CHAPTER VI

One of the most difficult lessons for spirited young men to learn is,

that good jokes are not always good policy. They have to be paid for,

like good dinners, though dinner and joke shall seem to have been at

somebody else's expense. Young Fellingham was treated rudely by Van

Diemen Smith, and with some cold reserve by Annette: in consequence of

which he thought her more than ever commonplace. He wrote her a letter of

playful remonstrance, followed by one that appealed to her sentiments.

But she replied to neither of them. So his visits to Crikswich came to an

end.

Shall a girl who has no appreciation of fun affect us? Her expressive

eyes, and her quaint simplicity, and her enthusiasm for England, haunted

Mr. Fellingham; being conjured up by contrast with what he met about him.

But shall a girl who would impose upon us the task of holding in our

laughter at Tinman be much regretted? There could be no companionship

between us, Fellingham thought.

On an excursion to the English Lakes he saw the name of Van Diemen Smith

in a visitors' book, and changed his ideas on the subject of

companionship. Among mountains, or on the sea, or reading history,

Annette was one in a thousand. He happened to be at a public ball at

Helmstone in the Winter season, and who but Annette herself came whirling

before him on the arm of an officer! Fellingham did not miss his chance

of talking to her. She greeted him gaily, and speaking with the

excitement of the dance upon her, appeared a stranger to the serious

emotions he was willing to cherish. She had been to the Lakes and to

Scotland. Next summer she was going to Wales. All her experiences were

delicious. She was insatiable, but satisfied.

"I wish I had been with you," said Fellingham.

"I wish you had," said she.

Mrs. Cavely was her chaperon at the ball, and he was not permitted to

enjoy a lengthened conversation sitting with Annette. What was he to

think of a girl who could be submissive to Mrs. Cavely, and danced with

any number of officers, and had no idea save of running incessantly over

England in the pursuit of pleasure? Her tone of saying, "I wish you had,"

was that of the most ordinary of wishes, distinctly, if not designedly

different from his own melodious depth.

She granted him one waltz, and he talked of her father and his whimsical

vagrancies and feeling he had a positive liking for Van Diemen, and he

sagaciously said so.

Annette's eyes brightened. "Then why do you never go to see him? He has

bought Elba. We move into the Hall after Christmas. We are at the Crouch

at present. Papa will be sure to make you welcome. Do you not know that

he never forgets a friend or breaks a friendship?"

"I do, and I love him for it," said Fellingham.

If he was not greatly mistaken a gentle pressure on the fingers of his

left hand rewarded him.

This determined him. It should here be observed that he was by birth the

superior of Annette's parentage, and such is the sentiment of a better

blood that the flattery of her warm touch was needed for him to overlook

the distinction.

Two of his visits to Crikswich resulted simply in interviews and

conversations with Mrs. Crickledon. Van Diemen and his daughter were in

London with Tinman and Mrs. Cavely, purchasing furniture for Elba Hall.

Mrs. Crickledon had no scruple in saying, that Mrs. Cavely meant her

brother to inhabit the Hall, though Mr. Smith had outbid him in the

purchase. According to her, Tinman and Mr. Smith had their differences;

for Mr. Smith was a very outspoken gentleman, and had been known to call

Tinman names that no man of spirit would bear if he was not scheming.

Fellingham returned to London, where he roamed the streets famous for

furniture warehouses, in the vain hope of encountering the new owner of

Elba.

Failing in this endeavour, he wrote a love-letter to Annette.

It was her first. She had liked him. Her manner of thinking she might

love him was through the reflection that no one stood in the way. The

letter opened a world to her, broader than Great Britain.

Fellingham begged her, if she thought favourably of him, to prepare her

father for the purport of his visit. If otherwise, she was to interdict

the visit with as little delay as possible and cut him adrift.

A decided line of conduct was imperative. Yet you have seen that she was

not in love. She was only not unwilling to be in love. And Fellingham was

just a trifle warmed. Now mark what events will do to light the fires.

Van Diemen and Tinman, old chums re-united, and both successful in life,

had nevertheless, as Mrs. Crickledon said, their differences. They

commenced with an opposition to Tinman's views regarding the expenditure

of town moneys. Tinman was ever for devoting them to the patriotic

defence of "our shores;" whereas Van Diemen, pointing in detestation of

the town sewerage reeking across the common under the beach, loudly

called on him to preserve our lives, by way of commencement. Then Van

Diemen precipitately purchased Elba at a high valuation, and Tinman had

expected by waiting to buy it at his own valuation, and sell it out of

friendly consideration to his friend afterwards, for a friendly

consideration. Van Diemen had joined the hunt. Tinman could not mount a

horse. They had not quarrelled, but they had snapped about these and

other affairs. Van Diemen fancied Tinman was jealous of his wealth.

