NEW HOPES MAY BLOOM.
Jocelyn's Rock was ten miles from Maudesley Abbey, and only one mile
from the town of Shorncliffe. It was a noble place, and had been in the
possession of the same family ever since the days of the Plantagenets.
The house stood upon a rocky cliff, beneath which rushed a cascade that
leapt from crag to crag, and fell into the bosom of a deep stream, that
formed an arm of the river Avon. This cascade was forty feet below the
edge of the cliff upon which the mansion stood.
It was not a very large house, for most of the older part of it had
fallen into ruin long ago, and the ruined towers and shattered walls
had been cleared away; but it was a noble mansion notwithstanding.
One octagonal tower, with a battlemented roof, still stood almost as
firmly as it had stood in the days of the early Plantagenets, when
rebel soldiers had tried the strength of their battering-rams against
the grim stone walls. The house was built entirely of stone; the Gothic
porch was ponderous as the porch of a church. Within all was splendour;
but splendour that was very different from the modern elegance that was
to be seen in the rooms of Maudesley Abbey.
At Jocelyn's Rock the stamp of age was upon every decoration, on every
ornament. Square-topped helmets that had been hacked by the scimitars
of Saracen kings, spiked chamfronts that had been worn by the fiery
barbs of haughty English crusaders, fluted armour from Milan, hung
against the blackened wainscoting in the shadowy hall; Scottish
hackbuts, primitive arquebuses that had done service on Bosworth field,
Homeric bucklers and brazen greaves, javelins, crossbows, steel-pointed
lances, and two-handed swords, were in symmetrical design upon the dark
and polished panels; while here and there hung the antlers of a giant
red-deer, or the skin of a fox, in testimony to the triumphs of
long-departed sportsmen of the house of Jocelyn.
It was a noble old house. Princes of the blood royal had sat in the
ponderous carved oak-chairs. A queen had slept in the state-bed, in the
blue-satin chamber. Loyal Jocelyns, fighting for their king against
low-born Roundhead soldiers, had hidden themselves in the spacious
chimneys, or had fled for their lives along the secret passages behind
the tapestry. There were old pictures and jewelled drinking-cups that
dead-and-gone Jocelyns had collected in the sunny land of the Medicis.
There were costly toys of fragile Sèvres china that had been received
by one of the earls from the hand of the lovely Pompadour herself in
the days when the manufacturers of Sèvres only worked for their king,
and were liable to fall a sacrifice to their art and their loyalty by
the inhalation of arsenicated vapours. There was golden plate that a
king had given to his proud young favourite in those feudal days when
favourites were powerful in England. There was scarcely any object of
value in the mansion that had not a special history attached to it,
redounding to the honour and glory of the ancient house of Jocelyn.
And this splendid dwelling-place, rendered almost sacred by legendary
associations and historical recollections, was now the property of a
certain Sir Philip Jocelyn—a dashing young baronet, who had been
endowed by nature with a handsome face, frank, fearless eyes that
generally had a smile in them, and the kind of manly figure which the
late Mr. G.P.R. James was wont to designate stalwart; and who was
moreover a crack shot, a reckless cross-country-going rider, and a very
tolerable amateur artist.
Sir Philip Jocelyn was not what is usually called an intellectual man.
He was more warmly interested in a steeplechase on Shorncliffe Common
than in a pamphlet on political economy, even though Mr. Stuart Mill
should himself be the author of the _brochure_. He thought John Scott a
greater man than Maculloch; and Manton the gunmaker only second to Dr.
Jenner as a benefactor of his race. He found the works of the late Mr.
