When Harry Annesley returned from Cheltenham, which he did about the beginning of February, he was a very happy man. It may be said, indeed, that within his own heart he was more exalted than is fitting for a man mortal,--for a human creature who may be cut off from his joys to-morrow, or may have the very source of his joy turned into sorrow. He walked like a G.o.d, not showing it by his outward gesture, not declaring that it was so by any a.s.sumed grace or arrogant carriage of himself; but knowing within himself that that had happened down at Cheltenham which had all but divested him of humanity, and made a star of him. To no one else had it been given to have such feelings, such an a.s.surance of heavenly bliss, together with the certainty that, under any circ.u.mstances, it must be altogether his own, for ever and ever. It was thus he thought of himself and what had happened to him. He had succeeded in getting himself kissed by a young woman.

Harry Annesley was in truth very proud of Florence, and altogether believed in her. He thought the better of himself because Florence loved him,--not with the vulgar self-applause of a man who fancies himself to be a lady-killer and therefore a grand sort of fellow, but in conceiving himself to be something better than he had hitherto believed, simply because he had won the heart of this one special girl. During that half-hour at Cheltenham she had so talked to him, and managed in her own pretty way so to express herself, as to make him understand that of all that there was of her he was the only lord and master. "May G.o.d do so to me, and more also, if to the end I do not treat her not only with all affection, but also with all delicacy of observance." It was thus that he spoke to himself of her, as he walked away from the door of Mrs.

Mountjoy's house in Cheltenham.

From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his Florence.

"But you will have to know her--well."

"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.

There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first place there came the news that Mr. Prosper's anger against his nephew was hotter than ever. "Mr. Harry must have put his foot in it somehow."

That had been Matthew's a.s.surance, made with much sorrow to the house-keeper, or head-servant, at the rectory. And then Joe had declared that all the misfortunes which had attended Mr. Prosper's courtship had been attributed to Harry's evil influences. At first this could not but be a matter of joke. Joe's stories as he told them were full of ridicule, and had no doubt come to him from Miss Thoroughbung, either directly or through some of the ladies at Buntingford. "It does seem that your aunt has been too many for him." This had been said by Molly, and had been uttered in the presence both of Joe Thoroughbung and of Harry.

"Why, yes," said Joe. "She has had him under the thong altogether, and has not found it difficult to flog him when she had got him by the hind leg." This idea had occurred to Joe from his remembrance of a peccant hound in the grasp of a tyrant whip. "It seems that he offered her money."

"I should hardly think that," said Harry, standing up for his uncle.

"She says so; and says that she declared that ten thousand pounds would be the very lowest sum. Of course she was laughing at him."

"Uncle Prosper doesn't like to be laughed at," said Molly.

"And she did not spare him," said Joe. And then she had by heart the whole story, how she had called him Peter, and how angry he had been at the appellation.

"n.o.body calls him Peter except my mother," said Harry.

"I should not dream of calling him Uncle Peter," said Molly. "Do you mean to say that Miss Thoroughbung called him Peter? Where could she have got the courage?" To this Joe replied that he believed his aunt had courage for anything under the sun. "I don't think that she ought to have called him Peter," continued Molly. "Of course after that there couldn't be a marriage."

"I don't quite see why not," said Joe. "I call you Molly, and I expect you to marry me."

"And I call you Joe, and I expect you to marry me; but we ain't quite the same."

"The Squire of Buston," said Joe, "considers himself Squire of Buston. I suppose that the old Queen of Heaven didn't call Jupiter Jove till they'd been married at any rate some centuries."

"Well done, Joe," said Harry.

"He'll become fellow of a college yet," said Molly.

"If you'll let me alone I will," said Joe. "But only conceive the kind of scene there must have been at the house up there when Aunt Matty had forced her way in among your uncle's slippers and dressing-gowns. I'd have given a five-pound note to have seen and heard it."

"I'd have given two if it had never occurred. He had written me a letter which I had taken as a pardon in full for all my offences. He had a.s.sured me that he had no intention of marrying, and had offered to give me back my old allowance. Now I am told that he has quarrelled with me again altogether, because of some light word as to me and my concerns spoken by this vivacious old aunt of yours. I wish your vivacious old aunt had remained at Buntingford."

"And we had wished that your vivacious old uncle had remained at Buston when he came love-making to Marmaduke Lodge."

"He was an old fool! and, among ourselves, always has been," said Molly, who on the occasion thought it inc.u.mbent upon her to take the Thoroughbung rather than the Prosper side of the quarrel.

But, in truth, this renewed quarrel between the Hall and the rectory was likely to prove extremely deleterious to Harry Annesley's interests. For his welfare depended not solely on the fact that he was at present heir presumptive to his uncle, nor yet on the small allowance of two hundred and fifty pounds made to him by his uncle, and capable of being withdrawn at any moment, but also on the fact, supposed to be known to all the world,--which was known to all the world before the affair in the streets with Mountjoy Scarborough,--that Harry was his uncle's heir. His position had been that of eldest son, and indeed that of only child to a man of acres and squire of a parish. He had been made to hope that this might be restored to him, and at this moment absolutely had in his pocket the check for sixty-two pounds ten which had been sent to him by his uncle's agent in payment of the quarter's income which had been stopped. But he also had a farther letter, written on the next day, telling him that he was not to expect any repet.i.tion of the payment.

Under these circ.u.mstances, what should he do?

Two or three things occurred to him. But he resolved at last to keep the check without cashing it for some weeks, and then to write to his uncle when the fury of his wrath might be supposed to have pa.s.sed by, offering to restore it. His uncle was undoubtedly a very silly man; but he was not one who could acknowledge to himself that he had done an unjust act without suffering for it. At the present moment, while his wrath was hot, there would be no sense of contrition. His ears would still tingle with the sound of the laughter of which he had supposed himself to have been the subject at the rectory. But that sound in a few weeks might die away, and some feeling of the propriety of justice would come back upon the poor man's mind. Such was the state of things upon which Harry resolved to wait for a few weeks.