Tinman shrewdly suspected Van Diemen to be contemptuous of his dignity.

He suffered a loss in a loan of money; and instead of pitying him, Van

Diemen had laughed him to scorn for expecting security for investments at

ten per cent. The bitterness of the pinch to Tinman made him frightfully

sensitive to strictures on his discretion. In his anguish he told his

sister he was ruined, and she advised him to marry before the crash. She

was aware that he exaggerated, but she repeated her advice. She went so

far as to name the person. This is known, because she was overheard by

her housemaid, a gossip of Mrs. Crickledon's, the subsequently famous

"Little Jane."

Now, Annette had shyly intimated to her father the nature of Herbert

Fellingham's letter, at the same time professing a perfect readiness to

submit to his directions; and her father's perplexity was very great, for

Annette had rather fervently dramatized the young man's words at the ball

at Helmstone, which had pleasantly tickled him, and, besides, he liked

the young man. On the other hand, he did not at all like the prospect of

losing his daughter; and he would have desired her to be a lady of title.

He hinted at her right to claim a high position. Annette shrank from the

prospect, saying, "Never let me marry one who might be ashamed of my

father!"

"I shouldn't stomach that," said Van Diemen, more disposed in favour of

the present suitor.

Annette was now in a tremor. She had a lover; he was coming. And if he

did not come, did it matter? Not so very much, except to her pride. And

if he did, what was she to say to him? She felt like an actress who may

in a few minutes be called on the stage, without knowing her part. This

was painfully unlike love, and the poor girl feared it would be her

conscientious duty to dismiss him--most gently, of course; and perhaps,

should he be impetuous and picturesque, relent enough to let him hope,

and so bring about a happy postponement of the question. Her father had

been to a neighbouring town on business with Mr. Tinman. He knocked at

her door at midnight; and she, in dread of she knew not what--chiefly

that the Hour of the Scene had somehow struck--stepped out to him

trembling. He was alone. She thought herself the most childish of mortals

in supposing that she could have been summoned at midnight to declare her

sentiments, and hardly noticed his gloomy depression. He asked her to

give him five minutes; then asked her for a kiss, and told her to go to

bed and sleep. But Annette had seen that a great present affliction was

on him, and she would not be sent to sleep. She promised to listen

patiently, to bear anything, to be brave. "Is it bad news from home?" she

said, speaking of the old home where she had not left her heart, and

where his money was invested.

"It's this, my dear Netty," said Van Diemen, suffering her to lead him

into her sitting-room; "we shall have to leave the shores of England."

"Then we are ruined."

"We're not; the rascal can't do that. We might be off to the Continent,

or we might go to America; we've money. But we can't stay here. I'll not

live at any man's mercy."

"The Continent! America!" exclaimed the enthusiast for England. "Oh,

papa, you love living in England so!"

"Not so much as all that, my dear. You do, that I know. But I don't see

how it's to be managed. Mart Tinman and I have been at tooth and claw

to-day and half the night; and he has thrown off the mask, or he's dashed

something from my sight, I don't know which. I knocked him down."

"Papa!"

"I picked him up."

"Oh," cried Annette, "has Mr. Tinman been hurt?"

"He called me a Deserter!"

Anisette shuddered.

She did not know what this thing was, but the name of it opened a cabinet

of horrors, and she touched her father timidly, to assure him of her

constant love, and a little to reassure herself of his substantial

identity.

"And I am one," Van Diemen made the confession at the pitch of his voice.

"I am a Deserter; I'm liable to be branded on the back. And it's in Mart

Tinman's power to have me marched away to-morrow morning in the sight of

Crikswich, and all I can say for myself, as a man and a Briton, is, I did

not desert before the enemy. That I swear I never would have done. Death,

if death's in front; but your poor mother was a handsome woman, my child,

and there--I could not go on living in barracks and leaving her

unprotected. I can't tell a young woman the tale. A hundred pounds came

on me for a legacy, as plump in my hands out of open heaven, and your

poor mother and I saw our chance; we consulted, and we determined to risk

it, and I got on board with her and you, and over the seas we went, first

to shipwreck, ultimately to fortune."

