CHAPTER I.

Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and

bold text by =equal signs=.

THE WELLFIELDS.

A Novel.

BY

JESSIE FOTHERGILL,

AUTHOR OF ‘THE FIRST VIOLIN’ AND ‘PROBATION.’

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

[Illustration]

LONDON:

RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,

Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.

1880.

[_All Rights Reserved._]

[Illustration]

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

STAGE II.—_Continued._

CHAPTER PAGE

VI. IN DANGER 1

VII. THE WORKING OF THE SPELL 47

VIII. THE FIRST OF BRENTWOOD 77

IX. ‘DON’T FRET’ 115

X. INDIAN SUMMER 133

STAGE III.

I. INTERMEDIATE 139

II. LEBENDE BILDER 149

III. THE SECOND MEETING 163

IV. HERR FALKENBERG’S FRIENDSHIP 185

V. THE LION AND THE MOUSE 206

VI. UNAWARES 221

VII. ‘AN ENEMY HATH DONE THIS’ 229

VIII. FATHER SOMERVILLE GATHERS THE THREADS TOGETHER 249

IX. ABSCHIED UND RÜCKKEHR 264

[Illustration]

=THE WELLFIELDS.=

=STAGE II=—_Continued._

CHAPTER VI.

IN DANGER.

‘Oh Death, that makest life so sweet!

Oh fear, with mirth before thy feet!’

WHEN Nita and Jerome again arrived at the Abbey, they found that Mr.

Bolton had returned from Burnham, and that the midday dinner, which was

an institution in the family, was waiting for them.

‘Have you settled anything?—has Nita helped you?’ inquired Mr. Bolton.

‘Miss Bolton has been very kind indeed, and has probably saved me from

wasting a great deal of my small stock of money,’ replied Jerome.

‘Ah!’ said Mr. Bolton, appreciatively, ‘that’s always something gained.’

He asked his daughter what she was going to do that afternoon, and Nita

said she was going to drive to the town of Clyderhow to do a little

shopping.

‘Why Clyderhow? The shops in Burnham are a great deal better.’

‘Because I like the drive to Clyderhow,’ said Nita; ‘and there is a

wonderful milliner there. Aunt Margaret got a bonnet from her with five

ostrich tips in it, and a bird, and three bows of black satin ribbon,

and a great deal of velvet, for the sum of two guineas.’

‘So you go by the quantity of stuff you get for your money when you

choose bonnets?’ asked Mr. Bolton.

‘Aunt Margaret does. She likes plumes. I thought I might perhaps find

something sweetly modest and simple, with one feather and one bow, and

a little flower or sprig for instance, for next to nothing.’

‘Is this shopping considered a secret service affair?’ inquired Jerome;

‘or may I go too, if I sit quite still while you are in the shop, and

promise not to look that way?’

‘I am afraid you would think it a great bore,’ said Nita quickly, as

her face flushed.

‘I suppose it was because I love to bore and afflict myself that I

asked permission to go,’ he answered, with a smile.

‘I shall be most happy to take you if you would really like to go. Will

you come too, papa?’

‘What an idea!—I hope not!’ thought Jerome, within himself, and Mr.

Bolton was obliging enough to say:

‘I?—no. I never drive in the afternoon. I am going to my Italian, as

usual.’

But as the carriage was not ordered to be round until half an hour

after dinner, Mr. Bolton proposed to Jerome that they should take a

walk round the garden and have a cigar. Nita watched the two figures

as they paced together towards the cloisters. The elder man, with the

massive lines, broad, sturdy figure, somewhat below middle height,

but still imposing in its power and strength; the somewhat bowed back

and high shoulders; the round, bull-dog head, with its expression of

dogged determination. The younger—Nita leaned against the side of the

window and folded her arms, as she contemplated him with a strange

mixture of sensations. What a contrast to that dear familiar figure of

the man who was noted for his hardness and coldness to others, but who

was so gentle, so tender and indulgent to her, and to the few friends

who composed their small circle of intimates—a contrast indeed! The

new-comer was—unconsciously she recalled those lines in ‘Esther’—

‘He was a lovely youth; I guess

The panther in the wilderness

Was not more fair than he.’

‘The panther in the wilderness!’ That was an evil comparison; surely

he was good as well as beautiful. Was it really only yesterday that he

had arrived—not yet twenty-four hours ago? And how long would he still

be here? And what would the Abbey, everything be, when he was gone? She

turned hastily away from the window, and would not venture another look.

The two men paced about the river walk for a time, till Mr. Bolton

asked:

‘Do you know any of the people about here?’

‘I met an old acquaintance this morning—Father Somerville, from

Brentwood.’

‘Somerville! You know him? Is he any favourite of yours?’

‘As to that, I can hardly say. I like what I have seen of him, but know

very little of him. I fancy we have many tastes in common. He is a

cultivated man, who has seen the world, I think.’

‘Ay, ay! he’s clever, is Somerville, and attractive too, I could

fancy. I never let any of those gentry inside my house.’

‘No?’ said Jerome, indifferently. ‘I hope you have no objection to your

visitors knowing them, for I have promised to go and see him to-morrow.’

‘Oh, my visitors do as they please, I hope. So long as he does not

darken my doors, it’s all one to me what he does. Nita, I am thankful

to say, is not of an hysterical temperament, for all she is so

slight and delicate. She has never displayed any tendencies to being

over-religious, or going in for Ritualism or that kind of mummery; else

I should have had to send her to a good sharp school.’

‘Miss Bolton has never been to school?’

‘No; her mother died when she was two. By that time I was a rich man;

and as I knew I should never marry again, I took Nita’s education

into my own hands. She will inherit my money and my property; and I

have given her the education of a man of business. She will know to a

fraction what she is worth; and if she falls into any snares, it will

be with her eyes open.’

‘That is well,’ said Jerome, gravely, wondering a little why Mr.

Bolton, on so short an acquaintance, chose to discourse to him on this

topic. And with Father Somerville’s advice fresh in his mind, he felt

interested in that topic—wrongfully interested.

‘Your daughter will marry some one who will administer her fortune

wisely, it is to be hoped,’ he said.

Mr. Bolton sighed. ‘I suppose she must marry,’ he said, slowly. A girl

with that money ought to marry. One has heard of wealthy maiden ladies

of large property living alone, and exercising power over all around

them; but,’ he turned suddenly to Wellfield, ‘did you ever hear or read

of one, in real life or even in a romance, who was not unhappy? I never

did.’

‘I really don’t feel to know much about the subject,’ said Jerome,

feeling that they were skirting delicate ground, wondering more and

more that Mr. Bolton spoke thus to him, of all persons.

‘Nita has told me about your sister, and your views about her,’ he went

on. ‘I like you for your behaviour, Mr. Wellfield.’

‘I?’ stammered Jerome, surprised. ‘Miss Bolton must have misunderstood.’

‘No. She told me you had a half-sister, to whose use you intended

to devote what money you had, while you sought for employment for

yourself. I like to hear of a man treating his sister in that way.’

Jerome was silent—surprised. He felt his tongue tied. His natural

impulse was to please, when his companion showed a predisposition to be

pleased. He felt a desire to say something which should still further

excite Mr. Bolton’s goodwill, and make him—Jerome Wellfield—feel on

still better terms with himself. But the thought of Sara Ford rose up,

and forbade him to do so. He continued his walk in silence.

‘I have a proposition to make to you,’ said Mr. Bolton, suddenly.

Jerome turned to him with his lips apart, and a quick inquiring look

upon his face. Could it be that Father Somerville had the gift of

second-sight?

‘It’s not a very brilliant proposition; and it is all founded on the

assumption that you know nothing of business; no book-keeping for

instance, no clerkship routine. Do you?’

‘No, I do not; I know absolutely nothing of those things.’

‘Well, if I found you capable—excuse my bluntness,’ he said, with

the same pedantic little air which characterised his speech—‘we

manufacturers are apt to be a little scornful of a want of practical

talent; but if I found you capable, and you would care to try, I think

I could find you some employment in my own office. But you would have

to begin by learning the very elements of your work from my book-keeper

and cashier. If you like to come over to Burnham two or three times a

week, for a short time, and try, you are welcome.’

‘You are very kind!’ said Jerome, astonished: ‘I have no possible claim

upon such——’

‘You do not in the least know my reasons for making you the offer,’

replied Mr. Bolton, with a calm superiority that made Jerome feel

somewhat snubbed; ‘therefore, do not be in any haste to express your

gratitude. My book-keeper will soon turn you out a finished article, if

you are to be turned out at all.’

‘Sublime destiny! The gods might envy me!’ thought Jerome, within

himself; but he said: ‘I shall accept your offer with gratitude. I do

not know how I should have found anything, with my ignorance and my

utter want of influence.’

‘That’s right! And in the meantime take holiday till next week, and

enjoy yourself. There’s Nita’s phaeton going round, I see, and the

groom; I suppose she will be ready.’

With which laconical dismissal of the whole subject, he led the way to

the house again.

Nita drove a high phaeton, with a spirited pair of roans. In answer to

Jerome’s suggestion that he should drive she looked so rueful that he

laughed, saying:

‘If that is the case I shall be only too glad to _be_ driven. I am

indolent enough for anything.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ replied Nita, taking the ribbons. Very soon

they were driving at a pleasant speed through the lanes leading towards

Clyderhow, whose ancient castle, on a mound, confronted them for a

great part of the distance.

‘What does Mr. Bolton mean, when he speaks of “his Italian”?’ asked

Jerome, reflectively.

Nita laughed as she flicked the roans lightly.

‘Of course you would not understand,’ she answered. ‘Italian is papa’s

favourite weakness. Did you ever see anyone so unlike Italy as he is?

Poor old dear! He always used to read in the afternoons, and one day he

was perusing a little book aloud to me, and I was sewing. There came

some allusion to “the fiery domes and cupolas of the city of Dis.” He

asked me what it meant, and I told him about the “Inferno.” He said:

“That’s very fine—those fiery domes and cupolas. I must know some more

about it.” With which he took to studying Italian, and is now devoted

to it. It is very seldom that he fails to give a few hours each day to

it. He is translating the “Inferno,” in his rough, plodding way. I am

glad he finds something to amuse himself with, for he has had a sad

life.’

‘Sad? He has been unusually successful, has he not?’

‘Oh, in money-matters, yes. But my mother died just when he hoped to

give her everything she desired—and more. And he was—he was very fond

of her.’

‘I see! I might have understood that,’ replied Jerome; and then, after

a pause, ‘Mr. Bolton has been making very kind offers to me.’

‘Has he? What manner of offers?’

He told her.

‘Do you call that a kind offer?’ cried Nita impatiently, as her face

flushed. ‘How could he suggest such a thing? Oh, really, how hard men

can be!’

‘Perhaps you think he should at once have placed the half of his

possessions at my disposal. Is it not better to be “hard,” as you call

it, than an idiot?’

‘Well, I suppose it is. But life is such a mystery.’

‘As how—I mean how exemplified in my case?’

Nita laughed with a little embarrassment.

‘I never can explain things. But it is a mystery. You a clerk! What an

idea! You must feel it to be absurd, yourself, don’t you?’

‘I have not thought much about it. It has to be done.

‘“When land is gone and money spent,”

you know.’

‘Pray what would your _sister_ say to it?’

‘Avice? Well, really, I don’t suppose she has any clear ideas as to

what clerks are, or do. If I told her I was going to be a tailor, she

would think it all right if I said so.’

‘Is she that kind of a sister?’

‘Yes,’ said Jerome, in perfect good faith. He imagined indeed that

Avice was that kind of a sister; essentially the right kind of sister.

Women ought all to be like that—blind to the faults of those they

loved—when ‘those’ were men. The men to work, the women to admire; the

workers to rule, the admirers to submit. It was a beautiful arrangement.

‘I daresay it is very nice in her to be like that,’ said Nita, ‘but if

I had had a brother, I should not have been that kind of a sister at

all. I should have told him very plainly what I thought of his doings,

and if I imagined that he was degrading himself, I should have told him

that too.’

‘Would you, at the same time, have provided him with the means of

acting up to what you considered a higher standard?’

‘It is a _shame_!’ Nita burst out almost passionately, after a pause.

How naïvely she showed her interest, Jerome thought, with a little

sense of pleased, flattered self-complacency. How delightfully natural

she was—and what a curious contrast to that woman whose proud lips had

already confessed her love for him: to Sara Ford! His heart suddenly

throbbed as he thought of her. Dangerous thought! He must not indulge

in it, and accordingly, to turn the conversation, he said:

‘You have singular ideas on the subject of brothers and sisters,

possibly because the relation is purely a matter of speculation to

you.’

‘Oh no, it isn’t. Jack is my brother.’

‘John Leyburn?’ he asked, with a feeling of surprise that was not

altogether pleasant. Sooth to say, he had forgotten Leyburn for the

moment, and here he was suddenly cropping up again in a manner that was

obtrusive—thrusting himself in where he was not in the least wanted.

‘John Leyburn—yes.’

‘Privileged young man! He seems to me, like most cousins, to make the

most of his advantages.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Nita.

‘He takes every opportunity of lecturing you. And you—well, you are

consistent, I must own; you do tell him very plainly what you think of

him.’

‘Of course I do! and as for John’s lectures, I am accustomed to them

by now. They mean nothing, except that we are great friends—more than

cousins; in fact, brother and sister.’

‘And how long, if I may ask, has the fraternity been superadded to the

cousinship—and the friendship? It makes a complicated relationship.’

‘It never was superadded. It has always existed—for me.’

‘Always?’ echoed Jerome, vaguely displeased.

‘Yes, of course. I am nineteen, and John is twenty-eight. When I was

born, we lived at Burnham, and so did the Leyburns. Uncle Leyburn

married papa’s only sister, and was his greatest friend. They lived at

Burnham too, then. John was nine years old then, of course. The first,

or one of the very first things I can remember, is his showing me

pictures of birds—he is mad about birds, you know—and taking me by the

hand for a little walk, and playing with me in general. I suppose I was

about three years old then.’

‘And Leyburn twelve. He was that age when I knew him, sixteen years

ago. They had just come to Abbot’s Knoll. Yet I do not remember his

ever saying anything about you. Perhaps you occupied a smaller place in

his heart than you imagine.’

‘Oh no!’ said Nita, with calm conviction. ‘He never talks much about

things. He would not be likely to talk about me. He always gives his

mind to what he is doing at the moment; and when he was playing and

learning lessons with you, he would not talk about me. Besides, we

were still at Burnham. But he was always kind when he came back to me.

