That Stick ...

And what was her mind?  Personally, she had come to like and approve Mr. Deyncourt the most, and to have a sense that there was satisfaction in that to which he could lead her, while the better taste that had grown in her was sometimes offended, almost insulted, by Tom Brady’s tendency to coarseness, and to treating her not as a lady, but as the Westhaven belle he had honoured with his attentions two years before.  Yet she had an old kindness for him as her first love.  And, moreover, he could give her eventually a title and very considerable wealth, a house in London, and all imaginable gaiety.  While, as to Mr. Deyncourt, he was not poor and had expectations, but the utmost she could look to for him with confidence was Northmoor Vicarage after Mr. Woodman’s time, and anywhere p. 192the dull, sober, hard-working life of a clergyman’s wife!

Which should she choose—that is, if she had her choice, or if either were in earnest?  She was not sure of the curate, and therefore perhaps longed most that he should come to the point, feeling that this would anyway increase her self-esteem, and if she hesitated to bind herself to a life too high, and perhaps too dull, there was the dread, on the other hand, that his family, who, she understood, were very grand people, would object to a girl with nothing of her own and a governess sister.

On the other hand, the Bradys were so rich that they had little need to care for fortune—only, the richer people were, the greater their expectations—and she was more at ease with Tom than with Mr. Deyncourt.  They would probably condone the want of fortune if she could write ‘Honourable’ before her name, or had any prospect of so doing, and the governess-ship might be a far greater drawback in their eyes than in those of the Deyncourts.  ‘However, thank goodness,’ said she to herself, ‘that won’t begin for two or three years, and one or other will be hailed long before that—if—  Oh, it is very hard to be kept out of everything by an old stick like Uncle Frank and a little wretch like Mite, who, after all, is a miserable Tyrolese, and not a Morton at all!  It really is too bad!’

p. 193CHAPTER XXIX

JONES OR RATTLER

When Lord Northmoor had occasion to be in London he usually went alone, for to take the whole party was too expensive, and not good for little Michael.  Besides, Bertha Morton had so urgently begged him to regard her house as always ready for him, that the habit had been established of taking up his quarters there.

Some important measures were coming on after Easter, and he had some other business, so that, in the form of words of which she longed to cure him, he told her that he was about to trespass on her hospitality for a week or fortnight.

‘As long as ever you please,’ she said.  ‘I am glad to have some one to sit opposite to me and tell me home news,’ and they met at the station, she having been on an expedition on her own account, so that they drove home together.

No sooner were they within the house door than the parlour-maid began, ‘That man has been here again, ma’am.’

‘What, Jones?’ said Bertha, in evident annoyance.

p. 194‘Yes, ma’am, and I am sorry to say he saw little Cea.  The child had run down after me when I answered the door, and he asked her if she did not know her own father, and if she would come with him.  “No,” she says, “I’m Miss Morton’s,” and he broke out with his ugly laugh, and says he, “You be, be you, you unnatural little vagabond?”—those were his very words, ma’am—“but a father is a father, and if he gives up his rights he must know the reason why.”  He wanted me, the good-for-nothing, to give him half a sovereign at once, or he would take off the child on the spot, but, by good luck, she had been frightened and run away, the dear, and I had got the door between me and him, so I told him to be off till you came home, or I would call for the police.  So he was off for that time.’

‘Quite right, Alice,’ said Miss Morton, and then, leading the way upstairs and throwing herself down on a chair, she exclaimed, ‘There, it ought to be a triumph to you, Northmoor!  You told me that I should have trouble about poor little Cea’s father, the brute!’

‘Is he levying blackmail on you?’

‘Yes.  It is horribly weak of me, I know, and I can scarcely believe it of myself, but one can’t abandon a child to a wretch like that, and he has the law on his side.’

‘Are you quite sure of that?  He deserted her, I think you said.  If you could establish that, or prove a conviction against him—’

‘Oh, I know she might be sent to an industrial school if I took it before a magistrate, but if the p. 195other alternative would be destruction, that would be misery to her.  See—’ and there was a little tap at the door.  ‘Come in, Cea.  There, make your curtsey to his lordship.’