MR. MONCKTON BRINGS GLOOMY TIDINGS FROM WOODLANDS.
For some few days after the Frenchman’s arrival, Launcelot Darrell
stopped away from the Priory, much to the regret of his betrothed,
whose delight in her _trousseau_ was not sufficient to fill the blank
made by her lover’s absence. Miss Mason roamed disconsolately about the
house, looking out at the bare trees, and the desolate garden walks,
and quoted Tennyson until she became obnoxious to her fellow-creatures
by reason of her regret that _he_ did not come, and her anxiety that
the day should be done, and other lamentations to the same effect.
She ran out of doors sometimes under the bleak February sky, with a
cambric handkerchief over her head as a sensible protection from the
bitter atmosphere, and her light ringlets flying in the wind, to stand
at a little doorway in the high garden wall, and watch for her lover’s
coming by a narrow pathway through the wood, by which it was his wont
to make a short cut for himself in dry weather.
She was standing in this narrow doorway upon the afternoon of the
22nd of February—only twenty-one days before that eventful morning
which was to make her Launcelot Darrell’s wife—with Eleanor Monckton
by her side. The short winter’s day was closing in, and the shadows
were thickening in the low woodland, whatever light might linger on
the hill-tops above Tolldale. The two women were silent: Eleanor was
in very low spirits, for on this day she had lost her friend and
counsellor, Richard Thornton, who had had no alternative but to leave
Tolldale, or to forfeit a very remunerative and advantageous engagement
at one of the Edinburgh Theatres, whither he had been summoned to paint
the scenery for a grand Easter burlesque, about to be produced with
unusual splendour, by a speculative Scottish manager; and who had,
therefore, departed, taking his aunt with him. George Vane’s daughter
felt terribly helpless in the absence of this faithful ally. Richard
had promised to attend to her summons, and to return to Tolldale at any
hour, if she should have need of his services; but he was separated
from her by a long distance, and how could she tell when the moment of
that need might come? She was alone, amongst people who had no sympathy
with the purpose of her life, and she bitterly felt the desolation
of her position.
It was no very great wonder, then, if she was thoughtful and silent,
and by no means the joyous, light-hearted companion whom Laura Mason
had loved and clung to at Hazlewood, before the coming of Launcelot
Darrell. This young lady watched her now, furtively, almost fearfully,
wondering at the change in her, and speculating as to the cause of it.
“She _must_ have been in love with Launcelot,” Laura thought; “how
could she help being in love with him? And she married my guardian
because he’s rich, and now she’s sorry for having done so. And she’s
unhappy because I’m going to be married to Launcelot. And, oh! suppose
Launcelot should still be in love with her; like the hero of a dreadful
French novel!”
The dusk was deepening in the wood, when two figures emerged from the
narrow pathway. A tall, slenderly-built young man, who switched the low
brushwood and the fern with his light cane as he walked along, and a
puffy little individual with a curly-brimmed hat, who trotted briskly
by his side.
Laura was not slow to recognize her lover even in that doubtful
light, and Eleanor knew that the young man’s companion was the French
commercial traveller.
Mr. Darrell introduced his friend to the two ladies.
“Monsieur Victor Bourdon, Mrs. Monckton, Miss Mason,” he muttered,
hastily. “I dare say you have thought me very neglectful, Laura,”
he added; “but I have been driving Monsieur Bourdon about the
neighbourhood for the last day or two. He’s a stranger in this part of
the country, though he’s almost as much an Englishman as I am.”
Monsieur Bourdon laughed as he acknowledged the compliment, with an air
that was evidently intended to be fascinating.
“Y-a-a-se,” he said, “we have been to Vindsor. It is very naice.”
Launcelot Darrell frowned, and looked angrily at his companion.
“Yes, Bourdon wanted to have a look at the state apartments,” he
said; “he wanted to compare them with those interminable galleries at
Versailles, I suppose, to the disparagement of our national glory.”
“But the apartments are closed,” said Eleanor.
“Oh! of course,” answered Mr. Darrell, looking at her rather
suspiciously, “they always are closed when you happen to want to
see them. Just like everything else in this world of anomalies and
paradoxes.”
“He has taken his friend to Windsor,” Eleanor thought; “had this visit
any relation to his last visit? Did he go there to see Mr. Lawford’s
clerk?”
She was helpless without Richard, and could not answer this question.
“I’ll write to him to-night,” she thought, “and ask him to come back to
me directly.”
But in the next moment she was ashamed of herself for her selfishness.
