IS IT LOVE OR FEAR?
Henry Dunbar and Arthur Lovell slept at the same hotel upon the night
of their journey from Winchester to London; for the banker refused to
disturb his daughter by presenting himself at the house in Portland
Place after midnight.
In this, at least, he showed himself a considerate father.
Arthur Lovell had made every effort in his power to dissuade the banker
from leaving Winchester upon that night, and thus breaking the promise
that he had made to Margaret Wilmot. Henry Dunbar was resolute; and the
young lawyer had no alternative. If his client chose to do a
dishonourable thing, in spite of all that the young man could say
against it, of course it was no business of his. For his own part,
Arthur Lovell was only too glad to get back to London; for Laura Dunbar
was there: and wherever she was, there was Paradise, in the opinion of
this foolish young man.
Early upon the morning after their arrival in London, Henry Dunbar and
the young lawyer breakfasted together in their sitting-room at the
hotel. It was a bright morning, and even London looked pleasant in the
sunshine. Henry Dunbar stood in the window, looking out into the street
below, while the breakfast was being placed upon the table. The hotel
was situated in a new street at the West End.
"You find London very much altered, I dare say, Mr. Dunbar?" said
Arthur Lovell, as he unfolded the morning paper.
"How do you mean altered?" asked the banker, absently.
"I mean, that after so long an absence you must find great
improvements. This street for instance—it has not been built six
years."
"Oh, yes, I remember. There were fields upon this spot when I went to
India."
They sat down to breakfast. Henry Dunbar was absent-minded, and ate
very little. When he had drunk a cup of tea, he took out the locket
containing Laura's miniature, and sat silently contemplating it.
By-and-by he unfastened the locket from the chain, and handed it across
the table to Arthur Lovell.
"My daughter is very beautiful, if she is like that," said the banker;
"do you consider it a good likeness?"
The young lawyer looked at the portrait with a tender smile. "Yes," he
said, thoughtfully, "it is very like her—only——"
"Only what?"
"The picture is not lovely enough."
"Indeed! and yet it is very beautiful. Laura resembles her mother, who
was a lovely woman."
"But I have heard your father say, that the lower part of Miss Dunbar's
face—the mouth and chin—reminded him of yours. I must own, Mr. Dunbar,
that I cannot see the likeness."
"I dare say not," the banker answered, carelessly; "you must allow
something for the passage of time, my dear Lovell, and the wear and
tear of a life in Calcutta. I dare say my mouth and chin are rather
harder and sterner in their character than Laura's."
There was nothing more said upon the subject of the likeness; by-and-by
Mr. Dunbar got up, took his hat, and went towards the door.
"You will come with me, Lovell," he said.
"Oh, no, Mr. Dunbar. I would not wish to intrude upon you at such a
time. The first interview between a father and daughter, after a
separation of so many years, is almost sacred in its character. I——"
"Pshaw, Mr. Lovell! I did not think a solicitor's son would be weak
enough to indulge in any silly sentimentality. I shall be very glad to
see my daughter; and I understand from her letters that she will be
pleased to see me. That is all! At the same time, as you know Laura
much better than I do, you may as well come with me."
Mr. Dunbar's looks belied the carelessness of his words. His face was
deadly pale, and there was a singularly rigid expression about his
mouth.
Laura had received no notice of her father's coming. She was sitting at
the same window by which she had sat when Arthur Lovell asked her to be
his wife. She was sitting in the same low luxurious easy-chair, with
the hot-house flowers behind her, and a huge Newfoundland dog—a
faithful attendant that she had brought from Maudesley Abbey—lying at
her feet.
The door of Miss Dunbar's morning-room was open: and upon the broad
landing-place outside the apartment the banker stopped suddenly, and
laid his hand upon the gilded balustrade. For a moment it seemed almost
as if he would have fallen: but he leaned heavily upon the bronze
scroll-work of the banister, and bit his lower lip fiercely with his
strong white teeth. Arthur Lovell was not displeased to perceive this
agitation: for he had been wounded by the careless manner in which
Henry Dunbar had spoken of his beautiful daughter. Now it was evident
that the banker's indifference had only been assumed as a mask beneath
which the strong man had tried to conceal the intensity of his
feelings.
The two men lingered upon the landing-place for a few minutes; while
Mr. Dunbar looked about him, and endeavoured to control his agitation.
