"It is not to-morrow; ah, were it to-day!
There are two that I know that would be gay.
Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
Ah I parting wounds so bitterly!"
It is six weeks later, "spring has come up this way," and all the earth
is glad with a fresh birth.
"Tantarara! the joyous Book of Spring
Lies open, writ in blossoms; not a bird
Of evil augury is seen or heard!
Come now, like Pan's old crew we'll dance and sing,
Or Oberon's, for hill and valley ring
To March's bugle horn--earth's blood is stirred."
March has indeed come; boisterous, wild, terrible, in many ways, but
lovely in others. There is a freshness in the air that rouses glad
thoughts within the breast, vague thoughts, sweet, as undefinable, and
that yet mean life. The whole land seems to have sprung up from a long
slumber, and to be looking with wide happy eyes upon the fresh marvels
Nature is preparing for it. Rather naked she stands as yet, rubbing her
sleepy lids, having just cast from her her coat of snow, and feeling
somewhat bare in the frail garment of bursting leaves and timid grass
growths, that as yet is all she can find wherein to hide her charms; but
half clothed as she is, she is still beautiful.
Everything seems full of eager triumph. Hills, trees, valleys, lawns,
and bursting streams, all are overflowing with a wild enjoyment. All the
dull, dingy drapery in which winter had shrouded them has now been cast
aside, and the resplendent furniture with which each spring delights to
deck her home stands revealed.
All these past dead months her house has lain desolate, enfolded in
death's cerements, but now uprising in her vigorous youth, she flings
aside the dull coverings, and lets the sweet, brilliant hues that lie
beneath, shine forth in all their beauty to meet the eye of day.
Earth and sky are in bridal array, and from the rich recesses of the
woods, and from each shrub and branch the soft glad pæans of the mating
birds sound like a wedding chant.
Monkton had come back from that sad journey to Nice some weeks ago. He
had had very little to tell on his return, and that of the saddest. It
had all been only too true about those iniquitous debts, and the old
people were in great distress. The two town houses should be let at
once, and the old place in Warwickshire--the home, as he called
it--well! there was no hope now that it would ever be redeemed from the
hands of the Manchester people who held it; and Sir George had been so
sure that this spring he would have been in a position to get back his
own, and have the old place once more in his possession. It was all very
sad.
"There is no hope now. He will have to let the place to Barton for the
next ten years," said Monkton to his wife when he got home. Barton was
the Manchester man. "He is still holding off about doing it, but he
knows it must be done, and at all events the reality won't be a bit
worse than the thinking about it. Poor old Governor! You wouldn't know
him, Barbara. He has gone to skin and bone, and such a frightened sort
of look in his eyes."
"Oh! poor, poor old man!" cried Barbara, who could forget everything in
the way of past unkindness where her sympathies were enlisted.
Toward the end of February the guests had begun to arrive at the Court.
Lady Baltimore had returned there during January with her little son,
but Baltimore had not put in an appearance for some weeks later. A good
many new people unknown to the Monktons had arrived there with others
whom they did know, and after awhile Dicky Browne had come and Miss
Maliphant and the Brabazons and some others with whom Joyce was on
friendly terms, but even though Lady Baltimore had made rather a point
of the girls being with her, Joyce had gone to her but sparingly, and
always in fear and trembling. It was so impossible to know who might not
have arrived last night, or was going to arrive this night!
Besides, Barbara and Freddy were so saddened, so upset by the late death
and its consequences, that it seemed unkind even to pretend to enjoy
oneself. Joyce grasped at this excuse to say "no" very often to Lady
Baltimore's kindly longings to have her with her. That, up to this,
neither Dysart nor Beauclerk had come to the Court, had been a comfort
to her; but that they might come at any moment kept her watchful and
uneasy. Indeed, only yesterday she had heard from Lady Baltimore that
both were expected during the ensuing week.
That news leaves her rather unstrung and nervous to-day. After luncheon,
having successfully eluded Tommy, the lynx-eyed, she decides upon going
for a long walk, with a view to working off the depression to which she
has become prey. This is how she happens to be out of the way when the
letter comes for Barbara that changes altogether the tenor of their
lives.
