Read Ebook: Far above rubies (Vol. 3 of 3) by Riddell J H Mrs

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Neither for those brilliant creatures, dressed in orange and green, who conveyed the bread from Stangate to all parts of the metropolis, was there such a thing as liberty. Their carts were numbered, and if, on the hottest day in summer, they stopped at the "Spotted Stag," in Mile End Road, or the "White Hart," in Newington, or the "Greyhound," in Fulham, or any other favourite house of call, for a pot of beer, 16, or 48, or 33, or 27, was had up the same evening before the yard superintendent, and "cautioned" for all the world--so the men themselves said--as if the "governor was a beak."

If, after this caution, any one still preferred ale to employment, he was paid his wages and discharged on the spot.

Altogether, it was a very perfectly-managed Company, and quite a credit to its directors.

It was nice to be associated with so excellent a Company. Good people felt that the blessing of the Almighty must rest upon an enterprise, undertaken in so Christian a spirit , and that He, who had fed the Israelites with manna in the wilderness, would likewise satisfactorily regulate the Protector's dividends; for which reason, and others too numerous and varied to mention, both great people and good people, and good and great combined in the same people, bought shares in the Company, sincerely believing that, since time began, there had never been any creature born so deserving of universal support and encouragement as Mr. Black's baby, which was now a great child able to run alone, and earn something for itself, and even repay its benefactors a portion of the money advanced to start it fairly in the world.

When the first half-yearly meeting was held, the directors not merely announced a dividend at the rate of fifteen per cent. per annum, but also stated their conviction, that the close of another half year would exhibit a much larger proportion of profit, since the expenses of conducting such a business in the first instance were necessarily greater than would subsequently prove the case.

Moreover, it was resolved that no further call should be made on the shareholders, except in the event of larger mills and more extensive premises being required, when, as a natural consequence, higher dividends might confidently be expected.

The directors had pleasure in communicating the existence of a large reserve fund; and in stating that the mills at Stangate had been greatly increased in size, that the machinery was the very best known for the purposes required, that every modern improvement in the grinding of wheat and manufacture of flour was to be found on the premises, and that, as regarded the bakehouse, it was decidedly the most spacious, convenient, and best ventilated in the kingdom.

All this, and a vast amount more, being duly reported in the daily and weekly papers, shares went up again.

Then, the magazine-writers got hold of the Protector as a nucleus on which might be constructed a few light and entertaining papers concerning breadmaking from the beginning of time, tracing the progress of the staff of life from the kneading-troughs of the Israelites down to the works of the new Company at Stangate.

There was no difficulty about inspecting the Protector's premises. A man, salaried on purpose, received ordinary visitors at the gates, and escorted them through the whole process from grinding to kneading, that is, if they came at an hour when kneading was in progress--as literary gentlemen always did.

"Wheat, from the Ear to the Breakfast Table," was the exhaustive title of one paper. Another, supposed to be written by the same author, appeared as "Hot Rolls!" "Our Daily Bread" graced the columns of one of the religious periodicals; while, "Adulteration Considered Morally and Socially," was universally attributed by the critics to the pen of one of the most gifted and thoughtful authoresses of the day.

With all these helps, was it any wonder that the shares of the Protector should soon be at a premium? that every one connected with the Company felt himself to be to some extent a person of consequence; that Arthur Dudley forgot his fears, and only remembered his interest in the great concern; that even the mortgaging of Berrie Down grew in time to be a mere bagatelle--a trifle not worth fretting about?

What might the shares not ultimately touch! Supposing the ten pound share, paid up, came in time to be worth a hundred pounds, why, his income would be enormous; and there was nothing to prevent the shares going on rising, rising in value. If they reached fifty, would he sell? Arthur could not decide this point to his own satisfaction. If he sold, he should then have no anxiety about loss; but, on the other hand, would it be wise to sell before they reached their maximum? Then, who ever could tell when the maximum was reached?

These were the questions which perplexed the Squire, building his castles in the air, while pacing on the calm summer evenings round and round Lincoln's Inn Fields, smoking the while such cigars as never fall to the lot of any one, save secretaries and others of the same ilk, who get all sorts of good things given to them by all kinds of singular people.

Arthur, in the days of which I am now writing, never bought a cigar by any chance. He had boxes of the best Havannas sent him, which he was now not too proud to accept.

The world had gone round since he strolled a poor man through the fields at Berrie Down. Accepting a favour did not, according to the new code, mean placing himself under an obligation. No; it rather meant conferring an obligation on the donor.

