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Old Mr. Tredgold
“Come back, come back,” he cried in grief
Across the stormy water,
“And I’ll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter, O my daughter!”
“Though Charlie ain’t a Highland chief, you know,” said one of the youngsters. “If it had been Algy, now!”
All these things worked very deeply in the brain of Sir Charles Somers, Baronet. He spent a great deal of time thinking of them. A year in India would be great fun. Stella, for her part, was wild with delight at the thought of it. If it could but be made quite clear that old Tredgold, dying for the loss of his favourite child, would be sure to send for her! Everybody said there was not a doubt on the subject. Stella, who ought to know, was sure of it; so was Lady Jane, though she had got frightened and cried, “Oh, don’t ask me!” when importuned the hundredth time for her opinion. If a fellow could only be quite sure! Sometimes a chilling vision of the “old beggar” came across Charlie’s mind, and the courage began to ooze out at his fingers’ ends. That old fellow did not look like an old fellow who would give in. He looked a dangerous old man, an old man capable of anything. Charles Somers was by no means a coward, but when he remembered the look which Mr. Tredgold had cast upon him, all the strength went out of him. To marry an expensive wife who had never been stinted in her expenses and take her out to India, and then find that there was no relenting, remorseful father behind them, but only the common stress and strain of a poor man’s life in a profession, obliged to live upon his pay! What should he do if this happened? But everybody around him assured him that it could not, would not happen. Stella had the old gentleman “on toast.” He could not live without her; he would send to the end of the world to bring her back; he would forgive anything, Highland chief or whoever it might be. Even Lady Jane said so. “Don’t ask me to advise you,” that lady cried. “I daren’t take the responsibility. How can I tell whether Stella and you are fond enough of each other to run such a risk? Old Mr. Tredgold? Oh, as for old Mr. Tredgold, I should not really fear any lasting opposition from him. He may bluster a little, he may try to be overbearing, he may think he can frighten his daughter. But, of course, he will give in. Oh, yes, he will give in. Stella is everything to him. She is the very apple of his eye. It is very unjust to Katherine I always have said, and always will say. But that is how it is. Stella’s little finger is more to him than all the rest of the world put together. But please, please don’t ask advice from me!”
Sir Charles walked up and down the room, the room at Steephill, the room at the barracks, wherever he happened to be, and pulled his moustache almost till the blood came. But neither that intimate councillor, nor his fellow-officers, nor his anxious friends gave him any definite enlightenment. He was in love, too, in his way, which pushed him on, but he was by no means without prudence, which held him back. If old Tredgold did not break his heart, if he took the other one into Stella’s place—for to be sure Katherine was his daughter also, though not equal to Stella! If!—it is a little word, but there is terrible meaning in it. In that case what would happen? He shuddered and turned away from the appalling thought.
CHAPTER XIV
“Kate, Kate, Kate!” cried Stella. All had been quiet between the two rooms connected by that open door. Katherine was fastening the ribbon at her neck before the glass. This made her less ready to respond to Stella’s eager summons; but the tone of the third repetition of her name was so urgent that she dropped the ends of the ribbon and flew to her sister. Stella was leaning half out of the open window. “Kate,” she cried—“Kate, he has sent him away!”
“Who is sent away?” cried Katherine, in amazement.
Stella’s answer was to seize her sister by the arm and pull her half out of the window, endangering her equilibrium. Thus enforced, however, Katherine saw the figure of Sir Charles Somers disappearing round the corner of a group of trees, which so entirely recalled the image, coarse yet expressive, of a dog with its tail between its legs, that no certainty of disappointment and failure could be more complete. The two girls stared after him until he had disappeared, and then Stella drew her sister in again, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. Even Stella the unsubduable was cowed; her face was pale, her eyes round and staring with astonishment and trouble; the strength was all taken out of her by bewilderment. What did it mean? Papa, papa, he who had denied her nothing, who had been the more pleased the more costly was the toy which she demanded! Had Charlie offended him? Had he gone the wrong way to work? What could he possibly have done to receive a rebuff from papa?
“Of course I shall not stand it,” Stella cried, when she had recovered herself a little. “He shall not have much peace of his life if he crosses me. You let him dance upon you, Kate, and never said a word—though I don’t suppose you cared, or surely you would have stood out a little more than you did. But he shan’t dance upon me—he shall soon find out the difference. I am going to him at once to ask what he means.” She rushed towards the door, glowing anew with courage and spirit, but then suddenly stopped herself, and came running back, throwing herself suddenly on Katherine’s shoulders.
