Henry Dunbar by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Henry Dunbar

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"I _have_ heerd as Mr. Dunbar is the richest man in Europe, exceptin'
the Hemperore of Roosia and Baron Rothschild," the beadle said; "but I
don't know anythink more than that he's got a deal more money than he
knows what to do with, seein' that he passes the best part of his days
sittin' over the fire in his own room, or ridin' out after dark on
horseback, if report speaks correct."

"I tell you what I'll do," said the Major; "as I am in Lisford,--and, to
be candid with you, Lisford's about the dullest place it was ever my bad
luck to visit,--why, I'll stay and have a look at this wedding. I
suppose you can put me into a quiet pew, back yonder in the shadow,
where I can see all that's going on, without any of your fine folks
seeing me, eh?"

As the Major emphasized this question by dropping half-a-crown into the
beadle's hand, that official answered it very promptly,--

"I'll put you into the comfortablest pew you ever sat in," answered the
official.

"You might do that easily," muttered the sporting gentleman, below his
breath; "for there's not many pews, or churches either, that _I_'ve ever
sat in."

The Major took his place in a corner of the church whence there was a
very good view of the altar, where the feeble flames of the wax-candles
made little splashes of yellow light in the fog.

The fog got thicker and thicker in the church as the hour for the
marriage ceremony drew nearer and nearer, and the light of the
wax-candles grew brighter as the atmosphere became more murky.

The Major sat patiently in his pew, with his arms folded upon the ledge,
where the prayer-books in the corner of the seats were wont to rest
during divine service. He planted his bristly chin upon his folded arms,
and closed his eyes in a kind of dog-sleep.

But in this sleep he could hear everything going on. He heard the
hobnailed soles of the charity children pattering upon the floor of the
church; he heard the sharp rustling of the evergreens and wet flowers
under the children's figures; and he could hear the deep voice of Philip
Jocelyn, talking to the clergyman in the porch, as he waited the arrival
of the carriages from Maudesley Abbey.

The carriages arrived at last; and presently the wedding-train came up
the narrow aisle, and took their places about the altar-rails. Henry
Dunbar stood behind his daughter, with his face in shadow.

The marriage-service was commenced. The Major's eyes were wide open now.
Those sharp eager black eyes took notice of everything. They rested now
upon the bride, now upon the bridegroom, now upon the faces of the
rector and his curate.

Sometimes those glittering eyes strove to pierce the gloom, and to see
the other faces, the faces that were farther away from the flickering
yellow light of the wax-candles; but the gloom was not to be pierced
even by the sharpest eyes.

The Major could only see four faces;--the faces of the bride and
bridegroom, the rector, and his curate. But by-and-by, when one of the
clergymen asked the familiar question--"_Who giveth this woman to be
married, to this man?_" Henry Dunbar came forward into the light of the
wax-candles, and gave the appointed answer.

The Major's folded arms dropped off the ledge, as if they had been
suddenly paralyzed. He sat, breathing hard and quick, and staring at Mr.
Dunbar.

"Henry Dunbar?" he muttered to himself, presently--"Henry Dunbar!"

Mr. Dunbar did not again retire into the shadow. He remained during the
rest of the ceremony standing where the light shone full upon his
handsome face.

When all was over, and the bride and bridegroom had signed their names
in the vestry, before admiring witnesses, the sporting gentleman rose
and walked softly out of the pew, and along one of the obscure
side-aisles.

The wedding-party passed out of the church-porch. The Major followed
slowly.

Philip Jocelyn and his bride went straight to the carriage that was to
convey them back to the Abbey.

Dora Macmahon and the two pale Bridesmaids, with areophane bonnets that
had become hopelessly limp from exposure to that cruel rain, took their
places in the second carriage. They were accompanied by Arthur Lovell,
whom they looked upon with no very great favour; for he had been silent
and melancholy throughout the drive from Maudesley Abbey to Lisford
Church, and had stared at them with vacant indifference, while handing
them out of the carriage with a mechanical kind of politeness that was
almost insulting.

The two first carriages drove away from the churchyard-gate, and the mud
upon the high-road splashed the closed windows of the vehicles as the
wheels went round.

The third carriage waited for Henry Dunbar, and the crowd in the
churchyard waited to see him get into it.

He had his foot upon the lowest step, and his hand upon the door, when
the Major went up to him, and tapped him lightly upon the shoulder.

The spectators recoiled, aghast with indignant astonishment.

