The Man Between, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [the snowy day read aloud txt] 📗

hate to do. For ten days I've been kicking my old heels against bedclothes. Yesterday I took things in my own hands."

"Never mind, Granny dear, it was all a good discipline."

"Discipline! You impertinent young lady! Discipline for your grandmother! Discipline, indeed! That one word may cost you a thousand dollars, miss."

"I don't care if it does, only you must give the thousand dollars to poor Miss Hillis."

"Poor Miss Hillis has had a most comfortable time with me all summer."

"I know she has, consequently she will feel her comfortless room and poverty all the more after it. Give her the thousand, Granny. I'm willing."

"What kind of company have you been keeping, Ethel Rawdon? Who has taught you to squander dollars by the thousand? Discipline! I think you are giving me a little now--a thousand dollars a lesson, it seems--no wonder, after the carryings-on at Rawdon Court."

"Dear grandmother, we had the loveliest time you can imagine. And there is not, in all the world, such a noble old gentleman as Squire Percival Rawdon."

"I know all about Percival Rawdon--a proud, careless, extravagant, loose-at-ends man, dancing and singing and loving as it suited time and season, taking no thought for the future, and spending with both hands; hard on women, too, as could be."

"Grandmother, I never saw a more courteous gentleman. He worships women. He was never tired of talking about you."

"What had he to say about me?"

"That you were the loveliest girl in the county, and that he never could forget the first time he saw you. He said you were like the vision of an angel."

"Nonsense! I was just a pretty girl in a book muslin frock and a white sash, with a rose at my breast. I believe they use book muslin for linings now, but it did make the sheerest, lightest frocks any girl could want. Yes, I remember that time. I was going to a little party and crossing a meadow to shorten the walk, and Squire Percival had been out with his gun, and he laid it down and ran to help me over the stile. A handsome young fellow he was then as ever stepped in shoe leather."

"And he must have loved you dearly. He would sit hour after hour telling Ruth and me how bright you were, and how all the young beaux around Monk-Rawdon adored you."

"Nonsense! Nonsense! I had beaux to be sure. What pretty girl hasn't?"

"And he said his brother Edward won you because he was most worthy of your love."

"Well, now, I chose Edward Rawdon because he was willing to come to America. I longed to get away from Monk-Rawdon. I was faint and weary with the whole stupid place. And the idea of living a free and equal life, and not caring what lords and squires and their proud ladies said or did, pleased me wonderfully. We read about Niagara and the great prairies and the new bright cities, and Edward and I resolved to make our home there. Your grandfather wasn't a man to like being 'the Squire's brother.' He could stand alone."

"Are you glad you came to America?"

"Never sorry a minute for it. Ten years in New York is worth fifty years in Monk-Rawdon, or Rawdon Court either."

"Squire Percival was very fond of me. He thought I resembled you, grandmother, but he never admitted I was as handsome as you were."

"Well, Ethel dear, you are handsome enough for the kind of men you'll pick up in this generation--most of them bald at thirty, wearing spectacles at twenty or earlier, and in spite of the fuss they make about athletics breaking all to nervous bits about fifty."

"Grandmother, that is pure slander. I know some very fine young men, handsome and athletic both."

"Beauty is a matter of taste, and as to their athletics, they can run a mile with a blacksmith, but when the thermometer rises to eighty-five degrees it knocks them all to pieces. They sit fanning themselves like schoolgirls, and call for juleps and ice-water. I've got eyes yet, my dear. Squire Percival was a different kind of man; he could follow the hounds all day and dance all night. The hunt had not a rider like him; he balked at neither hedge, gate, nor water; a right gallant, courageous, honorable, affectionate gentleman as ever Yorkshire bred, and she's bred lots of superfine ones. What ever made him get into such a mess with his estate? Your grandfather thought him as straight as a string in money matters."

"You said just now he was careless and extravagant."

"Well, I did him wrong, and I'm sorry for it. How did he manage to need eighty thousand pounds?"

"It is rather a pitiful story, grandmother, but he never once blamed those who were in the wrong. His son for many years had been the real manager of the estate. He was a speculator; his grandsons were wild and extravagant. They began to borrow money ten years ago and had to go on."

"Whom did they borrow from?"

"Fred Mostyn's father."

"The devil! Excuse me, Ethel--but the name suits and may stand."

"The dear old Squire would have taken the fault on himself if he could have done so. They that wronged him were his own, and they were dead. He never spoke of them but with affection."

"Poor Percival! Your father told me he was now out of Mostyn's power; he said you had saved the estate, but he gave me no particulars. How did you save it?"

"Bought it!"

"Nonsense!"

"House and lands and outlying farms and timber--everything."

