Miss Polehampton had, of course, written to Mr. and Mrs. Colwyn when she made up her mind that Janetta was to be removed from school; and two or three letters had been interchanged before that eventful day on which Margaret declared that if Janetta went she should go too. Margaret had been purposely kept in the dark until almost the last moment, for Miss Polehampton did not in the least wish to make a scandal, and annoyed as she was by Miss Adair's avowed preference for Janetta, she had arranged a neat little plan by which Miss Colwyn was to go away "for change of air," and be transferred to a school at Worthing kept by a relation of her own at the beginning of the following term. These plans had been upset by a foolish and ill-judged letter from Mrs. Colwyn to her stepdaughter, which Janetta had not been able to keep from Margaret's eyes. This letter was full of reproaches to Janetta for giving so much trouble to her friends; "for, of course," Mrs. Colwyn wrote, "Miss Polehampton's concern for your health is all a blind in order to get you away: and if it hadn't been for Miss Adair taking you up, she would have been only too glad to keep you. But knowing Miss Adair's position, she sees very clearly that it isn't fit for you to be friends with her, and so she wants to send you away."
This was in the main true, but Janetta, in the blithe confidence of youth, would never have discovered it but for that letter. Together she and Margaret consulted over it, for when Margaret saw Janetta crying, she almost forced the letter from her hand; and then it was that Miss Adair vindicated her claim to social superiority. She went straight to Miss Polehampton and demanded that Janetta should remain; and when the schoolmistress refused to alter her decision, she calmly replied that in that casesheshould go home too. Miss Polehampton was an obstinate woman, and would not concede the point; and Lady Caroline, on learning the state of affairs, at once perceived that it was impossible to leave Margaret at the school where open warfare had been declared. She accordingly brought both girls away with her, arranging to send Janetta to her own home next morning.
"You will stay to luncheon, dear, and I will drive you over to Beaminster at three o'clock," she said to Janetta at breakfast. "No doubt you are anxious to see your own people."
Janetta looked as if she might find it difficult to reply, but Margaret interposed a remark—as usual at the right moment.
"We will practice our duets this morning—if Janetta likes, that is; and we can have a walk in the garden too. Shall we have the landau, mamma?"
"The victoria, I think, dear," said Lady Caroline, placidly. "Your father wants you to ride with him this afternoon, so I shall have the pleasure of Miss Colwyn's society in my drive."
Margaret assented; but Janetta became suddenly aware, by a flash of keen feminine intuition, that Lady Caroline had some reason for wishing to go with her alone, and that she had purposely made the arrangement that she spoke of. However, there was nothing to displease her in this, for Lady Caroline had been most kind and considerate to her, so far, and she was innocently disposed to believe in the cordiality and sincerity of every one who behaved with common civility.
So she spent a pleasant morning, singing with Margaret, loitering about the garden with Mr. Adair, while Margaret and Sir Philip gathered roses, and enjoying to the full all the sweet influences of peace, refinement, and prosperity by which she was surrounded.
Margaret left her in the afternoon with rather a hasty kiss, and an assurance that she would see her again at dinner. Janetta tried to remind her that by that time she would have left the Court, but Margaret did not or would not hear. The tears came into the girl's eyes as her friend disappeared.
"Never mind, dear," said Lady Caroline, who was observing her closely, "Margaret has forgotten at what hour you were going and I would not remind her—it would spoil her pleasure in her ride. We will arrange for you to come to us another day when you have seen your friends at home."
"Thank you," said Janetta. "It was only that she did not seem to remember that I was going—I had meant to say good-bye."
"Exactly. She thinks that I am going to bring you back this afternoon. We will talk about it as we go, dear. Suppose you were to put on your hat now. The carriage will be here in ten minutes."
Janetta prepared for her departure in a somewhat bewildered spirit. She did not know precisely what Lady Caroline meant. She even felt a little nervous as she took her place in the victoria and cast a last look at the stately house in which she had spent some nineteen or twenty pleasant hours. It was Lady Caroline who spoke first.
"We shall miss your singing to-night," she said, amiably. "Mr. Adair was looking forward to some more duets. Another time, perhaps——"
"I am always pleased to sing," said Janetta, brightening at this address.
"Yes—ye—es," said Lady Caroline, with a doubtful little drawl. "No doubt: one always likes to do what one can do so well; but—I confess I am not so musical as my husband or my daughter. I must explain why dear Margaret did not say good bye to you, Miss Colwyn. I allowed her to remain in the belief that she was to see you again to-night, in order that she might not be depressed during her ride by the thought of parting with you. It is always my principle to make the lives of those dear to me as happy as possible," said Margaret's mother, piously.
