Hazel. “I shall try to do my best, Mr Geringer.”
“I know you will, Hazel, come what may.”
“Yes, come what may,” she replied, with another sigh.
“Shall I leave what I have to say for a few weeks, and then talk it over? I can wait.”
“I would rather hear it now,” replied Hazel. “No trouble could be greater than that we have had to bear, and I see you have bad news for us, Mr Geringer.”
“I regret to say I have – very bad news.”
“Tell me,” said Hazel sadly, as she gazed in her visitor’s face.
“It is about the future, my dear child,” he said slowly; and he watched the effect of his words. “You and your brother and sisters have been brought up here quite in luxury.”
“Papa was always most indulgent and kind.”
“Always,” assented Geringer. “There, I will not hesitate – I will not go roundabout to tell you. I only ask you, my dear Hazel, to try and bear with fortitude the terrible news I have to inflict upon you, and to beg that you will not associate it in future with me.”
“I shall always think of you as my father’s most trusted friend. But pray, pray tell me now, and – and – I will try to bear it as I should.”
She was choked now by her sobs, and as Geringer tenderly took one of her hands, she let him retain it while he spoke.
“My dear Hazel,” he said, “your late father always passed for a wealthy man, but I grieve to say that of late he had embarked in some most unfortunate speculations.”
“Poor papa!”
“They were so bad that at last all depended upon one change in the market – a change that did not take place till after his death.”
Hazel sobbed.
“If he had lived two days longer he would have known that he was a ruined man.”
Hazel’s tears ceased to flow, and Geringer went on: —
“I grieve, then, to tell you, my dear child, that instead of leaving his family in a tolerably independent state, my poor friend has left you all penniless.”
“Penniless?”
“Yes. Worse; for this house and its furniture must go to defray the debts he has left behind. It is terrible – terrible indeed.”
“Terrible?”
“Yes, dreadful,” he said, gazing in her face.
“Is that all?”
“All? All, my child? What do you mean?”
“Is that the terrible trouble you said that you had to communicate.”
“Yes, my dear child,” he exclaimed; “it is dreadful news.”
“But it is only money matters,” said Hazel innocently; and her face lit up with a pleasant smile. “I thought it was some dreadful trouble – some fresh misfortune.” And as she sat looking him full in the eyes, her quick imagination carried her on to the time when Archibald would ask her to be his wife. His father was rich, and they would have a nice, bright little home somewhere, and mamma and the little girls would live with them. Percy would come home during his holidays, and they would be as happy as the day was long. Certainly, she did shrink a little at the thought of mamma and Archibald; but then she knew he would be as self-denying as herself, and he would do anything for her sake, of course.
She was brought back to the present by her visitor.
“You do not think this so great a trouble, then!” he said.
“Oh, no!” cried Hazel. “It only means going to a humbler house: and of course Percy and I will set to work to make mamma happy and comfortable.”
“Of course,” said the visitor dryly.
“And Percy is growing into a man, and he must take an office and do something in the City; and I must do something too, Mr Geringer – teach music or painting. You will help me, will you not!”
“In any way. In every way I will devote myself to your service. You will allow me?”
“Indeed I will,” she said, placing both her hands in his. “Papa always said you were one of his best friends, and to whom could I look better than to you.”
“Trust me, Hazel, and you shall never repent it,” he cried warmly – so warmly that he saw a half-alarmed look in the young girl’s face; but he succeeded in chasing it away by his after-display of tender regret and reverence; and left her comparatively happy and at rest.
Chapter Four.
A Proposal
All looked so easy and bright in the future that it seemed harsh on the part of Fate to crush out hope after hope. All appeared so promising when Hazel had discussed her position with Mr Geringer, and then during the next few months bit by bit the morsels of blue sky were blotted out of her horizon, till all above her seemed cold grey cloud, and her life a blank.
First then was her mother’s health to battle for, and to comfort her when they had to move to furnished lodgings and manage without a servant.
“Yes, it will be better,” said Edward Geringer to himself with a smile. “Let it work.”
He had thought the matter out thoroughly – for the family, save for a little consideration displayed by the creditors, were absolutely penniless; and he let them go into lodgings, and waited to be asked for help.
The first appeal to him was about Percy, the son; and he responded willingly, advising sensibly and well that the lad should go into some City office and fight his way in the world.
Hazel sighed, for she had hoped for more schooling and then a career at college, in spite of her talk of her brother’s working. So Percy went into the office of Suthers, Rubley, and Spark, the sugar-brokers, and came home grumbling every night.
It was hard to bear, for it upset poor weak Mrs Thorne, who sympathised with her son, and talked of the degradation, and sighed and petted him, calling him her noble boy, inveighing against Fate, and making the lad ten times as discontented with his position as he had been before, and so increased the load on Hazel’s shoulders just at a time when she was nearly broken-hearted.
For it was unmistakable: Archibald Graves, the true, the sterling, the handsome, the best of men, had been yielding to home-pressure. Old Graves said it was preposterous. The girl was right enough, but he was not going to see his son throw himself away and set up a home with a penniless girl so as to keep her mother and family as well.
Archibald Graves was indignant at first, then he thought it over. Hazel was the nicest and dearest of girls, but certainly Mrs Thorne only wanted a vowel left out of her name for it to describe her exactly. He did not like Percy either, whom he thought “a spoiled young cub.” Then there were more words with his father; introductions to friends of his sisters, especially to one Miss Pettifer, who was reputed rich, and so on, till Archibald Graves, in following his own likings, set it all down to his father’s stern orders.
He
