CHAPTER XXVII.

When Ida came down, he led her to a chair beside the fire which he had ordered to be lit, and laid his hand gently and tenderly on her shoulder by way of preparation and encouragement.

"Your cousin and I want to talk to you about the future, Ida," he said.

"You will have to be told some time or other exactly how your father's affairs stood, and I have come to the conclusion that it is better you should know at once than that you should be permitted to remain in ignorance of the gravity of the situation. I have gone over your father's papers and looked into his affairs very carefully and closely, and I am sorry to say that they are in a very unsatisfactory condition.

As I told you the other day, the estate has been enc.u.mbered and very seriously embarra.s.sed for some time past, and the enc.u.mbrance has been increased of late, notwithstanding the admirable way in which you have managed the estate and the household affairs."

Ida raised her eyes to his and tried to regard him calmly and bravely, but her lips quivered and she checked a sigh.

Mr. Wordley coughed and frowned, as a man does when he is engaged in a disagreeable and painful task.

"The princ.i.p.al mortgagee has given me notice of foreclosure, and the amount of the debt is so large that I am afraid--it would be cruel and useless to conceal the truth from you--I _know_ that the property sold would not be sufficient to meet it. Of ready money there appears to be none--"

Mr. John Heron groaned and raised his melancholy eyes to the ceiling with an expression of reprobation. Ida appeared unconscious of his presence and kept her sad eyes steadily fixed on the lawyer's kind and mournful face.

--"In a word, my dear child, your poor father appears to have left absolutely no effects behind him."

Ida drew a long breath and was silent for a moment, as she tried to realise the significance of his words.

"Do you mean that I am quite penniless?" she said, in a low voice.

Mr. Wordley blew his nose and coughed two or three times, as if he found it difficult to reply; at last he said, in a voice almost as low as hers:

"Put shortly, I am afraid, my dear, that is what I must tell you. I had no idea that the position was so grave. I thought that there would be something left; sufficient, at any rate, to render you independent; but, as I told you, I have been kept in ignorance of your father's affairs for some years past, and I did not know how things were going.

I am surprised as well as grieved, deeply grieved; and I must confess that I can only account for the deplorable confusion and loss by the theory that I suggested to you the other day. I cannot but think that your poor father must have engaged in some disastrous speculation."

Mr. Heron groaned again, and shook his head.

"The prevailing vice of this most wicked of ages," he said. "The love of money, the gambling on the race-course and the Stock Exchange, are the root of all evil."

Ida seemed not to hear him, and Mr. Wordley ignored the comment.

"It now remains for you, my dear child, to decide what to do. I do not think you could possibly live on here; you have not the means to do so, though you should be as economical as you have been in the past; the house must pa.s.s away from you in six months' time or little more, and there would be nothing gained by your lingering hopelessly here for that period."

"I must go, then," said Ida, as if there were a stab in every word.

Mr. Wordley bent his head, and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Yes, I fear you must go," he a.s.sented. "But, thank G.o.d, you are not without friends, many friends. Lord Bannerdale charges me to tell you what his good wife has already written you--that a home awaits you at the Court, where you will be received gladly and lovingly; and I am quite sure that the door of every house in the dale is wide open for you."

Ida shrank in her chair. Clothe the offer as kindly as he might, it spelt Charity, not cold charity, but charity still: and what Heron had ever tamely accepted charity from mere friends and strangers? Mr.

Wordley saw the shrinking, the little shudder, and understood.

"I understand, my dear!" he said, in a low voice. "But there is another offer, another home which you can accept without humiliation or compunction. Your cousin, Mr. John Heron here, will, I am sure, be only too glad, too delighted to--to--"

He waited and glanced at Mr. Heron impatiently, and at last that gentleman rose, but not too eagerly, to the occasion.

"I need scarcely say," he said, slowly and solemnly, "that I should not approve of my cousin's accepting these offers of charity, which, though no doubt kindly meant, appear to me somewhat--er--obtrusive. I am not a wealthy man; my simple home cannot compare in size and grandeur with Heron Hall and the estate which my late unfortunate cousin appears to have squandered, but such as it is, Ida will be welcome in it. I am not one to turn a deaf ear to the cry of the orphan and fatherless."

