Cold Heart
At that very moment the two sisters in question were driving home in
the opposite corners of the carriage in the dark.
"Really, Lenore," was Lady Tyrrell saying, "you are a very
impracticable girl."
There was a little low laugh in answer.
"What blast has come and frozen you up into ice?" the elder sister
added caressingly; but as she felt for Eleonora's hand in the dark,
she obtained nothing but the cold handle of a fan. "That's just
it!" she said, laughing; "hard ivory, instead of flesh and blood."
"I can't help it!" was the answer.
"But why not? I'm sure you had admiration enough to turn any girl's
head."
No answer.
Lady Tyrrell renewed her address still more tenderly--"Lenore,
darling, it is quite needful that you should understand your
position."
"I am afraid I understand it only too well," came in a smothered
voice.
"It may be very painful, but it ought to be made clear before you
how you stand. You know that my father was ruined--there's no word
for it but ruined."
"Yes."
"He had to give up the property to the creditors, and live on an
allowance."
"I know that."
"And, of course, I can't bear speaking of it; but the house is
really let to me. I have taken it as I might any other house to
let."
"Yes," again assented Eleonora.
"And do you know why?"
"You said it was for the sake of the old home and my father!" said
the girl, with a bitter emphasis on the _said_.
"So it was! It was to give you the chance of redeeming it, and
keeping it in the family. It is to be sold, you know, as soon as
you are of age, and can give your consent. I can't buy it. Mine is
only a jointure, a life income, and you know that you might as well
think of Mary buying Golconda; but you--you--with such beauty as
yours--might easily make a connection that would save it."
There was only a choked sound.
"I know you feel the situation painfully, after having been mistress
so long."
"Camilla, you _know_ it is not that!"
"Ah, my dear, I can see farther than you avow. You can't marry till
you are twenty-one, you know; but you might be very soon engaged,
and then we should see our way. It only depends on yourself.
Plenty of means, and no land to tie him down, ready to purchase and
to settle down. It would be the very thing; and I see you are a
thoroughly sensible girl, Lena."
"Indeed! I am not even sensible enough to know who is to be this
purchaser."
"Come, Lena, don't be affected. Why! he was the only poor creature
you were moderately gracious to."
"I! what do you mean?"
Lady Tyrrell laughed again.
"Oh!" in a tone of relief, "I can explain all that to you. All the
Strangeways family were at Rockpier the winter before you came, and
I made great friends with Margaret Strangeways, the eldest sister.
I wanted very much to hear about her, for she has had a great deal
of illness and trouble, and I had not ventured to write to her."
"Oh! was that the girl young Debenham gave up because her mother
worried him so incessantly, and who went into a Sisterhood?"
"It was she who broke it off. She found he had been forced into it
by his family, and was really attached elsewhere. I never knew the
rights of it till I saw the brother to-night."
"Very praiseworthy family confidence!"
"Camilla, you know I object to that tone."
"So do most young ladies, my dear--at least by word."
"And once for all, you need have no fancies about Mr. Lorimer
Strangeways. I am civil to him, of course, for Margaret's sake; and
Lady Susan was very kind to me; but if there were nothing else
against him, he is entirely out of the question, for I know he runs
horses and bets on them."
"So does everybody, more or less."
"And you! you, Camilla, after what the turf has cost us, can wish me
to encourage a man connected with it."
"My dear Lena, I know you had a great shock, which made the more
impression because you were such a child; but you might almost as
well forswear riding, as men who have run a few horses, or staked a
few thousands. Every young man of fortune has done so in his turn,
just by way of experiment--as a social duty as often as not."
"Let them," said Eleonora, "as long as I have nothing to do with
them."
"What was that pretty French novel--Sybille, was it?--where the
child wanted to ride on nothing but swans? You will be like her,
and have to condescend to ordinary mortals."
"She did not. She died. And, Camilla, I would far rather die than
marry a betting man."
