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Fenton\'s Quest by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Fenton\'s Quest



FENTON'S QUEST

BY

M. E. BRADDON

The Author of "Lady Audley's Secret," "Aurora Floyd," Etc. Etc. Etc.






CHEAP UNIFORM EDITION OF MISS BRADDON'S NOVELS.

Price 2s. picture boards; 2s. 6d. cloth gilt; 3s. 6d. half parchment or
half morocco; postage 4d.

MISS BRADDON'S NOVELS

INCLUDING

"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "VIXEN," "ISHMAEL" ETC.

"No one can be dull who has a novel by Miss Braddon in hand. The most
tiresome journey is beguiled, and the most wearisome illness is
brightened, by any one of her books."

"Miss Braddon is the Queen of the circulating libraries."--_The World._

N.B.--There are now 45 Novels always in print; For full list see book of
cover, or apply for a Catalogue, to be sent (post free),

LONDON: J. AND B. MAXWELL,

Milton House, 14 and 15 Shoe Lane, Fleet Street;

AND

35 St. Bride Street, Ludgate Circus, E.O.

And at all Railway Bookstalls, Booksellers' and Libraries.




CONTENTS

I. THE COMMON FEVER
II. MARIAN'S STORY
III. ACCEPTED
IV. JOHN SALTRAM
V. HALCYON DAYS
VI. SENTENCE OF EXILE
VII. "GOOD-BYE"
VIII. MISSING
IX. JOHN SALTRAM'S ADVICE
X. JACOB NOWELL
XI. THE MARRIAGE AT WYGROVE
XII. A FRIENDLY COUNSELLOR
XIII. MRS. PALLINSON HAS VIEWS
XIV. FATHER AND SON
XV. ON THE TRACK
XVI. FACE TO FACE
XVII. MISS CARLEY'S ADMIRERS
XVIII. JACOB NOWELL'S WILL
XIX. GILBERT ASKS A QUESTION
XX. DRIFTING AWAY
XXI. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
XXII. AT LIDFORD AGAIN
XXIII. CALLED TO ACCOUNT
XXIV. TORMENTED BY DOUBT
XXV. MISSING AGAIN
XXVI. IN BONDAGE
XXVII. ONLY A WOMAN
XXVIII. AT FAULT
XXIX. BAFFLED, NOT BEATEN
XXX. STRICKEN DOWN
XXXI. ELLEN CARLEY'S TRIALS
XXXII. THE PADLOCKED DOOR AT WYNCOMB
XXXIII. "WHAT MUST BE SHALL BE"
XXXIV. DOUBTFUL INFORMATION
XXXV. BOUGHT WITH A PRICE
XXXVI. COMING ROUND
XXXVII. A FULL CONFESSION
XXXVIII. AN ILL-OMENED WEDDING
XXXIX. A DOMESTIC MYSTERY
XL. IN PURSUIT
XLI. OUTWARD BOUND
XLII. THE PLEASURES OF WYNCOMB
XLIII. MR. WHITELAW MAKES AN END OF THE MYSTERY
XLIV. AFTER THE FIRE
XLV. MR. WHITELAW MAKES HIS WILL
XLVI. ELLEN REGAINS HER LIBERTY
XLVII. CLOSING SCENES




CHAPTER I.

THE COMMON FEVER.


A warm summer evening, with a sultry haze brooding over the level
landscape, and a Sabbath stillness upon all things in the village of
Lidford, Midlandshire. In the remoter corners of the old gothic church
the shadows are beginning to gather, as the sermon draws near its close;
but in the centre aisle and about the pulpit there is broad daylight
still shining-in from the wide western window, across the lower half of
which there are tall figures of the Evangelists in old stained glass.

There are no choristers at Lidford, and the evening service is conducted
in rather a drowsy way; but there is a solemn air of repose about the
gray old church that should be conducive to tranquil thoughts and pious
meditations. Simple and earnest have been the words of the sermon, simple
and earnest seem the countenances of the congregation, looking reverently
upwards at the face of their pastor; and one might fancy, contemplating
that grand old church, so much too spacious for the needs of the little
flock gathered there to-night, that Lidford was a forgotten,
half-deserted corner of this earth, in which a man, tired of the press
and turmoil of the world, might find an almost monastic solitude and
calm.

So thought a gentleman in the Squire's pew--a good-looking man of about
thirty, who was finishing his first Sunday at Lidford by devout
attendance at evening service. He had been thinking a good deal about
this quiet country life during the service, wondering whether it was not
the best life a man could live, after all, and thinking it all the
sweeter because of his own experience, which had lain chiefly in cities.

