Margaret Oliphant - The House on the Moor. Volume 3

“I – I don’t see how it can be my concern,” he said; “who is Adam Brodie? – I – I never – heard the name.”

“Unfortunately I know him, and so does our young friend here,” said Mr. Stenhouse – “the old fellow who happened to be present when – ah, I see you recollect now! Awkward business, very – and Sir John Armitage himself is a client of yours; how very provoking! I’m afraid you’ll have to do something about it, Pouncet; it would not answer you at all to have this affair known.”

Mr. Pouncet did not look up; rage and provocation almost beyond bearing had risen within him, but he durst not show them. His very integrity and honour in other matters made the bondage of this one guilt more intolerable; he was enraged to be compelled to bow to it, but he dared not resist.

“The matter can be easily arranged, if Mr. Pouncet does not object to the cost,” said Horace, trying the new rôle of peacemaker.

“If I do not object – what do you mean, sir?” cried Mr. Pouncet, with uncontrollable impatience; “what have I to do with it more than Stenhouse? This is a pleasant improvement, certainly. D – the whole concern! – I wish I had never had anything to do with it, with all my heart!”

“My dear fellow, compose yourself; it is too late for that; and, besides, it is you who are endangered,” said the bland Mr. Stenhouse; “think of your own interest, my excellent friend.”

Mr. Pouncet immediately betook himself to his papers as before, turning them over rapidly; he made no answer; habit had accustomed him to the civil taunts of Stenhouse – but he could not bear the same insulting inferences from a new voice.

“There is a very easy way of managing the matter,” said Horace, once more; “the man is old, and has been long in your service. He lost his son in an accident at the pit two years ago; it is perfectly practicable to pension him on that account.”

“And leave him free to seek another pension on the other,” said Mr. Stenhouse; “won’t do: no – they are rapacious, those people; that would only rouse his appetite, the old rogue. A man who gets one thing easily always hankers for another. He’d try Sir John immediately, and double his terms. No, no; if he gets anything, he must understand distinctly what he gets it for. If I were you, Pouncet, I’d lose no time, either. He can’t live long, that’s one good thing.”

“I never have bribed any man!” cried Mr. Pouncet, vehemently – “I’ll not begin now. I don’t mind doing my share for any old servant; but I – I can’t stand this, Stenhouse! What do you mean by turning it all on me?”

“Simply because he can do me no harm, my dear fellow,” said the smiling Mr. Stenhouse. “Stop now! don’t let us get impatient; here is our young friend has something to say.”

Mr. Stenhouse was already benevolently aware that the remarks of “our young friend” were gall and bitterness to his old partner, and perhaps if anything could have made Horace’s new patron more gracious, it was this fact.

“I was about to say,” said Horace, with a little eagerness, “that the old man believes me a friend of the young Squire, as he calls him, and that I am quite willing to be made the channel of communication with him. If you trust it to me, he shall never know that the money does not come from Roger Musgrave; and my own opinion is that this will be the best arrangement. If he wants more money, at least he will come to you to seek it, and not to – ”

The young man stopped short prudently, and went no further. Mr. Pouncet could not bear the emphasis upon that you, or the look of personal appeal which accompanied it, at least from any one but his old partner. He got up abruptly, and pushed his chair from the table.

“Stenhouse, will you settle this business? I’ll agree to your decision,” he said, pushing hastily away. “I’ve – I’ve got an appointment at twelve o’clock. I’m rather too late already; you can settle it without me.”