"And if Margaret had been depressed during her ride, Mr. Adair and Sir Philip might have suffered some depression also, and that would be a great pity."
"Oh, yes," said Janetta. But she felt chilled, without knowing why.
"I must take you into my confidence," said Lady Caroline, in her softest voice. "Mr. Adair has plans for our dear Margaret. Sir Philip Ashley's property adjoins our own: he is of good principles, kind-hearted, and intellectual: he is well off, nice-looking, and of a suitable age—he admires Margaret very much. I need say no more, I am sure."
Again she looked keenly at Janetta's face, but she read there nothing but interest and surprise.
"Oh—does Margaret know?" she asked.
"She feels more than she knows," said Lady Caroline, discreetly. "She is in the first stage of—of—emotion. I did not want the afternoon's arrangements to be interfered with."
"Oh, no! especially onmyaccount," said Janetta, sincerely.
"When I go home I shall talk quietly to Margaret," pursued Lady Caroline, "and tell her that you will come back another day, that your duties called you home—they do, I am sure, dear Miss Colwyn—and that you could not return with me when you were so much wanted."
"I'm afraid I am not much wanted," said Janetta, with a sigh; "but I daresay it is my duty to go home——"
"I am sure it is," Lady Caroline declared; "and duty is so high and holy a thing, dear, that you will never regret the performance of it."
It occurred dimly to Janetta at that point that Lady Caroline's views of duty might possibly differ from her own; but she did not venture to say so.
"And, of course, you will never repeat to Margaret——"
Lady Caroline did not complete her sentence. The coachman suddenly checked the horses' speed: for some unknown reason he actually stopped short in the very middle of the country road between Helmsley Court and Beaminster. His mistress uttered a little cry of alarm.
"What is the matter, Steel?"
The footman dismounted and touched his hat.
"I'm afraid there has been an accident, my lady," he said, as apologetically, as if he were responsible for the accident.
"Oh! Nothing horrible, I hope!" said Lady Caroline, drawing out her smelling-bottle.
"It's a carriage accident, my lady. Leastways, a cab. The 'orse is lying right across the road, my lady."
"Speak to the people, Steel," said her ladyship, with great dignity. "They must not be allowed to block up the road in this way."
"May I get out?" said Janetta, eagerly. "There is a lady lying on the path, and some people bathing her face. Now they are lifting her up—I am sure they ought not to lift her up in that way—oh, please, I must go just for one minute!" And, without waiting for a reply, she stepped, out of the victoria and sped to the side of the woman who had been hurt.
"Very impulsive and undisciplined," said Lady Caroline to herself, as she leaned back and held the smelling-bottle to her own delicate nose. "I am glad I have got her out of the house so soon. Those men were wild about her singing. Sir Philip disapproved of her presence, but he was charmed by her voice, I could see that; and poor, dear Reginald was positively absurd about her voice. And dear Margaret doesnotsing so well—it is no use pretending that she does—and Sir Philip is trembling on the verge—oh, yes, I am sure that I have been very wise. What is that girl doing now?"
The victoria moved forward a little, so that Lady Caroline could obtain a clearer view of what was going on. The vehicle which caused the obstruction—evidently a hired fly from an inn—was uninjured, but the horse had fallen between the shafts and would never rise again. The occupants of the fly—a lady, and a much younger man, perhaps her son—had got out, and the lady had then turned faint, Lady Caroline heard, but was not in any way hurt. Janetta was kneeling by the side of the lady—kneeling in the dust, without any regard to the freshness of her cotton frock, by the way—and had already placed her in the right position, and was ordering the half-dozen people who had collected to stand back and give her air. Lady Caroline watched her movements and gestures with placid amusement, and went so far as to send Steel with the offer of her smelling salts; but as this offer was rejected she felt that nothing else could be done. So she sat and looked on critically.
The woman—Lady Caroline was hardly inclined to call her a lady, although she did not exactly know why—was at present of a ghastly paleness, but her features were finely cut, and showed traces of former beauty. Her hair was grey, with rebellious waves in it, but her eyebrows were still dark. She was dressed in black, with a good deal of lace about her; and on her ungloved hand Lady Caroline's keen sight enabled her to distinguish some very handsome diamond rings. The effect of the costume was a little spoiled by a large gaudy fan, of violent rainbow hues, which hung at her side; and perhaps it was this article of adornment which decided Lady Caroline in her opinion of the woman's social status. But about the man she was equally positive in a different way. Hewasa gentleman: there could be no doubt of that. She put up her eye-glass and gazed at him with interest. She almost thought that she had seen him somewhere before.
