The Haute Noblesse: A Novel

Chapter Ten

Harry Vine has a Want

Breakfast-time, with George Vine quietly partaking of his toast, and giving furtive glances at a Beloe in a small squat bottle. He was feeding his mind at the same time that he supplied the wants of his body. Now it was a bite of toast, leaving in the embrowned bread such a mark as was seen by the dervish when the man asked after the lost camel: for the student of molluscous sea life had lost a front tooth. Now it was a glance at the little gooseberry-shaped creature, clear as crystal, glistening in the clear water with iridescent hues, and trailing behind it a couple of filaments of an extreme delicacy and beauty that warranted the student’s admiration.

Louise was seated opposite, performing matutinal experiments, so it seemed, with pots, cups, an urn, and various infusions and crystals.

Pradelle was reading the paper, and Harry was dividing his time between eating some fried ham and glancing at the clock, which was pointing in the direction of the hour when he should be at Van Heldre’s.

“More tea, Louie; too sweet,” said the head of the house, passing his cup, via Pradelle.

The cup was filled up and passed back, Louise failing to notice that Pradelle manoeuvred to touch her hand as he played his part in the transfer. Then the door opened, and Liza, the brown-faced, black-haired Cornish maid, entered, bearing a tray with an untouched cup of tea, a brown piece of ham on its plate, and a little covered dish of hot toast.

“Please, ’m, Miss Vine says she don’t want no breakfast this morning.”

The Beloe bottle dropped back into George Vine’s pocket.

“Eh? My sister ill?” he said anxiously.

“No, sir; she seems quite well, but she was gashly cross with me, and said why didn’t Miss Louie bring it up.”

“Liza, I forbade you to use that foolish word – ‘gashly,’” said Louise, pouring out a fresh cup of tea, and changing it for the one cooling on the tray.

“Why don’t you take up auntie’s breakfast as you always do? You know she doesn’t like it sent up.”

Louise made no reply to her brother, but turned to Pradelle.

“You will excuse me for a few minutes, Mr Pradelle,” she said as she rose.

“Excuse – you?” he replied with a peculiar smile; and, rising in turn he managed so badly as he hurried to the door to open it for Louise’s passage with the tray, that he and Liza, bent on the same errand, came into collision.

“Thank you, Mr Pradelle,” said Louise, quietly, as she passed out with the tray, and Liza gave him an indignant glance as she closed the door.

“Ha, ha! What a bungle!” cried Harry mockingly, as he helped himself to more ham.

George Vine was absorbed once more in the study of the Beloe.

“Never you mind, my lord the count,” said Pradelle in an undertone; “I don’t see that you get on so very well.”

Harry winced.

“What are you going to do this morning?”

“Fish!”

“Humph! well to be you,” said Harry, with a vicious bite at his bread, while his father was too much absorbed in his study even to hear. “You’re going loafing about, and I’ve got to go and turn that grindstone.”

“Which you can leave whenever you like,” said Pradelle meaningly.

“Hold your tongue!” cried Harry roughly, as the door re-opened, and Louise, looking slightly flushed, again took her place at the table.

“Aunt poorly?” said Vine.

“Oh, no, papa; she is having her breakfast now.”

“If you’re too idle to take up auntie’s breakfast, I’ll take it,” said Harry severely. “Don’t send it up by that girl again.”

“I shall always take it myself. Harry,” said Louise quietly.

The breakfast was ended; George Vine went to his study to feed his sea-anemones on chopped whelk; Pradelle made an excuse about fishing lines, after reading plainly enough that his presence was unwelcome; and Harry stood with his hands in his pockets, looking on as his sister put away the tea-caddy.

“Will you not be late, Harry?”

“Perhaps,” he said, ill-humouredly. “I shall be there as soon as old bottle nose, I daresay.”

“How long is Mr Pradelle going to stay?”

“Long as I like.”

There was a pause. Then Harry continued: “He’s a friend of mine, a gentleman, and Aunt Marguerite likes him to stay.”

“Yes,” said Louise gravely. “Aunt Marguerite seems to like him.”

