RELIEF; BUT A DEADLIER BLOW THREATENED.

When Mat Crabtree reached the railway station, the first person he saw on the platform was Lambert, looming as large as life and larger in the yachting costume and sailor’s hat he still wore, and looking a few shades nearer a brick red, not from shame, but from recent exposure to sun and wind.

Mat stood stock still under the shock, and blinked his blue eyes more wildly than when he had first stumbled on his Berkshire Miss Gray, while Lambert hailed his brother with one of his hoarse laughs. It was Lambert who was the challenger, showing himself in the act, hilariously defiant of eavesdroppers. ‘What are you seeking here, old boy? You ain’t on a wild-goose chase after me? Thought I had bolted, hey?’ with another haw-haw.

Mat’s heart had given a great bound of relief. Matters were ‘beastly,’ but they could not have been quite so bad as they had looked, else Lambert would not be there to speak for himself. He had certainly not entertained any thought of absconding. He had been cruising somewhere in the latitude of the Scilly Isles as had been at first conjectured. He had been wronged by the suspicions which had been heaped upon him. These were the first reflections roused by Lambert’s sudden appearance in a kindred breast as honourable and humane as Lambert’s was growing always baser and more brutal. But they were quickly followed by a boiling ferment of wrath at the cavalier tone assumed by the bankrupt banker.

It was a country station little frequented, and the two brothers had turned aside from the few lookers-on near the ticket office, and walked to the farther end of the platform where they could be alone.

‘You have given room for talk,’ said Mat, more coldly and sourly than he had ever before addressed a fellow-creature whose back was at the wall. ‘Do you know what has happened in your absence?’

Lambert nodded. ‘That the concern has gone to pigs and whistles,’ he said defiantly. ‘I confess I was prepared for that _dénouement_, and wished it well over while my back was turned. But that some idiots should open the ball by a frustrated robbery, of course I could not foresee that little accident,’ he said hastily, glancing furtively from beneath his light eye-lashes at his brother.

‘Who told you of the robbery and its frustration?’ demanded Mat, sharply.

‘Who told me of the robbery? Why, I read it in the first newspaper I got after I landed. I say, I ain’t going to stand being cross-questioned here. I have been waiting, kicking my heels since the train came in, to see if that ass of a station-master could find me a conveyance to take me over to Haybridge. I’m too big a boy for walking. Do you know what the hour is? Between eight and nine, by Jove! I have not dined yet, and I hardly had a snack of luncheon. I daresay you don’t care. It is too much to expect hospitality from a brother when one has gone to the dogs. But I think I might have counted on a friendlier reception after I came back of my own accord to stand the row, just to save trouble, and not to leave Susie in the lurch.’

‘Susie! There are more than Susie in the lurch who have done less to deserve it--not that I wish to throw the blame on any woman. You can come along with me. The trap is not gone, but I must tell you Jem Coplestone is at my house.’

‘The devil he is!’ ejaculated Lambert, growling, and stroking his hairy upper lip viciously.

‘He arrived to day in time to hear that the bank had stopped payment. He came on to me. I could not remain with him, but I persuaded him to stay over the night, as he was knocked up by the journey and by the blow he had received. He looks in miserably bad health.’

‘Oh! he was always a duffer,’ remarked Lambert, carelessly.

‘He has stood at his post like a man in that trying climate all these years,’ said Mat with strong indignation. ‘He has done his best for his family and his profession. He has not spent other people’s money lavishing it on his own senseless extravagance.’

‘Nor robbed widows’ houses,’ chimed in Lambert, with mock gravity. ‘Well, anyhow you can’t say I’ve made long prayers.’

‘You had better come on and tell what you can about these bonds,’ said Mat Crabtree sternly.

‘Not I,’ refused Lambert flatly. ‘I am not going to be sat upon by you and him together--not if I know it. If I’m due anywhere it is in Newton to Susie. I’ll rather go straight there and get the worst of it over.’

‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Mat, stiffly; ‘your place is among your partners--such as are left--old Hutchinson is not expected to live over the night--the shock has finished him. And you are due to your customers, to render an account to them. But Susie is not at the Bank House.’

