UNFORGOTTEN.
Mrs. Darrell drove her son and the two girls to Tolldale Priory in
accordance with Mr. Monckton’s wish. The widow had no particular desire
to bring either Laura or Eleanor into contact with her uncle, Maurice
de Crespigny; for she nourished that intense jealousy of all visitors
who crossed the threshold of the old man’s house, which is only known
to expectant heirs whose chances of a fortune tremble in the wavering
balance of an invalid’s caprice. But Mrs. Darrell could not afford to
offend Mr. Monckton. He paid a high price for her protection of his
ward, and was by no means the sort of man to be thwarted with impunity.
Launcelot Darrell lolled by his mother’s side, smoking a cigar and
taking very little notice of the blossoming hedgerows and glimpses of
luxuriant pastoral landscape. The two young ladies sat upon a low seat,
with their backs to the ponies, and had therefore ample opportunity of
observing the prodigal son’s face.
For the first time since Mr. Darrell’s return Eleanor Vane did watch
that handsome face, seeking in it for some evidence of those words
which Gilbert Monckton had spoken to her the day before.
“He is selfish, and shallow, and frivolous; false, I think, as well;
more than this, he has a secret—a secret connected with his Indian
experiences.”
This is what Mr. Monckton had said. Eleanor asked herself what right he
had to say so much?
It was scarcely likely that a girl of Eleanor’s age, so unaccustomed
to all society, so shut in from the outer world by her narrow and
secluded life, could fail to be a little interested in the handsome
stranger, whose advent had not been without a tinge of romance. She was
interested in him, and all the more so because of that which Gilbert
Monckton had said to her. There was a secret in Launcelot Darrell’s
life. How strange this was! Had every creature a secret, part of
themselves, hidden deep in their breasts, like that dark purpose which
had grown out of the misery of her father’s untimely death—some buried
memory, whose influence was to overshadow all their lives?
She looked at the young man’s face. It had an expression of
half-defiant recklessness which seemed almost habitual to it; but it
was not the face of a happy man.
Laura Mason was the only person who talked much during that drive
to Tolldale. That young lady’s tongue ran on in a pretty, incessant
babble, about nothing in particular. The wild flowers in the
hedgerows, the distant glimpses of country, the light clouds floating
in the summer sky, the flaming poppies among the ripening corn, the
noisy fowl upon the margin of a pond, the shaggy horses looking over
farm-yard gates, every object, animate and inanimate, between Hazlewood
and Tolldale, was the subject of Miss Mason’s remark. Launcelot
Darrell looked at her now and then with an expression of half-admiring
amusement, and sometimes aroused himself to talk to her; but only to
relapse very quickly into a half-contemptuous, half-sulky silence.
Mr. Monckton received his guests in a long low library, looking out
into the neglected garden; a dusky chamber, darkened by the shadows
of trailing parasites that hung over the narrow windows. But this
room was an especial favourite with the grave master of the house.
It was here he sat during the lonely evenings that he spent at home.
The drawing-rooms on the first floor were only used upon those rare
occasions when the lawyer opened his house to his friends of long
standing, dashing clients, who were very well pleased to get a week’s
shooting in the woody coverts about the Priory.
Neither Laura nor Eleanor felt very enthusiastic about the Raphael,
which seemed to the two girls to represent an angular and rather
insipid type of female beauty; but Launcelot Darrell and his host
entered into an artistic discussion that lasted until luncheon was
announced by the lawyer’s grey-haired butler; a ponderous and dignified
individual who had lived with Gilbert Monckton’s father, and who was
said to know more about his master’s history than Gilbert’s most
intimate friends.
It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon when luncheon was
finished, and the party set out to attempt an invasion upon Woodlands.
Launcelot Darrell gave his arm to his mother, who in a manner took
possession of her son, and the two girls walked behind with the lawyer.
“You have never seen Mr. de Crespigny, I suppose, Miss Vincent?”
Gilbert Monckton said, as they went out of the iron gates and struck
into a narrow pathway leading through the wood.
“Never! But I am very anxious to see him.”
“Why so?”
Eleanor hesitated. She was for ever being reminded of her assumed name,
and the falsehood to which she had submitted out of deference to her
half-sister’s pride.
Fortunately the lawyer did not wait for an answer to his question.
“Maurice de Crespigny is a strange old man,” he said; “a very strange
old man. I sometimes think there is a disappointment in store for
Launcelot Darrell; and for his maiden aunts as well.”
“A disappointment!”
“Yes, I doubt very much if either the maiden ladies or their nephews
will get Maurice de Crespigny’s fortune.”
“But to whom will he leave it, then?”