The afternoon post brings it. The delicious spring day has worn itself
almost to a close when Monkton, entering his wife's room, where she is
busy at a sewing machine altering a frock for Mabel, drops a letter over
her shoulder into her lap.
"What a queer looking letter," says she, staring in amazement at the big
official blue envelope.
"Ah--ha, I thought it would make you shiver," says he, lounging over to
the fire, and nestling his back comfortably against the mantle-piece.
"What have you been up to I should like to know. No wonder you are
turning a lively purple."
"But what can it be?" says she.
"That's just it," says he teazingly. "I hope they aren't going to arrest
you, that's all. Five years' penal servitude is not a thing to hanker
after."
Mrs. Monkton, however, is not listening to this tirade. She has broken
open the envelope and is now scanning hurriedly the contents of the
important-looking document within. There is a pause--a lengthened one.
Presently Barbara rises from her seat, mechanically, as it were, always
with her eyes fixed on the letter in her hand. She has grown a little
pale--a little puzzled frown is contracting her forehead.
"Freddy!" says she in a rather strange tone.
"What?" says he quickly. "No more bad news I hope."
"Oh, no! Oh, yes! I can't quite make it out--but--I'm afraid my poor
uncle is dead."
"Your uncle?"
"Yes, yes. My father's brother. I think I told you about him. He went
abroad years ago, and we--Joyce and I, believed him dead a long time
ago, long before I married you even--but now----Come here and read it.
It is worded so oddly that it puzzles me."
"Let me see it," says Monkton.
He sinks into an easy-chair, and drags her down on to his knee, the
better to see over her shoulder. Thus satisfactorily arranged, he begins
to read rapidly the letter she holds up before his eyes.
"Yes, dead indeed," says he sotto voce. "Go on, turn over; you mustn't
fret about that, you know. Barbara--er--er--" reading. "What's this? By
Jove!"
"What?" says his wife anxiously. "What is the meaning of this horrid
letter, Freddy?"
"There are a few people who might not call it horrid," says Monkton,
placing his arm round her and rising from the chair. He is looking very
grave. "Even though it brings you news of your poor uncle's death, still
it brings you too the information that you are heiress to about a
quarter of a million!"
"What!" says Barbara faintly. And then, "Oh no. Oh! nonsense! there must
be some mistake!"
"Well, it sounds like it at all events. 'Sad occurrence,'
h'm--h'm----" reading. "'Co-heiresses. Very considerable fortune.'" He
looks to the signature of the letter. "Hodgson & Fair. Very respectable
firm! My father has had dealings with them. They say your uncle died in
Sydney, and has left behind him an immense sum of money. Half a million,
in fact, to which you and Joyce are co-heiresses."
"There must be a mistake," repeats Barbara, in a low tone. "It seems too
like a fairy tale."
"It does. And yet, lawyers like Hodgson & Fair are not likely to be led
into a cul-de-sac. If----" he pauses, and looks earnestly at his wife.
"If it does prove true, Barbara, you will be a very rich woman."
"And you will be rich with me," she says, quickly, in an agitated tone.
"But, but----"
"Yes; it does seem difficult to believe," interrupts he, slowly. "What a
letter!" His eyes fall on it again, and she, drawing close to him, reads
it once more, carefully.
"I think there is truth in it," says she, at last. "It sounds more like
being all right, more reasonable, when read a second time. Freddy----"
She steps a little bit away from him, and rests her beautiful eyes full
on his.
"Have you thought," says she, slowly, "that if there is truth in this
story, how much we shall be able to do for your father and mother!"
Monkton starts as if stung. For them. To do anything for them. For the
two who had so wantonly offended and insulted her during all her married
life: Is her first thought to be for them?
"Yes, yes," says she, eagerly. "We shall be able to help them out of all
their difficulties. Oh! I didn't say much to you, but in their grief,
their troubles have gone to my very heart. I couldn't bear to think of
their being obliged to give up their houses, their comforts, and in
their old age, too! Now we shall be able to smooth matters for them!"