Mildred Arkell Volume Ii Part 37

Peter had handed him the ten-pound note. "It is what you paid to Mr.

Fauntleroy while I was away; and bitterly vexed I am, to think he should have applied to you. I met Kenneth in leaving the station, and heard of it from him. But, William, I want to know why you paid it. Did Fauntleroy hold out any threats to you?"

"Something to that effect. He spoke of putting an execution into your house: it would not have done at all, you know, while strangers were in it. I never knew that he had got judgment."

"Oh yes, he did," said Peter, bitterly; "he took care of that. I am at his mercy any day, both in goods and person. He forgets, William, the service I rendered him, and my having to pay it: it is nothing but that that has kept me down in life. Put an execution in my house! I wonder where he expects to go to? Not to heaven, I should think?"

"He said his client pressed for the money--would not, in fact, wait."

"I dare say he did; it's just like him to say it. His client is himself."

"No?" exclaimed William Arkell, lifting his head.

"I firmly believe it to be so. He is pressing for another ten pounds now; it was due yesterday."

"Have you got it for him? If not, why do you give me this?"

"I have got it," said Peter; "I have to receive money to-day. Thank you a thousand times, William, for this and all else. How is business?"

"Don't ask. I feel too ill to fret over it just now. I'd give it up to-morrow but for Travice."

Certain words all but escaped Peter Arkell's lips, but they were suppressed again. He wondered--he had wondered long--_why_ William Arkell continued to live at an expensive rate. That it was his wife's doings, not his, Peter knew; but he could not help thinking that, had he been a firm, clever man, as William was, he should not have yielded to her.

He met her in the hall as he went out. She wore a rich, trailing silk, and bracelets of gold. Peter stopped to shake hands with her; but she was never too civil to him, or to his daughter Lucy. In point of fact, Lucy had for some time haunted Mrs. Arkell's dreams in a very unpleasant manner, entailing a frequent nightmare, hideous to contemplate.

"What did Peter Arkell want here?" she asked of her husband, before she was well in the room; and her tone was by no means a gracious one.

"Not much," carelessly answered Mr. Arkell, who had drawn over the fire in another fit of s.h.i.+vering.

She took her seat in the chair Peter had vacated, and slightly lifted her rich dress, lest the scorching fire should mar its beauty.

"I suppose he came to borrow money," she said, no pleasant look upon her countenance.

"On the contrary, he came to pay me some."

"To pay you some! What for?"

"To repay me some, I should have said. I paid something for him during his absence--ten pounds--and he has now returned it."

For one single moment she felt inclined to doubt the words, and to say so. The next, she remembered how simply truthful was her husband.

"I want Travice," she said, presently. "I sent to the manufactory for him, but he was out. Will he be long, do you know?"

"I dare say not. Peter told me he was at the railway station. He went, I suppose, to meet them."

Mrs. Arkell lifted her head with a sort of start.

"Did you know he had gone?" she asked, sharply.

"I knew nothing at all of it. What are you so cross about?"

Mrs. Arkell bit her lips--her habit when put out.

"I have always objected to Travice's excessive intimacy with the Peter Arkells," she slowly said. "You know I have. But I might just as well have objected to the wind's blowing, for all the effect it has had. I hope it will not prove that I had cause."

"Cause! What cause? What do you mean, Charlotte?"

"Well, I think they are a mean, deceitful set. I think they are scheming to entrap Travice into an engagement with Lucy Arkell."

Ill as Mr. Arkell felt, he yet burst into a laugh. The notion of Peter's scheming to entrap anyone, or anything, was so ludicrous: simple, single-minded Peter, who had probably never given a thought to Lucy's marrying at all since she was in existence! and his wife was utterly above meanness of any sort--the very soul of openness and honour.

"Where did you pick up that notion?" he asked, when his laugh was over.

"I picked it up from observation and common sense," answered Mrs.

Arkell, resentful of the laugh. "Travice used always to be there; and now that they are back, I suppose he will be again. He has lost no time in beginning, it seems."

"And if he is there, it does not follow that he goes for the sake of Lucy."

"It looks wonderfully like it, though."

"Nonsense, Charlotte! In the old days, when I was a young man, as Travice is, and Mildred was a girl like Lucy, quite as attractive----"

"Quite as what?" shrieked Mrs. Arkell. "I hope your taste does not put forward Lucy Arkell as attractive--or as Mildred's having been so before her. They are as like as two peas. A couple of uneducated, old-fas.h.i.+oned, old-maidish things, possessing not a single attraction."

"Opinions differ," said Mr. Arkell, quietly. "But if it be as you intimate, there's the less danger for Travice. What I was about to say was this--that in the old days I was in the habit of going to that house more than Travice goes to it now, and busy people, even my own mother, never believed but that I went for the sake of Mildred. I did not; neither did I marry her."

"The cases are different. You had no companion at home; Travice has his sisters. And it might have ended in your marrying Mildred, had I not come down on that long visit here, and saved you."

"Yes, it might." He was looking dreamily into the fire, his thoughts buried in the past; utterly oblivious to the present, and to the effect his remark might make. Mrs. Arkell felt particularly savage when she heard it.

"And a nice wife you'd have had! She is only fit for what she is--a lady's maid. Lucy will follow her example, perhaps, when old Peter's poverty has sent him into the grave. I always hated Lucy Arkell--it may be a strong term to use--but it's the truth. From the time that she was only as high as the elbow of that chair, and her mother, with the fine Cheveley notions, used to deck her out as a little court doll, I hated her!"

"And I have always thought her one of the sweetest and most loveable of children," quietly returned Mr. Arkell. "Opinions differ, I say, Charlotte. But why should you have hated her?"

"Because--I think it must have been" (and Mrs. Arkell looked into the fire also in reflection, and for once spoke her true sentiments)--"I think it must have been because you and Travice made so much of her. I only know it has been."

"I'd not cherish it, Charlotte."

"_You_ would not, I know. Tell me," she added, with quite a gust of pa.s.sion in voice and eye, "would you like to see your fine, attractive, n.o.ble son, thrown away upon Lucy Arkell?"

"My head is as bad as it can be, Charlotte; I wish you'd not worry me. I think I must be going to have some fever."

"He might marry half Westerbury. With his good looks, his education, his fine prospects----"

"Yes, do put in _them_," interrupted Mr. Arkell. "Very fine they are, in the present aspect of affairs."

"Affairs will get good again. I don't believe the half that's said about the badness of trade. _You_ have made a good thing of it," she added significantly.

"Pretty well; I and my father before me. But those times have gone by for ever."