Chapter XI

IT was fortunate for Dr. Crawford that Shelverton folk could do without him at a time when his presence was so much needed elsewhere. Still more fortunate that Ida did not fret after her husband, but rather encouraged him to remain with and comfort his parents.

In the case of his father, his care was not long needed. Once the pastor seemed to rally a little, and a wistful, yearning look on his face led them to think that he was conscious and could understand what was said, though he was unable to reply.

But the light soon faded, and was followed by complete unconsciousness, and then by the sleep from which there is no earthly waking. Naturally, many arrangements had to be made, and it was fully three weeks before Dr. Crawford was able to return to Shelverton.

During his absence, Ida was surprised by a visit from Lord Carnelly, who came to Steynes-Cote without having written to announce his intention. But this mattered little to Mrs. Crawford. Lindsay was under her roof—a voluntary guest this time. Surely his presence was in every sense a good augury, and, in spite of a year's apparent estrangement, which had cost her a good many tears, the old love was warm in her brother's heart as well as her own.

Never had Lord Carnelly appeared more affectionate to his sister, and if it had not been for the uncomfortable consciousness that he had failed in the trust reposed in him by his dead father, the days spent at Steynes-Cote would have been the happiest he had known for years. Indeed, the harassed man tried to forget his cares and to enjoy the peaceful surroundings amid which he found himself.

"You have a beautiful home, a good husband, and now I suppose you are also the richest of young mothers, Ida," said Lord Carnelly, as he watched his sister's beautiful head bent over the cot of her sleeping baby. "We have had so many baby treasures that I am afraid I hardly appreciate them as I did when the first came."

"You ought to do, Lindsay; yours are all lovely children, and so they ought to be with such handsome parents."

"I will repeat those pretty words to Beatrice, my dear. She will never be too old to value a compliment on her good looks, though sometimes I half wish her share of beauty had been smaller, or that it had been less admired. A love of admiration grows with age in some people, and is as bad in its way as a craving for gold. Take my advice, Ida, and do not yield to it. Be happy in the love of the good man who has chosen you to be his wife, and contented with the portion of this world, goods with which he has been able to endow you."

"I may well be contented, Lindsay," replied Ida; "but still I did not come to my husband, quite a penniless wife." And the girl drew herself up with a little satisfied gesture which brought a hot flush to her brother's face.

She had never spoken to him about money matters since her marriage, but in the absence of her husband, and at this time, she thought she ought to do so.

"I suppose you are wanting to arrange about paying over my little fortune, Lindsay," she said. "I am so sorry Andrew is from home, but you know what has called him away. Can I do instead?"

Lord Carnelly gave an inward shudder as he heard these words, but he tried to smile as he answered lightly, "You forget, my dear girl; your money was not settled upon you at your marriage, and you are a mere nobody in the eye of the law. When Andrew said, 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' he knew quite well that as he walked out of the church, he not only retained absolute possession of them, but of you and your worldly goods in addition. I shall have to settle with Crawford, not with you."

"That will be all the same, or better, for I am an utter ignoramus about business. If you were to pour my money into my lap, I should gather up my skirts, run with it to Andrew, and say, 'Please, dear, take this gold and turn it to account. You know far better what to do with it than I do. It is too heavy for me to carry.'"

Lord Carnelly laughed outright at this picture. Nothing could have better portrayed his sister's innocence of business matters than this imaginary scene, in which he was supposed to pour her little fortune into her lap in the shape of so much golden coin. But the laugh ended abruptly, and the picture faded as one impossible of realization.

Subsequently, it was arranged that Lord Carnelly should meet his brother-in-law in Edinburgh, where the doctor would be detained by business on his homeward way.

As the former left Steynes-Cote, he took comfort from the thought that his sister was well provided for.

"Crawford has a right to be angry, and I am prepared for some plain speaking on his part, but I know he is not the man to visit my sins on his wife's head," he thought; "she is safe enough, both in the present and for the future."

That the withholding of Ida's money could be of any serious consequence to Dr. Crawford never entered into the colonel's head.