How dared this shabby-looking man, with clumsy boots that were queer
about the heels, and a mangy fur collar, like the skin of an invalid
French poodle, to his threadbare coat--how in the name of all that is
audacious, dared such a low person as this lay his dirty fingers upon
the sacred shoulder of Henry Dunbar of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby's
banking-house, St. Gundolph Lane, City?

The millionaire turned, and grew as ashy pale at sight of the shabby
stranger as he could have done if the sheeted dead had risen from one of
the graves near at hand. But he uttered no exclamation of horror or
surprise. He only shrank haughtily away from the Major's touch, as if
there had been some infection to be dreaded from those dirty
finger-tips.

"May I be permitted to know your motive for this intrusion, sir?" the
banker asked, in a cold, repellent voice, looking the shabby intruder
full in the eyes as he spoke.

There was something so resolute, so defiant, in the rich man's gaze,
that it is a wonder the poor man did not shrink from encountering it.

But he did not: he gave back look for look.

"Don't say you've forgotten me, Mr. Dunbar," he said; "don't say you've
forgotten a very old acquaintance."

This was spoken after a pause, in which the two men had looked at each
other as earnestly as if each had been trying to read the inmost secrets
of the other's soul.

"Don't say you've forgotten me, Mr. Dunbar," repeated the Major.

Henry Dunbar smiled. It was a forced smile, perhaps; but, at any rate,
it was a smile.

"I have a great many acquaintances," he said; "and I fancy you must have
gone down in the world since I knew you, if I may judge from
appearances."

The bystanders, who had listened to every word, began to murmur among
themselves. "Yes, indeed, they should rather think so:--if ever this
shabby stranger had known Mr. Dunbar, and if he was not altogether an
impostor, he must have been a very different sort of person at the time
of his acquaintance with the millionaire."

"When and where did I know you?" asked Henry Dunbar, with his eyes still
looking straight into the eyes of the other man.

"Oh, a long time ago--a very long way off!"

"Perhaps it was--somewhere in India--up the country?' said the banker,
very slowly.

"Yes, it was in India--up the country," answered the other.

"Then you won't find me slow to befriend you," said Mr. Dunbar. "I am
always glad to be of service to any of my Indian acquaintances--even
when the world has treated them badly. Get into my carriage, and I'll
drive you home. I shall be able to talk to you by-and-by, when all this
wedding business is over."

The two men seated themselves side by side upon the spring cushions of
the banker's luxurious carriage; and the vehicle drove rapidly away,
leaving the spectators in a rapture of admiration at Henry Dunbar's
condescension to his shabby Indian acquaintance.

CHAPTER XXV.

AFTER THE WEDDING.

The banker and the man who was called the Major talked to each other
earnestly enough throughout the short drive between Lisford churchyard
and Maudesley Abbey; but they spoke in low confidential whispers, and
their conversation was interlarded by all manner of strange phrases; the
queer, outlandish words were Hindostanee, no doubt, and were by no means
easy to comprehend.

As the carriage drove up to the grand entrance of the Abbey, the
stranger looked out through the mud-spattered window.

"A fine place!" he exclaimed; "a splendid place!"

"What am I to call you here?" muttered Mr. Dunbar, as he got out of the
carriage.

"You may call me anything; as long as you do not call me when the soup
is cold. I've a two-pair back in the neighbourhood of St. Martin's Lane,
and I'm known _there_ as Mr. Vavasor. But I'm not particular to a shade.
Call me anything that begins with a V. It's as well to stick to one
initial, on account of one's linen."

From the very small amount of linen exhibited in the Major's toilette, a
malicious person might have imagined that such a thing as a shirt was a
luxury not included in that gentleman's wardrobe.

"Call me Vernon," he said: "Vernon is a good name. You may as well call
me Major Vernon. My friends at the Corner--not the Piccadilly corner,
but the corner of the waste ground at the back of Field Lane--have done
me the honour to give me the rank of Major, and I don't see why I
shouldn't retain the distinction. My proclivities are entirely
aristocratic: I have no power of assimilation with the _canaille_. This
is the sort of thing that suits me. Here I am in my element."

Mr. Dunbar had led his shabby acquaintance into the low, tapestried room
in which he usually sat. The Major rubbed his hands with a gesture of
enjoyment as he looked at the evidences of wealth that were heedlessly
scattered about the apartment. He gave a long sigh of satisfaction as he
dropped with a sudden plump upon the spring cushion of an easy-chair on
one side of the fireplace.

"Now, listen to me," said Mr. Dunbar. "I can't afford to talk to you
this morning; I have other duties to perform: When they're over, I'll
come and talk to you. In the meantime, you may sit here as long as you
like, and have what you please to eat or drink."

