A GREAT DISCOVERY.
The visit of Miss Rivers was an early one, some time before their
mid-day dinner; and the day went on quietly after its usual fashion, and
fell into the stillness of a sunny afternoon, which looked like a
reminiscence of midsummer among these early October days. Mrs Atheling
sat in her big chair, knitting, with a little drowsiness, a little
stocking--though this was a branch of art in which Hannah was found to
excel, and had begged her mistress to leave to her. Agnes sat at the
table with her blotting-book, busy with her special business; Charlie
was writing out a careful copy of the old deed. The door was open, and
Bell and Beau, under the happy charge of Rachel, ran back and forwards,
out and in, from the parlour to the garden, not omitting now and then a
visit to the kitchen, where Hannah, covered all over with her white bib
and apron, was making cakes for tea. Their merry childish voices and
prattling feet gave no disturbance to the busy people in the parlour;
neither did the light fairy step of Rachel, nor even the songs she sang
to them in her wonderful voice--they were all so well accustomed to its
music now. Marian and Louis, who did not like to lose sight of each
other in these last days, were out wandering about the fields, or in the
wood, thinking of little in the world except each other, and that great
uncertain future which Louis penetrated with his fiery glances, and of
which Marian wept and smiled to hear. Mamma sitting at the window,
between the pauses of her knitting and the breaks of her gentle
drowsiness, looked out for them with a little tender anxiety. Marian,
the only one of her children who was “in trouble,” was nearest of all at
that moment to her mother’s heart.
When suddenly a violent sound of wheels from the high-road broke in upon
the stillness, then a loud voice calling to horses, and then a dull
plunge and heavy roll. Mrs Atheling lifted her startled eyes, drowsy no
longer, to see what was the matter, just in time to behold, what shook
the little house like the shock of a small earthquake, Miss Anastasia’s
two grey horses, trembling with unusual exertion, draw up with a bound
and commotion at the little gate.
And before the good mother could rise to her feet, wondering what could
be the cause of this second visit, Miss Rivers herself sprang out of
the carriage, and came into the house like a wind, almost stumbling over
Rachel, and nearly upsetting Bell and Beau. She did not say a word to
either mother or daughter, she only came to the threshold of the
parlour, waved her hand imperiously, and cried, “Young Atheling, I want
_you_!”
Charlie was not given to rapid movements, but there was no
misunderstanding the extreme emotion of this old lady. The big boy got
up at once and followed her, for she went out again immediately. Then
Mrs Atheling, sitting at the window in amaze, saw her son and Miss
Anastasia stand together in the garden, conversing with great
earnestness. She showed him a book, which Charlie at first did not seem
to understand, to the great impatience of his companion. Mrs Atheling
drew back troubled, and in the most utter astonishment--what could it
mean?
“Young Atheling,” said Miss Anastasia abruptly, “I want you to give up
this business of your father’s immediately, and set off to Italy on
mine. I have made a discovery of the most terrible importance: though
you are only a boy I can trust you. Do you hear me?--it is to bring to
his inheritance my father’s son!”
Charlie looked up in her face astonished, and without comprehension. “My
father’s business is of importance to us,” he said, with a momentary
sullenness.
“So it is; my own man of business shall undertake it; but I want an
agent, secret and sure, who is not like to be suspected,” said Miss
Anastasia. “Young Atheling, look here!”
Charlie looked, but not with enthusiasm. The book she handed him was an
old diary of the most commonplace description, each page divided with
red lines into compartments for three days, with printed headings for
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on, and columns for money. The wind
fluttered the leaves, so that the only entry visible to Charlie was one
relating to some purchase, which he read aloud, bewildered and
wondering. Miss Anastasia, who was extremely moved and excited, looked
furious, and as if she was almost tempted to administer personal
chastisement to the blunderer. She turned over the fluttered leaves with
an impetuous gesture. “Look here,” she said, pointing to the words with
her imperative finger, and reading them aloud in a low, restrained, but
most emphatic voice. The entry was in the same hand, duly dated under
the red line--“Twins--one boy--and Giulietta safe. Thank God. My sweet
young wife.”
“Now go--fly!” cried Miss Anastasia, “find out their birthday, and then
come to me for money and directions. I will make your fortune, boy; you
shall be the richest pettifogger in Christendom. Do you hear me, young
Atheling--do you hear me! He is the true Lord Winterbourne--he is my
father’s lawful son!”
To say that Charlie was not stunned by this sudden suggestion, or that
there was no answer of young and generous enthusiasm, as well as of
professional eagerness in his mind, to the address of Miss Rivers, would
have been to do him less than justice. “Is it Italy?--I don’t know a
word of Italian,” cried Charlie. “Never mind, I’ll go to-morrow. I can
learn it on the way.”
The old lady grasped the boy’s rough hand, and stepped again into her
carriage. “Let it be to-morrow,” she said, speaking very low; “tell your
mother, but no one else, and do not, for any consideration, let it come
to the ears of Louis--Louis, my father’s boy!--But I will not see him,
Charlie; fly, boy, as if you had wings!--till you come home. I will meet
you to-morrow at Mr Temple’s office--you know where that is--at twelve
o’clock. Be ready to go immediately, and tell your mother to mention it
to no creature till I see her again.”
Saying which, Miss Rivers turned her ponies, Charlie hurried into the
house, and his mother sat gazing out of the window, with the most blank
and utter astonishment. Miss Anastasia had not a glance to spare for
the watcher, and took no time to pull her rose from the porch. She drove
home again at full speed, solacing her impatience with the haste of her
progress, and repeating, under her breath, again and again, the same
words. “One boy--and Giulietta safe. My sweet young wife!”
END OF VOL. II.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
THE ATHELINGS
THE ATHELINGS
OR
THE THREE GIFTS
BY MARGARET OLIPHANT
“I’ the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,
In simple and low things, to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others.”
CYMBELINE
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLVII
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
THE ATHELINGS
BOOK III.--WINTERBOURNE HALL
THE ATHELINGS.
BOOK III.--CHAPTER I.
AN OLD STORY.
“Now, mother,” said Charlie, “I’m in real earnest. My father would tell
me himself if he were here. I want to understand the whole concern.”
Mrs Atheling and her son were in Charlie’s little room, with its one
small lattice-window, overshadowed and embowered in leaves--its plain
uncurtained bed, its small table, and solitary chair. Upon this chair,
with a palpitating heart, sat Mrs Atheling, and before her stood the
resolute boy.
And she began immediately, yet with visible faltering and hesitation, to
tell him the story she had told the girls of the early connection
between the present Lord Winterbourne and the Atheling family. But
Charlie’s mind was excited and preoccupied. He listened, almost with
impatience, to the sad little romance of his father’s young sister, of
whom he had never heard before. It did not move him at all as it had
moved Agnes and Marian. Broken hearts and disappointed loves were very
far out of Charlie’s way; something entirely different occupied his own
imagination. He broke forth with a little effusion of impatience when
the story came to an end. “And is this all? Do you mean to say this is
the whole, mother? And my father had never anything to do with him but
through a girl!”
“You are very unfeeling, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, who wiped her eyes
with real emotion, yet with a little policy too, and to gain time. “She
was a dear innocent girl, and your father was very fond of her--reason
enough to give him a dislike, if it were not sinful, to the very name of
Lord Winterbourne.”
“I had better go on with my packing, then,” said Charlie. “So, that was
all? I suppose any scamp in existence might do the same. Do you really
mean to tell me, mother, that there was nothing but this?”
Mrs Atheling faltered still more under the steady observation of her
son. “Charlie,” said his mother, with agitation, “your father never
would mention it to any one. I may be doing very wrong. If he only were
here himself to decide! But if I tell you, you must give me your word
never so much as to hint at it again.”
Charlie did not give the necessary pledge, but Mrs Atheling made no
pause. She did not even give him time to speak, however he might have
been inclined, but hastened on in her own disclosure with agitation and
excitement. “You have heard Papa tell of the young gentleman--he whom
you all used to be so curious about--whom your father did a great
benefit to,” said Mrs Atheling, in a breathless hurried whisper.
“Charlie, my dear, I never said it before to any creature--that was
_him_.”
She paused only a moment to take breath. “It was before we knew how he
had behaved to dear little Bride,” she continued, still in haste, and in
an undertone. “What he did was a forgery--a forgery! people were hanged
for it then. It was either a bill, or a cheque, or something, and Mr
Reginald had written to it another man’s name. It happened when Papa was
in the bank, and before old Mr Lombard died--old Mr Lombard had a great
kindness for your father, and we had great hopes then--and by good
fortune the thing was brought to Papa. Your father was always very
quick, Charlie--he found it out in a moment. So he told old Mr Lombard
of it in a quiet way, and Mr Lombard consented he should take it back to
Mr Reginald, and tell him it was found out, and hush all the business
up. If your papa had not been so quick, Charlie, but had paid the money
at once, as almost any one else would have done, it all must have been
found out, and he would have been hanged, as certain as anything--he, a
haughty young gentleman, and a lord’s son!”
“And a very good thing, too,” exclaimed Charlie; “saved him from doing
any more mischief. So, I suppose now, it’s all my father’s blame.”
“This Lord Winterbourne is a bad man,” said Mrs Atheling, taking no
notice of her son’s interruption: “first he was furious to William, and
then he cringed and fawned to him; and of course he had it on his
conscience then about poor little Bride, though we did not know--and
then he raved, and said he was desperate, and did not know what to do
for money. Your father came home to me, quite unhappy about him; for he
belonged to the same country, and everybody tried to make excuses for Mr
Reginald, being a young man, and the heir. So William made it up in his
own mind to go and tell the old lord, who was in London then. The old
lord was a just man, but very proud. He did not take it kind of William,
and he had no regard for Mr Reginald; but for the honour of the family
he sent him away. Then we lost sight of him long, and Aunt Bridget took
a dislike to us, and poor little Bride was dead, and we never heard
anything of the Lodge or the Hall for many a year; but the old lord died
abroad, and Mr Reginald came home Lord Winterbourne. That was all we
ever knew. I thought your father had quite forgiven him, Charlie--we had
other things to think of than keeping up old grudges--when all at once
it came to be in the newspapers that Lord Winterbourne was a political
man, that he was making speeches everywhere, and that he was to be one
of the ministry. When your father saw that, he blazed up into such an
anger! I said all I could, but William never minded me. He never was so
bitter before, not even when we heard of little Bride. He said, Such a
man to govern us and all the people!--a forger! a liar!--and sometimes,
I think, he thought he would expose the whole story, and let everybody
know.”
