George Fenn - Of High Descent

“Tempt? I feel disposed to force you, lad. It makes me half wild to see you degraded to such work as this. Why, if we do as I propose, you will be in a position to follow out your aunt’s instructions, engage lawyers to push on your case, and while you obtain your rights, I shall be in a position to ask your sister’s hand without the chance of a refusal. I tell you the thing’s safe.”

“No, no,” said Harry, shaking his head; “it’s too risky. We should lose and be worse off than ever.”

“With a horse like that, and me with safe private information about him!”

“No,” said Harry, “I won’t. I’m going to keep steadily on here, and, as the governor calls it, plod.”

“That you’re not, if I know it,” cried Pradelle, indignantly. “I won’t stand it. It’s disgraceful. You shan’t throw yourself away.”

“But I’ve got no money, old fellow.”

“Nonsense! Get some of the old man.”

“No; I’ve done it too often. He won’t stand it now.”

“Well, of your aunt.”

“She hasn’t a penny but what my father lets her have.”

“Your sister. Come, she would let you have some.”

Harry shook his head.

“No, I’m not going to ask her. It’s no good, Vic; I won’t.”

“Well,” said Pradelle, apostrophising an ingot of tin as it lay at his feet glistening with iridescent hues, “if any one had told me, I wouldn’t have believed it. Why, Harry, lad, you’ve only been a month at this mill-horse life, and you’re quite changed. What have they been doing to you, man?”

“Breaking my spirit, I suppose they’d call it,” said the young man bitterly.

Harry shook his head.

“Get out! I won’t have it. You want waking up,” said Pradelle, in a low, earnest voice. “Think, lad, a few pounds placed as I could place ’em, and there’s fortune for us both, without reckoning on what you could do in France. As your aunt says, there’s money and a title waiting for you, if you’ll only stretch out your hand to take ’em. Come, rouse yourself. Harry Vine isn’t the lad to settle down to this drudgery. Why, I thought it was one of the workmen when I came up.”

“It’s of no use,” said Harry gloomily, as he seated himself on the ingots of tin. “A man must submit to his fate.”

“Bah! a man’s fate is what he makes it. Look here; fifty or a hundred borrowed for a few days, and then repaid.”

“But suppose – ”

“Suppose!” cried Pradelle mockingly; “a business man has no time to suppose. He strikes while the iron’s hot. You’re going to strike iron, not tin.”

“How? Where’s the money?”

“Where’s the money?” said Pradelle mockingly. “You want fifty or a hundred for a few days, when you could return it fifty times over; and you say, where’s the money?”

“Don’t I tell you I have no one I could borrow from?” said Harry angrily.

“Yes, you have,” said Pradelle, sinking his voice. “It’s easy as easy. Only for a few days. A temporary loan. Look here.”

He bent down, and whispered a few words in the young man’s ear, words which turned him crimson, and then deadly pale.

“Pradelle!” he cried, in a hoarse whisper; “are you mad?”

“No. I was thinking of coming over to Auvergne to spend a month with my friend, the Count. By and by, dear lad – by and by.”

“No, no; it is impossible,” said Harry, hoarsely, and he gave a hasty glance round. “I couldn’t do that.”

“You could,” said Pradelle, and then to himself; “and, if I know you, Harry Vine, you shall.”

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 forbad 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 dare say.”