Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: GWENDOLINE WAS THE FIRST TO LIFT HER HEAD.]
GWENDOLINE
BY
AGNES GIBERNE
AUTHOR OF
"ANTHONY CRAGG'S TENANT," "STORIES OF THE ABBEY PRECINCTS,"
"THROUGH THE LINN," "NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOURS."
_With Three Illustrations by J. Finnemore_
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard E.C.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
[Illustration]
Anthony Cragg's Tenant.
Illustrated. Crown 8vo,
2s. 6d.
Next-Door Neighbours.
Illustrated. Crown 8vo,
1s.
Stories of the Abbey Precincts.
Illustrated. Large crown 8vo,
2s. 6d.
Through the Linn; or, Miss Temple's Wards.
Illustrated. Crown 8vo,
1s. 6d.
Easy Lessons on Things around us.
Illustrated. Crown 8vo,
1s. 6d.
CONTENTS
[Illustration]
CHAP.
I. LONDON FOG
II. LADY HALCOT
III. GLADIOLUS COTTAGE
IV. THE ROCKS
V. AFTERWARDS
VI. GWEN'S HOME
VII. MR. FOSBROOK'S STORY
VIII. A CALLER
IX. AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL
X. WHAT HAD TO BE
XI. AMID NEW SCENES
XII. GWEN'S POSSESSIONS
XIII. TO AND ABOUT HONORA
XIV. AN ENCOUNTER
XV. CLOUDS
XVI. THE CODICIL
XVII. RICH TOWARD GOD
XVIII. LONELINESS
XIX. TO A POINT
XX. LINGERING ON
XXI. PARTING WORDS
XXII. COMING
XXIII. LADY HALCOT'S WILL
XXIV. THE OLD HOME
XXV. WINDINGS-UP
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
GWENDOLINE WAS THE FIRST TO LIFT HER HEAD _Frontispiece_
SHE LEAPED BOLDLY IN, STRIKING THE RIGHT SPOT
LADY HALCOT'S KEEN BLACK EYES RAN SWIFTLY OVER GWENDOLINE
GWENDOLINE
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
LONDON FOG.
"YOU won't go into the city to-day of course, Stuart?"
The voice betrayed anxiety. It was breakfast-time, but gaslights shone
overhead, glittering on chased silver and on broad blue borders of
delicate china. Beyond the panes of the two windows only a dense yellow
haze was visible.
Mr. Selwyn looked up from a deluge of morning correspondence, following
his wife's glance. "It will lessen," he said tranquilly.
"Just this once," she pleaded. "Such a day! Could you not be content to
spend one day at home?"
"How about appointments, my love?"
"I daresay you have none of any importance."
"Gwendoline Halcombe, at twelve,—for instance."
"The pretty girl that we met in the Academy with her father? But that
need not take you out. You don't seriously suppose any lady would keep
an appointment in this fog."
The lawyer's grey eyes laughed pleasantly beneath their broad brows. He
was unlawyer-like in aspect, according to conventional notions, being
strong and upright in build, with ruddy colouring and particularly
straightforward expression.
"I don't for a moment suppose so of 'any' lady," he said. "I suppose it
to be not improbable in the case of Miss Halcombe."
"I do not like young women to be too independent,—very young and pretty
ones especially."
"Perhaps Miss Halcombe does not like it either. Independence becomes a
matter of necessity in certain instances,—with the eldest of ten, for
example."
"Is she that?"
"Ten is the number, I believe—ranging from nineteen to three in age."
"What made her fix on to-day?"
"She wrote and asked if she might have a few words with me. I named the
day and hour."
"Why not telegraph to put her off?"
"That is far from being my only engagement. Also, I could not reach
her. She will be at her painting in the Academy or Kensington, I don't
know which."
"Painting! Yes, you promised to take me some day to see her drawings.
She is clever, is she not?"
The lawyer was becoming absorbed in another letter. His wife surveyed
the window afresh, trying to glean encouragement thence. Failing to do
so, the conclusion at which she arrived was uttered aloud, with a sigh
of despair.
"It is perfectly awful."
"Eh?" said Mr. Selwyn.
"The fog! It is awful, Stuart."
"It is rather thick, but I have seen worse," mildly admitted Mr. Selwyn.
"If this is only 'rather,' I don't know what 'very' thick may be. You
will never get back from the city alive."
"That will scarcely be the fate of every city man. I hope I shall be
among the survivors."
"Oh, Stuart, don't joke about it. Suppose something really did happen."
