A Romance of Toronto Part 8

"Timothy, Timothy, be good enough not to swear in my presence."

"Oh, I have gleaned the truth in various devious paths from Sarah Kane in a weak mood, also letters, and I have not lost my sense of hearing; as you have told me since I could lisp that my wits are sharper than Rodgers' cutlery; yes, if Broadlawns went to its owner or the hammer, you joined the Salvation Army, and my step-sister dangled the purse, I feel it in my bones that I could now rival my tutors in living by my wits," she said, cruelly.

"You are not devoid of common sense, Margaret; and as we may not have another opportunity before your importunate suitor appears, I shall refresh your memory by reading again a clause or two of your late step-mother's will ... 'to my husband, Henry Villiers, I bequeath the life use of one thousand pounds sterling per annum; at his death I will and bequeath the whole of my real and personal property to my only daughter (Pearl) Margaret Villiers ... on my little (Pearl) Margaret Villiers attaining her majority, and becoming the wife of the aforesaid Charles Babbington-Cole, son of my friend, Hugh Babbington-Cole, of the Civil Service, Ottawa, Canada; my said daughter shall enter into possession of all my real and personal property, with the advice of Dr.

Annesley, of London, England, or Hugh Babbington-Cole, Esquire, aforesaid, my said daughter to inherit all, subject to the following gifts. To Sarah Kane, five hundred pounds sterling and my wearing apparel; my piano, harp and music, I will and bequeath to the sister-in-law of my husband, Elizabeth Stone, for her mission-work, with the hope that their sweet notes will make her less acid to my poor little daughter, as also to the daughters of the poor to whom she brings the Gospel message of peace. To my step-daughter, Margaret Villiers, I leave my forgiveness for her persistent and unvarying unkindness to myself, with my copy of the Christian Martyrs.'"

"Fool!" muttered her step-daughter, vengefully.

"Poor, carnal creature, we are now ordained to be almoners of the gold she would have spent sinfully on her daughter; we are saving Pearl from the perils of the rich, for easier is it for a camel to go through the----"

"Enough of that cant, Aunt; please keep it bottled up, it don't go down with us," interrupted her niece, hastily.

"The will is plain enough, considering that it was written by herself, and witnessed by Dr. Annesley, and that sneak, Silas Jones; how much the latter knows is hard to tell, I have pumped him indirectly without avail; Annesley, being a busy London physician, will not bother himself in the matter now that Villiers is dead; he has no more love for us than we for him; our card is to expedite your union with speed and privacy; you will most likely go to Canada, as I expect Charles (as we best accustom ourselves to call him) will prefer such arrangement; I shall pay you regularly----"

"Yes, you'd better not try any of your sharp tricks on me, Uncle; if the cheque is not forwarded to the day, Trenton and Barlow will interview you; my sword will also hang by a hair."

"How confoundedly smart we are," he answered, wrathfully.

"I have been brought up in a good school," she replied, sententiously.

"I am glad you are able to appreciate our many useful lessons to you,"

he said, sneeringly. "And now to business; three thousand pounds per annum will be a large income for Canada; especially, as knowing your generous nature, I feel sure it will be all spent on your own wants; had you not better leave us three thousand, and pinch yourself," he said, sarcastically, "on two thousand?"

"Not much! anything I don't spend on myself, as you observe, I shall invest in, I think, C. P. R. stock, or even Grand Trunk, as it is looking up, there being a rumor that next year it will form a connection by way of Duluth, with the Manitoba boundary rail, thus placing itself in compet.i.tion with the C. P. R. You need not stare, I am making myself conversant with the state of the Canadian money market."

"How wise we are. I can tell you that only a fool would invest in such like, with that Red River Valley Railway bungle on. What I want to be made aware of is, have you determined on taking no less than three thousand per annum?"

"I have positively so determined. I don't think I look like a fool."

"I do--in a pink muslin, with as much ribbon hanging over your bustle as would make a decent gown."

"You are neglecting your education, uncle, in your favorite game of gold grab. I'd advise you to go to the city and take a few lessons from the clerks at Swan & Edgar's; they will tell you that in society a bustle is a _tournure_. As for my dress, my role is twenty-one, and I must bear some resemblance to the sweet lines of the poet--of

'Standing with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet.'"

"Dear, dear, what frivolity, and the suburban train is due; we should unite in thanking Providence that this gold is in our hands; but previously, Margaret, you should stipulate in writing that your uncle may pay me the sum of one hundred pounds per annum for my good works.

There is Meg Smith, actually pining for her drunken husband, who says he won't reform until he gets her again; but I have my foot down, and shall keep them apart even if we have to pay her board; there is no use in my telling them not to be 'unequally yoked with unbelievers,' and then give in. I could cite dozens."

"Pray do not. It's my belief all you women care for is power to rule: the wretches would be far better without your government. Heaven preserve me from a woman with a mission," said her brother in disgusted tones. "As to my promising to pay you any stipulated sum, you will receive your allowance for wearing apparel, and anything you can crib out of the housekeeping you will (all women take to that card naturally); but remember, if I find myself on short rations there will be the devil to pay."

"One word more, as the speakers say," said Miss Villiers, "ere we dissolve this profitable (I use the word advisedly) meeting: what fable shall we concoct as to the whereabouts of my angelic step-sister?"

