The afternoon of the same day was lowering, bleak, and drear, as a young
girl, in a long black dress fitting close to her slight figure, and
relieved at throat and wrists by a plaiting of white crape, entered a
small sitting-room at the back of one of a row of brand-new residences
in the cardboard, Tudor style, inlaid with colored bricks, and further
relieved by oriel windows.
The young lady carried a cup full of violets, and set it upon a table
which had been moved into the window. It was crowded with materials for
watercolor drawing. A very graceful design suited to a portfolio lay
partly colored where the light fell strongest.
The young lady, or rather Ella Rivers, stood looking at her work for a
few minutes, and then sitting down, with a deep sigh, took up her brush,
first bending lovingly over the violets until her face touched them.
She was exceedingly pale--the pallor of thought and sorrow. Her eyes,
which looked larger than they used--perhaps because she had grown
thinner--had a weary, wistful expression, which gave pathos to the quiet
sadness of her face and figure. The last month had tried her sorely. The
sudden, fatal illness of Donald had caused her immense bodily fatigue
and real sorrow. She had grown to love the afflicted, wayward boy, even
more than she knew; and he could not bear her out of his sight, finally
breathing his last in her arms. Then, not understanding the terms which
existed between Wilton and the Fergusson family, Ella never doubted that
he was aware from the first of poor Sir Peter's bereavement and the
consequent removal of the family. His silence under such circumstances,
the absence of any attempt to seek her out, was, to her, conclusive
evidence that his sudden, violent affection for herself had passed away.
Arriving at this conviction showed her how fondly, although
unconsciously, she had hoped for his constancy. When Wilton astonished
and agitated her by his unexpected avowal, she had most truly told him
that she did not love him, that his truth or constancy was not essential
to her happiness. His frank kindness, and the interest he had shown in
her art and her conversation, had touched and diverted her. Feeling
keenly the insurmountable barrier of caste, which her reason scornfully
resented, the possibility of a man of his grade being her lover never
crossed her mind. Moreover, the habits of her life accustomed her to
men as companions, as friends, almost as playfellows, but never as
lovers. Wilton was therefore to her at first an agreeable, intelligent,
though mistaken man, blinded to the great truths of his age by his
position and his profession, but who, under higher direction, might have
been worthy the friendship of her father, Diego, and the rest of the
exalted society who passed their lives propagating theories of political
perfection and escaping the police.
After the wonderful interview by the cairn, where he had shown that,
although past the boy-lover period, he was ready to cast all
consideration for rank and riches to the winds for her sake, she had
estimated him very differently. From his first words of love she shrunk
with an agony she could not express, so certain was she that they must
mean insult; but when his letter told her the depth and sincerity of his
affection, and she listened to the magic of his earnest pleading, she
felt bewildered and almost frightened at the ardor of the feeling she
had evoked. She could not quite believe him. She trembled at the idea of
his hurrying into the irrevocable, which he might afterward regret; and
the more she felt her heart inclined to yield, the more resolutely she
held to her determination, for both their sakes, to test the reality of
his affection.
But when he was gone, when she was left alone with the memory of his
persuasive voice--of his bold brown eyes, softened into tenderness--of
the passion which glowed through the earnest respect of his
manner--whatever of indifference she had felt or assumed in their
interview fast faded away, or rather warmed into real interest, and
trembling, half-fearful liking. Then the question of his constancy
assumed an absorbing importance. The perpetual struggle in her mind to
resist the delightful suggestions of hope kept the subject constantly
before her; and the bitterest trial she had ever known was the gradual
fading away of the hopes that had formed themselves in spite of her,
when week after week slipped past and no tidings reached her from Ralph
Wilton. Of course he knew that she must leave Brosedale, and must also
know that under no circumstances would she take the first step toward
the renewal of their intercourse.