He was a certain Mr. Gilbert Fenton, an Australian merchant, and was on a
visit to his sister, who had married the principal landowner in Lidford,
Martin Lister--a man whose father had been called "the Squire." The lady
sat opposite her brother in the wide old family pew to-night--a
handsome-looking matron, with a little rosy-cheeked damsel sitting by her
side--a damsel with flowing auburn hair, tiny hat and feather, and bright
scarlet stockings, looking very much as if she had walked out of a picture
by Mr. Millais.

The congregation stood up to sing a hymn when the sermon was ended, and
Gilbert Fenton turned his face towards the opposite line of pews, in one of
which, very near him, there was a girl, at whom Mrs. Lister had caught her
brother looking very often, during the service just concluded.

It was a face that a man could scarcely look upon once without finding
his glances wandering back to it afterwards; not quite a perfect face,
but a very bright and winning one. Large gray eyes, with a wonderful
light in them, under dark lashes and darker brows; a complexion that had
a dusky pallor, a delicate semi-transparent olive-tint that one seldom
sees out of a Spanish picture; a sweet rosy mouth, and a piquant little
nose of no particular order, made up the catalogue of this young lady's
charms. But in a face worth looking at there is always a something that
cannot be put into words; and the brightest and best attributes of this
face were quite beyond translation. It was a face one might almost call
"splendid"--there was such a light and glory about it at some moments.
Gilbert Fenton thought so to-night, as he saw it in the full radiance of
the western sunlight, the lips parted as the girl sang, the clear gray
eyes looking upward.

She was not alone: a portly genial-looking old man stood by her side, and
accompanied her to the church-porch when the hymn was over. Here they
both lingered a moment to shake hands with Mrs. Lister, very much to
Gilbert Fenton's satisfaction. They walked along the churchyard-path
together, and Gilbert gave his sister's arm a little tug, which meant,
"Introduce me."

"My brother Mr. Fenton, Captain Sedgewick, Miss Nowell."

The Captain shook hands with Gilbert. "Delighted to know you, Mr. Fenton;
delighted to know any one belonging to Mrs. Lister. You are going to stop
down here for some time, I hope."

"I fear not for very long, Captain Sedgewick. I am a business man, you
see, and can't afford to take a long holiday from the City."

Mrs. Lister laughed. "My brother is utterly devoted to commercial
pursuits," she said; "I think he believes every hour wasted that he
spends out of his counting-house."

"And yet I was thinking in church this evening, that a man's life might
be happier in such a place as this, drifting away in a kind of dreamy
idleness, than the greatest successes possible to commerce could ever
make it."

"You would very soon be tired of your dreamy idleness," answered his
sister, "and sigh for your office and your club."

"The country suits old people, who have played their part in life, and
made an end of it," said the Captain. "It suits my little girl here very
well, too," he added, with a fond glance at his companion; "she has her
birds and her flowers, and her books and music; and I don't think she
ever sighs for anything gayer than Lidford."

"Never, uncle George," said the girl, slipping her hand through his arm.
And Gilbert Fenton saw that those two were very fond of each other.

They came to the end of a shady winding lane at this moment, and Captain
Sedgewick and Miss Nowell wished Mrs. Lister and her brother
good-evening, and went away down the lane arm-in-arm.

"What a lovely girl she is!" said Gilbert, when they were gone.

"Lovely is rather a strong word, Gilbert," Mrs. Lister answered coldly;
"she is certainly pretty, but I hope you are not going to lose your heart
in that direction."

"There is no fear of that. A man may admire a girl's face without being
in any danger of losing his heart. But why not in that direction, Belle?
Is there any special objection to the lady?"

"Only that she is a nobody, without either money or position and I think
you ought to have both when you marry."

"Thanks for the implied compliment; but I do not fancy that an
Australian merchant can expect to secure a wife of very exalted
position; and I am the last man in the world to marry for money."

"I don't for a moment suppose you would marry any one you didn't like,
from mercenary considerations; but there is no reason you should make a
foolish match."

"Of course not. I think it very doubtful whether I shall ever marry at
all. I am just the kind of man to go down to my grave a bachelor."

"Why so, Gilbert?"

"Well, I can hardly tell you, my dear. Perhaps I am rather difficult to
please--just a little stony-hearted and invulnerable. I know that since I
was a boy, and got over my schoolboy love affairs, I have never seen the
woman who could touch my heart. I have met plenty of pretty women, and
plenty of brilliant women, of course, in society; and have admired them,
and there an end. I have never seen a woman whose face impressed me so
much at first sight as the face of your friend, Miss Nowell."