“Time enough for that,” said Charlie, who had listened to all this
without comment, but with the closest attention. “What he did once he’ll
do again, mother; but we’re close at his heels this time, and he won’t
get off now. I’m going to Oxford now to get some books. I say, mother,
you’ll be sure, upon your honour, not to tell the girls?”
“No, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, with a somewhat faint affirmation;
“but, my dear, I can’t believe in it. It can’t be true. Charlie, boy!
if this was coming true, our Marian--your sister, Charlie!--why, Marian
would be Lady Winterbourne!”
Charlie did not say a word in return; he only took down his little
travelling-bag, laid it at his mother’s feet to be packed, and left her
to that business and her own meditations; but after he had left the
room, the lad returned again and thrust in his shaggy head at the door.
“Take care of Marian, mother,” said Charlie, in a parting adjuration;
“remember my father’s little sister Bride.”
So he went away, leaving Mrs Atheling a good deal disquieted. She had
got over the first excitement of Miss Anastasia’s great intelligence and
the sudden preparations of Charlie. She had scarcely time enough,
indeed, to give a thought to these things, when her son demanded this
history from her, and sent her mind away into quite a different channel.
Now she sat still in Charlie’s room, pondering painfully, with the
travelling-bag lying quite unheeded at her feet. At one moment she
pronounced the whole matter perfectly impossible--at the next,
triumphantly inconsequent, she leaped to the full consummation of the
hope, and saw her own pretty Marian--dazzling vision!--the lady of
Winterbourne! and again the heart of the good mother fell, and she
remembered little Bride. Louis, as he was now, having no greater friends
than their own simple family, and no pretensions whatever either to
birth or fortune, was a very different person from that other Louis who
might be heir of lands and lordship and the family pride of the
Riverses. Much perplexed, in great uncertainty and pain, mused Mrs
Atheling, half-resentful of that grand discovery of Miss Anastasia,
which might plunge them all into renewed trouble; while Charlie trudged
into Oxford for his Italian grammar--and Louis and Marian wandered
through the enchanted wood, drawing homeward--and Rachel sang to the
children--and Agnes wondered by herself over the secret which was to be
confided only to Mamma.
CHAPTER II.
A CRISIS.
That night Charlie had need of all his diplomatic talents. Before he
returned from Oxford, his mother, by way of precaution lest Agnes should
betray the sudden and mysterious visit of Miss Anastasia to Marian,
contrived to let her elder daughter know mysteriously, something of the
scope and object of the sudden journey for which it was necessary to
prepare her brother, driving Agnes, as was to be supposed, into a very
fever of suppressed excitement, joy, triumph, and anxiety. Mrs Atheling,
conscious, hurried, and studying deeply not to betray herself--and
Agnes, watching every one, stopping questions, and guarding off
suspicions with prudence much too visible--were quite enough of
themselves to rouse every other member of the little company to lively
pursuit after the secret. Charlie was assailed by every shape and form
of question: Where was he going--what was he to do? He showed no
cleverness, we are bound to acknowledge, in evading these multitudinous
interrogations; he turned an impenetrable front upon them, and made the
most commonplace answers, making vast incursions all the time into
Hannah’s cakes and Mamma’s bread-and-butter.
“He had to go back immediately to the office; he believed he had got a
new client for old Foggo,” said Charlie, with the utmost coolness;
“making no secret of it at all,” according to Mamma’s indignant
commentary.
“To the office!--are you only going home, after all?” cried Marian.
“I’ll see when I get there,” answered Charlie; “there’s something to be
done abroad. I shouldn’t wonder if they sent _me_. I say, I wish you’d
all come home at once, and make things comfortable. There’s my poor
father fighting it out with Susan. I should not stand it if it was me.”
“Hold your peace, Charlie, and don’t be rude,” said Mrs Atheling. “But,
indeed, I wish we were at home, and out of everybody’s way.”
“Who is everybody?” said Louis. “I, who am going myself, can wish quite
sincerely that we were all at home; but the addition is mysterious--who
is in anybody’s way?”
“Mamma means to wish us all out of reach of the Evil Eye,” said Agnes, a
little romantically.
“No such thing, my dear. I daresay we could do _him_ a great deal more
harm than he can do us,” said Mrs Atheling, with sudden importance and
dignity; then she paused with a certain solemnity, so that everybody
could perceive the grave self-restraint of the excellent mother, and
that she could say a great deal more if she chose.
“But no one thinks what I am to do when you are all gone,” said Rachel;
and her tearful face happily diverted her companions from investigating
and from concealing the secret. There remained among them all, however,
a certain degree of excitement. Charlie was returning home
to-morrow--specially called home on business!--perhaps to go abroad upon
the same! The fact stirred all those young hearts with something not
unlike envy. This boy seemed to have suddenly leaped in one day into a
man.
And it was natural enough that, hearing of this, the mind of Louis
should burn and chafe with fierce impatience. Charlie, who was perfectly
undemonstrative of his thoughts and imaginations, was a very boy to
Louis--yet there was need and occasion for Charlie in the crowd of life,
when no one thought upon this fiery and eager young man. It was late
that night when Louis left this only home and haven which he had ever
known; and though he would fain have left Rachel there, his little
sister would not remain behind him, but clung to his arm with a strange
presentiment of something about to happen, which she could not explain.
Louis scarcely answered a word to the quiet talk of Rachel as they went
upon their way to the Hall. With difficulty, and even with impatience,
he curbed his rapid stride to her timid little footsteps, and hurried
her along without a glance at the surrounding scene, memorable and
striking as it was. The broad moonlight flooded over the noble park of
Winterbourne. The long white-columned front of the house--which was a
great Grecian house, pallid, vast, and imposing--shone in the white
light like a screen of marble; and on the great lawn immediately before
it were several groups of people, dwarfed into minute miraculous figures
by the great space and silence, and the intense illumination, which was
far more striking and particular than the broader light of day. The
chances were that Louis did not see them, as he plunged on, in the
blindness of preoccupation, keeping no path, through light and shadow,
through the trees and underwood, and across the broad unshaded
greensward, where no one could fail to perceive him. His little sister
clung to his arm in an agony of fear, grief, and confidence--trembling
for something about to happen with an overpowering tremor--yet holding a
vague faith in her brother, strange and absorbing. She said, “Louis,
Louis!” in her tone of appeal and entreaty. He did not hear her, but
struck across the broad visible park, in the full stream of the
moonlight, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. As they
approached, Rachel could not even hear any conversation among the groups
on the lawn; and it was impossible to suppose that they had not been
seen. Louis’s abrupt direct course, over the turf and through the
brushwood, must have attracted the notice of bystanders even in the
daylight; it was still more remarkable now, when noiseless and rapid,
through the intense white radiance and the perfect stillness, the
stately figure of the young man, and his timid, graceful little sister,
came directly forward in face of the spectators. These spectators were
all silent, looking on with a certain fascination, and Rachel could not
tell whether Louis was even conscious that any one was there.
But before they could turn aside into the road which led to the Hall
door--a road to which Rachel most anxiously endeavoured to guide her
brother--they were suddenly arrested by the voice of Lord Winterbourne.
“I must put a stop to this,” said his lordship suddenly and loudly, with
so evident a reference to themselves, that even Rachel stopped without
knowing it. “Here, young fellow, stop and give an account of
yourself--what do you mean by wandering about my park at midnight, eh?
I know your poaching practices. Setting snares, I suppose, and dragging
about this girl as a protection. Get into your kennel, you mean dog; is
this how you repay the shelter I have given you all your life?”
“It would be a fit return,” said Louis. He did not speak so loud, but
with a tremble of scorn and bitterness and intense youthful feeling in
his voice, before which the echo of his persecutor’s went out and died,
like an ignoble thing. “If I were, as you say,” repeated the young man,
“setting snares for your game, or for your wealth, or for your life, you
know it would be a fit return.”
“Yes, I live a peaceful life with this villanous young incendiary under
my roof!” said Lord Winterbourne. “I’ll tell you what, you young
ruffian, if nothing better can restrain you, locks and bars shall. Oh,
no chance of appealing to _my_ pity, with that fool of a girl upon your
arm! You think you can defy me, year after year, because I have given
charity to your base blood. My lad, you shall learn to know me better
before another week is over our heads. Why, gentlemen, you perceive, by
his own confession, I stand in danger of my life.”
“Winterbourne,” said some one over his shoulder, in a reproving tone,
“_you_ should be the last man in the world to taunt this unfortunate lad
with his base blood.”
Lord Winterbourne turned upon his heel with a laugh of insult which sent
the wild blood dancing in an agony of shame, indignation, and rage even
into Rachel’s woman’s face. “Well,” said the voice of their tyrant, “I
have supported the hound--what more would you have? His mother was a
pretty fool, but she had her day. There’s more of her conditions in the
young villain than mine. I have no idea of playing the romantic father
to such a son--not I!”
Louis did not know that he threw his sister off his arm before he sprang
into the midst of these half-dozen gentlemen. She did not know herself,
as she stood behind clenching her small fingers together painfully, with
all the burning vehemence of a woman’s passion. The young man sprang
forward with the bound of a young tiger. His voice was hoarse with
passion, not to be restrained. “It is a lie--a wilful, abominable lie!”
cried Louis fiercely, confronting as close as a wrestler the ghastly
face of his tyrant, who shrank before him. “I am no son of yours--you
know I am no son of yours! I owe you the hateful bread I have been
compelled to eat--nothing more. I am without a name--I may be of base
blood--but I warn you for your life, if you dare repeat this last
insult. It is a lie! I tell every one who condescends to call you
friend; and I appeal to God, who knows that you know it is a lie! I may
be the son of any other wretch under heaven, but I am not yours. I
disown it with loathing and horror. Do you hear me?--you know the truth
in your heart, and so do I!”
Lord Winterbourne fell back, step by step, before the young man, who
pressed upon him close and rapid, with eyes which flamed and burned with
a light which he could not bear. The insulting smile upon his bloodless
face had not passed from it yet. His eyes, shifting, restless, and
uneasy, expressed nothing. He was not a coward, and he was sufficiently
quick-witted on ordinary occasions, but he had nothing whatever to
answer to this vehement and unexpected accusation. He made an
unintelligible appeal with his hand to his companions, and lifted up his
face to the moonlight like a spectre, but he did not answer by a single
word.
“Young man,” said the gentleman who had spoken before, “I acknowledge
your painful position, and that you have been addressed in a most
unseemly manner--but no provocation should make you forget your natural
duty. Lord Winterbourne must have had a motive for maintaining you as he
has done. I put it to you calmly, dispassionately--what motive could he
possibly have had, except one?”
