The dressing-bell rang in Milford Castle; but before its iron tongue
had told the guests to make ready for the great business-meal of the
day, all of them had sought their chambers, and Lady Anne Mellent was
nearly dressed. Five minutes after, she sent her maid to knock at
Colonel Middleton's door and tell him that she was going down, and
would be glad to speak with him in the drawing-room as soon as he was
ready. The maid thought it rather strange, although she was well
accustomed to her mistress's various oddities; for, though she knew
Lady Anne to be very eccentric, yet she had never before suspected her
of coquetting with any one. With abigail penetration she had
discovered, by some means or another, that Charles Marston was a
favoured suitor; and now to be sent to tell a young, handsome,
distinguished-looking man to make haste in dressing, for the purpose
of having a _tête-à-tête_ with her mistress before any one else was
down, shocked her ideas of propriety very much. Pounds per annum and
perquisites, however, are better than all the proprieties in the
world, and accordingly she did as she was bid. But few minutes elapsed
before Colonel Middleton was in the drawing-room. The maid's ear was
certainly too near the keyhole within five minutes after; but she
could hear nothing except the indistinct buzz of a low but eager
conversation. She then tried what one sense could do to make up for
the defect of another, and applied her eye to the aperture which had
refused intelligence to her ear. She had the whole farther end of the
room before her; but, to her surprise, there she saw Colonel Middleton
standing with his back against one of the window-frames, and Lady Anne
near him, leaning upon a large carved and gilt chair, while good Mrs.
Brice sat writing a note at a table much more in advance.
A moment after a carriage drove up, and the maid ran away, just
catching a sight of the velvet coat of Mr. Hargrave as he entered the
door.
With stately step the old gentleman followed the servant, who admitted
him to the drawing-room, and was met joyously by Lady Anne, who said--
"I am glad you have come, and have come soon."
"Did you suppose I would break my written word, fair châtelaine?"
asked the old gentleman, in a somewhat reproachful tone. "Have I been
true to a velvet coat and a queue for so many years, to have my faith
doubted now-a-days?"
"No, no," said Lady Anne; "but I wish particularly to introduce you to
this gentleman, Colonel Middleton, who, though magnanimously prepared
to fight his own battles against a very formidable enemy, has listened
to my persuasions, and is going to take you into his councils and
solicit your advice and assistance. There--go with him, Henry, into
the library; tell him the whole story, and the intelligence you have
received to-day of the machinations against you."
While she was speaking, Mr. Hargrave from time to time looked with a
somewhat inquiring glance from her face to that of Henry Hayley, and
then a faint smile came upon his fine though faded features.
"No, no!" cried Lady Anne, laughing, as she remarked it; "you are
quite mistaken. He is not the man, and a great deal handsomer. But you
will hear all about it in a minute, for the whole must come out now,
and you will know the why and the wherefore."
"Come with us," said Henry, addressing her: "we shall need you in our
council indeed."
"Well, then, dear Mrs. Brice," said the beautiful girl, "if Lady
Fleetwood and the rest come down, say that I will be back in a few
minutes."
Lady Fleetwood did come down, and then the other members of the party,
one after another, and to each Mrs. Brice delivered Lady Anne's
message.
"I wonder where Colonel Middleton is," said Lady Fleetwood, at length,
after Mr. Winkworth, who was the last, had been down five minutes.
"He is with Lady Anne in the library," said Mrs. Brice, simply; and
Lady Fleetwood's fair and delicate complexion showed a blush as deep
as if she had been a young girl just caught in attempting to elope.
Maria remarked her aunt's colour, and she coloured a little too, from
sympathy more than anything else; for she felt certain that all her
young friend's thoughts and feelings were high, and pure, and noble;
but yet she did not wish that Lady Anne would make other people think
she was coquetting with Colonel Middleton.
Charles Marston walked towards the window, and tumbled over a
footstool; and even Mr. Winkworth seemed a little discomposed.
A few minutes after, the butler threw open the doors, and without
looking round, pronounced in pompous tones--"Dinner is on the table,
my lady;" but the next moment he perceived that Lady Anne was not in
the room, and stood confounded.
"You had better knock at the library door and tell Lady Anne," said
Mrs. Brice, in her usual quiet tones.
"Knock at the door!" thought Lady Fleetwood: "well, this is very
strange!"
Still they were kept waiting for some minutes; and then--to the
infinite relief of some of the party, it must be confessed--the doors
on the other side were thrown open, and Lady Anne appeared, leaning on
Mr. Hargrave's arm and followed by Colonel Middleton.
"I am afraid you have thought me lost," she said; "but I and my two
counsellors here have been considering weighty matters for the good of
the nation. Mr. Hargrave, allow me to present you to Lady Fleetwood,
who says she had the pleasure of knowing you in years long past. Not a
word to her till you are in the dining-room, for the dinner is getting
cold. This is my dear friend, Miss Monkton, of whom we were talking
two nights ago. Mr. Winkworth--Mr. Hargrave. Charles Marston, let me
introduce you to Mr. Hargrave, my future husband."
"A promise before witnesses!" said Mr. Hargrave, with a smile; "but
now, my dear lady, let me lead you to the dining-room, for I do not
intend to give you up to any one."
The procession was soon formed, and the party sat down to dinner. Lady
Anne was peculiarly gay and lively; but every now and then a shade of
grave thought came upon her for an instant, which she cast off again
as soon, her high spirits seeming to bound up more lightly than ever
from the momentary depression. She had contrived to place Colonel
Middleton next to Maria, and, if the extraordinary truth must be told,
to get Charles Marston next to herself. Once or twice, too, when the
conversation at the table was general and Mr. Hargrave was engaged
with some one else, she exchanged a few words with Charles Marston in
a low tone.