Apperly more entertaining than the last new Idyl from the pen of the
Laureate; and was rather at a loss for small-talk when he found his
feminine neighbour at a dinner-table was "deeply, darkly, beautifully
blue." But the young baronet was by no means a fool, notwithstanding
these sportsmanlike proclivities. The Jocelyns had been hard riders for
half-a-dozen centuries or so, and crack shots ever since the invention
of firearms. Sir Philip was a sportsman, but he did not "hunt in
dreams," and he was prepared to hold his wife a great deal "higher than
his horse," whenever he should win that pleasant addition to his
household. As yet he had thought very little of the future Lady
Jocelyn. He had a vague idea that he should marry, as the rest of the
Jocelyns had married; and that he should live happily with his wife, as
his ancestors had lived with their wives: with the exception of one
dreadful man, called Hildebrande Jocelyn, who, at some remote and
mediaeval period, had been supposed to throw his liege lady out of an
oriel window that overhung the waterfall, upon the strength of an
unfounded suspicion; and who afterwards, according to the legend, dug,
or rather scooped, for himself a cave out of the cliff-side with no
better tools than his own finger-nails, which he never cut after the
unfortunate lady's foul murder. The legend went on further to state
that the white wraith of the innocent victim might be seen, on a
certain night in the year, rising out of the misty spray of the
waterfall: but as nobody except one very weak-witted female Jocelyn had
ever seen the vision, the inhabitants of the house upon the crag had
taken so little heed of the legend that the date of the anniversary had
come at last to be forgotten.
Sir Philip Jocelyn thought that he should marry "some of these days,"
and in the meantime troubled himself very little about the pretty
daughters of country gentlemen whom he met now and again at races, and
archery-meetings, and flower-shows, and dinner-parties, and
hunting-balls, in the queer old town-hall at Shorncliffe. He was
heart-whole; and looking out at life from the oriel window of his
dressing-room, whence he saw nothing but his own land, neatly enclosed
in a ring-fence, he thought the world, about which some people made
such dismal howling, was, upon the whole, an extremely pleasant place,
containing very little that "a fellow" need complain of. He built
himself a painting-room at Jocelyn's Rock; and whistled to himself for
the hour together, as he stood before the easel, painting scenes in the
hunting-field, or Arab horsemen whom he had met on the great flat sandy
plains beyond Cairo, or brown-faced boys, or bright Italian
peasant-girls; all sorts of pleasant objects, under cloudless skies of
ultra-marine, with streaks of orange and vermilion to represent the
sunset. He was not a great painter, nor indeed was there any element of
greatness in his nature; but he painted as recklessly as he rode; his
subjects were bright and cheerful; and his pictures were altogether of
the order which unsophisticated people admire and call "pretty."
He was a very cheerful young man, and perhaps that cheerfulness was the
greatest charm he possessed. He was a man in whom no force of fashion
or companionship would ever engender the peevish _blasé_-ness so much
affected by modern youth. Did he dance? Of course he did, and he adored
dancing. Did he sing? Well, he did his best, and had a fine volume of
rich bass voice, that sounded remarkably well on the water, after a
dinner at the Star and Garter, in that dim dewy hour, when the willow-shadowed
Thames is as a southern lake, and the slow dip of the oars is
in itself a kind of melody. Had he been much abroad? Yes, and he
gloried in the Continent; the dear old inconvenient inns, and the
extortionate landlords, and the insatiable commissionaires—he revelled
in the commissionaires; and the dear drowsy slow trains, with an absurd
guard, who talks an unintelligible _patois_, and the other man, who
always loses one's luggage! Delicious! And the dear little
peasant-girls with white caps, who are so divinely pretty when you see
them in the distance under a sunny meridian sky, and are so charming in
coloured chalk upon tinted paper, but such miracles of ugliness,
comparatively speaking, when you behold them at close quarters. And the
dear jingling diligences, with very little harness to speak of, but any
quantity of old rope; and the bad wines, and the dust, and the
cathedrals, and the beggars, and the trente-et-quarante tables, and in
short everything. Sir Philip Jocelyn spoke of the universe as a young
husband talks of his wife; and was never tired of her beauty or
impatient of her faults.
The poor about Jocelyn's Rock idolized the young lord of the soil. The
poor like happy people, if there is nothing insolent in their
happiness. Philip was rich, and he distributed his wealth right
royally: he was happy, and he shared his happiness as freely as he
shared his wealth. He would divide a case of choice Manillas with a
bedridden pensioner in the Union, or carry a bottle of the Jocelyn
Madeira—the celebrated Madeira with the brown seal—in the pocket of his
shooting-coat, to deliver it into the horny hands of some hard-working
mother who was burdened with a sick child. He would sit for an hour
together telling an agricultural labourer of the queer farming he had
seen abroad; and he had stood godfather—by proxy—to half the
yellow-headed urchins within ten miles' radius of Jocelyn's Bock. No
taint of vice or dissipation had ever sullied the brightness of his
pleasant life. No wretched country girl had ever cursed his name before
she cast herself into the sullen waters of a lonely mill-stream. People
loved him; and he deserved their love, and was worthy of their respect.