“And so do you, only you’re such a precious coquette.”

Louise raised her eyebrows. This was news to her, but she said nothing.

“The more any one sees of Pradelle the more one likes him. Deal nicer fellow than that Scotch prig Leslie.”

There was a slight flush on Louise Vine’s face, but she did not speak, merely glanced at the clock.

“All right; I’m not going yet.”

Then, changing his manner —

“Oh, Lou, you can’t think what a life it is,” he cried impetuously.

“Why, Harry, it ought to be a very pleasant one.”

“What, with your nose over an account book, and every time you happen to look up, old Crampton staring at you as much as to say, ‘Why don’t you go on?’”

“Never mind, dear. Try and think that it is for your good.”

“For my good!” he said with a mocking laugh.

“Yes, and to please father. Why, Harry, dear, is it not something to have a chance to redeem your character?”

“Redeem my grandmother! I’ve never lost it. Why, Lou, it’s too bad. Here’s father rich as a Jew, and Uncle Luke with no end of money.”

“Has he, Harry?” said Louise thoughtfully. “Really I don’t know.”

“I’m sure he has – lots. A jolly old miser, and no one to leave it to; and I can’t see then why I should be ground down to work like an errand boy.”

“Don’t make a sentimental grievance of it, dear, but go and do your duty like a man.”

“If I do my duty like a man I shall go and try to recover the French estates which my father neglects.”

“No, don’t do that, dear; go and get my old school spelling-book and read the fable of the dog and the shadow.”

“There you go, sneering again. You women can’t understand a fellow. Here am I worried to death for money, and have to drudge as old Van Heldre’s clerk.”

“Worried for money, Harry? What nonsense!”

“I am. You don’t know. I say, Lou, dear.”

“Now, Harry! you will be so late.”

“I won’t go at all if you don’t listen to me. Look here; I want fifty pounds.”

“What for?”

“Never mind. Will you lend it to me?”

“But what can you want with fifty pounds, Harry? You’re not in debt?”

“You’ve got some saved up. Now, lend it to me, there’s a good girl; I’ll pay you again, honour bright.”

“Harry, I’ve lent you money till I’m tired of lending, and you never do pay me back.”

“But I will this time.”

Louise shook her head.

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“I believe you would pay me again if you had the money; but if I lent it you would spend it, and be as poor as ever in a month.”

“Not this time, Lou. Lend it to me.”

She shook her head.

“Then hang me if I don’t go and ask Duncan Leslie.”

“Harry! No; you would not degrade yourself to that.”

“Will you lend it?”

“No.”

“Then I will ask him. The poor fool will think it will please you, and lend it directly. I’ll make it a hundred whilst I’m about it.”

“Harry!”

“Too late now,” he cried, and he hurried away.

“Oh!” ejaculated Louise, as she stood gazing after him with her cheeks burning. “No,” she said, after a pause; “It was only a threat; he would not dare.”

“Harry gone to his office?” said Vine, entering the room.

“Yes, dear.”

“Mr Pradelle gone too?”

“Yes, dear; fishing, I think.”

“Hum. Makes this house quite his home.”

“Yes, papa! and do you think we are doing right?”

“Eh?” said Vine sharply, as he dragged his mind back from where it had gone under a tide-covered rock. “Oh, I see, about having that young man here. Well, Louie, it’s like this: I don’t want to draw the rein too tightly. Harry is at work now, and keeping to it. Van Heldre says his conduct is very fair. Harry likes Mr Pradelle, and they are old companions, so I feel disposed to wink at the intimacy, so long as our boy keeps to his business.”

“Perhaps you are right, dear,” said Louise.

“You don’t like Mr Pradelle, my dear?”

“No, I do not.”

“No fear of his robbing me of you, eh?”

“Oh, father!”

“That’s right; that’s right; and look here, as we’re talking about that little thing which makes the world go round, please, understand this, and help me, my dear. There’s to be no nonsense between Harry and Madelaine.”

“Then you don’t like Madelaine?”

“Eh? What? Not like her? Bless her! You’ve almost cause to be jealous, only you need not be, for I’ve room in my heart for both of you. I love her too well to let her be made uncomfortable by our family scape-grace. Dear me! I’m sure that it has.”

