THE next day Kenelm walked into the town, posted his voluminous letter
to Sir Peter, and then looked in at the shop of Will Somers, meaning
to make some purchases of basket-work or trifling fancy goods in
Jessie's pretty store of such articles, that might please the taste of
his mother.
On entering the shop his heart beat quicker. He saw two young forms
bending over the counter, examining the contents of a glass case. One
of these customers was Clemmy; in the other there was no mistaking the
slight graceful shape of Lily Mordaunt. Clemmy was exclaiming, "Oh,
it is so pretty, Mrs. Somers! but," turning her eyes from the counter
to a silk purse in her hand, she added sorrowfully, "I can't buy it.
I have not got enough, not by a great deal."
"And what is it, Miss Clemmy?" asked Kenelm.
The two girls turned round at his voice, and Clemmy's face brightened.
"Look here," she said, "is it not too lovely?"
The object thus admired and coveted was a little gold locket, enriched
by a cross composed of small pearls.
"I assure you, miss," said Jessie, who had acquired all the coaxing
arts of her trade, "it is really a great bargain. Miss Mary Burrows,
who was here just before you came, bought one not nearly so pretty and
gave ten shillings more for it."
Miss Mary Burrows was the same age as Miss Clementina Emlyn, and there
was a rivalry as to smartness between those youthful beauties. "Miss
Burrows!" sighed Clemmy, very scornfully.
But Kenelm's attention was distracted from Clemmy's locket to a little
ring which Lily had been persuaded by Mrs. Somers to try on, and which
she now drew off and returned with a shake of the head. Mrs. Somers,
who saw that she had small chance of selling the locket to Clemmy, was
now addressing herself to the elder girl more likely to have
sufficient pocket-money, and whom, at all events, it was quite safe to
trust.
"The ring fits you so nicely, Miss Mordaunt, and every young lady of
your age wears at least one ring; allow me to put it up." She added
in a lower voice, "Though we only sell the articles in this case on
commission, it is all the same to us whether we are paid now or at
Christmas."
"'Tis no use tempting me, Mrs. Somers," said Lily, laughing, and then
with a grave air, "I promised Lion, I mean my guardian, never to run
into debt, and I never will."
Lily turned resolutely from the perilous counter, taking up a paper
that contained a new ribbon she had bought for Blanche, and Clemmy
reluctantly followed her out of the shop.
Kenelm lingered behind and selected very hastily a few trifles, to be
sent to him that evening with some specimens of basket-work left to
Will's tasteful discretion; then purchased the locket on which Clemmy
had set her heart; but all the while his thoughts were fixed on the
ring which Lily had tried on. It was no sin against etiquette to give
the locket to a child like Clemmy, but would it not be a cruel
impertinence to offer a gift to Lily?
Jessie spoke: "Miss Mordaunt took a great fancy to this ring, Mr.
Chillingly. I am sure her aunt would like her to have it. I have a
great mind to put it by on the chance of Mrs. Cameron's calling here.
It would be a pity if it were bought by some one else."
"I think," said Kenelm, "that I will take the liberty of showing it to
Mrs. Cameron. No doubt she will buy it for her niece. Add the price
of it to my bill." He seized the ring and carried it off; a very poor
little simple ring, with a single stone shaped as a heart, not half
the price of the locket.
Kenelm rejoined the young ladies just where the path split into two,
the one leading direct to Grasmere, the other through the churchyard
to the vicarage. He presented the locket to Clemmy with brief kindly
words which easily removed any scruple she might have had in accepting
it; and, delighted with her acquisition, she bounded off to the
vicarage, impatient to show the prize to her mamma and sisters, and
more especially to Miss Mary Burrows, who was coming to lunch with
them.
Kenelm walked on slowly by Lily's side.
"You have a good heart, Mr. Chillingly," said she, somewhat abruptly.
"How it must please you to give such pleasure! Dear little Clemmy!"
This artless praise, and the perfect absence of envy or thought of
self evinced by her joy that her friend's wish was gratified, though
her own was not, enchanted Kenelm.
"If it pleases to give pleasure," said he, "it is your turn to be
pleased now; you can confer such pleasure upon me."
"How?" she asked, falteringly, and with quick change of colour.