‘Not at the Bank House!’ cried Lambert, arrested in his walk, his red face getting purple in a second; his eyes--goggle at the best--looking as if they were about to start from their sockets. ‘Where the hang is she?’

‘She has gone with her children to her father’s. She has been at Redcot since the day after the robbery.’

‘What made her do that?’ demanded her husband, angrily. ‘It was doocedly foolish. She must have lost her head. What were you about that you did not prevent it?’

‘I was not at home. I knew nothing of what had happened. I believe Spiers tried to make her stay where she was, but he did not succeed. It does not strike me as at all wonderful that she should have got frightened and gone to her father’s when you did not come home. You appear to have left the bank in ticklish circumstances, to say the least, and to have stayed away with a light heart.’

‘I went up to town on urgent business,’ answered Lambert, more sullenly than he had yet spoken; ‘and a man must have some relaxation. His nose is not to be kept at the grindstone the whole year round. I have told you already, I could not anticipate that the bank would be broken into in my absence. It had never happened before, and it ain’t likely that the thieves would take me into their confidence. I don’t see that my presence would have been much good, unless as a supposed protection against burglars. By-the-bye’--he broke off abruptly, and turned upon his brother with a new light in his insolent eyes--‘Susie was not without protection. She might have had Parsons, but I saw by the papers that she had young Hopeful with her--that Johnnie--Jack Prior--whatever you like to call my fine roving blade of a brother-in-law--turned up in the nick of time and slept in the house on the night of the robbery. I call on you to witness that was none of my doing. I did not put the young gentleman--I’m afraid no stretch of politeness could call him his father’s, only his mammy’s darling--into the place of danger. He chose to stay in my house, instead of returning home after his long absence, which one would have thought the more natural proceeding. It was what pious folk call an interposition of Providence,’ and Lambert laughed again maliciously, with the same evil light in his ugly eyes.

‘I don’t see that Jack Prior’s being with his sister had to do with what happened,’ said Mat impatiently. ‘He was not aware of anything unusual, and he had started for Oxford before the clerks discovered the state of the safe.’

‘I’ll send over the carriage to fetch Sue home the first thing to-morrow,’ said Lambert, pursuing his own train of thought. ‘The brats can stay where they are at present, if they are not too much for the other cubs and for Tommy. By the way, Mat, what is this that I hear about you and the children at Redcot’s keeper? Ain’t you too old for such folly? Why, I was not such a raging lunatic when I was ten years younger. I certainly aspired to a daughter of the house, not to a hired-servant.’

‘You had better mind your own business,’ his brother told him sarcastically. ‘From what I can judge, it will require all your attention. The carriage!’ and he put a marked emphasis on the word. ‘Does it not occur to you how it will feel to the people whom you have rendered penniless to see your wife bowl past them in all the ease and dignity of her carriage, on their dark day, which ought at least to be as dark to her as to them?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Lambert, staring in amazement. ‘You would not have Susie pad the hoof because the bank has failed? I should like to hear anybody propose such a thing to her. I should like to see her try it. Why, I ain’t up to it myself since I took on so many stones--I say, Mat, you’ll have to give me a lift in your trap as far as the cross-roads. And I do not know why you should be in such a funk, old man. You have taken care that you are well out of the mess. Ah! if I had been left the squire of Haybridge, it might have been different!’

‘You mean that Haybridge would have been mortgaged every acre, or sold outright half-a-dozen years ago? No, there was nothing wrong with your inheritance, Lambert, it was fair enough in all conscience--only, it put too many people in your power, the worse for them.’

‘And do you think it is particularly pleasant for me to go back in this fashion to Newton, where I have held my own for a good many years now?’ demanded Lambert, speaking for the first time savagely, and turning away his face. ‘I’ll give you a hint, my upright and prudent brother--it is not wise to talk that rot of a fine inheritance, every rap of which is gone, to a ruined man.’

Mat felt a little guilty. ‘What about the bank’s assets?’ he inquired, recurring to a less personal topic.

