Mrs. Chichester—whom we last saw under extremely distressing circumstances in Ireland—now enters prominently into the story. She was leading a secluded and charming existence in an old and picturesque villa at Scarboro, in the north of England. Although her husband had been dead for several years, she still clung to the outward symbols of mourning. It added a softness to the patrician line of her features and a touch of distinction to her manner and poise. She had an illustrious example of a life-long sorrow, and, being ever loyal, Mrs. Chichester retained the weeds of widowhood and the crepe of affliction ever present.
She was proud indeed of her two children—about whom she had written so glowingly to her brother Nathaniel.
Alaric was the elder. In him Mrs. Chichester took the greater pride. He was so nearly being great—even from infancy—that he continually kept his mother in a condition of expectant wonder. He was NEARLY brilliant at school: at college he ALMOST got his degree. He JUST MISSED his "blue" at cricket, and but for an unfortunate ball dribbling over the net at a critical moment in the semi-final of the tennis championships, he MIGHT have won the cup. He was quite philosophic about it, though, and never appeared to reproach fate for treating him so shabbily.
He was always NEARLY doing something, and kept Mrs. Chichester in a lively condition of trusting hope and occasional disappointment. She knew he would "ARRIVE" some day—come into his own: then all these half-rewarded efforts would be invaluable in the building of his character.
Her daughter, Ethel, on the other hand, was the exact antithesis to Alaric. She had never shown the slightest interest in anything since she had first looked up at the man of medicine who ushered her into the world. She regarded everything about her with the greatest complacency. She was never surprised or angry, or pleased, or depressed. Sorrow never seemed to affect her—nor joy make her smile. She looked on life as a gentle brook down whose current she was perfectly content to drift undisturbed. At least, that was the effect created in Mrs. Chichester's mind. She never thought it possible there might be latent possibilities in her impassive daughter.
While her mother admired Ethel's lofty attitude of indifference toward the world—a manner that bespoke the aristocrat—she secretly chafed at her daughter's lack of enthusiasm.
How different to Alaric—always full of nearly new ideas: always about to do something. Alaric kept those around him on the alert—no one ever really knew what he would do next. On the other hand, Ethel depressed by her stolid content with everything about her. Every one knew what she would do—or thought they did.
Mrs. Chichester had long since abandoned any further attempt to interest her brother Nathaniel in the children.
Angela's wretched marriage had upset everything,—driven Nathaniel to be a recluse and to close his doors on near and distant relatives.
Angela's death the following year did not relieve the situation. If anything, it intensified it, since she left a baby that, naturally, none of the family could possibly take the slightest notice of—nor interest in.
It was tacitly agreed never to speak of the unfortunate incident, especially before the children. It was such a terrible example for Ethel, and so discouraging to the eager and ambitious Alaric.
Consequently Angela's name was never spoken inside of Regal Villa.
And so the Chichester family pursued an even course, only varied by Alaric's sudden and DEFINITE decisions to enter either public life, or athletics, or the army, or the world of art—it was really extremely hard for so well-equipped a young man to decide to limit himself to any one particular pursuit. Consequently he put off the final choice from day to day.
Suddenly a most untoward incident happened. Alaric, returning from a long walk, alone—during which he had ALMOST decided to become a doctor—walked in through the windows from the garden into the living-room and found his mother in tears, an open letter in her hand.
This was most unusual. Mrs. Chichester was not wont to give vent to open emotion. It shows a lack of breeding. So she always suppressed it. It seemed to grow inwards. To find her weeping—and almost audibly—impressed Alaric that something of more than usual importance had occurred.
"Hello, Mater!" he cried cheerfully, though his looks belied the buoyancy of his tone. "Hullo! what's the matter? What's up?"
At the same moment Ethel came in through the door.
It was 11:30, and at precisely that time every morning Ethel practised for half an hour on the piano. Not that she had the slightest interest in music, but it helped the morning so much. She would look forward to it for an hour before, and think of it for an hour afterwards—and then it was lunch-time. It practically filled out the entire morning.
Mrs. Chichester looked up as her beloved children came toward her—and REAL tears were in her eyes, and a REAL note of alarm was in her voice:
"Oh Ethel! Oh Alaric!"
Alaric was at her side in a moment. He was genuinely alarmed.
Ethel moved slowly across, thinking, vaguely, that something must have disagreed with her mother.
"What is it, mater?" cried Alaric.
"Mother!" said Ethel, with as nearly a tone of emotion as she could feel.