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
“It is not for me to answer that question, Miss Vincent,” he said. “I
merely speculate upon the chances, in perfect ignorance as to facts.
Were I Mr. de Crespigny’s legal adviser, I should have no right to say
as much as this; but as I am not, I am free to discuss the business.”
Mr. Monckton and Eleanor were alone by this time, for Laura Mason
had flitted on to the party in advance, and was talking to Launcelot
Darrell. The lawyer’s face clouded as he watched his ward and the young
man.
“You remember what I said to you yesterday, Miss Vincent?” he said,
after a pause.
“Perfectly.”
“I am very much afraid of the influence that young man’s handsome face
may have upon my poor frivolous ward. I would move her out of the
way of that influence if I could, but where could I remove her? Poor
child! she has been shifted about enough already. She seems happy at
Hazlewood; very happy, with you.”
“Yes,” Eleanor answered, frankly; “we love each other very dearly.”
“And you would do anything to serve her?”
“Anything in the world.”
Mr. Monckton sighed.
“There is one way in which you might serve her,” he said, in a low
voice, as if speaking to himself rather than to Eleanor, “and yet——”
He did not finish the sentence, but walked on in silence, with his eyes
bent upon the ground. He only looked up now and then to listen, with an
uneasy expression, to the animated conversation of Launcelot and Laura.
They walked thus through the shadowy woodland, where the rustling sound
of a pheasant’s flight amongst the brushwood, and the gay tones of
Laura’s voice, only broke the silence.
Beyond the wood they came to a grassy slope dotted by groups of trees,
and bounded by an invisible wire fence.
Here, on the summit of a gentle elevation, stood a low white villa—a
large and important house—but built in the modern style, and very
inferior to Tolldale Priory in dignity and grandeur.
This was Woodlands, the house which Maurice de Crespigny had built for
himself some thirty years before; the house whose threshold had so long
been jealously guarded by the invalid’s maiden nieces.
Mr. Monckton looked at his watch as he and Eleanor joined Mrs. Darrell.
“Half-past three o’clock,” he said; “Mr. de Crespigny generally takes
an airing in his Bath-chair at about this time in the afternoon. You
see, I know the habits of the Citadel, and know therefore how to effect
a surprise. If we strike across the park we are almost sure to meet
him.”
He led the way to a little gate in the fence. It was only fastened by a
latch, and the party entered the grassy enclosure.
Eleanor Vane’s heart beat violently. She was about to see her father’s
old and early friend; that friend whom George Vane had never been
suffered to approach, to whom he had been forbidden to appeal in the
hour of his distress.
“If my poor father could have written to Mr. de Crespigny for help when
he lost that wretched hundred pounds, he might have been saved from a
cruel death,” Eleanor thought.
Fortune seemed to favour the invaders. In a shady avenue that skirted
one side of the slope, they came upon the old man and the two sisters.
The maiden ladies walked on either side of their uncle’s Bath-chair,
erect and formidable-looking as a couple of grenadiers.
Maurice de Crespigny looked twenty years older than his spendthrift
friend had looked up to the hour of his death. His bent head nodded
helplessly forward. His faded eyes seemed dim and sightless. The
withered hand lying idle upon the leathern apron of the Bath-chair,
trembled like a leaf shaken by the autumn wind. The shadow of
approaching death seemed to hover about this feeble creature,
separating him from his fellow-mortals.
The two maiden ladies greeted their sister with no very demonstrative
cordiality.
“Ellen!” exclaimed Miss Lavinia, the elder of the two, “this is an
unexpected pleasure. I am sure that both Sarah and myself are charmed
to see you; but as this is one of our poor dear invalid’s worst days,
your visit is rather unfortunately timed. If you had written, and given
us notice of your coming——”
“You would have shut the door in my face,” Mrs. Darrell said,
resolutely. “Pray do not put yourself to the trouble of inventing
any polite fictions on my account, Lavinia. We understand each other
perfectly. I came here by the back way, because I knew I should be
refused admittance at the front door. You keep watch well, Lavinia, and
I beg to compliment you upon your patience.”
The widow had approached her uncle’s chair, leaving the rest of the
party in the background. Pale and defiant, she did battle with her
two sisters, fighting sturdily in the cause of her idolized son, who
seemed a great deal too listless and indifferent to look after his own
interests.
The ladies in possession glared at their sister’s pale face with
spiteful eyes; they were a little daunted by the widow’s air of
resolution.
“Who are these people, Ellen Darrell?” asked the younger of the two
old maids. “Do you want to kill my uncle, that you bring a crowd of
strangers to intrude upon him at a time when his nerves are at their
worst?”