He had taken no high honours at Oxford; but the sternest officials
smiled when they spoke of him, and recalled the boyish follies that
were associated with his name; a sickly bedmaker had been pensioned for
life by him; and the tradesmen who had served him testified to his
merits as a prompt and liberal paymaster. I do not think that in all
his life Philip Jocelyn had ever directly or indirectly caused a pang
of pain or sorrow to any human being, unless it was, indeed, to a
churlish heir-at-law, who may have looked with a somewhat evil eye upon
the young man's vigorous and healthful aspect, which gave little hope
to his possible successor.
The heir-at-law would have gnashed his teeth in impotent rage had he
known the crisis which came to pass in the baronet's life a short time
after Mr. Dunbar's return from India; a crisis very common to youth,
and very lightly regarded by youth, but a solemn and a fearful crisis
notwithstanding.
The master of Jocelyn's Rock fell in love. All the poetry of his
nature, all the best feelings, the purest attributes of an imperfect
character, concentrated themselves into one passion, Sir Philip Jocelyn
fell in love. The arch magician waved his wand, and all the universe
was transformed into fairyland: a lovely Paradise, a modern Eden,
radiant with the reflected light that it received from the face of a
woman. I almost hesitate to tell this old, old story over again—this
perpetual story of love at first sight.
It is very beautiful, this sudden love, which is born of one glance at
the wonderful face that has been created to bewitch us; but I doubt if
it is not, after all, the baser form of the great passion. The love
that begins with esteem, that slowly grows out of our knowledge of the
loved one, is surely the purer and holier type of affection.
This love, whose gradual birth we rarely watch or recognize—this love,
that steals on us like the calm dawning of the eastern light, strikes
to a deeper root and grows into a grander tree than that fair sudden
growth, that marvellous far-shooting butterfly-blossoming orchid,
called love at first sight. The glorious exotic flower may be wanting,
but the strong root lies deeply hidden in the heart.
The man who loves at first sight generally falls in love with the
violet blue of a pair of tender eyes, the delicate outline of a Grecian
nose. The man who loves the woman he has known and watched, loves her
because he believes her to be the purest and truest of her sex.
To this last, love is faith. He cannot doubt the woman he adores: for
he adores her because he believes and has proved her to be above all
doubt. We may fairly conjecture that Othello's passion for the simple
Venetian damsel was love at first sight. He loved Desdemona because she
was pretty, and looked at him with sweet maidenly glances of pity when
he told those prosy stories of his—with full traveller's license, no
doubt—over Brabantio's mahogany.
The tawny-visaged general loved the old man's daughter because he
admired her, and not because he knew her; and so, by and bye, on the
strength of a few foul hints from a scoundrel, he is ready to believe
this gentle, pitiful girl the basest and most abandoned of women.
Hamlet would not so have acted had it been his fate to marry the woman
he loved. Depend upon it, the Danish prince had watched Ophelia
closely, and knew all the ins and outs of that young lady's temper, and
had laid conversational traps for her occasionally, I dare say, trying
to entice her into some bit of toadyism that should betray any latent
taint of falsehood inherited from poor time-serving Polonius. The
Prince of Denmark would have been rather a fidgety husband, perhaps,
but he would never have had recourse to a murderous bolster at the
instigation of a low-born knave.
Unhappily, some women are apt to prefer passionate, blustering Othello
to sentimental and metaphysical Hamlet. The foolish creatures are
carried away by noise and clamour, and most believe him who protests
the loudest.