"I am very sorry for that."

"But why, Belle?"

"Because the girl is a nobody--less than nobody. There is an unpleasant
kind of mystery about her birth."

"How is that? Her uncle, Captain Sedgewick, seems to be a gentleman."

"Captain Sedgewick is very well, but he is not her uncle; he adopted her
when she was a very little girl."

"But who are her people, and how did she fall into his hands?"

"I have never heard that. He is not very fond of talking about the
subject. When we first came to know them, he told us that Marian was only
his adopted niece; and he has never told us any more than that."

"She is the daughter of some friend, I suppose. They seem very much
attached to each other."

"Yes, she is very fond of him, and he of her. She is an amiable girl; I
have nothing to say against her--but----"

"But what, Belle?"

"I shouldn't like you to fall in love with her."

"But I should, mamma!" cried the damsel in scarlet stockings, who had
absorbed every word of the foregoing conversation. "I should like uncle
Gil to love Marian just as I love her. She is the dearest girl in the
world. When we had a juvenile party last winter, it was Marian who
dressed the Christmas-tree--every bit; and she played the piano for us
all the evening, didn't she, mamma?"

"She is very good-natured, Lucy; but you mustn't talk nonsense; and you
ought not to listen when your uncle and I are talking. It is very rude."

"But! I can't help hearing you, mamma."

They were at home by this time, within the grounds of a handsome
red-brick house of the early Georgian era, which had been the property of
the Listers ever since it was built. Without, the gardens were a picture
of neatness and order; within, everything was solid and comfortable: the
furniture of a somewhat ponderous and exploded fashion, but handsome
withal, and brightened here and there by some concession to modern
notions of elegance or ease--a dainty little table for books, a luxurious
arm-chair, and so on.

Martin Lister was a gentleman chiefly distinguished by good-nature,
hospitable instincts, and an enthusiastic devotion to agriculture. There
were very few things in common between him and his brother-in-law the
Australian merchant, but they got on very well together for a short time.
Gilbert Fenton pretended to be profoundly interested in the thrilling
question of drainage, deep or superficial, and seemed to enter
unreservedly into every discussion of the latest invention or improvement
in agricultural machinery; and in the mean time he really liked the
repose of the country, and appreciated the varying charms of landscape
and atmosphere with a fervour unfelt by the man who had been born and
reared amidst those pastoral scenes.

The two men smoked their cigars together in a quietly companionable
spirit, strolling about the gardens and farm, dropping out a sentence now
and then, and anon falling into a lazy reverie, each pondering upon his
own affairs--Gilbert meditating transactions with foreign houses, risky
bargains with traders of doubtful solvency, or hazardous investments in
stocks, as the case might be; the gentleman farmer ruminating upon the
chances of a good harvest, or the probable value of his Scotch
short-horns.

Mr. Lister had preferred lounging about the farm with a cigar in his
mouth to attendance at church upon this particular Sunday evening. He had
finished his customary round of inspection by this time, and was sitting
by one of the open windows of the drawing-room, with his body in one
luxurious chair, and his legs extended upon another, deep in the study of
the _Gardener's Chronicle_, which he flung aside upon the appearance
of his family.

"Well, Toddlekins," he cried to the little girl, "I hope you were very
attentive to the sermon; listened for two, and made up for your lazy dad.
That's a vicarious kind of devotion that ought to be permitted
occasionally to a hard-working fellow like me.--I'm glad you've come back
to give us some tea, Belle. Don't go upstairs; let Susan carry up your
bonnet and shawl. It's nearly nine o'clock. Toddlekins wants her tea
before she goes to bed."

"Lucy has had her tea in the nursery," said Mrs. Lister, as she took her
seat before the cups and saucers.

"But she will have some more with papa," replied Martin, who had an
amiable knack of spoiling his children. There were only two--this bright
fair-haired Lucy, aged nine, and a sturdy boy of seven.

They sipped their tea, and talked a little about who had been at church
and who had not been, and the room was filled with that atmosphere of
dulness which seems to prevail in such households upon a summer Sunday
evening; a kind of palpable emptiness which sets a man speculating how
many years he may have to live, and how many such Sundays he may have to
spend. He is apt to end by wondering a little whether life is really
worth the trouble it costs, when almost the best thing that can come of
it is a condition of comfortable torpor like this.