"Well, I don't mind the wing of a fowl, and a bottle of Burgundy. It's a
long time since I've tasted Burgundy. Chambertin, or Clos de Vougeot, at
twelve bob a bottle--that's the sort of tipple, I rather flatter
myself--eh?"

Henry Dunbar drew himself up with a slight shudder, as if repelled and
disgusted by the man's vulgarity.

"What do you want of me?" he asked. "Remember that I am waited for. I am
quite ready to serve you--for the sake of 'auld lang syne!'"

"Yes," answered the Major, with a sneer; "it's so pleasant to remember
'auld lang syne!'"

"Well," asked Mr. Dunbar, impatiently, "what is it you want of me?"

"A bottle of Burgundy--the best you have in your cellar--something to
eat, and--that which a poor man generally asks of his rich friends--his
fortunate friends--MONEY!"

"You shall not find me illiberal towards you. I'll come back by-and-by,
and write you a cheque."

"You'll make it a thumping one?"

"I'll make it as much as you want."

"That's the sort of thing. There always was something princely and
magnificent about you, Mr. Dunbar."

"You shall not have any reason to complain," answered the banker, very
coldly.

"You'll send me the lunch?"

"Yes. You can hold your tongue, I suppose? You won't talk to the servant
who waits upon you?"

"Has your friend the manners of a gentleman, or has he not? Hasn't he
had the eminent advantage of a collegiate education--I may say, a
prolongued course of collegiate study? But look here, since you're so
afraid of my putting my foot in it, suppose I go back to Lisford now,
and I can return to you to-night after dark. Our business will keep. I
want a long talk, and a quiet talk; but I must suit my convenience to
yours. It's the dee-yuty of the poor-r-r dependant to wait upon the
per-leasure of his patron," exclaimed Major Vernon, in the studied tones
of the villain in a melodrama.

Henry Dunbar gave a sigh of relief.

"Yes, that will be much better," he said. "I can talk to you comfortably
after dinner."

"Ta-ta, then, old boy. 'Oh, reservoir!' as we say in the classics."

Major Vernon extended a brawny hand of rather doubtful purity. The
millionaire touched the broad palm with the tips of his gloved fingers.

"Good-bye," he said; "I shall expect you at nine o'clock. You know your
way out?"

He opened the door as he spoke, and pointed through a vista of two or
three adjoining rooms to the hall. It was rather a broad hint. The Major
pulled the poodle collar still higher above his ears, and went out with
only his nose exposed to the influence of the atmosphere.

Henry Dunbar shut the door, and walked to one of the windows. He leaned
his forehead against the glass, and looked out, watching the tall figure
of the Major, as he walked rapidly along the broad carriage-drive that
skirted the lawn.

The banker watched his shabby acquaintance until Major Vernon was quite
out of sight. Then he went back to the fireplace, dropped heavily into
his chair, and gave a long groan. It was not a sigh, it was a groan--a
groan that seemed to come from a bosom that was rent by all the agony of
despair.

"This decides it!" he muttered to himself. "Yes, this decides it! I've
seen it for a long time coming to a crisis. But _this_ settles
everything."

He got up, passed his hand across his forehead and over his eyelids,
like a man who had just been awakened from a long sleep; and then went
to play his part in the grand business of the day.

There is a very wide difference between the feelings of the poor
adventurer--who, by some lucky accident, is enabled to pounce upon a
rich friend--and the sentiments of the wealthy victim who is pounced
upon. Nothing could present a stronger contrast than the manner of Henry
Dunbar, the banker, and the gentleman who had elected to be called Major
Vernon. Whereas Mr. Dunbar seemed plunged into the uttermost depths of
despair by the sudden appearance of his old acquaintance, the worthy
Major exhibited a delight that was almost uproarious in its
manifestation.

It was not until he found himself in a very lonely part of the park,
where there were no other witnesses than the timid deer, lurking here
and there under the poor shelter of a clump of leafless elms,--it was
not till Major Vernon felt himself quite alone, that he gave way to the
full exuberance of his spirits.

"It's a gold-mine!" he cried, rubbing his hands; "it's a regular
California!"

He executed a grim caper in his delight, and the scared deer fled away
from the neighbourhood of his path; perhaps they took him for some
modern gnome, dancing wild dances in the wet woodland. He laughed aloud,
with a hollow, fiendish-sounding laugh, and then clapped his hands
together till the noise of his brawny palms echoed in the rustic
silence.