Philip Jocelyn and Laura Dunbar met at that dinner-party which the
millionaire gave to his friends in celebration of his return. They met
again at the ball, where Laura waltzed with Philip; the young man had
learned to waltz upon the other side of the Alps, and Miss Dunbar
preferred him to any other of her partners. At the _fête champêtre_
they met again; and had their future lives revealed to them by a
theatrical-looking gipsy imported from London for the occasion, whose
arch prophecies brought lovely blushes into Laura's cheeks, and
afforded Philip an excellent opportunity for admiring the effect of
dark-brown eyelashes drooping over dark-blue eyes. They met again and
again; now at a steeple-chase, now at a dinner-party, where Laura
appeared with some friendly _chaperon_; and the baronet fell in love
with the banker's beautiful daughter.
He loved her truly and devotedly, after his own mad-headed fashion. He
was a true Jocelyn—impetuous, mad-headed daring; and from the time of
those festivities at Maudesley Abbey he only dreamed and thought of
Laura Dunbar. From that hour he haunted the neighbourhood of Maudesley
Abbey. There was a bridle-path through the park to a little village
called Lisford; and if that primitive Warwickshire village had been the
most attractive place upon this earth, Sir Philip could scarcely have
visited it oftener than he did.
Heaven knows what charm he found in the shady slumberous old street,
the low stone market-place, with rusty iron gates surmounted by the
Jocelyn escutcheon. The grass grew in the quiet quadrangle; the square
church-tower was half hidden by the sheltering ivy; the gabled
cottage-roofs were lop-sided with age. It was scarcely a place to offer
any very great attraction to the lord of Jocelyn Rock in all the glory
of his early man-hood; and yet Philip Jocelyn went there three times a
week upon an average, during the period that succeeded the ball and
morning concert at Maudesley Abbey.
The shortest way from Jocelyn's Bock to Lisford was by the high road,
but Philip Jocelyn did not care to go by the shortest way. He preferred
to take that pleasant bridle-path through Maudesley Park, that
delicious grassy arcade where the overarching branches of the old elms
made a shadowy twilight, only broken now and then by sudden patches of
yellow sunshine; where the feathery ferns trembled with every low
whisper of the autumn breeze: where there was a faint perfume of pine
wood; where every here and there, between the lower branches of the
trees, there was a blue glimmer of still water-pools, half-hidden under
flat green leaves of wild aquatic plants, where there was a solemn
stillness that reminded one of the holy quiet of a church, and where
Sir Philip Jocelyn had every chance of meeting with Laura Dunbar.
He met her there very often. Not alone, for Dora Macmahon was sometimes
with her, and the faithful Elizabeth Madden was always at hand to play
propriety, and to keep a sharp eye upon the interests of her young
mistress. But then it happened unfortunately that the faithful
Elizabeth was very stout, and rather asthmatic; and though Miss Dunbar
could not have had a more devoted duenna, she might certainly have had
a more active one. And it also happened that Miss Macmahon, having
received several practical illustrations of the old adage with regard
to the disadvantage of a party of three persons as compared to a party
of two persons, fell into the habit of carrying her books with her, and
would sit and read in some shady nook near the abbey, while Laura
wandered into the wilder regions of the park.
Beneath the shelter of the overarching elms, amidst the rustling of the
trembling ferns, Laura Dunbar and Philip Jocelyn met very often during
that bright autumnal weather. Their meetings were purely accidental of
course, as such meetings always are, but they were not the less
pleasant because of their uncertainty.
They were all the more pleasant, perhaps. There was that delicious
fever of suspense which kept both young eager hearts in a constant
glow. There were Laura's sudden blushes, which made her wonderful
beauty doubly wonderful. There was Philip Jocelyn's start of glad
astonishment, and the bright sparkle in his dark-brown eyes as he saw
the slender, queenly figure approaching him under the shadow of the
trees. How beautiful she looked, with the folds of her dress trailing
over the dewy grass, and a flickering halo of sunlight tremulous upon
her diadem of golden hair! Sometimes she wore a coquettish little hat,
with a turned-up brim and a peacock's plume; sometimes a broad-leaved
hat of yellow straw, with floating ribbon and a bunch of feathery
grasses perched bewitchingly upon the brim. She had the dog Pluto with
her always, and generally a volume of some new novel under her arm. I
am ashamed to be obliged to confess that this young heiress was very
frivolous, and liked reading novels better than improving her mind by
the perusal of grave histories, or by the study of the natural
sciences. She spent day after day in happy idleness—reading, sketching,
playing, singing, talking, sometimes gaily sometimes seriously, to her
faithful old nurse, or to Dora, or to Arthur Lovell, as the case might
be. She had a thorough-bred horse that had been given to her by her
grandfather, but she very rarely rode him beyond the grounds, for Dora
Macmahon was no horsewoman, having been brought up by a prim aunt of
her dead mother's, who looked upon riding as an unfeminine
accomplishment; and Miss Dunbar had therefore no better companion for
her rides than a grey-haired old groom, who had ridden behind Percival
Dunbar for forty years or so.
