page break

Chapter X. The Bracelet.

Miss Northcote was not able that day to have it out with Dick, for she hardly saw him after she got home. He went to dine with some people at Morebay, and was to stay all night, and go with them the next day to a cricket-match. Thus his aunt had plenty of time for making up her mind what she would say to him.

That next day was Saturday. Captain Cardew came home early from the dockyard, and, having enjoyed his after-dinner nap in the parlour, joined his wife and daughter in the drawing-room. Something had been brewing in the Captain’s head for several days, and he thought it would be as well to clear the air before Sunday. Thinking Flora quite old enough to manage her own affairs, he had said nothing to his wife in private, and Mrs. Cardew, though she had seen for several days that he was put out, had not asked him why. The Captain generally smoked away his whims in time.

He came into the room, and found his wife working in the window, and Flora reading a letter, which she folded up and put into her pocket as he entered.

‘Is that from Dick Northcote? Can’t he go away for a day without writing to you? said Captain Cardew.

‘No. From one of my friends,’ answered Flora, a shade of annoyance crossing her fair face.

She had always been independent at home, but since she came back a widow her parents had been made to understand that all her affairs, her friendships, her correspondence, were completely her own. They thought page 90 this the right thing, and seldom interfered with her in any way; it was a singularly peaceful household.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said the Captain. ‘Stay where you are, Flora,’ as she was slowly rising from her chair. ‘I want to speak to you.’

‘Well?’ said Flora, sitting down again.

Captain Cardew began walking up and down the room. Flora glanced at her mother with elevated eyebrows. Mrs. Cardew shook her head violently, to show her perfect ignorance of what might be the matter.

‘Did you say you wished to speak to me?’ said Flora, after waiting a few moments.

‘Yes,’ said the Captain. ‘I have a question to ask. What is to be the end of all this nonsense between you and young Northcote?’

‘What an odd question, father! I hardly know how to answer it. But I suppose all nonsense comes to the same end,’ said Flora, smiling a little.

‘You think, then, that he is only playing with you. And do you suppose that I am going to put up with that?’

‘I don’t exactly mean that. You had better not distress yourself, I can settle it.’

‘No. That is just the sort of thing I don’t mean to stand. Though you are Mrs. Lancaster you are under your father’s roof, and I tell you I will not have these doings, unless there is some good reason for them. I shall speak to the fellow myself, and find out what his intentions really are.’

‘For goodness’ sake, don’t do that!’ said Flora.

‘I shall, though. I suppose you think your chance won’t be improved by being taken up by your old father. I shall speak in a louder voice than—than General Hawke would, I daresay, and maybe use some rough words.’

‘O Captain, do hold your tongue! You’re making page 91 Flora quite ill!’ exclaimed Mrs. Cardew, jumping up and hurrying to her daughter.

Flora had flushed crimson, and made a little start, as if she meant to run out of the room. But then she paused and lay back, closing her eyes, as if there was nothing for it but to hear her father to the end.

‘A couple of geese!’ said the Captain angrily to himself. ‘Sit down,’ to his wife; ‘there is nothing the matter with her, and I have not done yet. Listen to a few words of sense, Flora, if you can.’

Flora opened her eyes, and bent her head.

‘You don’t seem to take it in,’ said the Captain, ‘but it is a very awkward thing for you to be run after by a fellow like that. It was a different thing when he was a schoolboy. I tell you, unless I am convinced that something is to come of it, I won’t have it at all. I’ll let him know that he must behave to you as he would to a lady of his own rank.’

‘Dear me! So he does. I am quite able to take care of myself, I assure you,’ said Flora. ‘Pray leave me to settle it.’

‘Then you are quite sure that he means to marry. you?’ said the Captain fiercely.

‘If he has the chance, I suppose he does. I don’t know, really, father. I wish you would not make such a fuss about nothing.’