John taught me to read, and implanted in my mind that love of light

literature which he now pretends to deplore—the great humbug!’

Nita laughed a pleased little laugh, speaking of a tender affection for

the absent ‘humbug.’ The course which the conversation had taken grew

less and less pleasing to Jerome. He felt a strong desire to displace

John from his pedestal, or at least to make him, in vulgar parlance,

‘step down a peg or two.’ A spirit of perverse folly took possession of

him. Leaning a little forward, and speaking in a discreetly low voice,

mindful of the groom who sat behind, he rested his elbow on his knee,

and fixed his eyes on Nita’s face, saying:

‘Then he has never given you cause to suppose that a sister’s affection

would hold a secondary place in his thoughts?’

‘You speak ambiguously,’ replied Nita, occupied in guiding her horses

through a very narrow lane. ‘Sister’s affection—secondary place! I do

not understand.’

‘Are sisters jealous when their brothers marry?’

‘Oh, I see! Certainly not, if they have any sense,’ was the most

decided answer; ‘they may be angry, you know, if the wife their brother

chooses is disliked by them; but if they have no ground for disliking

her, they would be selfish and foolish, simply, to be jealous when

their brothers married.’

‘You say John Leyburn is your cousin and your friend and your brother

all in one. Suppose he took it into his head to get married—he must be

lonely in that great house of his by the river.’

‘If John were to marry,’ repeated Nita, slowly and pensively.

Her hands were fully occupied; for at this moment they were driving

down a steep hill, and the roans were fresh. She could not have hidden

her face, had she wished to do so. As her eyes met Jerome’s, a quick

flush rose on her cheek—a flush which grew deeper.

‘If she cares for him, there can be no danger in my asking questions;

she is in no danger with me,’ thought Wellfield, with characteristic

indolence, and also with a characteristic wish to find out whether she

‘cared’ irrevocably for John Leyburn. And he said:

‘If John were to marry—yes. What is to hinder him? Would his wife

consider him your brother? Would she see it in the same light, do you

think?’

‘She would be a very nasty girl if she did not,’ said Nita, with a

heightened colour and flashing eyes, ‘when I should do all in my power

to be kind to her.’

‘Oh, you would do all in your power to accomplish that? Then you would

not mind if John got married?’

‘I should mind it very much if his wife were such an odious woman as

you seem to think she would be. Stepping in and destroying——’

‘The friendship of a lifetime; breaking every social tie, and so

on. Let us put it in another light. Suppose he married, and married

some one of so generous a disposition as to wish him not to lose his

sister——’

‘I should not call that generous, but merely decent and reasonable.’

‘Well, he marries this decent, reasonable woman, and then you marry. Do

you think your husband would look upon John in the light of a brother?’

‘Mr. Wellfield, what strange questions you ask!’

‘Not at all. You would have to consider the subject when you married.’

‘But I am not going to be married. I know papa thinks I shall have to,

but I don’t intend it at all.’

‘Intentions have less than nothing to do with such a matter. When you

fall in love with some one, and he asks you to marry him, you will do

so of course, since you are neither a nun, nor a lunatic, nor in any

way a perverse or ill-conditioned person,’ he answered tranquilly,

while Nita looked at him in startled amazement, her heart beating

with the same strange sense of a thrilling new emotion as she had

this morning experienced. In all their nineteen years of brother and

sisterhood, John had never dared—was ‘dared’ the word to use? No—it had

never occurred to John to speak to her in such a manner as did this

man whom she had first met yesterday. Yet she did not feel resentment

towards him, though she tried to think she did, and answered as if she

did.

‘How can you speak to me in that manner? As if I had no strength of

will—as if I were an idiot.’

‘Not at all; but as if you were, what you are—a woman, and a good one,’

he replied. Then, before she could answer, he went on: ‘But I think you

want to shirk my question, Miss Bolton. You are afraid to look your

position fairly in the face.’

‘I don’t see it.’

‘You have not told me what you would do in case the man you married

refused, or was unable to see, John Leyburn in the pure white light of

brotherhood.’

‘I don’t see the use of discussing such wildly improbable

contingencies. But’—she suddenly burst into a laugh—‘if the worst came

to the worst, I should have to sink John to the rank of a friend and

cousin. He would have to—well, he would have to manage as well as he

could. But you are very unkind to shatter my little day-dream in that

way—so wantonly, too! You are the first person who ever cared to shake

me out of my pleasant delusion. I have always looked upon John as a

brother.’

‘Very pleasant for him, as I think I observed before.’

‘Why only for him, pray? I owe far more to him than he owes to me.

He has made me better and wiser than I ever should have been without

him; not that I am much to boast of in the matter either of wisdom or

goodness; but most of what little I have I owe to John. And then, he is

almost my only friend.’

‘Perhaps that is a matter in which I may find cause for rejoicing?’

‘_You!_’ echoed Nita, turning suddenly to him, and finding his sombre

eyes fixed upon her face. She turned her own quickly away again. ‘I

don’t understand,’ she said, a little confusedly.

‘Yes, I; even I. If you had had many friends and many claims upon your

time and your attention, would you have had leisure to do all the

kind things you have performed for me in the short time since I came

here?—to think all the kind thoughts which I know you have thought?

Should I have been able to endure being under your father’s roof if I

had found you engrossed with others—looking upon me as an alien and

an interloper, instead of treating me as you have done? It would have

maddened me, I think. No; do not try to deny your own goodness. I have

felt it every hour since I met you; and to one in my position, every

kind thought and gentle action on the part of others is as another bead

added to one’s string of pearls.’

Nita was perfectly silent. Her under-lip quivered a little. Tears

rushed to her eyes and blinded her. She had kept up all along a brave

show of light-heartedness and carelessness; but Wellfield had laid his

spell upon her from the first moment of meeting him. So long as he

merely talked nonsense to her, she could appear indifferent. The moment

he touched deeper springs, her heart gave way, and her outward gaiety

collapsed. They were both absorbed—both in danger. Nita was struggling

to choke back her emotion; but the thought of this poor, proud, lonely

fellow at her side, disinherited, and grateful even for her goodness,

was an overpowering one. Wellfield himself was watching her with an

agreeable sensation of power.

At this juncture, while Nita’s hands retained scarcely any hold on the

reins, they slowly turned a sharp corner in the road, arriving at the

summit of a hill, and were suddenly confronted by a panting, groaning,

snorting traction-engine, industriously toiling up the hill with two

huge trucks full of blocks of white stone; and urged onwards by its

engineer and stoker with loud phrases and ejaculations as if it had

been a living creature.

Nita’s roans failed to recognise any kinship in this strange and

hideous monster. They shied, swerved, plunged for a moment; then

bolting, tore along the short space of level ground at the top of the

hill, and proceeded to rush at full gallop down the next incline.

Jerome saw that Nita turned suddenly pale, and set her teeth. She

knew what was coming, and he did not. She tightened her hold on the

reins, but the roans were young and strong and fresh; her wrists were

small and slender. They dashed round the first curve of the road,

and from Nita’s lips escaped a low ‘Ah!’ as they saw before them a

straight steep hill, at the bottom of which was a deep mill-dam, then

a mill-race, rushing swiftly along; a narrow stone bridge spanned the

stream at the foot of the hill, and on the opposite side rose another

hill as steep as the one down which they were tearing.

Jerome quickly laid his hand on her wrist. Personal cowardice in

moments like this was not amongst his faults.

‘Let them alone!’ said Nita, between her teeth. ‘They don’t know your

hand: you shall not touch them.’

Without a word, he put forth his other hand, broke her clenched fingers

apart, as if they had been straws, and took the ribbons from her hold.

The frantic animals felt a new hand—a firmer, but a fresh one, and for

the moment their terror increased. Down the hill they flew, and the

carriage swayed ominously to and fro. Jerome with a side-glance saw the

face of the girl beside him, white as death. She did not clutch at the

rail, or in any way try to hold herself fast, but clenched her hands

before her on her knees, and looked towards the mill-race—towards the

deep, green pool above the bridge and the foaming fall below it, and to

the grey-stone mill sleeping peacefully on the other side.

Then Jerome perceived that, lumbering slowly towards them on the

bridge, were two large lorries, piled with bales of cotton goods, and

he knew that to run into them meant death. All the despondency he had

felt—all the wish to be rid of life and its unasked-for, uncalled-for

burdens disappeared, and only the desire to conquer this impending fate

remained behind. He found himself mechanically measuring either side

of the road, to see if there was no side-way—no escape from the end to

which they seemed to be rushing, and his hold on the reins tightened

and tightened till it grew to a strain in which he expended all his

strength.

They were within twenty yards of the bridge, and as yet he had seen

no way out of it. He saw every slightest action of all around him,

and it recorded itself as indelibly upon his consciousness as if he

had had hours of leisure in which to observe it all. He saw how the

two stolid-looking carters suddenly became aware of the nature of the

position—saw them cast up their hands and run to their horses’ heads,

to pull them as far to one side as possible.

‘Idiots!’ he thought, ‘as if that would do any good!’ and even as

he thought it, he perceived to the left hand of the road a square

embrasure, such as is found in the north of England frequently, though

I know not if they exist in the south. In such an embrasure the

stones are piled up which the breakers have to operate upon, and in

this particular one were piles of stones already broken: it was walled

round, and below the wall the bank of the field sloped steeply down. If

he could not rein in the horses, and they leaped the wall, the results

were not agreeable subjects of contemplation, but even they would be

less dreadful than the gruesome fate proffered by the mill-race and the

little stone bridge.

He succeeded in turning the horses into the embrasure, and they,

confronted suddenly by a four-feet high stone wall, plunged madly, and

attempted to force their way out again. But the hand that held them had

at last mastered them. They were curbed. Dancing about in the narrow

space, they were forced to contain themselves, till the groom jumped

down, and one of the carters, coming forward, took their heads, and

Jerome was at last free to guide them back to the road, and to look at

his companion.

Now that the danger was over she had broken down. Her face was buried

in her hands, and she was shaking with hysterical sobs. Jerome bent

over her, removed her hands from her face, and said in a gentle,

authoritative voice:

‘Were you afraid? Look up! It is over now.’

‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped. ‘It was my carelessness. They want careful

driving, but they never shy if one keeps a firm hand, and I was not

holding them in at all—oh, I thought I had killed you!’

‘My dear child, don’t let that distress you!’ he exclaimed, still in

the same low voice.

The two carters were now holding the horses’ heads, while the groom

looked to see if any damage had been done to the phaeton, and staring

with stupid, yet well-meant compassion upon the young lady, whose

agitation to them was quite accounted for, women not being reckoned

very courageous amongst such as them.

‘Don’t, don’t say so!’ she exclaimed, in uncontrollable agitation. ‘I

shall never forget it. I thought I saw you in the water, drowning.’

There was an ominous sound as of an hysterical laugh mingling with her

sobs.

‘You must control yourself,’ said he, composedly, ‘and get out of the

phaeton for a short time. We will walk about a little, and go into

the mill, and you can rest there.’ He jumped out, and took her hand.

‘Suppose you alight,’ he added, in a voice which was in reality a

command.

Nita stepped slowly forth, and wavered a little as she touched the

ground. Jerome seated her on one of the stoneheaps, and then got into

the phaeton. The horses were now perfectly quiet, but trembling and

bathed in sweat.

‘Thank you,’ he said to the men, giving them some money. ‘We need not

keep you any longer.’

‘Eh, but measter, thou tak’s it uncommon cool,’ said one of them,

apparently desirous of improving the occasion. ‘Dost know thou wert

nigh on being done for for ever in yon pond?’

‘I know all about it,’ said Jerome, soothingly touching the horses’

necks.

‘It were a mir’cle as thou comed na’ to grief o’er yon wa’, too,’

pursued he; ‘them’s skittish critters, I reckon.’

‘Skittish or not, I can manage them, and worse than they are. Good-day,

friends. I am obliged to you.’

Dismissed thus curtly, the men were fain to move their lorries out of

the way, thus leaving room for Jerome, followed by the groom, to drive

the phaeton across the bridge and into the stable-yard of the corn-mill

on the other side of the water. He related what had happened, and soon

received the miller’s permission to leave the horses there for quarter

of an hour, until Miss Bolton was sufficiently recovered to proceed.

Then, leaving the man with the horses, he went back again to Nita, and

found her seated where he had left her, and sobbing still now and then.

‘My dear Miss Bolton, you must try to control yourself, or you will

make yourself ill, and alarm your father needlessly.’

‘Alarm my father!’ she said, looking up; ‘what does alarm matter, after

that deadly fear? I tell you, I felt as if I saw your face sinking

beneath the pond there—all through me! Oh, it was horrible! It haunts

me.’

‘It is pure imagination. You were on that side, remember. Think what

would have been my feelings if I had had to go home and tell Mr. Bolton

that his daughter was drowned!’

‘It would have served me right. I knew the horses. I knew they shied if

one did not keep them well in.’

‘Did you? Well, you see, I managed to restrain them, even after they

had shied. Never mind my precious personality, I implore you. You are

safe!’

‘I—miserable little wretch that I am!’ exclaimed Nita, in so deep, so

profoundly bitter a voice that he was surprised out of all caution.

‘Nay—that is a strange thing to say,’ he remarked. ‘It would never do

for poor old Wellfield to lose all its heirs. What would have become of

it if you had been drowned? For my sake, don’t talk in that way.’

‘Ah!’ she exclaimed passionately, ‘do not reproach me with that. Do

you suppose that I shall ever again have one moment’s pleasure in that

idea? After knowing you—what do you take me for?’

‘I take you to be nervous and unstrung, and over-anxious. And I am sure

it is my duty to get you home as soon as possible. Come! The carriage

is at the other side of the bridge.’

‘Oh, it is impossible to go in the carriage again. I will walk. I am an

excellent walker, and it is only four miles.’

‘And I?’

‘You will walk too, with me. The groom will bring back the carriage

when the horses are fit to come.’

‘And what if I think it better to drive, and make a point of your

driving with me?’

She looked up in some surprise, and found him calmly surveying her in

a manner which left no doubt as to his meaning. He was overruling her,

and he intended to be obeyed. She rebelled, momentarily.