"By conceding to me the same right your little friend has allowed."
And he drew forth the ring.
Lily reared her head with a first impulse of haughtiness. But when
her eyes met his the head drooped down again, and a slight shiver ran
through her frame.
"Miss Mordaunt," resumed Kenelm, mastering his passionate longing to
fall at her feet and say, "But, oh! in this ring it is my love that I
offer,--it is my troth that I pledge!" "Miss Mordaunt, spare me the
misery of thinking that I have offended you; least of all would I do
so on this day, for it may be some little while before I see you
again. I am going home for a few days upon a matter which may affect
the happiness of my life, and on which I should be a bad son and an
unworthy gentleman if I did not consult him who, in all that concerns
my affections, has trained me to turn to him, the father; in all that
concerns my honour to him, the gentleman."
A speech more unlike that which any delineator of manners and morals
in the present day would put into the mouth of a lover, no critic in
"The Londoner" could ridicule. But, somehow or other, this poor
little tamer of butterflies and teller of fairy tales comprehended on
the instant all that this most eccentric of human beings thus frigidly
left untold. Into her innermost heart it sank more deeply than would
the most ardent declaration put into the lips of the boobies or the
scamps in whom delineators of manners in the present day too often
debase the magnificent chivalry embodied in the name of "lover."
Where these two had, while speaking, halted on the path along the
brook-side, there was a bench, on which it so happened that they had
seated themselves weeks before. A few moments later on that bench
they were seated again.
And the trumpery little ring with its turquoise heart was on Lily's
finger, and there they continued to sit for nearly half an hour; not
talking much, but wondrously happy; not a single vow of troth
interchanged. No, not even a word that could be construed into "I
love." And yet when they rose from the bench, and went silently along
the brook-side, each knew that the other was beloved.
When they reached the gate that admitted into the garden of Grasmere,
Kenelm made a slight start. Mrs. Cameron was leaning over the gate.
Whatever alarm at the appearance Kenelm might have felt was certainly
not shared by Lily; she advanced lightly before him, kissed her aunt
on the cheek, and passed on across the lawn with a bound in her step
and the carol of a song upon her lips.
Kenelm remained by the gate, face to face with Mrs. Cameron. She
opened the gate, put her arm in his, and led him back along the
brook-side.
"I am sure, Mr. Chillingly," she said, "that you will not impute to my
words any meaning more grave than that which I wish them to convey,
when I remind you that there is no place too obscure to escape from
the ill-nature of gossip, and you must own that my niece incurs the
chance of its notice if she be seen walking alone in these by-paths
with a man of your age and position, and whose sojourn in the
neighbourhood, without any ostensible object or motive, has already
begun to excite conjecture. I do not for a moment assume that you
regard my niece in any other light than that of an artless child,
whose originality of tastes or fancy may serve to amuse you; and still
less do I suppose that she is in danger of misrepresenting any
attentions on your part. But for her sake I am bound to consider what
others may say. Excuse me, then, if I add that I think you are also
bound in honour and in good feeling to do the same. Mr. Chillingly,
it would give me a great sense of relief if it suited your plans to
move from the neighbourhood."
"My dear Mrs. Cameron," answered Kenelm, who had listened to this
speech with imperturbable calm of visage, "I thank you much for your
candour, and I am glad to have this opportunity of informing you that
I am about to move from this neighbourhood, with the hope of returning
to it in a very few days and rectifying your mistake as to the point
of view in which I regard your niece. In a word," here the expression
of his countenance and the tone of his voice underwent a sudden
change, "it is the dearest wish of my heart to be empowered by my
parents to assure you of the warmth with which they will welcome your
niece as their daughter, should she deign to listen to my suit and
intrust me with the charge of her happiness."
Mrs. Cameron stopped short, gazing into his face with a look of
inexpressible dismay.
"No! Mr. Chillingly," she exclaimed, "this must not be,--cannot be.
Put out of your mind an idea so wild. A young man's senseless
romance. Your parents cannot consent to your union with my niece; I
tell you beforehand they cannot."
"But why?" asked Kenelm, with a slight smile, and not much impressed
by the vehemence of Mrs. Cameron's adjuration.