“I have not brought a crowd of strangers. One of those people is my
son, who has come to pay his respects to his uncle after his return
from India.”
“Launcelot Darrell returned!” exclaimed the two ladies, simultaneously.
“Yes, returned to look after his own interests; returned with very
grateful feelings towards those who prompted his being sent away from
his native country to waste his youth in an unhealthy climate.”
“_Some_ people get on in India,” Miss Lavinia de Crespigny said,
spitefully; “but I never thought Launcelot Darrell would do any good
there.”
“How kind it was in you to advise his going, then,” Mrs. Darrell
answered, promptly. Then, passing by the astonished Miss Lavinia, she
went up to her uncle, and bent over him.
The old man looked up at his niece, but with no glance of recognition
in his blue eyes, which had grown pale with age.
“Uncle Maurice,” said Mrs. Darrell, “don’t you know me?”
The invalid nodded his head.
“Yes, yes, yes!” he said; but there was a vacant smile upon his face,
and it seemed as if the words were uttered mechanically.
“And are you glad to see me, dear uncle?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” the old man answered in exactly the same tone.
Mrs. Darrell looked up hopelessly.
“Is he always like this?” she asked.
“No,” answered Miss Sarah, briskly, “he is only so when he is intruded
upon and annoyed. We told you it was one of your uncle’s bad days,
Ellen; and yet you are heartless enough to insist on persecuting him.”
Mrs. Darrell turned upon her sister with suppressed rage.
“When will the day come in which I shall be welcome to this place,
Sarah de Crespigny?” she said. “I choose my own time, and seize any
chance I can of speaking to my uncle.”
She looked back at the group she had left behind her, and beckoned to
her son.
Launcelot Darrell came straight to his uncle’s chair.
“You remember Launcelot, Uncle Maurice,” Mrs. Darrell said,
entreatingly; “I’m sure you remember Launcelot.”
The two maiden sisters watched their uncle’s face with eager and
jealous glances. It seemed as if the thick clouds were clearing away
from the old man’s memory, for a faint light kindled in his faded eyes.
“Launcelot!” he said; “yes, I remember Launcelot. In India, poor lad,
in India.”
“He went to India, dear uncle, and he has been away some years. You
remember how unfortunate he was: the indigo planter to whom he was to
have gone failed before he got to Calcutta, so that my poor boy could
not even deliver the one letter of introduction which he took with him
to a strange country. He was thrown upon his own resources, therefore,
and had to get a living as he could. The climate never agreed with him,
Uncle Maurice, and he was altogether very unhappy. He stayed in India
as long as he could endure a life that was utterly unsuited to him; and
then flung everything up for the sake of returning to England. You must
not be angry with my poor boy, dear Uncle Maurice.”
The old man seemed to have brightened up a good deal by this time. He
nodded perpetually as his niece talked to him, but there was a look of
intelligence in his face now.
“I am not angry with him,” he said; “he was free to go; or free to
return. I did the best I could for him; but of course he was free to
choose his own career, and is so still. I don’t expect him to defer to
me.”
Mrs. Darrell turned pale. This speech appeared to express a
renunciation of all interest in her son. She would almost rather that
her uncle had been angry and indignant at the young man’s return.
“But Launcelot wishes to please you in all he does, dear uncle,”
pleaded the widow. “He will be very, very sorry if he has offended you.”
“He is very good,” the old man answered; “he has not offended me. He is
quite free, quite free to act for himself. I did the best I could for
him—I did the best; but he is perfectly free.”
The two maiden sisters exchanged a look of triumph. In this
hand-to-hand contest for the rich man’s favour, it did not seem as if
either Ellen Darrell or her son were gaining any great advantage.
Launcelot bent over his great-uncle’s chair.
“I am very happy to find you alive and well, sir, on my return,” he
said, respectfully.
The old man lifted his eyes, and looked earnestly at the handsome face
bent over him.
“You are very good, nephew,” he said; “I sometimes think that, because
I have a little money to leave behind me, everybody wishes for my
death. It’s hard to fancy that every breath one draws is grudged by
those who live with us. That’s very hard!”
“Uncle!” cried the maiden nieces, simultaneously, with a little shriek
of ladylike horror. “When have you ever fancied that?”
The old man shook his head, with a feeble smile upon his tremulous lips.
“You are very good to me, my dears,” he said, “very good but, sick men
have strange fancies. I sometimes think I’ve lived too long for myself
and others. But never mind that; never mind that. Who are those people
there?” he asked, in a different tone.
“Friends of mine, uncle,” Mrs. Darrell answered; “and one of them is a
friend of yours. You know Mr. Monckton?”