The men met with a mutual misunderstanding to begin with. When Lord Carnelly arrived at Steynes-Cote, Ida took it for granted that he was come for the special purpose of paying over the five thousand pounds, and she wrote to tell her husband so. Dr. Crawford was agreeably surprised at the intelligence, and, after an exchange of inquiries and expressions of condolence, he began to speak of business matters to the colonel.

"Ida tells me you want to pay over her little fortune, and I am not sorry for this, Carnelly," he said. "You know my family affairs so well that I need hardly tell you that my poor father's death will, for a time, entail additional expenses for me to meet. I have always helped my parents. Now I must do more, as I am the best able. The next three years will be the worst, then the young ones will begin to maintain themselves."

Lord Carnelly hesitated, stammered, and finally said, "Ida scarcely understood my object in running down to your place. I am sorry to say I am not quite prepared with the money. I have the interest to the date of Ida's birthday, but the principal—"

The speaker paused, and his eyes fell before the grave look of Dr. Crawford, as he answered, "I thought I understood you to say that it was safely invested."

"And so it was, Crawford, but not separately from my own. Of course I am worth far more than the amount owing to Ida. But we have spent rather more than we ought to have done, and I am short of ready money. I thought, perhaps, you would take the year's interest, and wait a little longer for the principal."

"I will do anything I can to accommodate you," replied the doctor; "though, owing to recent circumstances, I cannot now so well afford to do without the money. You see I expected it to be paid over to Ida, and, believing she would have this, I made a little more liberal provision for my mother than I should have felt justified in doing without it."

"I should hardly have thought that such an addition to your income would make an appreciable difference," said Lord Carnelly.

"And yet you say the paying of it would inconvenience you, who have, or ought to have, four times my income," replied the doctor.

"But I have now eight children, and you have only one."

"I do not see what our several families have to do with this matter of business, neither has the fact that you and I have always been friends since we first knew each other. The question is one of right and wrong. You and I both know that Ida ought to have received her portion when, with your consent, she became my wife."

"I wish you had spoken about it; I could have paid it then by making a push. It would have been a true kindness to insist, instead of letting the time pass over."

This remark was rather hard upon the doctor, who had trusted his friend so implicitly, and he could not help saying, "It was for you to speak, Carnelly, not me."

"I know it, I know it," said the colonel. "I have been a dreadful coward; I meant to make all right, but I was over-persuaded. But my sister shall not lose a penny; I will give you a second mortgage on my Lincolnshire property."

"A second mortgage! Oh, Carnelly, has it come to that already?" said the doctor.

"What could I do?" groaned the colonel. "We had spent too much even in India, and since our return, the money has seemed to fly. Beatrice was so resolved on having a season in London, and could not be contented with anything second-rate. 'It was just for once,' she said; and I was foolish enough to yield, when I knew I could not afford the cost. She is such a pretty woman, you know, Crawford, and sets off everything she wears, and, naturally, she likes to look as well as her neighbours," said the colonel, with a touch of the old pride in his handsome wife. "She is perhaps too fond of being admired, and I can't help feeling proud of her too, when I see people's eyes following her, and know that not a girl in her first season attracts more attention than Beatrice does even now. Her dress is always the perfection of taste, and really, sometimes, I feel so proud of her that I forget the cost. You know she can be so very charming, Crawford."

The doctor was both touched and indignant, as he listened to Lord Carnelly. The colonel was so brave on the battle-field, so cowardly where it was a question of doing right at the cost of contradicting the wife of whom, in spite of all her faults, he was so proud. He knew how fascinating Lady Carnelly could be, and with what grace and dignity she could hold her place in society and he knew, too, that the gallant soldier was as wax in the hands of his wife, who appealed to his pride in public, and ruled him in private by force of a strong will and a selfish disposition.

Dr. Crawford hesitated a little before he answered Lord Carnelly. At first, he felt inclined to say, "I will not take a mortgage."

Then he decided to give a contrary reply, feeling convinced that by so doing he would rather help his brother-in-law than otherwise.

"If I do not accept Lindsay's terms, he is pretty certain to raise the money to meet some other claim. By accepting them, I shall keep a hold upon the property, and do him a service, whether I ever press my claim or not."