‘Really, you are very—my nerves——’

‘Are quite strong enough to carry you home, and point out to me the way

round by Clyderhow, which is the road I intend to take to Wellfield

Abbey. There is no reason why you should not do your shopping too,’ he

added, gently.

‘Impossible!’ said Nita, in so decided a voice that he at once resolved

that it should, on the contrary, become possible. With the exercise of

power grew the delight in it. Cost what it might, Nita should go to

Clyderhow, and do her shopping, because he wished it. He knew perfectly

well that he had flirted with her, and had drawn her attention

from her horses. He knew that she would not have been wrong had she

reproached him with having caused the accident; but he was resolved

that, far from that, she should continue to accuse herself, and the

power and authority should remain on his side as before.

‘Can you not trust me?’ he asked. ‘I will take great care of you. If

you refuse, I shall know that you are offended, and have lost all

confidence in me.’

His voice was soft, his accent gentle and caressing; the expression

on his lips and in his dark eyes had something in it partaking of

tenderness. It all subdued Nita’s reluctance, and laid her fear, as

it were, under a spell. Within the last day life and her own identity

had grown strange to the girl. She knew herself no more. But she still

hesitated, till Jerome said:

‘By this I shall know whether I have lost your confidence or not. If

you let me drive you to Clyderhow, _I_ shall not forget to keep a firm

hand on the reins.’

Nita rose. ‘I will do as you wish,’ she said, with a tremor of the lip.

‘Thank you, dear Miss Bolton,’ he replied, a tone of exultation in his

voice, as he drew her hand through his arm, and placing his other hand

upon it as if to steady her, he led her across the bridge to the mill.

In a very short time they were in the phaeton, with Wellfield on this

occasion in the driver’s seat, and Nita, subdued and soothed, was

pointing out the way to him.

They presently arrived in the main street of the town of Clyderhow,

when Nita made a last abortive attempt to escape from the shopping

expedition. But Jerome would not allow it.

‘You are quite recovered,’ he said. ‘You are not going to faint. And

you said you wanted a bonnet like your aunt’s, with five ostrich

feathers in it.’

‘I never did!’ cried Nita, indignation getting the better of

reluctance. ‘I think Aunt Margaret’s taste in bonnets is horrible.’

‘Well, which is the shop? I shall consider myself entitled to go in and

preside over the purchase, under the circumstances.’

‘That is the shop at the end of the street, if you will go. But I am in

no state to buy bonnets.’

‘No?’ he said, looking at her, intently. ‘I should have thought—well,

you do look a little pale, perhaps. But I shall be able to tell you

what suits you. Here we are.’

He handed her out, and pushing open the shop-door, he stood by for her

to pass: then followed, saw her sudden start and recoil, and heard the

exclamation:

‘Aunt Margaret!’

‘The deuce!’ murmured Jerome, discomfited for the moment; but instantly

recovering himself, he too advanced, and, like Nita, confronted Miss

Margaret Shuttleworth.

She looked very stern and terrible. She was standing upright before

a tall glass, attired in the full panoply requisite for a visit to

town—perfectly upright, and perfectly self-possessed. One article only

of her attire was wanting, and that was her bonnet, which lay on a

chair hard by, while over her straight grey hair was visible a little

black silk cap, such as elderly ladies wear, or did wear, beneath their

bonnets—and which cap, when not yet covered by the superior headdress,

imparts a look of hardness to the gentlest countenance. Its effect upon

the severe features of Miss Shuttleworth gave an additional terror to

her glance, and additional sternness to her eye. A slight young woman

held in her hand a bonnet, which she was apparently about to place upon

Miss Shuttleworth’s head, when that lady, with a wave of the hand,

stopped her, and replied to Nita’s astonished exclamation:

‘Yes, it is Aunt Margaret. What of that?’

‘Nothing, aunt dear. But I was so astonished to see you. I thought you

had got a bonnet.’

‘So I had, but it does not suit me. Put it on now,’ to the young woman,

who trembled visibly, but who obeyed at once.

It was undoubtedly _the_ bonnet, and it sat upon Miss Shuttleworth’s

head like a plume upon a hearse. No other comparison is for a moment

admissible. Slowly, and with dignity, she turned her head this way and

that; and before formulating her objections, condescended to greet

Wellfield.

‘Good-afternoon, Mr. Wellfield. Have you come to help my niece to

choose a bonnet?’

‘Yes,’ said Jerome, composedly.

‘I am sure you look as if you would give her valuable assistance in

such a matter,’ was the reply, ambiguous in its nature. Was it to

be considered complimentary, or otherwise? Jerome, with a gravity

as imperturbable as her own, said he should feel highly honoured if

he could be of any use to Miss Shuttleworth in the same matter. She

turned away with a jerk. Having always had a monopoly in the sphere of

disagreeable, if dubious remarks, she did not appreciate this intrusion

on a province peculiarly her own.

‘Nita,’ she said, sharply, ‘don’t you see what is wrong with this

bonnet? It’s like a plume on a hearse.’

‘It suits you admirably, Miss Shuttleworth,’ said Jerome, blandly.

‘You must alter the feathers,’ said Miss Shuttleworth to the young

woman; ‘you must make them lie flatter. You understand what I mean.

Otherwise I shall never enter your shop again. Now, Nita,’ as she

removed the bonnet, and reached her hand for her old one, ‘what do

_you_ want? Let us see whether, with Mr. Wellfield’s assistance, we

cannot find something suitable. Poor John never could have helped

anyone to choose a bonnet,’ she added, pointedly.

Nita’s face flushed. Miss Shuttleworth continued to say disagreeable

things, and Nita to grow more and more embarrassed, and the more

disagreeable the one became, and the more confused the other, the more

utterly calm and self-possessed remained Jerome Wellfield; nor did he

allow a single sharp speech of Miss Shuttleworth’s to go unanswered,

nor did he abstain from paying a single compliment to Nita, in

consideration of the new and discordant element introduced. The whole

affair, a mere joke at the commencement, had grown more serious; for

Jerome’s manner, in proportion as he was goaded by Miss Shuttleworth’s

shafts, grew more _empressé_ towards Nita, while she, confused with

the danger they had passed through, intoxicated and bewildered by the

look which occasionally met hers when she encountered Jerome’s eyes,

anxious to conceal all her emotion from her aunt, scarcely knew where

she was or what she was doing. Nothing suited her: at last she threw

off a bonnet which the young woman had tried her on, and said hastily

and decidedly that she would call again another day. She was tired, and

could not decide upon anything then.

‘Not even with Mr. Wellfield’s help?’ inquired Miss Shuttleworth,

blandly.

‘As if Mr. Wellfield cared anything about bonnets!’ said Nita, sharply.

‘Can’t you see when you are being laughed at, aunt?’

‘Nita!’ ejaculated Miss Shuttleworth, in a tone of the utmost pain and

astonishment.

But Nita was already on her way out of the shop. Jerome spoke to Miss

Shuttleworth:

‘Miss Bolton is upset,’ he said. ‘We have had a serious accident, and

only just escaped with our lives. She is unnerved.’

‘I don’t understand it at all,’ said Aunt Margaret, all her pugnacity

gone, and looking as she felt, perfectly bewildered.

‘I am sure Miss Bolton will explain later,’ he continued. Miss

Shuttleworth looked at him, as if wondering who and what he was that he

should thus take upon himself to make explanations; but with a stiff

‘Good-afternoon,’ she went out at the door, and he followed her.

Nita saw her, and asked if she would not drive home with them. Miss

Shuttleworth was on the point of refusing with decision and asperity,

but something in her so-called ‘niece’s’ look caught her observant

eye—a weariness, a whiteness, a languor. She said:

‘I don’t mind if I do. That’s to say, if you leave me in peace to the

back seat, for I hate the front one unless I know the driver.’

‘Sit where you like, aunt,’ was the reply, as Jerome came forward and

offered his help.

But Miss Shuttleworth refused, and unaided clambered up to the back

seat, presenting a liberal allowance of very spare leg and white cotton

stocking to the enraptured view of Miss Bamford’s young ladies, who,

from the work-room on the second floor, were gazing down upon the

proceedings with the intensest interest, and speculating with a burning

curiosity as to who that gentleman could be who had driven up with Miss

Anita Bolton of the Abbey; who handed her into the phaeton with such

assiduous care, and bent over her with such a look of attention as he

spoke a word to her before driving off.

‘He looks like a foreigner,’ and ‘He’s very handsome,’ were the most

definite and the most general conclusions arrived at.

Meantime the phaeton drove off, and arrived at the Abbey without

further misadventure. Miss Shuttleworth intimated her intention of

coming in and staying supper. Jerome whispered to Nita:

‘You will go upstairs and take some rest before supper, _for my sake_!

And I will find Mr. Bolton and tell him: no, I will not alarm him too

much. Do not fear. Will you promise to rest?’

‘Yes,’ said Nita, faintly, as he helped her down, and she and her aunt

went upstairs together.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII.

THE WORKING OF THE SPELL.

‘Not that the play is worth much, but it is finely acted.... But

that which did please me more than anything in the whole world was

the musique when the angell comes down; which is so sweet that it

ravished me.... Neither then nor all the evening I was able to think

of anything, but remained all night transported.’—PEPYS’ _Diary_.

REST and quiet, it seemed, were not to fall immediately to Nita’s

lot. She conducted Miss Shuttleworth to her room, and sat down in an

easy-chair while that lady made her slow and lengthy, if not elaborate,

toilette for the evening.

‘What’s the meaning of all this, Nita?’

‘All what, aunt?’

‘This driving about with young Wellfield, and having accidents, and

losing your temper—_you_, of all people, and insulting your old aunt,

and looking miserable?’

‘I don’t know why you should seek to attach any meaning at all to it. I

was driving carelessly, when we suddenly met a traction-engine coming

up the hill; the horses bolted, and but for Mr. Wellfield’s getting the

reins into his own hands—but for his courage and coolness, we should

both have been dead now. Surely that is enough to unnerve anyone!’

‘Then if you were so unnerved, what induced you to go to the

bonnet-shop in Clyderhow?’

‘I overrated my strength, I suppose, and in the joy of being safe

imagined myself less shaken than I really was.’

‘Humph!’

Miss Shuttleworth went to the drawer in Nita’s wardrobe, which was

sacred to the caps she always wore at the Abbey. Looking through

her store, she carefully selected a yellow and green one; the most

intrinsically hideous and extrinsically least suited to her style of

beauty of any of the collection, and then she returned to the glass to

put it on.

‘Don’t fall in love with Mr. Jerome Wellfield, Nita. Let him fall

in love with you if he likes; but don’t _you_ do it,’ she said,

deliberately.

‘Aunt Margaret! do you want to insult me?’ she asked, sitting up, pale

and breathless with anger.

‘Not at all. I want to warn you. He is very romantic-looking—reminds

one of Byron’s heroes, only more agreeable in general society than

they would have been; but depend upon it, my dear, it is all looks. No

Wellfield ever had a heart for anyone but himself.’

‘Oh, I am so tired of listening to that old story, aunt! You would not

say a good word for the Wellfields to save your life. Such constant

abuse makes one begin to take the side of those who are abused.’

‘Ah, I fear you are very far gone already!’

‘How dare you! How _dare_ you speak to me in such a manner! Pray, what

have you seen in my manner to Mr. Wellfield to make you assert such a

monstrous thing?’

‘Plenty, and I hear plenty more in your voice now,’ was the unmoved,

unwavering retort. ‘And all that an old woman like me can do, is to

keep on warning and warning. Don’t fall in love with him, Nita; for if

you do, it will bring nothing but disaster. He is not of the kind that

makes loving and faithful husbands.’

‘When you are quite ready, I shall be glad if you will leave me alone,’

replied Nita, composedly; ‘or if you do not choose to leave me, I will

leave you, and go to some other room. I am tired, and want to rest

before I come down to supper. All that you say is utterly without

foundation, and it makes me very unhappy.’

‘That is odd, if it is without foundation,’ said Miss Margaret,

fastening on a huge lace collar with the utmost tranquillity. ‘I

will say no more to-night, but I shall consider it my duty to repeat

my warning at intervals. You are the only young relation I have, and

I should think it wrong to do less. All I say now, is, never marry a

Wellfield in the hope of happiness.’

With that she left the room. Nita was alone. Perhaps she rested;

perhaps not. She threw off her hat, pushed her hair back from her

aching temples, and buried her hot and throbbing brow in her hands. She

felt no inclination to weep now: only a kind of feverish, breathless

excitement, as the scene with the runaway horses again started vividly

up before her mind’s eye, and she could think of nothing else; could

only live over again what had seemed the long eternity of agony she

had felt as they rushed down the hill, before Jerome had succeeded in

turning the horses aside, and so saving them. It was a scene which

she knew would be present with her for days, perhaps weeks. Added to

that, the subtle inexplicable meaning in Wellfield’s eyes, in the

tone of his voice, and in the touch of his hand; then the home-coming,

and her aunt’s calm, monotonous, even-toned voice, as she repeated her

warnings—warnings, the remembrance of which made the blood rush hotly

to her face, then madly back to her heart, causing it to beat wildly,

and leaving her pale and trembling. She felt absolutely ill. Should

she send an excuse, and not go to the drawing-room again to-night? No;

certainly not. She would not let anyone see how foolish she was. If

she remained upstairs John would be uncomfortable, and would miss her;

her father’s quiet evening with the savages would be spoiled; her aunt

would wave her green and yellow cap-ribbons in triumph, convinced that

her warnings had taken effect, and Wellfield would think her a poor

creature, while she—would not see him, nor speak to him, nor touch his

hand again till to-morrow morning. She started up, and began to make

her toilette with unusual slowness and care, and with fingers which

she could not compel not to tremble.

Downstairs she found, as she had expected, John Leyburn, as well as

Miss Margaret. They were all in the drawing-room, and supper was

announced before she had answered her father’s inquiries or sat down.

This gave her the opportunity of retaining his arm, and walking into

the dining-room with him. The meal seemed a long one. Nita was thankful

when it was over, and they went into the drawing-room again. Wellfield

did not immediately come there. He said he was going for a stroll by

the river, and he went out at the open hall-door into the garden. Mr.

Bolton was not a demonstrative man: he went to his accustomed table

with the reading-lamp, and took up his book. Miss Shuttleworth pulled

out a stocking, took a chair (a straight-backed one, as might have been

expected), and knitted, with a still rocky severity of countenance.

John was arranging cushions on a couch near the window.

‘Come here,’ he said to Nita. ‘You are to lie down, and I will sit

beside you.’

