‘But that could not be the case with--Miss Severn, I should think,’ said

Frank, taking a foolish pleasure in speaking of her, and making a little

pause before her name like a worshipper. Nelly gave him a quick glance,

and answered carelessly.

‘Oh, Alice! She is a good little thing enough; but I don’t think she has

much brains,--few girls have,--or men either for that matter. I don’t

expect anything of the kind from people who come to this house.’

‘You are not complimentary to your visitors,’ said Frank, feeling

mortified, and with a secret sense that something at least of this

condemnation was intended for himself.

‘Well, Mr. Renton, few of our visitors are complimentary to us,’ said

Nelly, with a flush on her face, which even Frank perceived was quite

different from the soft blush which had greeted his first appearance.

Probably her quick ear had caught some difference in his tone, though he

was not himself aware of it. ‘We are rich, and you come to us when we

ask you, and are very civil; but I know you laugh at us behind our

backs, and make very free with our names, and do not show us the respect

you would to the most miserable creature who was of good family. And

then you think we are taken in by it, and don’t know----’

‘Miss Rich, you must allow me to say that personally you are doing me a

great injustice,’ said Frank, colouring high. ‘I cannot undertake to be

responsible for everybody who comes here; but so far as myself and my

friends are concerned----’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Nelly, turning her face towards him with

sudden shame and penitence which made it beautiful. Her large brilliant

eyes were full of tears, and the eloquent blood had rushed to her

cheeks. She held out her hands to him in the fervour of her compunction.

‘Oh, forgive me!--do forgive me! I was cross. I did not know what I was

saying. I did not mean you.’

There was nothing that Frank could do but take the pretty, soft,

appealing hands, and hold them in his own for a moment. He did not kiss

them, as no doubt he would have done had he never paid that visit to the

Square. ‘There is nothing for me to forgive,’ he said in softened tones.

And then Nelly recovered herself, and took her hands away.

‘But you must forgive me,’ she said, ‘for being cross to you, who, I am

sure, did not deserve it. Your mother called on Wednesday, and mamma was

so pleased. You know we are new people,--very new people--and it is a

great thing for us to have Mrs. Renton calling. But because we are such

spick-and-span new people we have always something happening to vex us.

One hears bits of gossip about you officers,--how you laugh and discuss

one, and take things in your head,’ said Nelly, breaking off suddenly,

and looking full in Frank’s face. What did she mean? Whatever it was, it

covered him with embarrassment and shame. This conversation at least was

true. He had been taking things in his head, and he did not know how to

meet her look, or give her any reply.

‘I don’t know to what you refer,’ he faltered. ‘I am sure, Miss Rich----’

and then he broke off altogether, so great was his confusion under the

steady light of her keen eyes. ‘There is no doubt,’ he went on, as soon

as he recovered himself, ‘that everything possible and impossible is

talked about. It is the fashion everywhere now-a-days. You know it as

well as I. But had anything that was less than respectful ever been

breathed in my presence----’

‘I was quite sure of that,’ said Nelly, leaning towards him with glowing

eyes and expressive face. The eyes were full of soft gratitude, and

something that looked like a tender pride. ‘I know that,’ she repeated;

‘you have always been so different!’ The voice had fallen quite low, so

that Frank had to lean forward to hear it. And there was encouragement

in her look for anything he might have had to say, for anything he

might have been moved to do, in the excitement of the moment. And

Frank’s heart was softened by compunction and the sense that he was not

so blameless as he had claimed to be. The crisis of his fate had come.

THE END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

LONDON:

Printed by STRANGEWAYS & WALDEN, Castle St. Leicester Sq.

* * * * *

THE THREE BROTHERS.

BY

MRS. OLIPHANT,

AUTHOR OF

‘CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,’

‘SALEM CHAPEL,’ ‘THE MINISTER’S WIFE,’

ETC. ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,

13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1870.

_The Right of Translation is Reserved_

LONDON

STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, PRINTERS.,

28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.

CONTENTS

OF

THE THIRD VOLUME.

PAGE

I. ALICE’S FATE 1

II. A STRUGGLE 16

III. EXCHANGED INTO THE 200TH 36

IV. WHAT IT COSTS TO HAVE ONE’S WAY 56

V. THE FALLING OF THE WATERS 73

VI. THE RAVEN 93

VII. THE DOVE 113

VIII. BEN 133

IX. THE NEXT MORNING 154

X. AUNT LYDIA 174

XI. ALL HOME 184

XII. SUSPENSE 199

XIII. THE WILL 220

XIV. THE END OF A DREAM 241

XV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 262

XVI. WHAT IT ALL MEANT TO LAURIE 283

XVII. CONCLUSION 304

THE THREE BROTHERS.

CHAPTER I.

ALICE’S FATE.

Alice Severn was very innocent and very young,--just over sixteen,--a

child to all intents and purposes,--as everybody thought around her. Old

Welby, who had taken to meddling in the padrona’s affairs, with that

regard which the friends of a woman who is alone feel themselves

entitled to display for her interests, had been pressing very earnestly

upon Mrs. Severn’s attention the necessity of preparing her child, who

had an evident and remarkable talent, to exercise it in public.

‘Few people, indeed, have their way so clear before them,’ he had said

repeatedly. ‘It is the finest thing in the world to have a girl or boy

with a decided turn. If you could but see the parents who come to me

with sons who don’t know what they would be at; and the idiots think

they may be made painters because they care for nothing in earth or

heaven. But here is this child with a talent. Of course, if it were a

talent for our own art, we might know better how to manage it; but such

as it is, it is a gift. Never undervalue a gift, my dear madam.

Providence itself points out the way for you. You have only got to train

her for her work.’

‘But, Mr. Welby,’ pleaded the padrona, ‘she is such a child. How could I

send my little maid out into the world to appear in public! I could not

do it! It would drive me out of my senses. My child! You forget what

kind of a creature she is.’

‘I don’t in the least forget,’ said the R.A. ‘She is very pretty, too,

which is a pity; but you should be above foolish notions in that

respect,--you who are so well known to the public yourself.’

‘Not so very well known,’ said the padrona, with a half smile; ‘and then

it is only my name, not me. And even if it were my very self, why it

would only be me still, not her. I am old, and what does it matter? But

my lily, my darling! Mr. Welby, you are very kind, but you do not take

the circumstances into consideration;--you do not realise to the full

extent what the consequences would be.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by the full extent,’ said Mr. Welby; ‘but

this I see as clear as daylight, that some time or other the child will

probably have her bread to earn. I say probably. She may marry, of

course, but the papers tell us people have given up marrying now-a-days.

You can’t live for ever, ma’am; and still more certainly you can’t work

for ever. And the child has actually something in her fingers by which

she could earn money, and provide for herself with the greatest ease.

Besides, a musician is not like a singer, or a dancer, or anything of

that sort. She comes on and sits down before her piano, and never pays

any attention to her audience. She need not even look at them unless she

likes. She has only a little curtsey to make, and so is off again. It is

positively nothing. She may marry, of course, but that would be no

protection against poverty. And what’s the alternative? A lingering,

idle sort of life at home; saving scraps, and making her own gowns and

bonnets; or, perhaps, giving music-lessons to tiresome children whom she

would hate. You should not, my dear Mrs. Severn, do such injustice to

your child.’

‘Indeed, I am the last person to do her injustice,’ said the padrona,

half angered, half saddened, with tears in her eyes. It was a very

trenchant style of argument. ‘If I were to die, or if I were to fail in

my work!’ Mrs. Severn said to herself, with one of those awful throbs of

dread which come upon a woman who is the sole protector and

bread-winner of her children. Such a thought was not unfamiliar to her

mind. It came sometimes at chance hours, stealing upon her suddenly like

an evil spirit, and wringing her heart. It set her now, for the

hundredth time, to count up the little scraps of resource they would

have in such a terrible contingency, the friends who would or might be

kind to them. ‘If I might but live till Edie is twenty!’ was the silent

prayer that followed. It did not seem possible that so long as she did

live she would be unable to work. This frenzy of dread was but

momentary. Had it lasted, so sharp and poignant was it, the life which

was so important might have been put in jeopardy; but fortunately Mrs.

Severn’s mind was as elastic as mind could be, and rose again like a

flower after the heavy foot had pressed it down. Yet, Alice,--could she

be doing injustice to Alice? These arguments had without doubt made a

certain impression upon her. Let but this summer be over, she said to

herself. It would be time enough certainly when the child was

seventeen,--one more year of sweet childhood and leisure, and

undisturbed girlish peace. And then the grateful thought came back upon

the mother of Mr. Rich’s commission which she was working at, and her

year’s work which was secure. Could there be comfort greater than that

thought? And the morrow would care for the things of itself.

While such discussions went on,--for they were frequent,--Alice moved

about the house, a soft, domestic spirit, with light steps and a face

like a flower. Every day it became more like a flower. The sweetness

expanded, the husks of the lovely blossom opened, the woman came gliding

noiselessly, so that nobody around perceived it, out of the silken bud

of the girl. She was clever at her needle, as her mother had boasted,

and made and mended with the homely natural satisfaction of a worker who

is conscious of working well; and she was housekeeper, and managed the

accounts, and ordered the dinners, proud of her importance and the

duties of her office; and she saw the children put to bed, and heard

them say their prayers. The homeliest, most limited life,--and yet what

could the world give that was better? Not Nelly Rich’s leisure, and

gaiety, and luxury; not Mary Westbury’s tedious comforts and

occupations. Alice for her part had everything,--and the piano, and the

talk of nights added to all. And yet her mind was not undisturbed, as

her mother fondly thought. A little secret, no bigger than a pin’s

point, had sprung into being in the virgin heart;--not worth calling a

secret,--not a thing at all, in short,--only a murmur of soft, musing

recollections,--dreams that were not half tangible enough to be called

hopes. As, for instance, what was it he meant when their eyes met that

afternoon as she played to him? how was it that he remembered so well

every time he had seen her,--even her dress?--questions which she asked

and then retreated from, and eluded, and played with, and returned to

them again. And would he go to India? Would he come back to Fitzroy

Square? So misty was the sphere in which all this passed that the one

question seemed to Alice as important as the other. What if he might

come again some afternoon, flushing all the fading sky with new tints?

What if he should go away and never be heard of more? All this was in

the child’s mind when her mother resolved that this summer at least

Alice should be left in undisturbed peace. The old story repeated

itself, as everything does in this world,--the everlasting tale of

individual identity, of isolation and separation of nature between those

who are dearest and nearest to each other. The mother would have given

her life cheerfully for her child, but could no more see into that

child’s soul than if she had been entirely indifferent to her. And

Alice, the most loving and dutiful of children, went sweetly on her way,

shaping out her own individual life, and never suspecting in that any

treason to her earliest loves, or any possible break in her existence.

It all turned on the point whether a young Guardsman, who,--with all

kindness towards Frank Renton be it said,--was not equal to either Alice

or her mother, should call, or should not call, next time he might be in

town. Certainly a very trifling matter, and almost concluded against

Alice beforehand, as may have been perceived.

