Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 2.pdf/109

 Teesdale was most urgent to see Mr. Creswell, but I thought it better to prevent him."

"You did perfectly right; he must be denied to everybody save those immediately around him, and all matters of business, and anything likely to excite or worry him in the least, must be studiously kept from him."

They were descending the stairs as the doctor spoke, and in the hall they found Mr. Teesdale, who had just ridden up in hot haste, and was parleying with one of the servants. He took off his hat when he saw Mrs. Creswell and the doctor, and was about to speak, but Marian was before him—"I hope you are not again wishing to see my husband, Mr. Teesdale, as I shall be compelled again to refuse you! Dr. Osborne here will tell you that I am acting in accordance with his strict orders." And the doctor then repeated to the agent all that he had just said to Marian.

"It's an uncommonly vexatious thing," said Mr. Teesdale, when the doctor had concluded: "of course it can't be helped, and whatever you say must be attended to, but it's horribly annoying."

"What is it?" asked Dr. Osborne.

"A matter of Ramsay's, that truculent brute of a fellow who holds the White Farm down Helmingham way. He's made a claim that I know the chief wouldn't acknowledge, and that consequently I daren't pay; though, knowing the fellow as I do, I'm not sure it wouldn't be safest and best in the long run."

"Why don't you act on your own responsibility, then?"

"Not I. The chief had a throw-up with this man before, and declared he would never give in to him again. He's an ill-conditioned scoundrel, and vows all kind of vengeance if he isn't paid."

"My good friend," said the doctor, "you and I know pretty well that Mr. Creswell is able to laugh at the threatened vengeance of a person like this Mr. Ramsay. I must not have my patient disturbed for any such matters. Carry on the business yourself, Teesdale. I know what trust Mr. Creswell places in you, and I know how well it is deserved."

"Then I shall tell Mr. Ramsay to go to"

"Exactly," said the doctor, interrupting. "You could not consign him to more fitting company."

On the evening of the second day from this colloquy, Marian returned from a long drive in her pony carriage, during which her thoughts had been of anything but a cheerful character. She had been suffering from that horrible sinking of heart which comes sometimes, we know not why, bringing with it the impression that something, we know not what, save that it is unpleasant, is impending over us. When she alighted, she inquired whether Mr. Creswell had rung for anything, and whether Dr. Osborne had called, and received answers in the negative in both cases. A letter marked "immediate" had come for master, that was all. A letter! Where was it? Mr. Barlow, the butler, had taken it up to master's room, the valet being out. Marian heard of the arrival of this letter with a strange sense of fear, and hurried up to her husband's room.

She entered noiselessly and advanced quickly to the bed. Mr. Creswell was lying back, his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes closed, his face very grey and rigid. She thought at first that he was dead, and half screamed and called him by his name, but then, without speaking, without looking, he unclasped his hands, pointed to a folded paper on the coverlet, and then resumed his former position. The letter! She took it up and read it eagerly. It was dated from the White Farm, and signed John Ramsay. It commenced with setting forth his claims to money which was due to him, and which he knew would have been paid "had the squire been about," and it proceeded to revile Mr. Teesdale, and to declare that he was robbing his employer, and "feathering his own nest." The last paragraph ran thus:

"And you must be sharp and get about again, squire, and look to your own. You are bamboozled and cheated in every way right under your nose, in your own house, by your own wife. Why it's common talk in the town how you was done in the election by Mrs. C. She had young Joyce for a sweetheart long before she know you, when he was a school usher, and gave him the sack and threw him over when she wanted you and your money, which she always hankered after, and took on with him again when she saw him down here, and got that old thief Osborne, which overcharges the poor for his beastly drugs, to square it and keep you out of the fun."

As Marian read and re-read this paragraph she turned sick at heart and thought she should have fainted, but was recalled to herself by a cold clammy touch on her wrist, and looking down she saw her