“Oh, Kate, why should parents be so hard,” she said, shedding a few tears—“and so hypocritical!” she exclaimed, rousing herself again—“pretending to be ready to do everything, and then doing nothing!”
“Oh, hush, Stella!” cried Katherine, restraining her; “there is nothing you have wanted till now that papa has not done.”
“What!” cried the girl indignantly. “Diamonds and such wretched things.” She made a gesture as if to pull something from her throat and throw it on the floor, though the diamonds, naturally, at this hour in the morning, were not there. “But the first thing I really want—the only thing—oh, let me go, Kate, let me go and ask him what he means!”
“Wait a little,” said Katherine—“wait a little; it may not be as bad as we think; it may not be bad at all. Let us go down as if nothing had happened. Perhaps Sir Charles has only—gone—to fetch something.”
“Like that?” cried Stella; and then a something of the ridiculous in the drooping figure came across her volatile mind. He was so like, so very like, that dog with his tail between his legs. She burst out into a laugh. “Poor Charlie, oh, poor Charlie! he looked exactly like—but I will pay papa for this,” the girl cried.
“Oh, not now,” said Katherine. “Remember, he is an old man—we must try not to cross him but to soothe him. He may have been vexed to think of losing you, Stella. He may have been—a little sharp; perhaps to try to—break it off—for a time.”
“And you think he might succeed, I shouldn’t wonder,” Stella cried, tossing her head high. To tell the truth, Katherine was by no means sure that he might not succeed. She had not a great confidence in the depth of the sentiment which connected her sister and Sir Charles. She believed that on one side or the other that tie might be broken, and that it would be no great harm. But she made no reply to Stella’s question. She only begged her to have patience a little, to make no immediate assault upon her father. “You know the doctor said he must be very regular—and not be disturbed—in his meals and things.”
“Oh, if it is lunch you are thinking of!” cried Stella, with great disdain; but after a little she consented to take things quietly and await the elucidation of events. The meal that followed was not, however, a very comfortable meal. Mr. Tredgold came in with every evidence of high spirits, but was also nervous, not knowing what kind of reception he was likely to meet with. He was as evidently relieved when they seated themselves at table without any questions, but it was a relief not unmingled with excitement. He talked continuously and against time, but he neither asked about their visit as he usually did, nor about the previous night’s entertainment, nor Stella’s appearance nor her triumphs. Stella sat very silent at her side of the table. And Katherine thought that her father was a little afraid. He made haste to escape as soon as the luncheon was over, and it was not a moment too soon, for Stella’s excitement was no longer restrainable. “What has he said to Charlie—what has he done to him?” she cried. “Do you think he would dare send him away for good and never say a word to me? What is the meaning of it, Kate? You would not let me speak, though it choked me to sit and say nothing. Where is my Charlie? and oh, how dared he, how dared he, to send him away?”
Katherine suggested that he might still be lingering about waiting for the chance of seeing one of them, and Stella darted out accordingly and flew through the grounds, in and out of the trees, with her uncovered head shining in the sun, but came back with no further enlightenment. She then proceeded imperiously to her father’s room; where, however, she was again stopped by the butler, who announced that master was having his nap and was not to be disturbed. All this delayed the explanation and prolonged the suspense, which was aggravated, as in so many cases, by the arrival of visitors. “So you have got back, Stella, from your grand visit? Oh, do tell us all about it!” It was perhaps the first fiery ordeal of social difficulty to which that undisciplined little girl had been exposed. And it was so much the more severe that various other sentiments came in—pride in the visit, which was so much greater a privilege than was accorded to the ordinary inhabitants of Sliplin; pride, too, in a show of indifference to it, desire to make her own glories known, and an equally strong desire to represent these glories as nothing more than were habitual and invariable. In the conflict of feeling Stella was drawn a little out of herself and out of the consideration of her father’s unimaginable behaviour. Oh, if they only knew the real climax of all those eager questions! If only a hint could have been given of the crowning glory, of the new possession she had acquired, and the rank to which she was about to be elevated!