Mr. Wordley frowned and reddened, and cut in before Mr. John Heron could finish his sentence even more offensively, and so rouse Ida's spirit, and render his offer impossible of acceptance.

"Quite so, quite so, my dear sir," he said. "I am quite sure you will feel only too delighted and honoured at the prospect of taking this dear child into your family."

"Yes," said Mr. Heron, unctuously, "we will take her in as a lamb gathered into the fold, as a brand is plucked from the burning."

Ida looked at him half stupefied, and it is to be feared some doubts of his sanity arose in her mind.

"Quite so, quite so," interrupted Mr. Wordley again. "Then I think the sooner Miss Ida joins you the better; and I would suggest that she goes with you to-morrow. I will close the house and leave Jessie, the maid-servant, and Jason in charge. You and Miss Ida can depend on my guarding her interests as jealously as if they were my own. I will have a sale of the stock and other things which we are free to sell, and, meanwhile, Miss Ida must permit me to advance her some money on account of the proceeds."

He handed her an envelope in which he had already placed some bank-notes; but Ida looked at him and slowly shook her head.

"No, no, my dear!" he said. "I should not be guilty of such presumption. Though you are leaving Heron Hall, though it may be pa.s.sing away from you forever, you are still, in my eyes, Miss Heron of Herondale, and I should not presume to offer you--" His voice broke, and his eyes filled with tears. "The money is yours, and you can take it without any loss of the pride which is your rightful heritage. If I have not offered you a home where you would indeed be an honoured guest, it is because I know that it would not be fitting for me to offer it, or you to accept it. Mr. John Heron is your natural guardian; but though that is so, I will ask you to remember that I claim the privilege of being your father's friend and yours, and that in any trouble you will be but honouring that privilege when you come to me for advice and a.s.sistance."

His voice was almost inaudible before he had finished, and Ida, down whose cheek tears were running for the first time, extended both hands in mute but eloquent grat.i.tude. They had both forgotten Mr. John Heron's presence but were reminded of it by something between a cough and a sniff from him; and at a glance from Mr. Wordley, Ida turned to the gaunt figure and held out her hand.

"Thank you," she said in a low voice, "I will come with you and stay with you until--until--I can find something to do, something at which I can earn my own living. Surely there must be something I can do?" She turned to Mr. Wordley with a little anxious, eager gesture. "I am strong--very strong; I have managed Herondale--I can ride, and--and understand a farm. I am never tired. Surely there is something I can do!"

Her voice broke, she began to tremble, and the tears started to her eyes again.

"Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt, my child!" said Mr. Wordley, whose own eyes were moist. "We will think about all that later on. You must go now and rest; you are tired."

He drew her arm within his, and patting her hand tenderly and encouragingly, led her out of the room; and stood in the hall watching her as she slowly went up the great stairs; such a girlish, mournful figure in her plain black dress.

Ida lay awake that night listening to the wind and the rain. She was familiar enough with the dale storms, but never had their wild music wailed so mournful an accompaniment to her own thoughts. Compared with her other losses, that of her home, dearly as she loved it, weighed but little; it was but, an added pang to the anguish of her bereavement; and behind that, the princ.i.p.al cause of her grief, loomed the desertion of her lover. She tried not to think of Stafford; for every thought bestowed on him seemed to rob her dead father and to be disloyal to his memory; but, alas! the human heart is despotic; and as she lay awake and listened to the wailing of the wind and the rain as it drove against the window, Stafford's voice penetrated that of the storm; and, scarcely consciously, her lips were forming some of the pa.s.sionate words of endearment which he had whispered to her by the stream and on the hill-side. Though she knew every word by heart of the letter he had written her, she did not yet understand or comprehend why he had broken his solemn engagement to her. She understood that something had risen between them, something had happened which had separated them, but she could form no idea as to what it was. He had spoken of "unworthiness,"

of something which he had discovered that had rendered him unfit to be her husband; but she could not guess what it was; but confused and bewildered as she was, there was at present, at any rate, no resentment in her heart.

