Chapter 3 ONE FRIEND MOST FAITHFUL.

It was Christmas Eve, and Mrs. Mortomley in the little house at Clapton sat "counting out her money."

This ought not to have been a long process, for her resources had sunk very low. Three months had elapsed since her husband's estate went into liquidation, and for those three months, first at Homewood and next at Clapton they had been living on that sum which Rupert's foresight saved from the general wreck, so that the sovereigns lying in Dolly's lap were easily counted. Nevertheless, as though she fancied they might grow more numerous by handling, she let them slip through her fingers one by one, whilst her eyes were fastened, not on the glittering gold, but on the firelight as it now flashed over the small room and again seemed to die away altogether.

She was quite alone in the house. Susan had gone out marketing, and Esther, who had long left Homewood, was visiting her relations in order to benefit her health, which had suffered severely during the weeks succeeding to that dinner-party when Mortomley's friends proved of so much service to his wife. Rupert, staying with them, had dragged Mortomley, an unwilling sight-seer up to London, to inspect the glories of the shops. Lenore was still at Dassell, and thus it came to pass that Dolly sat alone in the firelight, counting her money and thinking prosaically over ways and means.

She had not gone out to meet her trouble half way, but it was impossible for her to evade the fact that poverty was coming upon them like an armed man; and that although her husband's health was much improved-miraculously improved said the doctor-it would still be worse than folly to tell him nothing save a a few sovereigns stood between them and beggary.

Through all, he had clung to the belief that Dolly's remaining thousands were safe, that she and the child could never know want, and Dolly had lacked courage to open his eyes, and no one else thought it worth while to do so.

As she sat letting the sovereigns fall through her fingers as though they had been beads on a string, Dolly's mind was full of very grave anxiety. She had not taken Rupert into her confidence; a feeling of distrust had arisen in her heart against him, and she did not feel inclined to parade her troubles before a man who, to put the case in its mildest form, was not likely to prove of much assistance to her.

Dolly was at her wits' end-no long journey some of her old detractors would have said-all her early life she and shortness of money had been close acquaintances, but hitherto she and no money had not even shaken hands. A certain income, if small, had always been her or hers within the memory of Dolly; and now, just when she wanted it most, just when even fifty pounds a year would have seemed an anchor upon which to rest, she found herself in London almost without money, with a husband still in a delicate state of health, and without friends.

Yes, indeed, though a score of people at least had written to say how delighted they would be if she and dear Mr. Mortomley would come and pay them a long visit, she felt friendless. To many a kind soul, who knew no better way of sympathizing with their misfortunes than ignoring them, she entertained feelings of the keenest animosity.

Of their conventional little they offered her the best they dared offer. How should they understand that to the Mrs. Mortomley they had known gay and prosperous, her husband's trouble should mean looking after pennies-thinking wearily over sixpences.

In a vague way they understood Mortomley had lost a lot of money, and they at once offered hospitality to his wife and himself; what more could those people do who were totally ignorant of business, and who only imagined it meant something "horrid in the City;" but Dolly was smarting just then under the blows she had received from Messrs. Swanland, Dean, Forde, Kleinwort, Werner, to say nothing of the other creditors who, in the Homewood days, had represented to Mortomley's wife that he ought to pay up like a man, and she failed to do justice to the delicate if ignorant kindness which tried to make her comprehend change of circumstances could produce no coldness with acquaintances who had shared the festivities of Homewood in the prosperous days departed.

Dolly was at her wits' end, as I have said. So far she had honestly been able to pay her way, but the supplies were running very short indeed, and she could see no source from which they could be replenished.

"I might sell my watch," she thought; "I suppose some jeweller would buy it, but that money would not last long. I wish I could teach music or sing or play, or write a novel"-poor Dolly evidently had the distressed heroine of a work of fiction in her mind-"but I am a useless little fool; I cannot even do worsted work or embroidery. Archie ought not to have married me; any other woman could think of something; could have done what Lang suggested, for instance," and the head, which still bore its great tower of plaits and frizettes, drooped sadly while she mechanically shifted the remaining sovereigns one after another from hand to hand.

