Chapter 8 MORTOMLEY UNDERSTANDS AT LAST.

The summer following that autumn and winter when Mortomley's Estate was in full course of liquidation proved, if not the hottest ever remembered, at least sufficiently warm to render Londoners who had to remain in town extremely impatient of their captivity, and to induce all those who could get away to make a rush for any place within a reasonable distance where sea-breezes or fresh air could be obtained.

It was a summer in which everything was as dull as can well be imagined. Trade was dreadful; each man seemed losing money, and no man confessed to a balance of five pounds at his bankers'. If City people were to be believed, a series of unprecedented misfortunes compelled them, one and all, to ask for outstanding accounts and to request the return of such small amounts of money as in moments of mental aberration they had been induced to lend to their impecunious friends, whilst it happened most unfortunately that a series of disappointments and misfortunes equally unprecedented prevented the payment of accounts and the return of loans.

Making, however, due allowance for excuses and exaggeration, things were very bad indeed. That badness affected all trades-touched all ranks. People were not rich enough to be ill, they could not afford to die, and so even the doctors and the undertakers found things hard, and believed fees and feathers had gone out of fashion.

"Persons in course of liquidation were to be envied," so Mr. Swanland with a faint attempt at humour assured his visitors, while Mr. Asherill declared that really he wished he could go into the 'Gazette' and so get a holiday.

If you were on sufficiently intimate terms to inquire concerning the fruitful vine and the olive branches belonging to any City man, you were certain to hear the vine and the olives had been transplanted temporarily to some easily accessible resting-place, to which the husband and father declared to you upon his word of honour he had not the means of proceeding on that especial Saturday afternoon when you spoke to him in Finch Lane.

Nevertheless, had your way been his, you would have met him an hour after, taking his ticket for some well-known terminus.

Even Mr. Dean could not manage to leave town, and Mrs. Dean was, therefore, at Scarborough with some Essex friends who had invited her to join their party.

Mrs. Werner was at Dassell with her children, The old lord was dead, and that Charley, who had once wished to marry his cousin, proposed taking up his residence at the family seat. If this resolution were carried out, Mrs. Trebasson intended to leave the hall, notwithstanding her nephew's cordially expressed hope that she would still consider it her home.

Naturally, therefore, Mrs. Werner availed herself of the opportunity, still left of paying a long visit to the old place, and Mr. Werner had begged her not to hurry back, as "he could do very well without her"-which utterance he did not intend to be ungracious, neither did his wife so understand it.

As for Mortomley and his wife, they were far away from London.

In one of the most remote parts of Hertfordshire where woods cover the lonely country for miles, where the silvery Lea flows through green fields on its way to the sea, never dreaming of the horror and filth it will have to encounter ere mingling with the Thames-where the dells are in the sweet spring time carpeted with violets, blue and white, that load the air with perfume-where rabbits scud away through copses starred with primroses-where jays plume their brilliant feathers in the golden sunshine-where squirrels look with bright curious eyes at the solitary passer-by-where pheasants scarcely move out of the way of a stranger's footsteps-where, save for the singing of birds, and the humming of insects, and the bleating of sheep, there is a silence that can be felt-Dolly had found a home.

As seen from the road as picturesque a cottage as painter need have desired to see, but only a poor scrap of a cottage architecturally considered-a labourer's cottage originally, and yet truly as Dolly described it to Mrs. Werner-a very pretty little place.

The ground on which it stood rose suddenly from the road, and the tiny garden in front sloped down to the highway at a sharp angle. On one side was a large orchard, which went with the house, and on the other a great field of growing wheat already turning colour.

Behind the cottage was first its own ample vegetable garden, and then one of the woods I have mentioned, which formed a background for the red-tiled roof and tumbledown chimneys of the Mortomleys' new home.

Dolly had seen the advertisement of a place she thought might suit to let in this locality, and so chanced to penetrate into wilds so far from London.

As usual, the place advertised was in every respect undesirable, and Dolly wore herself out wandering about interminable lanes looking for a vacant cottage and finding none.

All this was in the early spring when the leaves were only putting forth, when Daffodils, Mezerion, and American currant alone decked the modest flower-gardens-when nature, in a word, had not yet decked herself in the beautiful garments of May, or in the glorious apparel of the year's maturer age.

