THE BREWING OF THE STORM.
The visit of Miss Rivers was the most complimentary attention which she
could show to her new friends, for her visits were few, and paid only to
a very limited number of people, and these all of her own rank and
class. She was extremely curious as to their acquaintance with Mrs
Edgerley, and demanded to know every circumstance from its beginning
until now; and this peremptory old lady was roused to quite an eager and
animated interest in the poor little book of which, Agnes could not
forget, Mrs Edgerley did not remember so much as the name. The
Honourable Anastasia declared abruptly that she never read novels, yet
demanded to have _Hope Hazlewood_ placed without an instant’s delay in
her pony-carriage. “Do it at once, my dear: a thing which is done at the
moment cannot be forgotten,” said Miss Rivers. “You write books, eh?
Well, I asked you if you were clever; why did you not tell me at once?”
“I did not think you would care; it was not worth while,” said Agnes
with some confusion, and feeling considerably alarmed by the idea of
this formidable old lady’s criticism. Miss Rivers only answered by
hurrying her out with the book, lest it might possibly be forgotten.
When the girls were gone, she turned to Mrs Atheling. “What can he do to
you,” said Miss Anastasia, abruptly, “eh? What’s Will Atheling doing?
Can he harm Will?”
“No,” said Mamma, somewhat excited by the prospect of an enemy, yet
confident in the perfect credit and honour of the family father, whose
good name and humble degree of prosperity no enemy could overthrow.
“William has been where he is now for twenty years.”
“So, so,” said Miss Rivers--“and the boy? Take care of these girls; it
might be in his devilish way to harm them; and I tell you, when you come
to know of it, send me word. So she writes books, this girl of yours?
She is no better than a child. Do you mean to say you are not proud?”
Mrs Atheling answered as mothers answer when such questions are put to
them, half with a confession, half with a partly-conscious sophism,
about Agnes being “a good girl, and a great comfort to her papa and
me.”
The girls, when they had executed their commission, looked doubtingly
for Louis, but found him gone as they expected. While they were still
lingering where he had been, Miss Rivers came to the door again, going
away, and when she had said good-by to Mamma, the old lady turned back
again without a word, and very gravely gathered one of the roses. She
did it with a singular formality and solemness as if it was a religious
observance rather than a matter of private liking; and securing it
somewhere out of sight in the fastenings of her brown pelisse, waved her
hand to them, saying in her peremptory voice, quite loud enough to be
heard at a considerable distance, that she was to send for them in a day
or two. Then she took her seat in the little carriage, and turned her
grey ponies, no very easy matter, towards the high-road. Her easy and
complete mastery over them was an admiration to the girls. “Bless you,
miss, she’d follow the hounds as bold as any squire,” said Hannah; “but
there’s a deal o’ difference in Miss Taesie since the time she broke her
heart.”
Such an era was like to be rather memorable. The girls thought so,
somewhat solemnly, as they went to their work beside their mother. They
seemed to be coming to graver times themselves, gliding on in an
irresistible noiseless fashion upon their stream of fate.
Louis came again as usual in the evening. He _had_ heard Mrs Edgerley,
and did resent her careless freedom, as Marian secretly knew he would;
which fact she who was most concerned, ascertained by his entire and
pointed silence upon the subject, and his vehement and passionate
contempt, notwithstanding, for Mrs Edgerley.
“I suppose you are safe enough,” he said, speaking to the elder sister.
“You will not break your heart because she has forgotten the name of
your book--but, heaven help them, there are hearts which do! There are
unfortunate fools in this crazy world mad enough to be elated and to be
thrown into misery by a butterfly of a fine lady, who makes reputations.
You think them quite contemptible, do you? but there are such.”
“I suppose they must be people who have no friends and no home--or to
whom it is of more importance than it is to me,” said Agnes; “for I am
only a woman, and nothing could make me miserable out of this Old Lodge,
or Bellevue.”
“Ah--that is _now_,” said Louis quickly, and he glanced with an
instinctive reference at Marian, whose pallid roses and fluctuating mood
already began to testify to some anxiety out of the boundary of these
charmed walls. “The very sight of your security might possibly be hard
enough upon us who have no home--no home! nothing at all under heaven.”