Stella did not think of “a trumpery baronet” now. It was the Earl whom she thought trumpery, a creation of this reign, as Miss Mildmay said, whereas the Somers went back to the Anglo-Saxons. Stella did not know very well who the Anglo-Saxons were. She did not know that baronetcies are comparatively modern inventions. She only knew that to be Lady Somers was a fine thing, and that she was going to attain that dignity. But then, papa—who was papa, to interfere with her happiness? what could he do to stop a thing she had made up her mind to?—stood in the way. It was papa’s fault that she could not make that thrilling, that tremendous announcement to her friends. Her little tongue trembled on the edge of it. At one moment it had almost burst forth. Oh, how silly to be talking of Steephill, of the dance, of the rides, of going to the covert side with the sportsmen’s luncheon—all these things which unengaged persons, mere spectators of life, make so much of—when she had had it in her power to tell something so much more exciting, something that would fly not only through Sliplin and all along the coast but over the whole island before night! And to think she could not tell it—must not say anything about it because of papa!
Thus Stella fretted through the afternoon, determined, however, to “have it out with papa” the moment her visitors were gone, and not, on the whole, much afraid. He had never crossed her in her life before. Since the time when Stella crying for it in the nursery was enough to secure any delight she wanted, till now, when she stood on the edge of life and all its excitements, nothing that she cared for had ever been refused her. She had her little ways of getting whatever she wanted. It was not that he was always willing or always agreed in her wishes; if that had been so, the prospect before her would have been more doubtful; but there were things which he did not like and had yet been made to consent to because of Stella’s wish. Why should he resist her now for the first time? There was no reason in it, no probability in it, no sense. He had been able to say No to Charlie—that was quite another thing. Charlie was very nice, but he was not Stella, though he might be Stella’s chosen; and papa had, no doubt, a little spite against him because of that adventure in the yacht, and because he was poor, and other things. But Stella herself, was it possible that papa could ever hold head against her, look her in the face and deny her anything? No, certainly no! She was going over this in her mind while the visitors were talking, and even when she was giving them an account of what she wore. Her new white, and her diamonds—what diamonds! Oh, hadn’t they heard? A rivière that papa had given her; not a big one, you know, like an old lady’s—a little one, but such stones, exactly like drops of dew! As she related this, her hopes—nay, certainties—sprang high. She had not needed to hold up her little finger to have those jewels—a word had done it, the merest accidental word. She had not even had the trouble of wishing for them. And to imagine that he would be likely to cross her now!
“Stella! Stella! where are you going?” Katherine cried.
“I am going—to have it out with papa.” The last visitor had just gone; Stella caught the cloth on the tea-table in the sweep of her dress, and disordered everything as she flew by. But Katherine, though so tidy, did not stop to restore things to their usual trimness. She followed her sister along the passage a little more slowly, but with much excitement too. Would Stella conquer, as she usually did? or, for the first time in her life, would she find a blank wall before her which nothing could break down? Katherine could not but remember the curt intimation which had been given to her that James Stanford had been sent away and was never to be spoken of more. But then she was not Stella—she was very different from Stella; she had always felt even (or fancied) that the fact that James Stanford’s suit had been to herself and not to Stella had something to do with his rejection. That anyone should have thought of Katherine while Stella was by! She blamed herself for this idea as she followed Stella flying through the long and intricate passages to have it out with papa. Perhaps she had been wrong, Katherine said to herself. If papa held out against Stella this time, she would feel sure she had been wrong.
Stella burst into the room without giving any indication of her approach, and Katherine went in behind her—swept in the wind of her going. But what they saw was a vacant room, the fire purring to itself like a cat, with sleepy little starts and droppings, a level sunbeam coming in broad at one window, and on the table two lines of silver money stretched along the dark table-cloth and catching the eye. They were irregular lines—one all of shillings straight and unbroken, the other shorter, and made up with a half-crown and a sixpence. What was the meaning of this? They consulted each other with their eyes.
“I am coming directly,” said Mr. Tredgold from an inner room. The door was open. It was the room in which his safe was, and they could hear him rustling his paper, putting in or taking out something. “Oh, papa, make haste! I am waiting for you,” Stella cried in her impatience. She could scarcely brook at the last moment this unnecessary delay.
He came out, but not for a minute more; and then he was wiping his lips as if he had been taking something to support himself; which indeed was the case, and he had need of it. He came in with a great show of cheerfulness, rubbing his hands. “What, both of you?” he said, “I thought it was only Stella. I am glad both of you are here. Then you can tell me–”
“Papa, I will tell you nothing, nor shall Kate, till you have answered my question. What have you done to Charlie Somers? Where is he? where have you sent him? and how—how—how da—how could you have sent him away?”
“That’s his money,” said the old gentleman, pointing to the table. “You’d better pick it up and send it to him; he might miss it afterwards. The fool thought he could lay down money with me; there’s only seventeen shillings of it,” said Mr. Tredgold contemptuously—“not change for a sovereign! But he might want it. I don’t think he had much more in his pocket, and I don’t want his small change; no, nor nobody else’s. You can pick it up and send it back.”