Working round this dreary circle of thought, she sat motionless, pencil
in hand, too absorbed to notice the entrance of a woman of a certain
age, who by her costume evidently aimed at the higher appellation of a
lady. She wore a handsome plum-colored silk, a tint which appears to be
the especial favorite of publicans' wives and aspiring landladies. Her
head--a high, narrow, self-asserting sort of head--was perched on a
long, thin neck, and adorned with a scanty screw of hair on the top,
secured by a high tortoise-shell comb, while the front tresses were
disposed in short, wiry ringlets, painfully suggestive of steel springs,
and carefully regulated by ancient contrivances called side-combs. These
locks vibrated when she moved; and as her walk was a succession of jerky
sinkings and risings, the ringlets had an active time of it. Her
features were regular and good, but somewhat neutralized by a faint
expression of constantly turning up her nose, which was anything but
_retroussé_, as if in contemptuous indignation at the futile efforts of
the world in general to take her in. This personage paused as she was
half across the little room, and looked very sharply at its occupant's
profile, which was turned to her.
"Anyways, you ain't breaking your heart with hard work," she exclaimed,
in a tone which would have been painfully acute but for a slight
indistinctness caused by a melancholy gap where pearly front teeth ought
to have been.
Ella started at her voice, and a large tear, which some time, unknown to
her, had hung upon her eyelashes, fell upon the edge of her paper. She
looked at it dismayed; half an inch nearer, and it would have played
havoc with her colors. She hastily placed her handkerchief on the fatal
spot, and, turning toward the speaker, said, absently: "Working! Yes,
Mrs. Kershaw; I am succeeding tolerably with this design; I am quite
interested in it."
"And that is the reason you are crying over it--eh?"
"Crying! Oh, no"--smiling a little sadly--"I am not crying."
"Something very like it, then," said Mrs. Kershaw, advancing to the
table and looking critically at Ella's work. "It's a queer thing," she
remarked, with high-toned candor. "What is it for?"
"Oh, the cover of a book, or--the back of a portfolio."
"Well, I suppose it's my ignorance; but I can't see the beauty of it.
Why, there's dozens and dozens of things just like that ready printed in
all the shops; and you don't suppose hand-work can hold its own with
machine-work? Why don't you paint a house, and a tree, and a
cow--something sensible-like--that would set off a nice, handsome frame?
I wouldn't mind buying such a picture myself; my first floor is a trifle
naked for want of pictures."
"O Mrs. Kershaw!" exclaimed Ella, smiling, this time more brightly, for
she was amused at her friend's notions of art; "I assure you an original
design is not to be despised. If I can but find favor with--"
"Ay, that's just it. It would take a heap of bits of pictures to make a
living. I must say I think you was a fool not to look out for something
steady right off, when the ladies as could have recommended you was
here; this will be hard work and poor work."
"Nevertheless, I am determined to try it," said Ella, firmly, though
sadly. "You cannot tell the imprisonment a great house is to me;
besides, you forget poor Sir Peter Fergusson's generosity. I can afford
to board with you for six or eight months, and then, if all my efforts
to earn my bread by my art fail, I can still ask Miss Walker's help. I
am not in your way, good friend, am I?"
"Well, no. I am not that selfish, like many, as would try to keep you
here when it would be better for you to be away; but you are not like
other girls, the place is different when you are in it; and the trifle
you pay is more than the trifle difference you make. It was about
yourself--what is best for you--I was thinking."
"Do not think of me," returned Ella, placing her elbow on the table and
resting her head on her hand despondently; "I am so weary of myself."
"Now there is something come to you quite different from what used to
be. And you are that pale and thin, and don't eat nothing. There's some
of those grandedees" (such was Mrs. Kershaw's pronunciation) "been
talking nonsense, and you have been, and gone, and been fool enough to
heed them, in spite of all the talking to I gave you before you went to
Sir Peter's. They are all alike. If you was a hangel, with a wing
sprouting out of each shoulder, and as beautiful as--as anythink, the
poorest scrap of a gentleman among them that hadn't as much gumption as
would earn a crust costermongering would laugh at the notion of putting
a ring on your finger. No, no; as much love as you like without that. I
knows 'em, the proud, upsetting, lazy lot, I do;" and Mrs. Kershaw
stopped with a jerk, more for want of breath than lack of matter.
"You need not distress yourself," returned Ella, with a smile of quiet
scorn. "No one insulted me at Brosedale; and I _did_ keep your good
advice in mind. I am depressed, nor can you wonder at it when you think
of the sad scenes I went through with poor Donald."
"Well, well, anyhow you won't open your mind to me, though I fancy I am
your best friend, and your only friend into the bargain, though I say it
as shouldn't," retorted Mrs. Kershaw, with some asperity.