I cannot take it upon me to say if he had never come that Alice would

have broken her heart. Her heart was too young, too fresh, too

visionary, to be tragically moved. She could have gone on looking for

him, wondering if he would come, quite as capable of expecting that he

would suddenly appear out of the depths of India as that he would come

from Royalborough. She had so much time to spare yet before beginning

life for herself that the fanciful delight of wondering what he meant by

a look or a word, was actually more sweet to her than anything tangible

could have been; but yet if he had never come again, a pathetic chord

would have sounded among the fresh harmonies of her being,--perhaps a

deeper note than any which had yet been awakened in her, at least a

sadder one. She would have looked for him and grown weary, and a certain

languor and melancholy would have come into her life. Already she had

more pleasure in thinking than she had ever been known to have,--or at

least she called it thinking,--and would sit silent for hours wrapped in

soft dreams, forgetting to talk, to the great disgust of little Edith,

and wonder of Miss Hadley, who was the sharpest observer in the

household, and guessed what it all meant. But still Alice could have no

reason to complain had Frank Renton never more made his appearance in

the Square. She would never have dreamt of complaining, poor child; she

would have sighed, and a ray of light would have gone out of her life,

and that would have been all;--and she had so many rays of light that

there might well be one to spare!

It was not thus, however, that things turned out. Not much more than a

week had elapsed when Frank again made his appearance in the Square. He

had not said much to himself about it. He pretended to himself, indeed,

that it was a sudden thought, as he had some time to spare. ‘One might

as well go and bid them good-bye,’ he said aloud, the better to persuade

himself that it was purely accidental. He had seen Montague, and had all

but concluded with him about the exchange, though he had still been

quite doubtful on the subject when he came up to town. Yet the sight of

the other side, and the reality given to the matter by the actual

discussion of it as a thing to be done, had an effect upon him which

nothing else had yet had. It was made at once into a matter of fact by

the first half-dozen words he exchanged with Montague of the 200th. And

now it was all but settled, whatever other conclusions might follow. The

suddenness with which this very serious piece of business had been

concluded, or all but concluded, had filled Frank with a certain

excitement. He did not know how he should announce it at home,--how he

should tell it to his friends. But he had done it. No doubt his mother

would weep, and other eyes would look on him reproachfully. Not that any

eyes had a right,--an absolute right,--to reproach him; but still----!

Frank’s mind had been very much agitated and beaten about for some days

past. That interview with Nelly had been hard upon him. He had not said

all, nor nearly all, that he had been expected to say; but still he had

said something which had drawn the indefinite bond between them a little

closer. He would owe to her, he felt, after what had passed, some sort

of embarrassing explanation of the reasons which had induced him all at

once to make up his mind and choose India and work, instead of what was

vaguely called his good prospects at home. These good prospects he knew,

and everybody knew, herself included, were,--Nelly and her fifty

thousand pounds; and it would be as much as saying, ‘I have given up all

thoughts of you,’ when he told her of his sudden determination. He had

said nothing about going to India in that last interview. On the

contrary, he had been rather eloquent on the subject of staying at home.

And now he would have to explain to her that India and freedom had more

charms for him than she had, even when backed by all her advantages. It

was not a pleasant intimation to make; neither was the thought pleasant

of telling his mother, who would have still more occasion to reproach

him. ‘Go to India, when you might have fifty thousand for the asking,

and heaven knows how much more!’ Mrs. Renton would say; and would feel

herself deeply aggrieved by her son’s backsliding. He had been beguiled

into all this by the talk of Montague of the 200th, and his own errant,

foolish inclinations. It had seemed to him like an escape from himself,

and he had taken advantage of the chance;--but it was terrible to

contemplate the immediate results. And he had an hour or two to spare,

and a little music had always so good an effect upon him! Besides, it

would not be civil to go away without taking farewell of Laurie’s

friends. The 200th were to go in three months. There would be little

further time for anything but the business of his outfit. Frank turned

his steps towards the Square with the resolution, declared,--to

himself,--that this should be the last time. He would see them once

more, as civility required, and then all would be over. He would put all

such nonsense from his mind, the folly of thinking of either;--for was

it not folly to entertain such an idea at his age?--and go away and

enjoy his freedom. He would be twenty-one before the regiment set sail,

which was no doubt a serious age, and the beginning of mature manhood;

but still few men without money married so early. And Frank did not want

a wife, though he had thus got himself into such difficulties with two

girls at once. The clear course was evidently to set himself free from

such premature entanglements, and take refuge in distance and novelty,

and rejoice in his escape.

By what strange chance it was that the padrona should have gone out that

special afternoon, taking Miss Hadley with her, is what I never could

explain. Things do occur so sometimes in this curious world, where

everything happens that ought not to happen. Alice was alone, all by

herself in that shadowy, silent drawing-room. It was a thing which did

not occur thrice in a year. And lo! Frank Renton’s visit to say good-bye

must happen on one of these rare occasions! Alice was not playing when

he was ushered in. She was sitting at work close to the piano, though

that too was not usual to her. She had gone in with the intention of

practising, but the charm of thinking had been too strong for her. Even

her work had fallen on her knee in the soft, profound stillness and

loneliness which of late had come to be so sweet to her. She was

thinking of him, asking herself once more those sweet, vague, fanciful

questions. It was so pleasant, in her new mood, to feel herself all

alone, free to think as she pleased, and lose herself in dreams for a

whole, long, enchanted afternoon. And just at that moment, as good or

evil fortune decided, Frank Renton was shown into the room. He himself

was struck dumb by the chance, as well as Alice. She looked up at him,

poor child, with absolute consternation. ‘Oh, I am so sorry mamma is

out!’ she said; and notwithstanding the stir and flutter of her heart at

the sight of him, she was quite in earnest when she said so. Mamma being

out, however, made all the difference between conscious safety and calm

and the uneasy dread which she could not explain. What was she afraid

of? Alice could not answer the question. Not of him, certainly, of whom

she believed every good under heaven. Of herself, then? But she only

repeated her little outcry of regret, and could give no reason for her

shy shrinking and fears.

‘Is she?’ said Frank; ‘but I must not go away, must I?--though your tone

seems somehow to imply it. Let me stay and wait for her. I have come to

say good-bye.’

‘Good-bye?’ said Alice, faltering. The child grew cold all over in a

moment, as if a chill had blown upon her. ‘Are you really, really going

to India, after all?’

‘After all? after what?’ said Frank, turning upon her so quickly that

she had no time to think.

‘Oh, I meant after----. I thought----. People said----. But, no, indeed;

I am sure I never believed it, Mr. Renton; it is such stupid talk; only

I was a little surprised,’ said Alice, recovering herself. ‘I mean, are

you really going to India,--after all?’

Frank laughed. He was at no loss now as he had been with Nelly Rich. ‘I

see that is what you mean,’ he said, looking at her with softened,

shining eyes, and that delicious indulgence for her youth and simplicity

which made him feel himself twice a man; ‘and you may say after all.

There are some things I shall be glad to escape from, and there are

other things,’ said Frank, rising and going close to her, ‘there are

other things----’

He did not mean it,--certainly he did not mean it,--any more than he had

meant going to India, when he came up that morning to town to talk the

matter over in a vague, general way; but, somehow, as he stood in front

of her, leaning over the high-backed chair on which she had placed her

work, gazing into the sweet face lifted to him, which changed colour

every moment, and was as full of light and shade as any summer sky, a

sudden sense of necessity came over him. Leave her?--Was there anybody

in the world but the two of them looking thus at each other? Did

anything else matter in comparison? ‘What is the use of making any

pretences?’ cried Frank; ‘if you will but come with me, Alice, going to

India will be like going to heaven!’

She sat and gazed at him with consternation and wonder and dismay;

growing pale to the very lips; straining her wistful eyes to make out

what he meant. Was he mad? What was he thinking of? ‘Go with, you?’ she

faltered, under her breath, incapable of any expression but that of

amaze. Her wondering eye sank under his look, and her heart began to

beat, and her brow to throb. The suggestion shook her whole being,

though she had not quite fathomed what it meant. And then the crimson

colour rose like a sudden flame, and flew over all her face. The change,

the trouble, the surprise, were like so many variations in the sky, and

they combined to take from the young lover what little wits he had left.

‘Would it be so dreadful?’ he said, bending down over her. ‘Alice, just

you and I. What would it matter where we were so long as we were

together? I know it would matter nothing to me. I would take such care

of you. I should be as happy as the day was long. I want nothing but to

have you by me, to look at you, and listen to you. I do not care if

there were not another creature in the world’, cried the youth; ‘just

you and I!’

‘Oh, don’t speak so!’ cried Alice, trembling in her agitation and

astonishment. ‘Don’t, oh, don’t! You must not! How could I ever, ever

leave mamma?’

‘Then it is not me you object to?’ cried the lover, in triumph, taking

her hands, taking herself to him in a tender delirium.

This was how it came about. With no more preparation on either side,

with everything against it,--friends, prudence, fortune, Nelly,--every

influence you could conceive. And yet they did it without any intention

of doing it,--on the mere argument of being left for half-an-hour alone

together. True, it took more than half-an-hour to calm down the

bewilderment of the girl’s mind, thus launched suddenly at a stroke into

the wide waters of life. She looked back trembling upon her little

haven, the harbour where she had lain so quietly a few minutes before.

But we can never go back those few minutes. The thing was done, and

nobody in the world could be more surprised at it than the two young,

rash, happy creatures themselves, holding each other’s hands, and

looking into each other’s faces, and asking themselves,--Could it be

true?

CHAPTER II.

A STRUGGLE.

There are moments in life which are so sweet as to light up whole weeks

of gloom; and there are moments so dreadful as to make the unfortunate

actors in them tremble at the recollection to the end of their lives.

Such a moment in the life of Frank Renton was that in which he suddenly

heard the padrona’s knock at her own door. He had been as happy as a

young man could be. He had felt himself willing, and over again willing,

to give up everything without a regret, for the sake of the love he had

won, and which was, he said to himself, of everything in earth and

heaven the most sweet. This he had said to himself a hundred times over

as he hung over Alice in the first ecstasy of their betrothal. He could

not imagine how he ever could have doubted. Going to India would, as he

had said, be going to heaven. Where he went, she would be with him. He

should have her all to himself, free from any interference. They would

be free to go forth together, hand in hand, like Adam and Eve. What was

any advantage the world could give in comparison to such blessedness? He

was in the full flush of his delight when that awful knock was heard at

the door.

At the sound of it Alice started too. She clung to him first, and then

she shrank from him. ‘Oh, it is mamma!’ she cried, with sudden dismay.

Then there was a pause. Frank let go the hand he had been holding.

Nature and the world stood still in deference to the extraordinary

crisis. He turned his face, which had suddenly grown pale, to the door.

And they heard her talking as she came up the stairs, unconcerned,

laughing as if nothing had happened! ‘It will be a surprise to Alice,’

she said audibly, pausing in the passage, at the dining-room door. And

Alice shuddered as she listened. A surprise! If the padrona could but

know what a terrible surprise had been prepared for herself!

And then she came in upon them, smiling and blooming, her soft colour

heightened by a little fresh breeze that was blowing, bright from the

pleasant unusual intercourse with the outside world. ‘I am sorry you did

not come with us, Alice,’ she said. ‘It is not so hot as we thought it

was. Ah, Mr. Renton!’ and she held out her hand to him. Upon what tiny

issues does life hang. If Alice had not thought it too hot to go out,

all this might never have happened. And the mother to speak of it so

lightly, thinking of nothing more important than the walk, ignorant

what advantage had been taken of her absence! To the two guilty

creatures who knew, every word was an additional stab.

‘I came up again to-day about the same business,’ said Frank, faltering.