"Henry Dunbar," he said to himself; "Henry Dunbar! He'll be a milch
cow--nothing but a milch cow. If--" he stopped suddenly, and the
triumphant grin upon his face changed to a thoughtful expression. "If he
doesn't run away," he said, standing quite still, and rubbing his chin
slowly with the palm of his hand. "What if he should give me the slip?
He _might_ do that!"

But, after a moment's pause, he laughed aloud again, and walked on
briskly.

"No, he'll not do that," he said; "it won't serve his turn to run away."

While Major Vernon went back to Lisford, Henry Dunbar took his seat at
the breakfast-table, with Laura Lady Jocelyn by his side.

There was very little more gaiety at the wedding-breakfast than there
had been at the wedding. Everything was very elegant, very subdued, and
aristocratic. Silent footmen glided noiselessly backwards and forwards
behind the chairs of the guests; champagne, Moselle, hock, and Burgundy
sparkled in shallow glasses that were shaped like the broad leaf of a
water-lily. Dresden-china shepherdesses, in the centre of the oval
table, held up their chintz-patterned aprons filled with some forced
strawberries that had cost about half-a-crown apiece. Smirking shepherds
supported open-work baskets, laden with tiny Algerian apples, China
oranges, and big purple hothouse grapes.

The bride and bridegroom were very happy; but theirs was a subdued and
quiet happiness that had little influence upon those around them. The
wedding-breakfast was a very silent meal, for the face of the giver of
the feast was as gloomy as the sky above Maudesley Abbey; and every now
and then, in awkward pauses of the conversation, the pattering of the
incessant raindrops sounded upon the windows.

At last the breakfast was finished. A knife had been cunningly inserted
in the outer-wall of the splendid cake, and a few morsels of the rich
interior, which looked like a kind of portable Day-and-Martin, had been
eaten by one of the bridesmaids. Laura Jocelyn rose and left the table,
attended by the three young ladies.

Elizabeth Madden was waiting in the bride's dressing-room with Lady
Jocelyn's travelling-dress laid in state upon a big sofa. She kissed her
young Miss, and cried over her a little, before she was equal to begin
the business of the toilette: and then the voices of the bridesmaids
broke loose, and there was a pleasant buzz of congratulation, which
beguiled the time while Laura was exchanging her bridal costume for a
long rustling dress of dove-coloured silk, a purple-velvet cloak trimmed
and lined with sable, and a miraculous fabric of pale-pink areophane,
and starry jasmine-blossoms, which the Parisian milliner facetiously
entitled "a bonnet."

She went down stairs presently in this rich attire, looking like a
Russian empress, in all the glory of her youth and beauty. The
travelling-carriage was standing at the door; Arthur Lovell and Mr.
Dunbar were in the hall with the two clergymen. Laura went up to her
father to bid him good-bye.

"It will be a long time before we see each other again, papa dear," she
said, in tones that were only loud enough for Mr. Dunbar to hear; "say
'God bless you!' once more before I go."

Her head was on his breast, and her face lifted up towards his own as
she said this.

The banker looked straight before him with a forced smile upon his face,
that was little more than a nervous contraction of the muscles about the
lips.

"I will give you something better than my blessing, Laura," he said
aloud; "I have given you no wedding-present yet, but I have not
forgotten. The gift I mean to present to you will take some time to
prepare. I shall give you the handsomest diamond-necklace that was ever
made in England. I shall buy the diamonds myself, and have them set
according to my own design."

The bridesmaids gave a little murmur of delight.

Laura pressed the speaker's cold hand.

"I don't want any diamonds, papa," she whispered; "I only want your
love."

Mr. Dunbar did not make any response to that entreating whisper. There
was no time for any answer, perhaps, for the bride and bridegroom had to
catch an appointed train at Shorncliffe station, which was to take them
on the first stage of their Continental journey; and in the bustle and
confusion of their hurried departure, the banker had no opportunity of
saying anything more to his daughter. But he stood in the Gothic porch,
watching the departing carriage with a kind of mournful tenderness in
his face.

"I hope that she will be happy," he muttered to himself as he went back
to the house. "Heaven knows I hope she may be happy."

He did not stop to make any ceremonious adieu to his guests, but walked
straight to his own apartments. People were accustomed to his strange
manners, and were very indulgent towards his foibles.

Arthur Lovell and the three bridesmaids lingered a little in the blue
drawing-room. The Melvilles were to drive home to their father's house
in the afternoon, and Dora Macmahon was going with them. She was to stay
at their father's house a few weeks, and was then to go back to her aunt
in Scotland.