"What an unpleasant way you have of putting things Margaret," said her aunt.

"I prefer on occasion to call 'a spade a spade,' Aunt Elizabeth. Well, uncle, shall it be as to her self-reliant spirit, and that she (being a mistake which means anything) has fled to that broad and convenient field, the United States of America?"

"Yes, that will pa.s.s; but I scarcely think he will inquire, as he has never troubled himself about his betrothed or yourself until you hunted him up."

"At your instigation; so disinterested in you, never thinking of the feathers for your own nest."

"The suburban train is due!" exclaimed her aunt. "Do, Margaret, endeavor to act like a Christian."

"Never fear, Aunt Elizabeth; I shall act my part as well as you do, with self-interest as motive-power: our s.e.x play without a prompter; and now to the drawing-room to awe the ignorant Colonial by our British gold and conventionalities."

CHAPTER VIII.

A TROUBLED SPIRIT.

With mingled feelings of disinclination and repulsion, also an undefined sense of dread and reluctance, poor C. Babbington-Cole left the _City of Chicago_ and, again on _terra firma_, made his way up from the seaboard to London, where at Morley's Hotel he and his father had arranged to meet. "Hang it," he thought moodily, "I feel like an infernal frog out of Acheron, covered with the ooze and mud of melancholy. Jove, if I could only chance upon the Will Smyths or Mrs. Gower, what a tonic they would be; how they would enjoy this madding crowd with all the world abroad, with no blue blood in the beef they eat either; judging from red cheeks and stout ankles. What women! cotton batting would not be a safe investment here; I hope the governor is waiting for me at Morley's, but he must be, as he took the _Circa.s.sian_ from Quebec on the 16th. I'll persuade him not to go out to Bayswater at all, but to abandon this debt of honor, as in his sensitive nature he dubs his promise to a dead woman, for I have no hankering after a martyr's crown. If I am coerced (for I am made of very limp stuff) into this union and she is not a girl I can care to spoon over, and must 'write me down as an a.s.s' for selling my liberty to, then adieu to wedded bliss--I shall again content myself in a den by myself, and my craze for mechanism shall be my wife and my few real friends my mistress. Jove! though, I must strain my eyes and endeavor to see a glimmer of light in the black clouds; if she be a girl after my own heart she will sympathize after a more practical manner than did the 'twenty with Bunthorn,' in giving me the dollar to develop, and obtain a patent for one or other of my inventions. Yes, I'll be a soldier. I am nearing the battle-field; with the smell of powder in my nostrils, I will gain strength. Cabby is reining in his steed, so this, I suppose, is my hotel."

"Morley's, sir; and 'ere be a porter for your baggage, sir."

"All right," and springing from the four-wheeler he is interviewing the clerk.

"Has Mr. Babbington-Cole, from Ottawa, Canada, arrived?"

"No, sir; are you Mr. C. Babbington-Cole?"

"Yes."

"Then here is a cablegram for you, sir."

It was from his father, and ran thus:

"ST. LAWRENCE HALL, "MONTREAL, Sept. 20th.

"To C. BABBINGTON-COLE, Esq., "Morley's Hotel, London, England.

"Your father has been very ill--typhoid fever; called me in; is improving; asks me to cablegram you to return by way of Montreal. Longs to see you and your wife, which will be a panacea for him.

"JOHN PEAKE, M.D."

"My father ill! Oh that I could have foreseen all this," exclaimed Cole, flinging himself into a chair in the privacy of the bedroom a.s.signed him. "To have to face my fate alone," he thought, "and yet I have been aware for some time that this was hanging over me; but the truth is, I thought the girl would never claim me, that they would arbitrate, divide, have a grab game among themselves, anything other than rope me in. Had I been gifted with Scotch second-sight, or even caution, I should not be in this fix now; but I have been made of wax, and so absorbed in my loved inventions, filling in an emotional half hour with an occasional flirtation, with my nose to the grindstone the rest of my time, that this possible 'game of barter,' in which some one says 'the devil always has the best of it,' rarely occurred to me; but this will never do in action, only shall I now find repose. I _must_ go out to Bayswater, and I _must_ wed this girl, unless Heaven works a miracle--no, unless I act the coward's part, cut and run, I am in for it. If I could only moralize on the pantheon of ugly horrors half of our marriages are, and that one might imagine most of them were perpetrated in the dark, or on sight, as mine, then I might console myself by thinking that I have as good a chance of happiness as most. My brain is on fire; if I only had one friend in this vanity fair, wherein to me is no merriment, the babel of sounds seeming to me the guns of the enemy warning me to retreat; talk of _delirium tremens_, I have all the blue devils rolled in one; a stimulant is what I want, to be able to face the music."

And making his way to the bar, in a short time his spirits, with the aid of John Barleycorn, arise; though he knows in the reaction they will be below zero.

"And now for Bayswater and my shrinking young bride," he thought. "I declare," he said, half aloud, with a forced laugh, "I can sympathize, for the first time, with the fly who had a bid from the spider to walk into his parlor. Is there a roaring farce on anywhere?" he asked the bar-tender.

"Yes, sir; a reg'lar side-splitter at the Haymarket. You will 'ave time to take in the matinee and dinner at Broadlawns, Bayswater, too, sir."

"How the deuce did you know I was due there?"

"Mr. Stone and Miss Villiers have called three times to look you up, sir."