Lambert began forthwith to vapour, but, so far as Mat Crabtree could gather, the assets, like everything else, were of the plunging order, wind bags and false lights, with just a little solid foundation to keep them in existence. If it had not been for similar experiences which he had both seen and read of, Mat could hardly have believed the amount of capital and credit which his brother had contrived to squander within a limited time, and the number of dupes he had found in every class, whose credulity or avarice had made them his victims.

The interview between the couple ended characteristically, in Mat’s declining to lend Lambert his company, but giving him the use of his trap to Newton, while the owner of the trap plodded his way, a heart-sore, harassed man, in the summer darkness back to Haybridge.

Before Mat Crabtree slept he despatched a messenger to Redcot with a note to Mr. Prior--‘Lambert has turned up to give an account of himself. I’m afraid it will not be to much purpose, but let us hope the best. Be so good as to tell Susie.’

Of course Susie was glad that Lamb had come at last, but she showed no overpowering joy. Her thankfulness was shown in a determination coinciding with his opinion on the subject, as announced to his brother, that she would go home to-morrow the first thing.

But there were others at Redcot less nearly related to Lambert Crabtree, and by no means remarkable for personal attachment to him, who drew a deep breath of relief and lay down to rest with their minds lightened of a heavy load, because he was there alive and well.

The next day dawned without any trace of portent save that the sky, after a renewed storm in the night, seemed uncertain whether to cloud over again or to clear afresh, and the garden roses still hung their heads surcharged with wet. After breakfast Jane Prior was with Miss Gray and the children in the schoolroom, when, in answer to a knock and a permission to enter, all present were startled by the sudden appearance of Mat Crabtree in unusual guise. His coat was stained with earth, and one sleeve was torn, so was the shirt sleeve within, showing that the arm was grazed and bleeding, while his face was white as of a man sick at heart. He anticipated the general exclamation of fright and distress by an imperative ‘Hush. Don’t be alarmed--don’t rouse the house. I have had a fall from my horse. I was riding fast and she cast a shoe and stumbled when I was not attending to her, but there is no harm done. I came in here--I know the room--to see if anybody could put me right before I asked to see Mr. Prior. No, no, don’t speak about getting brandy, thanks; I am not faint, just brush my coat, if one of you will be so good, and fasten up my sleeve. I must see Mr. Prior immediately, but I don’t wish to frighten people more than I can help.’

He had frightened some people very effectually. His abrupt, unnatural manner, even more than his disordered dress and blanched face, had filled all present with dismay. The children, of whom he took no notice, fell back in a trembling group. Alice, indeed, prepared to flee for assistance and to call out what had happened, but was arrested by a grip like a vice and a ‘stay where you are,’ which reduced her to the abject condition of her companions.

Jane Prior could not put into practice what she knew of stoic philosophy. She grew as pale as the visitor, and since it was not allowable to scream, she could not trust herself to speak.

Bennet Gray found a brush, and sought quickly to remove the marks from the coat, while she succeeded in bringing together the rent cloth so as to hide the hurt to the arm. All the time he was telling her to be quick, for he had not a moment to lose.

Before Bennet had finished there was a ring at the hall bell, early as it was for visitors. ‘Good Lord!’ Mat Crabtree cried aloud, ‘it is too late to prepare them,’ broke away from her, and hurried off to the morning-room where the family breakfasted. He left behind him a deep impression. Those who had been his audience felt certain that something quite out of the ordinary course of events had happened, something terrible, overwhelming. It was like their all being about to be swallowed up by an earthquake, little Sam, with a vague, frightened recollection of the thunderstorm of the previous day, suggested in an awed whisper to his sister. Unquestionably something had come to pass which tended to break down in a second all artificial barriers and distinctions between one human being and another, so that by common consent, without pausing to think, the women and children streamed after Mat Crabtree to seek Mr. and Mrs. Prior, Jack and Susie.

Breakfast was over, but Mr. Prior had still sat reading his newspaper at the head of the breakfast table, Jack and his mother remained standing at an open window, by which Susie had thrown herself in a lounging chair, where they had been watching the operations of the gardener on a bed of balsams beaten down by the recent rain.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious puncutation errors and omissions have been corrected.

Page 164: “strangely familar” changed to “strangely familiar”