Alice bent trembling over her work, and said nothing. She did not go, as

was her wont, with soft, tender hands, to untie the bonnet and take off

the shawl, taking pride in her office as ‘mamma’s maid.’ She put on an

aspect of double diligence over her work, though her hands trembled so

that she could scarcely hold her needle.

Even Mrs. Severn’s unsuspicious nature was startled. She turned to Miss

Hadley, who had come in behind her, and said, half in dumb-show, with a

certain impatience, ‘What does he mean by coming so often?’

‘No good,’ answered Miss Hadley, solemnly, under her breath; which

laconic utterance amused the padrona so much, that her momentary

uneasiness flew away. She sat down smiling, turning her kind face upon

the trembling pair. ‘Poor Laurie’s brother!’ she said to herself. That

was argument enough for tolerating him and showing him all kindness.

‘Alice, how is it you are so busy?’ she said. ‘I think you might order

some tea. Though it is not so very hot, it is pleasant to get into the

shade. I hope your business has made progress, Mr. Renton,’ she added,

politely. As the padrona looked at them it became slowly apparent to

her that something was wrong. Alice had not liked the task of

entertaining a stranger all by herself; or----! But of course it must be

that. It was ill-bred of him, even though he was Laurie’s brother, to

insist on coming in when there was nobody but the child to receive him.

Mrs. Severn began to feel uncharitably towards the young man. Alice

flushed one moment, and the next was quite pale. She was reluctant to

raise her eyes, and neglected all her usual _petits soins_. When she had

to get up to obey her mother, it was with a shy avoidance of her look,

which went to the padrona’s heart. What could be the matter? Was she

ill? Had he been rude to her? But that was impossible. ‘Is there

anything wrong, my darling?’ she said, half rising from her seat.

‘Oh, no, mamma!’ said Alice, breathlessly, in a fainting voice.

The padrona gave Miss Hadley a look which meant,--Go and see what is the

matter; and then with a very pre-occupied mind turned towards Frank to

play politeness and do her social duties. ‘I hope your business has made

progress,’ she repeated, vaguely; and then it became apparent that he

was agitated too.

‘Yes,’ he said; and then he came forward to her quite pale and with an

air of mingled supplication and alarm which filled her with the

profoundest bewilderment. ‘Oh, Mrs. Severn, forgive us!’ he cried. He

would have gone down on his knees had he thought that would have been

effectual; but he did not dare to go down on his knees. He stood before

her like a culprit about to be sentenced; and she looked at him with

eyes in which alarm and suspicion began to glow. There was something

wrong; but even now the mother to whom her child was indeed a child did

not guess what it was.

‘Us!’ she said; and somehow a thought of Laurie struck into the maze of

her thoughts. He could not have done anything, poor fellow, in his

exile, to call for forgiveness in this passionate way. ‘I cannot tell

what you mean,’ she cried. ‘What have I to forgive? And who are the

sinners?’ and she tried to laugh, though it was difficult enough.

‘Mrs. Severn,’ he said, ‘I would not, believe me, have taken advantage

of your absence, not willingly. She is so young. I know I ought to have

spoken to you first. I did not mean it when I came----’

‘She?’ cried the padrona, with a little cry. Not yet did she see what it

was; but instinct told her what kind of a trenchant blow was coming, and

all the blood seemed to rush back upon her heart.

‘Yes,’ said Frank, rising into the calm of passion, ‘I found her all by

herself. And I loved her so! From that first moment I saw her,--when you

called her, and she came and stood there,’ he cried, pointing vaguely at

the door; ‘and I had come to tell you I was going away. And she was

sorry. It all came upon us in a moment. How could I help telling her? I

loved her so! Forgive me for Alice’s sake.’

The padrona sat gazing at him for some moments with dilated eyes; then

suddenly she hid her face in her hands, and uttered a low, moaning cry

as of a creature in pain. All at once it had come upon her what it

meant. Frank standing there, full of anxiety, yet full of confidence,

was bewildered, not knowing what this meant in reference to himself. But

the truth was that Mrs. Severn was not thinking of him, had no room in

her mind for him at that terrible moment. It was her child she was

thinking of,--Alice, who was here half an hour ago, and now was not

here, and could never again be, for ever. It all burst upon her in an

instant, not anything remediable, as a thing might be which was

independent of the child’s own will, but voluntary, her own doing, her

choice! Something sung and buzzed in her ears; her eyes felt hot and

scorched up; sharp pulsations of pain came into her temples. ‘My

child!--my baby!--my first-born!’ she said to herself. It was as if the

earth had shaken beneath her feet, and the house had crumbled down about

her. Her whole fabric of happiness seemed to shrink up; and yet it was

not so much--not so much that she asked; not anything for herself, not

the ease, the comfort, the leisure, the pleasures, so many had. Was she

not content, more than content to work late and early, to spare herself

in nothing, to labour with both hands, as it were, never grudging? Only

her children, that was all she asked to have! And here was the first of

her children, the sweetest of all, her excellency and the beginning of

her strength, her companion, and tender consoler, and sweet

helper--gone! She gave a cry, a half-smothered moan, such as could not

be put into words. And all this time Frank stood before her, pale,

somewhat desperate, but courageous, knowing that however the mother

might be against him, the daughter was for him,--and trusting in his

fate.

When the padrona at last withdrew her hands from her face it struck her

as with a sense of offence that he should still be standing there. Why

did he, a stranger, stand and gaze at her misery? What right had he? And

then she remembered that it was this boy whom her child had chosen out

of the world, to give up her home for him. In her heart, at that moment,

the padrona hated Frank. She raised her head, and even he, though he had

no love in his eyes to enlighten him respecting the changes in her face,

saw that the lines were drawn and haggard, the colour gone, and that a

look of age and suffering had fallen upon her. But she commanded

herself. She spoke after a minute with an effort. ‘Mr. Renton, this is

a very serious matter you tell me.’ she said; ‘my daughter is a child,’

and then she had to stop and take breath, and moisten her dry lips. ‘She

is too young,--to judge what is best,--for her life. And so are you,’

she added, looking at him with a certain pity for the boy who was so

young too, and Laurie’s brother to boot; ‘you are both too young to know

what you are doing. You should not have disturbed my Alice!’ she cried,

suddenly, unable to keep in the reproach. ‘Such thoughts would never

have come into my darling’s mind. You had no right to disturb my child!’

She got up as she spoke in a blaze of momentary excitement,--anger,

grief’s twin brother, rising sudden into the place of grief. She made a

step or two away from him, and began to collect Alice’s work and fold it

up with her trembling hands, turning her back upon him, as if this

sudden piece of business she had found was the most important matter in

the world. Then she turned round, raising her hand, with an outburst of

natural eloquence. ‘She was only a child,’ she cried; ‘as much a child

as when she sat on my lap. She had not a thought that was not open to

me. I have worked for her almost all her life, watched over her, nursed

her, smiled for her when my heart was breaking,--and all in a moment,

for a young man’s vanity, my child is to be mine no longer. Why did you

not come to me fairly, like an honest enemy, and warn me what you meant

to do?’

As she spoke, standing before him with her arm lifted in unconscious

action, almost towering over him in the greatness of her suffering and

indignation, Frank stood lost in astonishment. Mothers, so far as he

knew, were glad to get their daughters off their hands. Such was the

tradition in all regions he had ever frequented. He had expected

difficulties, no doubt, but not of this kind. It was with a certain

consternation that he gazed at her, asking himself what it meant. It was

all real, there could be no doubt of that. But yet,--he was in Fitzroy

Square. It was not a duke’s daughter he had ventured on engaging to

himself, but a humble artist’s, who everybody would have thought would

have been glad enough to have her child provided for. This Frank knew,

or, at least, he believed he knew, was the light in which the matter

would have been regarded by sensible people. And he, though Belgravia no

doubt might have scorned him, was no such contemptible match for the

daughter of the painter. He stood surprised and discomfited, not knowing

how to reply to a woman who addressed him so strangely. Perhaps it would

be best to let her have it all her own way, and exhaust her indignation

without contradicting or opposing her; but then the passion in her face

moved the young man.

‘I never thought of coming as an enemy,’ he said, with some heat. ‘I

have loved her ever since I saw her. I am not to blame for that.’ How

could he be to blame? He had done naught in hate, but all in honour. And

thus the mother and the lover stood confronting each other, rivals; but

in a conflict which for one of them was without hope.

Then there was an interval of silence,--a truce between the foes. Frank

mechanically turned over and over the books which lay on a little table

against which he was leaning, and the padrona threw herself into her

chair trembling in her agitation. Again and again her lips forced

themselves to speak, but the effort was a vain one. She had not the

heart to speak. What was there to say? If Alice’s heart was gone from

her, then everything was gone. It was not as in old days, when she could

have forbidden an unsuitable indulgence with the certainty that after

the pain of the first few minutes the smiles would come back, the little

heart melt, and the child be herself again. Here was a serious trial

now, and the padrona’s heart was sick. She sat, not even looking at him,

with her head turned to one side, and her mind full of bitter thoughts.

This silence was worse than anything for Frank. He bore it as long as he

could, standing with his eyes fixed upon her, expecting the verdict

which was to come. Then, as she did not speak, he summoned up all his

courage. He made a few steps forward, so as to bring himself before her

eyes, and thus addressed her, with as much steadiness and calm as he

could command;--‘Mrs. Severn,’ he said, ‘could you not put yourself in

my position? I did not mean to betray myself. I meant to say good-bye,

and go away, and never trouble you more. But she was sorry, God bless

her! She looked at me, and pitied me, and I did not know what I was

saying. I will not tell you a lie, and say I regret,’ cried Frank, with

excitement; ‘but I will say I am sorry I had not the chance of speaking

to you first. Surely, surely, you will not refuse her to me for that!’

‘Refuse her to you!’ said the padrona, with an unconscious contempt;

‘refuse her to you! You cannot think it is you I am thinking of. Oh,

young man, how little you know! There is the sting of it! I would give

everything I have in the world she had never seen you; but you make me

work out my own sorrow. Can you believe I would hesitate a moment if it

were only refusing you?’ she cried, with a gesture unconsciously full of

scorn, throwing, as it were, something from her. Frank had never been

spoken to in such a tone before. He had been an important personage at

Richmont. Not so would his prayer have been received there. The wounded

_amour propre_ of his youth made itself felt in his displeasure. He went

to the nearest window, and stood staring out into the street, disgusted

with himself, and half disgusted, if the truth must be told, with all

the circumstances. He had been a fool in thus committing himself. He had

behaved like a fool in every way, and this was his reward;--not

rejection even, but scorn!

‘But I can’t refuse her anything!’ the padrona said with a sigh, that

came out of the very bottom of her heart. There was the sting of it. She

could not turn away, as impulse would have made her, the lover whom she

felt to be her enemy. There was the child to be considered. It was no

plain and easy matter to be decided upon in an arbitrary way. Fathers

and mothers have refused their children’s wishes before now for their

good. Daughters have been even shut up in their rooms, starved,

imprisoned, bullied into giving up the undesirable suitor, as everybody

knows. But these courses were not open to the padrona. She could no more

have stood by and seen her child suffer than she could have flown. The

one was as much an impossibility of nature as the other. She could not

refuse Alice the desire of her heart. Oh, gentle heavens! to think it

could be the desire of that tender creature’s heart to go away from her

home where she had been cherished since ever she was born,--from her

mother, who had loved and shielded her for all her sixteen years,--away

to the end of the world with a young man, whom six months before she had

never seen! And she not a woman with any weariness in her heart, nor a

girl of adventurous instincts, curious and longing for the unknown, but,

on the contrary, the purest womanly domestic child, caring little about

all the noises of the great world without,--only sixteen, a soft,

contented creature, happy in all the little business of her limited

life! There was the wonder,--a thing not new, familiar every day;--and

yet ever miraculous, a wonder and a portent to the padrona, as if it had

never happened before.