"Why?" she repeated passionately; and then recovering something of her
habitual weariness of quiet. "The why is easily explained. Mr.
Kenelm Chillingly is the heir of a very ancient house and, I am told,
of considerable estates. Lily Mordaunt is a nobody, an orphan,
without fortune, without connection, the ward of a humbly born artist,
to whom she owes the roof that shelters her; she is without the
ordinary education of a gentlewoman; she has seen nothing of the world
in which you move. Your parents have not the right to allow a son so
young as yourself to throw himself out of his proper sphere by a rash
and imprudent alliance. And, never would I consent, never would
Walter Melville consent, to her entering into any family reluctant to
receive her. There,--that is enough. Dismiss the notion so lightly
entertained. And farewell."
"Madam," answered Kenelm very earnestly, "believe me, that had I not
entertained the hope approaching to conviction that the reasons you
urge against my presumption will not have the weight with my parents
which you ascribe to them, I should not have spoken to you thus
frankly. Young though I be, still I might fairly claim the right to
choose for myself in marriage. But I gave to my father a very binding
promise that I would not formally propose to any one till I had
acquainted him with my desire to do so, and obtained his approval of
my choice; and he is the last man in the world who would withhold that
approval where my heart is set on it as it is now. I want no fortune
with a wife, and should I ever care to advance my position in the
world, no connection would help me like the approving smile of the
woman I love. There is but one qualification which my parents would
deem they had the right to exact from my choice of one who is to bear
our name. I mean that she should have the appearance, the manners,
the principles, and--my mother at least might add--the birth of a
gentlewoman. Well, as to appearance and manners, I have seen much of
fine society from my boyhood, and found no one among the highest born
who can excel the exquisite refinement of every look, and the inborn
delicacy of every thought, in her of whom, if mine, I shall be as
proud as I shall be fond. As to defects in the frippery and tinsel of
a boarding-school education, they are very soon remedied. Remains
only the last consideration,--birth. Mrs. Braefield informs me that
you have assured her that, though circumstances into which as yet I
have no right to inquire, have made her the ward of a man of humble
origin, Miss Mordaunt is of gentle birth. Do you deny that?"
"No," said Mrs. Cameron, hesitating, but with a flash of pride in her
eyes as she went on. "No. I cannot deny that my niece is descended
from those who, in point of birth, were not unequal to your own
ancestors. But what of that?" she added, with a bitter despondency of
tone. "Equality of birth ceases when one falls into poverty,
obscurity, neglect, nothingness!"
"Really this is a morbid habit on your part. But, since we have thus
spoken so confidentially, will you not empower me to answer the
question which will probably be put to me, and the answer to which
will, I doubt not, remove every obstacle in the way of my happiness?
Whatever the reasons which might very sufficiently induce you to
preserve, whilst living so quietly in this place, a discreet silence
as to the parentage of Miss Mordaunt and your own,--and I am well
aware that those whom altered circumstances of fortune have compelled
to altered modes of life may disdain to parade to strangers the
pretensions to a higher station than that to which they reconcile
their habits,--whatever, I say, such reasons for silence to strangers,
should they preclude you from confiding to me, an aspirant to your
niece's hand, a secret which, after all, cannot be concealed from her
future husband?"
"From her future husband? of course not," answered Mrs. Cameron. "But
I decline to be questioned by one whom I may never see again, and of
whom I know so little. I decline, indeed, to assist in removing any
obstacle to a union with my niece, which I hold to be in every way
unsuited to either party. I have no cause even to believe that my
niece would accept you if you were free to propose to her. You have
not, I presume, spoken to her as an aspirant to her hand. You have
not addressed to her any declaration of your attachment, or sought to
extract from her inexperience any words that warrant you in thinking
that her heart will break if she never sees you again."
"I do not merit such cruel and taunting questions," said Kenelm,
indignantly. "But I will say no more now. When we again meet let me
hope you will treat me less unkindly. Adieu!"
"Stay, sir. A word or two more. You persist in asking your father
and Lady Chillingly to consent to your proposal to Miss Mordaunt?"
"Certainly I do."