What those donors expected Arthur Dudley would be able to do for them, it is impossible even to conjecture. Arthur himself never knew; and so, with an untroubled conscience, he smoked his cigars and dreamed his dreams.

At this time, Heather was away from home--away at the sea-side with her children, whom she took down to Hastings, for a month, in the hope that sea-air might do Lally more good than all Dr. Chickton's prescriptions.

Quite as tenderly as he had treated Master Charles Hope, that renowned practitioner inquired into Lally's symptoms, and devoted himself to the restoration of her health; but for all this care the child proved ungrateful.

She did not get much better. All the tonics Doctor Chickton could prescribe, and Heather with difficulty persuade her to take, failed to restore her health, to make the little feet patter, patter over the floor as of old.

She could walk a short distance, certainly, without much fatigue, and drive for an hour or so at a time, but still she was not the Lally of a twelvemonth previously.

"What's the use of cramming the child with all that physic?" Doctor Marsden inquired one day when he called in Lincoln's Inn Fields. "Chickton ordered it, did he? of course he did. When you go and pay a man a guinea, he must order you something; but now, without a guinea at all, I will give you my advice, which is none the worse for being gratuitous. Take her to the sea-side; let her be out all day long; if she will bear bathing, bathe her; if that don't set her up, nothing will."

Very heartily Heather wished she could have told Doctor Marsden, that, considering his son was the cause of Lally's illness, she thought the least he could do was to proffer his advice civilly; but advice in any shape was not to be despised, and accordingly she adopted his suggestion, and bore Lally off.

At Hastings, she met not merely Mr. and Mrs. Compton Raidsford and family, but also Mr. Allan Stewart; who, after a time, took rather kindly to Lally, and became interested in her recovery.

Like all the rest of the world, he too had his favourite medical man, whom he not merely counselled Heather to consult, but to whom also he wrote a letter of introduction, in which he described her as his friend, Mrs. Dudley.

They had been the merest acquaintances in town; but intimacy is of quick growth when people meet every day, and fifty times a day, on the sands, on the Parade, in the lodgings of mutual friends, standing listening to the bands, and to the solitary murmur of the sea as it flows in on the shore.

From Mrs. Raidsford, Heather heard how admirably Agnes was managing Berrie Down.

"What a wonderful creature she must be!" continued the lady; and yet, Heather fancied there was a tone of disparagement in Mrs. Raidsford's remark, for which she was at a loss to account, until informed that "Miss Baldwin was never out of the house;" "has taken to your sisters quite as if they were her own."

This was not exactly news to Heather, for she had understood from Agnes that Miss Baldwin continued very kind indeed; but why the fact should irritate Mrs. Raidsford puzzled her, until one of the Misses Raidsford, observing, "Yes, we are entirely forgotten now--Miss Baldwin is fond of new faces," threw some light upon the subject.

That Miss Baldwin should ever have been fond of the Misses Raidsford's faces, surprised Heather not a little; but still she knew that Kemms Park had at one time patronized Moorlands, and was able to comprehend now where the sting of the Berrie Down acquaintanceship lay.

With all her heart she wished Miss Baldwin would leave the girls alone. Beyond all things she dreaded their being exposed to jealous and envious remarks. The blessed seclusion, the utter privacy in which they had hitherto lived, must, she knew, have quite unfitted them to bear unkind speeches, or ill-natured inuendoes with equanimity.

Had she acted rightly in leaving them alone at Berrie Down--alone to receive many visitors, and to bear the brunt of such gossip as that in which she perceived Mrs. Raidsford was not above indulging? The new acquaintances, whom Heather in her innocence had imagined would make the country a pleasanter residence for the girls, might only expose their conduct to misconstruction. She had no fear of anything Agnes and Laura might say or do, but she felt afraid of what might be said of them. Lord Kemms, she knew, was now at the Park, having at length returned from Austria; and in one of her letters Agnes mentioned his having called at Berrie Down with his aunt.

Could this be another thorn in Mrs. Raidsford's side? Small as was the amount of tittle-tattle which reached Heather's ears, still she had heard some talk of an attachment between Lord Kemms and one of the young ladies at Moorlands. And, although it never entered into her mind to imagine her husband's portionless sisters could prove rivals to the great contractor's daughters, she yet gradually came to understand that Mrs. Raidsford was of a different opinion, and felt Berrie Down to be a stumbling-block in her path.

