To-morrow"ll do for crying."
But sleep comes not to those who call it. Elizabeth in the darkness saw clearly, in the silence felt, the stir and trouble of a stormy sea surging up to her feet. It was not sleep she needed, so much as that soul-repose which comes from a decided mind. Her att.i.tude toward her own little world and toward Richard was still uncertain. She had not felt able to face either subject as yet.
Two days after her return the papers were full of her brother"s failure and flight. Many hard things were said of Antony Hallam; and men forgave more easily the reckless speculation which had robbed them, than the want of manly courage which had made him fly from the consequences of his wrongdoing. It was a bitter ordeal for a woman as proud as Elizabeth to face alone. But she resented most of all that debt of shame which had prevented her devoting the income of Hallam to the satisfaction of her brother"s creditors. For them she could do nothing, and some of them were wealthy farmers and traders living in the neighborhood of Hallam, and who had had a blind faith in the integrity and solvency of a house with a Hallam at the head of it.
These men began to grumble at their loss, and to be quite sure that "t" old squire would nivver hev let "em lose a farthing;" and to look so pointedly at Miss Hallam, even on Sundays, that she felt the road to and from church a way of sorrow and humiliation.
Nor could she wholly blame them. She knew that her father"s good name had induced these men to trust their money with Antony; and she knew, also, that her father would have been very likely to have done as they were constantly a.s.serting he would--"mortgage his last acre to pay them." And she could not explain that terrible first claim to them, since she had decided to bear every personal disgrace and disappointment, rather than suffer the name of Hallam to be dragged through the criminal courts, and a.s.sociated with a felon.
Not even to Whaley, not even to Richard, would she tell the shameful secret; therefore she must manage her own affairs, and this would necessarily compel her to postpone, perhaps relinquish altogether, her marriage. Her first sorrowful duty was to write to Richard. He got the letter one lovely morning in November. He was breakfasting on the piazza and looking over some estimates for an addition to the conservatory. He was angry and astonished. What could Elizabeth mean by another and an indefinite delay? He was far from regarding Antony"s failure as a never-to-be-wiped-out stain, and he was not much astonished at his flight. He had never regarded Antony as a man of moral courage, or even of inflexible moral principles, and he failed to see how Antony"s affairs should have the power to overthrow his plans. But Elizabeth positively forbid him to come; positively a.s.serted that her marriage, at a time of such public shame and disapproval, would be a thing impossible to contemplate. She said that she herself had no desire for it, and that every instinct of her nature forbid her to run away from her painful position, and thus incur the charge of cowardice which had been so freely attached to Antony. It was true that the positive sternness of these truths were softened by a despairing tenderness, a depth of sorrow and disappointment, and an avowal of undying love and truth which it was impossible to doubt. But this was small comfort to the young man. His first impulse was one of extreme weariness of the whole affair. He had been put off from year to year, until he felt it a humiliation to accept any further excuses. And this time his humiliation would in a measure be a public one. His preparations for marriage were widely known, for he had spoken freely to his friends of the event. He had spent a large sum of money in adding to and in decorating his home. It was altogether a climax of the most painful nature to him.
Elizabeth had fully released him from every obligation, but at the same time she had declared that her whole life would be consecrated to his memory. Richard felt that the release was just as nominal in his own case. He knew that he never could love any woman but Elizabeth Hallam, and that just as long as she loved him, she held him by ties no words could annul. But he accepted her dictum; and the very fullness of his heart, and the very extremity of his disappointment, deprived him of the power to express his true feelings. His letter to Elizabeth was colder and prouder than he meant it to be; and had that sorrowfully resentful air about it which a child wears who is unjustly punished and yet knows not how to defend himself.
It came to Elizabeth after a day of extreme humiliation--the day on which she called her household servants together and dismissed them.
She had been able to give them no reason for her action, but a necessity for economy, and to soften the dismissal by no gift.
Adversity flatters no one, and not a soul expressed any grief at the sundering of the tie. She was even conscious, as she had frequently been since Antony"s failure, of an air, that deeply offended her--a familiarity that was not a friendly one--the covert presumption of the mean-hearted toward their unfortunate superiors. She did not hear the subsequent conversation in the servants" hall, and it was well she did not, for, though the insolence that vaunts itself covertly is hard to bear, it is not so hard as that which visibly hurts the eye and offends the ear.
"Thank goodness!" said Jasper, "I"ve saved a bit o" bra.s.s, and miss may be as highty-tighty as she likes. This is what comes o" lettin"
women out o" t" place G.o.d put "em in."