“Ah!” said Louis, with a sudden and violent start, “he must have had a
motive--it is true; he would not waste his cruel powers, even for
cruelty’s sake. If any man can tell me what child it was his interest to
bastardise and defame, there may be hope and a name for me yet.”
At these words, Lord Winterbourne advanced suddenly with a singular
eagerness. “Let us have done with this foolery,” he said, in a voice
which was certainly less steady than usual; “I presume we can all be
better employed than listening to the vapourings of this foolish boy. Go
in, my lad, and learn a lesson by your folly to-night. I pass it over,
simply because you have shown yourself to be a fool.”
“I, however, do not pass it over, my lord,” said Louis, who had calmed
down after the most miraculous fashion, to the utter amazement of his
sister. “Thank you for the provision you have given us, such as it is.
Some time we may settle scores upon that subject. My sister and I must
find another shelter to-night.”
The bystanders were half disposed to smile at the young man’s heroical
withdrawal--but they were all somewhat amazed to find that Lord
Winterbourne was as far as possible from sharing their amusement. He
called out immediately in an access of passion to stop the young
ruffian, incendiary, mischief-maker;--called loudly upon the servants,
who began to appear at the open door--ordered Louis to his own
apartment with the most unreasonable vehemence, and finally turned upon
Rachel, calling her to give up the young villain’s arm, and for her life
to go home.
But Rachel was wound to the fever point as well as her brother. “No, no,
it is all true he has said,” cried Rachel. “I know it, like Louis; we
are not your children--you dare not call us so now. I never believed you
were our father--never all my life.”
She exclaimed these words hastily in her low eager voice, as Louis drew
her arm through his, and hurried her away. The young man struck again
across the broad park and through the moonlight, while behind, Lord
Winterbourne called to his servants to go after the fugitives--to bring
that fellow back. The men only stared at their master, looked helplessly
at each other, and went off on vain pretended searches, with no better
intention than to keep out of Louis’s way, until prudence came to the
aid of Lord Winterbourne. “I shall scarcely think my life in safety
while that young fool wanders wild about the country,” he said to his
friends, as he returned within doors; but his friends, one and all,
thought this a very odd scene.
Meanwhile Louis made his rapid way with his little sister on his arm out
over the glorious moonlit park of Winterbourne, away from the only home
he had ever known--out to the night and to the world. Rachel, leaning
closely upon him, scarcely so much as looked up, as her faltering
footstep toiled to keep up with her brother. He, holding his proud young
head high, neither turned nor glanced aside, but pressed on straight
forward, as if to some visionary certain end before his eye. Then they
came out at last to the white silent road, lying ghostlike under the
excess of light--the quiet road which led through the village where all
the houses slept and everything was still, not a curl of smoke in the
moonlight, nor a house-dog’s bark in the silence. It was midnight, vast
and still, a great desolate uninhabited world. There was not a door open
to them, nor a place where they could rest. But on pressed Louis, with
the rapid step and unhesitating course of one who hastened to some
definite conclusion. “Where are we going--where shall we go?” said poor
little Rachel, drooping on his shoulder. Her brother did not hear her.
He was not selfish, but he had not that superhuman consideration for
others which might have broken the fiery inspiration of his own
momentous thoughts, and made him think of the desolate midnight, and the
houseless and outcast condition which were alone present to the mind of
Rachel. He did not see a vast homeless solitude--a vagabond and
disgraceful wandering, in this midnight walk. He saw a new world before
him, such as had never glanced before across his fancy. “He must have
had a motive,” he muttered to himself. Rachel heard him sadly, and took
the words as a matter of course. “Where are we to go?”--that was a more
immediately important question to the simple mind of Rachel.
The Old Wood Lodge was as deep asleep as any house in the village. They
paused, reluctant, both of them, to awake their friends within, and went
back, pacing rapidly between the house of the Athelings and that of the
Rector. The September night was cold, and Rachel was timid of that
strange midnight world out of doors. They seemed to have nothing for it
but pacing up and down upon the grassy road, where they were at least
within sight of a friendly habitation, till morning came.
There was one light in one window of the Old Wood House; Rachel’s eye
went wandering to it wistfully, unawares: If the Rector knew--the
Rector, who once would have been kind if Louis would have let him. But,
as if in very response to her thoughts, the Rector, when they came back
to this point again, was standing, like themselves, in the moonlight,
looking over the low wall. He called to them rather authoritatively,
asking what they did there--but started, and changed his tone into one
of wondering interest and compassion when Rachel lifted her pale face to
him, with the tears in her eyes. He hastened to the gate at once, and
called them to enter. “Nay, nay, no hesitation--come in at once, that
she may have rest and shelter,” said the Rector in a peremptory tone,
which, for the first time in his life, Louis had no thought of
resenting. He went in without a word, leading his little sister. Perhaps
it was the first great thing that ever had been done in all her life for
Rachel’s sake--for the sake of the delicate girl, who was half a child
though a woman in years,--for sake of her tenderness, her delicate
frame, her privilege of weakness. The two haughty young men went in
silently together into this secluded house, which never opened its doors
to any guest. It was an invalid’s home, and some one was always at hand
for its ailing mistress. By-and-by Rachel, in the exhaustion of great
excitement, fell asleep in a little quiet room looking over that moonlit
park of Winterbourne. Louis, who was in no mood for sleep, watched
below, full of eager and unquiet thoughts. They had left Winterbourne
Hall suddenly; the Rector asked no further questions, expressed no
wonder, and left the young man who had repelled him once, with a lofty
and dignified hospitality, to his meditations or repose.
CHAPTER III.
CHARLIE’S PREPARATIONS.
Charlie Atheling was not at all of an imaginative or fanciful turn of
mind. His slumbers were not disturbed by castle-building--he wasted none
of his available time in making fancy sketches of the people, or the
circumstances, among which he was likely to be thrown. He was not
without the power of comprehending at a glance the various features of
his mission; but by much the most remarkable point of Charlie’s
character was his capacity for doing his immediate business, whatever
that might be, with undivided attention, and with his full powers. On
this early September morning he neither occupied himself with
anticipations of his interview with Miss Anastasia, nor his hurried
journey. He did not suffer his mind to stray to difficult questions of
evidence, nor wander off into speculations concerning what he might have
to do when he reached the real scene of his investigation. What he had
to do at the moment he did like a man, bending upon his serious
business all the faculties of his mind, and all the furrows of his brow.
He got up at six o’clock, not because he particularly liked it, but
because these early morning hours had become his habitual time for extra
work of every kind, and sat upon Hannah’s bench in the garden, close by
the kitchen door, with the early sun and the early wind playing
hide-and-seek among his elf-locks, learning his Italian grammar, as if
this was the real business for which he came into the world.
“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do”--that was Charlie’s secret of
success. He had only a grammar, a dictionary, and a little New Testament
in Italian--and he had not at this moment the slightest ambition to read
Dante in the original; but with steady energy he chased those unknown
verbs into the deep caverns of his memory--a memory which was
prodigious, and lost nothing committed to it. The three books
accompanied him when he went in to breakfast, and marched off in his
pocket to Oxford when it was time to keep his appointment with Miss
Anastasia. Meanwhile the much-delayed travelling-bag only now began to
get packed, and Mrs Atheling, silently toiling at this business, felt
convinced that Susan would mislay all the things most important for
Charlie’s comfort, and very much yearned in her heart to accompany her
son home. They were to meet him at the railway, whence he would depart
immediately, after his interview with Miss Rivers; and Charlie’s secret
commission made a considerable deal of excitement in the quiet little
house.
Miss Anastasia, who was much too eager and impetuous to be punctual, had
been waiting for some time, when her young agent made his appearance at
the office of her solicitor. After she had charged him with being too
late, and herself suffered conviction as being too early, the old lady
proceeded at once to business; they were in Mr Temple’s own room, but
they were alone.
“I have made copies of everything that seemed to throw light upon my
late father’s wanderings,” said Miss Anastasia--“not much to speak
of--see! These papers must have been carefully weeded before they came
to my hands. Here is an old guide-book marked with notes, and here a
letter dated from the place where he died. It is on the borders of
Italy--at the foot of the Alps--on the way to Milan, and not very far
from there. You will make all speed, young Atheling; I trust to your
prudence--betray nothing--do not say a word about these children until
you find some certain clue. It is more than twenty years--nearly
one-and-twenty years--since my father died; but a rich Englishman, who
married among them, was not like to be forgotten in such a village. Find
out who this Giulietta was--if you can discover the family, they might
know something. My father had an attendant, a sort of courier, who was
with us often--Jean Monte, half a Frenchman half an Italian. I have
never heard of him since that time; he might be heard of on the way, and
_he_ might know--but I cannot direct you, boy--I trust to your own
spirit, your own foresight, your own prudence. Make haste, as if it was
life and death; yet if time will avail you, take time. Now, young
Atheling, I trust you!--bring clear evidence--legal evidence--what will
stand in a court of law--and as sure as you live your fortune is made!”
Charlie did not make a single protestation in answer to this address. He
folded up carefully those fragments of paper copied out in Miss
Anastasia’s careful old-fashioned lady’s hand, and placed them in the
big old pocket-book which he carried for lack of a better.
“I don’t know much of the route,” said Charlie,--“over the Alps, I
suppose,” and for once his cheek flushed with the youthful excitement of
the travel. “I shall find out all about that immediately when I get to
town; and there is a passport to be seen after. When I am ready to
start--which will be just as soon as the thing can be done--I shall let
you know how I am to travel, and write immediately when I arrive
there;--I know what you mean me to do.”
Then Miss Anastasia gave him--(a very important part of the
business)--two ten-pound notes, which was a very large sum to Charlie,
and directed him to go to the banking-house with which she kept an
account in London, and get from them a letter of credit on a banker in
Milan, on whom he could draw, according to his occasions. “You are very
young, young Atheling,” said Miss Rivers; “many a father would hesitate
to trust his son as I trust you; but I’m a woman and an optimist, and
have my notions: you are only a boy, but I believe in you--forget how
young you are while you are about my business--plenty of time after this
for enjoying yourself--and I tell you again, if you do your duty, your
fortune is made.”
The old lady and the youth went out together, to where the little
carriage and the grey ponies stood at the solicitor’s door. Charlie, in
his present development, was not at all the man to hand a lady with a
grace to her carriage; nor was this stately gentlewoman, in her brown
pelisse, at all the person to be so escorted; but they were a remarkable
pair enough, as they stood upon the broad pavement of one of the noblest
streets of Christendom. Miss Anastasia held out her hand with a parting
command and warning, as she took her seat and the reins.--“Young
Atheling, remember! it is life and death!”
