Since our last visit to it, Vernon Hall had changed from gay to grave.
Only in its interior. Outside, its fine facade presented the same
cheerful front to its park; the Corinthian columns of its portico looked
open and hospitable as ever.
As ever, elegant equipages came and went; but only to draw up, and
remain for a moment in the sweep, while their occupants left cards, and
made inquiries.
Inside there was silence. Servants glided about softly, or on tiptoe;
opened and closed the doors gently, speaking in subdued tones.
It was a stillness, solemn and significant. It spoke of sickness in the
house.
And there was sickness of the most serious kind--for it was known to be
the precursor of death.
Sir George Vernon was dying.
It was an old malady--a disease of that organ, to which tropical climes
are so fatal--in the East as in the West.
And in both had the baronet been exposed; for part of his earlier life
had been spent in India.
Induration had been long going on. It was complete, and pronounced
incurable. At the invalid's urgent request, the doctors had told him
the truth--warning him to prepare for death.
His last tour upon the Continent--whither he had gone with his
daughter--had given the finishing blow to his strength; and he was now
home again, so enfeebled that he could no longer take a walk, even along
the soft, smooth turf of his own beautiful park.
By day most of his time was spent upon a sofa in his library, where he
lay supported by pillows.
He had gone abroad with Blanche, in the hope of weaning her from that
affection so freely confessed; and which had been ever since a sore
trouble to his spirit.
How far he had succeeded might be learnt by looking in her sad
thoughtful face; once blithe and cheerful; by noting a pallor in her
cheek, erst red as the rose leaf; by listening to sighs, too painful to
be suppressed; and, above all, to a conversation that occurred between
her and her father not long after returning from that latest journey,
that was to be the last of his life.
Sir George was in his library reclining, as was his wont. The sofa had
been wheeled up to the window, that he might enjoy the charm of a
splendid sunset: for it was a window facing west.
Blanche was beside him; though no words were passing between them.
Having finished adjusting his pillow, she had taken a seat near the foot
of the sofa, her eyes, like his, fixed on the far sunset--flushing the
horizon with strata-clouds of crimson, purple, and gold.
It was mid-winter; but among the sheltered copses of Vernon Park there
was slight sign of the season. With a shrubbery whose foliage never
fell, and a grass ever green, the grounds immediately around the mansion
might have passed for a picture of spring.
And there was bird music, the spring's fit concomitant: the chaffinch
chattering upon the taller trees, the blackbird with flutelike note
fluttering low among laurels and laurustines, and the robin nearer the
window warbling his sweet simple lay.
Here and there a bright-plumed pheasant might be seen shooting from
copse to copse; or a hare, scared from her form, dashing down into the
covert of the dale. Farther off on the pastures of the park could be
seen sleek kine consorting with the antlered stag, both browsing
tranquil and undisturbed. It was a fair prospect to look upon; and it
should have been fairer in the eyes of one who was its proprietor.
But not so Sir George Vernon, who might fancy that he was looking at it
for the last time. The thought could not fail to inspire painful
reflections; and into a train of such had he fallen.
They took the shape of an inquiry: who was to succeed him in that fair
inheritance, handed down from a long line of distinguished ancestors?
His daughter Blanche was to be his inheritor--since he had no son, no
other child; and the entail of the estate ended with himself.
But Blanche might not long bear his name; and what other was she to
bear? What escutcheon was to become quartered upon that of the Vernons?
He thought of Scudamore; he had been long thinking of it, hoping,
wishing it; but now, in the hours darkened by approaching death, he had
doubts whether this union of armorial bearings would ever be.
In earlier days he had resolved on its being so, and up to a late
period. He had spoken of compulsion, such as he held by testamentary
powers. He had even hinted it to Blanche herself. He had made
discovery how idle such a course would be; and on this he was now
reflecting. He might as well have thought of commanding yonder sun to
cease from its setting, yonder stag to lay aside its grandeur, or the
birds their soft beauty. You may soften an antipathy, but you cannot
kill it; and, obedient child though she was, not even her father's will,
not all the powers upon earth, could have removed from Blanche Vernon's
mind the antipathy she had conceived for her cousin Scudamore.
In the same way you may thwart an affection, but not destroy it; and a
similar influence would not have sufficed to chase from Blanche Vernon's
mind the memory of Captain Maynard. His image was still upon her heart,
fresh as the first impression--fresh as in that hour when she stood
holding his hand under the shade of the _deodara_! Her father appeared
to know all this. If not, her pale cheek, day by day growing paler,
should have admonished him. But he did know, or suspected it; and the
time had come for him to be certain.
"Blanche!" he said, turning round, and tenderly gazing in her face.
"Father?" She pronounced the word interrogatively, thinking it was some
request for service to the invalid. But she started as she met his
glance. It meant something more!
"My daughter," he said, "I shall not be much longer with you."
"Dear father! do not say so!"
"It is true, Blanche. The doctors tell me I am dying; and I know it
myself."
