George Fenn - Sawn Off - A Tale of a Family Tree

“There, you see, Veronica, my child. You have done wrong in encouraging this young man so far. You don’t want to blight his prospects?”

“Ah, no, papa,” cried Veronica, with the tears slowly welling over from her eyes.

“Then you are quite ready to forget what has passed?” Veronica slowly covered her eyes with her hands, and was silent, while Denis stepped to her side and took her hand.

“Let me answer for her, sir,” he said firmly. “I have never spoken out plainly to her in the happy days I have known your daughter. It has seemed enough to be near her, and to feel that I might hope; but I do speak out now, and say – ‘Veronica, I love you dearly: let me tell your father that you care for me, and will never change.’”

“Very pretty and sentimental,” said the Doctor coldly, “but I cannot let this go on. I believe your father would disinherit you if you persisted in this – this – this mésalliance .”

“On your child’s part, sir?” said Denis, smiling, and then giving her a loving look.

“No, the other way, sir. I’m not going to let my child stoop to enter a family where they look down upon her; and I’m not going to let a young fellow in your position ruin himself with his father for her sake. No, no: no more – that will do. Lord and Lady Pinemount must come and ask for the alliance; so now you had better go.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll go,” said the young man quietly, as he raised Veronica’s hands to his lips, – “I’ll go, for I don’t feel downhearted. I tell you this, though, that I will never give her up. I’m going to wait.”

“Humph!”

“And now, before I go, sir, I want to apologise again for the annoyance I have given you.”

“You? none at all. Always were civil enough.”

“You don’t know, sir, so I will confess. It was I who destroyed those hoardings.”

“You!” cried the Doctor; and Veronica started.

“I was so annoyed, sir, that I came twice over and sawed the supports, and let them down; and as they were put up again, I came last night, deluged the hateful boards with spirits, and set fire to them.”

“And a pretty mess you have got me in, sir,” cried the Doctor angrily. “Do you know I am summoned to appear before the magistrates?”

“That’s all over, sir, for I shall tell my father it was my doing. Good-bye, Veronica: I shall wait. You will shake hands, sir?”

“Humph! oughtn’t to, after such a scampish trick. Well, there, good-bye, my lad. Don’t come here again till you are asked.”

There was a sad and long pressure of two hands directly after; and Denis went off back towards the Manor, while Veronica, after kissing her father, stole up to her room for the maiden’s consolation – salt and water, warm, shed copiously into a piece of cambric.

“Can’t help liking the young dog,” said the Doctor. “Humph!” he added, laughing: “nice son to destroy his father’s ungodly works! So it was he?”

Lord Pinemount was seated in his library, biting his nails mentally, as he lay back in his easy chair glaring at his steward, who stood before him wishing he could get another post, where his master would not be a tyrant, and thinking that, if it had not been for the fact that he had a large wife and a small family at home, he would resign at once.

“And you are sure?”

“Oh yes, my lord – quite.”

“Went straight there?”

“Yes, my lord; and I hope your lordship considers I have done my duty in telling you according to your orders.”

“I consider, sir, that you have behaved like a miserable, contemptible sneak.”

“But your lordship told me to – ”

“Don’t talk to me, sir. Leave the room.”

The steward left the room, and as he closed the door he turned round, showing his teeth, and shook his fist.

“Old beast!” he said aloud: “I’ll serve you out for this some day.”

Then his countenance changed, his jaw dropped, and he drew to one side to allow Lady Pinemount to pass, fully conscious that she must have heard his words and seen the expression on his face.

“It’s all over,” he groaned, as her ladyship passed into the library. “I’m a ruined man. She’ll tell him, and – oh dear, oh dear! The workhouse stares us all in the face.”

But Lady Pinemount did not tell her husband, for she knew that the unfortunate steward must have been smarting from one of the injuries his lordship knew so well how to inflict. In fact, if she had felt so disposed she would not have had the opportunity, for the moment she had closed the door she was addressed.

“Ah, here you are!” cried her lord. “I hope you are satisfied.”

“Satisfied, dear?”

“Dear? Bah! You’ve encouraged and sided with that scoundrel of a boy, till he is in open rebellion against me; and then you call me dear.”

“I have not encouraged him,” said Lady Pinemount. “I have always tried to set you two at one. What is the matter now?”

“Why, I’ve found out this morning that Denis himself cut down and burned that hoarding.”

“Over whose destruction you insulted Doctor Salado.”

“I made a mistake,” said his lordship. “I daresay even angels make mistakes sometimes.”

“I don’t know,” said her ladyship quietly. “Of course you will apologise to the Doctor?”

“The Doctor? The quack! No, madam, I am not going to stoop to that.”

Lady Pinemount sighed.

“And that’s not the worst of it. I forbade the young scoundrel to go near those people again. Did I, or did I not?”

“You did, dear, emphatically. But if Denis really cares for Miss Salado – ”

“He sha’n’t have her – there! I forbade him to go there; and, not content with insulting me by grubbing down and burning the hoarding I erected to keep off obnoxious people, he has gone there again and again, encouraged by the adventurer of a father.”

“I am very sorry, dear.”

“Sorry? What good does that do? And he’s there now.”

“No, my dear,” said Lady Pinemount; “he is just coming across the park.”

“Ah! is he?” cried Lord Pinemount, leaping up and running to the window. “Here, – hi! Denis! Come here!”

The young man came calmly enough up to the window.

“Ah, mamma!” he said. “You want me, sir?”

“Yes. Where the devil have you been?”

“Over to Sandleighs, sir. And have the goodness to remember, in addressing me, that I am not one of the grooms.”

“Denis!”

“All right, mamma. I am not a child now, and if his lordship addresses me in that tone I shall resent it.”

“Ah, indeed!” said the father sarcastically. “May I respectfully inquire, then, why you have been over to Sandleighs?”

“To apologise to Doctor Salado for causing him so much annoyance.”

“Say Don Salado, my dear son,” cried his lordship: “and may I ask how you have annoyed him? By making eyes at the adventurer’s daughter – bah! wench!”

The young man’s eyes flashed, but he spoke quite calmly.

“I apologised for causing him to be suspected of destroying that hoarding which I cut down and burned.”

“Yes, I know you did, sir.”

“I am not surprised, father. I thought one of your spies would be watching me.”

“Oh, Denis, Denis!” cried Lady Pinemount appealingly. “Right, mother dear. I’ll speak and act quite calmly; but I will not be treated as a schoolboy.”

“Then you have apologised to Doctor Salado, the Spanish-American adventurer, and you are going to espouse his daughter, I presume?”

“Yes, father. I love her very dearly, and – ”

“That will do, thank you,” said his lordship quietly, though he was pale with suppressed fury. “I have no time to listen to silly sentiment. Good morning: there is the door.”