Roger Kyffin's Ward Part 8

Fortunately he soon caught sight of the livery of her coachman. She was placed in her carriage, and Harry took his seat by her side, telling the coachman to stop at the first doctor's shop they came to. The carriage soon stopped in front of a window full of bright-coloured liquids, and before Harry had time even to get out, a gentleman bustled up to the carriage door.

"Can I render any professional a.s.sistance?" he asked, looking in.

"Yes," exclaimed Harry; "what can be done for this lady?"

"Will she step out?" asked the medical pract.i.tioner.

"She is unable, sir," said Harry.

"Oh! I beg pardon; I will feel her pulse," was the rejoinder. The apothecary made a long face.

"Why, do you know, sir, the old lady is dead!" he exclaimed, rather offended at Harry having brought him out to a dead patient. "I can do nothing for her, sir."

"Dead!" exclaimed Harry, with a feeling of horror. "Are you sure that she is dead?"

"Never was more sure of a fact in my life, sir. You can send for her executors and the undertaker when you get home; that is the only advice I can give you."

Harry told the coachman to drive on. "But do I not owe you a fee, sir, for your trouble?"

"Oh, no, sir, no; that would be too much," said the apothecary, thinking that he had been too plain-spoken with the young man, who might possibly be a relative of the old lady, though he was somewhat young to be her son.

Harry fortunately recollected Lady Tryon's man of business. He sent for him, as he did also for Mr. Kyffin.

"I will leave you still here," said his old friend, who came that very evening, "and when your grandmother's affairs have been arranged you must come to my house. I hope that you will find yourself left comfortably off. Let me entreat you not to be idle, Harry; it is the very worst employment a man can engage in." Harry shook his head. "I doubt my being well off," he answered. "We will hope for the best,"

said Mr. Kyffin. Harry had good reason for his doubts. Even before his grandmother's body was placed in her coffin, an execution was put into the house. Every article in it was seized by her creditors, and even after all her property had been disposed of, many were still left unpaid. Harry was literally dest.i.tute. For himself he would not have felt it so much, but it was a cruel thought that he must relinquish all his hopes of obtaining Mabel. He had, however, one firm friend.

"My dear boy," said Mr. Kyffin, "this may be, after all, the best thing that could have happened to you. Had your grandmother left you well off you might have turned out an idler. I have sufficient influence, I think, with your relative, Mr. Coppinger, to obtain a situation for you in his house of business. The very fact that your unhappy grandmother has deceived you and left you totally unprovided for will weigh greatly with him."

Harry wrote immediately to his great-uncle, Mr. Coppinger, and other relatives, announcing his grandmother's death. The following day the merchant appeared. He spoke kindly to Harry, and seemed satisfied with the way he expressed himself.

"I have seen so little of my sister for so many years that I know nothing of her affairs," he observed, "but from what you tell me I am afraid that they are not in a satisfactory condition."

Harry, at that time, was not aware how utterly his grandmother had ruined herself. In a very few days, however, the merchant discovered that his sister had not left sufficient to pay her debts.

"However, it cannot be helped now. We must have as quiet a funeral as possible, and the less said about the matter the better. I am not surprised, as I heard something about her habits; but for you I am sorry, Harry. However, you are young, and the world is before you. If you are disposed to work you can make your way, as many an honest steady man has done, with fewer abilities than you possess, I suspect."

Harry a.s.sured his uncle that he was ready to work, but though he might have preferred entering the army or navy, he saw now clearly that he must attempt some career by which he might maintain himself.

"Well, I will talk the matter over with your friend Mr. Kyffin, and he will communicate the result to you," said Mr. Coppinger.

The people of Lynderton were greatly disappointed, and considered that they had a right to complain of Lady Tryon when they discovered that she was not to be interred in their churchyard with the usual pomp-and-ceremony of persons of her position. Instead of that, she was laid to rest in the burying-ground of the parish in which she died.

Still more aggrieved were her creditors when they found they had to accept only five s.h.i.+llings in the pound, and that they might consider themselves very fortunate in obtaining that amount.

Roger Kyffin insisted on his young ward coming to live with him, and as soon as the creditors had taken charge of the house, Harry Tryon packed up his small possessions and removed to Hampstead.

"It is all arranged, Harry," said Mr. Kyffin, the following day; "your uncle will receive you as a clerk at a salary of 100 pounds a year. It is a very good one, let me a.s.sure you, for a beginner. Many a young man has to pay a large premium to be admitted into such a house; you may therefore consider yourself especially fortunate. All you have now to do is to be punctual, to be ready to do every thing you are required, and to forward to the utmost of your power your princ.i.p.al's interest.

Exactness is a great thing, and above all, rigidly honourable conduct.

You will not discredit my recommendation, Harry, I feel sure of that."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"SEEING LIFE IN LONDON."

Harry accompanied his kind guardian into London the following day, and was introduced in due form to Mr. Silas Sleech, one of the princ.i.p.al clerks under Mr. Kyffin, as well as to the other persons engaged in Mr.

Coppinger's counting-house in Idol Lane.

"You are welcome, Mr. Tryon," said Mr. Sleech, with whom Harry found himself left for a short time. "I have heard of you before at Lynderton; indeed, I remember your countenance very well as a boy. You do not probably recollect me, however. Still you may possibly have heard the name of my respected father, one of the princ.i.p.al lawyers in Lynderton. We are a very well-connected family, but we do not boast of that here. While in this office, we are men of business; we sink every other character. You understand me, Mr. Tryon, and if you are wise you will follow my advice. Here I am your superior and director, but outside this door we are equals, and I hope soon to say, we are friends."

