'Poor Rachel! I think you wonderful--I think you a heroine--I do, Radie; you and I are made for one another--the same blood--something of the same wild nature; I can admire you, and understand you, and will always love you.'

'I've been with William Wylder and Dolly. That wicked attorney, Mr.

Larkin, is resolved on robbing them. I wish they had anyone able to advise them. Stanley I am sure could save them; but he does not choose to do it. He was always so angry when I urged him to help them, that I knew it would be useless asking him; I don't think he knows what Mr. Larkin has been doing; but, Dorcas, I am afraid the very same thought has been in his mind.'

'I hope not, Radie,' and Dorcas sighed deeply. 'Everything is so wonderful and awful in the light that has come.'

That morning, poor William Wylder had received a letter from Jos. Larkin, Esq., mentioning that he had found Messrs. Burlington and Smith anything but satisfied with him--the vicar. What exactly he had done to disoblige them he could not bring to mind. But Jos. Larkin told him that he had done all in his power 'to satisfy them of the _bona fide_ character' of his reverend client's dealings from the first. But 'they still express themselves dissatisfied upon the point, and appear to suspect a disposition to shilly-shally.' I have said 'all I could to disabuse them of the unpleasant prejudice; but I think I should hardly be doing my duty if I were not to warn you that you will do wisely to exhibit no hesitation in the arrangements by which your agreement is to be carried out, and that in the event of your showing the slightest disposition to qualify the spirit of your strong note to them, or in anywise disappointing their client, you must be prepared, from what I know of the firm, for very sharp practice indeed.'

What could they do to him, or why should they hurt him, or what had he done to excite either the suspicion or the temper of the firm? They expected their client, the purchaser, in a day or two. He was already grumbling at the price, and certainly would stand no trifling. Neither would Messrs. Burlington and Smith, who, he must admit, had gone to very great expense in investigating t.i.tle, preparing deeds, &c., and who were noted as a very expensive house. He was aware that they were in a position to issue an execution on the guarantee for the entire amount of their costs; but he thought so extreme a measure would hardly be contemplated, notwithstanding their threats, unless the purchaser were to withdraw or the vendor to exhibit symptoms of--he would not repeat their phrase--irresolution in his dealing. He had, however, placed the vicar's letter in their hands, and had accompanied it with his own testimony to the honour and character of the Rev. William Wylder, which he was happy to say seemed to have considerable weight with Messrs. Burlington and Smith. There was also this pa.s.sage, 'Feeling acutely the anxiety into which the withdrawal of the purchaser must throw you--though I trust nothing of that sort may occur--I told them that rather than have you thrown upon your beam-ends by such an occurrence, I would myself step in and purchase on the terms agreed on. This will, I trust, quiet them on the subject of their costs, and also prevent any low _dodging_ on the part of the purchaser.'

This letter would almost seem to have been written with a supernatural knowledge of what was pa.s.sing in Gylingden, and was certainly well contrived to prevent the vicar from wavering.

But all this time the ladies are conversing in Dorcas's boudoir.

'This election frightens me, Radie--everything frightens me now--but this is _so_ audacious. If there be powers either in heaven or h.e.l.l, it seems like a defiance and an invocation. I am glad you are here, Radie--I have grown so nervous--so superst.i.tious, I believe; watching always for signs and omens. Oh, darling, the world's ghastly for me now.'

'I wish, Dorcas, we were away--as you used to say--in some wild and solitary retreat, living together--two recluses--but all that is visionary--quite visionary now.'

Dorcas sighed.

'You know, Rachel, the world must not see this--we will carry our heads high. Wicked men, and brave and suffering women--that is the history of our family--and men and women always quite unlike the rest of the world--unlike the human race; and somehow they interest me unspeakably. I wish I knew more about those proud, forlorn beauties, whose portraits are fading on the walls. Their spirit, I am sure, is in us, Rachel; and their pictures and traditions have always supported me. When I was a little thing, I used to look at them with a feeling of melancholy and mystery.

They were in my eyes, reserved prophetesses, who could speak, if they would, of my own future.'

'A poor support, Dorcas--a broken reed. I wish we could find another--the true one, in the present, and in the coming time.'

Dorcas smiled faintly, and I think there was a little gleam of a ghastly satire in it. I am afraid that part of her education which deals with futurity had been neglected.

'I am more likely to turn into a Lady Macbeth than a _devote_,' said she, coldly, with the same painful smile. 'I found myself last night sitting up in my bed, talking in the dark about it.'

There was a silence for a time, and Rachel said,--

'It is growing late, Dorcas.'

'But you must not go, Rachel--you _must_ stay and keep me company--you must, _indeed_, Radie,' said Dorcas.

'So I will,' she answered; 'but I must send a line to old Tamar; and I promised Dolly to go down to her to-night, if that darling little boy should be worse--I am very unhappy about him.'

'And is he in danger, the handsome little fellow?' said Dorcas.

'Very great danger, I fear,' said Rachel. 'Doctor Buddle has been very kind--but he is, I am afraid, more desponding than poor William or Dolly imagines--Heaven help them!'

'But children recover wonderfully. What is his ailment?'

'Gastric fever, the doctor says. I had a foreboding of evil the moment I saw him--before the poor little man was put to his bed.'

Dorcas rang the bell.

