ROMANCE.
After this there followed a very exciting interval to Vera. Fane came
again with another mission (nominally) from Miss Meadows, and was
tolerably received. Emboldening by this, he came a third time and a
fourth, addressing most of his conversation to Miss Campbell, and
describing, in elaborate detail, the long series of accidents which
delayed him from the grouse. The Tremenheeres themselves generally left
town in the beginning of August, but this year were later than usual.
Miss Campbell found it agreeable on the whole to receive so unusual a
visitor, and to hear so much about the Campbells of Stormaway, whom she
really began at last to believe in as her cousins. He had always some
trait to relate of one or other of them, when the conversation flagged,
or she began to look suspicious. Vera did not know whether she was
happy or not during these visits. He gave her now and then a look, now
and then a whispered word, in the intervals of his talk with Miss
Campbell, and left her in no doubt as to his motives for cultivating
with such extreme assiduity that lady’s friendship; but after all, at
sixteen, it is but an indifferent pleasure to see your proper slave
devoting himself to another person, even if it be for your sake. Vera
sat silent, and now and then felt somewhat sad. But her whole life
became absorbed in these visits. She thought of them all day long. She
expected him till he came, mused upon him after he was gone. Except
Rollin and the lessons it was all that Vera had. Her mother wrote to her
less frequently than usual, and more briefly. Mrs. Tremenheere, for her
part, was involved in great anxiety and trouble. “I am rather unhappy
about an idea Eddy has got into his head,” she wrote, as an excuse for
her short letters, “but I trust it will not come to anything.” Vera
scarcely asked herself what this could be. She was lost in her own
excitement.
One afternoon Mr. Tremenheere came in a little earlier than usual, and
met Fane, who was leaving after a prolonged call. They stood talking
together for a few minutes at the door, and Mr. Tremenheere was heard to
laugh, which took a burden off the minds of both the ladies in the
drawing-room; for it suddenly occurred to Miss Campbell that before she
knew Mr. Fane, and was aware how well he was acquainted with the
Campbells of Stormaway, she, too, had been a little suspicious of him,
and thought him an undesirable visitor. However, nothing could be more
friendly than Mr. Tremenheere’s tone. When he came in, however, he did
not look quite so genial. He gave a half-angry glance at the governess,
and a doubtful one at Vera.
“Since when has young Fane become a visitor in the house?” he asked, and
there was something uncomfortable in his voice.
“Since when? I think Mr. Fane dined here first on the evening of the
match.”
“I beg you pardon, that was not what I was asking. Since when has he
been in the habit of calling here? He is not an acquaintance of mine.
Elinor Meadows, who always has a _cortège_ of young fellows about her,
brought him; she takes him everywhere. How often have you seen him,
Vera? I don’t want him here.”
“How often?” Vera’s foolish face began to flush as usual, though she
would, she thought, have given everything she had in the world to
prevent it. This made her father very angry, who liked a prompt and
plain reply.
“Yes. How often? What are you frightened about? I shan’t eat you; give
me a straightforward answer. How often have you seen him here?”
“I--I met him--at mamma’s,” said Vera, under her breath.
“Ah! at your mother’s? So she has taken him up, too.”
“I ought to say it is my fault, not Vera’s,” said Miss Campbell. “He
knows some cousins of mine in Argyleshire, the Campbells of Stormaway.
He has come to talk to me about them. Vera has seen very little of him,”
the governess added, with a little complacency, for indeed it had
pleased her to feel that the visitor’s conversation had been so much
addressed to herself.
“Oh! that is it, is it?” he said, rather carelessly, “then perhaps you
will not mind giving him a hint that I don’t care for his visits. There
is not much in him; and his relationship to Lord Fanebury scarcely worth
counting. Perhaps you might hint to him, that if he calls again you are
not likely to be at home.”
“Surely, if you wish it,” said Miss Campbell, though she was not
pleased. As for Vera, a great blackness of darkness came over her. She
had not always liked it when he came; but to lose him, to have no longer
that piquant centre to her days, that something to dream of, to think
of--what could she do? Vera felt that it was intolerable. At dinner she
was too unhappy to preserve her usual composure. She was irritable in
her suffering; so irritable as to move her father to the idea that she
must be ill, and must go to the seaside, for which he issued his orders
on the spot. She had never, since the days of her childhood, been so
courageous before.