She was less cautious at that moment than she had been during all their
interview. The words full upon another ear than his to whom they were
addressed. Lord Winterbourne was making his way at the moment with some
newly-arrived guests of his, and under the conduct of a learned pundit
from one of the colleges, along this same picturesque High Street; and,
in the midst of exclamations of rapture and of interest, his suspicious
and alarmed eye caught the familiar equipage and well-known figure of
Miss Anastasia. Her face was turned in the opposite direction,--she did
not see him,--but a single step brought him near enough to hear her
words. “Young Atheling!” Lord Winterbourne had not forgotten his former
connection with the name, but the remembrance had long lain dormant in a
breast which was used to potent excitements. William Atheling, though he
once saved a reckless young criminal, could do no harm with his remote
unbelievable story to a peer of the realm,--a man who had sat in the
councils of the State. Lord Winterbourne had begun his suit for the Old
Wood Lodge with the most contemptuous indifference to all that could be
said of him by any one of this family; yet somehow it struck him
strangely to hear so sudden a naming of this name. “Young Atheling!” He
could not help looking at the youth,--meeting the stormy gleam in the
eyes of Charlie, whose sudden enmity sprung up anew in an instant. Lord
Winterbourne was sufficiently disturbed already by the departure of
Louis, and with the quick observation of alarm remarked everything. He
could understand no natural connection whatever between this lad and
Miss Anastasia. His startled imagination suggested instantly that it
bore some reference to Louis, and what interpretation was it possible to
give to so strange an adjuration--“It is life and death!”
CHAPTER IV.
GOING AWAY.
“Charlie, my dear boy,” said Mrs Atheling, with a slight tremble in her
voice, “I suppose it may be months before we see you again.”
“I can’t tell, mother; but it will not be a day longer than I can help,”
said Charlie, who had the grace to be serious at the moment of parting.
“There’s only one thing, you know,--I must do my business before I come
home.”
“And take care of yourself,” said Mrs Atheling; “take great care when
you are going over those mountains, and among those people where bandits
are--you know what stories we have read about such robbers,
Charlie,--and remember, though I should be very glad to hear good news
about Louis, Louis is not my own very boy, like you.”
“Hush, mother--no need for naming him,” said Charlie; “he is of more
moment than me, however, this time--for that’s my business. Never
fear--thieves may be fools there as well as at home, but they’re none
such fools as to meddle with me. Now, mother, promise me, the last
thing,--Agnes, do you hear?--don’t tell Marian a word, nor _him_. I’ll
tell old Foggo the whole story, and Foggo will do what he can for him
when he gets to London; but don’t you go and delude him, telling him of
this, for it would just be as good as ruin if I don’t succeed; and it
all may come to nothing, as like as not. I say, Agnes, do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear, very well; but I am not given to telling secrets,” said
Agnes, with a little dignity.
Charlie only laughed as he arranged himself in the corner of the
second-class carriage, and drew forth his grammar; there was no time for
anything more, save entreaties that he would write, and take care of
himself; and the train flashed away, leaving them somewhat dull and
blank in the reaction of past excitement, looking at each other, and
half reluctant to turn their faces homeward. Their minds hurried forth,
faster than either steam or electricity, to the end of Charlie’s
journey. They went back with very slow steps and very abstracted minds.
What a new world of change and sudden revolution might open upon them at
Charlie’s return!
Mrs Atheling had some business in the town, and the mother and daughter
pursued their way silently to that same noble High Street where Charlie
had seen Lord Winterbourne, and where Lord Winterbourne and his party
were still to be caught sight of, appearing and reappearing by glimpses
as they “did” the halls and colleges. While her mother managed some
needful business in a shop, Agnes stood rather dreamily looking down the
stately street; its strange old-world mixture of the present and the
past; its union of all kinds of buildings; the trim classic pillars and
toy cupolas of the eighteenth century--the grim crumbling front of elder
days--the gleams of green grass and waving trees through college
gateways--the black-gowned figures interrupting the sunshine--the
beautiful spire striking up into it as into its natural element,--a
noble hyacinthine stem of immortal flowers. Agnes did not know much
about artistic effect, nor anything about orders of architecture, but
the scene seized upon her imagination, as was its natural right. Her
thoughts were astray among hopes and chances far enough out of the
common way--but any dream of romance could make itself real in an
atmosphere like this.
She was pale,--she was somewhat of an abstracted and musing aspect. When
one took into consideration her misfortune of authorship, she was in
quite a sentimental _pose_ and attitude--so thought her American
acquaintance, who had managed to secure an invitation to the Hall, and
was one of Lord Winterbourne’s party. But Mr Endicott had “done” all the
colleges before, and he could afford to let his attention be distracted
by the appearance of the literary sister of the lady of his love.
“I am not surprised at your abstraction,” said Mr Endicott. “In this,
indeed, I do not hesitate to confess, my country is not equal to your
Island. What an effect of sunshine! what a breadth of shade! I cannot
profess to have any preference, in respect to Art, for the past,
picturesque though it be--a poet of these days, Miss Atheling, has not
to deal with facts, but feelings; but I have no doubt, before I
interrupted you, the whole panorama of History glided before your
meditative eye.”
“No, indeed; I was thinking more of the future than of the past,” said
Agnes hurriedly.
“The future of this nation is obscure and mysterious,” said Mr Endicott,
gathering his eyebrows solemnly. “Some man must arise to lead you--to
glory--or to perdition! I see nothing but chaos and darkness; but why
should I prophesy? A past generation had leisure to watch the signs of
the times; but for us ‘Art is long and time is fleeting,’ and happy is
the man who can snatch one burning experience from the brilliant mirage
of life.”
Agnes, a little puzzled by this mixture of images, did not attempt any
answer. Mr Endicott went on.
“I had begun to observe, with a great deal of interest, two remarkable
young minds placed in a singular position. They were not to be met, of
course, at the table of Lord Winterbourne,” said the American with
dignity; “but in my walks about the park I sometimes encountered them,
and always endeavoured to draw them into conversation. So remarkable, in
fact, did they seem to me, that they found a place in my Letters from
England; studies of character entirely new to my consciousness. I
believe, Miss Atheling, I had once the pleasure of seeing them in your
company. They stand--um--unfortunately in a--a--an equivocal
relationship to my noble host.”
“Ah! what of them?” cried Agnes quickly, and with a crimsoned cheek. She
felt already how difficult it was to hear them spoken of, and not
proclaim at once her superior knowledge.
“A singular event, I understand, happened last night,” continued Mr
Endicott. “Viscount Winterbourne, on his own lawn, was attacked and
insulted by the young man, who afterwards left the house under very
remarkable circumstances. My noble friend, who is an admirable example
of an old English nobleman, was at one time in actual danger, and I
believe has been advised to put this fiery youth--”
“Do you mean Louis?” cried Agnes, interrupting him anxiously.
“Louis!--do you mean that he has left the Hall?”
“I am greatly interested, I assure you, in tracing out this romance of
real life,” said Mr Endicott. “He left the Hall, I understand, last
evening--and my noble friend is advised to take measures for his
apprehension. I look upon the whole history with the utmost interest.
How interesting to trace the motives of this young mind, perhaps the
strife of passions--gratitude mixing with a sense of injury! If he is
secured, I shall certainly visit him: I know no nobler subject for a
drama of passion; and dramas of the passions are what we want to ennoble
this modern time.”
“Mother!” cried Agnes, “mother, come; we have no time to lose--Mr
Endicott has told me--Mamma, leave these things to another time. Marian
is alone; there is no one to support her. Oh, mother, mother! make
haste! We must go home!”
She scarcely gave a glance to Mr Endicott as he stood somewhat
surprised, making a study of the young author’s excitable temperament
for his next “letter from England”--but hastened her mother homeward,
explaining, as she went, though not very coherently, that Louis had
attacked Lord Winterbourne--that he had left the Hall--that he had done
something for which he might be apprehended. The terror of
disgrace--that most dread of all fears to people in their
class--overwhelmed both mother and daughter, as they hastened, at a very
unusual pace, along the road, terrified to meet himself in custody, or
some one coming to tell them of his crime. And Marian, their poor
beautiful flower, on whom this storm would fall so heavily--Marian was
alone!
CHAPTER V.
THE OLD WOOD HOUSE.
Louis passed the night in the Rector’s library. He had no inclination
for sleep; indeed, he was almost scornful of the idea that he _could_
sleep under his new and strange circumstances; and it was not until he
roused himself, with a start, to see that the pale sheen of the
moonlight had been succeeded by the rosy dawn of morning, that he knew
of the sudden, deep slumber, that had fallen upon him. It was morning,
but it was still a long time till day; except the birds among the trees
there was nothing astir, not even the earliest labourer, and he could
not hear a sound in the house. All the events of the previous night
returned upon Louis’s mind with all the revived freshness of a sudden
awaking. A great change had passed upon him in a few hours. He started
now at once out of the indefinite musings, the flush of vain ambition,
the bitter brooding over wrong which had been familiar to his mind. He
began to think with the earnest precision of a man who has attained to
a purpose. Formerly it had been hard enough for his proud undisciplined
spirit, prescient of something greater, to resolve upon a plan of
tedious labour for daily bread, or to be content with such a fortune as
had fallen to such a man as Mr Atheling. Even with love to bear him out,
and his beautiful Marian to inspire him, it was hard, out of all the
proud possibilities of youth, to plunge into such a lot as this. Now he
considered it warily, with the full awakened consciousness of a man. Up
to this time his bitter dislike and opposition to Lord Winterbourne had
been carried on by fits and starts, as youths do contend with older
people under whose sway they have been all their life. He took no reason
with him when he decided that he was not the son of the man who opposed
him. He never entered into the question how he came to the Hall, or what
was the motive of its master. He had contented himself with a mere
unreasoning conviction that Lord Winterbourne was not his father; but
only one word was wanted to awaken the slumbering mind of the youth, and
that word had been spoken last night. Now a clear and evident purpose
became visible before him. What was Lord Winterbourne’s reason for
keeping him all his life under so killing a bondage? What child was
there in the world whom it was Lord Winterbourne’s interest to call
illegitimate and keep in obscurity? His heart swelled--the colour rose
in his face. He did not see how hopeless was the search--how entirely
without grounds, without information, he was. He did not perceive how
vain, to every reasonable individual, would seem the fabric he had built
upon a mere conviction of his own. In his own eager perception
everything was possible to that courage, and perseverance indomitable,
which he felt to be in him; and, for the first time in his life, Louis
came down from the unreasonable and bitter pride which had shut his
heart against all overtures of friendship. Friendship--help--advice--the
aid of those who knew the world better than he did--these were things to
be sought for, and solicited now. He sat in the Rector’s chair, leaning
upon the Rector’s writing-table; it was not without a struggle that he
overcame his old repugnance, his former haughtiness. It was not without
a pang that he remembered the obligation under which this stranger had
laid him. It was his first effort in self-control, and it was not an
easy one; he resolved at last to ask counsel from the Rector, and lay
fully before him the strange circumstances in which he stood.