‘Nothing!’ repeated the Captain. ‘I don’t consider it nothing. It is not nothing, and so Mr. Dick North-cote shall find. You are a great fool for having encouraged him at all, but you must have somebody dangling after you. I thought you had had enough of these gentlemen. You would not get on with his relations any more than with poor Lancaster’s. Worse, for people down here are three times as proud. I don’t believe they would acknowledge you at all. Miss Northcote bowed to me the other day, but as coldly as if she page 92 wasn’t quite sure who I was. If you like that sort of thing, I don’t. Nor does your mother, good-natured as she is.’

‘Well,’ said Flora, with a sigh, ‘what do you want me to do?’

Before the Captain had answered this question, which seemed to puzzle him a little, there was a ring, Dick’s ring, as Flora knew very well. She smiled rather oddly, and glanced at her mother. Would her father attack him on the spot? She hardly thought so, in spite of all his talk. But after a minute’s delay the maid came in and brought her a small parcel.

‘Mr. Northcote left it for you, ma’am,’ she said.

Flora held it in her hand for a minute and looked at it. It was smartly done up in white paper, with her name on it in Dick’s untidy straggling hand, and his initials, ‘R. N.,’ in the corner.

‘Goodness!’ said Mrs. Cardew, under her breath, ‘it looks like wedding-cake.’

‘Well, are you going to open it?’ said the Captain.

Flora opened it, and there appeared a dark red leather case, which in its turn revealed a very pretty gold bracelet set with turquoises. In Flora’s face, as she looked, were both dismay and amusement.

‘How could he be so silly!’ she said, half to herself.

But the amusement fled when she looked at her father. He walked up to her, took the case out of her hand, and shut it with a sounding snap, just as Mrs. Cardew was bursting into admiration.

‘Answer me two questions, Flora,’ he said. ‘Are you engaged to young Northcote?’

‘No, father, of course not.’

‘Are you sure that you ever will be?’

‘No.’

‘You accept no presents from him till you are. Is this the first?’

page 93

‘Yes. What are you going to do with it?’

‘I am going after him with it—this moment. I mean him to know what I think. So you may say good-bye to your bracelet. Leave it there. I am going to put my other coat on.’

Mrs. Cardew listened with horrified eyes, Flora without remark or remonstrance.

‘My darling child,’ said the mother, when Captain Cardew had left the room, ‘I can’t think what makes your father so violent. Are you very much vexed, dear? Will poor Dick be angry?’

‘I daresay he will,’ said Flora. ‘Yes, I’m vexed, too; I detest explosions. I could have managed it all so quietly myself.’

‘Of course there can’t be a doubt about him,’ said Mrs. Cardew. ‘I do call it nonsense. Why, he worships the very ground you walk on.’

‘If he does, it is all the more unpleasant that he should be bullied into saying so,’ said Flora.

‘To be sure, dear. But it’s no use talking to your father. Men are so stupid, when once they take a thing into their heads. Dear me, how I should have liked to see you in that bracelet! Just try it on. What good taste he has!’

‘No, mother, let it alone,’ said Flora.

Dick, meanwhile, after leaving his precious parcel, had not gone home, but away for a walk into the country. He was inclined to put off facing his aunt as long as possible. So it happened that Captain Cardew, arriving very red and bristling at Miss Northcote’s house, was shown into the drawing-room, where she was sitting alone. She was very much surprised to see her visitor, and perhaps looked so. The Captain made her a low bow.

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ he said. ‘There is some mistake. I called to see your nephew.’

page 94

‘He is not come in yet, but I expect him soon,’ said Kate. ‘Will you sit down and wait for him, Captain Cardew? or can I give him any message?’

Upon this, Captain Cardew dived into his pocket for poor Dick’s parcel, roughly folded up again, and presented it to her with another bow.

‘What is it?’ said Kate, holding it and looking at it doubtfully.

‘It is a bracelet,’ said the Captain rather hoarsely.

‘A bracelet!’ she said, with a strong inclination to smile. ‘Am I to give it to my nephew?’