"You are, indeed," said Ella, sweetly. "So instead of quarrelling with
me for not telling you a romantic tale, tell me some of your own
affairs; any one about the rooms yet?"
"I believe," said Mrs. Kershaw, a shade less severely--"I believe I'm
let."
This startling announcement did not in the least move Miss Rivers from
her gravity; she merely observed, sympathetically, "I am very glad."
"This morning, when you was out, a lady and gentleman called, and looked
at the rooms, and made rather a stiff bargain. They said they would call
again; but the gentleman gave me his card, and that looked like
business."
"I suppose so. I went over to Kensington this morning to see the
postman. I thought it was as well to tell him our new address, in case
there might be a letter for me."
"A letter for you!" repeated Mrs. Kershaw, in a sharp key, with a sudden
nod that set her ringlets dancing. "I thought Miss Walker knew we was
moved."
"She does; still it is possible some old friend--"
"Hoh!" said Mrs. Kershaw, ironically. "Are you sure it ain't a new
friend--a Scotch friend? I know I haven't no right to ask, but--"
"Ah, suspicious one!" interrupted Ella, laughing. "If none of my
father's old friends seek me out, no one else will."
"There's the front-door bell!" cried Mrs. Kershaw, excitedly; "that's
the lady and gent come back about my first floor"--a pause ensued, a
rapid but heavy tread, and the opening of the door was heard.
The next moment that of the room in which they were was flung violently
open, and the "girl" announced a "gentleman for Miss Rivers."
Whereupon a tall figure seemed to fill up the door-way, and for a moment
Ella felt dizzy and blinded with astonishment, with mingled joy and
terror, as Colonel Wilton entered and stood still.
"Hoh!" said Mrs. Kershaw; "do you know this gentleman, or is he after
the apartments?"
"I know him. I--" faltered Ella.
"Hoh!" again said Mrs. Kershaw, and, turning back, walked straight out
of the room with dignity.
Wilton closed the door after her, and, advancing to the agitated girl,
exclaimed, with a tinge of sternness, "Ella, have you hid from me
purposely?"
"Hid from you? No; you knew where to find me when poor Donald died."
"Which I first heard of in Ireland two days ago."
"Two days ago!" faltered Ella, the truth dawning on her. "I thought you
would have known of it directly. I thought you did not write because you
did not wish to see me again. I--oh, listen to me, understand me!"
clasping her hand with a restrained eagerness very impressive--"do not
think I would willingly have caused you the slightest uneasiness from
any petty idea of standing on my dignity; but, indeed, I was puzzled
what to do, and then believing, as I did, that you must have been
informed of Donald's death and the breaking up of Sir Peter's
establishment, I concluded that you had changed your plans--your
views--your--oh, I could not write to you! Do you not see I could not?"
"I can only repeat that two days ago I did not know of that poor boy's
death. And, but for a few words in a letter from Moncrief, I should have
started for Monkscleugh to keep the tryst. Now, Ella, are you glad to
see me? do you believe me?"--as he spoke Wilton took both her hands, and
looked eagerly into the eyes so frankly, but gravely, raised to his.
"I do believe you," said Ella, trying to speak steadily, and striving to
hold back the tears that would well up, to suppress the wild throbbing
of the heart which visibly heaved her bosom, to be calm, and mistress of
herself in this crisis; but it was more than even her brave spirit could
accomplish; the sudden change from darkness to light, from isolation to
companionship, was too overwhelming; and yet she would not show the
shattered condition of her forces. "I am glad to see you"--her lip
quivered, great unshed tears, brimming over, hung sparkling on her long
lashes as she spoke; and Wilton, gazing at the sweet face and slight,
graceful figure, felt in his inmost soul the pathos of her controlled
emotion.
"By Heaven, Ella! you are not indifferent to me," he exclaimed. Drawing
her to him, he raised her hands to clasp his neck; and, folding his arms
round her, pressed her passionately to his heart. "My love, my life! why
do you distrust me? Give me your heart! give me yourself. Are you ready
to fulfil your more than half promise? I have kept the tryst. I have
submitted to the test you have imposed; and now, what further barrier is
there between me and happiness? Do you love me, Ella? Will you love me?"
She did not attempt to move. She leaned against him, silently, trembling
very much; at length she sighed deeply.