But Dolly knew how that pleasant country place would look when the hawthorn was in bloom, and the roses climbing over the rustic porches, and the corn cut and standing in goodly sheaves under the summer sun.

There was not a mood or tense of country life Dolly did not understand and love, and she felt like a child disappointed of a new toy while wending her way back to the station to think her search had proved all in vain.

She was in this mood as she drew near the cottage I have described.

"I could be quite satisfied even with that," she considered. "I could soon make it look different," and she stood leaning over the gate and picturing the place with grass close under the window, with a few evergreens planted against the palings, with a rustic garden-chair with rustic baskets filled with flowers, on the scrap of lawn she herself had imagined.

As she so stood an old woman came to the door and looked down the walk at the stranger curiously.

"I was admiring your dear little place," said Dolly apologetically. "I think it is so sweet and quiet."

The woman trotted down to the gate on hearing these words of praise, and answered,

"Aye, it is main pretty in the summer, when the flowers are in full blow, and the trees in full leaf. I tell my master we shall often think of it in the strange land we are going to."

Now this sentence perplexed Dolly; owing to the tone in which it was spoken, she could not tell whether the woman meant she and her husband were going to heaven or to foreign parts, so she asked no question.

She only said, "I am sure you will think it no trouble to give me a glass of water. I have been walking a long way, and I am very tired."

"Come in and rest yourself then," the old lady exclaimed heartily, and she conducted Dolly indoors, and dusted a chair for her, and brought her the water ice-cold; and having elicited that Mrs. Mortomley had come all the way from London, that she had walked miles, that she had been to look at Hughes's house, and that neither bite nor sup had passed her lips since breakfast save that glass of cold water, she asked if her visitor would not like a cup of tea. The kettle was on, she said, and she could mash the tea in a few minutes.

Dolly was delighted, she wanted the tea, and she rejoiced in the adventure. What though the bread was home-made bread and as heavy as lead, to quote poor Hood; what though the tea was "mashed" till it was black in the face; what though the sugar was brown and of a treacley consistence,-the guest brought to the repast an appetite which charmed her hostess and amazed herself.

While Dolly sipped her tea, for she understood the teapot had no great force of resistance and could not hold out to great extremity, and the "darling old lady," as Mrs. Mortomley called her for ever afterwards, drank hers out of a saucer, the two women got into a friendly conversation, and the elder told the younger how she and her master were going to America to their only son, who, after being "awful wild," and a "fearful radical," often going well-nigh to break his father's heart, who had set "great store" by his boy, had started off fifteen years previously "for Ameriky unbeknown to living soul."

Arrived there it was the old story of the prodigal repeated, with a difference.

At home he had wasted his substance and neglected his parents. Abroad he repented him of his evil doings, and worked as hard in a strange country as he had idled in England.

He had married well, and was a rich man, and all he desired now was that his father and mother should make their home near him, share his prosperity, and see their grand-children.

"And so, ma'am, we are going as soon as ever we can let the house and sell our bits of furniture. The house we could get rid of fast enough, but no one wants the furniture, and my husband he is loth to let it go for what the brokers offer."

"What do they offer?" asked Dolly.

"For every stick and stool in the house thirty shillings."

"And how much do you think they ought to give?" asked Dolly.

"Why my master he says as how we ought not to take less nor five pound for the furniture, and two pound for the cropped garden and fowl-house, and sty and woodshed, all of which he builded with his own hands; but there's a sight of counting in that money, and people like us have all their beds and chairs and tables, and I wish he'd take the dealer's offer and be done with it, for I am longing to see my boy once more."

Dolly turned her face aside, and looked at the fire.

"What is the rent of this place?" she inquired.

"Four pound eleven a year, ma'am; and though that do sound high, still it is a cheap place at the money, for there's a fine big garden and that orchard you see, and it needn't stand empty an hour if only my master would give in about the furniture."

"How many rooms have you?" Dolly asked.

"We have as good as four upstair; but two of them are open like on the stairs. We use them for storing things, and there is this house; we call the front room 'the house' in these parts, ma'am, and the back place, and another back place where the stairs lead out, and-"

"Might I see it?" Dolly entreated, "I should like to see it so much."

"You'll excuse the place being in a bit of a muddle?" answered the other, as she led the way about her small territory.

