The White Virgin

“Thank you, my boy, thank you. God bless you! I seem to have no one but you – now she’s gone. Clive, my lad, I’ll tell you. I came back here after the funeral and went into the drawing-room, and I turned her picture with its face to the wall, after I’d cursed her like old fathers used to do in the plays when I was a boy. I said I cast her off for ever; and then I sat down in my chair, and did what I hadn’t done since her mother, my poor dear wife, died. I cried, boy, like a little child. For it seemed as if she was dead too – dead and gone – and I had suddenly turned into a disappointed, lonely old man.”

“And then you turned the picture back, and owned to yourself that you loved her very dearly still, as I do, sir. For we cannot tear our affections up by the roots like that.”

“I did, Clive, my boy, I did; for you are right. I know too now that it’s my own fault, for I spoiled and indulged her. She was left to me almost a child, motherless, and I began to treat her at once as a woman. I let her have her own way in everything, and she grew up pettish and jealous, and ready to resent every check. Times and times, when I’ve offended her, has she gone right off on a visit, just to annoy me, and show how independent she was. But there! it’s all over now.”

“Yes,” said Clive softly, “it’s all over now.”

“And how I used to reckon upon it all!” continued the Doctor. “You two married, and the little children springing up – hers and yours, boy, to make my old life young again. But it’s all over. I won’t say I’ll never see her again, but I’ve done with her; and as for that miserable, cunning, unprincipled scoundrel, how long will it be before he’s laid up with D.T., or something worse – if there is anything worse? I’ll go and attend him gratis, and pay for his funeral afterwards with pleasure.”

“No, no, not you,” said Clive quietly.

“I will, sir; I shall consider it a duty to that poor girl to make her a widow as soon as possible, so that she may live in peace and repent.”

Clive shook his head.

“The man she loves,” he said softly.

“She doesn’t; she can’t love such a scoundrel. The brainless, little, thoughtless idiot! She believed all that of you directly, and ran off to marry the blackguard who has been trying for weeks to undermine you, so as to get my money. Why, I find he has been constantly coming here to see her, and she in her vanity played with him – a little coquette – played with the confounded serpent, till he wound round and stung her.”

Clive hung his head.

“And all the time you and I would have been ready to knock the man down who had dared to suggest that she was trifling with you. Bah! they’re a poor, weak, pitiful lot, the women, Clive. I’ve doctored enough of them to know all their little weaknesses, my lad. A poor, pitiful lot!”

“Do you think so?” said Clive quietly.

“Well, some of them. But, by jingo, boy, what a punishment for the designing scoundrel. He had heard poor old Grantham let drop that he had put Janet – I mean that girl – down for a big sum, and he played for it – gambled. He meant that. By jingo! his face when he found he had lost! I’m going to let you know, too, what I have done.”

“What have you done?” said Clive, rather anxiously.

“Made a new will, sir, and had the old one burned before my eyes. I’ve gone on saving for that girl, and the money’s hers, and she shall have it when I die; but he shan’t. I went to old Belton, told him what I wanted, and he went into it con amore, for he dislikes Master Jessop consumedly. He says it’s a natural reversion – the harking back to a bad strain that once got into the Reed blood.”

“But what did you do?” said Clive.

“Do, boy! tied the money up as tight as the law can tie it. My little bit is to be in the hands of trustees, and she will get the dividends, but she cannot sell out and give the money to your blackguard of a brother; and in a very short time he’ll know it, begin to ill-use her, and go on till she shows that she has some spirit, and then she’ll turn upon him, there’ll be a row, and she’ll come home.”

Clive sat frowning.

“It will be my revenge upon the scoundrel. I say, by the way, that little parlour-maid, Lyddy, what about her?”

“I know nothing,” said Clive sadly.

“The scoundrel has spirited her away somewhere, I suppose. Ah! well, they’ll make him suffer for it in the long-run, and you and I will have a pretty revenge. There now, not another word about either of them. You told me you were going down to Derbyshire again.”

“Yes, to-morrow.”