“Have you lost anything, dear?”

“Yes, a glass stopper. Perhaps I left it in my room. Mustn’t lose it; stoppers cost money.”

“And here’s some money of yours, father.”

“Eh? Oh, that change.”

“Twenty-five shillings.”

“Put it on the chimney-piece, my dear; I’ll take it presently. We will not be hard on Harry. Let him have his companion. We shall get him round by degrees. Ah, here comes some one to tempt you away.”

In effect Madelaine was passing the window on her way to the front entrance; but Vine forgot all about his glass stopper for the moment, and threw open the glass door.

“Come in here, my dear,” he said. “We were just talking about you.”

“About me, Mr Vine? Whatever were you saying?”

“Slander of course, of course.”

“My father desired to be kindly remembered, and I was to say, ‘Very satisfactory so far.’”

“Very satisfactory so far?” said Vine, dreamily.

“He said you would know what it meant.”

“To be sure – to be sure. Louie, my dear, I’m afraid your aunt is right. My brain is getting to be like that of a jelly fish.”

He nodded laughingly and left the room.

“Did you meet Harry as you came?” said Louise, as soon as they were alone.

“Yes; but he kept on one side of the street, and I was on the other.”

“Didn’t he cross over to speak?”

“No; he couldn’t see the Dutch fraülein – the Dutch doll.”

“Oh, that’s cruel, Maddy. I did not think my aunt’s words could sting you.”

“Well, sometimes I don’t think they do, but at others they seem to rankle. But, look, isn’t that Mr Pradelle coming?”

For answer Louise caught her friend’s hand to hurry her out of the room before Pradelle entered.

Chapter Eleven

Aunt Marguerite studies a Comedy

That morning after breakfast Aunt Marguerite sat by her open window in her old-fashioned French peignoir.

She saw Pradelle go out, and she smiled and beamed as he turned to look up at her window, and raised his hat before proceeding down into the back lanes of the port, to inveigle an urchin into the task of obtaining for him a pot of ragworms for bait.

Soon after she saw her nephew go out, but he did not raise his head. On the contrary, he bent it down, and heaved up his shoulders like a wet sailor, as he went on to his office.

“Mon pauvre enfant!” she murmured, as she half-closed her eyes, and kissed the tips of the fingers. “Just wait a while, Henri, mon enfant, and all shall be well.”

There was a lapse of time devoted to thought, and then Aunt Marguerite’s eyes glistened with malice as she saw Madelaine approach.

“Pah!” she ejaculated softly. “This might be Amsterdam or the Boompjes. Wretched Dutch wench! How can George tolerate her presence here?”

Then Pradelle came back, but he did not look up this time, merely went to the door and entered, his eyes looking searchingly about as if in search of Louise.

Lastly, a couple of particularly unseamanlike men, dressed in shiny tarpaulin hats and pea-jackets, with earrings and very smooth pomatumy hair, came into sight. Each man carried a pack and a big stick, and as they drew near their eyes wandered over window and door in a particularly searching way.

They did not come to the front, but in a slouching, furtive way went past the front of the house, and round to the back, where the next minute there was a new tapping made by the knob of a stick on a door, and a moment later a buzzing murmur of voices arose.

Aunt Marguerite had nothing whatever to do, and the murmur interested her to the extent of making her rise, go across her room, and through a door at the back into her bed-chamber, where an open lattice window had a chair beneath, and the said window being just over the back entrance from whence the murmur came. Aunt Marguerite had nothing to do but go and sit down there unseen, and hear every word that was said.

“Yes,” said the familiar voice of brown-faced, black-haired Liza; “they’re beautiful, but I haven’t got the money.”

“That there red ribbon’d just soot you, my lass,” said a deep voice, so fuzzy that it must have come from under a woollen jacket.

“Just look at that there hankychy, too,” said another deep voice. “Did you ever see a better match?”

“Never,” said the other deep voice emphatically.

“Yes, they’re very lovely, but I ain’t got the money. I let mother have all I had this week.”