As she sat thus she heard the garden-gate open and shut, but imagining that it had been opened and shut by Susan, she did not alter her position.

Next moment, however, a knock roused her completely, and standing up she went to the door and opened it.

A lady stood on the top step of the flight; but in the darkness, with her eyes blind almost with looking at the firelight and the future, Dolly did not recognize Mrs. Werner.

"Dolly," said the visitor softly.

"Nora," answered Mrs. Mortomley, and then they held one the other in a clinging embrace.

"Come in, dear," Dolly said, and after one look round the house, the poor little house as it seemed to her, unknowing what a haven of refuge it had proved, Mrs. Werner did so.

"I only returned on Friday," Mrs. Werner began, sitting on the sofa and holding both Dolly's hands in hers, "and I could not get over to you on Saturday or yesterday, and I was doubtful about to-day, and consequently did not write, but I wanted to see you so much, your letters have been so short and unsatisfactory. You must tell me everything. First, how is your husband?"

"Better," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "Better, but not well. He has gone to London with Rupert to see the Christmas show set out in the shop windows," Dolly added with a curious smile.

"What is he doing?" asked her friend.

"What can he do? what will they let him do?" Dolly retorted. "He might get a situation at a pound a week, perhaps, if he were strong and well. Don't, Leonora, you hurt me."

"I beg your pardon, darling," said Mrs. Werner, releasing her grasp of Dolly's hands, and kissing one after another of the fingers she had unconsciously clasped so tight; "I did not mean to hurt you, but you ought not to speak in that way, you should not say such things."

"I speak the truth," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "It is not likely you should be able to realise our position. I could not have imagined that any man living in England could, unless he were in prison, be so utterly powerless to help himself as Archie is now. When I said he might earn a pound a week if well and strong, I was in error. He could do nothing of the kind. He is bound to obey Mr. Swanland's bidding. He is his servant. While he was too ill to leave the house, Mr. Swanland graciously excused his attendance at Salisbury House; but now that he is better he has to go there for hours each day, whether it is wet or dry, hail, rain, or sunshine."

"But he is paid for going, of course," suggested Mrs. Werner.

"He certainly has not been paid yet," retorted Dolly; "and, what is more, Mr. Swanland is not bound to pay him a penny."

"Then I am sure I should not go were I in his place."

"He is obliged to go," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "There is no use mincing the matter. Archie is as utterly a slave as if his creditors had bought him body and soul. I do not know how he bears it; why he is able to bear it; or rather I do. If he understood our actual position, he would go mad."

"Have you not told him, then?" asked Mrs. Werner in amazement.

"No, I dare not tell him."

"You ought to do so-"

"I ought not, Leonora. Time enough to let him know we are utterly beggared when he is strong to bear the shock. Some day, of course, he must be told, but I shall defer the evil time as long as possible."

Mrs. Werner sighed. She looked round the small rooms and then at Dolly's changed face before she spoke again.

"And so everything was sold at Homewood?" she remarked at last.

"Everything," was the reply. "In the house, that is to say. The works are still carried on. Mr. Swanland wrote to Archie to say we could have the furniture at a certain valuation, and I answered the letter. If it is preserved among the archives of the house of Swanland, some future young cygnet of that ilk will marvel who the D. Mortomley was that penned such an epistle. Fancy when he knew how we were situated making such an offer. Just as if he believed we had a secret purse."

"He might have imagined your friends would come forward to help at such a crisis," said Mrs. Werner gently.

"I do not think Mr. Swanland's imagination ever took such an erratic flight as that," answered Dolly bitterly.

"Did you see the old place before it was dismantled?" inquired Mrs. Werner. "I suppose not."