“I don’t want change of air,” she said. “It is all very well, papa, for
you. You go to your friends. You do what pleases you. You enjoy
yourself; but as for me I am sent off to a dreadful seaside, where I
know nobody, where we live in horrible lodgings, and practice, and
read, and walk, and do exactly as we do at home.”
“Vera!” cried Miss Campbell, “I am shocked, I am astonished; you forget
yourself.”
“I just wish I could,” cried Vera. “I am so sick, so sick of myself! Let
me go to Aunt Elinor, or to the villa; or let me stay at home.”
Mr. Tremenheere watched her with some astonishment. “I did not give your
mother credit for so much discrimination,” he said. “She warned me you
had a temper. The seaside is far the best for you. When you are a few
years older, you can visit your friends, too, and enjoy yourself.”
Vera said nothing. She sat still, with flushed cheeks, excited and
miserable, not trusting herself to look at any one. It seemed to her
that she must strike a blow for her own deliverance, or die. For the
first time in her life she waited after Miss Campbell had left the room,
and going up to her father, put her hand timidly on his arm. “Papa,” she
said, imploringly, “when you go away don’t leave me alone with Miss
Campbell. Let me go to--to the villa; or to Aunt Elinor----”
“Why will you give Miss Meadows that absurd name? She is not your aunt.”
“I beg you pardon, papa, I will not do it again. I should be so much
happier if I were not alone. The--villa? Mamma will not mind having me,
and Eddy and I could be together, if only for a little while. I should
be so good--so good and obedient----”
“And why should you not go to the seaside with Miss Campbell this year,
as well as every other year? Go away! go away! and don’t let me hear any
more of this.”
Vera went away, as he told her, without another word, without a look.
She passed Miss Campbell, who was waiting and wondering on the
staircase, and hurried to her room. She could not cry this time, her
eyes were too hot and dry. Oh, why was she so different from other
girls! Why had she not a mother to care for her, some one who would see
what was happening, who would judge for her if she was wrong, who would
not have left her to make Oswald Fane the centre of the world! He was
the centre of the world, she felt it now!--the pivot upon which all that
was worth having in life turned. If he was sent away, forbidden the
house, what was to become of her? Either she would kill herself, or God
would be kind and do it for her--one way or other, she must die.
Her heart beat so wildly that it made her sick and faint. But all at
once, as she sat down, it gave one big jump, and then was still. Why was
this? Before her lay a letter carefully placed upon her little
prayer-book, where she could not miss seeing it. Vera knew at once what
it was. Not from her mother, Eddy, any ordinary correspondent; from
_him_. She did not know his handwriting. Why should it be from him?
Perhaps it was some childish invitation, somebody’s letter whom she did
not care for. Saying this over to herself with trembling lips, and
knowing it was not true, she opened the note, and with another big jump
of her heart read as follows:--
“I met your father to-day as I left the house. He was not rude to
me, but I read my doom in his eye. I am not to be allowed to come
any more. I shall come--I shall leave no chance untried; I will try
to see him, and plead my cause with him; but I know how it will
end, unless you, you alone, you who are my better life, will stand
by me. Is it too much? Ah, I know it is too much. I have no right
to disturb your young life, to bring painful questions into it; but
I am in despair: and you, you too--sweet Vera, you, for whom I
would give my life, you are not happy either. But for this I would
go away; I would trust to time and Providence to bring me back to
your feet, where alone I can be happy. But to know that you are
lonely and in trouble, too--that is what I cannot bear. Vera,
darling, forgive me, write me one word, only one word, and do not
let them separate us. Have pity upon me! Since the first day I saw
you, that white day, I have had no thought but you.
O. F.”
Vera read this with feelings I cannot describe. There had never been a
word of love-making between them, so to speak; nothing but those vague
suggestions which make the early paths of love so exquisite; but after
this letter there could be no further disguise. She read it over and
over again with a mixture of heartrending pain and delight, one as
delicious and as heartrending as the other. Stand by him? what else
could she do?--for he was her life if she was his; but write to him! How
could she do that? How she trembled, how sore her heart was, how happy!
