NEWS.
While the Lodge remained in this ferment of suspense and uncertainty,
Miss Anastasia had taken her measures for its defence and preservation.
It was wearing now towards the end of October, and winter was setting in
darkly. There was no more than a single rose at a time now upon the
porch, and these roses looked so pale, pathetic, and solitary, that it
was rather sad than pleasant to see the lonely flowers. On one of the
darkest days of the month, when they were all rather more listless than
usual, Miss Anastasia’s well-known equipage drew up at the gate. They
all hailed it with some pleasure. It was an event in the dull day and
discouraging atmosphere. She came in with her loud cheerful voice, her
firm step, her energetic bearing--and even the pretty _fiancée_ Marian
raised her pretty stooping shoulders, and woke up from her fascinated
musing. Rachel alone drew shyly towards the door; she had not overcome
a timidity very nearly approaching fear, which she always felt in
presence of Miss Anastasia. She was the only person who ever entered
this house who made Rachel remember again her life at the Hall.
“I came to show you a letter from your boy; read it while I talk to the
children,” said Miss Rivers. Mrs Atheling took the letter with some
nervousness; she was a little fluttered, and lost the sense of many of
the expressions; yet lingered over it, notwithstanding, with pride and
exultation. She longed very much to have an opportunity of showing it to
Agnes; but that was not possible; so Mrs Atheling made a virtuous
attempt to preserve in her memory every word that her son said. This was
Charlie’s letter to his patroness:--
“MADAM,--I have not made very much progress yet. The courier, Jean
Monte, is to be heard of as you suggested; but it is only known on
the road that he lives in Switzerland, and keeps some sort of inn
in one of the mountain villages. No more as yet; but I will find
him out. I have to be very cautious at present, because I am not
yet well up in the language. The town is a ruinous place, and I
cannot get the parish registers examined as one might do in
England. There are several families of decayed nobles in the
immediate neighbourhood, and, so far as I can hear, Giulietta is a
very common name. Travelling Englishmen, too, are so frequent that
there is a good deal of difficulty. I am rather inclined to fix
upon the villa Remori, where there are said to have been several
English marriages. It has been an extensive place, but is now
broken down, decayed, and neglected; the family have a title, and
are said to be very handsome, but are evidently very poor. There is
a mother and a number of daughters, only one or two grown up; I try
to make acquaintance with the children. The father died early, and
had no brothers. I think possibly this might be the house of
Giulietta, as there is no one surviving to look after the rights of
her children, did she really belong to this family. Of course, any
relatives she had, with any discretion, would have inquired out her
son in England; so I incline to think she may have belonged to the
villa Remori, as there are only women there.
“I have to be very slow on account of my Italian--this, however,
remedies itself every day. I shall not think of looking for Monte
till I have finished my business here, and am on my way home. The
place is unprosperous and unhealthy, but it is pretty, and rather
out of the way--few travellers came, they tell me, till within ten
years ago; but I have not met with any one yet whose memory carried
back at all clearly for twenty years. A good way out of the town,
near the lake, there is a kind of mausoleum which interests me a
little, not at all unlike the family tomb at Winterbourne; there is
no name upon it; it lies quite out of the way, and I cannot
ascertain that any one has ever been buried there; but something
may be learned about it, perhaps, by-and-by.
“When I ascertain anything of the least importance, I shall write
again.
“Madam,
“Your Obedient Servant,
“Charles Atheling.”
Charlie had never written to a lady before; he was a little embarrassed
about it the first time, but this was his second epistle, and he had
become a little more at his ease. The odd thing about the correspondence
was, that Charlie did not express either hopes or opinions; he did not
say what he expected, or what were his chances of success--he only
reported what he was doing; any speculation upon the subject, more
especially at this crisis, would have been out of Charlie’s way.
“What do you call your brother when you write to him?” asked Miss
Anastasia abruptly, addressing Rachel.
Rachel coloured violently; she had so nearly forgotten her old
system--her old representative character--that she was scarcely prepared
to answer such a question. With a mixture of her natural manner and her
assumed one, she answered at last, in considerable confusion, “We call
him Louis; he has no other name.”
“Then he will not take the name of Rivers?” said Miss Anastasia, looking
earnestly at the shrinking girl.
“We have no right to the name of Rivers,” said Rachel, drawing herself
up with her old dignity, like a little queen. “My brother is inquiring
who we are. We never belonged to Lord Winterbourne.”
“Your brother is inquiring? So!” said Miss Anastasia; “and he is
perfectly right. Listen, child--tell him this from me--do you know what
Atheling means? It means noble, illustrious, royally born. In the old
Saxon days the princes were called Atheling. Tell your brother that
Anastasia Rivers bids him bear this name.”
This address entirely confused Rachel, who remained gazing at Miss
Rivers blankly, unable to say anything. Marian stirred upon her chair
with sudden eagerness, and put down her needlework, gazing also, but
after quite a different fashion, in Miss Anastasia’s face. The old lady
caught the look of both, but only replied to the last.
“You are startled, are you, little beauty? Did you never hear the story
of Margaret Atheling, who was an exile, and a saint, and a queen? My
child, I should be very glad to make sure that you were a true Atheling
too.”
Marian was not to be diverted from her curiosity by any such
observation. She cast a quick look from Miss Rivers to her mother, who
was pondering over Charlie’s letter, and from Mrs Atheling to Agnes, who
had not been startled by the strange words of Miss Anastasia; and
suspicion, vague and unexplainable, began to dawn in Marian’s mind.
“The autumn assizes begin to-day,” said Miss Anastasia with a little
triumph; “too soon, as Mr Temple managed it, for your case to have a
hearing; it must stand over till the spring now--six months--by that
time, please God; we shall be ready for them. Agnes Atheling, how long
is it since you began to be deaf and blind?”
Agnes started with a little confusion, and made a hurried inarticulate
answer. There was a little quiet quarrel all this time going on between
Agnes and Miss Rivers; neither the elder lady nor the younger was quite
satisfied--Agnes feeling herself something like a conspirator, and Miss
Anastasia a little suspicious of her, as a disaffected person in the
interest of the enemy. But Mamma by this time had come to an end of
Charlie’s letter, and, folding it up very slowly, gave it back to its
proprietor. The good mother did not feel it at all comfortable to keep
this information altogether to herself.
“It is not to be tried till spring!” said Mrs Atheling, who had caught
this observation. “Then, I think, indeed, Miss Rivers, we must go home.”
And, to Mamma’s great comfort, Miss Anastasia made no objection. She
said kindly that she should miss her pleasant neighbours. “But what may
be in the future, girls, no one knows,” said Miss Rivers, getting up
abruptly. “Now, however, before this storm comes on, I am going home.”