It was just then that Alice came faltering into the room. She had cried

and leaned her head on Miss Hadley’s breast when she was questioned what

was the matter; but she would not tell even that faithful friend until

mamma knew. Her faithful friend, indeed, was at no great loss. Her eyes

were sharp enough to make up the lack of all suspicion in the innocent

household. She divined the truth, and she also divined the scene that

must be going on in the drawing-room. ‘I knew this was what would come

of it,’ she allowed herself to say,--which was but natural; and she led

Alice back to the door, though it was against her will. ‘My love, these

two will never agree without you.’ she said, and stayed outside with

that purest self-denial of the secondary spectator, burning with

curiosity and interest, yet giving way to the chief personages

concerned, which is so often seen among women. She would not even go

into the dining-room, where she might have seen or heard something, but

stayed outside in the passage, having carefully closed all the doors. So

far as she herself was concerned, Miss Hadley was not Frank’s enemy.

When a man spoke out she respected him, as she always said. It was only

when he shilly-shallied that she had a contempt for him;--and to have

one of them provided for would no doubt be a great matter. Such, taking

Frank’s theory of what was proper and natural, was Miss Hadley’s way of

thinking; but she knew only too well how impracticable Mrs. Severn could

be.

Alice went in faltering, changing colour, ready to sink to the ground

with innocent shame-facedness, but as much unaware of the struggle going

on in her mother’s mind as if she had been a creature of a different

species. When she had made a few steps into the room, she paused, and

gave a quick timid glance at the two, who were both stirred by her

approach. The padrona rose, and gazed at her child, who had thus left

her side, while Frank started forward to place himself by her. This was

the last touch, which the mother could not bear. She darted to Alice’s

side, put him away with her hand, took the girl into her arms, and

holding her fast, gazed into her face. ‘Alice,’ she said, ‘is it true?

Never mind any one but me. Look at me,--at your mother, Alice. Tell me

the truth,--the truth, my darling! Can it be? Do you want to go with

him, and leave us all,--the boys, and Edith, and all that love you? Is

it true? Do you want to leave me, my child?’ cried the mother, in a

voice of anguish. And she stood holding her fast, reading the answer

before it came in her eyes, in the modulations of her lips,--elevated to

such a height of passionate feeling as she had never known before in all

her life.

Nor was it a less trial for the young inexperienced creature, knowing

nothing of passion, who was held thus in the grip of despair.

Fortunately, Alice could not understand the full force of the tempest in

her mother’s heart. ‘Oh, mamma, how can you think I want to leave you?’

she cried, with tears; and Frank, listening, felt with a pang that he

was cast aside. Then she paused. ‘But, oh, mamma, dear!’ said Alice,

with a soft, pleading, breathless tone, melodious like the cooing of a

dove,--‘oh, mamma, dear!’--and she slid her tender arm round her

mother’s neck, changing her attitude to one of utter supplication,--‘you

have Edie and the boys, and my dearest love for ever and ever. And he

has nobody; and he says,---- Will you only hear what he says? It is not

fancy. He wants me most.’

It was not more than a minute that they stood thus clinging together,

but Frank thought it an hour. He was left out of the matter. It was they

who had to decide a question so momentous to them. And then he became

aware that the padrona had cast her arms round her child to support

herself, and was weeping wildly upon Alice’s shoulder. No need for any

further questions. They had changed characters for the moment. The

girl’s slight figure tottered, swayed, steadied itself, supporting with

a supreme effort the weight of the mother’s yielding and anguish; and

Alice gave him a look over that burthen,--a look of such pain and

sweetness and confidence, that Frank’s heart was altogether melted.

‘Look what I have to bear,--what I have to give up for you!’ it seemed

to say;--a pathetic glance; and yet there was in it the triumph of the

new love rooting and establishing itself upon the ruins of the old.

When the padrona came to herself she called Frank Renton to her. It was

not that she had fainted or become unconscious; but that, when a

woman,--or a man either for that matter,--is suddenly called upon to

sound the profoundest depths of suffering within her,--or his,--own

being, a mist comes upon external matters, confusing place and fact, and

above all, time, which goes fast or slow according to our consciousness.

It might have been years, so far as she could tell, since she came in

cheerfully from her walk, fearing no evil. She had been engaged in some

awful struggle against her spiritual enemies, principalities and powers,

such as she had never yet encountered; and all unprepared, unarmed for

the conflict! She came to herself, lying back in her chair exhausted as

if with an illness, without strength enough left to feel the full force

of any calamity. She called Frank Renton to her, holding out her hand.

‘Sit down here and let me speak to you,’ she said. ‘I am to listen to

what you have to say. And I will listen,--but not now. Such a thing had

never entered into my mind. I thought the child was safe for years. I

thought she was all mine,--my consolation. I have had so much to do, it

seemed but fair I should have a consolation. But there is nothing fair

in this world. And now it is you who have her heart, and not me,--and I

don’t know you even. To be sure you are Laurie’s brother. Mr. Renton, if

you will come back to me another time, when I have got a little used to

it, I will hear everything you have to say.’

‘Thanks!’ said Frank, not knowing what answer to make, being utterly

confused in his own mind, and as much out of his depth in every way as a

young man could be. And he would have taken the hand she held out to him

in token of amity,--but Mrs. Severn was not equal to any such signs of

friendship.

‘It will be for another time,’ she said, sitting upright in her chair,

and drawing back a little. ‘If I had received any warning;--but you

have only met two,--three times;--is that all?’ she said, with a sudden

spasm in her voice.

‘And at Richmont,’ said Frank, divided between offence and humility.

Alice had left the room again, and the two were alone.

‘And at Richmont,’ the padrona repeated with a heavy sigh. ‘I might have

known. But you don’t know my child,’ she added, with sudden energy. ‘You

have seen her pretty face and heard her music, and it is those you care

for,--that is all. And there are others as pretty, and who play as well.

You cannot know my child.’

‘Look here, Mrs. Severn,’ cried Frank, driven wild in his turn; ‘I have

loved her since the first moment I saw her under those curtains. Was it

my doing? I was listening to the music, not thinking of any one; and you

called Alice, and she came. And I have been struggling against it ever

since. I will tell you the truth. I was to marry money,--everybody had

made up their minds to it. I was to have a rich wife and give up India,

and live a life that would suit me much better at home. That is the

truth. And I tried,--tried hard to carry it out. But I had seen Alice,

and I could not. To-day when I came I meant to try to say good-bye. I

meant it honestly, upon my life. And that other girl is prettier, if you

will speak so,’ cried the young man, with a kind of brutality, ‘than

Alice. Judge if it is only for that----’

‘Then you will repent,’ said the padrona, blazing up into an

inconsistent jealousy and resentment. ‘Believe me, Mr. Renton, it is far

better to carry out your intention, and leave my penniless girl alone.’

The young man started up with a muttered oath. The moment of passion was

over, but that of mutual exasperation had come. The light of battle

kindled in the padrona’s eyes. She would have been glad to be rid of him

at any price; and yet,--inconsistent woman,--though she hated him for

loving Alice, the thought that he had struggled against that love, the

thought that her child had been put in competition with another, set her

all a-flame. ‘By heaven, you do me injustice!’ cried Frank. ‘Why will

you misunderstand what I say? Let me tell you everything from the

beginning. Is it just to judge me unheard? I am Laurie’s brother, whom

you are fond of; and Alice is mine as well as yours. She has no doubt of

me. Why cannot we be friends, we two? I should be your son----’

‘It must be for another time,’ said the padrona, letting her voice

relapse into languor.

The sense of exhaustion had been thoroughly real when she expressed it

before; but now, it must be allowed, it was exasperating. The elastic

soul had touched the ground, and rebounded ever so little. But she had

rebounded in a perverse, and not an amiable way. It was not the calm of

despair, but an active wretchedness in which there was hope. And Frank,

too, got set on edge, as she was, and left the house with but one soft

word from Alice to console him as he went, flaming with opposition and

resentment. He could turn the tables on her yet, if he were to try. He

could make her regret her interference, if he would. And then a

visionary Alice glided into the young man’s imagination, holding out her

soft arms. Vex her because her mother was vexatious to him? Ah, no! not

for the world!

CHAPTER III.

EXCHANGED INTO THE 200TH.

Frank was not in spirits to go to his club, or anywhere else, after the

events of the afternoon. He made a rush for the train instead, thirsting

for the quiet of his quarters, in which, at least, he could lock himself

in, and be free from intruders. With the same desire for solitude, he

ensconced himself as usual in a corner of a railway-carriage, hoping

there, at least, to be able to indulge his thoughts in peace. But it was

a summer’s day, not yet dark, so that he could not hide himself; and his

consternation may be imagined when, in two or three minutes, he heard

the voice of Mrs. Rich asking for the Royalborough carriage. ‘Bless us,

there is Mr. Renton, Nelly!’ she said, a minute after, for Frank had

given a start at the sound of her, and probably caught her eye by the

movement, though he had sunk the next minute into the profoundest shade.

But, after this, there was nothing to be done but to jump out, and make

himself useful to the ladies, and give up his hoped-for solitude.

Nelly, of all people in the world, to face him at such a moment! To

Frank it seemed as if fate were against him. He had to go through the

usual round of salutations, and express his satisfaction at meeting

them, while all the time he fretted and fumed. It was not even as if

they had been three, which is a safe party. Mrs. Rich had a companion, a

lady of about her own age, who was going to Richmont with them, so that

Nelly was left to Frank. Neither her mother nor she thought it a bad

arrangement. She made her way to the farther window, and seated herself,

leaving Frank no alternative but the seat beside her. And she was very

lively and full of animation,--a bright, smiling creature, pleasant to

look upon. It would be impossible to describe Frank’s feelings as he

seated himself beside her, with a gap of two vacant seats between him

and the elder ladies at the other side, and the noise of the train to

favour a _tête-à-tête_. ‘Come and tell me what you have been about,’

said Nelly. ‘Are you always running up and down to town, you idle

Guardsmen? I never go but I see heaps of you. Tell me what you have been

about.’

‘You had better tell me what you have been about,’ said Frank; ‘that

would be more interesting. Shopping? or picture-seeing? or,--oh, I

perceive, the flower-show. I had forgotten that.’

‘You were not there,’ said Nelly, quickly,--‘for I looked. There was

Lord Edgbaston, and I don’t know how many more, who are always to be

seen everywhere,--but not you.’

‘I was engaged on much less pleasant business,’ said Frank, to whom it

suddenly occurred that here was an opportunity to tell some portion of

his news. It could not be told too soon, especially considering all that

had happened since.

‘Less pleasant!’ repeated Nelly. ‘They are very slow and stupid, I

think, unless one has some one to talk to one likes. As for the flowers,

one can see them anywhere. I had Lord Edgbaston, your charming friend,

Mr. Renton; and he was not lively. I don’t suppose his talents lie in

the way of talk.’