‘I’m not tired,’ said Nita.

‘Yes, you are,’ he replied, smiling his good, pleasant smile. ‘Come

here, or I put on my hat and go home this moment.’

‘Home! This is as much your home as any other place,’ she said,

complying with his behest.

‘More, since my sister Nita is in it. There!’ he added, taking his

place beside her as she lay down, and gave a long sigh of relief; ‘now

tell me what you have been doing this afternoon.’

‘That you may give one of your favourite lectures, I suppose,’

said Nita, smiling. But by degrees she told him the history of the

afternoon’s adventure, while it grew dark within the room, and their

voices sank lower, and Mr. Bolton read on, and Miss Shuttleworth’s

needles clicked, clicked, as if they went by clockwork.

‘Oh, John! how ashamed I was! I could not look him in the face,’

murmured Nita, at the end of this conversation.

‘Ashamed—of what?’ asked John, in his slow tones, and looking at her

with his near-sighted eyes.

‘Of my carelessness, my folly, which so nearly cost him his life!’

‘And you yours. I tell you what it is, Nita; it must have been a very

engrossing conversation that caused you to loose your hold on the

ribbons. Is it allowable to ask what it was all about?’

‘Partly about you,’ replied Nita, surprised into the admission by this

sudden appearance in John of an astuteness with which she had not for a

moment credited him.

‘About me? What about me?’

She was silent.

‘You won’t say—or can’t. Forgotten, perhaps. I wonder if Wellfield has,

too? I’ll ask him.’

‘He will have forgotten too,’ replied Nita

‘I thought as much,’ said John, and silence fell upon them too.

* * * * *

Wellfield wandered beside the river into the fields—some broad,

pleasant, open fields where the river was wide, and formed a broad,

shallow, brawling kind of waterfall. To-night there was a full moon,

which, as night fell, replaced the day with a softer brilliance.

He mused as he walked, not with the heartbeats and the tumultuous

agitation which had shaken Nita, but with vague wonder, and a vague

repining. Why had he not known of all this reverse of circumstances a

few months earlier, before he had met Sara Ford and learnt to love her?

If Sara had not been there, imperiously commanding his love, how easy

it would have been to accept Father Somerville’s outspoken counsel, to

make love to Nita Bolton (this with a calm obliviousness or ignoring of

the fact that what he had done that afternoon was, if not love-making,

at least an excellent imitation of it), marry her, and once more

enjoy his own. It was now quite impossible, of course, and his little

experiment this afternoon had just sufficed to show him that had he

only been free, it might have been. He did not wish to be free—not

he! Who would wish to be free who was loved by Sara Ford? But surely

it was not wrong to picture what might have been if he had never met

her. He could not tell her of what might have been; but he wished she

could know it—could know what his love for her would stand, what hot

temptations, what fiery trials it would carry him through unscathed.

And now, how to behave towards Nita? Of course he must not deceive her:

he must try to enlighten her on the subject of his engagement; it was

only fair. But not to-night: she was too shaken and unstrung to-night

to bear more excitement—he tacitly assumed that the revelation would

cause excitement to her—to-night he must be gentle and quiet, and let

her rest. So he argued within himself, the truth being that to Jerome

Wellfield it was very much easier and infinitely pleasanter to be on

good than on evil terms with a woman—with all women not absolutely

hideous, and that it was the most natural thing in the world for him

to treat any young woman, especially if she happened to be the only

one there, as if she were the object of his most special care and

attention. Then too, he felt himself welcome at the Abbey, and the

sense of this, and the luxury of the sympathy and commiseration, the

admiration and the pity which Nita with every look, every gesture,

every tone of her voice, offered to him, lulled him into a sensuous

inactivity—the kind of inactivity to which his nature was always

perilously prone. The pain of planning, and considering, and of conning

over adverse circumstances, was great. The pleasure of half-dreamy talk

with a woman whom some inner emotion made beautiful for the nonce,

and who he felt wore that passing loveliness because he had called it

there, and the pleasure of being worshipped, silently yet subtly, was

also great, and very much easier to him than the other alternative.

To-morrow, he thought, he would tell her about Sara; to-night he would

tell her about herself.

He went into the drawing-room, and found the group which has already

been described. Nita’s little whispered dispute with John was over,

and she lay still. The window was open, and Jerome had entered by it.

The evening was warm, and at the Abbey in summer they never drew the

curtains; and from where Nita lay, they could see the trees outside

shimmering in the ghostly moonlight, and the hoary grey walls of

the cloisters beside the river, and nearer, all the stiff quaint

flower-beds, and clipped yews, and oddly-shaped shrubs and plants.

Mr. Bolton, at the other end of the room, had a table and a little

oasis of lamplight all to himself, and was absorbed in a book of

travels. Nita was wont to say that her father was not happy unless he

daily made an excursion to Burnham _in propria personâ_; a descent

into Avernus with the assistance of Dante the immortal, and an

expedition in the evening into some unheard-of corner of the earth with

some traveller, whose tales she averred could not be too wonderful to

be credible; in fact, the more improbable, the better.

Except Mr. Bolton’s reading-lamp, there was no light in the room save

moonlight; and the space was so great that the lamplight was lost in

the other rays.

There was silence as Jerome came in, and just glanced at Nita’s pale

face, which looked almost ghastly in the white moonlight. He paused,

and asked her if she felt rested.

‘Yes, thank you,’ replied Nita, with a little catching of her breath,

which John at least noticed. ‘I am all right, but John is a tyrant, and

says if I get up he will go.’

‘Quite right, too,’ observed Miss Shuttleworth from her corner.

‘Would anyone like a light?’ asked Nita.

‘Oh, don’t light up! This moonlight is heavenly. It only wants music to

make it complete,’ said John. ‘Wellfield, when you were a precocious

infant of eleven, at which age I last knew you, you used to play tunes

on the piano, and sing little Italian songs, which used to fascinate

me. Have you forgotten how?’

‘Not utterly, though I have no doubt fallen off from the first engaging

innocence of childhood.’

‘Well, won’t you give us a specimen,’ said the benighted barbarian—‘if

Nita is not too tired?’ he added, turning to her.

‘I—oh no! if Mr. Wellfield will sing, I should like it,’ said Nita,

utterly unconscious that she was invoking the most powerful of the

weapons of fascination possessed by her hero, and anxious only to

preserve a little longer the friendly moonlight.

‘Certainly, if one could ever sing at all, one would be able to do

so in such a place, and with such surroundings as these, observed

Jerome, carelessly, as he struck a chord or two. ‘Ah! your piano is a

Bechstein, Miss Bolton; you might have imported it on purpose for me.

All I stipulate is, that you will cry “Hold!” in a loud voice, when you

have had enough of it.’

He tried his hand with a half-forgotten impromptu of Schubert’s,

and with each bar that he played the old spirit came back to him.

He had not touched a note since the night he had sung to Sara Ford,

at Trockenau. Did he remember it? It may be so, but if he did, he

carefully abstained from giving any of the songs he had sung on that

eventful night. Perhaps the present audience were not worthy. At first

he did not sing at all, but wandered on through some strange, cobwebby

melodies of Schumann and Chopin—strange melodies, such as had probably

never before palpitated through that ancient room, since it was first

built, for an abbot’s refectory. At first he thought he would not sing

at all; but with the flow of sound, and the exercise of the beloved

art, the old intoxication and exaltation stole gradually over him. He

paused a moment, struck a couple of weirdly sounding minor chords, and

sang the strangely suggestive lines beginning:

‘O Death, that makest life so sweet!

O Fear, with mirth before thy feet!

What have ye yet in store for us?

The conquerors, the glorious?’

If he wished to recall to Nita’s mind their perils of the afternoon,

he succeeded most thoroughly in doing so. It all rushed over her mind

again, overpoweringly, and the whole truth of it. She knew as she heard

his voice that never, never had life been so sweet as when, the danger

over, she had seen Jerome Wellfield standing at her side, and had heard

his voice, though scarcely comprehending what he said.

So he sang on, song after song; each one with fresh verve and fresh

pleasure—with a purer delight in the exercise of his power. Almost

at haphazard, he sang the songs and the _scenas_ which he best

remembered, just as they came into his mind—Faust making love to

Marguerite, and the Troubadour invoking Leonore; one little German

love-song after another—‘Du bist wie eine stille Sternennacht’ made

the tears rush blindingly to Nita’s eyes. John Leyburn still sat

beside her couch: he leaned back in his chair, and the music wrought

pleasant visions in his mind, together with a casual wonder whether

Wellfield had never thought of going on the stage, where his voice

would certainly have made him a fortune and brought him fame to boot.

‘But he would consider it degrading, I suppose,’ thought John. ‘I fear

he is an out-and-out Tory.’ Miss Shuttleworth ceased to knit, folded

her mittened hands one over the other upon her knee, and appeared at

least to listen. The green and yellow cap-ribbons were portentously

still, but no sign appeared upon her countenance of either approval or

disapproval.

Mr. Bolton, who had at first scarce been conscious of what was going

on, slowly and gradually emerged from an imaginary career over the

arid plains of the Pampas, over which he had been in fancy galloping

madly, hotly pursued by a number of vindictive South American savages,

whose arrows threatened death in the rear, while before him was a deep

and rapid river, through which his exhausted horse must swim, if he

were to reach the territory of the nearest friendly tribe, alive. He

gradually awoke to the consciousness that music of no common order was

being made in his daughter’s drawing-room. He did not quite understand

it all—suddenly he heard Italian words which he recognised—passionate,

tragic words:

‘Per pietà non dirmi addiò!

Non dirmi addiò!

Dita priva chè farò?

Dita priva chè farò?’

He felt that they were beautiful; their passion and their fire stirred

the blood in his veins. He listened to the glorious end of a glorious

_scena_, and then he shut up his book and waited for more. Then it was

that Wellfield turned to something quite different, and sang:

‘Du bist wie eine stille Sternennacht,

Ein süss’ Geheimniss ruht auf deinem Munde,

In deines dunklen Auges feuchtem Grunde,

Ich weiss es wohl, und nehm’ es wohl in Acht,

Du bist wie eine stille Sternennacht.’

It is an exquisite romance, and he sang it to perfection. To Mr.

Bolton’s mind it brought, as well it might, remembrances thronging

fast of youth and love, and of a time when he had been young, and

when he had wandered through the lanes of Wellfield on his Saturday

half-holiday, or for his Sunday out, with a girl on his arm, whose

presence was his paradise. In short, Mr. Bolton soon, to his own

profound astonishment, found tears stealing from his eyes. He was

thinking of himself, and of his own far-back joys and sorrows; he

was in a twilight land, where he had long been a stranger—a country

which all of us know, and which yet none of us with bodily eyes have

seen—the country which is illumined by ‘the light that never was on

sea or land’—the country in which strange plants grow—dried flowers to

wit, and locks of hair tied up with faded ribbons, and bundles of old

letters—the kingdom of romance.

Nita had changed her position; she had turned over on her side, with

her face towards the sofa-back, so that it could not be seen. Her

handkerchief was pressed against her mouth, her temples throbbed, her

eyes were closed. She lay quite still, save that now and then a slight

shiver shook her from her head to her feet. If it filled John Leyburn’s

good honest heart with sweet, vague dreams which he had never known

before, if it wafted her dry, business-like, prosaic father back into

a nearly-forgotten land of faery and of dreams, what did it not do for

her, attuned by nature as she was, to passion and romance? and how was

she ever to find peace or freedom again?

The last thing that Jerome sung was Zelter’s glorious song, _Infelice

in tanto affani_. When he had finished it, when the last piercing,

heart-breaking notes had died away, the despairing

‘Ho, perduto!

Il mio tesoro!

Tuttu—tuttu fini!’

he rose quickly from the piano, and closed it, observing:

‘I quite forgot myself. I am afraid I have been inflicting myself upon

you.’

John Leyburn rose too.

‘What a lucky dog you are, Wellfield, to have that voice. Amongst more

impressionable people than the English, you could charm hearts away

with it, I am sure.’

‘I do not understand music,’ observed Aunt Margaret, rising also, ‘and

I am going.’

Mr. Bolton’s voice then came from afar, pedantic and particular as

usual.

‘We are very much indebted to you, Mr. Wellfield. You have given us a

very great treat, and I sincerely hope you will favour us in the same

way on some other occasion.’

With which he pulled his lamp up to him again, and re-opened his book.

‘Nita, I am going. John will see me home,’ said Miss Shuttleworth,

while John, stooping over Nita, remarked:

‘My child, you appear to have collapsed altogether.’

Aunt Margaret had gone upstairs to take off the green and yellow cap;

Nita turned round, and sat up. Her face was pale, and there was an

expression of suffering upon it.

‘I tell you what it is,’ said John, ‘you want a little fresh air, Nita.

Suppose you and Wellfield come with Aunt Margaret and me to the gate.

You are afraid to go alone, you know, being such a coward.’

Nita smiled faintly.

‘Here’s a shawl,’ pursued John. ‘I’ll put it round your shoulders—so.’

She passively allowed him to fold the little cashmere about her

shoulders, and when Aunt Margaret came down, and handed John her

umbrella to carry, she called out:

‘Papa, Mr. Wellfield and I are going to see the others to the gate.’

‘Folly!’ observed Miss Shuttleworth, casually, but no one took any

notice of her. They all went out at the window together, Nita with her

hand through John’s arm.

They went lingeringly through the garden, and down the river walk

to the great cavernous gateway called ‘Abbot’s Gate.’ It was indeed

a glorious night, one in a thousand, perfect, still, and clear, and

around them was everything which can add to the glamour and beauty of a

moonlight night.

They parleyed a few moments with John and Miss Shuttleworth at the

gate, and then it was shut after them with a loud resounding clang,

which echoed through the hollow archway. They were alone again.

‘Draw the big bolt,’ said Nita, scarcely above a whisper, ‘then we

shall know it is safe.’

‘Safe from whom? Leyburn, or Miss Shuttleworth—or both?’ asked

Wellfield.

‘From all—all evil things,’ answered Nita.

‘Complimentary to them,’ he said, lightly, finding the big bolt, and

drawing it without difficulty. He knew it of old, and having pushed it

to its place, they stood within the dark space, and looked at the flood

of grey moonlight which bathed the river walk that stretched before

them.

Jerome drew Nita’s arm through his, and they passed out of the darkness

into that moonlight. Nita turned her steps towards a small wicket,

leading by a nearer path to her home, and the drawing-room window.