The Rector was a man of capricious hours, and uncertain likings. He was
sometimes abroad as early as the earliest ploughman; to-day it was late
in the forenoon before he made his appearance. Breakfast had been
brought to Louis, by himself, in the library; in this house they were
used to solitary meals at all hours--and he had already asked several
times for the Rector, when Mr Rivers at last entered the room, and
saluted him with stately courtesy. “My sister, I find, has detained your
sister,” said the Rector. “I hope you have not been anxious--they tell
me the young lady will join us presently.”
Then there was a pause; and then Mr Rivers began an extremely polite and
edifying conversation, which must have reminded any spectator of the
courtly amity of a couple of Don Quixotes preparing for the duello. The
Rector himself conducted it with the most solemn gravity imaginable.
This Lionel Rivers, dissatisfied and self-devouring, was not a true man.
Supposing himself to be under a melancholy necessity of disbelieving on
pain of conscience, he yet submitted to an innumerable amount of
practical shams, with which his conscience took no concern. In spite of
his great talents, and of a character full of natural nobleness, when
you came to its foundations, a false tone, an artificial strain of
conversation, an unreal and insincere expression, were unhappily
familiar enough to the dissatisfied clergyman, who vainly tried to
anchor himself upon the authority of the Church. Louis, on the contrary,
knew nothing of talk which was a mere veil and concealment of meaning;
he could not use vain words when his heart burned within him; he had no
patience for those conversations which were merely intended to occupy
time, and which meant and led to nothing. Yet it was very difficult for
him, young, proud, and inexperienced as he was, without any invitation
or assistance from his companion, to enter upon his explanation. He
changed colour, he became uneasy, he scarcely answered the indifferent
remarks addressed to him. At length, seeing nothing better for it, he
plunged suddenly and without comment into his own tale.
“We have left Winterbourne Hall,” said Louis, reddening to his temples
as he spoke. “I have long been aware how unsuitable a home it was for
me. I am going to London immediately. I cannot thank you enough for your
hospitality to my sister, and to myself, last night.”
“That is nothing,” said the Rector, with a motion of his hand. “Some
time since I had the pleasure of saying to your friends in the Lodge
that it would gratify me to be able to serve you. I do not desire to pry
into your plans; but if I can help you in town, let me know without
hesitation.”
“So far from prying,” said Louis, eagerly, interrupting him, “I desire
nothing more than to explain them. All my life,” and once again the red
blood rushed to the young man’s face,--“all my life I have occupied the
most humiliating of positions--you know it. I am not a meek man by
nature; what excuse I have had if a bitter pride has sometimes taken
possession of me, you know----”
The Rector bowed gravely, but did not speak. Louis continued in haste,
and with growing agitation, “I am not the son of Lord Winterbourne--I am
not a disgraced offshoot of your family--I can speak to you without
feeling shame and abasement in the very sound of your name. This has
been my conviction since ever I was capable of knowing anything--but
Heaven knows how subtly the snare was woven--it seemed impossible, until
now when we have done it, to disengage our feet.”
“Have you made any discovery, then? What has happened?” said the Rector,
roused into an eager curiosity. Here, at the very outset, lay Louis’s
difficulty--and he had never perceived it before.
“No; I have made no discovery,” he said, with a momentary
disconcertment. “I have only left the Hall--I have only told Lord
Winterbourne what he knows well, and I have known long, that I am not
his son.”
“Exactly--but how did you discover that?” said the Rector.
“I have discovered nothing--but I am as sure of it as that I breathe,”
answered Louis.
The Rector looked at him--looked at a portrait which hung directly above
Louis’s head upon the wall, smiled, and shook his head. “It is quite
natural,” he said; “I can sympathise with any effort you make to gain a
more honourable position, and to disown Lord Winterbourne--but it is
vain, where there are pictures of the Riverses, to deny your connection
with my family. George Rivers himself, my lord’s heir, the future head
of the family, has not a tithe as much of the looks and bearing of the
blood as you.”
Louis could not find a word to say in face of such an argument--he
looked eagerly yet blankly into the face of the Rector--felt all his
pulses throbbing with fiery impatience of the doubt thus cast upon
him--yet knew nothing to advance against so subtle and unexpected a
charge of kindred, and could only repeat, in a passionate undertone, “I
am not Lord Winterbourne’s son.”
“I do not know,” said the Rector, “I have no information which is not
common to all the neighbourhood--yet I beg you to guard against
delusion. Lord Winterbourne brought you here while you were an
infant--since then you have remained at the Hall--he has owned you, I
suppose, as much as a man ever owns an illegitimate child. Pardon me, I
am obliged to use the common words. Lord Winterbourne is not a man of
extended benevolence, neither is he one to take upon himself the
responsibility or blame of another. If you are not his son, why did he
bring you here?”
Louis raised his face from his hands which had covered it--he was very
pale, haggard, almost ghastly. “If you can tell me of any youth--of any
child--of any man’s son, whom it was his interest to disgrace and remove
out of the way,” said the young man with his parched lips, “I will tell
you why I am here.”
The Rector could not quite restrain a start of emotion--not for what the
youth said, for that was madness to the man of the world--but for the
extreme passion, almost despair, in his face. He thought it best to
soothe rather than to excite him.
“I know nothing more than all the world knows,” said Mr Rivers; “but,
though I warn you against delusions, I will not say you are wrong when
you are so firmly persuaded that you are right. What do you mean to do
in London--can I help you there?”
Louis felt with no small pang this giving up of the argument--as if it
were useless to discuss anything so visionary--but he roused himself to
answer the question: “The first thing I have to do,” he said quickly,
“is to maintain my sister and myself.”
The Rector bowed again, very solemnly and gravely--perhaps not without a
passing thought that the same duty imposed chains more galling than iron
upon himself.
“That done, I will pursue my inquiries as I can,” said Louis; “you think
them vain--but time will prove that. I thank you now, for my sister’s
sake, for receiving us--and now we must go on our way.”
“Not yet,” said the Rector. “You are without means, of course--what, do
you think it a disgrace, that you blush for it?--or would you have me
suppose that you had taken money from Lord Winterbourne, while you deny
that you are his son? For this once suppose me your friend; I will
supply you with what you are certain to need; and you can repay me--oh,
with double interest if you please!--only do not go to London
unprovided--for that is the maddest method of anticipating a heartbreak;
your sister is young, almost a child, tender and delicate--let it be,
for her sake.”
“Thank you; I will take it as you give it,” said Louis. “I am not so
ungenerous as you suppose.”
There was a certain likeness between them, different as they were--there
was a likeness in both to these family portraits on the walls. Before
such silent witnesses Louis’s passionate disclaimer, sincere though it
was, was unbelievable. For no one could believe that he was not an
offshoot of the house of Rivers, who looked from his face and the
Rector’s to those calm ancient faces on the walls.
CHAPTER VI.
AN ADVENTURER.
“They have left the Hall.”
That was all Marian said when she came to the door to meet her mother
and sister, who paused in the porch, overcome with fatigue, haste, and
anxiety. Mrs Atheling was obliged to pause and sit down, not caring
immediately to see the young culprit who was within.
“And what has happened, Marian,--what has happened? My poor child, did
he tell you?” asked Mrs Atheling.
“Nothing has happened, mamma,” said Marian, with a little petulant
haste; “only Louis has quarrelled with Lord Winterbourne; but, indeed, I
wish you would speak to him. Oh, Agnes, go and talk to Louis; he says he
will go to London to-day.”
“And so he should; there is not a moment to be lost,” said Agnes,--“I
will go and tell him; we can walk in with him to Oxford, and see him
safely away. Tell Hannah to make haste, Marian,--he must not waste an
hour.”
“What does she mean,--what is the matter? Oh, what have you heard,
mamma?” said Marian, growing very pale.
“Hush, dear; I daresay it was not him,--it was Mr Endicott, who is sure
to hate him, poor boy; he said Lord Winterbourne would put him in
prison, Marian. Oh,” said Mrs Atheling, getting up hurriedly, “he ought
to go at once to Papa.”
But they found Louis, whom they all surrounded immediately with terror,
sympathy, and encouragement, entirely unappalled by the threatened
vengeance of Lord Winterbourne.
“There is nothing to charge me with; he can bring no accusation against
me; if he did ever say it, it must have been a mere piece of bravado,”
said Louis; “but it is better I should go at once without losing an
hour, as Agnes says. Will you let Rachel stay? and you, who are the
kindest mother in the world, when will you have compassion on us and
come home?”
“Indeed, I wish we were going now,” said Mrs Atheling; and she said it
with genuine feeling, and a sigh of anxiety. “You must tell Papa we will
not stay very long; but I suppose we must see about this lawsuit first;
and I am sure I cannot tell who is to manage it now, since Charlie is
gone.”
“Shall you go to Papa at once, Louis?” asked Marian, who was very
anxious to conceal from every one the tears in her downcast eyes.
“Surely, at once,” said Louis. “We are in different circumstances now; I
have a great deal to ask any one who knows the family of Rivers. Do you
know it never before occurred to me that Lord Winterbourne must have had
some powerful inducement for keeping me here, knowing as well as I do
that I am not his son.”
Mrs Atheling and Agnes turned a sudden guilty look upon each other; but
neither had betrayed the secret;--what did he mean?
“Unless it was his interest in some way--unless it was for his evident
advantage to disgrace and disable me,” said Louis, groping in the dark,
when they knew one possible solution of the mystery so well, “I am
convinced he never would have kept me as he has done at the Hall.”
He spoke in a tone different to that which he had used to the Rector,
and very naturally different--for Louis here was triumphant in the faith
of his audience, and did not hesitate to say all he felt, nor fear too
close an investigation into the grounds of his belief. He spoke
fervently; and Marian and Rachel looked at him with the faith of
enthusiasm, and Mrs Atheling and Agnes with wonder, agitation, and
embarrassment. But, as he went on, it became too much for the
self-control of the good mother. She hurried out on pretence of
superintending Hannah, and was very soon followed by Agnes. “I durst not
stay, I should have told him,” said Mrs Atheling, in a hurried whisper.
“Who could put so much into his head, Agnes? who could lead him so near
the truth?--only God! My dear child, I believe in it all now.”