"O father! dear father!" she exclaimed, springing forward from her seat,
falling upon her knees beside the sofa, and covering his face with her
tresses and tears.
"Do not weep, my child! However painful to think of it, these things
must be. It is the fate of all to leave this world; and I could not
hope to be exempted. It is but going to a better, where God Himself
will be with us, and where we are told there is no more weeping. Come,
child! compose yourself. Return to your seat, and listen; for I have
something to say to you."
Sobbingly she obeyed--sobbing as though her heart would break.
"When I'm gone," he continued, after she had become a little calmer,
"you, my daughter, will succeed to my estates. They are not of great
value; for I regret to say there is a considerable mortgage upon them.
Still, after all is paid off there will be a residue--sufficient for
your maintenance in the position to which you have been accustomed."
"Oh, father I do not speak of these things. It pains me!"
"But I must, Blanche; I must. It is necessary you should be made
acquainted with them; and necessary, too, that _I_ should know--"
What was it necessary he should know? He had paused, as if afraid to
declare it.
"What, papa?" asked she, looking interrogatively in his face, at the
same time that a blush, rising upon her cheek, told she half divined it.
"What should you know?"
"My dear daughter!" he rejoined, shunning a direct answer. "It is but
reasonable to suppose you will be some day changing your name. I should
be unhappy to leave the world, thinking you would not; and I could leave
it all the happier to think you will change it for one worthy of being
adopted by the daughter of a Vernon--one borne by a man deserving to be
my son!"
"Dear father?" cried she, once more sobbing spasmodically, "pray do not
speak to me of this! I know whom you mean. Yes; I know it, I know it.
O father, it can never be!"
She was thinking of the name Scudamore; and that it could never be here!
"Perhaps you are mistaken, my child. Perhaps I did not mean any name in
particular."
Her grand blue eyes, deeper blue under their bedewing of tears, turned
inquiringly upon her father's face.
She said nothing; but seemed waiting for him to further explain himself.
"My daughter," he said, "I think I can guess what you meant by your last
speech. You object to the name Scudamore? Is it not so?"
"Sooner than bear it, I shall be for ever content to keep my own--
yours--throughout all my life. Dear father! I shall do anything to
obey you--even this. Oh! you will not compel me to an act that would
make me for ever unhappy? I do not, cannot love Frank Scudamore; and
without love how could I--how could he--"
The womanly instinct which had been guiding the young girl seemed
suddenly to forsake her. The interrogatory ended in a convulsive sob;
and once more she was weeping.
Sir George could no longer restrain his tears, nor expression of the
sympathy from whence they proceeded.
Averting his face upon the pillow, he wept wildly as she.
Sorrow cannot endure for ever. The purest and most poignant grief must
in time come to an end.
And the dying man knew of a solace, not only to himself, but to his
dear, noble daughter--dearer and nobler from the sacrifice he had
declared herself willing to make for him.
His views about her future had been for some time undergoing a change.
The gloom of the grave, to one who knows he is hastening towards it,
casts its shadow alike over the pride of the past, and the splendours of
the present. Equally does it temper the ambitions of the future.
And so had it effected the views of Sir George Vernon--socially as well
as politically. Perhaps he saw in that future the dawning of a new
day--when the _regime_ of the Republic will be the only one acknowledged
upon earth!
Whether or not, there was in his mind at that moment a man who
represented this idea; a man he had once slighted, even to scorn. On
his deathbed he felt scorn no longer; partly because he had repented of
it; and partly that he knew this man was in the mind of his daughter--in
her heart of heart. And he knew also she would never be happy without
having him in her arms!
She had promised a self-sacrifice--nobly promised it. A command, a
request, a simple word would secure it! Was he to speak that word?
No! Let the crest of the Vernons be erased from the page of heraldry!
Let it be blended with the plebeian insignia of a republic, rather than
a daughter of his house, his own dear child, should be the child of a
life-long sorrow!
In that critical hour, he determined she should not. "You do not love
Frank Scudamore?" he said, after the long sad interlude, recurring to
her last speech. "I do not, father; I cannot!"
"But you love another? Do not fear to speak frankly--candidly, my
child! You love another?"
"I do--I do!"
"And that other is--Captain Maynard?"
"Father! I have once before confessed it. I told you I loved him, with
my whole heart's affection. Do you think that could ever change?"
"Enough, my brave Blanche!" exclaimed the invalid, raising his head
proudly upon the pillow, and contemplating his daughter, as if in
admiration. "Enough! dearest Blanche! Come to my arms! Come closer
and embrace your father--your friend, who will not be much longer near
you. It will be no fault of mine, if I do not leave you in other arms--
if not dearer, perhaps better able to protect you!"
The wild burst of filial affection bestowed upon a dying parent permits
not expression in speech.
Never was one wilder than when Blanche Vernon flung her arms around the
neck of her generous parent, and showered her scalding tears upon his
cheek!