She had been married only nine months, and was as yet unaccustomed to
the vicissitudes of the London atmosphere, after twenty-six years in
the clear air of a country village. There was something country-like
still about her soft plumpness and rosy cheeks. She was rather a pretty
little woman, over twenty years her husband's junior. Mr. Selwyn had
been married once before for a brief space, and had spent a long
widowhood before finding a second wife to his mind. He was still in the
prime of life, a lawyer in good practice, a man of considerable private
means, and a general favourite, greatly esteemed by all who knew him
for his unswerving rectitude and for his kindliness of heart. He had
one son, Mortimer by name, four or five and twenty in age.
"Never expect evils, Isobel. I am an old hand at fogs. But, as you say,
no need to jest. I have a note from Miss Withers. Lady Halcot desires
an interview."
"Halcot! Isn't she the old lady at Riversmouth, who gives you so much
trouble?"
"I should not like that description to reach Lady Halcot."
"Not very likely. I don't know any one belonging to her. And Miss
Withers is the lady-companion, is she not? I remember. What do they
want you to do?"
"I shall have to run down to Riversmouth to-morrow."
"So soon?"
"Lady Halcot expects me to-day. Impossible, unfortunately."
"I am sure I would rather have you go into the country than into the
city. There would be some likelihood of your leaving this horrible fog
behind you."
"Yes, but I am tied to city work to-day,—no help for it. I think the
fog shows signs of lifting."
"I wish I could see them," sighed his wife.
Mr. Selwyn went to his office as usual, only not so quickly as usual,
for traffic was under serious difficulties, and the promised "lifting"
of the fog took place but slowly. If other people kept to their
appointments that day, however, Gwendoline Halcombe unexpectedly failed
in hers.
Riversmouth was a seaside place within tolerably easy distance of
London, but it was by no means a seaside place of the fashionable
description. No railway station existed within four miles of the
village—called flatteringly by some of its inhabitants a "town." No
trim parade was laid down above or below the beetling low cliffs which
overhung the shingly beach, parted by only one sharp and narrow cut,
through which trickled a tiny brooklet beside a rough pathway. Houses
stood irregularly above, tier above tier, and two or three of the
oldest buildings jutted almost over the edges of the cliffs.
Lady Halcot, the aged owner of the land in and about Riversmouth,
strenuously resisted every attempt at improvement or "innovation;" her
one aim being to keep the place precisely in the same condition as she
had known it sixty or seventy years earlier. The traditions of her
family sternly prescribed "selectness," forbade admission of strangers,
discouraged popularity, abhorred excursionists, fought against social
and religious changes of any kind or description. The old lady strove
to carry out these traditions to the letter, and where she failed, she
lamented sorely.
That the place had so far increased as to possess two churches in lieu
of one was a distress to her, and no one yet ventured to suggest in her
presence the growing need for a third. She was regularly to be seen
each Sunday, once, if not twice, in the cushioned square pew of the
parish church, where her ancestors had sat from time immemorial; but
she had little to say to the Riversmouth clergy. The Rev. Charles Jay,
of the chapel of ease, she had always disliked and ignored, simply from
the fact that he belonged to a building the very existence of which she
deprecated. The Rev. William Rossiter, of the parish church, appointed
to it by herself some twelve years earlier, had long been honoured with
her friendship and confidence.
But three or four years ago a change had crept quietly over the dream
of peaceful parish slumbrousness, wherein the old lady delighted.
Nobody knew exactly when or how it began. Only, somehow, Mr. Rossiter's
placid moral essays grew into earnest expositions of Bible truth and
vigorous appeals to his congregation to repent and be saved; also
an active young curate came upon the scene, and Bible-classes were
started, and cottage-lectures sprang into being.
"Such things as were never even mentioned in my grandfather's days,"
Lady Halcot said in her disgust.
She remonstrated with Mr. Rossiter, but was met by a gentle resistance,
on which she had not calculated. Mr. Rossiter had reached that point
where the question becomes one of obedience to God rather than man. He
would have spoken of a change in himself, and in his views of work to
be done for his Lord and Master, but she would not listen. If he did
not choose to conform to her will, she had nothing more to say to the
matter—or to him. Mr. Rossiter was permitted only to bow and withdraw,
and from that day he was admitted no more at the Leys. He went quietly
on with what he believed to be his duty, scattering the Word of Life to
right and left, as he found opportunity, and meeting with much happy
encouragement at times. But he saw no more of Lady Halcot, except in
her pew and her pony-carriage. She vouchsafed him occasionally an icy
bow in passing; and she studiously placed every possible obstacle in
the way of his labours. It never occurred to her that she was thus
actually hindering work for God. The idea might have startled her, had
she looked it in the face.
No London fog had found its way to Riversmouth next day, when Mr.