Agnes had believed in it all from the first moment of hearing it, but so
singular a strain was upon the minds of both mother and daughter,
knowing this extraordinary secret which the others did not know, that it
was not wonderful they should give a weight much beyond their desert to
the queries of Louis. Yet, indeed, Louis’s queries took a wonderfully
correct direction, and came very near the truth.
It was a day of extreme agitation to them all, and not until Louis, who
had no travelling-bag to pack, had been accompanied once more to the
railway, and seen safely away, with many a lingering farewell, was any
one able to listen to, or understand, Rachel’s version of the events of
last night. When he was quite gone--when it was no longer possible to
wave a hand to him in the distance, or even to see the flying white
plume of the miraculous horseman who bounded along with all that line of
carriages, the three girls came home together through the quiet evening
road--the disenchanted road, weary and unlovely, which Marian marvelled
much any one could prefer to Bellevue. They walked very close together,
with Marian in the midst, comforting her in an implied, sympathetic,
girlish fashion--for Rachel, though Louis had belonged to her so very
much longer, and was her sole authority, law-giver, and hero,
instinctively kept her own feelings out of sight, and took care of
Marian. These girls were very loyal to their own visionary ideas of the
mysterious magician who had not come to either of them yet, but whose
coming both anticipated some time, with awe and with smiles.
And then Rachel told them how it had fared with her on the previous
night. Rachel had very little to say about the Rector; she had given him
up conscientiously to Agnes, and with a distant and reverent admiration
of his loftiness, contemplated him afar off, too great a person for her
friendship. “But in the morning the maid came and took me to Miss
Rivers--did you ever see Miss Rivers?--she is very pale--and pretty,
though she is old, and a very, very great invalid,” said Rachel. “Some
one has to sit up with her every night, and she has so many
troubles--headaches, and pains in her side, and coughs, and every sort
of thing! She told me all about them as she lay on the sofa in her
pretty white dressing-gown, and in _such_ a soft voice as if she was
quite used to them, and did not mind. Do you think you could be a nurse
to any one who was ill, Agnes?”
“She _has_ been a nurse to all of us when we were ill,” said Marian,
rousing herself for the effort, and immediately subsiding into the
pensiveness which the sad little beauty would not suffer herself to
break, even though she began in secret to be considerably interested
about the interior of the mysterious Wood House, and the invisible Miss
Rivers. Marian thought Louis would not be pleased if he could imagine
her thinking of any one but him, so soon after he had gone away.
“But I don’t mean at home--I mean a stranger,” said Rachel, “one whom
you did not _love_. I think it must be rather hard sometimes; but do you
know I was very nearly offering to be nurse to Miss Rivers, she spoke so
kindly to me? And then Louis will have to work,” continued the faithful
little sister, with tears in her eyes; “you must tell me what I can do,
Agnes, not to be a burden upon Louis. Oh, do you think any one would
give me money for singing now?”
CHAPTER VII.
LORD WINTERBOURNE.
Lord Winterbourne, all his life, had been a man of guile; he was so long
experienced in it, that dissimulation became easy enough to him, when he
was not startled or thrown suddenly off his guard. Already every one
around him supposed he had quite forgiven and forgotten the wild
escapade of Louis. He had no confidant whatever, not even a valet or a
steward, and his most intimate associate knew nothing of his dark and
secret counsels. When any one mentioned the ungovernable youth who had
fled from the Hall, Lord Winterbourne said, “Pooh, pooh--he will soon
discover his mistake,” and smiled his pale and sinister smile. Such a
face as his could not well look benign; but people were accustomed to
his face, and thought it his misfortune--and everybody set him down as,
in this instance at least, of a very forgiving and indulgent spirit,
willing that the lad should find out his weakness by experiment, but
not at all disposed to inflict any punishment upon his unruly son.
The fact was, however, that Lord Winterbourne was considerably excited
and uneasy. He spent hours in a little private library among his
papers--carefully went over them, collating and arranging again and
again--destroyed some, and filled the private drawers of his cabinet
with others. He sent orders to his agent to prosecute with all the
energy possible his suit against the Athelings. He had his letters
brought to him in his own room, where he was alone, and looked over them
with eager haste and something like apprehension. Servants, always
sufficiently quick-witted under such circumstances, concluded that my
lord expected something, and the expectation descended accordingly
through all the grades of the great house; but this did not by any means
diminish the number of his guests, or the splendour of his hospitality.
New arrivals came constantly to the Hall--and very great people indeed,
on their way to Scotland and the moors, looked in upon the disappointed
statesman by way of solace. He had made an unspeakable failure in his
attempt at statesmanship; but still he had a certain amount of
influence, and merited a certain degree of consideration. The quiet
country brightened under the shower of noble sportsmen and fair ladies.
All Banburyshire crowded to pay its homage. Mrs Edgerley brought her
own private menagerie, the newest lion who could be heard of; and
herself fell into the wildest fever of architecturalism--fitted up an
oratory under the directions of a Fellow of Merton--set up an
Ecclesiological Society in the darkest of her drawing-rooms--made
drawings of “severe saints,” and purchased casts of the finest
“examples”--began to embroider an altar-cloth from the designs of one of
the most renowned connoisseurs in the ecclesiological city, and talked
of nothing but Early English, and Middle Pointed. Politics, literature,
and the fine arts, sport, flirtation, and festivity, kept in unusual
excitement the whole spectator county of Banbury, and the busy occupants
of Winterbourne Hall.
In the midst of all this, the Lord of Winterbourne spent solitary hours
in his library among his papers, took solitary rides towards Abingford,
moodily courted a meeting with Miss Anastasia, even addressed her when
they met, and did all that one unassisted man could do to gain
information of her proceedings. He was in a state of restless
expectation, not easy to account for. He knew that Louis was in London,
but not who had given him the means to go there; and he could find no
pretence for bringing back the youth, or asserting authority over him.
He waited in well-concealed but frightfully-felt excitement for
_something_, watching with a stealthy but perpetual observation the
humble house of the Athelings and the Priory at Abingford. He did not
say to himself what it was he apprehended, nor indeed that he
apprehended anything; but with that strange certainty which criminals
always seem to retain, that fate must come some time, waited in the
midst of his gay, busy, frivolous guests, sharing all the occupations
round him, like a man in a dream,--waited as the world waits in a pause
of deadly silence for the thunderclap. It would rouse him when it came.
It came, but not as he looked for it. Oh blind, vain, guilty soul, with
but one honest thought among all its crafts and falsehoods! It came not
like the rousing tumult of the thunder, but like an avalanche from the
hills; he fell under it with a groan of mortal agony; there was nothing
in heaven or earth to defend him from the misery of this sudden blow.
All his schemes, all his endeavours, what were they good for now?
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NEW HEIR.
They had heard from Charlie, who had already set out upon his journey;
they had heard from Louis, whom Mr Foggo desired to take into his office
in Charlie’s place in the mean time; they had heard again and again from
Miss Anastasia’s solicitor, touching their threatened property; and to
this whole family of women everything around seemed going on with a
singular speed and bustle, while they, unwillingly detained among the
waning September trees, were, by themselves, so lonely and so still. The
only one among them who was not eager to go home was Agnes. Bellevue and
Islington, though they were kindly enough in their way, were not meet
nurses for a poetic child;--this time of mountainous clouds, of wistful
winds, of falling leaves, was like a new life to Agnes. She came out to
stand in the edge of the wood alone, to do nothing but listen to the
sweep of the wild minstrel in those thinning trees, or look upon the big
masses of cloud breaking up into vast shapes of windy gloom over the
spires of the city and the mazes of the river. The great space before
and around--the great amphitheatre at her feet--the breeze that came in
her face fresh and chill, and touched with rain--the miracles of tiny
moss and herbage lying low beneath those fallen leaves--the pale autumn
sky, so dark and stormy--the autumn winds, which wailed o’ nights--the
picturesque and many-featured change which stole over
everything--carried a new and strange delight to the mind of Agnes. She
alone cared to wander by herself through the wood, with its crushed
ferns, its piled faggots of firewood, its yellow leaves, which every
breeze stripped down. She was busy with the new book, too, which was
very like to be wanted before it came; for all these expenses, and the
license which their supposed wealth had given them, had already very
much reduced the little store of five-pound notes, kept for safety in
Papa’s desk.
One afternoon during this time of suspense and uncertainty, the Rector
repeated his call at the Lodge. The Rector had never forgiven Agnes that
unfortunate revelation of her authorship; yet he had looked to her
notwithstanding through those strange sermons of his, with a
constantly-increasing appeal to her attention. She was almost disposed
to fancy sometimes that he made special fiery defences of himself and
his sentiments, which seemed addressed to her only; and Agnes fled from
the idea with distress and embarrassment, thinking it a vanity of her
own. On this day, however, the Rector was a different man--the cloud was
off his brow--the apparent restraint, uneasy and galling, under which he
had seemed to hold himself, was removed; a flash of aroused spirit was
in his eye--his very step was eager, and sounded with a bolder ring upon
the gravel of the garden path--there was no longer the parochial bow,
the clergymanly address, or the restless consciousness of something
unreal in both, which once characterised him; he entered among them
almost abruptly, and did not say a word of his parishioners, but
instead, asked for Louis--told Rachel his sister wished to see her--and,
glancing with unconcealed dislike at poor Agnes’s blotting-book, wished
to know if Miss Atheling was writing now.
“Mr Rivers does not think it right, mamma,” said Agnes. She blushed a
little under her consciousness of his look of displeasure, but smiled
also with a kind of challenge as she met his eye.
“No,” said the young clergyman abruptly; “I admire, above all things,
understanding and intelligence. I can suppose no appreciation so quick
and entire as a woman’s; but she fails of her natural standing to me,
when I come to hear of her productions, and am constituted a
critic--that is a false relationship between a woman and a man.”
And Mr Rivers looked at Agnes with an answering flash of pique and
offence, which was as much as to say, “I am very much annoyed; I had
thought of very different relationships; and it is all owing to you.”
“Many very good critics,” said Mrs Atheling, piqued in her turn--“a
great many people, I assure you, who know about such things, have been
very much pleased with Agnes’s book.”
The Rector made no answer--did not even make a pause--but as if all this
was merely irrelevant and an interruption to his real business, said
rapidly, yet with some solemnity, and without a word of preface, “Lord
Winterbourne’s son is dead.”
“Who?” said Agnes, whom, unconsciously, he was addressing--and they all
turned to him with a little anxiety. Rachel became very pale, and even
Marian, who was not thinking at all of what Mr Rivers said, drew a
little nearer the table, and looked up at him wistfully, with her
beautiful eyes.