Van Diemen laughed miserably. "They noticed in the hunting-field here I

had a soldier-like seat. A soldier-like seat it'll be, with a brand on

it. I sha'n't be asked to take a soldier-like seat at any of their tables

again. I may at Mart Tinman's, out of pity, after I've undergone my

punishment. There's a year still to run out of the twenty of my term of

service due. He knows it; he's been reckoning; he has me. But the worst

cat-o'-nine-tails for me is the disgrace. To have myself pointed at,

'There goes the Deserter' He was a private in the Carbineers, and he

deserted.' No one'll say, 'Ay, but he clung to the idea of his old

schoolmate when abroad, and came back loving him, and trusted him, and

was deceived."

Van Diemen produced a spasmodic cough with a blow on his chest. Anisette

was weeping.

"There, now go to bed," said he. "I wish you might have known no more

than you did of our flight when I got you on board the ship with your

poor mother; but you're a young woman now, and you must help me to think

of another cut and run, and what baggage we can scrape together in a

jiffy, for I won't live here at Mart Tinman's mercy."

Drying her eyes to weep again, Annette said, when she could speak: "Will

nothing quiet him? I was going to bother you with all sorts of silly

questions, poor dear papa; but I see I can understand if I try. Will

nothing--Is he so very angry? Can we not do something to pacify him? He

is fond of money. He--oh, the thought of leaving England! Papa, it will

kill you; you set your whole heart on England. We could--I could--could I

not, do you not think?--step between you as a peacemaker. Mr. Tinman is

always very courteous to me."

At these words of Annette's, Van Diemen burst into a short snap of savage

laughter. "But that's far away in the background, Mr. Mart Tinman!" he

said. "You stick to your game, I know that; but you'll find me flown,

though I leave a name to stink like your common behind me. And," he

added, as a chill reminder, "that name the name of my benefactor. Poor

old Van Diemen! He thought it a safe bequest to make."

"It was; it is! We will stay; we will not be exiled," said Annette. "I

will do anything. What was the quarrel about, papa?"

"The fact is, my dear, I just wanted to show him--and take down his

pride--I'm by my Australian education a shrewder hand than his old

country. I bought the house on the beach while he was chaffering, and

then I sold it him at a rise when the town was looking up--only to make

him see. Then he burst up about something I said of Australia. I will

have the common clean. Let him live at the Crouch as my tenant if he

finds the house on the beach in danger."

"Papa, I am sure," Annette repeated--"sure I have influence with Mr.

Tinman."

"There are those lips of yours shutting tight," said her father. "Just

listen, and they make a big O. The donkey! He owns you've got influence,

and he offers he'll be silent if you'll pledge your word to marry him.

I'm not sure he didn't say, within the year. I told him to look sharp not

to be knocked down again. Mart Tinman for my son-in-law! That's an upside

down of my expectations, as good as being at the antipodes without a

second voyage back! I let him know you were engaged."

Annette gazed at her father open-mouthed, as he had predicted; now with a

little chilly dimple at one corner of the mouth, now at another--as a

breeze curves the leaden winter lake here and there. She could not get

his meaning into her sight, and she sought, by looking hard, to

understand it better; much as when some solitary maiden lady, passing

into her bedchamber in the hours of darkness, beholds--tradition telling

us she has absolutely beheld foot of burglar under bed; and lo! she

stares, and, cunningly to moderate her horror, doubts, yet cannot but

believe that there is a leg, and a trunk, and a head, and two terrible

arms, bearing pistols, to follow. Sick, she palpitates; she compresses

her trepidation; she coughs, perchance she sings a bar or two of an aria.

Glancing down again, thrice horrible to her is it to discover that there

is no foot! For had it remained, it might have been imagined a harmless,

empty boot. But the withdrawal has a deadly significance of animal

life. . . .

In like manner our stricken Annette perceived the object; so did she

gradually apprehend the fact of her being asked for Tinman's bride, and

she could not think it credible. She half scented, she devised her plan

of escape from another single mention of it. But on her father's

remarking, with a shuffle, frightened by her countenance, "Don't listen

to what I said, Netty. I won't paint him blacker than he is"--then

Annette was sure she had been proposed for by Mr. Tinman, and she fancied

her father might have revolved it in his mind that there was this means

of keeping Tinman silent, silent for ever, in his own interests.

"It was not true, when you told Mr. Tinman I was engaged, papa," she

said.

"No, I know that. Mart Tinman only half-kind of hinted. Come, I say!

Where's the unmarried man wouldn't like to have a girl like you, Netty!

They say he's been rejected all round a circuit of fifteen miles; and

he's not bad-looking, neither--he looks fresh and fair. But I thought it

as well to let him know he might get me at a disadvantage, but he

couldn't you. Now, don't think about it, my love."

"Not if it is not necessary, papa," said Annette; and employed her

familiar sweetness in persuading him to go to bed, as though he were the

afflicted one requiring to be petted.