It has always been my foible to speak before I look. I took it for granted—”
“I don’t suppose you intended any harm, sir,” said Marion coldly. “If we could have afforded a servant to attend the door, we should not have been forced to take lodgers.” She turned to the elder man and added: “We have three vacant rooms on the floor above, and a smaller room on the top story. You might divide the accommodation to suit yourselves. You can come up stairs, if you like, and see whether they would suit you.”
The gentlemen assented, and followed Marion over the upper part of the house. The elder man examined the rooms and the furniture with care; but the younger kept his regards fixed rather upon the guide than upon what she showed them. Her gait, the movement of her arms, the carriage of her head, her tone and manner of speaking, all were subjected to his scrutiny. He said little, but took care that what he did say should be of a courteous and conciliatory nature. The elder man asked questions pleasantly, and seemed pleased with the answers Marion gave him. Within a short time the crudity and harshness of the first part of the interview began to vanish, and the relations of the three became more genial and humane. There was here and there a smile, and once, at least, a laugh. Marion, who was always quick to recognize the humorous aspect of a situation, already foresaw herself making her mother merry with an account of this adventure, when the heroes of it should have gone away. The party returned to the sitting-room in a very good humor with one another, therefore.
“For my part, I am more than satisfied,” remarked the elder gentleman, taking out his snuff-box. “Do you agree with me, Mr. Lancaster?”
Lancaster did not reply. He was gazing with great interest at the oil portrait that hung on the wall. At length he turned to Marion and said: “Is that—may I ask who that is?”
“My father.”
“Was he a major in the 97th regiment?”
“Did you know him?”
“I knew Major Lockhart; He—of course you know—fell at Waterloo.”
“We know that he was killed there, but we have no particulars,” said Marion, her voice faltering, and her eyes full of painful eagerness.
“And you are Miss Lockhart—the Marion he spoke of?”
“Wait a moment,” she said, in a thick voice, and turning pale. She walked to the window, and pressed her forehead against the glass. Presently she turned round and said, “I will call my mother, sir. She must hear what you have to tell us,” and left the room.
“A strange chance this!” remarked the elder man thoughtfully.
“She’s a fine girl, and looks like her father,” said Lancaster.
In a few moments Marion re-entered with her mother. Mrs. Lockhart looked from one to the other of the two men with wide-open eyes and flushed cheeks: a slight tremor pervaded the hand with which she mechanically smoothed the thick braids of gray hair that covered her graceful head. She moved with an uncertain step to a chair, and said in a voice scarcely audible, “Will you be seated, gentlemen? My daughter tells me that you—one of you—”
“The honor belongs to me, madam,” said Lancaster, with deep respect and with some evidence of emotion, “of having seen your husband the day before his death. He mentioned both of you; he said no man in the army had had so happy a life as he—such a wife and such a daughter. I shall remember other things that he said, by-and-by; but this meeting has come upon me by surprise, and. … The day after the battle I rode out to the field and found him. He had fallen most gallantly—I need not tell you that—at a moment such as all brave soldiers would wish to meet death in. He was wounded through the heart, and must have died instantly. I assumed the privilege of bringing his body to Brussels, and of seeing it buried there.” Here he paused, for both the women were crying, and, in sympathy with them, his own voice was getting husky. The elder man sat with his face downcast, and his hands folded between his knees.
“Is the grave marked?” he suddenly asked, looking up at Lancaster.
“Yes; the name, and the regiment, and the date. I brought something from him,” he went on, addressing Marion, as being the stronger of the two women; “it was fastened by a gold chain round his neck, and he wore it underneath his coat. You would have received it long ago if I had known where to find you.” He held out to her, as he spoke, a small locket with its chain. Marion took it, and held it pressed between her hands, not saying anything. After a moment, the two gentlemen exchanged a glance, and got up. The elder gentleman approached Marion with great gentleness of manner; and, when she arose and attempted to speak, he put his hand kindly on her shoulder.
“I had a little girl once, who loved me,” he said. “You must let me go without ceremony now; to-morrow I shall ask leave to come back and complete our arrangements. God bless you, my child! Are you going with me, Mr. Lancaster?”
“Shall you come back to-morrow, too?” said Marion to the latter.
“Indeed I will.”
“Then I won’t try to thank you now,” she replied. But their eyes met for a moment, and Lancaster did not feel that the recognition of his service had been postponed.
They were going out without attempting to take leave of Mrs. Lockhart; but she rose up from her chair and courtseyed to them with a grace and dignity worthy of Fanny Pell. And then, yielding to an impulse that was better than the best high breeding, the gentle widow stepped quickly up to Lancaster, and put her arms about his neck, and kissed him.
CHAPTER VI.
THE great banking-house of Bendibow Brothers, like many other great things, had a modest beginning. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a certain Mr. Abraham Bendibow in London, who kept a goldsmith’s shop in the neighborhood of Whitechapel, and supplemented the profits of that business by lending money at remunerative interest, on the security of certain kinds of personal property. To his customers and casual acquaintances he was merely a commonplace, keen, cautious, hard-headed and hard-hearted man of business; and, perhaps, till as lately as the second decade of the century, this might have fairly represented his own opinion of himself. Nevertheless, there lurked in his character, in addition to the qualities above mentioned, two others which are by no means commonplace, namely, imagination and enterprise. They might have lurked there unsuspected till the day of his death, but for the intervention of circumstances—to make use of a convenient word of which nobody has ever explained the real meaning. But, in 1711, that ingenious nobleman, the Earl of Oxford, being animated by a praiseworthy desire to relieve a nightmare of a half-score million sterling or so of indebtedness which was then oppressing the government, hit upon that famous scheme which has since entered into history under the name of the South Sea Bubble. The scheme attracted Bendibow’s attention, and he studied it for some time in his usual undemonstrative but thoroughgoing manner. Whenever occasion offered he discussed it, in an accidental and indifferent way, with all kinds of people. At the end of two or three years he probably understood more about the affair than any other man in London. Whether he believed that it was a substance or a bubble will never be known to any one except himself. All that can be affirmed is that he minded his own business, and imparted his opinion to no one. The opinion gradually gained ground that he shared the views of Sir Robert Walpole, who, in the House of Commons, was almost the only opposer of the South Sea scheme. So matters went on until the year 1720.
It was at this period that the excitement and convulsion began. The stock had risen to 330. Abraham Bendibow sat in his shop, and preserved an unruffled demeanor. The stock fell to below 300; but Abraham kept his strong box locked, and went about his business as usual. Stock mounted again to 340; but nobody perceived any change in Mr. Bendibow. For all any one could see, he might never have heard of the South Sea scheme in his life. And yet a great fortune was even then in his grasp, had he chosen to stretch out his hand to take it.
Weeks