“Except such trifles as strength and youth and a stout heart, a sister
very fond of you, and some--some _friends_--and heaven itself, after
all, at the end. Oh, Louis!” said Agnes, who on this, as on other
occasions, was much disposed to be this “boy’s” elder sister, and
advised him “for his good.”
He did not say anything. When he looked up at all from his bending
attitude leaning over the table, it was to glance with fiery devouring
eyes at Marian--poor little sweet Marian, already pale with anxiety for
him. Then he broke out suddenly--“That poor little sister who is very
fond of me--do you know what she is doing at this moment--singing to
them!--like the captives at Babylon, making mirth for the spoilers. And
my friends---- heaven! you heard what that woman ventured to say
to-day.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, who confessed to treating Louis as a “son
of her own,” “think of heaven all the day long, and so much the better
for you--but I cannot have you using in this way such a name.”
This simple little reproof did more for Louis than a hundred
philosophies. He laughed low, and with emotion took Mrs Atheling’s hand
for a moment between his own--said “thank you, mother,” with a momentary
smile of delight and good pleasure. Then his face suddenly flushed with
a dark and violent colour; he cast an apprehensive yet haughty glance at
Mrs Atheling, and drew his hand away. The stain in his blood was a
ghost by the side of Louis, and scarcely left him for an instant night
nor day.
When he left them, they went to the door with him as they had been wont
to do, the mother holding a shawl over her cap, the girls with their
fair heads uncovered to the moon. They stood all together at the gate
speaking cheerfully, and sending kind messages to Rachel as they bade
him good-night--and none of the little group noticed a figure suddenly
coming out of the darkness and gliding along past the paling of the
garden. “What, boy, you here?” cried a voice suddenly behind Louis,
which made him start aside, and they all shrank back a little to
recognise in the moonlight the marble-white face of Lord Winterbourne.
“What do you mean, sir, wandering about the country at this hour?” said
the stranger--“what conspiracy goes on here, eh?--what are _you_ doing
with a parcel of women? Home to your den, you skulking young
vagabond--what are you doing here?”
Marian, the least courageous of the three, moved by a sudden impulse,
which was not courage but terror, laid her hand quickly upon Louis’s
arm. The young man, who had turned his face defiant and furious towards
the intruder, turned in an instant, grasping at the little timid hand as
a man in danger might grasp at a shield invulnerable, “You perceive, my
lord, I am beyond the reach either of your insults or your patronage
here,” said the youth, whose blood was dancing in his veins, and who at
that moment cared less than the merest stranger, who had never heard his
name, for Lord Winterbourne.
“Come, my lad, if you are imposing upon these poor people--I must set
you right,” said the man who was called Louis’s father. “Do you know
what he is, my good woman, that you harbour this idle young rascal in
despite of my known wishes? Home, you young vagabond, home! This boy
is----”
“My lord, my lord,” interposed Mrs Atheling, in sudden agitation, “if
any disgrace belongs to him, it is yours and not his that you should
publish it. Go away, sir, from my door, where you once did harm enough,
and don’t try to injure the poor boy--perhaps we know who he is better
than you.”
What put this bold and rash speech into the temperate lips of Mamma, no
one could ever tell; the effect of it, however, was electric. Lord
Winterbourne fell back suddenly, stared at her with his strained eyes in
the moonlight, and swore a muttered and inaudible oath. “Home, you
hound!” he repeated in a mechanical tone, and then, waving his hand with
a threatening and unintelligible gesture, turned to go away. “So long as
the door is yours, my friend, I will take care to make no intrusion upon
it,” he said significantly before he disappeared; and then the shadow
departed out of the moonlight, the stealthy step died on the grass, and
they stood alone again with beating hearts. Mamma took Marian’s hand
from Louis, but not unkindly, and with an affectionate earnestness bade
him go away. He hesitated long, but at length consented, partly for her
entreaty, partly for the sake of Rachel. Under other circumstances this
provocation would have maddened Louis; but he wrung Agnes’s hand with an
excited gaiety as he lingered at the door watching a shadow on the
window whither Marian had gone with her mother. “I had best not meet him
on the road,” said Louis: “there is the Curate--for once, for your sake,
and the sake of what has happened, I will be gracious and take his
company; but to tell the truth, I do not care for anything which can
befall me to-night.”