Everything here was new to him: for neither the house in Portland
Place, nor Maudesley Abbey, had been in the possession of the Dunbar
family more than twenty years.
The millionaire contemplated his possessions. Even upon that
landing-place there was no lack of evidence of wealth. A Persian carpet
covered the centre of the floor, and beyond its fringed margin a
tessellated pavement of coloured marbles took new and brighter hues
from the slanting rays of sunlight that streamed in through a wide
stained-glass window upon the staircase. Great Dresden vases of exotics
stood on pedestals of malachite and gold: and a trailing curtain of
purple velvet hung half-way across the entrance to a long suite of
drawing-rooms—a glistening vista of light and splendour.
Mr. Dunbar pushed open the door, and stood upon the threshold of his
daughter's chamber. Laura started to her feet.
"Papa!—papa!" she cried; "I thought that you would come to-day!"
She ran to him and fell upon his breast, half-weeping, half-laughing.
The Newfoundland dog crept up to Mr. Dunbar with his head down: he
sniffed at the heels of the millionaire, and then looked slowly upward
at the man's face with sombre sulky-looking eyes, and began to growl
ominously.
"Take your dog away, Laura!" cried Mr. Dunbar, angrily.
It happened thus that the very first words Henry Dunbar said to his
daughter were uttered in a tone of anger. The girl drew herself away
from him, and looked up almost piteously in her father's face. That
face was as pale as death: but cold, stern, and impassible. Laura
Dunbar shivered as she looked at it. She had been a spoiled child; a
pampered, idolized beauty; and had never heard anything but words of
love and tenderness. Her lips quivered, and the tears came into her
eyes.
"Come away, Pluto," she said to the dog; "papa does not want us."
She took the great flapping ears of the animal in her two hands, and
led him out of the room. The dog went with his young mistress
submissively enough: but he looked back at the last moment to growl at
Mr. Dunbar.
Laura left the Newfoundland on the landing-place, and went back to her
father. She flung herself for the second time into the banker's arms.
"Darling papa," she cried, impetuously; "my dog shall never growl at
you again. Dear papa, tell me you are glad to come home to your poor
girl. You _would_ tell me so, if you knew how dearly I love you."
She lifted up her lips and kissed Henry Dunbar's impassible face. But
she recoiled from him for the second time with a shudder and a
long-drawn shivering sigh. The lips of the millionaire were as cold as
ice.
"Papa," she cried, "how cold you are! I'm afraid that you are ill!"
He was ill. Arthur Lovell, who stood quietly watching the meeting
between the father and daughter, saw a change come over his client's
face, and wheeled forward an arm-chair just in time for Henry Dunbar to
fall into it as heavily as a log of wood.
The banker had fainted. For the second time since the murder in the
grove near St. Cross he had betrayed violent and sudden emotion. This
time the emotion was stronger than his will, and altogether overcame
him.
Arthur Lovell laid the insensible man flat upon his back on the carpet.
Laura rushed to fetch water and aromatic vinegar from her
dressing-room: and in five minutes Mr. Dunbar opened his eyes, and
looked about him with a wild half-terrified expression in his face. For
a moment he glared fiercely at the anxious countenance of Laura, who
knelt beside him: then his whole frame was shaken by a convulsive
trembling, and his teeth chattered violently. But this lasted only for
a few moments. He overcame it: grinding his teeth, and clenching his
strong hands: and then staggered heavily to his feet.
"I am subject to these fainting fits," he said, with a wan, sickly
smile upon his white face; "and I dreaded this interview on that
account: I knew that it would be too much for me."
He seated himself upon the low sofa which Laura had pushed towards him,
resting his elbows on his knees, and hiding his face in his hands. Miss
Dunbar placed herself beside her father, and wound her arm about his
neck.
"Poor papa," she murmured, softly; "I am so sorry our meeting has
agitated you like this: and to think that I should have fancied you
cold and unkind to me, at the very time when your silent emotion was an
evidence of your love!"
Arthur Lovell had gone through the open window into the conservatory:
but he could hear the girl talking to her father. His face was very
grave: and the same shadow that had clouded it once during the course
of the coroner's inquest rested upon it now.
"An evidence of his love! Heaven grant this may be love," he thought to
himself; "but to me it seems a great deal more like fear!"