"A betting man, who regularly went in for it! You little goose, to
think that I would ask you to do that! As you say we have had
enough of that! But to renounce every man who has set foot on a
course, or staked a pair of gloves, is to renounce nine out of ten
of the world one lives in."
"I do renounce them. Camilla, remember that my mind is made up for
ever, and that nothing shall ever induce me to marry a man who
meddles with the evils of races."
"Meddles with the evils? I understand, my dear Lena."
"A man who makes a bet," repeated Eleonora.
"We shall see," was her ladyship's light answer, in contrast to the
grave tones; "no rules are without exceptions, and I only ask for
_one_."
"I shall make none."
"I confess I thought you were coming to your senses; you have been
acting so wisely and sensibly ever since you came home, about that
young Frank Charnock."
Lady Tyrrell heard a little rustle, but could not see that it was
the clasping of two hands over a throbbing heart. "I am very glad
you are reasonable enough to keep him at a distance. Poor boy, it
was all very well to be friendly with him when we met him in a place
like Rockpier, and you were both children; but you are quite right
not to let it go on. It would be mere madness."
"For him, yes," murmured the girl.
"And even more so for you. Why, if he had any property worth
speaking of, it would be a wretched thing to marry into that family!
I am sure I pity those three poor girls! Miles's wife looks
perfectly miserable, poor thing, and the other two can't conceal the
state of things. She is just the sort of woman who cannot endure a
daughter-in-law."
"I thought I heard Lady Rosamond talking very affectionately of
her."
"Very excitedly, as one who felt it her duty to stand up for her
out-of-doors, whatever she may do indoors. I saw victory in those
plump white shoulders, which must have cost a battle; but whatever
Lady Rosamond gains, will make it all the worse for the others. No,
Eleonora, I have known Mrs. Poynsett's rancour for many years, and I
would wish no one a worse lot than to be her son's fiancee, except
to be his wife."
"She did not seem to object to these marriages."
"The sons took her by surprise. Besides, Raymond's was the very
parti mothers seek out for their sons. Depend upon it, she sent him
off with her blessing to court the unexceptionable cousin with the
family property. Poor Raymond, he is a dutiful son, and he has done
the deed; but, if I am not much mistaken the little lady is made of
something neither mother nor son is prepared for, and he has not
love enough to tame her with."
"That may be seen at a glance. He can't help it, poor fellow; he
would have had it if he could, like anything else that is proper."
There was a moment's silence; then the exclamation, "Just look
there!"
One of the hats was nodding on the box in a perilous manner.
"It is _only_ James," said Lady Tyrrell; "as long as it is not the
coachman, it matters the less. There's no danger."
"You will not keep him, though!"
"I don't know. He is much the best looking and handiest of the men;
and your page, Master Joshua, is no great acquisition yet."
"I wish you would not call him mine; I wish you would send him back
to his grandmother. I can't bear his being among those men."
"Very complimentary to my household! They are not a bit worse than
the company he came from! You don't believe in rural simplicity,
eh?"
"I believe that taking that boy from his home makes us responsible."
"And do I hinder you from catechizing him to your heart's content?
or sending him to the school of design?"
Again Eleonora was silent. Perhaps the balancing of the footman's
head occupied her mind. At any rate, no more was said till the
sisters had reached their home. Then, at the last moment, when
there was no time left for a reply, Eleonora cleared and steadied
her voice, and said, "Camilla, understand two things for truth's
sake. First, I mean what I say. Nothing shall ever induce me to
marry a man who bets. Next, I never have forgotten Frank Charnock
for one moment. If I have been cold and distant to him, it is
because I will not draw him near me to be cruelly scorned and
disappointed!"
"I don't mind the why, if the effect is the same," were Lady
Tyrrell's last words, as the door opened.
Eleonora's little white feet sped quickly up the steps, and with a
hasty good night, she sped across the hall, but paused at the door.