“Lord Winterbourne’s son, George Rivers, the heir of the family--he who
has been abroad so long; a young man, I hear, whom every one esteemed,”
said the Rector, bending down his head, as if he exacted from himself a
certain sadness, and did indeed endeavour to see how sad it was--“he is
dead.”
Mrs Atheling rose, greatly moved. “Oh, Mr Rivers!--did you say his son?
his only son? a young man? Oh, I pray God have pity upon him! It will
kill him;--it will be more than he can bear!”
The Rector looked up at the grief in the good mother’s face, with a look
and gesture of surprise. “I never heard any one give Lord Winterbourne
credit for so much feeling,” he said, looking at her with some
suspicion; “and surely he has not shown much of it to you.”
“Oh, feeling! don’t speak of feeling!” cried Mrs Atheling. “It is not
that I am thinking of. You know a great many things, Mr Rivers, but you
never lost a child.”
“No,” he said; and then, after a pause, he added, in a lower tone, “in
the whole matter, certainly, I never before thought of Lord
Winterbourne.”
And there was nobody nigh to point out to him what a world beyond and
above his philosophy was this simple woman’s burst of nature. Yet in his
own mind he caught a moment’s glimpse of it; for the instant he was
abashed, and bent his lofty head with involuntary self-humiliation; but
looking up, saw his own thought still clearer in the eye of Agnes, and
turned defiant upon her, as if it had been a spoken reproof.
“Well!” he said, turning to her, “was I to blame for thinking little of
the possibility of grief in such a man?”
“I did not say so,” said Agnes, simply; but she looked awed and grave,
as the others did. They had no personal interest at all in the matter;
they thought in an instant of the vacant places in their own family, and
stood silent and sorrowful, looking at the great calamity which made
another house desolate. They never thought of Lord Winterbourne, who was
their enemy; they only thought of a father who had lost his son.
And Rachel, who remembered George Rivers, and thought in the tenderness
of the moment that he had been rather kind to her, wept a few tears
silently.
All these things disconcerted the Rector. He was impatient of excess of
sympathy--ebullitions of feeling; he was conscious of a restrained, yet
intense spring of new hope and vigour in his own life. He had
endeavoured conscientiously to regret his cousin; but it was impossible
to banish from his own mind the thought that he was free--that a new
world opened to his ambition--that he was the heir!
And he had come, unaware of his own motive, to share this overpowering
and triumphant thought with Agnes Atheling, a girl who was no mate for
him, as inferior in family fortune and breeding as it was possible to
imagine--and now stood abashed and reproved to see that all his simple
auditors thought at once, not of him and his altered position, but of
those grand and primitive realities--Death and Grief. He went away
hastily and with impatience, displeased with them and with himself--went
away on a rapid walk for miles out of his way, striding along the quiet
country roads as if for a race; and a race it was, with his own
thoughts, which still were fastest, and not to be overtaken. He knew the
truths of philosophy, the limited lines and parallels of human logic and
reason; but he had not been trained among the great original truths of
nature; he knew only what was true to the mind,--not what was true to
the heart.
CHAPTER IX.
A VISIT.
“Come down, Agnes, make haste; mamma wants you--and Miss Anastasia’s
carriage is just driving up to the door.”
So said Marian, coming languidly into their sleeping-room, and quite
indifferent to Miss Anastasia. She was rather glad indeed to hasten
Agnes away, to make an excuse for herself, and gain a half-hour of
solitude to read over again Louis’s letter. It was worth while to get
letters like those of Louis. Marian sat down on one of Miss Bridget’s
old-fashioned chairs, and leaned her beautiful head against its high
unyielding angular back. The cover on it was of an ancient blue-striped
tabinet, faded, yet still retaining some of its colour, which answered
very well to relieve those beautiful half-curled, half-braided locks of
Marian’s hair, which had such a tendency to escape from all kinds of
bondage. She lay there half reclining upon this stiff uneasy piece of
furniture, not at all disturbed by its angularity, her pretty cheek
flushing, her pretty lips trembling into half-conscious smiles, reading
over again Louis’s letter, which she held after an embracing fashion in
both her hands.
And Rachel, with great diffidence, yet by the Rector’s invitation, had
gone to visit Miss Rivers at the Old Wood House. When the other Miss
Rivers, chief of the name, entered the little parlour of the Lodge, she
found the mother and daughter, who were both acquainted with her secret,
awaiting her very anxiously. She came in with a grave face and
deliberate step. She had not changed her dress in any particular, except
the colour of her bonnet, which was black, and had some woeful
decorations of crape; but it was evident that she too had been greatly
moved and impressed by her young cousin’s death.
“He is dead,” she said, almost as abruptly as the Rector, when she had
taken her usual place. “Yes, poor young George Rivers, who was the heir
of the house--it was very well for him that he should die.”
“Oh, Miss Rivers!” said Mrs Atheling, “I am very, very sorry for poor
Lord Winterbourne.”
“Are you?” said Miss Anastasia;--“perhaps you are right,--he will feel
this, I dare say, as much as he can feel anything--but _I_ was sorry for
the boy. Young people think it hard to die--fools!--they don’t know the
blessing that lies in it. Living long enough to come to the crown of
youth, and dying in its blossom--that’s a lot fit for an angel. Agnes
Atheling, never look through your tears at me.”
But Agnes could not help looking at the old lady wistfully, with her
young inquiring eyes.
“What does the Rector do here?--they tell me he comes often,” said Miss
Rivers. “Do you know that now, so far as people understand, _he_ comes
to be heir of Winterbourne?”
“He came to tell us yesterday of the poor young gentleman’s death,” said
Mrs Atheling, “and I thought he seemed a little excited. Agnes, I am
sure you observed it as well as I.”
“No, mamma,” said Agnes, turning away hastily. She went to get some
work, that no one might observe her own looks, with a sudden nervous
tremor and impatience upon her. The Rector had been very kind to Louis,
had done a brother’s part to him--far more than any one else in the
world had ever done to this friendless youth--yet Louis’s friends were
labouring with all their might, working in darkness like evil-doers, to
undermine the supposed right of Lionel--that right which made his breast
expand and his brow clear, and freed him from an uncongenial fate. Agnes
sat down trembling, with a sudden nervous access of vexation,
disappointment, annoyance, which she could not explain. She had been
accustomed for a long time now to follow him with interest and sympathy,
and to read his thoughts in those wild public self-revelations of his,
which no one penetrated but herself; but she felt actually guilty, a
plotter, and concerned against him now.
“I am sorry for Lionel,” said Miss Rivers, who had not lost a single
fluctuation of colour on Agnes’s cheek, nor tremble of emotion in her
hurried hands--“but it would have been more grievous for poor George had
he lived. There will be only disappointment--not disgrace--for any other
heir.”
She paused awhile, still watching Agnes, who bent over her work, greatly
disposed to cry, and in a very agitated condition of mind. Then she said
as suddenly as before, “I forget my proper errand--I have come for the
girls. You are to go up with me to the Priory. Go, make haste--put on
your bonnet--I never wait, even for young ladies; call your sister, and
make ready to go.”
Agnes rose, startled and unwilling, and cast an inquiring look at Mamma.
Mrs Atheling was startled too, but she was not insensible to the pride
and glory of seeing her two daughters drive off to Abingford Priory in
the well-known carriage of Miss Anastasia. “Since Miss Rivers is so
good, make haste, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling; and Agnes had no
alternative but to obey.
When she was gone, Miss Rivers looked round the room inquisitively.
Rachel was no great needlewoman, nor much instructed in ordinary
feminine pursuits; there were no visible traces of the presence of a
third young lady in the little dim parlour. “Where is the girl?” said
Miss Anastasia, cautiously,--“I was told she was here.”
“The Rector asked her to go and see his sister--she is at the Old Wood
House,” said Mrs Atheling. “I am very sorry--but we never thought of you
coming to-day.”
“I might come any day,” said Miss Rivers, abruptly--“but that is not the
question--I prefer not to see her--she is a frightened little dove of a
girl--she is not in my way. Is she good for anything?--you ought to
know.”
“She is a very sweet, amiable girl,” said Mrs Atheling, warmly--“and she
sings as I never heard any one sing, all my life.”
“Ah!” said Miss Rivers, with a look of gratification, “it belongs to the
family--music is a tradition among us--yes, yes! You remember my
great-grandfather, the fourth lord--he was a great composer.” Miss
Anastasia was perfectly destitute of the faculty herself, and more than
half of the Riverses wanted that humblest of all musical qualifications,
“an ear”--yet it was amusing to mark the eagerness of the old lady to
find a family precedent for every quality known as belonging to Louis or
his sister. “I recollect,” added Miss Rivers, bending her brows darkly,
“they wanted to make a singer of her--the more disgrace the better--Oh,
I understand their tactics! You are sorry for him?--look at the devilish
plans he made.”
Mrs Atheling shook her head, but did not reply; she only knew that she
would have been sorry for the vilest criminal in the world, had he lost
his only son.
“I have heard from your boy,” said Miss Rivers. “He is gone now, I
suppose. What does Will Atheling think of his son? If he does but as I
expect he will, the boy’s fortune is made; he shall never repent that he
did this service for me.”
“But it is a great undertaking,” said Mrs Atheling. “I know Charlie will
do his best--he is a very good boy, Miss Rivers; but he may not succeed
after all.”
“He will succeed,” said the old lady; “but even if he does not--which I
cannot believe--so long as he does all he can, it will not alter me.”
The mother’s heart swelled high with gratification and pleasure; yet
there was a drawback. All this time--since the first day when she heard
of it, before she made her discovery--Miss Anastasia had never referred
to the engagement between Louis and Marian. Did she desire to discourage
it? Was she likely to perceive a difference in this respect between
Louis nameless and without friends, and Louis the heir of Winterbourne?
But Mrs Atheling’s utmost penetration could not tell. Miss Rivers began
to pull down the books, to look at them, to strike her riding-whip on
the floor, and call out good-humouredly in her loud voice, which every
one in the house could hear, that she was not to be kept waiting by a
parcel of girls. Finally the girls made their appearance in their best
dresses; their new patroness hurried them into her carriage, and drove
instantly away.
CHAPTER X.
MARIAN ON TRIAL.
Miss Anastasia “preferred not to see” Rachel--yet, with a wayward
inclination still, was moved to drive by a circuitous road in front of
the Old Wood House, where the girl was. The little vehicle went heavily
along the grassy road, cutting the turf, but making little sound as it
rolled past the windows of the invalid. There was the velvet lawn, the
trim flower-plots, the tall autumnal flowers, the straight and well-kept
garden-paths, lying vacant and shadowless beneath the sun--but there was
nothing to be discovered under the closed blinds of this shut-up and
secluded house.