‘If you will take the trouble to read what is written on that paper, you will see that it is addressed by Mr. Northcote to my daughter,’ answered the Captain, with extreme politeness.

‘O!’ said Kate. She began to see how things were tending. Laying the parcel on the table, she looked Captain Cardew straight in the face. When one pair of honest eyes meets another, there need not be many roundabout ways between them. ‘Pray sit down, and make me understand all about this,’ she said frankly.

‘I have nothing to say that will please you, Miss Northcote,’ said the old sailor, but he obeyed her and sat down.

The presence of a lady was curiously taming; his wife and daughter would hardly have known him again. But he was not awkward, for the good breeding that the sea gives her sons never deserted him. Kate, not knowing what was before her, was the more uneasy of the two. There was a flush of excitement in her cheeks, and her heart was beating very fast; what had Dick been doing?

‘Mr. Northcote left that parcel at my door twenty minutes ago,’ said Captain Cardew. ‘But I have to say to him that as long as he is not openly engaged to my daughter, she will accept no presents from him. I’m page 95 sorry to mention the words, ma’am, for I know they must annoy you. But it seems as if that was what he meant.’

‘You think so?’ said Kate, and she sighed.

‘I like the young fellow,’ the Captain went on, warming to his subject. ‘I think it is a pity that he should be so soft. People ought to marry in their own rank of life. My daughter has married out of hers once, and I suppose she may be inclined to do so again, though the first was none too pleasant. I tell her she will repent; but young people are wilful. You knew all about this, ma’am?’

‘Of course, I could not help knowing something of it,’ said Kate. ‘But Dick has said nothing to me, and I did not know it had gone so far.’

‘It’s a great annoyance to you, of course,’ said the Captain.

‘I can’t pretend to be pleased,’ she answered quietly.

‘Well, I came here to tell young Mr. Northcote that I would have no more shilly-shallying. Either he engages himself to my daughter, or he gives her up at once, and we see the last of this dawdling about together. It is not respectable, I say, and though she is a widow, I suppose she is still my child. Now will you let an old fellow give you a word of advice?’

‘Go on, please, Captain Cardew,’ said Kate, bowing her head.

‘You don’t want this affair to go any further. Neither do I. There is no good in it for either of them. When you speak to your nephew about it, tell him that his wisest course will be to sheer off altogether. Then he’ll please Flora’s relations and his own.’

Kate sat silent for a minute or two, considering.

‘Thank you,’ she said at last. ‘It is very good of you to say that. But I don’t know that a thing like this can be settled so easily. What would Mrs. Lancaster page 96 think of him, if, after going so far, he was to sheer off suddenly?’

She smiled a little, and looked at the Captain.

‘Disagreeable for both sides, of course,’ said he. ‘But people who flirt must take the consequences. Better for Flora to be disappointed now than afterwards. She has a spirit of her own, and it would hurt her, Miss Northcote, if you were to take no notice of her. I told her that was what she would have to expect. Ladies like you are proud, you see.’

‘Proud! Well, perhaps I am,’ said Kate, ‘but in a different sense from yours. Much too proud, Captain Cardew, to wish my nephew to behave dishonourably to your daughter, if he has led her to think that he is really attached to her.’

The Captain stared, and made no answer. After a moment’s pause Kate went on, speaking with an effort, but very earnestly.

‘And too proud to insult Dick by refusing to acknowledge his wife. That would be a great cruelty, a great wrong, both to him and her and myself. You may be quite easy about that.’

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, for expecting anything else,’ said the Captain, getting up and bowing. ‘You have shown me what a true lady is. Good-evening to you.’

‘I will talk to Dick when he comes in,’ said Miss Northcote, ‘and he shall do what he wishes and thinks right. In the mean while, won’t you take the bracelet back? It will vex him to see it here.’

‘Thank you, I won’t,’ said the Captain. ‘I don’t care if he is vexed. People have to be brought to their senses.’

‘Very well, as you please,’ said Kate.

