Early in January Mr. Howard returned from Spain. Had he been able to
follow his own inclinations, he would have gone straight to Cumberland
in order to look after his property, and confer with his agent on some
matters of importance; but he received such an urgent summons from Lady
Osborne that he did not like to disregard it, and went down into Surrey.
As he entered the beautiful drawing-room of the Castle, where
everything was so familiar to him, and Lady Osborne, so entirely in
keeping with her surroundings, came forward to greet him, with a slight
flush upon her face, he could not but feel how good it was to be once
more at home.
They sat together by the wide hearth, and it seemed to him that in the
soft light of the candles she might well pass for ten years less than
her age, but as a matter of fact a stranger might well have taken her
for but little older than himself; in her beauty there was something
so soft and fair.
They had been chatting of one thing and another--principally of Lady
Edward Sothern, and the wedding--when suddenly it occurred to him that
he had not enquired for Lord Osborne, and, to his amazement, learned
that he was in Paris.
"Upon my word I do not understand him," he said, rising to his feet,
and leaning against the mantelpiece. "When we were in Italy he was for
ever playing the _rôle_ of lonely exile, and pining for his native
land!"
He looked down at Lady Osborne, and she coloured.
"I was particularly anxious to speak to you about him," she replied.
"It is on account of his disappointment with Miss Watson. She has
definitely refused him."
"But what could have induced him to ask her when she is the betrothed
of another?"
"It was all a mistake--Mr. Musgrave confesses to having been
misinformed. She continues to live with her brother and sister at
Croydon--vulgar impossible people!--though Osborne insists that they
have a child who is a perfect little lady!--I cannot understand these
Watsons!"
On the plea of his disordered dress, Mr. Howard soon after retired,
but, as he crossed the room it was as though something of its beauty
had faded. It no longer held the same spell for him. Something of
disquiet had wakened in him. An instinct, not unakin to a sense of
shrinking, had possessed him--almost as though there were a pitfall at
his feet.
As he entered his old apartment, he was again conscious of uneasiness.
It had been freshly decorated, and re-furnished, and there was an
air of luxury which somehow repelled him, giving him a feeling of
oppression. He went over to the casement, and throwing it wide open,
regardless of frost and snow, looked out into the quiet night, with its
myriad of stars.
On the following day he set out to call on some old parishioners, and
had not gone very far on his way when he encountered Tom Musgrave
riding along.
"If ever I met such a fellow as you are, Howard! We all thought you'd
been eaten by cannibals!"
"Sorry to disappoint you!--but there are no cannibals in Spain!"
"Well, crocodiles!--it's all one!--and here's Osborne gone off to
Paris, clean out of his wits over Miss Watson!"
"How came you to make such a mistake with regard to Miss Watson?"
"Faith! I don't know that there was any mistake! Her people are wild
with her for not having Osborne--but there seems to be some other
fellow in the background--someone she had met at her aunt's--and she
seems fully determined to have her own way. She has, absolutely, left
them at Croydon, and gone to stay with her younger brother, where there
will be nobody to look after her from morning to night!"
This story unfortunately received confirmation during the morning; and
on the following day, when he rode over to the Rectory to see Purvis,
it received a still more disquieting aspect. Emma had been seen in the
company of a Captain Conway at A----, a man who was said to be highly
connected, though of this there was no certain proof--but who, on
the other hand, was well known to be a profligate. Heavy at heart he
returned to the Castle.
As he sat with Lady Osborne over the fire that night, she told him more
of her history than ever he had previously known.
He had always deplored the inferiority of her son and daughter to their
mother, but hitherto it had never occurred to him that she had been
conscious of it herself.
"I have known but little happiness in my life," she said. "My father,
Lord Foulke, was a gambler; and, in view of the increasing difficulty
of living, my mother believed it to be her duty to marry off all her
daughters as soon as they came out. I was the third of five girls,
and married when scarcely sixteen--no more than a child. I could not
endure Lord Osborne--my every instinct revolted against him--but though
I implored my father and mother, with tears, to spare me, they would
not listen to me. No one may know the misery of my married life. When
I was about twenty-three, however, my husband died, leaving me with
two young children--the boy so backward that I believed him for a time
to be deficient; but as I spared no effort to develop him he gradually
improved. Not long afterwards my father died from an accident. The
shock brought a stroke on my mother, depriving her of the power of
speech, which she never afterwards recovered, though she lingered on
for several years. My brother, despite the remonstrances of the doctor,
insisted on her removal to the Dower House, and short as was the drive,
she never recovered from it; so that I dared not attempt to bring her
here. As it was seldom possible to leave her, I could see but little
of my children, for as the Dower House was small, and indifferently
built, she could not endure their noise. But never had I loved her so
well. Qualities, that I had never before discerned in her, now showed
themselves, and we were drawn together as we never had been before. At
her death I returned home, to find my daughter almost a stranger to me.