"We're ruined!" sobbed Mrs. Chichester.
"Nonsense!" said the bewildered son.
"Really?" asked the placid daughter.
"Our bank has failed! Every penny your poor father left me was in it," wailed Mrs. Chichester. "We've nothing. Nothing. We're beggars."
A horrible fear for a moment gripped Alaric—the dread of poverty. He shivered! Suppose such a thing should really happen? Then he dismissed it with a shrug of his shoulders. How perfectly absurd! Poverty, indeed! The Chichesters beggars? Such nonsense! He turned to his mother and found her holding out a letter and a newspaper. He took them both and read them with mingled amazement and disgust. First the headline of the newspaper caught his eye:
"Failure of Gifford's Bank."
Then he looked at the letter:
"Gifford's Bank suspended business yesterday!" Back his eye travelled to the paper: "Gifford's Bank has closed its doors!" He was quite unable, at first, to grasp the full significance of the contents of that letter and newspaper. He turned to Ethel:
"Eh?" he gasped.
"Pity," she murmured, trying to find a particular piece of music amongst the mass on the piano.
"We're ruined!" reiterated Mrs. Chichester.
Then the real meaning of those cryptic headlines and the business-like letter broke in on Alaric. All the Chichester blood was roused in him.
"Now that's what I call a downright, rotten, blackguardly shame—a BLACKGUARDLY SHAME!" His voice rose in tones as it increased in intensity until it almost reached a shriek.
Something was expected of him. At any rate indignation. Well, he was certainly indignant.
"Closed its doors, indeed!" he went on. "Why should it close its doors? That's what I want to know! Why—should—it?" and he glared at the unoffending letter and the non-committal newspaper.
He looked at Ethel, who was surreptitiously concealing a yawn, and was apparently quite undisturbed by the appalling news.
He found no inspiration there.
Back he went to his mother for support.
"What RIGHT have banks to fail? There should be a law against it. They should be made to open their doors and keep 'em open. That's what we give 'em our money for—so that we can take it out again when we want it."
Poor Mrs. Chichester shook her head sadly.
"Everything gone," she moaned. "Ruined! and at my age!"
"Nice kettle of fish," was all Alaric could think of. He was momentarily stunned. He turned once more to Ethel. He never relied on her very much, but at this particular crisis he would like to have some expression of opinion, however slight—from her.
"I say, Ethel, it's a nice kettle of fish all o-boilin', eh?"
"Shame!" she said quietly, as she found the particular movement of Grieg she had been looking for. She loved Grieg. He fitted into all her moods. She played everything he composed exactly the same. She seemed to think it soothed her. She would play some now and soothe her mother and Alaric.
She began an impassioned movement which she played evenly and correctly, and without any unseemly force. Alaric cried out distractedly: "For goodness' sake stop that, Ethel! Haven't you got any feelings? Can't you see how upset the mater is? And I am? Stop it. There's a dear! Let's put our backs into this thing and thrash it all out. Have a little family meetin', as it were."
Poor Mrs. Chichester repeated, as though it were some refrain: "Ruined! At my age!"
Alaric sat on the edge of her chair and put his arm around her shoulder and tried to comfort her.
"Don't you worry, mater," he said. "Don't worry. I'll go down and tell 'em what I think of 'em—exactly what I think of 'em. They can't play the fool with me. I should think NOT, indeed. Listen, mater. You've got a SON, thank God, and one no BANK can take any liberties with. What we put in there we've got to have out. That's all I can say. We've simply got to have it out. There! I've said it!"
Alaric rose, and drawing himself up to his full five feet six inches of manhood glared malignantly at some imaginary bank officials. His whole nature was roused. The future of the family depended on him. They would not depend in vain. He looked at Ethel, who was trying to make the best of the business by smiling agreeably on them both.
"It's bankrupt!" wailed Mrs. Chichester.
"Failed!" suggested Ethel, cheerfully.
"We're beggars," continued the mother. "I must live on charity for the rest of my life. The guest of relations I've hated the sight of and who have hated me. It's dreadful! Dreadful!"
All Alaric's first glow of manly enthusiasm began to cool.
"Don't you think we'll get anything?" By accident he turned to Ethel. She smiled meaninglessly and said for the first time with any real note of conviction:
"Nothing!"
Alaric sat down gloomily beside his mother.
"I always thought bank directors were BLIGHTERS. Good Lord, what a mess!" He looked the picture of misery. "What's to become of Ethel, mater?"