‘You don’t mean to go that way, and leave the river walk, and this

glorious moonlight!’ he exclaimed. ‘That would be a sin. It is not

late. Come this way.’

For a moment she wavered; then turned and went with him.

Jerome did not confess it to himself, but down in the depths of his

heart he knew he was doing what was base.

They went very slowly along the grassy walk, on which the dew lay like

grey gossamer in the moon-rays, and for a little time neither spoke,

till Jerome said softly:

‘Will you trust me to drive you another day, Miss Bolton?’

‘I? Why not?’ said Nita, faintly.

‘Will you promise to go out with me another day, that I may be sure you

have forgiven me my carelessness?’

‘I—is there anything to forgive?’

‘I think so. If I had not been talking sentimental nonsense to you, you

would not have forgotten to look after your horses, and then——’

‘Do not let us say any more about it,’ said she. ‘I shall never forget

it to my dying day, but I hate to think of it.’

‘It has shaken you sadly; but will you go out with me another day?’

‘Oh yes! To-morrow if you like.’

‘That is truly good of you,’ said he, softly. ‘Your shawl is not warm

enough,’ he added, stopping, as she shivered a little, and he altered

it and folded it more closely about her. As they stood there, his eyes

looked into hers, and by the moonlight he saw that hers were full of

fear, and that her face was white, and her expression one of pain.

‘I ought not to have brought you out,’ he said, regretfully.

‘No; I think I should like to go in again, please,’ said Nita.

‘You shall, now that I know how good you are,’ he answered, lifting up

the hand that lay upon his arm, and stooping his beautiful head towards

it, he touched the tips of her fingers with his lips. ‘What a long time

it seems since we walked here this morning,’ he added, ‘does it not?’

‘A very long time,’ responded Nita, in a voice of exceeding weariness.

They entered the drawing-room again, and Wellfield, speaking to Mr.

Bolton, said:

‘I am sure Miss Bolton ought not to sit up any longer. She has been

more shaken than she will own by her accident this afternoon, and——’

‘Nita, say good-night, and go to bed,’ said her father, presenting her

simultaneously with a candle and a kiss. ‘Here, shake hands with her,

Mr. Wellfield. Good-night, child. Off with you.’

* * * * *

Nita, locked in her room, began her preparations for writing. She had

inscribed the words:

‘How much I have to record! What a day this has been! What a century

of events and emotions have been compressed into a brief and fleeting

fourteen or fifteen hours. And how little I thought when——’

She broke off abruptly, cast her pen down, and started from her chair,

pacing about the room; her hands before her face, and short, tearless

sobs now and then breaking from her lips.

‘Oh! what shall I do?’ she whispered. ‘What will become of me? I

believe I had better have died before I had seen him. But if he loved

me—oh! if God would let him love me—what am I saying?... I am afraid. I

wish some one were here. I dare not be alone.’

She opened the door softly. On the mat before it lay Speedwell; he

raised his head, blinked at her, and moved his great tail up and down

slowly.

‘Speedwell, come in!’ she whispered, beckoning to him. The mastiff

obeyed. Nita locked him into the room with her, and as he sat looking

up at her, inquiring why she was troubled, she cast her arms about his

faithful neck, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

When the paroxysm was over, and she looked at him, tears were coursing

down Speedwell’s nose too.

‘You will never tell anyone, will you, Speedwell?’ she muttered. ‘You

are wiser and stronger than your mistress, old dog and old friend.’

Speedwell watched beside the bed on which his mistress passed a

restless night; her brain full of the rapidly changing images of

alternating hope and anguish, rapture and despair and love, with which

her day had been filled.

When morning came, and she looked in her glass, it showed her a very

wan, white face, with dark rings round the eyes, and a piteous curve

about the lips—a face changed indeed from that which, if not beautiful,

had given joy to many, and had hitherto been thought a sweet face by

those who loved and knew it best.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FIRST OF BRENTWOOD.

‘I found myself in a richly adorned temple, in which incense was

burning, where lights were twinkling above the altar, and where the

music was such as to ravish away my very senses. And as I fell upon

my knees, the choir, which from its sweetness I could have thought

celestial, repeated many times in moving accents, the wish of my

heart—so that it became verily a prayer—and I poured out my soul in

unison—_dona nobis pacem_.’

THE following day was Sunday, and on the arrival of the letters, Jerome

found two for himself, one bearing the Elberthal post-mark, the sight

of which made his heart beat. The other was directed in a hand he

did not know, but turning it over, he saw printed on the flap of the

envelope ‘Brentwood.’

‘It must be from Somerville, of course,’ he thought, opening it

quickly, and his conjecture was right.

‘MY DEAR MR. WELLFIELD,

‘Will you, if you have no other engagement, and if the evening is

fine, come up to Brentwood to the evening service? I should like to

present you to the Superior, and we shall be happy if you will remain

and sup with us.

‘Sincerely yours,

‘PABLO SOMERVILLE.’

This invitation gave him a sense of relief, inexplicable, but strong.

With Father Somerville he felt entirely at his ease; felt that he was

understood, was not taken to be a hero, or anything else that he really

was not. Here, at the Abbey, he had the very opposite sensation. He

knew that he was looked upon in the light of an unusual and remarkable

phenomenon. He knew, for he had a keen, sympathetic intuition in

such matters, that Mr. Bolton treated him with a respect he was not

wont to show to strangers—especially penniless ones—that even Miss

Shuttleworth’s pointed and elaborate incivility arose chiefly from a

feeling she had that he was dangerous. John Leyburn alone appeared to

preserve his natural, deliberate, unembarrassed manner.

Nita—Jerome felt very uncomfortable when he thought of Nita—very

uncomfortable as his eyes wandered from Sara Ford’s handwriting to

Anita Bolton’s face, which face he saw was pale, and the reason of

which pallor he knew as well as if some one had arisen and proclaimed

it aloud to him. They were all, without exception, under a false

impression in regard to him. How easy, exclaims a devoted adherent of

right-doing, to remove that false impression! How very easy casually

to let them all know that he was promised and vowed to another woman!

Was not the excuse there in the shape of Sara’s letter? Why not mention

that it was from the girl he was engaged to? What easier? Ah! what

to some natures? And to others what more difficult? Unfortunately it

was difficult to Jerome. He did resolve, as he looked at Nita that

morning, and saw the difficulty she had in meeting his eyes, that he

would not make love to her any more; that he would be cold to her even.

Such natures as his are given to making such resolutions in momentary

silence and reflectiveness; and when the moment comes for not making

love, for displaying coldness, they never recognise it; it is always

‘not now, another time!’ And this, not for fear of hurting a woman’s

feelings, though they would say so, even to themselves, but because

the flattery of a woman’s love is too sweet a dram to be forborne. It

was easy for Jerome Wellfield as he sat exchanging commonplaces at

the breakfast-table with Nita—and Nita’s father—to swear to himself

that such commonplaces alone should be the yea, yea, and the nay, nay,

of his entire conversation with her. When the moment came, in which

he found himself alone with her, or apart with her, the old trick of

the eyes, the old smoothness of the tongue slips back again, as if by

some fatality. So long as she believes him he will make love to her;

so long as she will worship him, he will accept the worship, and will

delight in it—and could not refuse it when it was offered, were the

alternative a plunge into the nethermost abyss of remorse—into the

scorching flames of discovery. Therefore, it may be predicted with

mathematical certainty that he will read that letter that lies before

him; that it will both charm and distress him—the first by its worship

of himself; the next by making him see that the writer believes him

as single-hearted as she is herself. After reading it, he will vow to

himself, much and more, ‘I must tell her—I will tell her.’ And he will

go to her, and will tell her—how precious her sympathy is to him, and

how perfect is her nature, and he will look love, if he does not speak

it.

While he was longing to open Sara’s letter, and vowing great vows to

undeceive Nita as early as might be, she said:

‘We are going to church this morning, Mr. Wellfield. Will you come too,

or would you prefer to stay at home?’

‘I will go with pleasure,’ he answered. Be it observed that in

Wellfield’s nature there was not, and never had been, one grain of

scepticism in matters religious. It is true he was utterly indifferent

so far as practice was concerned, and that, according to the company he

happened to be in, he would, for weeks or months at a time, either go

diligently to some place of worship once, or even twice each Sunday,

or never enter one at all, or even think of the matter. Where he went

was also almost entirely a matter of indifference, except that he never

frequented conventicles, not at all because he disapproved of the

tenets held by their supporters, of which he knew nothing, or less than

nothing, but because the services held in them were so bald and tame,

so ugly and ascetic; they appealed in no way to his æsthetic sense,

but rather repelled it. Anywhere where he could have a fine service,

hear fine voices read or intoned, and where there was good music in

which he could join, was acceptable to him, and all his life he had

wandered indifferently whither friends or fancy led him, to services

and churches of all kinds, but perhaps more to Roman Catholic ones

than to any others. As a small child he had always attended mass with

his mother, had learnt to say his _Ave Maria_ and his _Pater Noster_;

and these remembrances remained with him; part of the influences of

Italy. He remembered them as he remembered his mother’s dark eyes, and

gem-like brilliance of beauty—like a delicious dream of another world.

All this, however, did not prevent his putting on his hat and walking

with Nita and her father down the river walk, across the field to

the church. They sat in the stalls, one row of which ‘went’ with the

Abbey property. How well he remembered it all. If the service were

not of the most elaborate or beautiful, there were other objects in

Wellfield Church which made up for a somewhat bald ritual. There was

for instance, much charm for an æsthetic soul in the magnificent carved

work of the splendid old black-oak stalls in which they sat, and in

the many other odd old pews and strange devices dotted up and down.

The singing was of a nature to make the blood freeze in the veins of

him who had any pretence to being a musician. The choir consisted of

a number of young men and women accommodated with seats in the west

gallery, a conspicuous position, close to the organ; and to do justice

to their exalted places, no doubt, they were in the habit of attiring

themselves in the very height of the Wellfield fashion, which fashion,

for brilliance of hue and boldness of contrast, would have put to shame

Solomon in all his glory. Jerome found himself seated next to Miss

Margaret Shuttleworth, who looked uncompromising. In the dim distance

he saw John Leyburn, alone in a great square carved oak pew, the pew

that belonged to his house, Abbot’s Knoll, for free and open benches

were as yet unheard of in Wellfield.

The service over, they nearly all met at the door, as is the fashion

with country congregations. Jerome, having ascertained that the family

dinner did not come off for the space of an hour and a half, or more,

said he was going for a walk, and wandered off in the direction of

the wooded hill, the Nab, there to read his letter, and make good

resolutions with regard to Nita, with an undercurrent of wonder, all

the time, as to what Father Somerville would tell him he ought to do,

if he knew all the circumstances of the case.

Nita and John Leyburn, not noticing where Jerome went, presently

strolled off in the same direction. Mr. Bolton remained with his

cousin, Miss Shuttleworth, patiently waiting till she had finished her

discourse with an odd-looking character, no less a personage than the

sexton of Wellfield church.

‘I’m sorry to hear, Robert, that you got too much on Monday.’

‘I fear I did, Miss Shuttleworth,’ he said, looking rather sheepish.

‘It is deplorable,’ said Miss Margaret, shaking her head. ‘How was it?

for your wife could give me no proper account of it, and unless you can

clearly prove that you were led away, I shall be obliged to show my

displeasure this time. I shall have to withdraw my allowance to Mary.’

Mary was his sick daughter.

‘It were aw along o’ th’ brass band contest, Miss Margit; ’twere, for

sure.’

‘The brass band contest, Robert? I don’t see how the brass band contest

could make you get tipsy and tumble into the grave you were digging, as

I heard you did. Is it true?’

‘Ay, every word on ’t’s true, Miss Margit—more’s th’ pity.’

‘Shame on you! But how did it happen?’

He twirled his hat round by the brim, and a lurking smile and twinkle

of the eye betrayed his inner consciousness that the affair had a

ludicrous as well as a ‘deplorable’ side.

‘Well, Miss Margit, I’d getten th’ grave above half-finished, when

I yeard th’ brass bands comin’ along to th’ Plough Inn, and it were

th’ middle o’ th’ arternoon, and I were summan (some and) dry, and I

were vary anxious for to hear who’d won, yo’ know, so I flings down my

spade, and I went off to th’ Plough, and theer I found ’em all—every

man on ’em. And we geet to talkin’, and first one offert me a drop, and

then another, till I geet to’ much—I’m free to confess it. I remembered

o’ of a suddent as th’ grave were to be ready again th’ mornin’, and

I jumped up, and ran to th’ churchyard, and set to work to dig wi’ a

will. And whether it was th’ heat—it _were_ gradely hot—or whether I

were fuddled, I know nowt about it, but I turned dizzy all of a moment,

and I tummled down, and fell fast asleep. Th’ graves were o’er yonder,

at th’ fur end o’ th’ yard, and mappen that were why no one seed me,

and wakkened me oop, but when I did awake, it were well-nigh dark, and

I couldna tell for t’ life of me, where I were. So I sets oop and looks

around, and there in the far distance I yeard th’ sound of a trumpet.

My heart louped to my mouth, and I thowt, “Robert Stott, it’s last

trump; up wi’ thee!” and I ups and clambers out, and stands still.

Ne’er a soul could I see, and aw’ were as still as death. Findin’

mysel’ alone, I took courage, for I knew as the more part should be o’

th’ wrong side i’ th’ day o’ judgment—our parson’s olez said so, and

I’ve a feelin’ as he’s reet. Then again I yeard th’ trumpet-blast, and

I looked around again. “What, no more righteous?” I said to mysel’.

“Eh, but it’s a poor show for Wellfield.”’

‘_Robert!_’ was all that Miss Shuttleworth could ejaculate,

horror-struck.

‘Yes, Miss Margit?’

‘What you say proves you to be in a very unsatisfactory frame of mind

as regards religion.’

‘Well, ma’am, I’ve olez agreed gradely well with th’ owd vicar. It’s a

grand thing to be _reet_, Miss Margit—a grand thing it is—and _we’re_

reet. I see my son-in-law a-calling to me, so I’ll say good-mornin’.’

With which, before she could stop him, Robert Stott had made good his

escape.

‘Now, perhaps you’ll allow us to go to the Abbey, cousin,’ observed Mr.

Bolton, shaking in a volley of silent chuckles.