“That’s right! Go and work, my lad. You won’t do it merely for the money, but to carry out my poor old friend’s wishes. You’ve got to make that mine a very big success. I’ve put a lot in it, my boy, so you mustn’t let me lose. I mean to take up what Byron calls a good old gentlemanly vice – avarice. Don’t be down-hearted, boy. Have another glass of claret, and we’ll drink to your success. One of these days I shall come and drink your bride’s health. Some true, sweet girl, whom I can call daughter. Ah! you shake your head now, because you have just been to the funeral of your coming hopes. But wait a bit, my boy. The world turns round, and after the winter the summer comes again.”

Clive Reed sighed, and at that hour, sick and sore at heart, and despairing, as much on account of the woman he loved as upon his own, everything ahead looked black but the prospect of his late father’s venture, and over this he now set himself to work; not to make money, for he had plenty, but to dull the gnawing pain always busy at his heart.

Chapter Fifteen.

The Undercurrent

“Hah! I nearly had you that time, my fine fellow,” said Major Gurdon, as he stood deep in the shade, where twilight was falling fast, and ever and anon he deftly threw a fly with his lissome rod right across to the edge of the black water, where the deep suddenly grew shallow, and a sharp rippling was made by the swiftly flowing stream.

“Feel it chilly, my dear?” he said, as he made the brass winch chirrup as he drew out more line.

“No, dear,” said Dinah, with her pale, troubled face lighting up, as she stood there holding a landing-net. “It is very beautiful and cool and pleasant now.”

“Ah! that sounds better,” said the Major, as he made his fine line whish through the air and sent the fly far away down-stream. “You have been fidgeting me, my dear.”

“I, papa?” said the girl hurriedly.

“Yes. You haven’t seemed the same since you had that fall.”

“Oh, it was nothing much, dear.”

“But it was a good deal to make you look so white and upset ever since. – Missed him! – Do you know, my dear,” continued the Major, making another throw, “I lay awake half last night thinking that I ought to take you up to London to see some clever physician.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said the girl hurriedly. “You shouldn’t fidget about that. I am better. I am, indeed.”

“Then impossibilities have come to pass, and your little face is deceitful.”

“You take too much notice of things, dear,” said Dinah, shrinking a little behind her father, so as to hide the fresh shade of trouble in her countenance.

“Oh no, I don’t,” said the Major, as he threw his fly again. “I have not studied your face since you were a baby, Diny, for nothing. Do you know, my dear,” he continued, as his child stood with her lips pressed so firmly together that they formed a thin white line, “I really think that fish have more gumption than we give them credit for. They really do get to be educated and know when they are being fished for.”

“Well, what wonder that they should refuse to take a tiny patch of hair and feathers hiding a hook?”

“But it’s a lovely black gnat I am trying, my dear. I couldn’t tell it in the water from the real; and there: look at that,” he cried, in a tone full of vexation, as a big trout suddenly sucked down an unfortunate fly floating close by the Major’s cunningly made lure. “I knew that fellow was there, and I hereby register a vow that I mean to have him wrapped in buttered writing-paper and grilled for my breakfast before I have done. What a – ah! that’s a good throw, right above him. That ought to tempt any natural fish. Got him! – Be ready with the net,” he cried. “Not yet,” as there was a wallow, a boil in the water, a splash, and an ejaculation as the Major’s rod, which had bent nearly double, became straight again.

“Lost him, papa?”

“Lost him! Of course. My usual luck. Lightly hooked in the lip. – Eh? – No. A badly-tempered hook snapped short off. I wish the scoundrel who made it – Dinah, my dear, would you mind walking just out of hearing. There are a few good old trooper’s oaths just suitable to this occasion, and I should like to let them off.”

Dinah did not stir, but a sad smile crossed her features, and she stood waiting while her father selected a fresh fly, straightened the gut, and began to fasten it to the collar of his line.

“Such a pity! Just as I had hooked him too. I wonder whether he will try again. I was going to say what a deal of trouble one does take, and what an amount of time one does waste in fishing. And so you think that I need not take you up to town?”

“Oh, no, no,” cried Dinah quickly. “I am quite well.”

“Ahem!”

“Well, nearly well again, dear. Don’t fidget about me, pray.”

“Oh, no. You are of no consequence whatever, not the slightest; and I am to take no interest in you of any kind. Ah! you are a strange girl, Di, but you make my life bearable, only it seems brutally selfish to keep you down here in this wilderness.”

“You know I am very happy here.”