"Raby, my dear," said she, "come with us. Colonel Brotherton wishes to see Rodnet Force, and we are going there. Oh, Mr Jeffreys," added she, turning frigidly upon the already laden librarian, "when you have carried Miss Atherton's things into the house, be good enough to go to Kennedy and tell him to meet us at the Upper Fall. And you will find some letters on the hall table to be posted. By-the-way, Colonel Brotherton, if you have that telegram you want to send off, the librarian will go with it. It is a pity you should have the walk."

To these miscellaneous orders Jeffreys bowed solemnly, and did not fail to exhibit his clumsiness by dropping Raby's waterproof in a belated effort to raise his hat. Mrs Rimbolt would hardly have been appeased had he not done so; and it was probably in a final endeavour to show him off as he departed that she added,--

"Raby, give Mr Jeffreys that basket to take in; you cannot carry that up to the Falls."

"Oh, aunt, I've told Mr Jeffreys I can't trust him with it. It has grapes in it. Didn't I, Mr Jeffreys?" she said, appealing gaily to him with a smile which seemed to make a man of him once more.

"I will undertake not to eat them," said he, with a twitch of his mouth, receiving the precious basket.

After that he sacrificed even his afternoon const.i.tutionals, and took to the life of a hermit until Wildtree Towers should be rid of its visitors. But even so he could not be quite safe. Percy occasionally hunted him out and demanded his company with himself and a few choice spirits on some hare-brained expedition. Jeffreys did not object to Percy or the hare-brained expedition; but the "choice spirits" sometimes discomposed him. They called him "Jeffy," and treated him like some favoured domestic animal. They recognised him as a sort of custodian of Percy, and on that account showed off before him, and demonstrated to Percy that he was no custodian of theirs. They freely discussed his ugliness and poverty within earshot. They patronised him without stint, and made a display of their own affluence in his presence. And when once or twice he put down his foot and interdicted some illegal proceeding, they bl.u.s.tered rudely, and advised Percy to get the cad dismissed.

It was like some of the old Bolsover days back again, only with the difference that now he steeled himself to endure all patiently for young Forrester's sake. It disappointed him to see Percy, led away by his company, sometimes lift his heel against him; yet it suited his humour to think it was only right, and a part of his penance, it should be so.

Percy's revolt, to do that youth justice, was short-lived and speedily repented of. As soon as his friends were gone he returned to Jeffreys with all his old allegiance, and showed his remorse by forgetting all about his recent conduct.

Perhaps the most trying incident in all that trying time to Jeffreys was what occurred on the last day of the Brothertons' visit. The colonel and his family had been so busy seeing the natural beauties of Wildtree, that, till their visit was drawing to an end, they found they had scarcely done justice to the beautiful house itself, and what it contained. Consequently the last evening was spent in a visit _en ma.s.se_ to the library where Jeffreys was duly summoned to a.s.sist Mr Rimbolt in exhibiting the treasures it contained.

As usual when the lady of the house was of the party, the librarian went through his work awkwardly. He answered her questions in a confused manner, and contrived to knock over one or two books in his endeavour to reach down others. He was conscious that some of the company were including him among the curiosities of the place, and that Mr Rimbolt himself was disappointed with the result of the exhibition. He struggled hard to pull himself together, and in a measure succeeded before the visit was over, thanks chiefly to Mrs Rimbolt's temporary absence from the library. The lady returned to announce that coffee was ready in the drawing-room, and Jeffreys, with a sigh of relief, witnessed a general movement towards the door.

He was standing rather dismally near the table, counting the seconds till he should be left alone, when Mrs Brotherton advanced to him with outstretched hand. Imagining she was about to wish him good-evening in a more friendly manner than he had expected, he advanced his own hand, when, to his horror and dismay, he felt a half-crown dropped into it, with the half-whispered remark, "We are much obliged to you."

He was too staggered to do anything but drop his jaw and stare at the coin until the last of the party had filed from the room, not even observing the look of droll sympathy which Raby, the last to depart, darted at him.

Left to himself, one of his now rare fits of temper broke over him. He stormed out of the place and up into his room, where, after flinging the coin into the grate, he paced up and down the floor like an infuriated animal. Then by a sudden impulse he picked the coin up, and opening a toolbox which he kept in the room, he took from it a hammer and bradawl.

Two or three vicious blows sufficed to make a hole in the centre of the Queen's countenance. Then with a bra.s.s-headed nail he pinned the miscreant piece of silver to the wall above the mantelpiece, and sat looking at it till the storm was over.

It was a week or two before he quite recovered from this shock and settled down again to the ordinary routine of his life at Wildtree Towers. As the afternoons became shorter, and out-of-door occupations in consequence became limited, he found Percy unexpectedly amenable to a quiet course of study, which greatly improved the tone of that versatile young gentleman's mind. Percy still resolutely set his face against a return to school, and offered no encouragement to his perplexed parents in their various schemes for the advancement of his education.

Consequently they were fain to be thankful, until some light dawned on the question, that his education was not being wholly neglected, and Mr Rimbolt in particular recognised that under Jeffreys' influence and tuition the boy was improving in more ways than one.

The autumn pa.s.sed uneventfully. Mr Rimbolt had occasion once or twice to go up to London, and on these occasions Jeffreys was reminded that he was not on a bed of roses at Wildtree. But that half-crown over the mantelpiece helped him wonderfully. Raby continued to regard him from a distance with a friendly eye, and now and then alarmed him by challenging him to some daring act of mutiny which was sure to end in confusion, but which, for all that, always seemed to him to have some compensation in the fellow-feeling it established between the poor librarian and the dependent and kept-under niece.

