East Lynne Part 13

Carlyle. The earl turned and held out his hand. A man who could purchase East Lynne was worthy of being received as an equal, though he was but a country lawyer.

Mr. Carlyle shook hands with the earl, approached the carriage and raised his hat to Lady Isabel. She bent forward with her pleasant smile, and put her hand into his.

"I have many things to say to you," said the earl. "I wish you would go home with us. If you have nothing better to do, be East Lynne's guest for the remainder of the day."

He smiled peculiarly as he spoke, and Mr. Carlyle echoed it. East Lynne's guest! That is what the earl was at present. Mr. Carlyle turned aside to tell his sister.

"Cornelia, I shall not be home to dinner; I am going with Lord Mount Severn. Good-day, Barbara."

Mr. Carlyle stepped into the carriage, was followed by the earl, and it drove away. The sun shone still, but the day's brightness had gone out for Barbara Hare.

"How does he know the earl so well? How does he know Lady Isabel?" she reiterated in her astonishment.

"Archibald knows something of most people," replied Miss Corny. "He saw the earl frequently, when he was in town in the spring, and Lady Isabel once or twice. What a lovely face hers is!"

Barbara made no reply. She returned home with Miss Carlyle, but her manner was as absent as her heart, and that had run away to East Lynne.

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. KANE'S CONCERT.

Before Lord Mount Severn had completed the fortnight of his proposed stay, the gout came on seriously. It was impossible for him to move away from East Lynne. Mr. Carlyle a.s.sured him he was only too pleased that he should remain as long as might be convenient, and the earl expressed his acknowledgments; he hoped soon to be re-established on his legs.

But he was not. The gout came, and the gout went--not positively laying him up in bed, but rendering him unable to leave his rooms; and this continued until October, when he grew much better. The county families had been neighborly, calling on the invalid earl, and occasionally carrying off Lady Isabel, but his chief and constant visitor had been Mr. Carlyle. The earl had grown to like him in no common degree, and was disappointed if Mr. Carlyle spent an evening away from him, so that he became, as it were, quite domesticated with the earl and Isabel. "I am not quite equal to general society," he observed to his daughter, "and it is considerate and kind of Carlyle to come here and cheer my loneliness."

"Extremely kind," said Isabel. "I like him very much, papa."

"I don't know anybody that I like half as well," was the rejoinder of the earl.

Mr. Carlyle went up as usual the same evening, and, in the course of it, the earl asked Isabel to sing.

"I will if you wish, papa," was the reply, "but the piano is so much out of tune that it is not pleasant to sing to it. Is there any one in West Lynne who could come here and tune my piano, Mr. Carlyle?" she added, turning to him.

"Certainly there is. Kane would do it. Shall I send him to-morrow?"

"I should be glad, if it would not be giving you too much trouble. Not that tuning will benefit it greatly, old thing that it is. Were we to be much at East Lynne, I should get papa to exchange it for a good one."

Little thought Lady Isabel that that very piano was Mr. Carlyle's, and not hers. The earl coughed, and exchanged a smile and a glance with his guest.

Mr. Kane was the organist of St. Jude's church, a man of embarra.s.sment and sorrow, who had long had a sore fight with the world. When he arrived at East Lynne, the following day, dispatched by Mr. Carlyle, Lady Isabel happened to be playing, and she stood by, and watched him begin his work. She was courteous and affable--she was so to every one-- and the poor music master took courage to speak of his own affairs, and to prefer a humble request--that she and Lord Mount Severn would patronize and personally attend a concert he was about to give the following week. A scarlet blush came into his thin cheeks as he confessed that he was very poor, could scarcely live, and he was getting up this concert in his desperate need. If it succeeded well, he could then go on again; if not, he should be turned out of his home, and his furniture sold for the two years' rent he owed--and he had seven children.

Isabel, all her sympathies awakened, sought the earl. "Oh, papa! I have to ask you the greatest favor. Will you grant it?"

"Ay, child, you don't ask them often. What is it?"

"I want you to take me to a concert at West Lynne."

The earl fell back in surprise, and stared at Isabel. "A concert at West Lynne!" he laughed. "To hear the rustics sc.r.a.ping the fiddle! My dear Isabel!"

She poured out what she had just heard, with her own comments and additions. "Seven children, papa! And if the concert does not succeed he must give up his home, and turn out into the streets with them--it is, you see, almost a matter of life or death with him. He is very poor."

"I am poor myself," said the earl.

"I was so sorry for him when he was speaking. He kept turning red and white, and catching up his breath in agitation; it was painful to him to tell of his embarra.s.sments. I am sure he is a gentleman."

"Well, you may take a pound's worth of tickets, Isabel, and give them to the upper servants. A village concert!"

"Oh, papa, it is not--can't you see it is not? If we, you and I, will promise to be present, all the families round West Lynne will attend, and he will have the room full. They will go because we do--he said so.

Make a sacrifice for once, dearest papa, and go, if it be only for an hour. I shall enjoy it if there's nothing but a fiddle and a tambourine."

"You gipsy! You are as bad as a professional beggar. There--go and tell the fellow we will look in for half an hour."

She flew back to Mr. Kane, her eyes dancing. She spoke quietly, as she always did, but her own satisfaction gladdened her voice.

"I am happy to tell you that papa has consented. He will take four tickets and we will attend the concert."

The tears rushed into Mr. Kane's eyes; Isabel was not sure but they were in her own. He was a tall, thin, delicate-looking man, with long, white fingers, and a long neck. He faltered forth his thanks with an inquiry whether he might be allowed to state openly that they would be present.

"Tell everybody," said she, eagerly. "Everybody you come across, if, as you think, it will be the means of inducing people to attend. I shall tell all friends who call upon me, and ask them to go."

When Mr. Carlyle came up in the evening, the earl was temporarily absent from the room. Isabel began to speak of the concert.

"It is a hazardous venture for Mr. Kane," observed Mr. Carlyle. "I fear he will only lose money, and add to his embarra.s.sments."

"Why do you fear that?" she asked.

"Because, Lady Isabel, nothing gets patronized at West Lynne--nothing native; and people have heard so long of poor Kane's necessities, that they think little of them."

"Is he so very poor?"

"Very. He is starved half his time."

"Starved!" repeated Isabel, an expression of perplexity arising to her face as she looked at Mr. Carlyle, for she scarcely understood him. "Do you mean that he does not have enough to eat?"

"Of bread he may, but not much better nourishment. His salary, as organist, is thirty pounds, and he gets a little stray teaching. But he has his wife and children to keep, and no doubt serves them before himself. I dare say he scarcely knows what it is to taste meat."

The words brought a bitter pang to Lady Isabel.

"Not enough to eat! Never to taste meat!" And she, in her carelessness, her ignorance, her indifference--she scarcely knew what term to give it- -had not thought to order him a meal in their house of plenty! He had walked from West Lynne, occupied himself an hour with her piano, and set off to walk back again, battling with his hunger. A word from her, and a repast had been set before him out of their superfluities such as he never sat down to, and that word she had not spoken.

"You are looking grave, Lady Isabel."

"I'm taking contrition to myself. Never mind, it cannot now be helped, but it will always be a dark spot on my memory."