"There is some distinction come between Mr. R. and his Lordship," Mrs. Raidsford was kind enough to explain to Mrs. Dudley; "we are not on the same terms of equality with him that we used to be. I must say, I think the coolness began on our side, for Mr. R., as you, no doubt, have heard, has a perfect maniac against companies of all kinds, just as though people had not a right to make themselves into companies if they like, and it seems his Lordship told him he would have nothing to do with that 'Protective' affair of yours--no offence, Mrs. Dudley--after which he went away and becomes one of the fundamental proprietors of it. So, when his Lordship came home, Mr. R. put on his high and mighty, and would not call at the Park--as if the 'Protective' was any business of his--and so, when we meet, we only bow; and I am as satisfied as I can be of anything that his Lordship knows no more than the babe unborn what the reason of our distance is. Indeed, he was beginning to ask me at the station, when we met him, only the train moved off before he could complete his inquiry. I think I shall write to his Lordship, and detail the matter. If Mr. R. likes to disseparate himself from old friends, that is no reason why we should--is it, Mrs. Dudley?"

In answer to which appeal, Heather said she did not know. She thought, however, she should not like to be on friendly terms with any one to whose acquaintance her husband objected.

"But, then, you are like nobody else," retorted Mrs. Raidsford.

This remark, intended to be both hurtful and depreciating, failed of its effect, because Heather mentally hoped she was not much like Mrs. Raidsford. "A woman whom Raidsford ought to have been pilloried for marrying," observed Mr. Stewart; "apparently, he is a very worthy fellow himself, but I am quite satisfied there must be some terrible want in the character of any person who could make such a creature his wife. There ought to be a law against those kind of marriages."

"Pray, complete your sentence, Mrs. Dudley," said Mr. Stewart; "you have roused my curiosity, and it is not fair to have it unsatisfied."

"I only hesitated lest what rose to my mind might sound ill-natured. I do not mean, however, any sneer when I say, that perhaps Mrs. Raidsford may have been very suitable to her husband when he married her. It is so difficult to express an opinion like that without appearing to reflect on a man's origin," she added, getting into unutterable depths of confusion; "but I often think about a speech, a very dear girl I once knew made, concerning Mrs. Raidsford. She said, 'it was such a pity a man could not choose again when he came to years of social discretion.'"

"She used to say also," remarked Lucy Dudley, "that if Mr. Raidsford could only have foreseen how high he was to rise in the world, Mrs. Raidsford would probably now have been wife to some mechanic--cooking steaks for his one o'clock dinner, instead of being mistress of Moorlands, and having servants much more ladylike than herself under her. Bessie never was weary of mimicking Mrs. Raidsford."

"Who was this clever young lady?" asked Mr. Stewart, for whom the very bitterness of such a speech had its peculiar charm.

"A cousin of ours," Lucy answered.

"Married, or still eligible?" inquired the old bachelor.

Lucy did not reply; she looked at Heather, who, after a moment's embarrassed pause, replied,--

"She was engaged to be married, when with us, last winter; but we have not heard from her since she left Berrie Down."

"Some feminine quarrel," thought Mr. Stewart; and, looking out over the sea, he laughed softly to himself at the idea that all women were alike,--that no two women could agree; that, let them be young or old, pretty or ugly, sweet or sour, they could still jangle and dispute like the veriest viragoes.

And yet, this Mrs. Dudley puzzled him: if she had a temper, she must, he thought, have it under wonderful control; if there were any evil in her, she must have an astonishing power of concealing its existence. To sisters and children, to friends and servants, she was alike, gentle and forbearing. Never but once did Mr. Stewart see her eyes darken, and her face flush under the influence of any strong emotion; and then it was a slight thing which caused the tell-tale blood to rush to brow, and cheek, and neck.

"I expect my niece, Mrs. Croft, to-morrow," he said; "I am happy to think she will be able to make your acquaintance."

Then there came that look, which was not quite pleasant, over Heather's face,--that look which set Mr. Stewart marvelling as to "what could be up" between the two women? Not an early jealousy, he decided; for Mrs. Croft was many a year older than Mrs. Dudley. What could it be? He was an especially inquisitive old gentleman, as sharp and keen concerning matters of feeling, as he was about matters of business, and so he went on,--

"You have never met her, I think?"

"Never," Heather answered; "but my husband knew Mrs. Croft very well indeed at one time, and quite recently they renewed their former acquaintance at Copt Hall."

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