“Why do they keep their blinds down?” said Miss Anastasia; “all the
house surely is not one invalid’s room? Lucy was a little fool always. I
do not believe there is anything the matter with her. She had what these
soft creatures call a disappointment in love--words have different
meanings, child. And why does this girl go to see Lucy Rivers? I
suppose because she is such a one herself.”
“It is because Miss Rivers was kind to her,” said Agnes; “and the Rector
asked her to go----”
“The Rector? Do you mean to tell me,” said Miss Anastasia, turning
quickly upon her companion, “that when Lionel Rivers comes to the Lodge
it is for _her_ he comes?”
“I do not know,” said Agnes. She was provoked to feel how her face
burned under the old lady’s gaze. She could not help showing something
of the anger and vexation she felt. She looked up hastily, with a glance
of resentment. “He has been very much interested in Louis--he has been
very kind to him,” said Agnes, not at all indisposed, for the sake of
the Rector, whom every one plotted against, to throw down her glove to
Miss Anastasia. “I believe, indeed, it has been to inquire about Louis,
that he ever came to the Lodge.”
Miss Anastasia touched her ponies with her whip, and said, “Humph!”
“Both of them! odd enough,” said the old lady. Agnes, who was
considerably offended, and not at all in an amicable state of mind, did
not choose to inquire who Miss Anastasia meant by “both of them,” nor
what it was that was “odd enough.”
Marian occupied the seat behind. She liked it very well, though she
would rather have written her letter to Louis. She did not quite hear
the conversation before her, and did not much care about it. Marian
recognised the old lady only as Agnes’s friend, and had never connected
her in any way with her own fortunes. She was shy of speaking in that
stately presence; she was even resentful sometimes of the remarks of
Miss Anastasia; and the lofty old gentlewoman had formed but an
indifferent idea yet of the little beauty. She was amused with the
pretty pout of Marian’s lip, the sparkle, sometimes of fun, sometimes of
petulance, in her eye; but Marian would have been extremely dismayed
to-day had she known that she, and not Agnes, was the principal object
of Miss Anastasia’s visit, and was, indeed, about to be put upon her
trial, to see if she was good for anything. At all events, she was quite
at ease and unalarmed now.
They drove along in silence for some time after this--passing through
the village and past the Park gates. Then Miss Anastasia took a road
quite unfamiliar to the girls--a grass-grown unfrequented path, lying
under the shadow of the trees of Winterbourne. She did not say a word
till they came to a sudden break in the trees, when she stopped her
ponies abruptly, and fixed a sorrowful gaze upon the Hall, which was
visible, and close at hand. The white, broad, majestic front of the
great house was not unlike a funeral pile at any time; now, with white
curtains drawn close over all its scarcely perceptible windows, still
veiled in the pomp of mourning, without a gleam of light or colour, in
its blind, grand aspect, turning its back upon the sun--there was
something very sadly imposing in the desolated house. No one was to be
seen about it--not even a servant: it looked like a vast mausoleum,
sacred to the dead. “It was very well for him,” said Miss Anastasia with
a sigh, “very well. If it were not so pitiful a thing to think of,
children, I could thank God.”
But as the old lady spoke, the tears stood heavy in her eyes.
This was very dreadful, very mysterious, altogether beyond comprehension
to Marian. She was glad to turn her eyes away from the house with
dislike and terror--it had been Louis’s prison and place of suffering,
and not a single hope connected with the Hall of Winterbourne was in
Marian’s mind. She drew back from Miss Rivers with a shudder--she
thought it was the most frightful thing in existence to thank God
because this young man had died.
The Priory opened its doors wide to its mistress and her young guests.
She led them herself to her favourite room, a very strange place,
indeed, to their inexperienced eyes. It was a long narrow room, built
over the archway which crossed the entrance to the town of Abingford.
This of itself was peculiarity enough; and the walls were of stone,
wainscoted to half their height with oak, and the roof was ribbed with
strong old oaken rafters, and of course unceiled. Windows on either
side, plain lattice-windows, with thick mullions of stone, admitted the
light in strips between heavy bars of shadow, and commanded a full sight
of every one who entered the town of Abingford. On the country side was
a long country road, some trees, and the pale convolutions of the river;
on the other, there was a glimpse of the market-place of the town, even
now astir with a leisurely amount of business, in the centre of which
rose an extraordinary building with a piazza, while round it were the
best shops of Abingford, and the farmers’ inns, which were full on
market days. A little old church, rich with the same rude Saxon ornament
which decorated the church of Winterbourne, stood modestly among the
houses at the corner of the market-place. A few leisurely figures, such
as belong to country towns, stood at the doors, or lounged about the
pavement; and market-carts came and went slowly under the arch. Marian
brightened into positive amusement; she thought it very funny indeed to
watch the people and the vehicles slowly disappearing beneath her, and
laughed to herself, and thought it a very odd fancy of Miss Anastasia,
to choose her favourite sitting-room here.
The old lady came and stood beside her, somewhat to the embarrassment of
Marian. She bade the girl take off her bonnet, which produced its
unfailing result, of throwing into a little picturesque confusion those
soft, silken, half-curled tresses of Marian’s hair. Marian looked out of
the window somewhat nervously, a little afraid of Miss Rivers. The old
lady looked at her with a keen scrutiny. She was stooping her pretty
shoulders in an attitude which might have been awkward in a form less
elastic, dimpling her cheek with the fingers which supported it,
conscious of Miss Anastasia’s gaze, somewhat alarmed, and very shy. In
spite of the shrinking, the alarm, and the embarrassment, Miss Rivers
looked steadily down upon her with a serious inspection. But even the
cloud which began to steal over Marian’s brow could not disenchant the
eyes that gazed upon her--Miss Anastasia began to smile as everybody
else; to feel herself moved to affection, tenderness, regard; to own the
fascination which no one resisted. “My dear, you are very pretty,” said
the old lady, entirely forgetting any prudent precautions on the score
of making Marian vain; “many people would tell you, that, with a face
like that, you need no other attraction. But I was once pretty myself,
and I know it does not last for ever; do you ever think about anything,
you lovely little child?”
Marian glanced up with an indignant blush and frown; but the look she
met was so kind, that it was not possible to answer as she intended. So
the pretty head sank down again upon the hand which supported it. She
took a little time to compose herself, and then, with some humility,
spoke the truth: “I am afraid, not a great deal.”
“What do you suppose I do here, all by myself?” said Miss Anastasia,
suddenly.
Marian turned her face towards her, looked round the room, and then
turned a wistful gaze to Miss Rivers. “Indeed, I do not know,” said
Marian, in a very low and troubled tone: it was youth, with awe and
gravity and pity, looking out of its bright world upon the loneliness
and poverty of age.
That answer and that look brought the examination to a very hasty and
sudden conclusion. The old lady looked at her for an instant with a
startled glance, stooped over her, kissed her forehead and hurried away.
Marian could not tell what she had done, nor why Miss Anastasia’s face
changed so strangely. She could not comprehend the full force of the
contrast, nor how her own simple wonder and pity struck like a sudden
arrow to the old lady’s heart.
Agnes was puzzled too, and could not help her sister to an explanation.
They remained by themselves for some time, rather timidly looking at
everything. There were a few portraits hanging high upon the walls,
portraits which they knew to be of the family, but could not recognise;
and there was one picture of a very strange kind, which all their
combined ingenuity could not interpret. It was like one of those old
Dyptichs used to preserve some rare and precious altarpiece. What was
within could not be seen, but on the closed leaves without were painted
two solemn angels, with a silvery surrounding of wings, and flowers in
their hands. If Miss Anastasia had been a Catholic--even if she had been
a dilettante or extreme High Churchwoman, it might have been a little
private shrine: perhaps it was so: there was a portrait within, which no
eyes but her own ever saw. Between the windows the walls were lined with
book-cases; that ancient joke of poor Aunt Bridget’s, her own initials
underneath her pupil’s name--the B. A., which conferred a degree upon
Anastasia Rivers--turned out to be an intentional thing after all. The
girls gazed in awe at Miss Anastasia’s book-shelves. She was a great
scholar, this old lady. She might have been one of the Heads of Houses
in the learned city, but for the unfortunate femininity which debarred
her. All by herself among these tomes of grey antiquity--all by herself
with her pictures, the sole remnant of another time--it was not
wonderful that the two girls paused, looking out from the sunshine of
their youth with reverence, yet with compassion. They honoured her with
natural humility, feeling their own ignorance, but notwithstanding, were
very sorry for Miss Anastasia, all by herself--more sorry than there was
occasion to be--for Miss Anastasia was used to be all by herself, and
found enjoyment in it now.
When Miss Anastasia came back she took them to see her garden, and the
state-apartments of her great stately house. When they were a little
familiar she let them stray on before her, and followed watching. Agnes,
perhaps, was still her own favourite of the two; but all her observation
was given to Marian. As her eyes followed this beautiful figure, her
look became more and more satisfied; and while Marian wandered with her
sister about the garden, altogether unconscious of the great
possibilities which awaited her, Miss Anastasia’s fancy clothed her in
robes of state, and covered her with jewels. “He might have married a
duke’s daughter,” she said to herself, turning away with a pleased
eye--“but he might never have found such a beautiful fairy as this: she
is a good little child too, with no harm in her; and a face for a fairy
queen!”
CHAPTER XI.
DISCONTENT.
No one knew the real effect of the blow which had just fallen upon Lord
Winterbourne. The guests, of whom his house was full, dispersed as if by
magic. Even Mrs Edgerley, in the most fashionable sables, with mourning
liveries, and the blinds of her carriage solemnly let down, went forth,
as soon as decency would permit, from the melancholy Hall. After all the
bustle and all the gaiety of recent days, the place fell into a pause of
deadly stillness. Lord Winterbourne sought comfort from no one--showed
grief to no one; he made a sudden pause, like a man stunned, and then,
with increased impetus, and with a force and resolution unusual to him,
resumed his ancient way once more, and rushed forward with exaggerated
activity. Instead of subduing him, this event seemed to have roused all
his faculties into a feverish and busy malevolence, as if the man had
said, “I have no one to come after me--I will do all the harm I can
while my time lasts.” All the other gentry of the midland counties, put
together, did not bring so many poachers to “justice” as were brought by
Lord Winterbourne. It was with difficulty his solicitor persuaded him to
pass over the pettiest trespass upon his property. He shut up pathways
privileged from time immemorial, ejected poor tenants, encroached upon
the village rights, and oppressed the village patriarchs; and animated
as he was by this spirit of ill-will to every one, it was not wonderful
that he endeavoured, with all his might, to press on the suit against
the Athelings for the recovery of the Old Wood Lodge.