The Pennycomequicks (Volume 2 of 3). Baring-Gould Sabine

was not disturbed by me.'

      'He may have seen you pass down the stairs, and so have taken the alarm and decamped. My second explanation is the least probable, for it demands a double simultaneous neglect of fastening doors by two independent persons, the housemaid and the gardener.'

      'The gardener has not been working for some weeks.'

      'Then how this has occurred concerns me less than the prevention of a recurrence,' said Philip. 'I must have a responsible person in the house. May I see your mother?'

      As he asked, he entered the hall, and Janet at the same moment came out of her mother's sitting-room with a beaming face. She slightly bowed to Philip, and said eagerly to her sister, 'Salome, the postman is coming down the road. I am sure he brings me good news. I am going to the door to meet him.'

      Salome admitted Philip into the sitting-room. She would have withdrawn, but he requested her to stay.

      'What I have to say to Mrs. Cusworth,' he said shortly, 'concerns you as well as your mother.'

      He took a chair at the widow's request, and then, in his matter-of-fact business fashion, plunged at once into the subject of his visit.

      'I dare say that you have wondered, madam, that neither Mrs. Sidebottom nor I have made any call on you lately with a proposal. The fact is that only yesterday did my aunt and I arrive at a definite and permanent settlement. You are aware that she has acted as administratrix of my uncle's property. We have, after some difference, come to an arrangement, and by that arrangement I take the factory under my management – that, however, is not a matter of interest to you. What does concern you is the agreement we have struck about the house, which is become practically mine, I shall live in it henceforth and conduct the business so successfully carried on by my uncle, and I hope and trust without allowing it to decline. You are well aware that Mrs. Sidebottom gave you formal notice to quit: this was a formality, because at the time nothing was settled relative to the firm and the house. Please not to consider for a moment that there was a slight intended. As far as I am concerned, nothing could have been more foreign to my wishes. Do not allow that notice to affect your arrangements.'

      'We accepted the notice, and have made our plans to leave,' said Salome quietly.

      'In the first uncertainty as to what would be done,' said Philip, 'Mrs. Sidebottom came to you, Mrs. Cusworth, and I fear spoke with haste and impetuosity. She was excited, and at the time in a state of irritation with me, who had withstood her wishes. Since then an arrangement has been concluded between us which leaves me the house. This house henceforth belongs to me, and not to my aunt, who ceases to have authority within its walls. I am going to live here. But, madam, as you may well believe, I am incapable of managing domestic affairs. I have been unused to have such duties devolve on me. I shall be engaged in mastering new responsibilities which will occupy my whole attention, and it is imperative that I should be spared the distraction of housekeeping. The event of last night – the appearance of a man invading this house – '

      Mrs. Cusworth turned deadly pale, and a look of fear came into her eyes. Salome hastily turned to Philip, and her appealing glance told him he must not touch on a subject that would alarm and agitate her mother.

      'I mean,' said Philip hastily, 'that a man, inexperienced like myself, entering a large house in which there are domestics, of whose freaks and vagaries he knows nothing, and desires to know less, is like a colonist in Papua, of the natives of which nothing certain has been revealed. They may be cannibals; they may, on the other hand, be inoffensive. Of landladies in lodging-houses I have had a long and bitter experience. I have run the gamut of them, from the reduced gentlewoman to the wife of an artisan, and I believe it is one of those professions which, like vivisection, dries up the springs of moral worth. It will be essential to my happiness, I may say to my success in the business, to have a responsible person to manage the house for me. You, madam, will relieve me from grave embarrassments if you will consent to remain here on the same terms as heretofore. It will indeed be conferring on me a lasting favour, which I know I am not justified in asking.'

      'It is very good of you to suggest this,' began the widow.

      'On the contrary,' interrupted Philip, 'it is selfish of me to propose it – to wish to retain you in a place where you must be surrounded by sorrowful reminiscences, and tie you to work when you ought to be free from every care.'

      'I thank you,' said Mrs. Cusworth. 'It so happens that I am distressed by pecuniary losses, and I am therefore glad to accept your offer.'

      'I am sorry, madam, that you have met with losses. But I do not wish to force you to accept obligations for which you do not feel yourself equal without understanding exactly how matters stand. Mrs. Sidebottom and I have consulted together about the probable wishes of my deceased uncle, and we unite in thinking that he never intended to leave Miss Cusworth unprovided for. The will he had drawn out perhaps erred on the side of excessive liberality to her and disregard of the claims of his own relations. That was cancelled – how, we cannot say. Suffice it to say, it was cancelled, but without cancelling the obligation to do something for Miss Cusworth. We are quite sure that Mr. Pennycomequick intended to provide for her, and Mrs. Sidebottom and I agree in proposing for her acceptance such a sum as was invested by my late uncle for the benefit of Mrs. Baynes on her marriage a twelve month ago.'

      He was the lawyer – formal, cold, stiff – as he spoke, measuring his sentences and weighing his words. Even when he endeavoured to be courteous, as when inviting the widow to stay on in his house, he spoke without ease of manner, graciousness, and softness of tone.

      'Of course,' said Mrs. Cusworth, 'it has been a great disappointment to us that we received nothing from Mr. Pennycomequick – '

      'Mother!' interrupted Salome, quivering, flushing to the roots of her hair, then turning white. Mrs. Cusworth was one of those ordinary women who think it becomes them not to receive a favour as a favour, but as a due. Salome at once felt the grace and kindness of the arrangement proposed for her advantage by Philip, and had little hesitation in attributing it to him, and freeing Mrs. Sidebottom from the initiative, at least, in it. But her mother supposed it due to her dignity to receive it as a concession to a legitimate claim.

      Salome did not look in Philip's face. Afraid that her mother might say something further that was unsuited to the situation, she interposed:

      'Mr. Pennycomequick,' she said, in a low, gentle voice, 'you said just now that you had no claim on our services. You have created such a claim. Your proposal is so generous, so kindly intentioned, and so far transcending what we had any right to ask or to expect, that you lay us under an obligation which it will be a pleasure for us to discharge. My dear mother is not herself able to do much with her hands, but she is like a general in a battlefield – on a commanding eminence she issues her directions, and I am her orderly who fly about carrying her commands. We accept with gratitude and pleasure your offer to continue in this house, at least for a while. For that other offer that concerns me alone, will you allow me time to consider it?'

      At that moment, before Philip could reply, the door was burst open, and Janet rushed in, with a face of despair, holding an open letter before her.

      'Mamma! Oh, mamma! The Prussians have killed him. Albert – has been shot!'

      CHAPTER XVIII.

      JOHN DALE

      In the cabin of the Conquering Queen, Mr. Pennycomequick had much time for thought before he was sufficiently recovered to leave his berth. He fell to wondering what Salome and her mother, Mrs. Sidebottom and his nephew, had thought of his disappearance.

      'Can you get me a back newspaper, or some account of the flood?' he asked of Ann Dewis. 'I am interested to hear what happened, and whether I am among those accounted to have fallen victims.'

      After several trials, Mrs. Dewis procured what was required in pamphlet form – a reprint from one of the West Riding papers of its narrative of the inundation, of the appearance of the country after it had subsided, from its special correspondent, and full lists of the lost and drowned. Mr. Pennycomequick read this account by the light that descended from the hatchway; read about the havoc effected in Keld-dale, the walls thrown down, the cottages inundated, the roads and the embankments