Julia was now fourteen, and her pretty manners, which I had believed
to be the expression of her affection for me, had merely served as a
mask to her serious defects of character. Perhaps unjustly, I dismissed
her governess, believing her to be blamed, and endeavoured myself to
correct them, but I had come too late, and it only served to estrange
her the further. Osborne, on the other hand, has always held for me
the simple affection of his childhood, and his faults are rather of a
negative than of a positive character, but he cares for little beyond
hunting and fishing--we have almost nothing in common. Until you came,
Arthur, I had scarcely known what it was to have a companion."
There was a slight falter in her voice as she uttered the last words,
and she looked at her visitor wistfully.
His eyes, half veiled by their lashes, were fixed on the glowing
embers, and he remained silent. Once again Emma's soft hand trembled
in his own, and he was conscious of the beating of her heart. Why had
he not taken her into his arms, then and there, to shelter in his
breast for ever?
"Arthur, you are not listening to me!"
There was a note of reproach in the gentle voice at his side.
"I assure you, Lady Osborne, that I am deeply concerned and distressed
to hear of all that you have suffered. Perhaps in view of my office
it is scarcely orthodox for me to say how very unfair it has all
seemed--but from the point of view of a simple human being, it is
impossible to think otherwise."
Nothing could have been kinder than the tone in which he pronounced
these words; but that she had expected something altogether different
was quite evident by the expression of disappointment which overspread
her countenance, as she shrank into the shadow.
After a moment's silence he continued:
"The want of sympathy between parents and children is only too common,
but there must have been a total absence of all natural feeling on
the part of your brother, with regard to Lady Foulke, when he could
act in such a manner towards her. The counterpart of it, however, I
witnessed at the bedside of my cousin. His son, as you know, broke his
neck in the hunting field, as his father lay dying. I was deputed to
tell him, and did so in fear and trembling as to the possible effect it
might have on him, but he just looked round at me and said: 'And a good
thing, too!' Although I had been aware that the relations between them
were very unfortunate, I had not believed it possible that there could
be such an estrangement between father and son."
After a pause Mr. Howard then announced that he had written to his
agent to expect him on the following Saturday.
"Oh, surely not!" exclaimed his hostess, leaning forward in
expostulation. "Cumberland will be quite intolerable in this weather--I
have heard that the cold there is beyond everything!"
"I have yet to learn that I am in a galloping consumption. I assure
you there is no country more delightful and wonderful than Cumberland
in the grasp of winter!"
"I am well aware a Northman will swear _anything_ with respect to his
country!"
"Madam! I protest!"
"Oh, protest away! you are all of you alike! I had hoped that you might
have been prevailed upon to remain with us until Easter--in which case
Osborne would have come back at once."
"Do not you think he had much better remain where he is? In the gay
world of Paris he will have everything to distract him, and may
possibly find someone to replace Miss Watson?"
"I do not think so."
"Surely you do not believe that Osborne will remain inconsolable for
ever?"
There was a gleam of humour in his dark eyes as he turned them towards
her. In all his intimate knowledge of his former pupil, it had
certainly never occurred to him that he possessed a heart of untold
depths!
"No. What I believe is, that he will revert to his former indifference
towards women, and never marry at all."
"That would be very much to be deplored."
"I am not so sure of that. He is scarcely fitted to attract a superior
mind, and you could not expect me to welcome an inferior one, or to
view, without pain, an unwilling bride forced into his arms."
A day or two later Lady Osborne stood beneath the portico, to wish her
guest "God-speed."
"Remember I shall be counting on you for an invitation!" she said,
smiling.
He bowed low.
"I shall have to secure a fair chatelaine, madam, in order to receive
you worthily!"
How little did he realize that his idle words were as a naked sword in
her breast.