‘I am astonished at you, cousin,’ was all the answer he received, as

Miss Margaret, with her head in the air, floated towards the wicket

leading to the Abbey.

But her head suddenly went down again as she recalled her niece’s

words yesterday, ‘Don’t you see when you are being laughed at, aunt?’

‘Is it possible that Stott was laughing at me? Surely he would not have

such insolence!’

Pondering upon this tremendous topic, she had eyes and ears for nothing

else until Mr. Bolton observed:

‘You’ll walk into the river, cousin, directly. Would you like to go in,

or shall we walk about till the young ones come back?’

‘Oh, they are all off, are they?’ she said, raising her head, and

collecting her faculties again. ‘That gives me just the opportunity I

wish for. Do you know what you are doing, Stephen?’

‘Doing? As how?’

‘In harbouring that young Wellfield in your house?’

‘I invited him to stay a few days, if that’s what you call

“harbouring,” cousin.’

‘Pooh! You know what I mean. Had you no thought for the probable

consequences when you committed that rash act?’

‘What do you mean by the probable consequences? At present they seem to

me to consist in my having become better acquainted with Mr. Wellfield,

and feeling considerable respect for him.’

‘Respect! respect for a Wellfield! I am astonished at you. _You_ have

become better acquainted with him; but not so well acquainted with him

as your daughter.’

‘My daughter—you mean that Nita admires him—or that he is likely to

fall in love with her?’

A fine sneer played about Miss Shuttleworth’s lips.

‘He is very likely to fall in love with Nita’s money. As for herself,

no Wellfield ever cared for any person but his own.’

‘You are prejudiced, cousin, as we all know.’

‘Will you deny that when two people are thrown together as Nita and

that young man are likely to be, it is probable that nothing will come

of it on either side?’

‘It is not probable,’ he returned, quietly.

‘Do you mean to say that you will allow Nita to fall in love with him,

and do nothing to prevent it?’

‘It is a matter I do not choose to discuss. There are other

probabilities on the cards besides the probability of Nita’s falling in

love with him.’

‘If that’s your way of looking at it, I’ve done,’ replied Miss

Margaret, mightily offended, and prancing onwards with her head higher

than ever. ‘Indeed, I think I will go into the house.’

‘As you please,’ he returned. ‘I am going to stroll about here for a

short time.’

Miss Shuttleworth stalked onwards in dudgeon. Mr. Bolton was left

pacing by the river walk.

‘It is an odd complication,’ he was reflecting, ‘and it would be an

odd result if I should have toiled all these years to place my child

and this place into the hands of one of the old stock once more. But it

must be as will make the child most happy. As for him, he may make an

admirable gentleman of property and an excellent husband, but he will

never make money. He may learn sufficient of business habits to be able

to keep it together when it is there, but the business he conducted

would soon stand still. Still, if he is honest, and honourable, and a

gentleman in thought and feeling, as he appears to be, and the man who

will make my little girl happy—which I begin to think is the case—there

seems a sort of appropriateness in his being a Wellfield. It was

through no sin of his that he lost the place, and from all I can hear

he has been perfectly well-conducted. At least, I can see no reason

for forcibly separating them, and why should not my daughter marry a

high-born gentleman? She is worthy the best in the land.’

More meditations, all tending in the same direction—more pacing to

and fro, until, raising his eyes, he saw his daughter approaching,

accompanied by Jerome Wellfield. Nita’s eyes were bright, and there was

a soft flush upon her cheeks. She looked undeniably pretty. Wellfield

looked as he always did—handsome with a beauty which is given to few

men to wear, stately and high-bred more than most men.

‘They make a goodly couple,’ thought the fond father. ‘She is a winsome

lass, and he—yes, by gad, there is something in birth and breeding. He

looks the right master for a place like this.’

With which jumble of fatherly pride, commercial astuteness, and prudent

calculation, he advanced to meet them.

‘John has gone home to dinner,’ said Nita; ‘he’s coming down in the

evening.’

* * * * *

Wellfield’s reflections, as he walked towards Brentwood, were far from

being agreeable. He had Sara’s letter, with its calm acceptance of

the fact that he loved her as she loved him—she spoke of it as if it

had been one of the ordinances of nature—unalterable as the laws of

the Medes and Persians. She showed him at the same time how very much

she loved him, and that stroked his self-complacency the right way;

but the other feeling chafed him. Inevitably, from his character, from

the inborn, inherited tendencies of his nature, he asked himself,

‘What right had she to accept so unquestioningly his love—to assume

that nothing could change it—nothing shake it?’ She little knew the

temptations that were cast in his way—temptations from which she was

free. He forgot how persistently he had pressed the point upon her.

What would she do in case some other man were to fall in love with

her, as he was almost sure to do? Yet, as he remembered her few strong

simple expressions of devotion to himself, the whole extent of his love

for her rushed over him; he seemed to be once more under the potent

spell of her individuality—of her noble, upright, simple nature; to

feel once more the magic of her beauty, which answered so harmoniously

to her nature, as some Beethoven symphony answers in the grand and

original carving of its outward form to the grand and original fire of

the thoughts which gave it birth—as the greatest poems take the most

perfect shape, and are written in the most melodiously arranged words.

Yes, he knew he loved her—he knew that all the higher part of his

nature loved and worshipped her; but he knew that she had clear eyes,

and that oppressed him; and he knew that had those eyes beheld him, as

he sat alone with Nita Bolton by the river that afternoon, they would

have scorched him; had they seen Nita’s downcast face, and watched her

embarrassed replies to some of his questions, or beheld the still more

embarrassed silence which had been to him so eloquent, they would—how

would they have looked? Never at him again with the light of love in

them. He no longer said to himself that he would tell Nita to-morrow:

he had gone too far for that. All he could do now was to drift.

In this uncomfortable frame of mind he ascended the slope which led to

the gates of the drive through the park at Brentwood. Right before him

stretched a perfectly straight road, some quarter of a mile in length,

between two green meadows, each of which meadows was bordered by a belt

of dark firs. Many persons were, like himself, wending towards the mass

of grey buildings, and the great stone gate-posts, and the two huge

square fish-ponds, which lay at the end of this long road. A bell, too,

was tolling somewhere amongst the mass of buildings—some old, some new,

some not yet finished, which form the outward portion of the great

Jesuit College of Brentwood. Arrived at the entrance, between the two

fish-ponds, he inquired his way to the church, and was directed where

to go. Entering by a side-door, by some mistake, he found himself in

that portion of the church reserved for the students of the college.

Pausing, and looking round, he was accosted by a tall, grave-looking

‘philosopher’—a Spaniard, evidently—and, to judge from outward

appearances, no small personage by birth and breeding. Accepting his

offer of a place, Jerome found himself between the Spanish youth and

another foreigner in one of the front benches facing the high altar.

There was a dreamy calm over everything until the service began. The

congregation came slowly dropping in, chiefly rustics, countrymen,

women, and children, and here and there some group or isolated figure

of unquestionably higher rank and station.

With the different stages of the service Wellfield forgot his troubles.

It brought back associations of youth and pleasure, of music and

student-days—associations in nowise connected with Wellfield, with

his present life and surroundings—rather it led him to forget them,

which he was only too willing to do. The ritual was gorgeous, the music

magnificent, the choir and the organist first-rate. It soothed him,

calmed him, eased him, as all such observances must soothe and ease

those who can accept the principles which give rise to them. On their

knees they knelt, and again and again sounded, in strains of exquisite

supplication, the great cry, common to all humanity—_Dona nobis pacem_!

Ay! give us peace; though every moment we are off our knees we may be

doing, thinking, planning, hoping that which will destroy peace, yet,

Power that we invoke, heed not that, but, since we fall on our knees,

and set it to music, and are for the moment in earnest—‘Give us peace!’

It is a cry common to all; and those who pin their faith on creeds

imagine that it will be answered. Perhaps the conviction saves some

from madness, and others from blank despair—lulls some consciences,

shoots a ray of hope into some hearts—makes their lives bearable to

those who believe that peace comes from a source outside themselves—but

remains a delusion all the same. To-night, it had the effect of a drug

upon Jerome Wellfield’s conscience. _Dona nobis pacem!_ Surely there

would be some way ‘shown’ to him out of it all. _Dona nobis pacem!_

This strife could not be meant to go on for ever. For once in his life,

he prayed—prayed from his very heart—‘Give us peace!’

Somerville, who took no part in the service, watched him curiously from

his place, in a somewhat retired corner. The keen-eyed, quick-witted

priest rapidly noted the points of resemblance between Jerome Wellfield

and his two companions. Both the latter belonged to old Roman Catholic

families, and bore names of world-wide celebrity; both were amongst the

eldest and most advanced of the students, and already showing signs of

manhood, in deep voices and a dark line on the upper lip; they might,

therefore, justly be compared with Wellfield. All three had the same

high-bred pride of bearing, the pale, rather disdainful, features; the

same distinctly haughty carriage of head and shoulders—to each and all

was common a certain dreamy _schwärmerisch_ expression, indefinable,

but palpable—an expression which any acute observer must have noted.

‘Anyone coming in, and not knowing the circumstances,’ thought

Somerville; ‘knowing only that this is a Jesuit seminary, and that over

there the students sit, would inevitably say, “What a thoroughly Roman

Catholic-looking trio—especially that eldest one in the middle!”’ He

watched with more intentness still. Father Somerville was zealous for

his faith—he was ambitious too; he knew that in his Church services

of a tangible kind met with tangible rewards. To say that he then

and there formed a scheme, which he decided at all hazards to carry

out, would be to do a clever man egregious injustice. Simply, he had

a subtle brain and a natural turn for intrigue, which of course his

education and career had fostered. He saw possibilities—possibilities

which excited his active brain, and kindled his ambition and

imagination.

‘They were Catholics before—till not more than a hundred years ago,’ he

thought. ‘His mother was Catholic of the Catholic. Why not Catholics

again, if anything? Who knows? Time will show.’

The service over, there was a sermon, and presently the congregation

broke up, and streamed out into the open air. The students marched off

in procession, and departed by a side-door. Somerville just paused as

he passed, to whisper to Jerome:

‘If you will wait in the garden or on the playground, I will join you

in a few moments.’

And following this direction, Wellfield went out by the west-door,

and took his way to the broad space on the brow of the hill, which

seemed to form quite a little tableland in itself, and which was the

playground of Brentwood College. He paced about there, and watched the

crimson and purple pomp of the August sunset. It was a scene such as

one rarely beholds, rendered remarkable, too, by ancient historical

associations, and by the present fact, that, though within twenty or

thirty miles of all the great manufacturing towns and most powerful

radical centres of Lancashire, it was a Roman Catholic strong-hold;

in matters of religion a conservative nook, where change crept on

leaden foot. From this elevated vantage-ground Wellfield saw many

things associated with his own family and its history. There was the

ancient grey manor-house and church of Millholm; in which church was

a ‘Wellfield chapel,’ where ancestors of his had their marble tombs,

including that of the boy, the last direct heir male to Brentwood,

who had come to his death by eating poisonous berries in a wood. It

was after his death that Brentwood had passed into the hands of the

Jesuits. From his present standpoint he could see the three rivers,

each more beautiful than the other, which came very near to meeting,

and which had given rise to the old rhyme which Nita had repeated to

him yesterday:

‘Hodder and Calder, and Ribble and rain,

All meet together in Millholm demesne.’

To his right, eastwards, the immense bulk of Penhull closed up all

prospect beyond. Northwards were bleak Yorkshire moors. At the foot of

Penhull was the little conical mound on which stood all that was left

of old Clyderhow Castle. Southwards, the smoke-bedimmed moors round

Burnham, and Black Hambledon, showing out grimly against a background

of sky that mingled hues of copper and flame and smoke. And by scanning

intently the ground just below Wellfield Nab, and the course of its

river, he could discern where the village and Monk’s Gate stood. A

fair heritage, and it might have been his again, but for——

‘I am very sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Wellfield,’ said

Somerville’s voice at his elbow. ‘Will you not come into the house?’

‘Thank you. What a prospect this is!’ said Jerome, pausing, ‘and what a

phenomenon this place of yours, too; in this district of all others.’

‘Within call, you are thinking, of those centres of civilisation and

cultivation, Blackburn, Burnley, “proud Preston,” and even the monarch

of them all, Manchester,’ chimed in Somerville, a tinge of sarcasm in

his tones. ‘Yes, it is a phenomenon, I admit. I hope it did not bore

you to come to our service.’

‘Bore me? On the contrary, I have enjoyed it exceedingly.’

‘Won’t you come into the house? I want to present you to the Superior,

and you will remain to supper with us. Come and look at our libraries;

it will pass away an hour until we can see the Superior.’

Jerome followed him, and the hour that Somerville had spoken of was

passed agreeably enough, in wandering through all the wonderful rooms

full of wonderful things which the priest showed him. There was a quiet

stillness over everything—a Sabbath calm. The rays of the setting sun

made beautiful the great banqueting-hall of the old mansion, which

was now the principal refectory for a hundred and sixty students and

their accompanying tutors, priests, and professors. They wandered

through the libraries, whose cedar-wood bookcases filled the air with a

pleasant aromatic smell; and where one saw here and there a figure in

a square cap and a long cassock standing silent amongst the wilderness

of theology and black-letter in the one room—of patristic lore in the

second—of miscellaneous modern thought in the third. But to those who

know Brentwood, the repetition of its wonders waxes tedious—to those

who know it not, it must be tedious also. Wellfield did not know it,

and the charm which, when it was shown to him by so skilful an exponent

as Father Somerville, it was sure to cast over him, was a strong one.

Indeed, it is a place which cannot fail to impress all who see it with

a sense of wonder and admiration—it is a little town in itself—a centre

of learned leisure, of Jesuit subtilty, of refined cultivation, of

courtly hospitality towards those admitted within its precincts, and

all this planted upon the slope of a bleak Lancashire ridge of hill,

facing another bare hill which divides it from one of the most radical

of radical boroughs. It was, as Wellfield had said, a remarkable

phenomenon.

He was presented to the Very Reverend Father Superior. He was

courteously and graciously entertained at the simple but abundant

Sunday evening supper, and he heard and shared in conversation in which

he felt thoroughly at home—conversation adapted with skill and tact to

his own tastes and habits. He forgot his dilemma, until, when it was

almost ten o’clock, he rose to take his departure.