Then a rosy color overspread Madam's face, her eyes sparkled, she rose to her feet, made Ethel a sweeping courtesy, and said:

"My respect and congratulations to Ethel, Lady of Rawdon Manor."

"Dear grandmother, what else could I do?"

"You did right."

"The Squire is Lord of the Manor as long as he lives. My father says I have done well to buy it. In the future, if I do not wish to keep it, Nicholas Rawdon will relieve me at a great financial advantage."

"Why didn't you let Nicholas Rawdon buy it now?"

"He would have wanted prompt possession. The Squire would have had to leave his home. It would have broken his heart."

"I dare say. He has a soft, loving heart. That isn't always a blessing. It can give one a deal of suffering. And I hear you have all been making idols of these Tyrrel-Rawdons. Fred tells me they are as vulgar a lot as can be."

"Fred lies! Excuse me, grandmother--but the word suits and may stand. Mr. Nicholas is pompous, and walks as slowly as if he had to carry the weight of his great fortune; but his manners are all right, and his wife and son are delightful. She is handsome, well dressed, and so good-hearted that her pretty county idioms are really charming. John Thomas is a man by himself--not handsome, but running over with good temper, and exceedingly clever and wide-awake. Many times I was forced to tell myself, John Thomas would make an ideal Squire of Rawdon."

"Why don't you marry him."

"He never asked me."

"What was the matter with the men?"

"He was already engaged to a very lovely young lady."

"I am glad she is a lady."

"She is also very clever. She has been to college and taken high honors, a thing I have not done."

"You might have done and overdone that caper; you were too sensible to try it. Well, I'm glad that part of the family is looking up. They had the right stuff in them, and it is a good thing for families to dwell together in unity. We have King David's word for that. My observation leads me to think it is far better for families to dwell apart, in unity. They seldom get along comfortably together."

Then Ethel related many pleasant, piquant scenes between the two families at Monk-Rawdon, and especially that one in which the room of the first Tyrrel had been opened and his likeness restored to its place in the family gallery. It touched the old lady to tears, and she murmured, "Poor lad! Poor lad! I wonder if he knows! I wonder if he knows!"

The crucial point of Ethel's revelations had not yet been revealed, but Madam was now in a gentle mood, and Ethel took the opportunity to introduce her to Tyrrel Rawdon. She was expecting and waiting for this topic, but stubbornly refused to give Ethel any help toward bringing it forward. At last, the girl felt a little anger at her pretended indifference, and said, "I suppose Fred Mostyn told you about Mr. Tyrrel Rawdon, of California?"

"Tyrrel Rawdon, of California! Pray, who may he be?"

"The son of Colonel Rawdon, of the United States Army."

"Oh, to be sure! Well, what of him?"

"I am going to marry him."

"I shall see about that."

"We were coming here together to see you, but before we left the steamer he got a telegram urging him to go at once to his father, who is very ill."

"I have not asked him to come and see me. Perhaps he will wait till I do so."

"If you are not going to love Tyrrel, you need not love me. I won't have you for a grandmother any longer."

"I did without you sixty years. I shall not live another twelve months, and I think I can manage to do without you for a granddaughter any longer."

"You cannot do without me. You would break your heart, and I should break mine." Whereupon Ethel began to cry with a passion that quite gratified the old lady. She watched her a few moments, and then said gently:

"There now, that will do. When he comes to New York bring him to see me. And don't name the man in the meantime. I won't talk about him till I've seen him. It isn't fair either way. Fred didn't like him."

"Fred likes no one but Dora Stanhope."

"Eh! What! Is that nonsense going on yet?"

Then Ethel described her last two interviews with Dora. She did this with scrupulous fidelity, making no suggestions that might prejudice the case. For she really wanted her grandmother's decision in order to frame her own conduct by it. Madam was not, however, in a hurry to give it.

"What do you think?" she asked Ethel.

"I have known Dora for many years; she has always told me everything."

"But nothing about Fred?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing to tell, perhaps?"

"Perhaps."

"Where does her excellent husband come in?"

"She says he is very kind to her in his way."

"And his way is to drag her over the world to see the cathedrals thereof, and to vary that pleasure with inspecting schools and reformatories and listening to great preachers. Upon my word, I feel sorry for the child! And I know all about such excellent people as the Stanhopes. I used to go to what they call 'a pleasant evening' with them. We sat around a big room lit with wax candles, and held improving conversation, or some one sang one or two of Mrs. Hemans' songs, like 'Passing Away' or 'He Never Smiled Again.' Perhaps there was a comic recitation, at which no one laughed, and finally we had wine and hot water--they called it 'port negus'--and tongue sandwiches and