"Yes. I had to go over to point out an inlaid desk Mrs. Dean had forgotten in the excitement of her departure. Mr. Dean went to Mr. Swanland and mentioned the omission. Mr. Swanland said that if Mrs. Dean would call at Homewood and point out the article in question to his man, it should be taken to Salisbury House, there to await Mr. Dean's orders. Mr. Dean thought Mrs. Dean could not possibly go to Homewood in the present unhappy state of affairs. He suggested that 'his wife, etcetera, etcetera,' and Mr. Swanland said,

"'Quite so; yes, exactly.' Lang, who happened to be in the outer office, heard all this and told me about it.

"Then Mr. Dean and Mr. Swanland both wrote, requesting me to go to Homewood and point out the curiosity, and though very much inclined to say 'No,' still I went."

"Poor dear Dolly!" ejaculated Mrs. Werner, for there was a break in her friend's voice.

"I am glad I went," Mrs. Mortomley went on; "glad I saw the old home with its death face on. Otherwise, I might in fancy have imagined Homewood still alive, and it is dead. I should tell you that Meadows is no longer Mr. Swanland's lord-lieutenant there. The evening we left Homewood he went out with some of the men and got drunk, a process he repeated so often that at the end of a fortnight he was laid up with what he called inflammation of the lungs, and had to be carried off the premises. Then Mr. Swanland sent down another man, and that man took his wife into residence with him, together with five of the very ugliest children I ever beheld. They all squinted horribly-they all followed me about the place-they all looked at me-'so,'" and Dolly distorted the axis of her eyes to such an extent that Mrs. Werner covered hers up and said,

"Don't, Dolly; pray, pray, don't. Think if your eyes should remain as they are."

"Then they would resemble the eyes of those nice children," answered Dolly, who, in the genial atmosphere of Mrs. Werner's presence, seemed to be recovering her temper and her spirits. "Do let me tell you all about it, Lenny. The mother wondered I had not taken away my beautiful wool-work, evidently imagining I wrought those wonders of sofa-pillows and anti-macassars, which so much impressed her, with my own hand." "'The last lady with whom I was,' she said, 'lamented nothing so much as her chairs; they were all done up with wool-work.'

"'Wasn't theirs forty thousand?' asked the biggest of the children, with one eye fixed on his mother's face, and the other roaming over the garden.

"'Yes, dear, it were a big thing,' she said hurriedly, evidently thinking I might feel hurt to know the 'lady' had been so much greater a personage than myself. 'She was in the public line you see, ma'am,' she went on, 'and the house was just beautiful. She cried about them chairs, she did. She said if she had known how things was a-going to be, she would have got them away anyhow.' And then the wretch went on to say how cheerful that public-house was in comparison with Homewood, and how she did hope they would get back to London before long, and how Mr. Swanland hated dogs; and how our men and their friends had got leave to take one and another, except poor old Lion, who was desired by nobody,-you remember Lion, Nora; and how she wished to gracious some one would soon take him, for 'the creature was half-starved and so savage no one dare go a-nigh him.'

"Then I asked how about the fowls and the pigeons and the cat; and the children in chorus told how the fowls were all stolen and the pigeons gone, and the cat so wild she would not come to anybody; and I wanted to get away and cry by myself, Nora, but they would not leave me-no, not for a moment.

"I had caught the braid of my dress on a bramble, and asked the woman to lend me a needle and cotton to run it on again, and when she was looking up those items and a thimble, I saw she had annexed my drawing box to her own use. 'It was a handy box,' she said. Do not imagine I cared for it, Lenny," added Dolly. "Unlike the lady in the public line, I had passed beyond that state in life when one cries for lost wool-work and desecrated girlish treasures."

"Do not go on-do not, Dolly," entreated Mrs. Werner.

"I will," answered Dolly pitilessly. "I have found my tongue and I must speak. I went out and called the cat-called and called, and at last from half a mile distant, as it seemed, the creature answered. I called and she still kept answering till she came in sight, and then, when she beheld those horrid children, she stopped-her tail straight on end, and her ears pricked up.