As he turned to leave the room she held out her hand to him with a smile. He took the tips of her fingers held them for an instant, and dropped them with page 97 mother bow. Then he went out, in a much better temper, leaving the bone of contention, represented by Dick’s unfortunate parcel, on Miss Northcote’s table.

Dick came in presently, and sat down in his favourite place by the window. His aunt went up to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder.

‘My Dick, I want you to behave like a man.’

‘Who says I don’t?’ asked Dick, in a rather antagonistic way. ‘Now I’m going to catch it,’ he thought; yet his aunt’s face and manner were so reassuringly gentle as to puzzle him.

‘Like a gentleman, perhaps, I ought to say,’ said Kate. ‘I want you to be open with me, and to tell me all about—Mrs. Lancaster. How long is it since you found you couldn’t trust me?’

A minute or two of dead silence. Dick sat staring out of the window.

‘Hang it!’ he said. ‘I’m in such an awful fix. I thought you would never bear to hear of it. You would laugh; no, you’d be desperately cross, for it is no laughing matter.’

‘I shall neither laugh nor be cross. Perhaps I know as much as you can tell me—except what the fix is—for it all seems to me plain sailing enough.’

‘I’m a fool, you know,’ said Dick.

‘Suppose we grant that. I don’t want to hear about foolishness. What is it that you seriously mean to do?’

‘Aunt Kate, you are too hard on a fellow.’

‘Don’t be weak. I am prepared to hear that you are engaged to Flora Lancaster. Am I right?’

‘Not quite that.’

‘Ought you to be?’

‘What on earth do you mean? You don’t think I ought.’

‘I have something to tell you,’ said Kate; and standing there she told him of Captain Cardew’s visit, of page 98 the returned bracelet, of what the Captain had said, and what she had said to him. ‘I will hide nothing from you,’ she said. ‘You know enough of the world to judge for yourself. I should like to know what your feeling is with regard to her; what you mean to do.’

Kate emphasised her speech now and then by a little pressure of Dick’s shoulder. There was some uncertainty in her voice, and she found it difficult to remember that she was not talking to a schoolboy.

‘Well, now,’ said Dick suddenly, ‘you understand the awful fix I’m in—or was in till you said all that. I thought you hated the very idea so thoroughly, that I didn’t like to breathe it to you; and all the while I kept on getting deeper and deeper in. I hate rows, and I thought there would be such a row if I asked her. I thought you would shut your doors on me, perhaps cut me off with a shilling. And you don’t mind it after all? You are a brick!’

‘Then what did you mean to do? How did you expect it to end?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Dick. ‘I enjoyed to-day, and didn’t think about to-morrow. Fancy the old Captain turing crusty like that!’

‘He was quite right. Does Mrs. Lancaster share your happy indifference to to-morrow?’

‘Pretty well, I think. Generally,’ said Dick, becoming a little doubtful, as he remembered some irritable moments of Flora’s, some clouds athwart the smiles.

‘I hardly believe that,’ said Miss Northcote. ‘Now tell me—if any friend of yours was in the same case, had paid Mrs. Lancaster all the attention you have paid her, had said the same things to her, would you think him justified in drawing back now and going no further?’

‘As you ask me, I can’t say that I should.’

‘Then take the same rule for yourself,’ said Miss Northcote sadly. ‘I don’t know whether you really care page 99 for her, or whether it is only a fancy for a pretty face. At any rate, after all I have heard, I think you are bound to ask her. Does she care for you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Dick. ‘I’m not sure. I hope she does, for the more I’m with her the more charming I think her. She was my fate, you see, But you—won’t you hate it horribly?

‘We won’t enter into that. I’ll behave as well as I can.’

‘O, bother! If it makes you miserable—’ said Dick penitently.

‘My dear old fellow, I can’t be miserable as long as I feel that you are doing right,’ said Kate, with a great deal of feeling in her voice. She bent over Dick and kissed him on the forehead. Then she went away to her own room, and what she did there can be best imagined by a mother whose son has disappointed her