Mr. Stenhouse smiled as he went, and so did Horace, almost without being aware of it. They had both a certain pleasure in the sufferings of their victim – a pure amateur enjoyment, entirely distinct from any consideration of advantage; however, they settled the matter between them easily and rapidly enough. To be liberal with another man’s means is no difficult matter. Mr. Stenhouse arranged that a sum sufficient for a year’s stipend to the old pitman, at his own terms of ten shillings a-week, should be paid into the hands of Horace, who undertook to dispense it; and Horace, on his part, lost no time in demanding from his new employer a few days’ leave of absence before proceeding to his post. Mr. Stenhouse was very curious to know why this sudden permission was asked from him – so curious, that he granted it only on condition that Horace should first be settled in his office, and ascertain the nature of his new duties. After he had spent a week in Harliflax, perhaps he might be spared for another week; and as he was going to London, as he said, why, Harliflax was so much nearer London than Kenlisle, and indeed on the way. With which decision Horace chafing considerably, but compelled to assent, had no alternative but to declare himself satisfied. It was so arranged accordingly. Mr. Pouncet, when he returned, put his name to the required check, which certainly committed him to nothing, and might indeed appear nothing but a gratuity to the clerk who was about to leave him; and Horace put twenty pounds out of the six-and-twenty in his own pocket. Not that he meant to defraud the pitman, or anybody else, but he was completely indifferent whether the money he used for his own immediate purposes was his own, or Mr. Pouncet’s, or the property of old Adam. He made full arrangement to have the weekly stipend paid to the old miner. He saw him indeed, paid him the first instalment himself, and persuaded the poor pensioner that his own bounty was the immediate source of this little income; his own bounty, subject to the approval of the young Squire. Then having done this Christian office, and procured for the ungrateful Mr. Pouncet the unwilling virtue of doing good by stealth, Horace, with Mr. Pouncet’s twenty pounds in his pocket, started on his journey to Harliflax, full of hope, ambition, and expectation, with Doctors’ Commons and the unknown will occupying most of his thoughts. But a week – no more – and he should know what was his “singular and unhappy fortune,” and what the mysterious document which was supposed to have influenced him in his earliest childhood, and had broken all ties of nature between himself and his father, actually was.

MR. STENHOUSE, whatever his motive or purpose might be, received Horace, on his arrival at Harliflax, where the lawyer had preceded his new clerk by a few days, with great civility and kindness. Perhaps Mr. Stenhouse was not much more beloved in his present residence than he had been in Kenlisle; but he was now a man of some wealth and importance, and his house had other attractions, which kept “society” in Harliflax on very good terms with him. The lawyer’s household was a little out of the common order of such dwelling-places. It was divided by a singular separation, but not divided against itself. Two distinct and incompatible phases of life went on within its walls; but the one displayed no antagonism, and fought no battles with the other; and any Quixote who had chosen to take up arms for a wife neglected and a mother set aside, would have been as completely in the wrong as ever Quixote was. The family consisted of three daughters, aged from fifteen to nineteen, and of one boy, a child five years younger than his youngest sister, a hopeless little invalid, born to suffering. The girls were the daylight surface of the family, the pride of their father, and the supreme influence in the house. Two of them were pretty, the eldest as near beautiful as it could fall to the fate of an imperfectly educated provincial belle to be; and all three expensive and extravagant to the very verge of their means and opportunities. Over such a trio of young uncontrollable spirits – and the Misses Stenhouse were innocent of sentiment, and neither had nor pretended any devotion for their mother – the nervous and timid woman who was the nominal mistress of the lawyer’s house could exercise no sway. Years ago, when Amelia, the beauty, was but just beginning to be conscious of her own perfections, and to assert herself accordingly, Mrs. Stenhouse had retired from the contest. The lovely young termagant had scarcely put off her last pinafore, when she found herself triumphant mistress of the drawing-room, while her mother fell back upon that never-failing interest and occupation which the poor woman wept over and believed one of the sorest afflictions of her life, but which was in fact its great preservative – the illness and weakness of her boy. Little Edmund and she lived together in a touching and perfect unity in the comfortable parlour downstairs, while the young ladies entertained their own friends and enjoyed their own pleasures above. Perhaps Mrs. Stenhouse did not do her duty by consenting to this tacit arrangement; but, like most weak people, she was so perfectly convinced that she could not help herself, that she was quite unable for the task from which she shrank, and would have done her daughters more harm than good by keeping up an unavailing contest, that her conscience did not disturb her in the loving performance of her other duty, her unwearied care of little Edmund, from which nothing ever diverted or withdrew the entire heart of his mother. This invisible fireside in the back parlour, where Edmund, despotic and imperious as only a child-invalid can be, tyrannized over his constant companion, and shared every thought she had, seemed no very important influence in the family to a cursory observer; but the household itself was perfectly aware that any distinct desire proceeding thence from little Edmund’s sharp, high-pitched, childish voice, was law even to Edmund’s father; and that the decrepid child, who did not even particularly appreciate or return his affection, was the very apple of that father’s eye; his son, his heir, his representative; though nobody, save the two most deeply interested, the father and mother, believed or expected that the child could ever live to be a man.