‘I will accompany you for a part of the way,’ said Somerville, and

after wishing his hosts good-night, Jerome set out with the companion

whose influence he felt already to be strong, but which was in fact

far stronger than he knew, or would have liked to know—strong because

it was the influence of a calm, concentrated, yet flexible nature upon

one which, though variable was not flexible; though passionate, was not

strong.

Still broad moonlight, they had no difficulty in making their way

through the scented lanes and between the tangled hedgerows. They

walked onwards, discoursing of different things, until they had left

Brentwood more than a mile behind, and found themselves at the top of

a hill, from which, looking down, they could see all the village of

Wellfield; its old church; the winding river, and the Abbey walls and

gates slumbering in the moonlight. They paused, and looked down upon it.

‘It is very beautiful,’ observed the priest at last.

‘God knows it is,’ responded Wellfield.

Another pause, when Somerville laid his hand upon the other’s shoulder,

and said, in a slow, reflective, earnest voice:

‘I wish to heaven that you were master there!’

Wellfield laughed a short, mirthless laugh. He knew what was meant, and

the impulse to speak freely was strong—so strong that he followed it.

‘That will never be. You have some power of divination, I am certain.

Since your conversation with me yesterday morning, I have been

convinced that what you said is true. I _might_ be master there if

I—chose.’

‘Then why not?’

‘Because to do it, I must sell myself body and soul. It would be hell

upon earth for her—and for me too.’

‘But she is not a woman with whom it would be hell-upon-earth to live,’

began Somerville, as if surprised.

‘Heavens! no. She is all that a girl ought to be, I think, and good as

only such girls can be. It is not that.’

‘Surely you don’t stick at the fact that you are not desperately in

love with her? In your position that would be a folly of which I cannot

believe you capable.’

‘No; such an idea never entered my mind.’

‘Then, since we are speaking upon the matter—since you broached it

yourself, let me tell you seriously, that, if there is not any real

tangible impediment in the way, I think you do wrong in every way not

to take the goods the gods offer you.’

Wellfield was silent for a prolonged space, till at last he said,

slowly, reluctantly, as if the words were wrung from him:

‘Honour binds me elsewhere.’

‘So! Another lady in the case!’ was the reply, given with a lightness

of tone, an absolute approach to a laugh, which surprised Wellfield,

and almost gave him a shock. He had expected his words to reduce

Somerville to silence to produce an apology for indiscretion. The

fact that nothing of the kind happened, had a subtle effect upon his

own mental attitude. Somerville went on, with a tact and an audacity

combined which were certainly remarkable:

‘Pardon me, I ask no names—indeed, I would rather you mentioned none;

but tell me, if you do not very much mind, this lady to whom honour

binds you—is she rich?’

‘No.’

‘Is she likely to be?’

‘Not unless she becomes so by her own exertions.’

‘And there is no definite prospect of marriage for you?’

‘As you may suppose, none—not even an indefinite one.’

‘I could suppose so. Well ... remember I speak quite without knowledge

of the circumstances, but knowing exactly what I do—no more and

no less, I should say, I hope that lady is aware of what is being

sacrificed for her sake.’

Jerome was perfectly silent. Perhaps he was not conscious of acting

like a cowardly hound. He did not realise, for Father Somerville was

too clever to allow him to do so—he did not then realise that the woman

who was his promised wife had been lightly spoken of—to him—and he had

lifted neither hand nor voice in protest.

‘That is my feeling,’ repeated Somerville; ‘but after this, I have no

right to urge you. But I repeat my words—I would to heaven that you,

Jerome Wellfield, were master here! Good-night!’

Wellfield wrung his hand, and took his homeward way. Somerville passed

slowly back towards the Brentwood Park, his hands clasped behind his

back, pondering, lost in thought, till at last he gave a sudden start

and stop.

‘Fool that I am!’ he murmured. ‘Instead of giving up the marriage, I

should do all in my power to urge it on. This woman in the background

is——I wish she were out of the way. And yet, if I could marry them in

spite of her.... A man and wife who live together in a hell-upon-earth

_must_ have resort to a third person for help, and it should go hard

if _I_ were not that third person. Upon my soul, I like the scheme.

If Wellfield Abbey and the money of that insolent heretic who lives

there now were once more under the control of the Church—it would be a

meritorious act in whoever had brought it about—another jewel in Our

Lady’s shrine, and,’ with a faint, sarcastic smile, ‘a step upwards for

Pablo Somerville. The young man himself is a Wellfield. If I can make

him act for our advantage, by playing upon that self of his, it is easy

to bring out the whip afterwards, when he has gone too far to retreat.’

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX.

‘DON’T FRET.’

AUGUST was verging slowly towards September; the hues of the flowers

were more gorgeous and more autumnal; the foliage of the trees had

taken a soberer, more mature tinge. The weather was sultry and still,

as it is wont at that time of the year to be.

One afternoon, Nita Bolton, book in hand, and Speedwell by her side,

paced slowly up and down the river walk, looking a little pale and

drooping. Always soon and easily tired; never of the strong, robust

temperament, she had looked of late more delicate than usual, and

when questioned as to the reason of her heavy eyes and pale cheeks,

had replied that ‘it was the heat—the sultry weather; the Abbey stood

so low; and the end of the summer was, she was convinced, the most

tiring and trying time of the whole year.’ She pooh-poohed all attempts

to make her neglect any of her usual duties, and attended to both her

outdoor and indoor tasks with unabated diligence; but the zeal, the

pleasure in them was gone. Then her father proposed that they should go

away on one of their usual tours—she and he and John—but Nita thought

she would prefer to wait until later in the year: Wellfield was so

beautiful now. When they did go away, she wished, she said, to go to

the Italian lakes, and in a month later it would be time enough for

that. Her word at home was a mandate, and her injunction was obeyed,

though John, in his slow and deliberate manner, did remind her that

there was a little touch of inconsistency between her two statements:

first, that the Abbey lay so low, and that this was the most tiring

and trying time of the whole year; and, second, that Wellfield was

nicer now than at any other season. To which she answered, a little

wearily, ‘How you quibble about things! I don’t want to go away from

home. I hate changes.’

Nita had always led a remarkably quiet life. Her friends in or about

Wellfield were very few; she had not a single intimate girlfriend. Her

father, and still more her cousin, John Leyburn, had always been her

greatest confidants. All things that a sister may say to and confide

in a brother whom she esteems and loves, and in whom she has the most

boundless trust and confidence, Nita had always been in the habit of

saying to and confiding in John Leyburn. His image was inseparable from

her scheme of life. She never saw him without a feeling of contented

pleasure—much the same feeling as that she experienced when Speedwell,

with a great sigh, came up to her, laid his great nose on her lap, and

looked with his honest brown eyes intently into her face. The idea of

life without John in it had never occurred to her. She was usually on

excellent terms with her father’s cousin, Miss Shuttleworth, knowing

her sterling worth; but her nature had not much real sympathy with the

sternly disciplinarian one of Aunt Margaret. Their terms were neutral.

The gaieties at Wellfield might be said to be—none. The Boltons visited

with none of the old families residing near the place; they were looked

upon, and they knew it, somewhat in the light of interlopers, which

fact had not troubled them much.

It sounds, in description, a dull life; but Nita had never found it so,

hers being essentially one of those natures to which ‘peace at home’ is

the one thing needful. She did not care to seek distractions outside,

and no amount of distractions could have filled up the ache which would

have been there if she had felt that at home, in the background,

there was a jar, a quarrel, a dissension of any kind. Indeed, I am not

sure that there may not be duller things for a girl than to live in a

beautiful home which she loves, with human interests around her, not

many, but deep, with a good father, a good friend, and a good dog as

her chief and almost her only associates. Such a life Nita Bolton had

led now for seven years—a silent, still, uneventful life, but one which

she had always found sufficient, nay, delightful. Vague yearnings after

lovers, and devotion, and romance, had been singularly absent from her

thoughts. She had literally wandered

‘In maiden meditation, fancy free.’

Sometimes, after reading some very noble or beautiful poem, some very

striking and powerful novel, she had, it is true, wondered a little

if life was ever to contain any romance for her, and had thought

that such a romance would be pleasant. Then, being well endowed with

a certain shrewd, homely, common sense, she had often observed her

own reflection in the looking-glass, and had said to herself, ‘Nita,

my child, don’t flatter yourself that any man will ever fall in love

with you for your beauty; and if he should tell you he does, don’t

believe him. He might like you for some of your other qualities, if

he ever took the trouble to find them out, and no doubt many persons

might be found to love your money, and take you with it as a necessary

appendage; but I think you would do best to keep heart-whole, and not

marry anyone at all.’

She had been very contented in this prospect, though it must be owned

she had never contemplated the future without placing in it the figure

of John Leyburn in the character of ‘guide, philosopher, and friend.’

Then her father had appeared one afternoon, with Jerome Wellfield at

his side, and from that hour Nita’s fixed and settled plans for life

were upset.

That she should have cast aside her crude, untried schemes and fancies

when the man appeared whom she loved, in spite of all efforts not to

love him, was perhaps not surprising; indeed, there was perhaps nothing

very surprising in the whole matter. But, in every deep, intense,

and powerful love there are tragic elements, and those elements were

present in this love of Nita’s. Not the least tragic one was, that

though, as time went on, Wellfield said many tender things to her, and

looked unutterable ones; though she loved him as her life, and would

have hailed as a foretaste of heaven the conviction that he loved her,

yet she never had that conviction. She did not feel that he loved

her; she only felt that the things which she had seen she now could

see no more, that her peace and repose of mind were gone, and that

thus it must be, until he or she were no more. She felt that she was

living in an unnatural manner—in a dream; that the equilibrium between

outward and inward things had received a shock. She knew, though she

would not have put it in those words, that, sooner or later, that

equilibrium must be readjusted—that something would come to restore it,

that the restoration might take many shapes. There was the equilibrium

which means happiness, the continuous adjustment of outer to inner

conditions; there was the imperfect adjustment of those conditions,

which meant more or less of sorrow and suffering; there is the final

equilibrium—that great adjustment of outward conditions to inward ones,

which we call death. Any of these things might come to her she vaguely

felt as she paced beside the river walk, with Speedwell beside her, and

saw the swirling eddies of the river, and heard its gurgle, and saw the

dull, hazy, sultry blue of the sky above her, and felt the warmth of

perfect summer in every vein.

Turning and raising her eyes, she saw Wellfield coming from the great

gateway towards her. He was on his way from Burnham, where he had been

trying to learn how to become a business man in her father’s office.

‘Good-afternoon, Miss Bolton. I have brought you good news.’

‘Have you? What kind of news?’

‘The news that I am at last going to relieve you of my presence

here, which you must have thought lately was to become a permanent

infliction. I have just been down to Monk’s Gate. The men wish to

persuade me that it is not nearly what it ought to be, but I told them

it would do very well for me, and that I should have no money to pay

them with if they did anything else. I showed them exactly what I would

have done. They are to finish to-night, by working an hour overtime,

and I shall go there to-morrow.’

He had taken his place by her side, as if he were accustomed to walk

there; had deprived her of the book, which she had shut up, and of the

sunshade that she had been carrying, and now he looked down at her and

waited for her to speak.

‘It—you—I think you have rather hurried them. Is it not rather a sudden

resolve?’

‘Sudden action, perhaps. But for more than a week I have been chafing

at the delay, and at the way in which I have been obliged to quarter

myself upon you here—a proceeding for which I have not the least

justification.’

‘Except that of having been often invited to remain as long as you

liked, or felt it convenient,’ said Nita, in a low voice.

‘I know you and Mr. Bolton have been kindness itself, and I can never

be grateful enough to you.’

‘I don’t see why, I am sure. Who has so good a right as you to be here?’

He laughed. ‘If I were obliged to bring a lawsuit for the restitution

of my property, I should like you to be the defendant,’ he said. ‘I

should win in a canter.’

Nita was silent.

‘At least, I shall not be far away from the Abbey,’ he went on, ‘and I

am glad of it. You will let me come up and see you, I hope, sometimes,

though I don’t hope for such privileges as Leyburn enjoys.’

‘John is like one of ourselves,’ said Nita, originally.

‘And I am not. I know that, and am constantly reminded of it.’

‘Shall you send for your sister now?’ asked Nita.

‘Not at once. I must wait till things are a little more certain. I am

getting on in my lessons at Burnham. I know how to do book-keeping now,

and your father has so much foreign correspondence that he says I shall

be of use to him.’

‘Do not speak in that way!’ exclaimed Nita; ‘you know I hate it.’

‘I only do it in the hope of making you see how reasonable it all is,

and how absurd it would be in me to expect anything else, and how

lucky I may feel myself.’

‘And how unlucky you feel yourself in reality,’ she replied. ‘Don’t try

to deceive me by talking in that way. Well, I hope you will like Monk’s

Gate, and that you will be—happy there.’

‘And I may come here sometimes?’

‘Of course.’

‘I shall invite you and Miss Shuttleworth to come and have tea with me.

I know Miss Shuttleworth honours that repast more than any other.’

Nita laughed a little dry laugh.

‘We will be sure to come,’ she said, ‘and we shall expect toast and

teacakes, and then bread and butter. I hope you will see that the tea

is strong enough, and that your servant puts a clean cloth on the

table. I hope you like housekeeping on that scale.’

She spoke rather savagely, as if she took a delight in saying something

almost insulting to him.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘Only that I wonder you can talk in such a manner. I wonder you

can submit to such an arrangement. It is monstrous!’ she answered,

indignantly.

It was Wellfield’s turn to laugh.

‘You are hopeless—so unpractical—so heroic in your ideas!’ he said.

‘And there is your father coming. Pray don’t favour him with such

remarks as you have just made to me, or he may say that if I am too

good for my place I can leave it, and then I wonder where I should be.’

Nita was silent, her breast heaving. Mr. Bolton came up, and Jerome

repeated his news to him too. He received it with a calmness which his

daughter thought barbarous. They all three went into the house. That

evening ‘as it is the last,’ both Nita and Jerome said, he sang for

them again. John was not there, nor Miss Shuttleworth. The visits of

both had become less frequent. Jerome was not sorry, and Nita, carried

onwards by her changed state of mind, was hardly conscious of it.

* * * * *

She sat quite alone in the drawing-room, on the following evening. It

was Friday—a busy day with her father, who was in Manchester, attending

a meeting, and who would not return till the last train at night.