"If you are quite sure of yourself," she almost whispered, "and not
afraid of linking yourself with so isolated a creature as I am, I am
ready to keep my word, as you have kept yours!"
"And you love me?" asked Wilton, bending over her, hungering for her
assurance.
She extricated herself gently from him, still leaving her hand in his.
"I will love you," she replied, looking away, and speaking thoughtfully.
Then, suddenly turning, and meeting his eyes with a grand frankness, "I
_do_ love you," she said, in her sweet, firm tones; "and I think you
deserve my love! If you do not, out with love and life, and everything!
I shall never believe more."
She pressed her hands over her eyes, and for a moment Wilton's
passionate longing to cover her mouth, her cheek, her brow, with kisses,
was checked by the earnestness, the solemnity of her words; it was but a
moment, the next she was in his arms, his lips clinging to hers as
though he could never drink enough of their sweetness.
"And how did you find me?" asked Ella, when at last she managed to
withdraw from his embrace, and began to gather her drawing materials
together as a diversion from the strange, sweet embarrassment of the new
relations existing between them.
Wilton replied by recapitulating the search he had made, up to the
miserable night before.
"When I arrived at Gothic Villa this morning," he went on, "I was
considerably before the time of the second delivery; but at last I met
the postman, and explained myself to him. 'Gothic Villa, Kershaw,' he
repeated. 'Now that's curious. Not ten minutes ago I met a young lady
what used to be at Gothic Villa, and she wanted to give me her new
address, but I told her she must leave it at the district office.' You
may guess the questions I put, and how I gathered that the young lady
was yourself. He had a confused idea you said your abode was in Belinda
Terrace, Notting Hill, and I have been for nearly the last three hours
endeavoring to discover it. Finding there was no such place as Belinda
Terrace, I tried my luck in Melina Crescent, and, after knocking and
ringing at eleven doors, found the right one at last!"
"Then had I walked down the street, instead of meeting the postman at
the top of it, I should have met you," said Ella, pausing in her
occupation, with her design in her hand.
"Yes; and saved me three hours of torture," exclaimed Wilton. "What have
you there? This is a very charming design; quite your own?"
"Yes, quite. Some days ago I took a much smaller one to a shop in ----
Street, and the man there gave me two pounds and two shillings for it.
Then he asked me to bring him something else, larger and richer, so I
have been trying to sketch something better."
"My own darling," said Wilton, taking it from her; "this sort of thing
is over now. No more work for you."
"Why not?" she returned. "You say, dear friend, that you are not rich.
If I am really to be your comrade through life, why may I not earn some
money for us both? Life without work must be very dull."
"When you are my wife, you will see such things are impossible," said
Wilton, laying aside the sketch, and drawing her to his side on a
little, hard, horsehair, lodging-house sofa. "I have so much to say, so
much to urge on you, I hardly know where to begin."
Whereupon he plunged into a rapid statement of his plans, his hopes,
his strong conviction that, calmly and dispassionately considered, her
position and his own rendered an immediate marriage absolutely and
imperatively necessary. She had no one to consult, nor any protector to
rely upon save himself, and the sooner he had a legal claim to be her
protector the better. As to himself, no one had a right to interfere
with him; nevertheless, there was an old man, a relative, who might make
himself disagreeable if he had time. After marriage, all objections,
interference, or meddlings, would be useless.
"I have a favorite sister to whom I shall write at once," concluded
Wilton, "but she is away in Canada. So, dearest, why should we submit to
the discomfort of needless delay? I shall have a renewal of leave, but
only for a couple of months, part of which must be spent in effecting an
exchange into some regiment in India, or going there. You see there will
be little left for the honeymoon. What do you say to this day week?"
Wilton felt the hand he held suddenly tighten on his with a quick,
startled pressure.
"Yes," he went on; "there is no possible objection. You have been at
least three weeks in this parish, which is, I believe, the legal
requirement. There is, then, no impediment; and, though it seems very
like urging you to take a leap in the dark, you must either trust me
altogether or throw me over. We are too peculiarly situated to perform
the cold-blooded ceremony of cultivating each other's acquaintance; we
must do that, as I believe all people really do, after rather than
before marriage. Besides, I am so desperately afraid of your melting
away out of my grasp, as you had nearly done just now, that I am
determined not to lose my hold."