‘He is a very good fellow,’ said Frank, with a certain tenderness,

thinking how soon he should have left all these pleasant companions. His

heart melted to them, and his voice took a lugubrious tone.

‘How doleful you are!’ cried Nelly, laughing; ‘one would think you were

going to cry. What has been going on? Tell me; has some one been unkind?

And I declare you are quite pale. I am getting very, much

interested;--do let me know.’

‘I don’t know that you will be at all interested when you hear,’ said

Frank, with a certain desperation. ‘I have just been settling matters

about my exchange into the 200th. They are to sail for India in three

months, and it is not cheerful work.’

‘To sail for India in three months!’ said Nelly. The change that came

over her face was indescribable. A half-amused incredulity, then the

startled pause, with which she might have said, This is too serious a

matter to joke about; and then consternation, anger, mortification. She

grew pale, and then brilliantly crimson, till the colour dyed as much as

could be seen of her clear, dark skin. She had a right to look at him

with eyes of keen inquiry;--not a right to interfere or find fault,--but

yet a right to ask the question. He had gone so far that she had, at

least, that claim.

‘Yes,’ he said, with an exquisite discomfort, such as would have been

punishment enough for worse treachery than he had perpetrated, ‘I have

been putting it off and wasting my time, beguiled by pleasanter things.

But to-day matters became urgent, and I settled it. I could delay no

longer,’ he said, with apology in his tone; ‘it is not a cheerful piece

of work, as I say.’

Nelly did not answer a word. She was struck dumb. That other day, under

the lime-trees, he had certainly said not a word about India. He had

not, indeed, said all which the opportunity might have justified him in

saying. He had been unsatisfactory, and had made a very poor use of the

opportunity. But still he had not so much as hinted at anything which

could explain this. She sat in her corner, bending towards him a little,

as she had been before he made this startling intimation. What could it

mean? Could he intend to ask her to go there with him? Nelly’s heart

gave a sudden bound at the thought. She was so adventurous and eager for

change that India itself would not have frightened her. Could that be

what he meant? She did not change her position, but sat still, turning

towards him in a listening attitude, with her eyes cast down, and a

certain sharpness of expectation in her face. The idea was quite new and

startling, but it was not unpleasant. She waited, with a tingling in her

ears, a sudden sense of quickened pulsation and tightened breath, for

the next words he should say.

But at that moment dumbness, too, fell upon Frank. His lips grew dry;

his tongue clave to his mouth. He turned a little away, and began to

play unconsciously with the little cane in his hand, flicking his boot

with it. It seemed to him as if all his powers of speech were exhausted

and not a word would come. If only there might be a stoppage at some

station, or an accident, or anything! He would have welcomed any

incident that would have interrupted this horrible pause. And not a word

would come to his lips. He tried to make up some ordinary question

about the flower-show, but it would not do. He sat in a frightful

consciousness,--afraid to look at her, wondering what she was thinking

of it, how she would receive it. And the train was one of those nice,

quick express trains, which stop only at Slowley junction. The poor

young fellow thought he would have gone mad with that awful pause and

stoppage of talk, and the everlasting iron murmur and clank of the

wheels.

It was full five minutes before any one spoke, and that at such a time,

of course, seemed as a year. Then it was Nelly who resumed the

conversation, in a tone clear and distinct, with a modulation of

contempt in it which set Frank’s nerves on edge. ‘I do not see why it

should not be cheerful work,’ she said; ‘no doubt you like it or you

would not have done it; but it is sudden surely, Mr. Renton?’ And Frank,

who did not look at her, who was busy still with his cane and his boot,

felt that she was looking steadily at him.

And he was aggravated at the tone. It was the second time that afternoon

in which he had been contemptuously spoken to;--by Mrs. Severn, first of

all, who had certainly no right to do it, and who had taken pains to

make him understand how little importance he was to her, what small

hesitation she would have had in cutting him off from all good offices.

And now Nelly, who might have an excuse, adopted the same tone.

Naturally, it was the one who had some justification for her scorn who

bore the brunt of both offences. He looked up at her, and met full, as

she had not expected him to meet, the look of restrained resentment,

indignation, and wounded feeling, with which she regarded him. Though he

was in the wrong, he met her eyes with more fortitude than she could

exercise in meeting his. He it was who had been the traitor, and

therefore he took the upper hand. ‘I am surprised you think it sudden,’

he said, fixing his eyes upon her so resolutely that Nelly’s could not

bear the gaze. ‘I have been in negotiation about it more or less since

ever I knew you. The opportunity has been sudden, but not the

intention.’ Thus the man, being unmoved by anything but a passing

compunction which he had overcome, got the better of the woman whose

heart had been touched ever so little. He looked full at her, and he

looked her down.

‘But I thought you had changed your mind,’ said Nelly softly, with an

effort to preserve her calm.

‘Oh no, never!’ answered Frank, in his majestic way. And then she turned

her face round to the window, and gazed steadily out. It was not that

she was in love with him,--not much. But she was a girl who had had

every toy she ever longed for in all her life, and now for the first

time she was denied. She turned to the window, and sudden tears sprang

into her eyes. Her own impression was that she was struck to the heart.

Her lip quivered; there was a painful feeling in her throat. She had

been so bright, so lively, so full of enjoyment,--and now the revulsion

came! But she was proud enough not to make any very distinct

self-betrayal. She did not mind showing him that she was offended. Even

had it come to a little outbreak of passion and tears, she would not,

perhaps, have very much minded. But all she did now was to turn away her

face. Turning round and gazing very fixedly out of a window after a

short interval of very lively and friendly conversation, is a

sufficiently marked sign that something is wrong. But Nelly did not

utter any reproach. He had faced her, and intimated to her, almost in so

many words, that it was a matter she had nothing to do with; and she

accepted the intimation. But she did not think it necessary to put an

amiable face upon it, as so many girls would have done. She had turned

almost her back upon him before they got to Slowley, where the gorgeous

carriage of the Riches,--much the most splendid in the county, with a

coat-of-arms as big as a soup-plate upon the panel,--was waiting for

them. And when Frank got out and gave her his hand to alight, Nelly

sprang past him without taking any notice. ‘Good-bye, Mr. Renton; I

suppose we shall see you before you go,’ she said, without looking at

him. Mrs. Rich thought her daughter must be out of her senses when she

heard the news, which it cost Nelly an effort to tell with composure.

She had lost all her colour, and looked black, and pale, and gleaming,

and dangerous, when the Royalborough train glided on; and Mrs. Rich

after an affectionate farewell to Frank, leisurely ascended into her

carriage. ‘Have you quarrelled with Frank Renton, my dear?’ she said,

with a little alarm.

‘Oh, dear no!’ said Nelly. ‘I told him to come and see us before he went

away.’

‘Before he went away!’ said Mrs. Rich, surprised.

‘Yes. He has exchanged into the 200th, and they are going to India,’

said Nelly, following the train, as it swept along the curves, with an

eye which was far from friendly. And Mrs. Rich’s conclusion was that the

young man must be mad.

Nor must it be supposed that Frank Renton’s thoughts were particularly

comfortable as he pursued his way. He was not vain enough to be

gratified by Nelly’s mortification, and he could not conceal from

himself the fact that he had not behaved quite as he ought to have done.

He had not gone any great length, but still he had said and done enough

to justify these kind people in thinking badly of him. He had made them

an ungracious return for their hospitality and kindness. And when they

should come to know that he was going to be married before he left, and

that it was Alice Severn who was to be his bride, what would they

think? Would it not look as if lie had gone to Richmont and pretended

to pay court to Nelly for the sake of their visitor? Would it not be

supposed that both he and his innocent Alice had been traitors;--his

innocent Alice, to whom the very thought of evil was unknown? And then

there was Alice’s mother,--though she did not like him,--who might be

injured by this misconception. Mr. Rich was her patron, he had heard.

All this maze of humiliating contingencies made Frank half frantic. He

was angry with Mrs. Severn for being a painter,--angry with the Riches

for buying her pictures,--angry that there should be any connexion, and

that, above all, a connexion as of patron and dependant between the

family of the girl he might have married and that of the girl he loved.

Thinking it over, his very soul grew sick of the imbroglio. If he could

but rush up to town and take his Alice to church, and be off to India

the very same day,--seeing nobody, making explanations to nobody,--that

was the only way of managing matters which could be in the least degree

satisfactory; and that was impossible. Mothers of far higher pretensions

than Mrs. Severn would, he knew, have received his suit much less

cavalierly. He would have her susceptibilities to _ménager_ as well as

those of everybody else. There was not a point in the whole business,

except Alice herself, upon which he could look with the least

satisfaction; and indeed it said a great deal for Frank’s love that

Alice herself retained his allegiance unbroken through it all.

Next morning Frank hurried over to Renton at an hour so early as to

startle himself and everybody concerned. He met his cousin Mary as she

made her habitual round of the flower-beds before breakfast. It had

always been hard work to get him to be ready for breakfast at all, not

to speak of sauntering in the garden. And yet he had come all the way

from Royalborough. Mary held out her hand to him with a little cry of

surprise.

‘Is it you, Frank, or your double?’ she asked in her amaze. ‘It does not

seem possible it can be you.’

‘I wish I had a double who would be so obliging as to do half my work

for me,’ said Frank, dolefully. ‘It is me, worse luck! and if you don’t

stand my friend, Mary, I don’t know what I shall do.’

‘Of course I will stand your friend. But, Frank, what is it?’ cried

Mary, gliding her arm within his with sisterly confidence. And he took

breath for a few minutes without saying a word, leading her from the

front of the house out of sight under the shadow of the trees.

‘I may as well tell you at once,’ he said, after this pause. ‘I could

not stand it any longer. I have settled all about my exchange, and I am

going to India in three months.’

‘To India!’ said Mary. But she had a brother in India, and perhaps it

was not quite so appalling to her as Frank expected it to be. She made a

little pause, however, and then she said, ‘Poor godmamma!’ with as much

feeling as he could desire.

‘Well,’ said Frank; ‘could I help it? It is my father you must blame.

How was it to be expected that I could get on in the most expensive

regiment in the service after what has happened? It was my duty to do

something, and this was the only thing I could do.’

‘I am not blaming you, Frank; I only said, “Poor godmamma!” she will

feel it so,’ said Mary; ‘especially after what you gave us to understand

last time, that--that there might be another way----’

‘That was folly,’ said Frank hotly; and then he added with humility,

‘But I have not told you half all. You must do more for me yet. Mary, I

am going to get married before I go.’

‘To get married!’ Mary repeated with a start; and then she clasped his

arm tight with both her hands, and looked up joyfully in his face. ‘Then

you must have been fond of her after all,’ she cried. ‘It was not her

money you were thinking of. Oh, Frank! don’t be angry. It made me so

unhappy to think you were going to marry her for her money.’

‘Good heavens! this girl will drive me mad!’ cried Frank. ‘What

nonsense are you thinking of now? Money! She has not a penny, and you

never heard of her in your life.’

‘It is not Nelly Rich then?’ said Mary, faltering and withdrawing the

clasping hands from his arm.

‘Nelly Rich! that was all your own invention, and my mother’s,’ said

Frank,--‘not mine. I said she would have suited Laurie. If you chose to

make up a story, that was not my fault.’

