Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/473

. 18, 1862.] earnest glow lighting his face. “If I get embarrassed, why I must get embarrassed; but she shall not suffer.”

That embarrassment would inevitably come, if he went on at his present rate of living, he had the satisfaction of knowing beyond all doubt. That was not the worst point upon his conscience. Of the plans and projects that Lionel had so eagerly formed when he came into the estate, some were set afloat, some were not. Those that were most wanted—that were calculated to do the most real good—lay in abeyance; others, that might have waited, were in full work. Costly alterations were making in the stables at Verner’s Pride, and the working man’s institute at Deerham, reading-room, club—whatever it was to be—was progressing swimmingly. But the draining of the land near the poor dwellings was not begun, and the families, many of them, still herded in consort—father and mother, sons and daughters, sleeping in one room—compelled to it by the wretched accommodation of the tenements. It was on this last score that Lionel was feeling a pricking of conscience. And how to find the money to make these improvements now, he knew not. Between the building in progress and Sibylla, he was drained.

A circumstance had occurred that day to bring the latter neglect forcibly to his mind. Alice Hook—Hook, the labourer’s eldest daughter—had, as the Deerham phrase ran, got herself into trouble. A pretty child she had grown up amongst them—she was little more than a child now—good-tempered, gay-hearted. Lionel had heard the ill news the previous week on his return from London. When he was out shooting that morning he saw the girl at a distance, and made some observation to his gamekeeper, Broom, to the effect that it had vexed him.

“Ay, sir, it’s a sad pity,” was Broom’s answer; “but what else can be expected of poor folks that’s brought up to live as they do—like pigs in a sty?”

Broom had intended no reproach to his master; such an impertinence would not have crossed his mind; but the words carried a sting to Lionel. He knew how many, besides Alice Hook, had had their good conduct undermined through the living “like pigs in a sty.” Lionel had, as you know, a lively conscience; and his brow reddened with self-reproach as he sat and thought these things over. He could not help comparing the contrast: Verner’s Pride, with its spacious bed-rooms, one of which was not deemed sufficient for the purposes of retirement, where two people slept together, but a dressing-closet must be attached; and those poor Hooks, with their growing-up sons and daughters, and but one room, save the kitchen, in their whole dwelling!

“I will put things on a better footing,” impulsively exclaimed Lionel. “I care not what the cost may be, or how it may fall upon my comforts, do it I will. I declare I feel as if the girl’s blight lay at my own door!”

Again he and his reflections were interrupted by Tynn.

“Roy has come up, sir, and is asking to see you.”

“Roy! Let him come in,” replied Lionel. “I want to see him.”

It frequently happened, when agreements, leases, and other deeds were examined, that Roy had to be referred to. Things would turn out to have been drawn up, agreements made, in precisely the opposite manner to that expected by Lionel. For some of these, Roy might have received sanction; but, for many, Lionel felt sure Roy had acted on his own responsibility. This chiefly applied to the short period of the management of Mrs. Verner: a little, very little, to the latter year of her husband’s life. Matiss was Lionel’s agent during his absences: when at home, he took all management into his own hands.

Roy came in. The same ill-favoured, hard-looking man as ever. The ostensible business which had brought him up to Verner’s Pride, proved to be of a very trivial nature, and was soon settled. It is well to say “ostensible,” because a conviction arose in Lionel’s mind afterwards that it was but an excuse: that Roy made it a pretext for the purpose of obtaining an interview. Though why, or wherefore, or what he gained by it, Lionel could not imagine. Roy merely wanted to know if he might be allowed to put a fresh paper on the walls of one of his two upper rooms. He’d get the paper at his own cost, and hang it at his own leisure, if Mr. Verner had no objection.

“Of course I can have no objection to it,” replied Lionel. “You need not have lost an afternoon’s work, Roy, to come here to inquire that. You might have asked me when I saw you by the brick-field this morning. In fact, there was no necessity to mention it at all.”

“So I might, sir. But it didn’t come into my mind at the moment to do so. It’s poor Luke’s room, and the missis, she goes on continual about the state it’s in, if he should come home. The paper’s all hanging off it in patches, sir, as big as my two hands. It have got damp through not being used.”

“If it is in that state, and you like to find the time to hang the paper, you may purchase it at my cost,” said Lionel, who was of too just a nature to be a hard landlord.

“Thank ye, sir,” replied Roy, ducking his head. “It’s well for us, as I often says, that you be our master at last, instead of the Mr. Massingbirds.”

“There was a time when you did not think so, Roy, if my memory serves me rightly,” was the rebuke of Lionel.

“Ah, sir, there’s a old saying, ‘Live and learn.’ That was in the days when I thought you’d be a over strict master: we have got to know better now, taught from experience. It was a lucky day for the Verner Pride estate when that lost codicil was brought to light! The Mr. Massingbirds be dead, it’s true, but there’s no knowing what might have happened: the law’s full of quips and turns. With the codicil found, you can hold your own again the world.”

“Who told you anything about the codicil being found?” demanded Lionel.

“Why, sir, it was the talk of the place just about the time we heard of Mr. Fred