Philip Jocelyn generally went to Lisford upon horseback; but when, as
so often happened, he met Miss Dunbar and her companion strolling
amongst the old elms, it was his habit to get off his horse, and to
walk by Laura's side, leading the animal by the bridle. Sometimes he
found the two young ladies sitting on camp-stools at the foot of one of
the trees, sketching effects of light and shadow in the deep glades
around them. On such occasions the baronet used to tie his horse to the
lower branch of an old elm, and taking his stand behind Miss Dunbar,
would amuse himself by giving her a lesson in perspective, with
occasional hints to Miss Macmahon, who, as the young man remarked, drew
so much better than her sister, that she really required very little
assistance.
By-and-by this began to be an acknowledged thing. Special hours were
appointed for these artistic studies: and Philip Jocelyn ceased to go
to Lisford at all, contenting himself with passing almost every fine
morning under the elms at Maudesley. He found that he had a very
intelligent pupil in the banker's daughter: but I think, if Miss Dunbar
had been less intelligent, her instructor would have had patience with
her, and would have still found his best delight beneath the shadow of
those dear old elms.
What words can paint the equal pleasure of giving and receiving those
lessons, in the art which was loved alike by pupil and master; but
which was so small an element in the happiness of those woodland
meetings? What words can describe Laura's pleading face when she found
that the shadow of a ruined castle wouldn't agree with the castle
itself, or that a row of poplars in the distance insisted on taking
that direction which our transatlantic brothers call "slantindicular?"
And then the cutting of pencils, and crumbling of bread, and searching
for mislaid scraps of India-rubber, and mixing of water-colours, and
adjusting of palettes on the prettiest thumb in Christendom, or the
planting a sheaf of brushes in the dearest little hand that ever
trembled when it met the tenderly timid touch of an amateur
drawing-master's fingers;—all these little offices, so commonplace and
wearisome when a hard-worked and poorly-paid professor performs them
for thirty or forty clamorous girls, on a burning summer afternoon, in
a great dust-flavoured schoolroom with bare curtainless windows, were
in this case more delicious than any words of mine can tell.
But September and October are autumnal months; and their brightest
sunshine is, after all, only a deceptive radiance when compared to the
full glory of July. The weather grew too cold for the drawing-lessons
under the elms, and there could be no more appointments made between
Miss Dunbar and her enthusiastic instructor.
"I can't have my young lady ketch cold, Sir Philip, for all the
perspectives in the world," said the faithful Elizabeth. "I spoke to
her par about it only the other day; but, lor'! you may just as well
speak to a post as to Mr. Dunbar. If Miss Laura comes out in the park
now, she must wrap herself up warm, and walk fast, and not go getting
the cold shivers for the sake of drawing a parcel of stumps of trees
and such-like tomfoolery."
Mrs. Madden made this observation in rather an unpleasant tone of voice
one morning when the baronet pleaded for another drawing-lesson. The
truth of the matter was that Elizabeth Madden felt some slight pangs of
conscience with regard to her own part in this sudden friendship which
had arisen between Laura Dunbar and Philip Jocelyn. She felt that she
had been rather remiss in her duties as duenna, and was angry with
herself. But stronger than this feeling of self-reproach was her
indignation against Sir Philip.
Why did he not immediately make an offer of his hand to Laura Dunbar?