"Listen to me," said Ella, drawing away her hand and pressing it to her
brow. "You mentioned a relative to whom your marriage might be painful.
Do you owe this old man love and respect? I think, if you do, it is hard
to those who feel they ought to be considered to find an utter stranger
preferred."
"Lord St. George has not the shadow of a claim on my love or respect,"
returned Wilton, rising and pacing to and fro; "and if he had it would
not influence me. Now that you have really consented to be my wife,
nothing save death shall come between us."
There was in his voice, and look, and gesture, such fire and resolution
that a sudden sense of being in the presence of something stronger than
herself thrilled Ella with a strange fear and pleasure. She closed her
eyes, and her hands, that had clasped each other tightly, relaxed as she
felt her life had passed from her own keeping into another's. Wilton,
who had paused opposite her, saw how deeply she was moved.
"Look at me, Ella!" he exclaimed, taking her hands in his--"look at me!
You are too nobly frank to hesitate as to a day sooner or later in the
fulfilment of your promise."
She turned to him; and, with a wistful, earnest look straight into his
eyes, said, in a low, firm voice:
"So be it! I will keep my word when and where you like."
Two days after, Major Moncrief, who had only seen Wilton once for a few
minutes in the interim, awaited him by appointment at Morley's, where
they they were to dine.
"Why, what the deuce are you so desperately busy about?" asked the
major, as Wilton hastily apologized for not having been ready to receive
his friend.
"Oh, I have a hundred things in hand. I have had to 'interview' my
lawyer, and then I have been with Box and Brushwood about exchanging
into a regiment under orders for India--and--but the rest after dinner."
"Why, what are you up to now?" replied Moncrief, but not in the tone of
a man that expects a direct reply.
Dinner passed very agreeably, for Wilton was in brilliant spirits. Not
for many a year had Moncrief see him so bright.
"I believe this is the same room we dined in the day you started for
Monkscleugh, and had the smash?" observed Moncrief, as the waiter,
having placed dessert on the table, left the friends together.
"It is," said Wilton, looking round. "That is rather curious; and I
remember your saying, 'I must dree my weird.' Well, Moncrief, I have
dreed it, and I asked you here to-day to tell you the history, and
receive your blessing or malediction, as the case may be."
Setting down his glass of port untasted, the major stared at his friend
with an air of dismay and bewilderment.
"Courage, man!" continued Wilton, laughing at his consternation; "I am
not in debt--only in love, and going to be married on Thursday next."
"To be married! You--who could not oblige your pleasant relative, Lord
St. George, because of your invincible objection to lose your liberty?"
"Well, the liberty is gone long ago; so my only plan is to surrender at
discretion, or, rather, without discretion. You remember a young lady we
met at Brosedale--the lassie, in short, whom I picked out of the snow?"
"What! that pale-faced, dark-eyed little girl--young Fergusson's
companion or drawing-mistress? Why, she was scarcely pretty."
"Just so. Well, I am going to marry her on Thursday. Will you come to
the wedding?"
Wilton had poured out a bumper of claret as he spoke, and, with a
slight, defiant nod, drank it off.
"By ----!" exclaimed Moncrief, who did not generally use strong
language; "I am astonished. When did you decide on this preposterous
piece of foolery?"
"I put things in train last December, but the date was not decided till
two days ago."
"Ha! I thought I smelt a rat just before I left Glenraven; but I never
dreamed of anything so serious. You are the last man I should have
accused of such idiotic weakness. Who is this girl?"
"I do not know."
"Who was her father?"
"A political adventurer, I believe; but I really do not know."
"Who are her friends?"
"She has none."
"And, my God! Wilton, are you going to link yourself for life to a woman
you know nothing about--who may have a murderer for her father and a
harlot for a mother--who may be an unprincipled adventuress herself, for
aught you know?"
"Go on," said Wilton, calmly. "I know you have a good deal more to say,
and I am quite prepared to hear it."
"Can you be such a besotted blockhead at this time of life, after having
got over the wild-goose period, and not so badly either; when you have
just been offered your first good chance, when a sensible marriage is so
important, as to throw every consideration to the dogs for a madness
that probably a month or two will cure, and leave you two-thirds of a
lifetime to eat your heart out with useless regret? You know I do not
pretend to despise women, or to talk cynical rot about them; they are
generally good, useful creatures, and deucedly pleasant sometimes; but,
God bless my soul, lad! they are of no real importance in a man's life.
