Chapter I

The windows of the room, called the Buttery, which Mr. Preen used as an office in his house at Duck Brook, were thrown open to the warm, pure air. It was about the hottest part of the afternoon. Oliver Preen sat back in his chair before the large table covered with papers, waiting in idleness and inward rebellion--rebellion against the untoward fate which had latterly condemned him to this dreary and monotonous life. Taking out his pocket-handkerchief with a fling, he passed it over his fair, mild face, which was very hot just now.

To-day, of all days, Oliver had wanted to be at liberty, whereas he was being kept a prisoner longer than usual, and for nothing. When Mr. Preen rode out after breakfast in the morning he had left Oliver a couple of letters to copy as a beginning, remarking that there was a great deal to do that day, double work, and he should be back in half-an-hour. The double work arose from the fact that none had been done the day before, as Mr. Preen was out. For that day, Monday--this was Tuesday--was the day Mr. Preen had paid us a visit at Crabb Cott, to be paid for Taffy, the pony, and had then gone to Norton, and afterwards to Stoulton, and it had taken him the best part of the day. So the double work was waiting. But the half hours and the hours had passed on, and Mr. Preen had not yet returned. It was now three o'clock in the afternoon, and they had dined without him.

Oliver, who did not dare to absent himself without permission, and perhaps was too conscientious to do so, left his chair for the window. The old garden was quite a wilderness of blossom and colour, with all kinds of homely flowers crowded into it. The young man stretched forth his hand and plucked a spray or two of jessamine, which grew against the wall. Idly smelling it, he lost himself in a vision of the days gone by; his careless, happy life at Tours, in his aunt's luxurious home, when he had no fear of a dark future, had only to dress well and ride or drive out, and idly enjoy himself.

Suddenly he was brought back to reality. The sound of hoofs clattering into the fold-yard behind the house struck upon his ear, and he knew his father had come home.

Ten minutes yet, or more, and then Mr. Preen came into the room, his little dark face looking darker and more cross than usual. He had been snatching some light refreshment, and sat down at once in his place at the table, facing the windows; Oliver sat opposite to him.

"What have you done?" asked he.

"I have only copied those two letters; there was nothing else to do," replied Oliver.

"Could you not have looked over the pile of letters which came this morning, to see whether there were any you could answer?" growled Mr. Preen.

"Why, no, father," replied Oliver in slight surprise; "I did not know I might look at them. And if I had looked I should not have known what to reply."

Mr. Preen began reading the letters over at railroad speed, dictating answers for Oliver to write, writing some himself. This took time. He had been unexpectedly detained at the other end of Captain Falkner's land by some business which had vexed him. Most of these letters were from farmers and others, about the new patent agricultural implements for which Mr. Preen had taken the agency. He wished to push the sale of them, as it gave him a good percentage.

The answers, addressed and stamped for the post, at length lay ready on the table. Mr. Preen then took out his pocket-book and extracted from it that ten-pound bank-note given him the previous morning by Mr. Todhetley for the children's pony, the note he had got the Squire to indorse, as I have already told. Letting the bank-note lie open before him, Mr. Preen penned a few lines, as follows, Oliver looking on:--

"DEAR SIR,--I enclose you the ten pounds. Have not been able to send it before. Truly yours, G. PREEN."

Mr. Preen folded the sheet on which he had written this, put the bank-note within it, and enclosed all in a good-sized business envelope, which he fastened securely down. He then addressed it to John Paul, Esquire, Islip, and put on a postage stamp.

"I shall seal this, Oliver," he remarked; "it's safer. Get the candle and the wax. Here, you can seal it," he added, taking the signet ring from his finger, on which was engraved the crest of the Preen family.

Oliver lighted a candle kept on a stand at the back for such purposes, brought it to the table, and sealed the letter with a large, imposing red seal. As he passed the ring and letter back to his father, he spoke.

"If you are particularly anxious that the letter should reach Mr. Paul safely, father, and of course you are so, as it contains money, why did you not send it by hand? I would have taken it to him."

"There's nothing safer than the post," returned Mr. Preen, "and I want him to have it to-morrow morning."

Oliver laughed. "I could have taken it this evening, father. I can do so still, if you like."

"No, it shall go by post. You want to be off to MacEveril, I suppose."

"No, I do not," replied Oliver. "Had I been able to finish here this morning I might have gone over this afternoon; it is too late now."

"You had nothing to do all day yesterday," growled his father.

"Oh, yes, I know. I am not grumbling."

Mr. Preen put the letter into his pocket, gathered up the pile of other letters, handed half of them to his son, for it was a pretty good heap, and they started for the post, about three minutes' walk.