There was a pause after this, for Mary remembered but too distinctly the

conversation about Nelly, and could not acknowledge that the story was

of her invention. But she could hold her tongue, and did so steadily,

making no remark, which Frank felt was as great an injury to him as if

she had enlarged on the subject. He went along under the trees,

quickening his pace in his agitation, without much thought of Mary, who

had to change her steps two or three times to keep up with him.

‘I suppose you have no further curiosity?’ he said at length; ‘you don’t

want to know who it really is.’

‘Yes, Frank,--when you will tell me,’ said Mary, holding her ground.

‘You are very provoking,’ said her cousin;--‘if it were not that I had

such need of you! You should not aggravate a poor fellow that throws

himself as it were on your assistance;--I will tell you who it is

whether you care to hear or no. It is Alice Severn,--Mrs. Severn’s

daughter, who was Laurie’s great friend.’

‘Laurie again!’ said Mary, amazed,--‘Mrs. Severn! Are we never to have

an end of Laurie’s friends? You told me she had no daughters. You said

something about a little girl. Ah, Frank! I am afraid it is some widow

coquette that first made a victim of Laurie and now has done the same to

you. I knew there was something mysterious about his going away.’

‘I wish you would talk of things you understand,’ said Frank,

indignantly. ‘Alice is only sixteen. She is, I believe, the purest,

simplest creature that ever lived. As for Laurie, she was a child to

him;--he treated her like a child.’

‘Sixteen! Of course she is only a child,’ said Mary; ‘and the daughter

of Mrs. Severn the painter! Frank, you must be mad.’

‘I think I shall be, unless you help me,’ said the young soldier. ‘Her

mother is furious against me, Mary; and so will my own mother be, I

suppose. But what does it matter when we are going to India? We shall be

able to live on what we have. She has no expensive tastes, nor have I.’

‘You,--no expensive tastes?’ cried Mary. ‘Oh, Frank! do pause and think.

I did not care for Nelly Rich, but this is far worse. Nelly Rich was of

no family, but she had money; whereas this girl is----’

‘The creature I love best in the world,’ said Frank, interrupting her

hastily, with a sudden glow upon his face. ‘It is of no use speaking. If

I have to give up mother, and home, and friends, and all I have in the

world, I shall still have Alice,--and Alice means everything. It is

because you don’t know her. But I tell you there never was any one like

her. And, Mary, if you don’t stand by us, I will throw up everything

else I care for in the world.’

‘But not her?’ asked his cousin, raising her eyes to his face.

‘Never her!’ cried the young man. ‘Give up my Alice! Not for twenty

mothers! I don’t mind what people choose to say. We are going to India,

and it will not matter to us,--nor your objections, nor mamma’s

objections, nor anything in the world. She shall go with me if I run

away with her. You understand me now?’

‘Is she the kind of girl to run away with you?’ said Mary, still looking

earnestly in his face.

‘No,’ said Frank, with a little outburst of impatience, ‘I wish she

were. You may think how unpleasant it is to me to put myself at that

woman’s feet, and plead as if I were a beggar. And she hates me; but

Alice stands fast, bless her! And her mother can refuse her nothing,’

he added, with a sudden breath of satisfaction. He was flushed and

excited with his story. Mary had never seen him look so manful, so

bright, and full of energy. He had made up his mind;--that was something

gained, at least.

And then there was another pause. Mary did not know how to reply. Frank

was in love, and that was a great, the greatest recommendation in his

favour. But this Alice, this creature of sixteen, a girl altogether out

of his sphere! It was impossible for his cousin, brought up in the

prejudices of her class, not to feel that there must have been some

‘artfulness,’ some design upon the innocent young Guardsman, some

triumphant scheme, to lead away so guileless a member of society; and

what if it were the same scheme which had wounded Laurie too, and sent

him away with, perhaps, a broken heart! Such were Mary’s thoughts as she

listened. And what could she do? Make herself a party to this artful

plan? Countenance the girl, and help Frank to ruin himself? How could

she do it? And there were all the speculations about Nelly Rich which

had thus fallen to the ground,--and all her godmother’s hopes of the

money Frank was to marry! Her mind was full of perplexity. ‘I do not see

what I can do,’ she said, faltering. ‘I don’t understand it at all.

There was first Miss Rich, and we had made up our minds to that; and

now, all at once, it turns out not to be Miss Rich, but a girl no one

ever heard of. I don’t know what to make of it, Frank. How can I stand

your friend? You are scarcely one-and-twenty. You don’t want a wife at

all, that I can see; and going to India too! And a girl of sixteen! I

think you are quite unreasonable. As for poor godmamma, I don’t know how

she is to bear it. I see nothing but folly in it myself, and what can I

say?’

Frank made no answer. He turned with her towards the house, from which,

some time before, they had heard the sound of the breakfast-bell. The

old butler stood at the window with his napkin in his hand, looking

anxiously about the flower-garden for Miss Mary, and much puzzled to

divine whose was the figure which he saw in the distance by her side.

Mary had dropped her cousin’s arm, and the two walked onward, side by

side, like people who have quarrelled, or between whom, at least, some

difficulty has arisen. ‘My mother does not get up to breakfast?’ Frank

had said, and Mary had answered ‘No,’ and they had gone on again without

further communication. But yet Frank was not so cast down as he might

have been supposed to be. He was sure of Mary, though Mary was so

doubtful of him. When they sat down together to breakfast in the

sunshiny quiet of the great brown dining-room, they went over and over

the subject again, and yet again. Frank was not aware that he had any

skill in description, but, all unawares, he placed before his cousin

such a picture of Alice and her curls as touched Mary Westbury’s heart.

‘If my mother once heard her play, she would never ask another

question,’ Frank said, in his simplicity; and he confided to Mary more

of his troubles in respect to Nelly Rich than he had ever thought to

tell. ‘It is a sneaking sort of thing for a man to say,’ Frank admitted,

with a flush on his face, ‘but it wasn’t all my doing. I declare I

thought old Rich meant to offer her to me the first hour I was in the

house. I should never have thought of it myself. And I met her to-day,

Mary, and told her plainly I was going to India. She is sharp enough.

You may be sure a fellow would never need to make long explanations to

her.’

‘And did she understand this too?’ said Mary, from her judicial seat.

‘No, by Jove, I could not tell her that,’ said Frank. ‘That is the worst

of it. They will think it was all made up then, and that Alice and I

were laughing at them. They are sure to think that, but it is not true.

Such an idea had never come into her innocent head; and as for me, I

tried never to look at her, never to speak to her, to think of Nelly

only,--like a cur,--for her money,’ said Frank, with a novel fervour of

self-disgust. ‘And she’s not a bad sort of girl, I can tell you, Mary.

I’d like her to know there was no treachery meant.’

‘I am glad you have so much feeling, at least,’ said Mary, the Mentor,

looking at him with more charitable eyes.

‘Oh, feeling!’ cried Frank, ‘I wish you would not speak of feeling. And

then there is her mother. She will consent for Alice’s sake; but she

hates me. And mamma will go out of her senses, I suppose,’ said the

young man, disconsolately. He looked so discouraged, so anxious, so

boyish, amid all the serious complications he had gathered round him,

that it was all Mary Westbury could do to restrain a momentary laugh.

And yet there were few cases less laughable when you come to think of

it. To be sure, there always remained the question,--a question which

every sensible person might ask,--Why was it needful that a young man of

one-and-twenty and a girl of sixteen should marry at all? Seven years

later would be quite time enough. They had set their hearts upon it; but

why should they more than other people have the desire of their hearts?

Mary, for her own part, had set her heart repeatedly on things that had

not come, and were very unlikely to come to her. And why Frank and his

Alice should have their will at once out of hand she could not see. But,

after all, it might be the best way of cutting the knot. It was better

in her opinion that he should marry any how for love, than in the most

favourable way for wealth. And before Frank quitted Renton, Mary had

undertaken this all but impossible task.

CHAPTER IV.

WHAT IT COSTS TO HAVE ONE’S WAY.

Space forbids the historian to attempt any description of the

difficulties which Mary had to encounter in her benevolent undertaking.

By Frank’s urgent desire,--for his courage had altogether failed

him,--nothing was said on the subject till he was gone; and the

consequence was a very uncomfortable day, in which even Mrs. Renton

perceived that there was something more going on than was revealed to

her. ‘What are you always talking to Frank about?’ she said, pettishly.

‘I never turn my head but I find you whispering, or telegraphing, or

something. If there is anything I ought to know, let me know it.’

‘Wait a little,--only wait a little, dear godmamma,’ Mary answered,

pleading; and then, when the hero was gone, the tale was told.

‘Going to India,--going to be married!’ said Mrs. Renton, in her

bewilderment; ‘but why should he go to India if he marries? Of course he

will be provided for if he makes up his mind to that. Or why should he

marry if he goes to India?--one thing is bad enough. Is he out of his

senses? Fifty thousand pounds will give them, at least, two thousand

a-year.’

‘But, godmamma, you are making a mistake,’ said Mary. ‘It is not Miss

Rich Frank is going to marry. It is a young lady,--whom he met at

Richmont.’

‘Not Miss Rich!’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Another girl! The boy must be mad to

go on making acquaintance with such people. And how much has she?’ the

mother added, with plaintive submission to a hard fate, folding her

patient hands.

Mary, thus driven to the last admission of all, grew quite pale, but

made a brave stand for her client. ‘Oh, godmamma,’ she cried, ‘you must

not be hard upon him. He is so young; and isn’t it better he should

marry her because he loves her than because she is rich? She has not a

penny, he says.’

When this awful revelation was made, Mrs. Renton was excited to the

length of positive passion. Words failed her at first. Her eyes, though

they were worn-out eyes, retaining little lustre, flashed fire. Her

faded cheeks grew red. She was inarticulate in her rage and indignation.

It was Mary who received the first brunt of the onslaught, for

encouraging a foolish boy in such nonsense, and for taking it upon her

to defend him against all who wished him well. You would have thought

it was Mary who had inspired him with this mad fancy, put it in his

head, encouraged him in it, urged him to commit it, and compromise

himself in the face of the strenuous, steady, invariable opposition of

‘all who wished him well.’ The poor lady made herself quite ill with

indignation, and had to be taken to bed, and comforted with more tonics

and arrowroot than ever. She lay there moaning all the evening, refusing

to allow poor Mary to read to her, or to perform any of her usual

ministrations. If it had not been that Frank had left his boat, having

himself returned to Royalborough by the railroad, and thus afforded Mary

the opportunity of getting easily across the river, and running all the

way to the Cottage to be comforted by her mother for half-an-hour before

returning to her charge, I don’t know what would have become of her.