It is very essential to marry the right sort of girl, I grant--that is,
a well-bred, healthy, good-looking lassie in your own grade of life, you
will bring a good connection to back up your children; but to rush into
matrimony--downright legal matrimony--with a creature that scarcely
knows who she is herself, because, indeed, you think no other 'she' in
creation so likely to suit you, is a pitiable piece of lunacy. Come! in
the name of common-sense, of self-respect, be a man! Tell me how you
stand with this girl, and let me see if I can't get you out of the
scrape."
"Have you quite done?" asked Wilton, leaning back in his chair without
the slightest symptom of irritation.
"I have."
"Then hear me, Moncrief! I do not dispute a syllable you say. It is all
unanswerable--just what I should say myself to another fellow on the
brink of such a leap in the dark. Don't suppose I am blind to the
apparent folly I am about to commit. But I'll do it! Nothing can hold me
back! I shall not attempt to explain to you the sort of fascination Ella
Rivers has had for me from the first moment we met; it would be speaking
an unknown tongue, even if I could put it into language. But if her
people were all you picture, by Heaven! I do not think I could give her
up. Foolish lunatic--besotted as you choose to think me, I have full
faith in the woman who will be my wife before five days are over. There!
Consider the question 'to be or not to be' settled. Pity my idiotic
folly as you will, but do not discard your old _protégé_. I want your
advice on one or two points."
"But, Wilton, I must--" began the major.
"Don't," interrupted Wilton. "Remonstrance is sheer loss of time and
breath; if you persist, I will leave you to finish your port alone."
Moncrief succumbed, though with an ill grace, and Wilton proceeded to
lay the question of exchange into a regiment already in India, or one
about to proceed there, before his ancient mentor, and gradually drew
him into better humor, especially as he noted that Wilton's professional
ambition was by no means dulled or engulfed by the tide of passion that
swept him away in another direction.
"Well, I never thought I should find you looking forward contentedly to
a life in India," said the major, after a long and animated talk, anent
the _pros_ and _cons_ of Wilton's views; "you used to long for a stake
in the 'old countrie.'"
"Yes; but that was because Lord St. George put it into my head. Now,
that is at an end."
"Ah! just so--this infernal marriage! What do you intend to do with him,
eh?"
"I have not given it a thought--or, rather, scarcely a thought. I will
marry first, and decide after. I tell you candidly, Moncrief, when first
I made up my mind to risk everything, rather than part with Ella, I had
a stupid, cowardly idea of a private marriage; but I soon gave that up;
it was too deucedly ungentlemanlike; and then Ella would despise even a
shadow of double-dealing! No; when we are married, and I have time, I
will write to the old viscount, and--"
"By George! this is too bad," cried the major, getting up and pacing
the room in an agony. "Fortune, and fair prospects, and--and everything
flung overboard, for the sake of a white-faced bit of a girl that you
would forget in two months if you made the first stand. It's like giving
up drink or cigars; the first week is the brunt of the battle!"
"Don't talk blasphemy," returned Wilton, sternly; "nor waste time and
breath."
"Well, well!" resumed the rebuked major; "look here, do not be in too
great a hurry to write to the old peer. I met St. George Wilton to-day;
he told me Lord St. George was down at Brandestone, and very shaky;
perhaps you had better not write to him till the honeymoon is over. O
Lord! won't you be ready to cut your throat when you get his answer! But
I trust he will die, and leave you the property in the meantime."
"He will not do that," said Wilton, gravely. "But, tell me, what is St.
George doing in town? I hate that fellow instinctively."
"Oh, he was only passing through _en route_ to join some 'Lord knows
who' at Cowes, to cruise somewhere in his yacht, and--Where are you
going?"
"Why, you will not take any more wine, and, as I have not seen Ella
to-day, I thought I would just run down and bid her good-night. Come
with me, old fellow, do! I'd take it as a real bit of good-fellowship;
she would be so pleased. You may as well submit to the inevitable with a
good grace."
"Go with you to see this--ahem!--fascinating little witch? Not to get
the step I've been waiting for these seven years."