Mrs. Madden had expected the young man's proposal every day for the
last few weeks: every day she had been doomed to disappointment. And
yet she was perfectly convinced that Philip Jocelyn loved her young
mistress. The sharp eyes of the matron had fathomed the young man's
sentiments long before Laura Dunbar dared to whisper to herself that
she was beloved. Why, then, did he not propose? Who could be a more
fitting bride for the lord of Jocelyn's Rock than queenly Laura Dunbar,
with her splendid dower of wealth and beauty?
Full of these ambitious hopes, Elizabeth Madden had played her part of
duenna with such discretion as to give the young people plenty of
opportunity for sweet, half-whispered converse, for murmured
confidences, soft and low as the cooing of turtle-doves. But in all
these conversations no word hinting at an offer of marriage had dropped
from the lips of Philip Jocelyn.
He was so happy with Laura; so happy in those pleasant meetings under
the Maudesley elms, that no thought of anything so commonplace as a
stereotyped proposal of marriage had a place in his mind.
Did he love her? Of course he did: more dearly than he had ever before
loved any human creature; except that tender and gentle being, whose
image, vaguely beautiful, was so intermingled with the dreams and
realities of his childhood in that dim period in which it is difficult
to distinguish the shadows of the night from the events of the
day,—that pale and lovely creature whom he had but just learned to call
"mother," when she faded out of his life for ever.
It was only when the weather grew too cold for out-of-door drawing
lessons that Sir Philip began to think that it was time to contemplate
the very serious business of a proposal. He would have to speak to the
banker, and all that sort of thing, of course, the baronet thought, as
he sat by the fire in the oak-panelled breakfast-room at the Rock,
pulling his thick moustaches reflectively, and staring at the red
embers on the open hearth. The young man idolized Laura; but he did
_not_ particularly affect the society of Henry Dunbar. The millionaire
was very courteous, very conciliating: but there was something in his
stiff politeness, his studied smile, his deliberate speech, something
entirely vague and indefinable, which had the same chilly effect upon
Sir Philip's friendliness, as a cold cellar has on delicate-flavoured
port. The subtle aroma vanished under that dismal influence.
"He's _her_ father, and I'd kneel down, like the little boys in the
streets, and clean his boots, if he wanted them cleaned, because he is
her father," thought the young man; "and yet, somehow or other, I can't
get on with him."
No! between the Anglo-Indian banker and Sir Philip Jocelyn there was no
sympathy. They had no tastes in common: or let me rather say, Henry
Dunbar revealed no taste in common with those of the young man whose
highest hope in life was to be his son-in-law. The frank-hearted young
country gentleman tried in vain to conciliate him, or to advance from
the cold out-work of ceremonious acquaintanceship into the inner
stronghold of friendly intercourse.
But when Sir Philip, after much hesitation and deliberation, presented
himself one morning in the banker's tapestried sitting-room, and
unburdened his heart to that gentleman—stopping every now and then to
stare at the maker's name imprinted upon the lining of his hat, as if
that name had been a magical symbol whence he drew certain auguries by
which he governed his speech—Mr. Dunbar was especially gracious. "Would
he honour Sir Philip by entrusting his daughter's happiness to his
keeping? would he bestow upon Sir Philip the inestimable blessing of
that dear hand? Why, of course he would, provided always that Laura
wished it. In such a matter as this Laura's decision should be supreme.
He never had contemplated interfering in his daughter's bestowal of her
affections: so long as they were not wasted upon an unworthy object. He
wished her to marry whom she pleased; provided that she married an
honest man."
Mr. Dunbar gave a weary kind of sigh as he said this; but the sigh was
habitual to him, and he apologized for and explained it sometimes by
reference to his liver, which was disordered by five-and-thirty years
in an Indian climate.
"I wish Laura to marry," he said; "I shall be glad when she has secured
the protection of a good husband."
Sir Phillip Jocelyn sprang up with his face all a-glow with rapture,
and would fain have seized the banker's hand in token of his gratitude;
but Henry Dunbar waved him off with an authoritative gesture.
"Good morning, Sir Philip," he said; "I am very poor company, and I
shall be glad to be alone with the _Times_. You young men don't
appreciate the _Times_. You want your newspapers filled with
prize-fighting and boat-racing, and the last gossip from 'the Corner.'