“Monckton! Oh, yes—yes! Monckton, the lawyer,” muttered the old man;
“and who is that girl yonder?” he cried suddenly, with quite an altered
voice and manner, almost as if the shock of some great surprise had
galvanized him into new life. “Who is that girl yonder, with fair hair
and her face turned this way? Tell me who she is, Ellen Darrell.”
He pointed to Eleanor Vane as he spoke. She was standing a little way
apart from Gilbert Monckton and Laura; she had taken off her broad
straw hat and slung it across her arm, and the warm summer breeze had
swept the bright auburn hair from her forehead. Forgetful of every
necessity for caution, in the intensity of her desire to see her
dead father’s dearest friend, she had advanced a few paces from her
companions, and stood watching the group about the old man’s chair.
“Who is she, Ellen Darrell?” repeated Mr. de Crespigny.
Mrs. Darrell looked almost frightened by her uncle’s eagerness.
“That young lady is only the musical instructress of another young lady
I have in my care, Uncle Maurice,” she answered. “What is there in her
that attracts your attention?”
The old man’s eyes filled with tears that rolled slowly down his
withered cheeks.
“When George Vane and I were students together at Maudlin,” answered
Maurice de Crespigny, “my friend was the living image of that girl.”
Mrs. Darrell turned sharply round; and looked at Eleanor at if she
would have almost annihilated the girl for daring to resemble George
Vane.
“I think your eyes must deceive you, my dear uncle,” said the widow; “I
knew Mr. Vane well enough, and I never saw any likeness to him in this
Miss Vincent.”
Maurice de Crespigny shook his head.
“My eyes do not deceive me,” he said. “It’s my memory that’s weak,
sometimes; my eyesight is good enough. When you knew George Vane his
hair was grey, and his handsome looks faded; when I first knew him he
was as young as that girl yonder, and he was like her. Poor George!
poor George!”
The three sisters looked at each other. Whatever enmity might exist
between Mrs. Darrell and the two maiden ladies, the three were
perfectly agreed upon one point—namely, that the recollection of George
Vane and his family must, at any price, be kept out of Maurice de
Crespigny’s mind.
The old man had not spoken of his friend for years, and the maiden
sisters had triumphed in the thought that all memories of their uncle’s
youth had become obscured and obliterated by the gathering shadows of
age. But now, at the sight of a fair-haired girl of eighteen, the old
memories came back in all their force. The sudden outburst of feeling
came upon the sisters like a thunderbolt, and they lost that common
instinct of self-preservation, that ordinary presence of mind, which
would have prompted them to hustle the old man off, and carry him at
once out of the way of this tiresome, intrusive, fair-haired young
woman, who had the impertinence to resemble George Vane.
The sisters had never heard of the birth of Mr. Vane’s youngest
daughter. Many years had elapsed since the intercourse between Mrs.
Darrell and Hortensia Bannister had extended to more than an occasional
epistolary communication, and the stockbroker’s widow had not thought
it necessary to make any formal announcement of her half-sister’s birth.
“Tell that girl to come here,” cried Maurice de Crespigny, pointing
with a trembling hand to Eleanor. “Let her come here; I want to look at
her.”
Mrs. Darrell thought it would be scarcely wise to oppose her uncle.
“Miss Vincent!” she called, sharply, to the girl; “come here, if you
please; my uncle wishes to speak to you.”
Eleanor Vane was startled by the widow’s summons, but she came eagerly
to the old man’s chair. She was very anxious to see the friend of her
dead father. She went close up to the Bath-chair, and stood beside the
old man.
Maurice de Crespigny laid his hand upon hers.
“Yes,” he said; “yes, yes. It’s almost the same face—almost the same.
God bless you, my dear! It makes me fifty years younger to look at you.
You are like a friend who was once very dear to me—very dear to me. God
bless you!”
The girl’s face grew pale with the intensity of her feeling. Oh! that
her father had been alive; that she might have pleaded for him with
this old man, and have reunited the broken links of the past. But of
what avail now were Maurice de Crespigny’s compassionate words? They
could not recall the dead. They could not blot out the misery of that
horrible night upon which the loss of a pitiful sum of money had driven
George Vane to the commission of the fatal act which had ended his
life. No! His old friend could do nothing for him; his loving daughter
could do nothing for him—except to avenge his death.
Carried away by her feelings; forgetful of her assumed character;
forgetful of everything except that the hand now clasped in hers was
the same that had been linked in that of her father, years and years
ago, in the warm grasp of friendship; Eleanor Vane knelt down beside
the old man’s chair, and pressed his thin fingers to her lips.