So he said, "I will let the money remain, but on the terms proposed by you, and shall be glad to have a definite settlement as soon as possible."

Perhaps the colonel thought that his brother-in-law would be contented to wait for the money, and trust to his promise without further security. However, he could only thank him for past forbearance, and say that the mortgage deed should be prepared at once. It cost him an effort to add, "Would you care to put on another thousand taking the two hundred and fifty of interest towards it?"

He was ashamed to ask, but ready money was scarce; it would be a wrench to part with any, and his wife had bidden him try to retain this.

"Thank you, no," replied the doctor; "all my spare money is invested. I was afraid I should have to call in a little owing to heavy recent demands, but the interest will prevent this."

So the colonel could only pay it.

Then the doctor mentioned the jewellery which Lord and Lady Carnelly had sent to his wife.

"I ask this in all kindness," he said, "but are the things paid for?"

"Not yet, but they shall be, Crawford, believe me. Trust me in this; whatever stands over, those trinkets shall be paid for."

"I shall take care of that," replied the doctor. "Ida shall wear no diamonds at the cost of a jeweller. You meant to be kind, Carnelly, and I thank you all the same, but it was a mistake to send such costly articles. Ida has no longing after new trinkets. She would tell you that the bright eyes of her first-born are more to her than all the diamonds in the world. She only values these because she thinks them a proof of a brother's love."

"You will not take them from her, Crawford?" said the colonel, with a look of distress.

"Certainly not. And more, I will not tell her a single word that has passed between us respecting them. But I shall pay for them. The name on the case told me where they were purchased. Give me the bill, if you have it. It shall be settled at once, and Ida shall remain happy in the thought that she wears her brother's gift."

It was humiliating for the colonel to hand over the jeweller's account, but he knew he could not pay it, and would certainly never have incurred such a debt but for his wife. The look on the doctor's face was kind, and his tone and words conveyed no reproach as he said, "This shall be our secret, Carnelly. Do not breathe it even to Beatrice."

An injunction which the colonel thankfully decided to obey.

He thought to himself, "Whilst Beatrice thinks the trinkets are owing for, she will not go near the shop, so I shall be doubly relieved."

It was not gratifying for Dr. Crawford to discover that more than half of the money he had received from Lord Carnelly must go to pay for these so-called presents. But if the whole had been required, he would have paid it cheerfully, rather than allow the matter to stand over indefinitely.

When the doctor reached Steynes-Cote, Ida met him with tender welcoming words and expressions of sympathy. "It has been such a sad time for you, Andrew," she said. "I have thought of you hourly, and of your mother too. I wondered if she would like to come and stay with us for a time; it might cheer her a little to have the change."

"She is best in her own neighbourhood, I think, dear," replied the doctor. "Besides, she has the boys to care for, and hers has always been such a busy life that inaction would be bad for her now."

"But when the boys are away, how lonely she will be! And how sad to think that your father could not say a word of farewell! I do not think anything could give me comfort under such circumstances."

"I hope you may never be called on to pass through such a trial, my darling. But if you should be, may you have the same comfort which sustains my dear mother in her loneliness and trouble! The blessed sense of her Saviour's presence cheers the one; the knowledge that her husband sought the Lord in his youth, and served Him all through life, takes the sting from her bereavement, and gives her the prospect of an eternal reunion. This is what I look forward to, Ida, for you and me, not merely to be united on earth, but after death in the presence of God for ever."

Dr. Crawford looked in his wife's face as she clung to him with girlish trust and tender clasp, but she did not speak in answer to his solemn words. She did not say, "I, too, have a hope which reaches beyond time."

Her next words had relation to Lord Carnelly and his meeting with her husband.

"I suppose Lindsay went into business matters with you when you met in Edinburgh," she said. "Is all settled now?"

"It will be soon, dear. Your money is to be invested on a new security, a mortgage, in fact. Carnelly paid me a year's interest, so you must always come to me as your banker, the same as before."

This was enough for Ida. She took it for granted that everything had been arranged to her husband's satisfaction, and dismissed the subject from her mind.

In after days, Dr. Crawford regretted that he had not given his wife his full confidence. It would have saved much subsequent misunderstanding.