You'll find Miss Dunbar in the blue drawing-room. Speak to her as soon
as you please; and let me know the result of the interview."
It is not often that the heiress of a million or thereabouts is quite
so readily disposed of. Sir Philip Jocelyn walked on air as he quitted
the banker's apartments.
"Who ever would have thought that he was such a delicious old brick?"
he thought. "I expected any quantity of cold water; and instead of
that, he sends me straight to my darling with _carte blanche_ to go in
and win, if I can. If I can! Suppose Laura doesn't love me, after all.
Suppose she's only a beautiful coquette, who likes to see men go mad
for love of her. And yet I won't think that; I won't be down-hearted; I
won't believe she's anything but what she seems—an angel of purity and
truth."
But, in spite of his belief in Laura's truth, the young baronet's courage
was very low when he went into the blue drawing-room, and found Miss
Dunbar seated in a deep embayed window, with the sunshine lighting up
her hair and gleaming amongst the folds of her violet silk dress. She
had been drawing; but her sketching apparatus lay idle on the little
table by her side, and one listless hand hung down upon her dress, with
a pencil held loosely between the slender fingers. She was looking
straight before her, out upon the sunlit lawn, all gorgeous with
flaunting autumn flowers; and there was something dreamy, not to say
pensive, in the attitude of her drooping head.
But she started presently at the sound of that manly footstep; the
pencil dropped from between her idle fingers, and she rose and turned
towards the intruder. The beautiful face was in shadow as she turned
away from the window; but no shadow could hide its sudden brightness,
the happy radiance which lit up that candid countenance, as Miss Dunbar
recognized her visitor.
The lover thought that one look more precious than Jocelyn's Rock, and
a baronetcy that dated from the days of England's first Stuarts—that
one glorious smile, which melted away in a moment, and gave place to
bright maidenly blushes, fresh and beautiful as the dewy heart of an
old-fashioned cabbage-rose gathered at sunrise.
That one smile was enough. Philip Jocelyn was no cox-comb, but he knew
all at once that he was beloved, and that very few words were needed. A
great many were said, nevertheless; and I do not think two happier
people ever sat side by side in the late autumn sunshine than those
two, who lingered in the deep embayed window till the sun was low in
the rosy western sky, and told Philip Jocelyn that his visit to
Maudesley Abbey had very much exceeded the limits of a morning call.
So Philip Jocelyn was accepted. Early the next morning he called again
upon Mr. Dunbar, and begged that an early date might be chosen for the
wedding. The banker assented willingly enough to the proposition.
"Let the marriage take place in the first week in November," he said.
"I am tired of living at Maudesley, and I want to get away to the
Continent. Of course I must remain here to be present at my daughter's
wedding."
Philip Jocelyn was only too glad to receive this permission to hurry
the day of the ceremonial. He went at once to Laura, and told her what
Mr. Dunbar had said. Mrs. Madden was indignant at this unceremonious
manner of arranging matters.
"Where's my young lady's _trussaw_ to be got at a moment's notice, I
should like to know? A deal you gentlemen know about such things. It's
no use talking, my lord, there ain't a dressmaker livin' as would
undertake the wedding-clothes for baronet's lady in little better than
a month."
But Mrs. Madden's objections were speedily overruled. To tell the
truth, the honest-hearted creature was very much pleased to find that
her young lady was going to be a baronet's wife, after all. She forgot
all about her old favourite, Arthur Lovell, and set herself to work to
expedite that most important matter of the wedding-garments. A man came
down express from Howell and James's to Maudesley Abbey, with a bundle
of patterns; and silks and velvets, gauzes and laces, and almost every
costly fabric that was made, were ordered for Miss Dunbar's equipment.
West-end dressmakers were communicated with. A French milliner, who
looked like a lady of fashion, arrived one morning at Maudesley Abbey,
and for a couple of hours poor Laura had to endure the slow agony of
"trying on," while Mrs. Madden and Dora Macmahon discussed all the
colours in the rainbow, and a great many new shades and combinations of
colour, invented by aspiring French chemists.