"'Stay where you are,' I said to the little wretches, and I went and caught and stroked her, and she rubbed her face against mine, and I felt her poor ribs, and the bones were coming through her skin-oh! Lenny, Lenny, I realized it all then-understood what our ruin meant to us and to the dumb brutes who had trusted to us for kindness."

Mrs. Mortomley laid her head on Mrs. Werner's lap, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

"Lion was wild with hunger," she went on after a pause. "When I unfastened his collar the children fled indoors, frightened lest he should eat them, and, God forgive me, I should not have cared if he had; and the horses-I could not unloose their halters and bring those poor brutes with me. I can talk about it no more.

"That day killed me. I do not mean that I am going to die, or any nonsense of that sort, but I am not the same Dolly I was-not the Dolly you knew once-and loved."

Mrs. Werner did not answer. She turned up Mrs. Mortomley's face and looked at it through blinding tears-no, not the Dolly of the olden time, not the Dolly she had loved so much, but another Dolly who was dearer to her an hundredfold than any woman she had ever previously known or ever might know again-a woman with a soft heart and a great courage, the bravest, tenderest, truest woman, woman ever loved.

Like a far-off echo was the love she had once felt for Mortomley himself. Like the sound of an air solemn and sweet was the love she felt for the friend of her youth, Mortomley's wife.

Two fine natures they possessed, those friends; but the finer, the truer, the loftier nature of the two was, spite of all her shortcomings, possessed by the woman who chanced to be in such sore distress, and Mrs. Werner, with her strong intellect, grasped this fact.

"What were the men about," asked Mrs. Werner after a pause, "that they did not see after the animals you left behind?"

"My dear," said Dolly, "have you ever been in a house when the mother just dead has left no one behind to look after the children? I think every one must once in a lifetime have seen how the irresponsible, unruly brats comport themselves. Homewood is in that strait. The men are all at daggers drawn, each wants to be master, each wants to be a gentleman of leisure. There are five foremen and three managers seeing to the work now. Lang has left, or rather Lang has been dismissed."

"Why?" inquired Mrs. Werner.

"It is an old story now, as stories are with us-three weeks old at all events. Some great firm who had never done business with Archie before, sent to the Thames Street warehouse for a specimen of that wonderful blue which he brought out eighteen months ago, and of course the letter went on to Salisbury House.

"They knew nothing of the bankruptcy, and ordered, oh! some enormous quantity of it to be despatched to America.

"Well, Mr. Swanland sent this order to Homewood, and Lang went up to his office, and said plainly the blue could not be made unless Mr. Mortomley superintended the manufacture. Hankins went up and said it could. Lang came to Archie, and Archie wrote to Mr. Swanland offering to see that the order was properly executed.

"Mr. Swanland wrote in reply that he would not trouble Archie personally to superintend the manufacture, but if he would kindly send him a memorandum of the process it might be useful.

"Archie declined to do this. He said he was quite willing to produce the colour, but he could not give the formula.

"Mr. Swanland then appealed to Hankins, who said he knew all about the manufacture. Lang said no one knew how to manipulate the materials but Archie, and that Hankins had as much acquaintance with the process needful to ensure success as a donkey with Arithmetic.

"Mr. Swanland seemed to think there was something personal in Lang's utterances, and told him his services could be dispensed with after the following Saturday. Lang claimed a month's notice or four weeks' wages. Mr. Swanland declined to give either. Lang threatened to summon him, at which idea Mr. Swanland laughed. Lang then went to a lawyer, who said he could not summon a trustee. Lang said he would do it for the annoyance of the thing, and so threw away half a sovereign which he now repents, because the case cannot come on. He has got another situation, a very good berth as he styles it. He is to have a (for him) large amount of money to go abroad as consulting manager to some great works in course of formation in Germany. One of the partners is an Englishman, and knew Lang at a time when he was in business on his own account. It will be a good thing for him," and Dolly sighed heavily.