“Never mind the gashly money, my lass,” said the first deep-voiced man huskily, “ain’tcher got nothing you can sell?”

Then arose a good deal of murmuring whisper, and Aunt Marguerite’s lips became like a pale pink line drawn across the lower part of her face, and both her eyes were closely shut.

“Well, you wait,” was the concluding sentence of the whispered trio, and then the door was heard to shut.

The click of a latch rose to where Aunt Marguerite sat, and then there was a trio once again – a whispered trio – ending with a little rustling, and the sound of heavy steps.

Then the door closed, and Liza, daughter of Poll Perrow, the fish-woman, who carried a heavy maund by the help of a strap across her forehead, hurried up to her bedroom, and threw herself upon her knees as she spread two or three yards of brilliant red ribbon on the bed, and tastefully placed beside the ribbon an orange silk kerchief, whose united colours made her dark eyes sparkle with delight.

The quick ringing of a bell put an end to the colour-worship, and Liza, with a hasty ejaculation, opened her box, thrust in her new treasures, dropped the lid, and locked it again before hurrying down to the dining-room, where she found her young mistress, her master, and Madelaine Van Heldre.

“There was some change on the chimney-piece, Liza,” said Louise. “Did you see it?”

“No, miss.”

“It is very strange. You are quite sure you did not take it, papa?”

“Quite, my dear.”

“That will do, Liza.”

The girl went out, looking scared.

“It is very strange,” said Vine.

“Yes, dear; and it is a great trouble to me. This is the third time money has been missing lately. I don’t like to suspect people, but one seems to be forced.”

“But surely, Louie, dear, that poor girl would not take it.”

“I have always tried to hope not, Maddy,” said Louise sadly.

“You had better make a change.”

“Send her away, father? How can I do that? How can I recommend her for another situation?”

“Ah! it’s a puzzle – it’s a puzzle,” said Vine irritably. “One of the great difficulties of domestic service. I shall soon begin to think that your uncle Luke is right after all. He has no troubles, eh, Louise?”

She looked up in his face with a peculiar smile, but made no reply. Her father, however, seemed to read her look, and continued:

“Ah, well, I daresay you are right, my dear; we can’t get away from trouble; and if we don’t have one kind we have another. Get more than our share, though, in this house.”

Louise smiled in his face, and the comical aspect of chagrin displayed resulted in a general laugh.

“Is one of the sea-anemones dead?”

“Yes, confound it! and it has poisoned the water, so that I’m afraid the rest will go.”

“I think we can get over that trouble,” said Louise, laughing. “It will be an excuse for a pleasant ramble with you.”

“Yes,” said Vine dryly, “but we shall not get over the trouble of the thief quite so well. I’m afraid these Perrows are a dishonest family. I’ll speak to the girl.”

“No, father, leave it to me.”

“Very well, my child; but I think you ought to speak.” The old man left the room, the bell was rung, and Liza summoned, when a scene of tears and protestations arose, resulting in a passionate declaration that Liza would tell her mother, that she would not stop in a house were she was going to be suspected, and that she had never taken anybody’s money but her own.

“This is the third time that I have missed money, Liza, or I would not have spoken. If you took it, confess like a good girl, and we’ll forgive you if you promise never to take anything of the kind again.”

“I can’t confess, miss, and won’t confess,” sobbed the girl. “Mother shall come and speak to you. I wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“Where did you get the money with which you bought the red ribbon and orange kerchief this morning, Liza?” said a voice at the door.

All started to see that Aunt Marguerite was there looking on, and apparently the recipient of all that had been said.

Liza stood with eyes dilated, and jaw dropped.

“Then you’ve been at my box,” she suddenly exclaimed. “Ah, what a shame!”

“At your box, you wretched creature!” said Aunt Marguerite contemptuously. “Do you suppose I should go into your room?”

“You’ve been opening my box,” said the girl again, more angrily; “and it’s a shame.”

“I saw her take them up to her room, Louise. My dear, she was buying them under my window, of some pedlar. You had better send her away.”