Mrs. Westbury did not look the sort of woman to seek comfort from, but

she was Mary’s mother, which makes all the difference, and she had never

got over her compunction about her nephews. This trial they were all

going through was her doing, and though she sympathised much more with

her sister-in-law than with Frank in the present case, she was not

without a certain pity for the boy. ‘He must be mad,’ she said; ‘but if

it can’t be put a stop to, it must be put up with; and your aunt will

have got a little used to it by to-morrow.’ Thus comforted Mary went

back, not without a little wondering comparison in her own mind between

the people who could do rash things and have their will, and those who

had ‘to put up with’ everything that might chance to come in their way,

and never had it in their power to please themselves. She was a very

good girl, full of womanly kindness and charity; but it is not to be

supposed that close attendance upon a weariful invalid like her aunt,

not ill enough to move any depth of sympathy, but requiring perpetual

_pettis soins_, and endless consideration in every detail of life, was a

kind of existence to be chosen by a lively girl of twenty. Poor Mary was

the scapegoat and ransom for the sins of her family. The three ‘Renton

boys’ were all going away on their own courses, comforting themselves

about their mother,--when they thought of her at all,--by the reflection

that Mary was with her. They could go away, but Mary could not budge. It

was rather hard, when you came to think of it. And that Frank, not three

months older than herself, should marry and set out in life, and go

blithely off to all the novelty and all the brightness, and no one have

any power to stop him; while she stayed at home, making excuses for him,

and doing duty for all three! Mary was a comfortable kind of young

woman, and went into no hysterics over her fate; neither did she rave to

herself about the awful blank of routine and the want of excitement in

her life. But she did feel a little envy of Frank, and pity for herself,

as she glided across the silvery river in the summer twilight. Doing

must be a pleasanter thing than ‘putting up with,’ even to a

philosophical mind.

The next day Mrs. Renton had got a little used to it. She exerted

herself to the unusual extent of writing Frank a letter, conjuring him

by all his gods to repent ere it was too late, and to return to the

paths of common sense and discretion; and when she had done this, she

called Mary to her, and asked a hundred questions about ‘the girl.’ ‘Her

mother was one of Laurie’s great friends,’ Mary said, trying to make the

best of it.

‘All the doubtful people one knows of seem to be Laurie’s friends,’ said

his mother, pathetically. And thus the crisis was over at Renton, for

the moment at least.

At Richmont, however, affairs took a much more serious turn when the

whole truth was known. Nelly’s intimation that Frank was going to India

had not very much affected that sanguine household. ‘It will bring

things to a point,’ Mrs. Rich had said to her husband. ‘He has done it

in some little spirit of independence, not to be obliged to his wife,

you know; but if he comes to an understanding with Nelly, we’ll make him

exchange again.’

‘Ah! if he comes to an understanding with Nelly. But she shall never go

to India with him,’ said the father. ‘No young fellow shall blow hot

and cold with my daughter. I’d have done with him at once.’

‘Nonsense! It has been some little tiff between them,’ said the more

genial woman. And even Nelly got by degrees to believe that it was not

yet finally over. But when the whole truth was whispered at

Richmont,--as it soon was by one of the officers who had learned the

fact, no one knew how,--the family in general became frantic. Nelly kept

her temper outwardly at least, and held her tongue, having some regard

for her own dignity; but the father and mother were wild with rage.

People whom they had patronised so liberally!--a woman to whom they had

just given such a commission! When this thought occurred to them, they

exchanged glances. Next day, without saying a word to any one, Mr. and

Mrs. Rich went up to town. They bore no external signs of passion to the

ordinary eye, but in their hearts they were breathing fire and flame

against every Renton, every Severn, every creature even distantly

connected with either. There was very little conversation between the

two indignant parents as they made their way solemnly to Fitzroy Square.

A certain judicial silence, and stern restraint of all the lighter

manifestations of feeling, alone marked the importance of their mission.

They were shown up to Mrs. Severn’s studio by their own request,--having

peremptorily refused any such half-way ground as the drawing-room, as

if they had come to treat with their equals. The workshop of the woman

who was, as it were, in their employment, working to their order, was

the more appropriate place.

They found the padrona standing at her work with looks very different

from her usual aspect. Something spiritless and worn was in the very

attitude of her arm, in the fall of her gown, and dressing of her hair.

It was not that she was less neat, less carefully dressed, less busy.

But the woman was in such unity with herself, that her unusual

despondency communicated itself to every detail about her. She had no

heart for Cinderella,--the little loving figure triumphing in its new

life,--the sour, elder women standing by who were grudging,--what were

they grudging? The child’s happiness, or her triumph, or the loss of

her? She had not even heart enough to rouse her to the heights of

artist-passion, and to work in her own heart into the picture, as

doubtless she would yet do, some time when all was over. She stood with

her sketches hung round the walls, and the whole room full of this

commission of her rich patron,--the commission which made her living

quite secure and above the reach of chance, and her mind easy for the

year,--but listless, spiritless, mechanical, her heart gone out of her

life.

Mrs. Severn was so much pre-occupied that she did not even notice, what

at another time she would have been so ready to notice,--the changed

tone of the Riches as they came in. Luckily for her own comfort, she had

never heard that there was ‘anything between’ Nelly Rich and Frank

Renton. Such a reason for having nothing to say to him would have been

very welcome to the padrona. But she could not refuse to have anything

to say to him without breaking her child’s heart; and, accordingly what

did it matter? It was to Alice, not to him, that she had yielded.

Therefore, she received very much as a matter of course Mrs. Rich’s

pretended congratulations. ‘We hear that great things have been

happening with you,’ she said. ‘I am sure I had no idea, when Alice was

at Richmont, that she was such an advanced young lady. I suppose it was

going on then, though we knew nothing about it.’

‘I don’t know,’ said the padrona. ‘I cannot give you any information. It

is not a pleasant subject to me; but I don’t suppose it was going on

then.’

‘Not a pleasant subject!’ cried Mrs. Rich, with not unjustifiable

virulence. ‘Oh, my dear Mrs. Severn, you must not tell me that. We all

know what a mother feels when she has succeeded in securing a charming

_parti_ like Mr. Frank Renton for her favourite child.’

‘Is he so?’ said the padrona. ‘Indeed, I should not have thought it. But

I am not in charity with Mr. Frank Renton. I wish we had never seen

him. I am like Cinderella’s sisters,’ she said, with an attempt at a

smile;--‘I am spiteful;’ and there was a something in the droop and

languor of her aspect which began to melt the hearts of the avengers.

She looked so unlike herself.

‘Nay, nay,’ said Mrs. Severn’s patron. ‘Of course it is a fine thing for

you to have your daughter settled so soon. And a fine thing for her

too,--a girl without any fortune. Not many men, I can tell you, would

have been so rash.’

‘Then I wish Mr. Frank Renton had not been so rash,’ cried the padrona,

with rising spirit. ‘I would have thanked him on my knees had he kept

away from this house. I cannot see any good in it. Forgive me! I have no

right to trouble you with my vexations. I will show you my sketches,

which are more to the purpose.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Rich, with hesitation. ‘It was principally about

them,--we came to speak.’

The padrona, in her unsuspiciousness, became half apologetic. ‘I should

have written to ask you to come and see them,’ she said; ‘but this

business has put everything else out of my mind;’ and she began to

collect her drawings in their different stages, and to rouse herself up,

and show her work, as became her. The avengers, meanwhile, looked at

each other, recruiting their failing courage from each other’s eyes.

‘Pray don’t give yourself any trouble,’ said Mr. Rich. ‘The fact is,

Mrs. Severn,--I am very sorry,--my wife and I have been talking things

over, and she,--I,--I mean we,--are not quite sure----. What I would say

is, that if you could make a better bargain with any one,--a dealer,

perhaps, or any of your private friends,--for these pictures,--why, you

know I would not stand in your way.’

‘A better bargain!’ said the padrona in amaze, not perceiving in the

least what he meant; ‘but I never should dream of a better bargain. I am

painting the pictures for you.’

‘Yes; I know there was some understanding of that kind,’ said the uneasy

millionnaire. ‘Some sort of arrangement was proposed,--but, you know,

circumstances alter cases. I,--I don’t see,--and neither does my

wife,--that we can go on with that arrangement now.’

The padrona had been standing by her great portfolio, taking some

drawings out of it. She stood there still, motionless, as if she were

paralysed. Every tinge of colour left her face; her eyes gazed out at

them for one moment blankly, with a sudden pang which made itself

somehow dimly apparent, though she did not say a word. It was a cruel

blow to her. For a moment she could not speak, or even move, in the

extremity of her astonishment. Before the echo of these extraordinary

words had died in her ear, Mrs. Severn’s rapid mind had run over in a

moment all there would be to do in the dreadful year which was

coming,--Alice’s outfit, and the marriage which was such pain to think

of, but which, nevertheless, must be planned and provided for, so that

her child should have all due honour. As she stood and gazed at the two

faces which were looking at her, it was all she could do to keep down

two bitter tears that came to her eyes.

‘I thought it was more than an arrangement,’ she said; ‘perhaps because

it was of more importance to me than it was to you. I thought it was a

bargain. The price was settled, you know, and everything.’

‘Yes, oh yes,’ said both together. ‘I know there was a great deal said.’

‘Mr. Rich was in a buying humour that day,’ said the wife. ‘But

circumstances alter cases,’ said the husband. They had done their work

more completely than they meant to do it; but yet they were not going to

give in.

Mrs. Severn bowed her head. She could not speak. It was the cruellest

aggravation of all her other troubles! ‘If that is the case,’ she said,

after a long pause, ‘of course I must arrange otherwise;’ and then she

came to a dead stop, turning over the drawings unconsciously with her

agitated hands.

‘Oh, you will find no difficulty about it,’ said Mr. Rich, rubbing his

hands; ‘you are so well known. There is Lambert will take as many of

your pictures as you can give him, and there is that man in

Manchester----’

‘Thanks,’ said the padrona. ‘I shall find a purchaser, I hope.’ And then

there was a dead silence; and the two avengers felt inclined to drop

through the floor and hide themselves. They were not cruel. They had

taken no thought of what they were doing, and when they perceived the

reality of it, could have bitten out their tongues for saying such

words. And yet what were they to do? They could not unsay what they had

that moment said.

As for Mrs. Severn, she was too much occupied with her own thoughts to

exert herself to set at their ease the dealers of so cruel a blow. But

yet, after a while, the instinct of courtesy, which is so strong in some

natures, came to the surface. Those two tears which had wanted to come

had been reabsorbed somehow, and she gave herself a little shake; and,

with a curious smile about her mouth, went forward to the two

embarrassed, uncomfortable people. ‘Perhaps you will look at the picture

all the same, and tell me if you like it,’ she said. And then the

startled pair, feeling very small and very angry with her for her

magnanimity, made a few steps forward, huddled together for mutual

support, and gazed in grave silence at Cinderella. She set it in the

best light for them, and showed them how much was complete, and how much

was still to do. The arrow they had sent at her was still sticking,

quivering, in her heart. And she had not time to pluck it out, but she

had time to be very civil, and smile upon the discomfited pair. Perhaps

she overdid it just a little; but to such a brave spirit, confronting

all the world, as it were, and standing alone in the fight, it is

difficult to keep a certain glimmer of contempt out of the lofty

forgiveness which it awards to its enemies. There was a touch of scorn

in the padrona’s smile. But when Mr. and Mrs. Rich had crept down-stairs

to their carriage, it is impossible to describe the state of downfall in

which they found themselves. ‘She did not feel it a bit,’ said Mrs.

Rich, trying to console herself. ‘And she has many friends among the

dealers,’ said the millionnaire, a little ruefully. ‘I shouldn’t wonder

if some fool gave a hundred or two more for the series,--and my idea!’

he added, with a certain indignation. And they went home very

uncomfortable. He might be free to withdraw from his bargain, according

to the letter of the law, but he could not charge his fee-rent for the

idea, having rejected the pictures in which it was to be carried out.