Good things came to other people, but not to Mortomley or his wife.

"What a simpleton that Mr. Swanland must be!" remarked Mrs. Werner.

"For not accepting Archie's offer, I suppose you mean," suggested Mrs. Mortomley. "I do not think so. What does he care about the trade, or the colours, or anything, so long as he can find work for his clerks, and knock up a fresh peg in his office on which to hang up the whole of the estate? Lang says-"

"Dolly dear, I do not care to hear what Lang says," interrupted Mrs. Werner. "I do not imagine that the utterances of an employèe concerning his employer can be very profitable under any circumstances."

"Perhaps not," agreed Mrs. Mortomley; but she sighed again.

"Did you ever get your trunks away from Homewood," inquired Mrs. Werner, in order to change the subject.

"Yes," was the short reply.

"Did Mr. Swanland send them to you, or had you to apply for them again, or-"

"Mr. Swanland did not send them to me," said Dolly, as her friend paused. "I applied for them, and he first agreed I should have the boxes, and then thought it was a useless form having them removed from Homewood. So I said nothing more on the subject, and neither did he; but they are here."

"How did they come?" asked Mrs. Werner.

"That I cannot tell you. One Sunday evening, when I returned from church, they were piled up in the kitchen. I promised never to say how they were got away or who brought them; and, indeed, though half tempted to send them back again, I was thankful to have a few decent clothes to wear again once more."

Mrs. Werner looked down at her friend, and smiled as her glance wandered over the pale grey silk dress and black velvet upper skirt and bodice in which Dolly had thought fit to bemoan her lot.

Would Dolly ever be Dolly, she wondered, without her masses of hair-her pretty dresses-her small effects of jewellery-her little graceful knickknacks-and purely feminine deceptions.

No; they were an integral part of my heroine's imperfect character.

Honestly, and to be utterly outspoken, it was a comfort to Dolly, in the midst of her misery, to be able to array herself in purple and fine linen. Poor little soul! wretched though she might be and was, she did not feel herself so completely forsaken by God and man when attired in silk velvet and stiff silk as she might if only in a position to appear in a linsey gown. Vanity shall we say? As you please, my readers. The matter is really of little importance; only allow me to remark, there is a vanity near akin to self-respect-a desire to turn the best side of one's life's shield out for the world to see, which often invests poverty itself with a certain grace of reticence and dignity of non complaint, that we look for in vain amongst those who allow the unmended rags and tatters of their lost prosperity to flaunt in the breeze and stimulate the compassion of every passer-by.

"That reminds me, Dolly," said Mrs. Werner, after a slight pause. "I meant to buy you a Christmas present."

"I am very glad you did not carry out your intention then," retorted Mrs. Mortomley; "for I should not have taken the present."

Mrs. Werner laughed.

"I do not mean to buy it for you, Dolly," she remarked; "but I shall give it to you nevertheless."

"I will not have it," her friend repeated. "I will take nothing from you now, save love and kisses."

"Why, my dear?" asked Mrs. Werner. "In the old days Dolly Gerace would have accepted anything Leonora Trebasson offered her as freely as Leonora Trebasson would have taken Dolly's gift, small or large. What has come between us? What have I done, Dolly, that you should now shut the doors of your heart against me?"

"I have not shut the doors of my heart against you, Lenny, and you are wicked to say anything of the kind," was the reply. "But it is no longer you and me-it is no longer you and me, and your mother and my aunt, but-"

"Finish your sentence, dear," said Mrs. Werner, as Dolly paused, unwilling, in the presence of a man's wife, to terminate her utterance with an ungracious reference to the absent husband.

"There is no necessity," answered Mrs. Mortomley; "you know what I mean as well as I do myself."