"Good Heavens! if this is a muddle, what must apple-pie order be?" thought Mrs. Mortomley, as she looked at the well-scrubbed stairs, at the snow-white boards, at the chest of drawers bees-waxed till she saw her own reflection in them better than in the looking-glass, off which half the quicksilver had peeled; at the patch-work counterpane, which, though probably half a century old, still shone forth resplendent with red and yellow and green, and all the colours of the rainbow.

"I do not care to see the garden," said Dolly when they were once more in the back place; "and I have seen the orchard. I will take the house off your hands, and your furniture, and your crops, at your own price; I have not so much money with me, but I will leave you what I have in my purse, and I will send down again any day you name, in order to pay you the balance still owing and to take possession."

"You, ma'am!" repeated the woman.

"Yes," answered Dolly; "I have a husband who is in bad health, and I must get him away from London for a short time. We cannot afford to take a large house. We can make this answer our purpose, so now give me a receipt for three pounds ten, on account-and-"

"I can't write," was the reply.

"Well, I will leave my address, and your husband can send me one," suggested Dolly.

"He is no more a schollard nor me," said the woman.

Was this the reason Dolly wondered, why at their age they were willing to give up their home and country and go so far away to join the whilom prodigal? Not to be able to send a line, without that line being indited by other fingers, seen by other eyes; not to be able to understand the contents of a letter save by the aid of a third person's reading! It was certainly very pitiful, Dolly considered.

"It is of no consequence," she remarked, after a moment's pause devoted to thinking this aspect of the educational question over. "Here are three pounds ten shillings, and perhaps you can get some of your neighbours to send me a line, saying when you wish to leave. Good-bye, I hope you may have a pleasant voyage, and find your son well and happy at the end of it."

And so Dolly retired mistress of the position; and so all unconsciously she had frustrated the schemes of the poor old father, who, not wishing to cross his wife, and not wanting to leave England, had put what he considered a prohibitory price on his effects, and refused to leave unless that were given for them.

"It is God's will, and I dare not gainsay it," he muttered to himself, when he grasped the full meaning of his wife's breathless revelation. "But it is nought less nor a miracle-what parson tells us a Sundays ain't a bit more wonderful. It is main hard though, for me at my age though, to be taken at my word like this."

From which utterance it will be seen he never thought of going back from his word; indeed, regarding Dolly's visit as he did, it is probable he imagined some judgment might fall upon him if he tried to put any further impediment in the way.

As for Dolly, once she got possession of the place, she sent Esther down with full directions how she was to proceed to make it habitable. Papers were forwarded from London-papers cheap, light, pretty; and with the help of two local workmen, who "contracted" for the job, the whole house was whitewashed, papered, and painted, in ten days. Dogs took the place of the old-fashioned rickety grate, the outer door was taken off its hinges, and a new one, the upper part of which was of glass, put in its place. A modest porch of trellis-work shaded this door, and over it grew roses and honeysuckle, which were duly trained by a superannuated labourer, who, thankful for a week's work, laid down that grass-plot Dolly's heart desired, at a rate of wage which made Mrs. Mortomley feel ashamed as she paid him the price agreed on.

To persons who have been accustomed to yield up their houses to a professional decorator, and allow him to work his will as to cost of material and price of labour, and the amount of improvement to be effected, it may seem that Mrs. Mortomley must, in making her old cottage into a new one, have spent a considerable sum of money.

This was not the case; and yet when Dolly came to go through her accounts, which meant, in her case, counting over the sovereigns still remaining, she felt she had exceeded the original estimate it was her intention to adhere to, and that she must economize very strictly in the future if her noble was not soon to be brought down to ninepence.

Mr. Mortomley had with much difficulty extracted ten pounds from the treasury at Salisbury House, for his attendance at Mr. Swanland's offices, and a wonderful thing had happened to Dolly.

Rupert not merely repaid the money he borrowed, but added twenty pounds to the amount.

"I have had a great piece of good fortune happen to me," he wrote, "and I send you share of it; I leave for the Continent next month, in company with Mr. Althorpe, a young gentleman possessed of plenty of money and no brains to speak of. He pays all my expenses, and gives me a handsome salary in addition. You may expect to see me next Saturday. I long to see your cottage, and will arrange to stay until Tuesday morning."

So Rupert was the first visitor, recalling the old days departed, who crossed the threshold of the new home, and to whom Dolly could expatiate on the improvements she had effected.