But in the mean time tidings came across from the Hall that Mr. Prosper was ill. He had remained in the house for two or three days after Miss Thoroughbung's visit. This had given rise to no special remarks, because it was well known that Mr. Prosper was a man whose feelings were often too many for him. When he was annoyed it would be long before he would get the better of the annoyance; and during such periods he would remain silent and alone. There could be no question that Miss Thoroughbung had annoyed him most excessively. And Matthew had been aware that it would be better that he should abstain from all questions. He would take the daily newspaper in to his master, and ask for orders as to the daily dinner, and that would be all. Mr. Prosper, when in a fairly good humor, would see the cook every morning, and would discuss with her the propriety of either roasting or boiling the fowl, and the expediency either of the pudding or the pie. His idiosyncrasies were well known, and the cook might always have her own way by recommending the contrary to that which she wanted,--because it was a point of honor with Mr.

Prosper not to be led by his servants. But during these days he simply said, "Let me have dinner and do not trouble me." This went on for a day or two without exciting much comment at the rectory. But when it went on beyond a day or two it was surmised that Mr. Prosper was ill.

At the end of a week he had not been seen outside the house, and then alarm began to be felt. The rumor had got abroad that he intended to go to Italy, and it was expected that he would start, but no sign came of his intended movements; not a word more had been said to Matthew on the subject. He had been ordered to admit no visitor into the house at all, unless it were some one from the firm of Grey & Barry. From the moment in which he had got rid of Miss Thoroughbung he had been subject to some dread lest she should return. Or if not she herself, she might, he thought, send Soames & Simpson, or some denizen from the brewery. And he was conscious that not only all Buston, but all Buntingford was aware of what he had attempted to do. Every one whom he chanced to meet would, as he thought, be talking of him, and therefore he feared to be seen by the eye of man, woman, or child. There was a self-consciousness about him which altogether overpowered him. That cook with whom he used to have the arguments about the boiled chicken was now an enemy, a domestic enemy, because he was sure that she talked about his projected marriage in the kitchen. He would not see his coachman or his groom, because some tidings would have reached them about that pair of ponies. Consequently he shut himself up altogether, and the disease became worse with him because of his seclusion.

And now from day to day, or, it may be more properly said, from hour to hour, news came across to the rectory of the poor squire's health.

Matthew, to whom alone was given free intercourse with his master, became very gloomy. Mr. Prosper was no doubt gloomy, and the feeling was contagious. "I think he's going off his head; that's what I do think,"

he said, in confidential intercourse with the cook.

That conversation resulted in Matthew's walking across to the rectory, and asking advice from the rector; and in the rector paying a visit to the Hall. He had again consulted with his wife, and she had recommended him to endeavor to see her brother. "Of course, what we hear about his anger only comes from Joe, or through the servants. If he is angry, what will it matter?"

"Not in the least to me," said the rector; "only I would not willingly trouble him."

"I would go," said the rector's wife, "only I know he would require me to agree with him about Harry. That, of course, I cannot do."

Then the rector walked across to the Hall, and sent up word by Matthew that he was there, and would be glad to see Mr. Prosper, if Mr. Prosper were disengaged. But Matthew, after an interval of a quarter of an hour, came back with merely a note: "I am not very well, and an interview at the present moment would only be depressing. But I would be glad to see my sister, if she would come across to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I think it would be well that I should see some one, and she is now the nearest.--P.P." Then there arose a great discussion at the rectory as to what this note indicated. "She is now the nearest!" He might have so written had the doctor who attended him told him that death was imminent. Of course she was the nearest. What did the "now" mean? Was it not intended to signify that Harry had been his heir, and therefore the nearest; but that now he had been repudiated? But it was of course resolved that Mrs. Annesley should go to the Hall at the hour indicated on the morrow.

"Oh yes; I'm up here; where else should I be,--unless you expected to find me in my bed?" It was thus that he answered his sister's first inquiry as to his condition.

"In bed? Oh no! Why should any one expect to find you in bed, Peter?"

"Never call me by that name again!" he said, rising up from his chair, and standing erect, with one arm stretched out. She called him Peter, simply because it had been her custom so to do during the period of nearly fifty years in which they had lived in the same parish as brother and sister. She could, therefore, only stare at him and his tragic humor, as he stood there before her. "Though of course it is madness on my part to object to it! My G.o.dfather and G.o.dmother christened me Peter, and our father was Peter before me, and his father too was Peter Prosper. But that woman has made the name sound abominable in my ears."

"Miss Thoroughbung, you mean?"

"She came here, and so be-Petered me in my own house,--nay, up in this very room,--that I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels."

"I would not mind what she said. They all know that she is a little flighty."

"n.o.body told me so. Why couldn't you let me know that she was flighty beforehand? I thought that she was a person whom it would have done to marry."

"If you will only think of it, Peter--" Here he shuddered visibly. "I beg your pardon, I will not call you so again. But it is unreasonable to blame us for not telling you about Miss Thoroughbung."

"Of course it is. I am unreasonable, I know it."

"Let us hope that it is all over now."

"Cart-ropes wouldn't drag me up to the hymeneal altar,--at least not with that woman."

"You have sent for me, Peter--I beg pardon. I was so glad when you sent.

I would have come before, only I was afraid that you would be annoyed.

Is there anything that we can do for you?"

"Nothing at all that you can do, I fear."

"Somebody told us that you were thinking of going abroad." Here he shook his head. "I think it was Harry." Here he shook his head and frowned.

"Had you not some idea of going abroad?"