Gilbert Fenton put down his cup and went over to one of the open windows.
It was nearly as dark as it was likely to be that midsummer night. A new
moon was shining faintly in the clear evening sky; and here and there a
solitary star shone with a tremulous brightness. The shadows of the trees
made spots of solemn darkness on the wide lawn before the windows, and a
warm faint sweetness came from the crowded flower-beds, where all the
flowers in this light were of one grayish silvery hue.

"It's almost too warm an evening for the house," said Gilbert; "I think
I'll take a stroll."

"I'd come with you, old fellow, but I've been all round the farm, and I'm
dead beat," said good-natured Martin Lister.

"Thanks, Martin; I wouldn't think of disturbing you. You look the picture
of comfort in that easy-chair. I shall only stay long enough to finish a
cigar."

He walked slowly across the lawn--a noble stretch of level greensward
with dark spreading cedars and fine old beeches scattered about it; he
walked slowly towards the gates, lighting his cigar as he went, and
thinking. He was thinking of his past life, and of his future. What was
it to be? A dull hackneyed course of money-making, chequered only by the
dreary vicissitudes of trade, and brightened only by such selfish
pleasures as constitute the recreations of a business man--an occasional
dinner at Blackwall or Richmond, a week's shooting in the autumn, a
little easy-going hunting in the winter, a hurried scamper over some of
the beaten continental roads, or a fortnight at a German spa? These had
been his pleasures hitherto, and he had found life pleasant enough.
Perhaps he had been too busy to question the pleasantness of these
things. It was only now that he found himself away from the familiar
arena of his daily life, with neither employment nor distraction, that
was able to look back upon his career deliberately, and risk himself
whether it was one that he could go on living without weariness for the
remainder of his days.

He had been at this time a little more than seven years in business. He
had been bred-up with no expectation of ever having to take his place in
the counting-house, had been educated at Eton and Oxford, and had been
taught to anticipate a handsome fortune from his father. All these
expectations had been disappointed by Mr. Fenton's sudden death at a
period of great commercial disturbance. The business was found in a state
of entanglement that was very near insolvency; and wise friends told
Gilbert Fenton that the only hope of coming well out of these
perplexities lay with himself. The business was too good to be
sacrificed, and the business was all his father had left behind him, with
the exception of a houseful of handsome furniture, two or three
carriages, and a couple of pairs of horses, which were sold by auction
within a few weeks of the funeral.

Gilbert Fenton took upon himself the management of the business. He had a
clear comprehensive intellect, which adapted itself very easily to
commerce. He put his shoulder to the wheel with a will, and worked for
the first three years of his business career as it is not given to many
men to work in the course of their lives. By that time the ship had been
steered clear of all rocks and quicksands, and rode the commercial waters
gallantly. Gilbert was not a rich man, but was in a fair way to become a
rich man; and the name of Fenton stood as high as in the palmiest days of
his father's career.

His sister had fortunately married Martin Lister some years before her
father's death, and had received her dowry at the time of her marriage.
Gilbert had only himself to work for. At first he had worked for the sake
of his dead father's honour and repute; later he fell into a groove, like
other men, and worked for the love of money-making--not with any sordid
love of money, but with that natural desire to accumulate which grows out
of a business career.

To-night he was in an unusually thoughtful humour, and inclined to weigh
things in the balance with a doubtfulness as to their value which was new
to him. The complete idleness and emptiness of his life in the country
had made him meditative. Was it worth living, that monotonous business
life of his? Would not the time soon come in which its dreariness would
oppress him as the dulness of Lidford House had oppressed him to-night?
His youth was fast going--nay, had it not indeed gone from him for ever?
had not youth left him all at once when he began his commercial
career?--and the pleasures that had been fresh enough within the last few
years were rapidly growing stale. He knew the German spas, the
pine-groves where the hand played, the gambling-saloons and their
company, by heart, though he had never stayed more than a fortnight at
any one of them. He had exhausted Brittany and the South of France in
these rapid scampers; skimmed the cream of their novelty, at any rate. He
did not care very much for field-sports, and hunted and shot in a
jog-trot safe kind of way, with a view to the benefit of his health,
which savoured of old bachelorhood. And as for the rest of his
pleasures--the social rubber at his club, the Blackwall or Richmond
dinners--it seemed only custom that made them agreeable.

"If I had gone to the Bar, as I intended to do before my father's death,
I should have had an object in life," he thought, as he puffed slowly at
his cigar; "but a commercial man has nothing to hope for in the way of
fame--nothing to work for except money. I have a good mind to sell the
business, now that it is worth selling, and go in for the Bar after all,
late as it is."