When she had seen them safely out, the padrona dropped softly into her

big chair, and hid her face in her hands. Alice’s outfit, and the

wedding, and all the year’s expenses, which she had thought safely

provided for, and her little triumph in being free of the dealers for

once,--they were all gone! It was not such a moving spectacle, perhaps,

as if she had been a young girl weeping for her lover. But those two

tears that forced themselves out, womanish, against her clasped hands,

what concentrated pain was in them! They were more bitter than many a

summer torrent out of younger eyes. And then she sprang to her feet, and

snatched at her palette, and went to work with flaming cheeks and a

headache, and all her old fire in her eyes. She had been listless enough

before, but she was not listless now.

When Nelly Rich, however, heard of this wonderful proceeding, their

grand house became too hot to hold the unhappy pair. ‘Withdraw your

commission! for what reason, in heaven’s name?’ cried Nelly, blazing at

them in thunder and lightning. The girl was half crazy with shame and

disgust. She brought her father almost to his knees before the day was

over, and flew to London, post haste, by herself, in spite of

everybody’s remonstrances, to make up the matter. ‘Papa had gone out of

his senses, I suppose,’ she said, dissembling her fury, to Mrs. Severn.

‘Padrona mia, for the sake of old times, you will not mind? He is so

sorry. They were both mad, I suppose.’ If Mrs. Severn had followed her

first impulse, she would have held by the dealers, who were not liable

to such madness; but she was her children’s mother, and had the bread

and butter to think of, and was not able to afford such luxuries as

revenge or pride. So that nobody was the worse for the patron’s

ill-temper except himself; and two people were the better,--to wit,

Nelly and Cinderella, the latter of whom had been undoubtedly

languishing under the weight of Mrs. Severn’s heavy heart, until this

violent pinch of apparent evil fortune came to sting her into life.

As for Nelly, setting her foot into the studio did her good. The smell

of the pigments, and the sight of the rubbish about,--all the sketches,

and unused bits of canvas, and bursting portfolios, were balm to the

impetuous but not ungenerous girl. ‘I don’t want to see Alice,’ she

said; ‘it was sly of her not to tell me. No, I don’t want to see her;

but she is very happy, I suppose;’ and it was not possible that this

could be said without a certain bitterness, considering all that had

come and gone.

‘Nelly dear, don’t speak of it,’ said the padrona, who was ignorant of

all the complications; and she went and gave the little messenger of

consolation a kiss, and suffered herself to shed a tear or two out of

her full heart. ‘I thought it would have killed me at first,’ she said,

going back to her work with trembling hands. And the hand that shook so

made a dreadful business of Cinderella’s white dress, and then the

mother put away her tools, and sat down and cried. Nelly had been poor

Severn’s pupil in the old, old days, and the sight of her brought

nothing but softening thoughts to the padrona’s mind; and the fountain

was opened that she kept so bravely shut. As for Nelly herself, every

moment in that room was good for her. She cried too, and washed all her

bitterness away in those tears, and turned Frank Renton and all his

misdoings courageously out of her imagination. I doubt whether he had

ever got so far as her heart.

‘I only want you to tell me one thing,’ she said, somewhat fiercely, to

Alice, who came in, all unconscious, after the tears were dried, glad

and wondering. ‘Was it going on when you were at Richmont?’

‘It?--what?’ said simple Alice, and then the child’s ready blush covered

her face. ‘Oh, no, no! It never came on at all; it came into our minds

in a moment, when we knew he was going away.’

And Nelly Rich was so magnanimous as to kiss Alice too.

‘Tell him I did it,--and that I bear no malice,’ she said, with a laugh;

and then went away with Miss Hadley, who saw her safely to the railway

station, and made the story still more plain to her. The governess

thought it strange of Mrs. Rich to permit her daughter to run about

alone in this way, but reflected that it might be one of the strange

customs of ‘those sort of people,’ and did her duty by the young lady,

putting her under the care of the guard, and keeping an eye on the

carriage till the train started. The journey might be slightly

indecorous, but it did more good than any tonic in the world.

And so it came about that in September Frank Renton sailed from

Southampton to join his regiment, with his young wife,--the only one of

the brothers who made anything like a practical conclusion to the little

romance of their beginning. Though he had hesitated for some time as to

whether he should follow interest or inclination, Frank was not the sort

of man, when his choice was made, to care very much what he might tread

upon in his way. He would have given no one pain willingly, but to have

his way was the most important matter, and he had it accordingly. They

were a couple of babies to set forth thus together, to face the

world,--one-and-twenty and sixteen! but their very youth kept them from

any consciousness of the gravity of the undertaking. They went forth

with the daring ignorance of two children, hand in hand. There were

several hearts that ached over the parting, and one had almost broke in

the effort. And the bride shed a few soft tears, and the bridegroom

kissed his hand to the people who stayed behind; and thus the last of

the three Rentons carried out his father’s will, and launched himself

upon the world.

CHAPTER V.

THE FALLING OF THE WATERS.

The readers of this history must be prepared to pass over an interval of

something less than seven years from the end of the last chapter. I

allow that it is a most undesirable break, but yet it has been involved

from the beginning as a necessity of the narrative.

Nearly seven years had elapsed since Mr. Renton’s death at the moment

when we again approach Renton Manor. He died in September, and it was

the beginning of August when Mrs. Renton received a note from Mr.

Ponsonby, the lawyer, announcing his intention of arriving at the Manor

the next day. Mrs. Renton had not improved much in health, but she had

laid aside her mourning, and wore grey and violet, and pretty caps, once

more. Her existence had known very little change during all these years.

Now and then the tonics had been changed, and she had substituted for a

whole year the Revalenta Arabica for the arrowroot; but the difference

was scarcely perceptible except to the maid and the cook, and I

believe, on the whole, the arrowroot was found to agree with her best.

She had taken her drive almost every day with a feeling that she was

doing her duty. ‘My dear husband always made such a point of my drive,’

she said, plaintively, though for her own part she would have preferred

her sofa; and so had lived on, very punctual in taking her medicine, a

woman humbly conscious of fulfilling all the duties of her life. Mary

Westbury had been generally her companion in these drives; and as she

was younger and not so settled in mind, had sometimes, it must be

allowed, felt as if life was no better than a leisurely promenade

between two rows of hedgerows, sometimes green and sometimes brown. The

carriage was very comfortable and the horses were very fat, and there

were a great many charming points of view within a radius of fifteen

miles round Renton; but still there were moments in which Mary was such

an infidel as to wish herself jogging to market in the passing cart, or

carrying a basket along the road, or anywhere rather than in that

luxurious corner. If anything had happened to make Mrs. Renton ‘put

down,’ as people say, her carriage, she would have regarded it as a

calamity altogether immeasurable; but I think that both she and her

niece would have felt a burden taken off their minds. She would have

been left at peace on her sofa, and Mary could have taken needful

exercise in her own way. But such a blessing in disguise was beyond

praying for. Mr. Renton, though he had been so hard upon his sons, had

provided very tenderly for his wife’s comfort.

Renton had been hers for these seven years, and had been kept precisely

as it was when it was the home of the whole family,--not a servant

dismissed nor a change made; and thus the height of comfort had been

secured. Mary, too, was very comfortable,--no young woman could be more

so. She had a maid of her own, which would have been an impossible

luxury at home, and a liberal allowance for her dress, and a fire in her

room, if she chose, from October to May, or indeed all the year through,

if such was her pleasure; and the freedom of various libraries, and an

excellent piano, and any amount of worsted work she chose. And then the

drive every afternoon, wet and dry, ‘so that she has the air and the

change, when we poor people, who have no carriage, must stay indoors,’

Mrs. Westbury said when she described her daughter’s happiness. And this

felicity had gone on for nearly seven years.

‘I wonder what Mr. Ponsonby wants,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘He might have

come without any intimation. I am sure he generally does. Why he should

send word like this, as if he had some news to bring, I cannot conceive.

I do hope it is nothing about the boys.’

‘It cannot be anything about them,’ said Mary. ‘Consider, godmamma, you

had a letter from Ben just the other day, and Frank and Alice wrote by

the last mail.’

‘That is all very true,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘but how can I tell that they

may not have telegraphed or something? And then there is Laurie always

wandering all over the world. He may have gone off, as he did the first

time, without letting any one know.’

‘But he would never have dreamed of sending Mr. Ponsonby to tell you,’

said Mary; ‘he would have written direct. Laurie is the best

correspondent of them all.’

‘Or he may be going to be married,’ said Mrs. Renton,--‘he or Ben. By

the way, he says something about Ben; but all those business people

write such bad hands. Perhaps you can make it out. I am sure it is too

much for me.’

After this little introduction, Mary took the lawyer’s letter with some

slight tremulousness. She was nearly seven-and-twenty by this time, and

ought, she said to herself, to have been quite steady about such

matters. Of course some day Ben would marry, and so long as it was any

one who would make him happy she could only be glad. Many a wandering

thought about Millicent Tracy had come into her mind. Had she been

faithful to him? Had there been any intercourse between them? Had he

kept steadfast to his imagination of her for all these years? For it

was only an imagination, as Mary felt sure. Every letter that came from

Ben had caused her a certain tremor,--not, as she said to herself, that

it would make any difference to her; but if he were to bind himself to a

woman unworthy of him! And now that he was coming back so soon, it was

with a thrill of more intense expectation than usual that she took Mr.

Ponsonby’s letter in her hand. But there was nothing about marrying or

giving in marriage in that sober epistle. It intimated to Mrs. Renton,

in the first place, that the time specified in her husband’s will had

nearly expired; that he had received a letter from her son Ben,

informing him that he intended to meet him at the Manor, along with the

other members of the family, on the 15th of September; and that,

accordingly, Mr. Ponsonby was coming to Renton next day to go over the

property with the bailiff, and see with his own eyes the condition in

which everything was, that there might be no delay, when the time came,

in making everything over to the heir. All that Mrs. Renton had made of

this very distinct letter was the fact that the lawyer was to pay her a

visit, and that there was something about Ben. But indeed Mr. Ponsonby

did not write a legible hand.

‘Then it is just what Ben told us about coming home,’ said Mrs. Renton,

‘though he was not so particular to me in naming the day. He said the

beginning of September, if you recollect, Mary; and Frank and his wife

are coming by the next mail. I am afraid the children will make a

dreadful commotion in the house, and altogether it will be so odd to see

Renton full of people again. Of course, Laurie is coming, too. I don’t

know what I shall do with them all. They can’t expect me to have parties

and that sort of thing for them, Mary, in my state of health?’

‘No, dear godmamma,’ said Mary, soothingly, ‘they will not expect

anything of the kind; and you will never think of the trouble when you

have all the boys at home. Fancy Frank having boys of his own!’ she

cried, with a little laugh. The choice lay between laughing and crying,

and the first was certainly the best.

‘I hope his wife has kept up her practice,’ said Mrs. Renton, still with

a cloud on her brow, ‘since that was what he married her for.’

‘Godmamma!’ cried Mary, with consternation.

‘Well, my dear, I don’t know what else she had to recommend her. No

family, nor connexions; not a penny,--not even expectations! If it was

not for her music, what was it for? And so many women give up practice

when they marry. I always forget,--is it three or four children they

have?’

‘Two, godmamma,’ said Mary, gently; ‘don’t you remember the poor, dear,

little baby died?’

‘Well, it is quite enough,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘with nothing but their

pay to depend upon. And there will be a black nurse, you may be sure,

driving the servants out of their senses. But if she has kept up her

practice, it will be an amusement for the boys. And things might have

been worse. There might have been three families instead of one, you

know, Mary; and then I think I should certainly have run away.’