Harry watched Mr. Sleech's countenance while he spoke. He did not particularly like its expression. It was then animated and vivacious enough, but directly afterwards, when Mr. Kyffin drew near, it a.s.sumed a peculiarly dull and inanimate look, as if he was absorbed completely in the books over which he was poring.

Mr. Coppinger himself soon afterwards arrived, and called Harry into his private room. He spoke to him much in the same way that Mr. Kyffin had done.

"You could not be in better hands than those of your guardian," he observed. "However, as after a time you may grow tired of your daily walk backwards and forwards to Hampstead, you shall have the room over the counting-house, and I shall be happy to see you at my house, where you can become better acquainted with your cousins."

Harry thanked his uncle for his kindness, and expressed a hope that he should be attentive to business. The first moment he had time he wrote to Mabel, telling her of his good fortune in having a situation given him in Mr. Coppinger's house. He had previously written in a very different tone, giving an account of his grandmother's death, and the penury in which she had left him. He had not, however, told Mabel that he would release her from her engagement to him. While any hope yet lingered in his bosom he could not bring himself to do that. Now he was once more in spirits, and he felt sure that fortune would smile on him.

He had never told Mabel that it was very possible Mr. Kyffin might leave him his property. He had determined never to build on such a possibility. In the first place, Mr. Kyffin was not an old man, and might live for many years, or he might have relatives who had claims on him, or he might not consider it necessary, simply because he was his ward, to leave him anything.

What a blessed thing is hope, even in regard to mere mundane matters.

Harry had at this time nothing else to live upon. After all the grand expectations he had enjoyed, to find himself at last only a merchant's clerk with 100 pounds a year! Roger Kyffin's society might possibly have been more improving to Harry than that of his grandmother. At the same time, after a few weeks, it must be owned that Harry began to wish for a little change. Roger Kyffin had been in the habit of living a good deal by himself, and had not many acquaintances in the immediate neighbourhood. Now and then a few friends came to dine with him, but he seemed to think it a mark of respect to Harry's grandmother not to see any society at his house for the first two or three weeks after her death.

Mr. Coppinger invited him to dinner the following day. He was to sleep at the counting-house, where a room had been prepared for him, which he could occupy whenever he pleased.

"You may wish to see a little more of London and your friends," said Mr.

Coppinger, "and you can scarcely do so if you go out to Hampstead every evening."

Harry of course thanked his uncle for his consideration, and the next, day prepared with some little interest to pay his respects to his unknown cousins.

Although at that time many persons dined early, the custom of late dinners was being generally introduced. Harry arranged his toilet with more than usual care, and somewhat before the hour of five took his way to his uncle's house in Broad Street. It was a handsome mansion. As Harry knocked, the door flew open, and a couple of livery servants with powdered hair stood ready to receive him, and take his hat and cloak.

He followed the servant up-stairs, and was ushered into a large drawing-room. A lady came forward, not very young, according to his idea, but fair and good-looking, with a somewhat full figure, and a pleasant expression of countenance.

"And are you our cousin Harry?" she said, putting out her hand. "Why did you not come before? We heard about you, and are very glad at last to make your acquaintance."

"I scarcely liked to come without my uncle's invitation," said Harry, "but am very happy to have the opportunity of making his daughter's acquaintance. I conclude that you are Miss Coppinger."

"Yes, I am generally so called," answered the young lady, "but I am your cousin Martha, remember that. You must not be formal with us. My younger sisters may encourage you to be so, but you must not attend to their nonsense."

"I should like to know something about them," said Harry, feeling himself quite at home with Martha, evidently a kind and sensible woman, and, as people would say, a bit of a character.

"That's very sensible in you, Harry," she answered. "Fortunately they have been all out, and only lately went up to dress, so that I shall have time to tell you about them. Next to me there is Susan--she is like me in most respects, and some people take us for twins. However, she really is two years younger. Then there is Mary. She has only one fault. She is somewhat sentimental, and too fond of poetry--reads Cowper and Crabbe, and Miss Burney's novels, half-bound volumes in marble covers. She sighs over Evelina, and goes into raptures with Clarissa. She is dark, thin, and slight, not a bit like Susan and me.

Then there is Maria Jane. She is fair and addicted to laughing, and very good-natured, and not a bit sentimental. Then there is Estella.

Harry, you must take care of her. She is something like Mary, but more lively and more practical too. Mary lives in an idea of her own: Estella carries out her romantic notions. Then there is our youngest sister, Sybella, or baby we always used to call her, but she rather objects to the appellation. You must find out about her yourself.

There, now you know us all. You are known to us, so you will find yourself perfectly at home by the time you see us a.s.sembled round the dinner-table. As we have no brothers we shall make a great deal of you, and take care that you are not spoilt. Above all things, don't fall in love. You will become hideous and useless if you do. I don't at all approve of the pa.s.sion, except when exhibited in gentlemen of comfortable incomes, nor does papa. I warn you of that, so if you wish to take advantage of such hospitality as we can afford you--and we really desire to be kind--you have been cautioned and must act accordingly."

Harry cordially thanked Martha for the description of her sisters, and with perfect sincerity promised to follow her advice. It showed him that she, at all events, was not aware of his love for Mabel, and though he thought her a very good-natured woman, he had no intention of making her his confidant on that matter.

Harry had soon the opportunity of discovering the correctness of her description of her sisters. The youngest came in last. There was a considerable amount of beauty among them, so that they pa.s.sed for a family of pretty girls, but when he saw Sybella, he at once acknowledged that she surpa.s.sed them all.