"Whoever shelters me must shelter Ethel as well," replied the mother sadly. "But it's hard—at my age—to be—sheltered."
Alaric looked at Ethel, and a feeling of pity came over him. It was distinctly to his credit—since his own wrongs occupied most of his attention. But after all HE could buffet the world and wring a living out of it. All he had to do was to make up his mind which walk in life to choose. He was fortunate.
But Ethel, reared from infancy in the environment of independence: it would come very hard and bitter on her.
Alaric just touched Ethel's hand, and with as much feeling as he could muster, he said: "Shockin' tough, old girl."
Ethel shook her head almost determinedly and said, somewhat enigmatically, and FOR HER, heatedly:
"NO!"
"No?" asked Alaric. "No—what?"
"Charity!" said Ethel.
"Cold-blooded word," and Alaric shuddered. "What will you do, Ethel?"
"Work."
"At what?"
"Teach."
"TEACH? Who in the wide world can YOU teach?"
"Children."
Alaric laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, come, that's rich! Eh, mater? Fancy Ethel teachin' grubby little brats their A B C's! Tush!"
"Must!" said Ethel, quite unmoved.
"A CHICHESTER TEACH?" said Alaric, in disgust.
"Settled!" from Ethel, and she swept her finger slowly across the piano.
"Very well," said Alaric, determinedly: "I'll work, too." Mrs. Chichester looked up pleadingly.
Alaric went on: "I'll put my hand to the plough. The more I think of it the keener I am to begin. From to-day I'll be a workin' man."
At this Ethel laughed a queer, little, odd, supercilious note, summed up in a single word: "Ha!" There was nothing mirthful in it. There was no reproach in it. It was just an expression of her honest feeling at the bare suggestion of her brother WORKING.
Alaric turned quickly to her:
"And may I ask WHY that 'Ha!'? WHY, I ask you? There's nothing I couldn't do if I were really put to it—not a single thing. Is there, mater?"
His mother looked up proudly at him.
"I know that, dear. But it's dreadful to think of YOU—WORKING."
"Not at all," said Alaric, "I'm just tingling all over at the thought of it. The only reason I haven't so far is because I've never had to. But now that I have, I'll just buckle on my armour, so to speak, and astonish you all."
Again came that deadly, cold, unsympathetic "Ha!" from Ethel.
"Please don't laugh in that cheerless way, Ethel. It goes all down my spine. Jerry's always tellin' me I ought to do something—that the world is for the worker—and all that. He's right, and I'm goin' to show him." He suddenly picked up the paper and looked at the date. "What's to-day? The FIRST? Yes, so it is. June the first. Jerry's comin' to-day—all his family, too. They've taken 'Noel's Folly' on the hill. He's sure to look in here. Couldn't be better. He's the cove to turn to in a case like this."
Jarvis, a white-haired, dignified butler who had served the family man and boy, came in at this juncture with a visiting card on a salver.
Alaric picked it up and glanced at it. He gave an expression of disgust and flung the card back on the salver.
"Christian Brent."
For the first time Ethel showed more than a passing gleam of interest. She stopped strumming the piano and stood up, very erect and very still.
Mrs. Chichester rose too: "I can't see any one," she said imperatively. "Nor I," added Alaric. "I'm all strung up." He turned to Jarvis. "Tell Mr. Brent we're very sorry, but—"
"I'LL see him," interrupted Ethel, almost animatedly. "Bring Mr. Brent here, Jarvis."
As Jarvis went in search of Mr. Brent, Mrs. Chichester went up the great stairs: "My head is throbbing. I'll go to my room."
"Don't you worry, mater," consoled Alaric. "Leave everything to me. I'll thrash the whole thing out—absolutely thrash it out."
As Mrs. Chichester disappeared, Alaric turned to his calm sister, who, strangely enough, was showing some signs of life and interest.
"Awful business, Ethel, eh?"
"Pretty bad."
"Really goin' to teach?"
"Yes."
"Right! I'll find somethin', too. Very likely a doctor. We'll pull through somehow."
Ethel made a motion toward the door as though to stop any further conversation.
"Mr. Brent's coming," she said, almost impatiently.
Alaric started for the windows leading into the garden.
"Jolly good of you to let him bore you. I hate the sight of the beggar, myself. Always looks to me like the first conspirator at a play."
The door opened, and Jarvis entered and ushered in "Mr. Brent." Alaric hurried into the garden.
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