He had thought of this more than once; but he knew the fancy was a
foolish one, and that his friends would laugh at him for his folly.

He was beyond the grounds of Lidford House by this time, sauntering
onward in the fair summer night; not indifferent to the calm loveliness
of the scene around him, only conscious that there was some void within
himself which these things could not fill. He walked along the road by
which he and his sister had come back from church, and turned into the
lane at the end of which Captain Sedgewick had bidden them good night. He
had been down this lane before to-night, and knew that it was one of the
prettiest walks about Lidford; so there was scarcely anything strange in
the fact that he should choose this promenade for his evening saunter.

The rustic way, wide enough for a wagon, and with sloping grassy banks,
and tall straggling hedges, full of dog-roses and honeysuckle, led
towards a river--a fair winding stream, which was one of the glories of
Lidford. A little before one came to the river, the lane opened upon a
green, where there was a mill, and a miller's cottage, a rustic inn, and
two or three other houses of more genteel pretensions.

Gilbert Fenton wondered which of these was the habitation of Captain
Sedgewick, concluding that the half-pay officer and his niece must needs
live in one of them. He reconnoitred them as he went by the low
garden-fences, over which he could see the pretty lawns and flower-beds,
with clusters of evergreens here and there, and a wealth of roses and
seringa. One of them, the prettiest and most secluded, was also the
smallest; a low white-walled cottage, with casement windows above, and
old-fashioned bow-windows below, and a porch overgrown with roses. The
house lay back a little way from the green; and there was a tiny brook
running beside the holly hedge that bounded the garden, spanned by a
little rustic bridge before the gate.

Pausing just beside this bridge, Mr. Fenton heard the joyous barking of a
dog, and caught a brief glimpse of a light muslin dress flitting across
the little lawn at one side of the cottage While he was wondering about
the owner of this dress, the noisy dog came rushing towards the gate, and
in the next moment a girlish figure appeared in the winding path that
went in and out among the flower-beds.

Gilbert Fenton knew that tall slim figure very well. He had guessed
rightly, and this low white-walled cottage was really Captain
Sedgewick's. It seemed to him as if a kind of instinct brought him to
that precise spot.

Miss Nowell came to the gate, and stood there looking out, with a Skye
terrier in her arms. Gilbert drew back a little, and flung his cigar into
the brook. She had not seen him yet. Her looks were wandering far away
across the green, as if in search of some one.

Gilbert Fenton stood quite still watching her. She looked even prettier
without her bonnet than she had looked in the church, he thought: the
rich dark-brown hair gathered in a great knot at the back of the graceful
head; the perfect throat circled by a broad black ribbon, from which
there hung an old-fashioned gold cross; the youthful figure set-off by
the girlish muslin dress, so becoming in its utter simplicity.

He could not stand there for ever looking at her, pleasant as it might be
to him to contemplate the lovely face; so he made a little movement at
last, and came a few steps nearer to the gate.

"Good-evening once more, Miss Nowell," he said.

She looked up at him, surprised by his sudden appearance, but in no
manner embarrassed.

"Good-evening, Mr. Fenton. I did not see you till this moment. I was
looking for my uncle. He has gone out for a little stroll while he smokes
his cigar, and I expect him home every minute."

"I have been indulging in a solitary cigar myself," answered Gilbert.
"One is apt to be inspired with an antipathy to the house on this kind of
evening. I left the Listers yawning over their tea-cups, and came out for
a ramble. The aspect of the lane at which we parted company this evening
tempted me down this way. What a pretty house you have! Do you know I
guessed that it was yours before I saw you."

"Indeed! You must have quite a talent for guessing."

"Not in a general way; but there is a fitness in things. Yes, I felt sure
that this was your house."

"I am glad you like it," she answered simply. "Uncle George and I are
very fond of it. But it must seem a poor little place to you after
Lidford House."

"Lidford House is spacious, and comfortable, and commonplace. One could
hardly associate the faintest touch of romance with such a place. But
about this one might fancy anything. Ah, here is your uncle, I see."

Captain Sedgewick came towards them, surprised at seeing Mr. Fenton, with
whom he shook hands again very cordially, and who repeated his story
about the impossibility of enduring to stop in the house on such a night.

The Captain insisted on his going in-doors with them, however; and he
exhibited no disinclination to linger in the cottage drawing-room, though
it was only about a fourth of the size of that at Lidford House. It
looked a very pretty room in the lamplight, with quaint old-fashioned
furniture, the freshest and most delicate chintz hangings and coverings
of chairs and sofas, and some valuable old china here and there.