Out of the despair and blank hopelessness with which she had left the
dining-room, what a change to this sea of emotion, so sweet, so
terrible, so alarming, yet consolatory! Neither father nor mother had
any sympathy for Vera, any feeling for her feelings; but he felt for
her, with her, everything she felt--yet but for her would be as much
alone as she was; they were two against the world. But write to him! The
thought trembled all through her, made her hand shake, and her heart
beat. Could she do it? How could she do it? When she heard a sound at
her door she thrust the letter away, not into her bosom, which would
have been romantic, but into her pocket, which was natural; and,
conscious in every look and breath and movement turned round to see who
it was; fortunately it was only Mary, the daughter of her old nurse, who
had lately been promoted to be Vera’s maid. Mary was over twenty, an
experienced young person, who had “kept company” for many years with a
tall Guardsman to whom she was faithful through many flirtations on both
sides. She knew what it was to have had parents and a troublesome cook
to interfere with the course of her true love; but even cook was not so
bad as Miss Campbell. And to have Miss Vera’s little heart broken and
her young man driven to despair was not a thing which could be allowed
to be, if sympathetic Mary could prevent it. She came into the room,
smiling with a consciousness equal to Vera’s own, but with more
comfortable sensations.
Mary was cautious, however, in her advances. She said nothing until she
was well into her pretty work of brushing Vera’s long beautiful hair,
standing behind her, unseen and unseeing, a position which gave both
maid and mistress ease. When this period had arrived, Mary said softly,
“Miss Vera, I hope you had your letter?”
“Yes, Mary,” said Vera with a start, and seized a book on the table
under pretence of reading. But Mary was not so dull as not to see the
warm color that came flushing over the girl’s neck, or the tremulous
instinct of self-defence which made her seize upon the book which she
did not read. Mary had the matter in her own hands. She resumed----
“How long your hair do grow, to be sure, Miss Vera. Mother was always
proud of your hair; and now here’s somebody come as thinks more of it
than coined gold. You’ll write him just a little word, won’t you, Miss
Vera, dear, to keep up his heart, poor gentleman? just a little
word----”
“Mary, you ought not to speak to me so. What have you to do with
gentlemen, or me either? How did you get it? Was it you that put it
there? Oh Mary, you shouldn’t have done it--you must never, never do it
again.”
“Miss Vera, you don’t know nothing about it,” said Mary. “Me--I’ve kept
company with my young man since I was just your age, and nobody shan’t
come between him and me. We’ve got to wait, but I don’t mind waiting,
and I’ve told mother so, when she’s been at me about it. But look you
here, Miss Vera, your papa is the only one you’ve got to look to, and if
you hold out he’ll give in. They always does. I never see a young
gentleman more deep in love, and to give him up would be a burning
shame.”
“Oh, Mary, how can you, how dare you talk so?” said poor Vera, with her
face burning. “What would become of us both if papa or Miss Campbell
knew?”
“They couldn’t do much harm to me, Miss,” said Mary. “A servant as knows
her work is always sure of a good place. Don’t you be afraid for me. And
they can’t harm you neither, not if you holds out. Whoever holds out
wins; them as gives in is the only one as is beaten. Miss Vera, you’ve
got a spirit of your own, for all they think they have broken it. If I
were you, I’d write him a word just to keep up his heart, poor
gentleman; and I’d up and tell my papa that he might be a bluebeard or a
raging Turk, as much as he likes--it wouldn’t make no effect upon me.”
“Oh, Mary, Mary, hush! You don’t know what you are saying!”
“Don’t I just? It’s you as don’t understand, Miss, not me. I know all
about it, and a deal more than you do, and this I’ll say, that no father
nor tyrant would ever make me false to my young man. I wouldn’t do it,
not for the world; and Miss Vera, I can’t believe as you’re a traitor in
your heart.”
This was such a totally new view of the question that it took away
Vera’s breath. A traitor! She had never once thought of treachery in the
question. How long Mary’s arguments went on I need not say. She came
back, stealing into Vera’s room in the dark after Miss Campbell had been
there and declared the girl to be feverish, and had given her some white
homœopathic globules, to calm her down again. “It is the hot weather,”
Miss Campbell said to herself, never suspecting Mary. And the maid stole
back in the dark, and the little mistress cried and let her talk, happy
yet ashamed of the company and the confidences, and the familiarity and
sympathy. Mary pleaded so well that Vera was persuaded to write half a
dozen words, in great trouble and agitation, to the effect that Mr. Fane
must not be unhappy, that he must not think of her; but that she should
always think of him, and pray for him, and hoped he would be very happy
all the same. Was it wrong? was it very wrong? Should not a girl answer
a letter from a gentleman as well as from another girl? Vera knew,
alas, that this was not at all the question. But she read over Fane’s
letter again, and put it under her pillow when she went to sleep. He was
the only one who felt for her. They two stood against the world!
[Illustration]