The small shop containing the post-office at Duck Brook was kept by Mrs. Sym, who sold sweetstuff, also tapes and cottons. Young Sym, her son, a growing youth, delivered the letters, which were brought in by a mail-cart. She was a clean, tidy woman of middle age, never seen out of a muslin cap with a wide border and a black bow, a handkerchief crossed over her shoulders, and a checked apron.

Oliver, of lighter step than his father, reached the post-office first and tumbled his portion of the letters into the box placed in the window to receive them. The next moment Mr. Preen put his in also, together with the letter addressed to Mr. Paul.

"We are too late," observed Oliver. "I thought we should be."

"Eh?" exclaimed Mr. Preen, in surprise, as he turned round. "Too late! Why how can the afternoon have gone on?" he continued, his eyes falling on the clock of the little grey church which stood beyond the triangle of houses, the hands of which were pointing to a quarter past five.

"If you knew it was so late why did you not say so?" he asked sharply of his son.

"I was not sure until I saw the clock; I only thought it must be late by the time we had been at work," replied Oliver.

"I might have sent you over with that letter as you suggested, had I known it would not go to-night. I wonder whether Dame Sym would give it back to me."

He dived down the two steps into the shop as he spoke, Oliver following. Dame Sym--so Duck Brook called her--stood knitting behind the little counter, an employment she took up at spare moments.

"Mrs. Sym, I've just put some letters into the box, not perceiving that it was past five o'clock," began Mr. Preen, civilly. "I suppose they'll not go to-night?"

"Can't, sir," replied the humble post-mistress. "The bag's made up."

"There's one letter that will hardly bear delay. It is for Mr. Paul of Islip. If you can return it me out of the box I will send it over by hand at once; my son will take it."

"But it is not possible, sir. Once a letter is put into the box I dare not give it back again," remonstrated Mrs. Sym, gazing amiably at Mr. Preen through her spectacles, whose round glasses had a trick of glistening when at right angles with the light.

"You might stretch a point for once, to oblige me," returned Mr. Preen, fretfully.

"And I'm sure I'd not need to be pressed to do it, sir, if I could," she cried in her hearty way. "But I dare not break the rules, sir; I might lose my place. Our orders are not to open the receiving box until the time for making-up, or give a letter back on any pretence whatever."

Mr. Preen saw that further argument would be useless. She was a kindly, obliging old body, but upright to the last degree in all that related to her place. Anything that she believed (right or wrong) might not be done she stuck to.

"Obstinate as the grave," muttered he.

Dame Sym did not hear; she had turned away to serve a child who came in for some toffee. Mr. Preen waited.

"When will the letter go?" he asked, as the child went out.

"By to-morrow's day mail, sir. It will be delivered at Islip--I think you said Islip, Mr. Preen--about half-past four, or so, in the afternoon."

"Is the delay of much consequence, sir?" inquired Oliver, as he and his father turned out of the shop.

"No," said Mr. Preen. "Only I hate letters to be delayed uselessly in the post."

* * * * *

Tea was waiting when they got in. A mutton chop was served with it for Mr. Preen, as he had lost his dinner. Jane ran downstairs, drank a cup of tea in haste, and ran back again. She had been busy in her bedroom all day, smartening-up a dress. A picnic was to be held on Thursday, the next day but one; Jane and Oliver were invited to it, and Jane wanted to look as well as other girls.

After tea Oliver sat for ever so long at the open window, reading the _Worcester Journal_. He then strolled out to the Inlets, sauntered beside the brook, and presently threw himself listlessly upon one of the benches facing it. The sun shone right upon his face there, so he tilted his straw hat over his eyes. That did not do, and he moved to another bench which the trees shaded. He often felt lonely and weary now; this evening especially so; even Jane was not with him.

His thoughts turned to Emma Paul; and a glow, bright as the declining sun rays, shot up in his heart. As long as _she_ filled it, he could not be all gloom.

"If I had means to justify it I should speak to her," mused he--as he had told himself forty times over, and forty more. "But when a fellow has no fortune, and no prospect of fortune; when it may be seen by no end of odd signs and tokens that he has not so much as a silver coin in his pocket, how can he ask a girl the one great question of life? Old Paul would send me to the right-about."

He leaned his head sideways for a few minutes against the trunk of a tree, gazing at the reddening sky through the green tracery of the waving boughs; and fell to musing again.

"If she loved me as I love her, she would be glad to wait on as things are, hoping for better times. Lovers, who are truly attached to each other, do wait for years and years, and are all the happier for it. Sometimes I feel inclined to enlist in a crack regiment. The worst of it is that a fellow rarely rises from the ranks in England to position and honour, as he does in France; they manage things better over there. If old Uncle Edward would only open his purse-strings and buy me a commission, I might---- Halloa!"