"You have done wonders," said Rupert, standing beside her in the little garden which commanded a view of the Lee, winding away through pleasant meadows. "It is really a marvellous little nest to have constructed out of your materials, but," he added suddenly, "Archie does not like it-Archie is breaking his heart here."

"Archie will have to like it," returned Dolly, and there was a tone in her voice Rupert had never heard in it before. "There is no good in a man kicking against the pricks, and pining for things even those who love him best cannot give him. I shall have to tell him, Rupert; I feel that, whether ill or well, it is time he took his share of the burden with me. The sooner he knows, the sooner he will be able to look our position straight in the face. I wish I was not such a coward. I cannot endure the idea of letting him into the secret that everything has gone, that there is not a thing left."

She spoke less passionately than despairingly. In truth, the change from which she had anticipated such good results, proved the last straw which broke her back.

She, understanding their position, had felt thankful to realise that even so humble a home was possible for them until her husband's health should be re-established, and the sight of his ill-concealed despair when he beheld the cottage, proved a shock as great to her as his new home to Mortomley.

For months and months she had been reconciling herself to the inevitable-schooling herself to forget the past and look forward to a future when Archie would take an interest in the modest little factory she and Lang were to prepare, and learn to find happiness in the tiny home she had tried so hard to beautify-but it came upon him suddenly. He had not realised the full change in his circumstances when he left Homewood, or when he struggled back to consciousness from long illness at Upper Clapton; not when he had to attend at Mr. Swanland's offices; not when the Thames Street warehouse was closed, and one of his own clerks started a feeble business there on the strength of his late employer's name and connection; not when the last sale took place at Homewood-no, not once till on the morning after his arrival at Wood Cottage, (so Dolly christened the new home), he rose early, and walking round the house and surveying his small territory, comprehended vaguely there was something still for him to know; that Dolly was keeping some terrible secret.

"He knows all about it as well as you, you may depend," Rupert said in reply to Dolly's last sentence; "nothing you can tell him now will be news to him."

But Dolly shook her head.

Her instinct was clearer than Rupert's reason, and she felt certain if her husband only knew the worst, he would nerve himself to face it more bravely than he could this vague intangible trouble.

"I will tell him," she declared to Rupert, and then like a coward put off doing so till Mortomley himself broke the ice by asking,

"Dolly, how long do you propose remaining in this charming locality?"

"Do you not think it charming?" she inquired. "I think the walks about are lovely, and the air so pure, and the scenery so calm and peaceful-"

"Granted, my love; but it is a place one would soon grow very tired of. I must honestly confess I find time hang very heavily on my hands already."

"Don't say that, don't," she entreated.

"But, Dolly, if it be true why should I not say it?" he inquired.

"Because, my poor dear," and Dolly laid a trembling hand on his shoulder, "I am afraid you will have to stay here and learn to like and find your interests in it."

He took her hand in his, and turned so that he could see her face.

"What is it, dear, you are keeping from me? Is there any difficulty about getting the interest of your money. Mr. Daniells is in London I know, and the matter now ought to be put right. Tell me all about it, dear-why are we in this place, and why do you say we must remain here?"

"Because," Dolly began, and then stopped, hesitating how to frame her sentence.

"Because what?" he asked a little impatiently. "Come, dear, out with it; the trouble will not seem half so great or insurmountable when you share it with me. Because-"

"Because I have no money, Archie, now, except just a very, very little; because that has gone like everything else."

"Do you mean your fortune?" he asked.

"Yes, dear, the whole of it," she answered, determined he should know the worst at last.

"My God!" said Mortomley, and the expression sounded strange, coming from the lips of a man who rarely gave vent to any vehemence of feeling. "What a fool I have been! what a wicked, short-sighted, senseless fool! why don't you speak hardly to me, Dolly-I who have ruined you and Lenore?"

She stooped down and kissed him.

"Archie, I don't care a straw about the money; I did at first, and I was afraid, but I am not afraid now; if only you will be content and brave, and ready to believe small beginnings sometimes make great endings."

But he made no reply. He only rose, and walking to the door flung it open, and stood looking out over the pleasant landscape.

Dolly feigned not to notice him. She went to her work-table and began turning over her tapes and cottons with restless fingers, waiting, waiting for her husband to speak.

Then in a moment there came a tremendous crash, and Mortomley was lying on the matting which covered the floor, like one dead.