She had heard John promise to go to Monk’s Gate and sit an hour with

Wellfield—‘by way of a housewarming,’ the latter had said, with a

sarcastic little laugh. Miss Shuttleworth had a class of village girls

on this particular evening. Nita therefore found herself in the strange

and unwonted position of being absolutely alone.

The stillness of the house grew oppressive to her, as the hours passed

by. It grew dark, and she sat alone. The day had been chilly and dull,

for the weather had suddenly changed, and the sun had not once during

the whole day shone out. Speedwell couched at her feet, and the lamp

was lighted and the shutters closed, to shut out the dark trees and

the shadowy garden.

As she sat thus alone, feeling her heart very desolate, the door was

opened, and John Leyburn came in.

‘John, you!’ she exclaimed, springing up and running to meet him—‘I

thought you were going to Monk’s Gate.’

‘So I am: on my way there now. But you didn’t think I should go without

looking in upon you—and your father away. You look remarkably desolate.’

‘Do I? Everyone has gone, and it is dull.’

‘If I had thought of it, I wouldn’t have gone to see Wellfield

to-night. I would have come and sat with you, my dear. Are you cold,

Nita? What’s the matter? Where’s your little red shawl? and why don’t

you have a fire?’

‘I think it is rather chilly this evening,’ said Nita, letting him fold

the little shawl round her shoulders. ‘Autumn will soon be here; and

then a day in Lancashire without sun is always cold, no matter what the

time of the year may be.’

‘So it seems,’ replied John, who had gone on his knees before the

grate, and removing a bowl filled with peacock’s feathers, disclosed

what is known, in Lancashire at any rate, as ‘a cold fire,’ laid ready

in the grate.

‘Where are the matches?’ he asked, finding them. He struck one, watched

the flame, and then came and sat down beside Nita.

‘I will stay till it has burned up,’ said he. ‘Nothing is more cheerful

than a good fire, and nothing more dismal than one just struggling into

existence.’

‘How kind you are, John,’ said Nita, looking up at him gratefully.

‘Pooh! Who would be otherwise to such a desolate-looking little person

as you are? I suppose your father will come by the ten o’clock train?’

‘I expect so. Oh, how nice that blaze is! I shall be quite happy now,

with this novel. It is one of those which you brought me from London.’

‘Which I understood you were not going to read.’

‘Oh, but I am. I am very much interested in it; and—don’t you think Mr.

Wellfield will be expecting you? _He_ will be lonely in his new house.’

‘It will do him no harm if he is. But I see you want me to be off.

Now, look here, Nita, don’t fret; there’s nothing in this life worth

fretting about.’

‘People fret because they can’t help it, not because things are worth

it or not worth it,’ said Nita, wearily. ‘Good-night! Thank you for

coming to cheer me up.’

‘Good-night,’ said John, kindly and gravely; and he stooped and touched

her forehead with his lips. Nita smiled faintly.

‘That is only for Christmas Days and birthdays,’ said she. ‘Three a

year, John; so the next one is forfeited.’

‘How do I know where we may both be when the next one falls due?’ he

replied, with a look in his eyes and a line upon his brow which she did

not quite understand. ‘Well good-night!’

[Illustration]

CHAPTER X.

INDIAN SUMMER.

JEROME was not without visitors when he was fairly established at

Monk’s Gate. John Leyburn frequently found his way down there, and so

did Father Somerville, and in him Wellfield found his most congenial

companion. They formed a strange trio, for the three were often there

together.

There was that year a short, gorgeous Indian summer, at the end of

September and the beginning of October. It was as warm as August; the

foliage a mass of beauty—a dying, sunset glow, ready to be whirled

away in showers at the first swirl of the equinoctial gales which would

assuredly succeed this calm. But in the meantime, while it lasted, it

was beautiful. They sat with open windows at Monk’s Gate, and with the

door set open too; and while the lamp burnt on the centre table, John

Leyburn stretched out his long limbs on the old settee, and smoked

his pipe; while Somerville, in the easy-chair at the other side of

the window, twisted cigarettes with his long, slender fingers; and

Jerome, at the piano, would play, or sing, or improvise, for hours.

Many a one of the village people, many a ‘lover and his lass,’ would

pause to lean upon the top of the gate and hearken to the broken,

fitful gusts of sound which came wafted to them from the open window

and door. Strange, weird harmonies of Liszt, and Chopin, and Schumann,

smote their astonished ears, and songs still stranger and more eerie

than the tunes—deep, mournful German melodies, or some wild, homely,

_Volkslied_ would float out and strike them with wonder, such music

being assuredly for the first time heard in Wellfield.

Once or twice on these evenings, sometimes alone, and sometimes with

John (when he was not at Monk’s Gate), always with her big dog by her

side, a girl’s figure had passed the gate as the music was going on.

Once it had been a passionate love-song that was borne to her ears, and

once again the overpowering sweetness of a movement of the so-called

‘Moonlight’ sonata. She had turned her face towards the place whence

the sounds came, but neither hurried nor stayed her sauntering walk,

and, returning the greetings of those who loitered and listened, had

passed on. Those evenings of music were the only pleasant part of

Jerome’s existence at that time. Then he forgot for a moment Nita’s

pale face and Sara’s letters; then the old student days seemed to

have returned again—the old days of music, of midsummer madness, of

‘carelesse contente.’

Letters came to him there, of course, from Sara and from his sister,

letters telling him of their every-day life, and of the incidents of

it. With each of these letters his mental debate was opened up afresh,

until he began to dread them, for he knew that they were noble. He

knew that the atmosphere in which Sara lived—of waiting, of patience,

of hope, and of steadfast love, was a reproach to his own wretched

vacillations of mind. Her calmness and strength oppressed him, overawed

him. It was no longer a question with him as to whether he should tell

Nita Bolton that he loved another woman; the question was now, how to

approach with Sara the subject of his desiring to be free. He did not

in the least know how the position had come about, but it was there.

Unable to make up his mind to _do_ anything, he contented himself with

answering Sara’s letters in a strain far more ardent than that in which

she wrote to him, protesting the entire devotion for her which he felt,

as he wrote.

It was, perhaps, Jerome Wellfield’s misfortune that these two women

loved him so much and so deeply that they let him see too easily how

dear he was to them. It is possible that a featherweight might have

turned the scale. Had Sara Ford not confessed her love with such an

utter frankness and self-abnegation—had he entertained any doubt as

to his success with her, surely he must have been more circumspect.

Dire necessity, and the fear of losing the prize, must have kept him

honest. And had Nita Bolton’s love been differently shown—in a less

subtile, coarser, opener way—most assuredly the charm there of wealth

and restored fortunes must have been powerless. But he knew that Sara

Ford worshipped him heart and soul, that he was the light of her eyes

and the joy of her life. And he knew that Nita Bolton loved him with

the love that is patient, and enduring, and tenacious; that his joy was

her joy, and his sorrow her sorrow; that for him or for his advantage

she would efface herself, and rejoice that she was permitted to do so.

And with affairs in this state the Indian summer came to an end.

[Illustration]

STAGE III.

CHAPTER I.

INTERMEDIATE.

THE Professor’s grand, rugged face and delicate, artist brow were

somewhat clouded. He rose from the chair before the easel, on which he

had been sitting, and laid his brush down.

‘You have not done much since I was last here,’ he remarked.

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ replied Sara Ford, who had been standing near

him watching him as he touched her picture here and there. The scene

was her atelier. The time was a broiling afternoon in September; but

here, in this sunless room, facing north, it was cooler than elsewhere.

She was dressed in a long, plain gown of some creamy white stuff. Her

face was pale, and her eyes somewhat heavy and languid. The masses of

wavy, chestnut hair lay somewhat heavily and droopingly over the white

temples and broad brow. The only spot of decided colour about her was

the glossy dark-green leaves of a _Gloire de Dijon_ rose which was

stuck in the breast of her dress—a species of rose which Professor

Wilhelmi, with his keen and observant artist’s eye, had remarked his

favourite pupil had lately become very fond of wearing. He had noticed,

too, that during the past few weeks she had become, if possible, more

beautiful than ever, with a sudden glow and blaze of beauty which was

none the less brilliant in that it was accompanied by a silence and

quietness greater than of yore. Wilhelmi was an artist to his very

soul. Creed, nationality, and rank counted as nothing, and less than

nothing, with him. Genius was his care and his watchword. Two years

ago he had, he believed, found that Sara Ford had received a spark

of the divine fire, and from that moment she had been as his own

child to him—his soul’s child, the child of his highest and purest

individuality. And as time went on he had thought also to discover

in her the industry which some have said _is_ genius. All had gone

triumphantly until at the end of last July she had returned from her

visit to Nassau, and he, coming to her to resume his lessons, had found

that something had taken flight—something else had appeared in its

place. The exchange was the more annoying in that he could not name

either the one thing or the other. As she spoke to him now, he glanced

down at her large white hand, which had been resting on the easel as he

and she spoke. Had that ring of sapphires which had replaced the old

diamond rose that she used to wear anything to do with the change in

her?

‘How you have changed my inanimate little daub, Herr Professor!’ she

said. ‘It was without life. All that I do now seems without life.

Sometimes I think I had better put away my paint and my brushes, and

lock up my atelier for the next six months, and not look at a canvas

for that length of time.’

‘Do so, if you can,’ he replied; ‘but if you do I shall know that your

nature has changed.’

She was silent, still looking down upon the sketch. Wilhelmi, who

looked grave and concerned, did not speak for a short time. At last he

said:

‘Do you know that poor Goldmark died this morning?’

‘Did he!’ exclaimed Sara, a rapid flash of sorrow and sympathy passing

over her face. ‘How very sad! Such a talent and such a career cut off

in that manner.’

‘Ay, sad enough. But there are sadder things than for a career to be

cut off by death. There is the palsy of self-satisfaction, which has

virtually killed the very finest talent over and over again, while

leaving the body as strong and flourishing as ever. Poor Goldmark was

rather too much the other way. Nothing that he did ever satisfied him.’

‘Then do you not think he had genius?’ asked Sara.

‘N——no—I cannot call his gift genius. It just fell short of the happy

inspired audacity of genius. It was talent of the very highest order.’

‘That was always my idea of him. Won’t his wife and children be rather

badly off?’

‘I am afraid they will. But Frau Goldmark is rather a stirring little

woman. Something will be contrived for them, I doubt not.’

‘Are you going? This has been a short lesson.’

‘It has,’ he answered with the same ambiguous little fold in his

forehead. ‘You have not supplied me with much material to teach upon

this time. You must work, my dear child—work while it is to-day,’ he

added earnestly. ‘Bear my words in mind. Work while it is to-day, and

let nothing interfere, or you will have to repent your idleness in dust

and ashes.’

With which, not waiting for any reply, he left her.

Sara looked after him dreamily. ‘What does he mean?’ she speculated.

‘But I know. He finds a change in me; and I am changed, even to myself.

Sometimes I think the old spirit has completely left me, and yet how

can that be? It will all come right again, I suppose. But I wish—I wish

it might be soon.’

She sighed as she put down her palette, and sat down before her easel

in the chair which Wilhelmi had lately occupied, and, amid the profound

stillness of the quiet afternoon, let her thoughts wander off there

where now they were for ever straying. She was too much under the

influence of her love for Wellfield to be able to reflect whether that

influence were a good or a bad one. That said, all is said; it contains

her mental history for the past two months, and accounts for the

depression which stole over Wilhelmi’s face and into his keen eyes as

he saw her; it accounts too for the nameless paralysis which had stolen

the cunning from her right hand, and from her soul the ardent zeal for

her art. She was Sara Ford still, but Sara Ford metamorphosed. Wilhelmi

sorrowfully told himself one day that there was now more life and

spirit in the water-colour sketches which _die Kleine_, as he called

Avice Wellfield, made, than in those of his dearest pupil, of which but

lately he had been so proud.

‘I am certain it’s some wretched love affair!’ he muttered, as he

strode abstractedly away from the Jägerstrasse towards his own house.

‘Good heavens! to think of _that_ woman’s talent being palsied by some

wretched sentimental _Schwärmerei_; it is horrible. Why is not genius

created senseless, sexless, sentimentless? But then, of course, it

could never appeal to sense, and sex, and sentiment, as it must if it

is to be an influence. It is a thousand pities, it is lamentable. And

Falkenberg wrote of her in what might for him be called enthusiastic

strains. I wish there were some way of saving her. I wish the man would

play false, or that some shock would rouse her from this apathy!’

It may here be casually observed that Professor Wilhelmi cherished a

conviction that he understood woman, and could account for and cure

all her vagaries, had he but the power placed in his hands. It was a

delusion broken every day by the conduct of his own wife and daughter,

to whom, in all matters outside his art, he was a slave, but he lived

in it still, and would live in it till he died.

Meantime the Indian summer dawned, and flamed itself out here too, as

well as at Wellfield. September went out, and October was ushered in

with unusual mildness and glory. It was a sight to gladden the eyes of

an artist, even the low flat country which at Elberthal stretches for

unbroken miles on either side the broad Rhine. For there were glorious

sunsets, colouring river, and field, and town, with strange glorified

lights, and at that sunset-time in the Hofgarten, the yellow golden

beams shone in a glowing, dazzling mist through the autumn trees, and

flooded every twig, every stick and stone, with mellow radiance. At

that time the stalls of the old women at the street corners were piled

high with grapes, and plums, and russet pears, which fruits were to be

purchased for almost nothing. At that time it was good to sail down

the river to Kaiserswerth, or up the stream to Neuss, and to return at

sunset, and watch the pomp of it glorifying the majestic river. There

was no striking beauty of crag or waterfall, of castled Drachenfels or

magic Loreley, but there were the great plains stretching Hollandwards,

dressed in their autumn garments; the broad expanse of water sweeping

by, strong and untroubled; the busy humming town behind, with its

throb of varied life, its many interests, its treasures of art and joy,

its music and melody, inseparable from all true German life.

The two girls lived on, happy and contented. To them came no word of

what was going on at Wellfield. They knew nothing of the long parley

which their best-beloved was even then standing to hold with baseness

and dishonesty, while honour and honesty stood by. Had they known, they

too could have told him what perhaps his own conscience had more than

once whispered to him: that honour and honesty will not continue such a

parley for ever. They will not always remain there, holding out their

neglected hands for us to clasp. There comes a time when they will wait

no longer, but will withdraw their hands, fold their mantles around

them, turn away, and leave us to consort with the company ourselves

have chosen.

[Illustration]