A burst of girlish laughter, and a pair of girlish arms, flung round his neck from behind, disturbed Oliver's castles-in-the-air. Jane came round and sat down beside him. "I thought I should find you here, Oliver," she said.

"Frock finished, Janey?"

"Finished! why no," she exclaimed. "It will hardly be finished by this time to-morrow."

"Why, how idle you must have been!"

"Idle? You don't understand things, or the time it takes to make an old frock into a new one. A dressmaker might have done it in a day, but I'm not a dressmaker, you know, Oliver."

"Is it a silk gown?"

"It is a mousseline-de-laine, if you chance to be acquainted with that material," answered Janey. "It was very pretty when it was new: pale pink and lilac blossoms upon a cream ground. But it has been washed, and that has made it shrink, and it has to be let out everywhere and lengthened, and the faded silk trimming has to be turned, and--oh, ever so much work. And now, I daresay you are as wise as you were before, Oliver."

"I've heard of washed-out dresses," remarked Oliver. "They look like rags, don't they?"

"Some may. Mine won't. It has washed like a pocket-handkerchief, and it looks as good as new."

"Wish my coats would wash," said Oliver. "They are getting shabby, and I want some new ones."

Not having any consolation to administer in regard to the coats, Jane did not take up the subject. "What have you been doing all day, Oliver?" she asked.

"Airing my patience in that blessed Buttery," replied he. "Never stirred out of it at all, except for dinner."

"I thought you wanted to get over to Islip this afternoon."

"I might want to get over to the North Pole, and be none the nearer to it. MacEveril was bound for some place a mile or two across fields this afternoon, on business for the office, and I promised to go over to walk with him. Promises, though, are like pie-crust, Janey: made to be broken."

Jane nodded assent. "And a promise which you are obliged to break is sure to be one you particularly want to keep. I wish I had a pair of new gloves, Oliver. Pale grey."

"I wish I had half-a-dozen new pairs, for the matter of that. Just look at those little minnows, leaping in the water. How pretty they are!"

He went to the edge of the brook and stood looking down at the small fry. Jane followed. Then they walked about in the Inlets, then sat down again and watched the sunset; and so the evening wore away until they went home.

Jane was shut up again the following day, busy with her dress; Oliver, as usual, was in the Buttery with his father. At twelve o'clock Mr. Preen prepared to go out to keep an appointment at Evesham, leaving Oliver a lot of work to do, very much to his aggravation.

"It's a shame. It will take me all the afternoon to get through it," ran his thoughts--and he would have liked to say so aloud.

"You don't look pleased, young man," remarked his father. "Recollect you will be off duty to-morrow."

Oliver's countenance cleared; his disposition was a pleasant one, never retaining anger long, and he set to his task with a good will. The morrow being the day of the picnic, he would have whole holiday.

At five o'clock the young servant carried the tea-tray into the parlour. Presently Mrs. Preen came in, made the tea, and sat down to wait for her son and daughter. Tired and hot, she was glad of the rest.

Jane ran downstairs, all happiness. "Mamma, it is finished," she cried; "quite finished. It looks so well."

"It had need look well," fretfully retorted Mrs. Preen, who had been unable to get at Jane for any useful purpose these two days, and resented it accordingly.

"When all trades fail I can turn dressmaker," said the girl, gaily. "Where's Oliver?"

"In the Buttery, I expect; he said he had a great deal to do there this afternoon, and I have not seen him about," replied Mrs. Preen, as she poured out the tea. "Not that I should have been likely to see him--shut into that hot kitchen with the ironing."

Jane knew this was a shaft meant for herself. At ordinary times she did her share of the ironing. "I will tell Oliver that tea is ready, mamma," she said, rising to go to the other room. "Why, there he is, sitting in the shade under the walnut tree," she exclaimed, happening to look from the window.

"Sitting out in the cool," remarked Mrs. Preen. "I don't blame him, poring all day long over those accounts and things. Call him in, Jane."

"Coming," said Oliver, in response to Jane's call from the open window.

He crossed the grass slowly, fanning himself with his straw hat. His fair face--an unusual thing with him--was scarlet.

"You look red-hot, Oliver," laughed his sister.

"If it is as hot to-morrow as it is to-day we shall get a baking," returned Oliver.

"In this intense weather nothing makes one feel the heat like work, and I suppose you've been hard at it this afternoon," said his mother in a tone of compassion, for she disliked work naturally very much herself.

"Of course; I had to be," answered Oliver.

He and Jane sat together under the shade of the walnut tree after tea. When it grew a little cooler they went to the Inlets, that favourite resort of theirs; a spot destined to bear a strange significance for one of them in the days to come; a haunting remembrance.