Selwyn stood upon the eastern cliff, enjoying the strong sea-breeze. He
unbuttoned his greatcoat, threw back his shoulders, and drank in large
gulps of salt air, with a Londoner's appreciation of the same. Waves
below were tumbling in, one upon another, with reckless haste, as the
breeze helped onward the rapid spring-tide. There was not a gale, but
the wind possessed sufficient force to whisk off the white wave-crests,
scattering them in small spray around, and to wail weirdly among roofs
and chimney-pots. Rock-boulders lay upon the beach, where at intervals
in the past they had fallen from the cliffs above, and amongst them the
waves splashed roughly, swirling round, and drawing back, and leaving
trails of white foam to die upon the stones.
A zig-zag flight of narrow steps, guarded by a stout hand-rail, led
down the face of the cliff. Mr. Selwyn, standing at the top, had made
up his mind not to descend, when his eye was caught by a figure below.
"If it is not!" he ejaculated.
He paused for another look. The figure was that of a girl, standing
upon a low boulder near the margin of the water. Her ungloved hands
were clasped lightly together, and a grey closely-fitting ulster,
swaying in the breeze, encased the slim figure from head to foot. The
neat little feet showed below, and the little head wore a cap of the
same material as the ulster, from beneath which peeped short curly
brown hair.
"What is she after here?" asked Mr. Selwyn half-aloud.
He made his way down the steps with no further hesitation, strode over
the crunching shingles, and drew near. She glanced round at the sound
of footsteps, and turned to meet him with a gesture of surprise.
"Mr. Selwyn!"
It was a lovely face, oval and delicate, with large brown eyes like
those of a deer, liquid and wistful. The boyish shortness of the hair,
and the severe simplicity of the grey suit, rather enhanced than
detracted from the general effect.
"You here!" the lawyer said, in accents of unmitigated astonishment.
"I couldn't help it. I had the chance, and—I came. Was it wrong?"
"What chance?"
"Honora Dewhurst offered to bring me for two nights. It is just a
reviving breath. We work together at our painting, and she is my
friend. Mother said I ought to use the opportunity, but I could not
feel sure about the 'ought.' Still—a third-class return doesn't come to
so very much."
"No, no," Mr. Selwyn assented.
"Of course we can't really afford it," she remarked ingenuously.
"But then it is a question what one ever can afford. There is always
something else wanted which seems just as needful. If it comes to a
question of necessaries, I suppose one could 'do' in a hovel, with
dry bread and water. But, on the other hand, I can't afford another
illness, and I have felt like that lately."
"Time you had a change, then. How has the work gone on?"
"Which work? The 'stitch, stitch' never does go well. Mother and Ruth
have done my share as well as their own the last week, for I just
'couldn't.' And then my painting began to fail, and life was looking
awry, and I began to see it was time for a change, as you say; yet I
could not feel sure. Perhaps I ought to have fought on without it. How
is one to know which is the right thing to do, Mr. Selwyn?"
She looked at him questioningly.
"Generally by the exercise of common sense," he said.
"Is that always enough? Common sense sometimes points in two directions
equally. Mother would tell me to pray to be shown the right way."
He did not exactly smile. His was not a cynical face by any means; but
his expression for a moment was curious.
Gwendoline's brown eyes had a sudden flash in them.
"And mother is right," she said. "For what we want to do is God's
will—of course; and how are we to know what His will is, unless
He shows us? So it 'is' the exercise of common sense to ask Him!"
Gwendoline's bright eyes met Mr. Selwyn's steadily again, seeking to
discover whether he agreed.
Mr. Selwyn contrived to banish from his face any manner of decisive
expression. He did not wish to enter into a discussion upon this
question. "So you settled to come," he said.
"Yes, they all said I ought. And, besides, I had another reason—" She
stopped, and coloured brilliantly.
"Your journey prevented your coming to me yesterday, I suppose?"
"No; we did not start till the afternoon. I was near your office at
twelve; but I changed my mind."
Mr. Selwyn showed surprise.
"I changed my mind," she repeated, looking down. "It was only something
I wanted to consult you about, and just at last I decided not to ask
you. I thought you would discourage me, and I wanted to be free."
"You would rather not tell me what the 'thing' is?"
"I'll think about it. Not now, please," she said sedately. Then, with a
sudden change of manner, turning towards the sea, "Oh, that wave!"
She wrung her hands with delight, as a massive billow rolled in upon
its predecessor, rising in a broad green wall of water, and curling
over to fall with booming crash and hissing swirl.
Mr. Selwyn uttered a word of warning and stepped back.
Gwendoline did not move, and the foam rushed in a flood round her feet
and ankles. She said only, "There!"