"Papa must not be disappointed," she whispered to herself, and
dashed her hand over her eyes; and at the moment the lock turned,
and a gray head appeared, with a mighty odour of smoke. "Ah! I
thought my little Lena would not pass me by! Have you had a
pleasant party, my dear? Was young Strangeways there?"
She had nestled in his arms, and hoped to avoid notice by keeping
her head bent against him, as she hastily responded to his
questions; but he detected something.
"Eh? Camilla been lecturing? Is that it? You've not been crying,
little one? It is all right, you know! You and I were jolly enough
at Rockpier; but it was time we were taken in hand, or you would
have grown into a regular little nun, among all those black coats."
"I wish I were."
"Nonsense! You don't know life! You'll tell another story one of
these days; and hark childie, when you've married, and saved the old
place, you'll keep the old room for the old man, and we'll have our
own way again."
She could but kiss him, and hide her agitation in caresses, ere
hurrying up the stairs she reached her own rooms, a single bed-
chamber opening into a more spacious sitting-room, now partially
lighted by the candles on the toilette-table within.
She flung herself down on a chair beyond the line of light, and
panted out half aloud, "Oh! I am in the toils! Oh for help! Oh
for advice! Oh! if I knew the right! Am I unfair? am I cold and
hard and proud? Is she telling me true? No, I know she is not--not
the whole truth, and I don't know what is left out, or what is
false! And I'm as bad--making them think I give in and discard
Frank! Oh! is that my pride--or that it is too bad to encourage him
now I know more? He'll soon scorn me, and leave off--whatever he
ever thought of me. She has taken me from all my friends--and she
will take him away! No one is left me but papa; and though she
can't hurt his love, she has got his confidence away, and made him
join against me! But that one thing I'll never, never do!"
She started up, and opened a locked purple photograph-album, with
'In Memoriam' inscribed on it--her hands trembling so that she could
hardly turn the key. She turned to the likeness of a young man--a
painful likeness of a handsome face, where the hard verities of sun-
painting had refused to veil the haggard trace of early dissipation,
though the eyes had still the fascinating smile that had made her
brother Tom, with his flashes of fitful good-nature, the idol of his
little sister's girlhood. The deadly shock of his sudden death had
been her first sorrow; and those ghastly whispers which she had
heard from the servants in the nursery, and had never forgotten,
because of the hushed and mysterious manner, had but lately started
into full force and meaning, on the tongues of the plain-spoken
poor.
She gazed, and thought of the wrecked life that might have been so
rich in joys; nay, her tenderness for her father could not hide from
her how unlike his old age was from that of Mr. Bowater, or of any
men who had done their service to their generation in all noble
exertion. He had always indeed been her darling, her charge; but
she had never known what it was to look up to him with the fervent
belief and enthusiasm she had seen in other girls. To have him
amused, loitering from reading-room to parade or billiard-room, had
been all that she aspired to, and only lately had she unwillingly
awakened to the sense how and why this was--and why the family were
aliens in their ancestral home.
"And Camilla, who knew all--knew, and lived through the full force
of the blight and misery--would persuade me that it all means
nothing, and is a mere amusing trifle! Trifle, indeed, that breaks
hearts and leads to despair and self-destruction and dishonour! No,
no, no--nothing shall lead me to a gamester! though Frank may be
lost to me! He will be! he will be! We deserve that he should be!
I deserve it--if family sins fall on individuals--I deserve it! It
is better for him--better--better. And yet, can he forget--any more
than I--that sunny day--? Oh! was she luring him on false
pretences? What shall I do? How will it be? Where is my
counsellor? Emily, Emily, why did you die?"
Emily's portrait--calm, sweet, wasted, with grave trustful eyes--was
in the next page. The lonely girl turned to it, and gazed, and
drank in the soothing influence of the countenance that had never
failed to reply with motherly aid and counsel. It rested the
throbbing heart; and presently, with hands clasped and head bent,
Eleonora Vivian knelt in the little light closet she had fitted as
an oratory, and there poured out her perplexities and sorrows.