She might sacrifice her own life to her scheme of vengeance. The voice
of her father crying to her from his unsanctified grave, seemed for
ever urging her to do that; but she had no right to call upon others to
make the same sacrifice.
“No,” she thought, “wherever the road I have chosen may lead me,
however difficult the path may be to follow, I will henceforward tread
it alone. Poor Dick! I have tormented him long enough with my sorrows
and my helplessness.”
“You’ve come to dine, of course, Launcelot,” Miss Mason said, while
Eleanor stood motionless and silent in the doorway, absorbed in these
thoughts, and looking like some pale statue in the dusk; “and you’ve
brought your friend, Monsieur—Monsieur Bourdon, to dine——”
“Ah, but no, mademoiselle,” exclaimed the Frenchman, in a transport of
humility. “I am not one of yours. Monsieur Darrell is so good as to
call me his friend, but——”
The Frenchman murmured something of a deprecatory nature, to the effect
that he was only a humble commercial traveller in the interests of a
patent article that was very much appreciated by all the crowned heads
of Europe, and which would doubtless, by the aid of his exertions
and those of his compatriots, become, before long, a cosmopolitan
necessity, and the source of a colossal fortune.
Eleanor shuddered and shrank away from the man with a gesture almost
expressive of disgust, as he turned to her in his voluble depreciation
of himself and glorification of the merchandise which it was his duty
to praise.
She remembered that it was this man, this loquacious vulgarian, who had
been Launcelot Darrell’s tool on the night of her father’s death. This
was the wretch who had stood behind George Vane’s chair, and watched
the old man’s play, and telegraphed to his accomplice.
If she could have forgotten Launcelot Darrell’s treachery, this
presence would have been enough to remind her of that pitiless
baseness, to inspire her with a tenfold disgust for that hideous
cruelty. It seemed as if the Frenchman’s coming had been designed by
Providence to urge her to new energy, new determination.
“The man who could make this creature his accomplice in a plot against
my father shall never inherit Maurice de Crespigny’s fortune,” she
thought; “he shall never marry my husband’s ward.”
She linked her arm in Laura’s as she thought this; as if by that simple
and involuntary action she would have shielded her from Launcelot
Darrell.
In the next moment a footstep—the firm tread of a man—sounded on the
crisp gravel of the garden walk behind the two girls, and presently
Gilbert Monckton laid his hand lightly upon his wife’s shoulder.
She was startled by his unexpected coming, and turning suddenly round,
looked at him with a scared face; which was a new evidence against her
in his troubled mind, a new testimony that she was keeping some secret
from him.
He had left Tolldale Priory early that morning to give a day’s
attention to that business of which he had been lately so neglectful,
and had returned a couple of hours before his usual time for coming
home.
“What brings you out into the garden this bitter afternoon, Eleanor?”
he said, sternly; “you’ll catch cold in that thin shawl; and you, too,
Laura; I should have thought a seat by the drawing-room fire far more
comfortable than this dreary garden. Good evening, gentlemen; you had
better bring your friend into the house, Mr. Darrell.”
The young man muttered something of an apologetic nature, and Monsieur
Victor Bourdon acknowledged the lawyer’s cold salutation with an
infinite number of bows and smirks.
“You have come home by an earlier train than usual, Gilbert,” Mrs.
Monckton said, by way of saying something that might break the silence
which had followed her husband’s coming; “we did not expect you until
seven.”
“I came to Windsor by the three o’clock express,” answered Mr.
Monckton. “I have not come straight home. I stopped at Woodlands to
inquire after the invalid.”
Eleanor looked up with a new and eager expression in her face.
“And Mr. de Crespigny—he is better, I hope.”
“No, Eleanor, I fear that you will never see him again. The doctors
scarcely hope that he will last out the week.”
The girl set her lips firmly, and raised her head with a resolute
gesture—a mute expression of determination and defiance.
“I _will_ see him again,” she thought; “I will not trust my hope of
vengeance to a chance. He may have altered his will, perhaps. Come what
may, I will stand beside his sick bed. I will tell him who I am, and
call upon him, in my dead father’s name, to do an act of justice.”
Launcelot Darrell stood with his head bent and his eyes fixed upon the
ground.
As it was the habit of Eleanor to lift her forehead with something of
the air of a young war-horse who scents the breath of the battle-field
afar, so it was this young man’s manner to look moodily earthward under
the influence of any violent agitation.
“So,” he said, slowly, “the old man is dying?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Monckton; “your great-uncle is dying. You may be
master of Woodlands, Launcelot, before many days are past.”
The young man drew a long breath.
“Yes,” he muttered; “I may: I _may_.”