"Let me see if you are right," was the reply, spoken almost caressingly. "You would take anything from me, but you will have nothing from my husband-belonging to or coming from him-directly or indirectly; is not that your standpoint, Dolly?"

"Yes," Dolly answered. "I hate to seem ungracious, but I could receive nothing from your hands, knowing you were but the filter through which-"

"Mrs. Mortomley, you are eminently unhappy in your suggestions," said her friend. "We need not pursue your curious metaphor to its inevitable end. It is simply because I am Henry Werner's wife, and because, having no fortune of my own, my money comes from him that you refuse my little present."

"For once, Leonora, you have performed the marriage service over my words and yours, and made the twain one," answered Mrs. Mortomley. "To put the case plainly, I could take anything-a dry crust or a hundred thousand pounds from you, but I could not take a sovereign or a sovereign's worth from your husband."

"You mistake my husband, dear. But let that pass; or, rather, I cannot let it pass; for I must tell you, if Henry thought you wanted his help, he would be the first to ask me to offer it. Never shake your head, Dolly."

"I won't, Nora, if it vexes you."

"And say to me solemnly, love, that you only object to me because I am Henry Werner's wife; that you only refuse my present because bought with my husband's money." "That is true, Lenny. I could refuse nothing that came from you yourself."

"Then, darling, you won't refuse this;" and Mrs. Werner placed in Dolly's hands a tiny little purse and pocket-book bound together in ivory. "Charley, my cousin-you remember Charley-sent me the contents of that purse to buy some little trinket for myself as a memory of the old days at Dassell. He has married an heiress, Dolly; and those waste lands in the north, my uncle was always lamenting over, have turned out to be a sort of El Dorado. Charley's dear kind letter reached me yesterday, and I straightway wrote back to him, saying,

"Besides yourself I never had but one friend in all my life. I wanted to make a present to her, and you have supplied the means. Believe me, in granting me the power to do this you have given me ropes of pearls-to quote Lothair-and miles on miles of diamonds; so there it is, dear-poor Charley's Christmas gift to me, of which my husband knows nothing."

And she rose, and fastening her fur cloak would have departed, but that Dolly, clutching her arm, said,

"Don't go, Leonora, for an instant. Let me exorcise my demon with the help of your presence."

"Pride, dear," suggested the other.

"I do not know-I cannot tell. He rends me to pieces, and I hate myself and him. I want your present badly, Lenny, and yet-and yet I long to compel you to take back your gift."

"Darling," answered Mrs. Werner, "though you are a mother, you never knew what it was to have a mother to love you. Fancy, for a moment I am your mother, saying, 'Dolly, keep it.' Could not that reconcile you, love. And some day it may be I or one belonging to me shall in bitter strait need your help; you would not then like to remember you had refused in your trouble to be assisted by one of us. You would not wish now to place a barrier between yourself and any one belonging to me who might hereafter ask your aid."

"No," Dolly answered slowly. "I should not. It may be-impossible as it now seems-that one of your children, or even you yourself, Leonora, might hereafter stand in need of such comfort as I could give; and just as surely as I take your present to-night, I will return your goodness then. In the words of The Book, 'May God do so to me and more if ever for ever I forget you and yours.'"

"Thank you, Dolly, it is a good vow for Christmas Eve. Good-bye dear, do not come out with me."

For reply, Dolly folding a shawl around her walked along the Grove and to the cross road where Mr. Werner's carriage was waiting.

"You ought not to be out in this damp night air," said Mrs. Werner.

But Dolly only shook her head. The footman banged the door, the coachman touched his horses, Mrs. Werner put down the window and waved her hand, and Dolly returned to the small house all alone. There, expecting perhaps to find a ten-pound note in the silken folds of the new purse, she opened Mrs. Werner's present; but, behold! it was no bank-note which her fingers discovered, but a slip of paper on which was written,

"Pay to Mrs. Werner or order one hundred pounds," and on the back a signature, that of "Leonora Werner."