The lover had been taken from her just as her father and her home had been. There was no help for it, there was no appeal from the decrees of Fate. Fate had decreed that she should love Stafford and lose him; and she could only go on living her grey and dreary life, made all the greyer and drearier by her short spell of joy and happiness. Sorrow's crown of sorrow is still the remembrance of happier things; and she would have to wear that crown in place of the crown of his love, wear it through all her days; for, young as she was, she knew that she had given her heart once and for all, that though she might never see Stafford again, she would love him to the end.

A mist hung over the dale on this, the day of her departure from the Hall, and all the hills over which she had so loved to ride and walk were shrouded as if in tears.

She stood and looked at them from the hall window with vacant eyes, as if she did not yet realise that she was leaving them, perhaps forever; but she had not long for gazing, for Mr. Heron and she were going by an early train, and the moment for farewell came swiftly upon her.

With Donald and Bess close at her heels, as if they were aware of their coming loss, she went round to say good-bye. She crossed the lawn and went to the spot under the tree where she had met Stafford that never-to-be-forgotten night, and from thence walked to the corner of the terrace where they had stood and watched her father coming, in his sleep, from the ruined chapel. Then she went to the stable to say good-bye to Rupert, who whinnied as he heard her approaching footstep, and thrust his soft, velvety nose into her neck. She had to fight hard against the tears at this point, and she hid her face against that of the big horse, with her arms thrown round his neck, as she murmured her last good-bye.

But the tears would not be kept back when it came to saying farewell to the two faithful souls, Jessie and Jason, with whom she had grown up from a girl all legs and wings, and whom she had learnt to regard rather as devoted friends than servants. Jason broke down completely and hurried away, his old and feeble frame shaking like an autumn leaf; and Jessie, her arms thrown round her young mistress, and with sobs and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, implored her to take her faithful Jessie with her.

Perhaps the parting with the two dogs was as bitter as any, for, as if they knew quite well that she was going, they clung closely to her, and when she hugged them and kissed them on the forehead, they had to be dragged off by Jason, and locked up in the stables lest they should follow the carriage which was to bear their beloved mistress away.

That carriage came all too soon, though Mr. John Heron had awaited its arrival impatiently and with watch in hand. He seemed grimmer and gaunter than ever that morning, and as he looked around the great Hall, he shook his head at its faded grandeur reprehensively, as if he could, if time permitted, deliver a sermon on the prodigality, the wicked wastefulness, which had brought ruin on the house, and rendered it necessary for him to extend his charity to the penniless orphan.

Mr. Wordley was there to say good-bye to Ida and put her into the carriage; but it proved a difficult good-bye to say, and for once the usually fluent old lawyer was bereft of the power of speech as he held Ida's small hand, and looked through tear-dimmed eyes at the white and sorrowful face. He had intended to say all sorts of kind and encouraging things, but he could only manage the two words, "Good-bye;"

and they were almost inaudible.

She sank back into the carriage as it drove away from the Hall, and closed her eyes that she might not see the familiar trees in the avenue, the cattle, everyone of which she knew by name, grazing in the meadow, the pale and woe-begone faces of the servants who stood by the steps to catch the last glimpse of their beloved; and for some time her eyes remained closed; but they opened as she came to the clearing by the lake, from which one could see the long stretching facade of Sir Stephen Orme's white villa. She opened them then and looked at the house, wondering whether Stafford was there, wondering why he had not come to her, despite the promise she had exacted from him; wondering whether he knew that her father was dead, and that she was left penniless.

She was not capable of any more tears, and a dull apathy crushed down upon her, so that she did not notice that at the station Mr. John Heron improved the occasion, as he would have put it, by distributing tracts to the station-master and porters. The journey to London pa.s.sed as if it were made in a dream; and wearied in mind and body and soul, she found herself, late in the evening, standing in the centre of the Heron's dreary drawing-room, awaiting her reception by the Heron family.