"And you will promise me, on your word as a gentleman, to state fairly
all the causes which might fairly operate against their consent,--the
poverty, the humble rearing, the imperfect education of my niece,--so
that they might not hereafter say you had entrapped their consent, and
avenge themselves for your deceit by contempt for her?"
"Ah, madam, madam, you really try my patience too far. But take my
promise, if you can hold that of value from one whom you can suspect
of deliberate deceit."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Chillingly. Bear with my rudeness. I have
been so taken by surprise, I scarcely know what I am saying. But let
us understand each other completely before we part. If your parents
withhold their consent you will communicate it to me; me only, not to
Lily. I repeat I know nothing of the state of her affections. But it
might embitter any girl's life to be led on to love one whom she could
not marry."
"It shall be as you say. But if they do consent?"
"Then you will speak to me before you seek an interview with Lily, for
then comes another question: Will her guardian consent?--and--and--"
"And what?"
"No matter. I rely on your honour in this request, as in all else.
Good-day."
She turned back with hurried footsteps, muttering to herself, "But
they will not consent. Heaven grant that they will not consent, or if
they do, what--what is to be said or done? Oh, that Walter Melville
were here, or that I knew where to write to him!"
On his way back to Cromwell Lodge, Kenelm was overtaken by the vicar.
"I was coming to you, my dear Mr. Chillingly, first to thank you for
the very pretty present with which you have gladdened the heart of my
little Clemmy, and next to ask you to come with me quietly to-day to
meet Mr. -----, the celebrated antiquarian, who came to Moleswich this
morning at my request to examine that old Gothic tomb in our
churchyard. Only think, though he cannot read the inscription any
better than we can, he knows all about its history. It seems that a
young knight renowned for feats of valour in the reign of Henry IV.
married a daughter of one of those great Earls of Montfichet who were
then the most powerful family in these parts. He was slain in
defending the church from an assault by some disorderly rioters of the
Lollard faction; he fell on the very spot where the tomb is now
placed. That accounts for its situation in the churchyard, not within
the fabric. Mr. ----- discovered this fact in an old memoir of the
ancient and once famous family to which the young knight Albert
belonged, and which came, alas! to so shameful an end, the Fletwodes,
Barons of Fletwode and Malpas. What a triumph over pretty Lily
Mordaunt, who always chose to imagine that the tomb must be that of
some heroine of her own romantic invention! Do come to dinner; Mr.
----- is a most agreeable man, and full of interesting anecdotes."
"I am so sorry I cannot. I am obliged to return home at once for a
few days. That old family of Fletwode! I think I see before me,
while we speak, the gray tower in which they once held sway; and the
last of the race following Mammon along the Progress of the Age,--a
convicted felon! What a terrible satire on the pride of birth!"
Kenelm left Cromwell Lodge that evening, but he still kept on his
apartments there, saying he might be back unexpectedly any day in the
course of the next week.
He remained two days in London, wishing all that he had communicated
to Sir Peter in writing to sink into his father's heart before a
personal appeal to it.
The more he revolved the ungracious manner in which Mrs. Cameron had
received his confidence, the less importance he attached to it. An
exaggerated sense of disparities of fortune in a person who appeared
to him to have the pride so common to those who have known better
days, coupled with a nervous apprehension lest his family should
ascribe to her any attempt to ensnare a very young man of considerable
worldly pretensions into a marriage with a penniless niece, seemed to
account for much that had at first perplexed and angered him. And if,
as he conjectured, Mrs. Cameron had once held a much higher position
in the world than she did now,--a conjecture warranted by a certain
peculiar conventional undeniable elegance which characterized her
habitual manner,--and was now, as she implied, actually a dependant on
the bounty of a painter who had only just acquired some professional
distinction, she might well shrink from the mortification of becoming
an object of compassion to her richer neighbours; nor, when he came to
think of it, had he any more right than those neighbours to any
confidence as to her own or Lily's parentage, so long as he was not
formally entitled to claim admission into her privity.
London seemed to him intolerably dull and wearisome. He called
nowhere except at Lady Glenalvon's; he was glad to hear from the
servants that she was still at Exmundham. He relied much on the
influence of the queen of the fashion with his mother, whom he knew
would be more difficult to persuade than Sir Peter, nor did he doubt
that he should win to his side that sympathizing and warm-hearted
queen.