'Now, Radie, if you wish to write, sit down here--or if you prefer a message, Thomas can take one very accurately; and he shall call at the vicar's, and see Dolly, and bring us word how the dear little boy is. And don't fancy, darling, I have forgotten what you said to me about duty--though I would call it differently--only I feel so wild, I can think of nothing clearly yet. But I am making up my mind to a great and bold step, and when I am better able, I will talk it over with you--my only friend, Rachel.'

And she kissed her.

CHAPTER LXVII.

MR. LARKIN IS VIS-A-VIS WITH A CONCEALED COMPANION.

The time had now arrived when our friend Jos. Larkin was to refresh the village of Gylingden with his presence. He had pushed matters forward with wonderful despatch. The deeds, with their blue and silver stamps, were handsomely engrossed--having been approved in draft by Crompton S.

Kewes, the eminent Queen's Counsel, on a case furnished by Jos. Larkin, Esq., The Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden, on behalf of his client, the Reverend William Wylder; and in like manner on behalf of Stanley Williams Brandon Lake, of Brandon Hall, in the county of ----, Esq.

In neither draft did Jos. Larkin figure as the purchaser by name. He did not care for advice on any difficulty depending on his special relations to the vendors in both these cases. He wished, as was his custom, everything above-board, and such 'an opinion' as might be published by either client in the 'Times' next day if he pleased it. Besides these matters of Wylder and of Lake, he had also a clause to insert in a private Act, on behalf of the trustees of the Baptist Chapel, at Naunton Friars; a short deed to be consulted upon on behalf of his client, Pudder Swynfen, Esq., of Swynfen Grange, in the same county; and a deed to be executed at Shillingsworth, which he would take _en route_ for Gylingden, stopping there for that night, and going on by next morning's train.

Those little trips to town paid very fairly.

In this particular case his entire expenses reached exactly 5 3_s._, and what do you suppose was the good man's profit upon that small item?

Precisely 62 7_s._! The process is simple, Jos. Larkin made his own handsome estimate of his expenses, and the value of his time to and from London, and then he charged this in its entirety--shall we say integrity--to each client separately. In this little excursion he was concerned for no less than _five_.

His expenses, I say, reached exactly 5 3_s_. But he had a right to go to Dondale's if he pleased, instead of that cheap hostelry near Covent Garden. He had a right to a handsome lunch and a handsome dinner, instead of that economical fusion of both meals into one, at a cheap eating-house, in an out-of-the-way quarter. He had a right to his pint of high-priced wine, and to accomplish his wanderings in a cab, instead of, as the Italians say, 'partly on foot, and partly walking.' Therefore, and on this principle, Mr. Jos. Larkin had 'no difficulty' in acting. His savings, if the good man chose to practise self-denial, were his own--and it was a sort of problem while he stayed, and interested him curiously--keeping down his bill in matters which he would not have dreamed of denying himself at home.

The only client among his wealthy supporters, who ever went in a grudging spirit into one of these little bills of Jos. Larkin's, was old Sir Mulgrave Bracton--the defunct parent of the Sir Harry, with whom we are acquainted.

'Don't you think, Mr. Larkin, you could perhaps reduce _this_, just a little?'

'Ah, the expenses?'

'Well, yes.'

Mr. Jos. Larkin smiled--the smile said plainly, 'what would he have me live upon, and where?' We do meet persons of this sort, who would fain 'fill our bellies with the husks' that swine digest; what of that--we must remember who we are--_gentlemen_--and answer this sort of shabbiness, and every other endurable annoyance, as Lord Chesterfield did--with a bow and a smile.

'I think so,' said the baronet, in a bluff, firm way.

'Well, the fact is, when I represent a client, Sir Mulgrave Bracton, of a certain rank and position, I make it a principle--and, as a man of business, I find it tells--to present myself in a style that is suitably handsome.'

'Oh! an expensive house--_where_ was this, now?'

'Oh, Sir Mulgrave, pray don't think of it--I'm only too happy--pray, draw your pen across the entire thing.'

'I think so,' said the baronet unexpectedly. 'Don't you think if we said a pound a-day, and your travelling expenses?'

'Certainly--_any_thing--what_ever_ you please, Sir.'

And the attorney waved his long hand a little, and smiled almost compa.s.sionately; and the little alteration was made, and henceforward he spoke of Sir Mulgrave as not quite a pleasant man to deal with in money matters; and his confidential friends knew that in a transaction in which he had paid money out of his own pocket for Sir Mulgrave he had never got back more than seven and sixpence in the pound; and, what made it worse, it was a matter connected with the death of poor Lady Bracton! And he never lost an opportunity of conveying his opinion of Sir Mulgrave, sometimes in distinct and confidential sentences, and sometimes only by a sad shake of his head, or by awfully declining to speak upon the subject.

In the present instance Jos. Larkin was returning in a heavenly frame of mind to the Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden. Whenever he was away he interpolated 'Brandon Manor,' and stuck it on his valise and hat-case; and liked to call aloud to the porters tumbling among the luggage--'Jos.

Larkin, Esquire, _Brandon Manor, if_ you please;' and to see the people read the inscription in the hall of his dingy hostelry. Well might the good man glow with a happy consciousness of a blessing. In small things as in great he was prosperous.

This little excursion to London would cost him, as I said, exactly 5 3_s._ It might have cost him 13 10_s._ and at that sum his expenses figured in his ledger; and as he had five clients on this occasion, the total reached 67 10_s._, leaving a clear profit, as I have mentioned, of 62 7_s._ on this item.