News arrived now and then from India, bringing relief as to what was past, but by no means allaying anxiety as to what might be in store for the soldier there. A week before Christmas, Raby told Jeffreys, with mingled pride and trepidation, that her father had written to say he had been made major, and expected to be sent in charge of a small advance force towards Kandahar, to clear the way for a general advance. By the same post another letter came for Mrs Rimbolt, the contents of which, as the Fates would have it, also came to Jeffreys' ears.

"My dear," said the lady, entering the library that evening, letter in hand, and addressing her husband, who was just then engaged with his librarian in inspecting some new purchases, "here is a letter from my old friend Louisa Scarfe. She proposes to come to us for Christmas, and bring with her her son, who is now at Oxford. I suppose I can write and say Yes?"

"Certainly," said Mr Rimbolt; "I shall be delighted."

A chill went to Jeffreys' heart as he overheard this hurried consultation. If this should be the Scarfe he knew, he was not yet rid, he felt, of Bolsover or of his bad name.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

FALLEN IN A HOLE.

Mrs Scarfe and her son arrived a day or two later at Wildtree Towers.

Jeffreys, who from the recesses of a bay window was an unseen witness of the arrival, saw at a glance that his forebodings were too true. Scarfe had changed somewhat since we saw him at Bolsover fifteen months ago.

He was older and better-looking and wore a trim black moustache. His dress was in the best Oxford style; and in his easy, confident carriage there remained no trace of the overgrown schoolboy. His mother, a delicate-looking widow lady, returned Mrs Rimbolt's greeting with the eagerness of an old friend, and introduced her son with evident pride.

It was hopeless for Jeffreys to think of avoiding a recognition for long. Still, he anxiously put off the evil hour as long as possible.

The first afternoon and evening this was not difficult, for the travellers had made a long journey and retired early. The following day he went through his work on tenterhooks. Every time the library door opened he felt his heart sink within him, and every footstep he heard crossing the hall seemed to be the one he dreaded.

In the evening he attempted to escape the inevitable by taking refuge in his room after dinner. But as it happened a messenger arrived from Overstone with a parcel of books, which made it necessary for him to return to the library. And while there Mr Rimbolt as usual came in.

As soon as the business matter had been arranged Mr Rimbolt said, "Miss Atherton has been asking to see Blake's _Songs of Innocence_, Jeffreys; will you kindly take the book to her in the drawing-room? I have one of my tenants to see here, but I shall be in shortly."

There was no possible escape from this dilemma. With a groan he got the book down from its place and went.

Scarfe, as he entered the drawing-room, was engaged in turning over a book of prints with Raby, and did not notice him. Nor did Mrs Rimbolt, siting on the sofa beside her friend, heed his entrance till Percy said,--

"Hullo, Jeff!"

Jeffreys became aware that the eyes of the whole party were suddenly centred on him--Mrs Rimbolt's from under lifted eyebrows, Mrs Scarfe's through raised eye-gla.s.ses, Raby's with a veiled welcome, Scarfe's in blank astonishment. He advanced awkwardly into the room.

"Close the door, please, Mr Jeffreys," said Mrs Rimbolt, in tones which left no manner of doubt in her visitors' minds as to the status of the librarian in the house.

Jeffreys obeyed, and advanced once more towards Raby.

"Your uncle," stammered he, conscious of nothing but Scarfe's stare, "asked me to bring you this book." Then, turning with a desperate effort to his old schoolfellow, he said, "How are you, Scarfe?"

He scorned himself for the half-appealing tone in which the salutation was made. What was Scarfe to him? Nothing, save that Scarfe and he had both looked down that October afternoon on the motionless form of one small boy in the Bolsover meadow. And was that nothing?

"How do you do, Jeffreys?" said Scarfe, stiffly extending his hand, and immediately afterwards returning to his examination of the prints with Raby.

"Do you know Jeff?" asked Percy, who had witnessed the recognition.

"Yes. Jeffreys and I have met," said Scarfe, not looking up from his book.

"Who is that young man?" said Mrs Scarfe, in an audible whisper to her hostess.

"The librarian here. Mr Jeffreys," added Mrs Rimbolt, as Jeffreys stood irresolute, not knowing whether to remain in the room or go, "be good enough to tell Walker he can bring the coffee, and tell Mr Rimbolt we are expecting him."

"Mr Rimbolt asked me to say you are not to wait coffee for him. He may be detained with a tenant in the library."

"Jeff, I say, you should have been with us this afternoon. We had such larks. We got one or two pot shots, but didn't hit anything except the dog. So it's a good job we didn't borrow Julius. Kennedy says we're in for a ripping frost, so save yourself up, old man."

"Percy, you talk like a stable-boy. Do remember you are in the drawing- room; and don't detain Mr Jeffreys from his work."

Under cover of this maternal exhortation Jeffreys withdrew.

"Rum your knowing Jeff, Scarfe!" said Percy, after he had gone; "was he at Oxford?"

"No," said Scarfe. "It was at school. Surely that must be one of Hogarth's engravings, Miss Atherton, it is exactly his style."

"It wasn't much of a school, was it?" persisted Percy. "Jeff told me he didn't care about it."

"I don't think he did," replied Scarfe with a faint smile.

"I suppose you are very fond of Oxford, are you not?" said Mrs Rimbolt; "every one who belongs to the University seems very proud of it."