PROCRASTINATION.
“You may say what you like, young Atheling,” said Miss Rivers, “you’ve a
very good right to your own opinion; but I’m not a lawyer, nor bound by
rule and precedent, mind. This is the middle of March; _it_ comes on in
April; we must wait for that; and you’re not up with all your evidence,
you dilatory boy.”
“But I might happen to be up with it in a day,” said Charlie, “and at
all events an ejectment should be served, and the first step taken in
the case without delay.”
“That is all very well,” said the old lady, “but I don’t suppose it
would advance the business very much, besides rousing him at once to use
every means possible, and perhaps buy off that poor old Serrano, or get
hold of Monte. Why did you not look for Monte, young Atheling? The
chances are that he was present too?”
“One witness was as much as I could manage,” said Charlie, shrugging
his shoulders at the recollection; “but the most important question of
all--Louis--I mean--your brother--the heir--”
“My brother--the heir.” Miss Rivers coloured suddenly. It was a
different thing thinking of him in private, and hearing him spoken of
so. “I tell you he is not the heir, young Atheling; he is Lord
Winterbourne: but I will not see him yet, not till _the day_; it would
be a terrible time of suspense for the poor boy.”
“Then, if it is your pleasure, he must go away,” said Charlie,
firmly--“he cannot come here to this agitated house of ours without
discovering a good deal of the truth; and if he discovered it so, he
would have just grounds to complain. If he is not told at once, he ought
to have some commission such as I have had, and be sent away.”
Miss Rivers coloured still more, all her liking for Charlie and his
family scarcely sufficing to reconcile her to the “sending away” of the
young heir, on the same footing as she had sent young Atheling. She
hesitated and faltered visibly, seeing reason enough in it, but
extremely repugnant. “If you think so,” she said at last, with a
slightly averted face, “ah--another time we can speak of that.”
Then came further consultations, and Charlie had to tell his story over
bit by bit, and incident by incident, illustrating every point of it by
his documents. Miss Anastasia was particularly anxious about the young
Englishman whose name was signed with Charlie’s own, in certification of
the inscription on the coffin. Miss Anastasia marvelled much whether he
belonged to the Hillarys of Lincolnshire, or the Hillarys of Yorkshire,
and pursued his shadow through half-a-dozen counties. Charlie was not
particularly given to genealogy. He had the young man’s card, with his
address at the Albany, and the time of his possible return home. That
was quite enough for the matter in hand, and Charlie was very much more
concerned about the one link wanting in his evidence--the person who
received the children from the care of Leonore the Tyrolese.
As it chanced, in this strange maze of circumstance, the Rector chose
this day for one of his visits. He was very much amazed to encounter
Miss Anastasia; it struck him evidently as something which needed to be
accounted for, for she was known and noted as a dweller at home. She
received him at first with a certain triumphant satisfaction, but
by-and-by a little confusion appeared even in the looks of Miss
Anastasia. She began to glance from the stately young man to the pale
face and drooping eyelids of Agnes. She began to see the strange mixture
of trouble and hardship in this extraordinary revolution, and her heart
was touched for the heir deposed, as well as for the heir discovered.
Lionel was “in trouble” himself, after an odd enough fashion. Some one
had just instituted an action against him in the ecclesiastical courts
touching the furniture of his altar, and the form in which he conducted
the services. It was a strange poetic justice to bring this against him
now, when he himself had cast off his high-churchism, and was
luxuriating in his new freedom. But the Curate grew perfectly inspired
under the infliction, and rose to the highest altitude of satisfaction
and happiness, declaring this to be the testing-touch of persecution,
which constantly distinguishes the true faith. It was on Miss
Anastasia’s lips to speak of this, and to ask the young clergyman why he
was so long away from home at so critical a juncture, but her heart was
touched with compunction. From looking at Lionel, she turned suddenly to
Agnes, and asked, with a strange abruptness, a question which had no
connection with the previous conversation--“That little book of yours,
Agnes Atheling, that you sent to me, what do you mean by that story,
child?--eh?--what put _that_ into your idle little brain? It is not like
fiction; it is quite as strange and out of the way as if it had been
life.”
Involuntarily Agnes lifted her heavy eyelids, and cast a shy look of
distress and sympathy upon the unconscious Rector, who never missed any
look of hers, but could not tell what this meant. “I do not know,” said
Agnes; but the question did not wake the shadow of a smile upon her
face--it rather made her resentful. She thought it cruel of Miss
Anastasia, now that all doubt was over, and Lionel was certainly
disinherited. Disinherited!--he had never possessed anything actual, and
nothing was taken from him; whereas Louis had been defrauded of his
rights all his life; but Agnes instinctively took the part of the
present sufferer--the unwitting sufferer, who suspected no evil.
But the Rector was startled in his turn by the question of Miss
Anastasia. It revived in his own mind the momentary conviction of
reality with which he had read the little book. When Miss Anastasia
turned away for a moment, he addressed Agnes quietly aside, making a
kind of appeal. “Had you, then, a real foundation--is it a true tale?”
he said, looking at her with a little anxiety. She glanced up at him
again, with her eyes so full of distress, anxiety, warning--then looked
down with a visible paleness and trembling, faltered very much in her
answer, and at last only said, expressing herself with difficulty, “It
is not all real--only something like a story I have heard.”
But Agnes could not bear his inquiring look; she hastily withdrew to the
other side of the room, eager to be out of reach of the eyes which
followed her everywhere. For his part, Lionel’s first idea was of some
distress of hers, which he instinctively claimed the right to soothe;
but the thing remained in his mind, and gave him a certain vague
uneasiness; he read the book over again when he went home, to make it
out if he could, but fell so soon into thought of the writer, and
consideration of that sweet youthful voice of hers, that there was no
coming to any light in the matter. He not only gave it up, but forgot it
again, only marvelling what was the mystery which looked so sorrowful
and so bright out of Agnes Atheling’s eyes.
They all waited with some little apprehension that night for the visit
of Louis. He was very late; the evening wore away, and Miss Anastasia
had long ago departed, taking with her, to the satisfaction of every
one, the voluble Tyrolese; but Louis was not to be seen nor heard of.
Very late, as they were all preparing for rest, some one came to the
door. The knock raised a sudden colour on the cheeks of Marian, which
had grown very pale for an hour or two. But it was not Louis; it was,
however, a note from him, which Marian ran up-stairs to read. She came
down again a moment after, with a pale face, painfully keeping in two
big tears. “Oh, mamma, he has gone away,” said Marian. She did not want
to cry, and it was impossible to speak without crying; and yet she did
not like to confide to any one the lover’s letter. At last the tears
fell, and Marian found her voice. He had just heard suddenly something
very important, had seen Mr Foggo about it, and had hurried off to the
country; he would not be detained long, he was sure; he had not a moment
to explain anything, but would write whenever he got there. “He does not
even say where,” said Marian, sadly; and Rachel came close up to her,
and cried without any restraint, as Marian very much wished, but did not
quite like to do before her father and her brother. Mrs Atheling took
them both into a corner, and scolded them after a fashion she had. “My
dears, do you think you cannot trust Louis?” said Mamma--“nonsense!--we
shall hear to-morrow morning. Why, he has spoken to Mr Foggo, and you
may be quite sure everything is right, and that it was the most sensible
thing he could do.”
But it was very odd certainly, not at all explainable, and withal the
most seasonable thing in the world. “I should think it quite a
providence,” said Mrs Atheling, “if we only heard where he was.”