"But I am to pay my darling Laura an early visit at Jocelyn's Rock," she
said, when Arthur made some inquiry about her arrangements; "that has
been all settled."

The ladies and the young lawyer took an afternoon tea together before
they left Maudesley, and were altogether very sociable, not to say
merry. It was upon this occasion that Arthur Lovell, for the first time
in his life, observed that Dora Macmahon had very beautiful brown eyes,
and rippling brown hair, and the sweetest smile he had ever seen--except
in one lovely face, which was like the splendour of the noonday sun, and
seemed to extinguish all lesser lights.

The carriage was announced at last; and Mr. Lovell had enough to do in
attending to the three young ladies, and the stowing away of all those
bonnet-boxes, and shawls, and travelling-bags, and desks, and
dressing-cases, and odd volumes of books, and umbrellas, parasols, and
sketching-portfolios, which are the peculiar attributes of all female
travellers. And then, when all was finished, and he had bowed for the
last time in acknowledgment of those friendly becks and wreathed smiles
which greeted him from the carriage-window till it disappeared in the
curve of the avenue, Arthur Lovell walked slowly home, thinking of the
business of the day.

Laura was lost to him for ever. The dreadful grief which had so long
brooded darkly over his life had come down upon him at last, and the
pang had not been so insupportable as he had expected it to be.

"I never had any hope," he thought to himself, as he walked along the
soddened road between the gates of Maudesley and the old town that lay
before him. "I never really hoped that Laura Dunbar would be my wife."

John Lovell's house was one of the best in the town of Shorncliffe. It
was a queer old house, with a sloping roof, and gable-ends of solid oak,
adorned here and there by grim devices, carved by a skilful hand. It was
a large house; but low and straggling; and unpretending in its exterior.
The red light of a fire was shining in a wainscoted chamber, half
sitting-room, half library. The crimson curtains were not yet drawn
across the diamond-paned window. Arthur Lovell looked into the room as
he passed, and saw his father sitting by the fire, with a newspaper at
his feet.

There was no need to bolt doors against thieves and vagabonds in such a
quiet town as Shorncliffe. Arthur Lovell turned the handle of the street
door and went in. The door of his father's sitting-room was ajar, and
the lawyer heard his son's step in the hall.

"Is that you, Arthur?" he asked.

"Yes, father," the young man answered, going into the room.

"I want to speak to you very particularly. I suppose this wedding at
Maudesley Abbey has put all serious business out of your head."

"What serious business, father?"

"Have you forgotten Lord Herriston's offer?"

"The offer of the appointment in India? Oh, no, father, I have not
forgotten, only----"

"Only what?"

"I have not been able to decide."

As he spoke, Arthur Lovell thought of Laura Dunbar. No; she was Laura
Jocelyn now. It was a hard thing for the young man to think of her by
that new name. Would it not be better for him to go away--to put
immeasurable distance between himself and the woman he had loved so
dearly? Would it not be better and wiser to go away? And yet what if by
so doing he turned his back upon another chance of happiness? What if a
lesser star than that which had gone down in the darkness might now be
rising dim and distant in the pale grey sky?

"There is no reason that I should decide in a hurry," the young man
said, presently. "Lord Herriston told you that I might take twelve
months to think about his offer."

"He did," answered John Lovell; "but half of the time is gone, and I've
had a letter from Lord Herriston by this afternoon's post. He wants your
decision immediately; for a connection of his own has applied to him for
the appointment. He still holds to his promise, and will give you the
preference; but you must make up your mind at once."

"Do you wish me to go to India, father?"

"Do I wish you to go to India! Of course not, my dear boy, unless your
own ambition takes you there. Remember, you are an only son. You have no
occasion to leave this place. You will inherit a very good practice and
a comfortable fortune. I thought you were ambitious, and that
Shorncliffe was too narrow a sphere for your ambition, or else I should
never have entertained any idea of this Indian appointment."

"And you will not be sorry if I remain in England?"

"Sorry! No, indeed; I shall be very glad. Do you suppose, when a man has
only one son, a handsome, clever, high-minded young fellow, whose
presence is like sunshine in his father's gloomy old house--do you think
the father wants to get rid of the lad? If you do think so, you must
have a very small idea of parental affection."

"Then I'll refuse the appointment, father."

"God bless you, my boy!" exclaimed the lawyer.

The letter to Lord Herriston was written that night; and Arthur Lovell
resigned himself to a perpetual residence in that quiet town; within a
mile of which the towers of Jocelyn's Rock crowned the tall cliff above
the rushing waters of the Avon.

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