Liza did not wait to be sent away from the room, but ran out sobbing, to hurry up-stairs to her bed-chamber, open her box, and see if the brilliant specimens of silken fabric were safe, and then cry over them till they were blotched with her tears.

“A bad family,” said Aunt Marguerite. “I’m quite sure that girl stole my piece of fine lace, and gave it to that wretched woman your uncle Luke encourages.”

“No, no, aunt, you lost that piece of lace one day when you were out.”

“Nonsense, child! your memory is not good. Who is that with you? Oh, I see; Miss Van Heldre.”

Aunt Marguerite, after suddenly becoming aware of the presence of Madelaine, made a most ceremonious curtsey, and then sailed out of the room.

“Louise must be forced to give up the companionship of that wretched Dutch girl,” she said as she reached her own door, at which she paused to listen to Liza sobbing.

“I wonder what Miss Vine would have been like,” thought Madelaine, “if she had married some good sensible man, and had a large family to well employ her mind?” Then she asked herself what kind of man she would have selected as possessing the necessary qualifications, and concluded that he should have been such a man as Duncan Leslie, and wondered whether he would marry her friend.

“Why, Madelaine,” said Louise, breaking her chain of thought, “what are you thinking about?”

“Thinking about?” said the girl, starting, and colouring slightly. “Oh, I was thinking about Mr Leslie just then.”

Chapter Twelve

Uncle Luke’s Spare Cash

“Late again,” said old Crampton, as Harry Vine entered the office.

“How I do hate the sight of that man’s nose!” said the young man; and he stared hard, as if forced by some attraction.

The old clerk frowned, and felt annoyed. “I beg pardon,” he said. “Granted,” said Harry, coolly. “I said I beg pardon, Mr Harry Vine.”

“I heard you.”

“But I thought you spoke.”

“No,” grumbled Harry. “I didn’t speak.”

“Then I will,” said old Crampton merrily. “Good morning, Mr Harry Vine,” and he rattled the big ruler by his desk.

“Eh? oh, yes, I see. Didn’t say it as I came in. Good morning, Mr Crampton.”

“Lesson for the proud young upstart in good behaviour,” grumbled old Crampton.

“Mother him!” muttered Harry, as he took his place at his desk, opened a big account book Crampton placed before him, with some amounts to transfer from one that was smaller, and began writing.

But as he wrote, the figures seemed to join hands and dance before him; then his pen ceased to form others, and an imaginary picture painted itself on the delicately tinted blue paper with its red lines – a pleasant landscape in fair France with sunny hill-sides on which ranged in rows were carefully cultured vines. To the north and cast were softened bosky woods, and dominating all, one of those antique castellated châteaux with pepperbox towers and gilded vanes, such as he had seen in pictures or read of in some books.

“If I only had the money,” thought Harry, as he entered a sum similar to that which Pradelle had named. “He knows all these things. He has good advice from friends, and if we won, – Hah!”

The château rose before his eyes again, bathed in sunshine. Then he pictured the terrace overlooking the vineyards – a grey old stone terrace, with many seats and sheltering trees, and along that terrace walked just such a maiden as Aunt Marguerite had described.

Scratch! Scratch! Scratch! Scratch! His pen and Crampton’s pen; and he had no money, and Pradelle’s project to borrow as he had suggested was absurd.

Ah, if he only had eighty-one pounds ten shillings and sixpence! the sum he now placed in neat figures in their appropriate columns.

Old Crampton tilted back his tall stool, swung himself round, and lowered himself to the ground. Then crossing the office, he went into Van Heldre’s private room, and there was the rattle of a key, a creaking hinge, as an iron door was swung open; and directly after the old man returned.

Harry Vine could not see his hands, and he did not raise his eyes to watch the old clerk; but in the imagination which so readily pictured the château that was not in Spain, he seemed to see as he heard every movement of the fat white fingers, when a canvas bag was dumped down on the mahogany desk, the string untied, and a little heap of coins were poured out. Then followed the scratching of those coins upon the mahogany, as they were counted, ranged in little piles, and finally, after an entry had been checked, they were replaced in the bag, which the old man bore back into the safe in the private room.