Thus, shortly after the fish and soup had been removed, she said--
"What made you look so gloomy when I came in before dinner? Traitor
and rebel! your faith has been wavering."
"Because you are a little tyrant," replied Charles, in the same tone,
for his heart now beat freely again; "and you sport with the pain of
your subjects."
"They inflict the pain upon themselves," said Lady Anne; and the next
moment, there being an interval of silence, she turned to speak with
Mr. Hargrave.
Some time afterwards, she took another opportunity to say, "I think,
Charles, you will stand by a friend in time of need."
"What do you mean?" he asked, for she spoke very gravely.
"I cannot explain," she said; "but you may be tried within
four-and-twenty hours."
"Oh, I understand," replied Charles, and his eye glanced towards
Colonel Middleton. "Do not fear; I will stand by him to the last, if I
can be of any assistance."
They were again interrupted, and the dinner passed over without
anything worth chronicling, till the ladies rose to retire from table.
Lady Anne paused for a moment before going out, saying to Mr.
Hargrave, "Do not forget the two notes, my dear friend."
"They are gone already," answered Mr. Hargrave: "as I came out I gave
them to your butler, bidding him send them by one of my postilions."
When the ladies were gone, Mr. Hargrave naturally resumed the seat
which he had occupied at the end of Lady Anne's table, and Mr.
Winkworth drew his chair near him.
"Charles Hargrave," he said, laying his hand upon that of the old
gentleman, "you have forgotten me."
Mr. Hargrave turned, and looked at him steadfastly. "I have indeed,"
he said, "though I thought I forgot nothing, and have sometimes
lamented, my dear sir, that my memory was too tenacious, especially of
affections."
"Yet we were once very intimate," said Mr. Winkworth, "though you are
well-nigh twenty years my senior--older in years, I mean, though
perhaps younger in body; but it is not wonderful, for I have withered
away during nearly thirty years in India, so that, when I take up a
little miniature portrait that was painted about the time I knew you,
and then look in the glass, I do not know which it would be better to
do, to laugh or to cry."
"It is very strange," said Mr. Hargrave. "Will you not recal the
circumstances to my mind by some fact? Your voice, I will own, sounds
familiar to my ears; but----"
"It is of no consequence just now," replied Mr. Winkworth: "by-and-by,
when we can have a little chat alone together, I will bring it all up
before you in a minute, like the landscape on the rising of the sun.
Suffice it for the present that you are sitting beside an old friend."
Still Mr. Hargrave seemed puzzled, and returned to the subject more
than once; but the other only laughed, and in a very few minutes they
rose to rejoin the ladies. Then, while Colonel Middleton and Charles
Marston walked away to the drawing-room, Mr. Hargrave took the other
old gentleman by the arm, saying--
"Now you must give me satisfaction. You have attacked the honour of my
memory, and I must have an explanation, lest I should think my
faculties are failing."
"Well, let us sit down, then," said Mr. Winkworth; and seating
themselves at the table, they remained there for a full hour. When
they rejoined the party in the drawing-room, the two old men seemed as
gay as any of them; and with music, and a game of chess between Mr.
Winkworth and Lady Fleetwood, the evening passed lightly to its close.
Half-past eleven o'clock came, without Mr. Hargrave's carriage being
announced; but three notes were brought to him by the butler, who
informed him at the same time that his servant had returned from
Detchton-Grieve.
Mr. Hargrave only said, "Very well;" but Lady Fleetwood thought fit to
tease herself about the old gentleman's going home so late. In truth,
she looked upon the remote part of the country in which she was as
little better than a barbarous land, and the journey back to
Detchton-Grieve in as formidable a light as a retreat through a pass
in presence of an enemy. Nor could she help expressing her sense of
Mr. Hargrave's courage in undertaking such a perilous enterprise; but
the old gentleman replied--
"I must decline the glory, my dear lady. I am going to sleep here
to-night, and perhaps may spend to-morrow here likewise. This is the
first time, dear Lady Anne," he continued, turning to his fair
hostess, "that I have slept out of my own house for five-and-twenty
years; but what would I not do," he continued, gallantly kissing her
hand, "for an approving look from those bright eyes?"
"When we are married, you know, you shall always stay at home," said
Lady Anne; "and now I have taken care that everything should be made
as comfortable for you as possible. I wish I could have got a drawing
of your room at Detchton; then you should have found all things
precisely in the same state."
"When Cicero wrote his essay upon the 'Consolations of Old Age,'" said
Mr. Hargrave, smiling, "he did not, so far as I remember, include that
of being made love to by all the beautiful girls in the neighbourhood.
But I am afraid he thought that there might be some portion of bitter
under the sweet, and that they only ventured to do so from a knowledge
that we are very harmless animals, and may be petted without peril.
But now, sweet lady, I will seek my room; for, though I flatter myself
I am very hale and healthy under seventy winters, yet I must not
forget the good old maxim, that 'early to bed and early to rise' is
the way to obtain many desirable things."
This was the signal for the general dispersion of the party; but Henry
Hayley contrived to obtain an opportunity of saying in a whisper to
Maria--
"Come down early to-morrow, dear Maria. I must speak with you for a
few moments as soon as possible. Events are thickening around us, and
you may be frightened at some things that are likely to happen, unless
I have an opportunity of preparing you for them."
The colour mounted a little into Maria's cheek, but she answered
frankly--
"I will come. Where shall I find you?"
"In the library," replied her lover, and they parted for the night;
but Maria certainly did not take the best means to ensure early
rising, for she lay awake for more than an hour, in anxious and
painful thought.