“What does all this mean?” asked Stella in imperious tones, though her heart quaked she could scarcely tell why. “Why have you Charlie Somers’s money on your table? and why—why, have you sent him away?”
Mr. Tredgold seated himself deliberately in his chair, first removing the newspaper that lay in it, folding that and placing it carefully on a stand by his side. “Well, my little girl,” he said, also taking off his spectacles and folding them before he laid them down, “that’s a very easy one to answer. I sent him away because he didn’t suit me, my dear.”
“But he suited me,” cried Stella, “which is surely far more important.”
“Well, my pet, you may think so, but I don’t. I gave him my reasons. I say nothing against him—a man as I know nothing of, and don’t want to know. It’s all the same who you send to me; they’ll just hear the same thing. The man I give my little girl to will have to count out shillin’ for shillin’ with me. That fellow took me at my word, don’t you see?—took out a handful of money and began to count it out as grave as a judge. But he couldn’t do it, even at that. Seventeen shillings! not as much as change for a sovereign,” said Mr. Tredgold with a chuckle. “I told him as he was an ass for his pains. Thousand pound for thousand pound down, that’s my rule; and all the baronets in the kingdom—or if they were dukes for that matter—won’t get me out of that.”
“Papa, do you know what you are saying?” Stella was so utterly bewildered that she did not at all know what she was saying in the sudden arrest of all her thoughts.
“I think so, pet; very well indeed, I should say. I’m a man that has always been particular about business arrangements. Business is one thing; feelings, or so forth, is another. I never let feelings come in when it’s a question of business. Money down on the table—shillin’s, or thousands, which is plainer, for thousands, and that’s all about it; the man who can’t do that don’t suit me.”
Stella stood with two red patches on her cheeks, with her mouth open, with her eyes staring before the easy and complacent old gentleman in his chair. He was, no doubt, conscious of the passion and horror with which she was regarding him, for he shifted the paper and the spectacles a little nervously to give himself a countenance; but he took no notice otherwise, and maintained his easy position—one leg crossed over the other, his foot swinging a little—even after she burst forth.
“Papa, do you say this to me—to me? And I have given him my word, and I love him, though you don’t know what that means. Papa, can you look me in the face—me, Stella, and dare to say that you have sent my Charlie away?”
“My dear,” said Mr. Tredgold, “he ain’t your Charlie, and never will be. He’s Sir Charles Somers, Bart., a fine fellow, but I don’t think we shall see him here again, and I can look my little Stella quite well in the face.”
He did not like to do it, though. He gave her one glance, and then turned his eyes to his paper again.
“Papa,” cried Stella, stamping her foot, “I won’t have it! I shall not take it from you! Whatever you say, he shall come back here. I won’t give him up, no, not if you should shut me up on bread and water—not if you should put me in prison, or drag me by the hair of my head, or kill me! which, I think, is what you must want to do.”
“You little hussy! You never had so much as a whipping in your life, and I am not going to begin now. Take her away, Katie. If she cries till Christmas she won’t change me. Crying’s good for many things, but not for business. Stella, you can go away.”
“Oh, papa, how can you say Stella, and be so cruel!” Stella threw herself down suddenly by his side and seized his hand, upon which she laid down her wet cheek. “You have always done everything for Stella. Never—never has my papa refused me anything. I am not used to it. I can’t bear it! Papa, it is me whose heart you are breaking. Papa, me! Stella, it is Stella!”
“Kate, for goodness’ sake take her away. It is no use. She is not going to come over me. Stella’s a very good name for anything else, but it’s not a name in business. Go away, child. Take her away. But, Katie, if there’s anything else she would like now, a new carriage, or a horse, or a bracelet, or a lot of dresses, or anything—anything in that way–”
Stella drew herself up to her full height; she dried her eyes; she turned upon her father with that instinct of the drama which is so strong in human nature. “I scorn all your presents; I will take nothing—nothing, as long as I live, you cruel, cruel father,” she cried.
Later, when Mr. Tredgold had gone out in his Bath-chair for his afternoon “turn,” Stella came back very quietly to his room and gathered up poor Charlie’s shillings. She did not know very much about the value of money, though she spent so much; indeed, if she had ever felt the need of it it was in this prosaic form of a few shillings. She thought he might want them, poor Charlie, whom she had not the faintest intention of giving up, whatever papa might say.