A handsome man, indeed, and a gentleman; but, oh, what an ill-tempered one, apparently! He was dark, with fine features, and black hair with a slight inclination to wave or curl (as far at least as could be judged when the extremely well-cropped state of his head was taken into consideration); and from these indications Lady Caroline judged him to be "the woman's" son. He was tall, muscular, and active looking: it was the way in which his black eyebrows were bent above his eyes which made the observer think him ill-tempered, for his manner and his words expressed anxiety, not anger. But that frown, which must have been habitual, gave him a distinctly ill-humored look.
At last the lady opened her eyes, and drank a little water, and sat up. Janetta rose from her knees, and turned to the young man with a smile. "She will soon be better now," she said. "I am afraid there is nothing else that I can do—and I think I must go on."
"I am very much obliged to you for your kind assistance," said the gentleman, but without any abatement of the gloom of his expression. He gave Janetta a keen look—almost a bold look—Lady Caroline thought, and then smiled a little, not very pleasantly. "Allow me to take you to your carriage."
Janetta blushed, as if she were minded to say that it was not her carriage; but returned to the victoria, and was handed to her seat by the young man, who then raised his hat with an elaborate flourish which was not exactly English. Indeed, it occurred to Lady Caroline at once that there was something French about both the travelers. The lady with the frizzled grey hair, the black lace dress and mantel, the gaudy blue and scarlet fan, was quite foreign in appearance; the young man with the perfectly fitting frock-coat, the tall hat, the flower in his button-hole, was—in spite of his perfectly English accent—foreign too. Lady Caroline was cosmopolitan enough to feel an access of greater interest in the pair in consequence.
"They have sent to the nearest inn for a horse," said Janetta, as the carriage moved on; "and I dare say they will not have long to wait."
"Was the lady hurt?"
"No, only shaken. She is subject to fainting fits, and the accident quite upset her nerves, her son said."
"Her son?"
"The gentleman called her mother."
"Oh! You did not hear their name, I suppose?"
"No. There was a big B on their traveling bag."
"B—B—?" said Lady Caroline, thoughtfully. "I don't know any one in this neighborhood whose name begins with B, except the Bevans. They must have been merely passing through; and yet the young man's face seemed familiar to me."
Janetta shook her head. "I never saw them before," she said.
"He has a very bold and unpleasant expression," Lady Caroline remarked, decidedly. "It spoils him entirely: otherwise he is a handsome man."
The girl made no answer. She knew, as well as Lady Caroline, that she had been stared at in a manner that was not quite agreeable to her, and yet she did not like to endorse that lady's condemnation of the stranger. For he was certainly very nice-looking—and he had been so kind to his mother that he could not be entirely bad—and to her also his face was vaguely familiar. Could he belong to Beaminster?
As she sat and meditated, the tall spires of Beaminster Cathedral came into sight, and a few minutes brought the carriage across the grey stone bridge and down the principal street of the quaint old place which called itself a city, but was really neither more nor less than a quiet country town. Here Lady Caroline turned to her young guest with a question—"You live in Gwynne Street, I believe, my dear?"
"Yes, at number ten, Gwynne Street," said Janetta, suddenly starting and feeling a little uncomfortable. The coachman evidently knew the address already, for at that moment he turned the horse's heads to the left, and the carriage rolled down a narrow side-street, where the tall red brick houses had a mean and shabby aspect, and seemed as if constructed to keep out sun and air as much as possible.
Janetta always felt the closeness and the shabbiness a little when she first came home, even from school, but when she came from Helmsley Court they struck her with redoubled force. She had never thought before how dull the street was, nor noticed that the railings were broken down in front of the door with the brass-plate that bore her father's name, nor that the window-curtains were torn and the windows sadly in need of washing. The little flight of stone steps that led from the iron gate to the door was also very dirty; and the servant girl, whose head appeared against the area railings as the carriage drove up, was more untidy, more unkempt, in appearance than ever Janetta could have expected. "We can't be rich, but we might beclean!" she said to herself in a subdued frenzy of impatience, as she fancied (quite unjustly) that she saw a faint smile pass over Lady Caroline's delicate, impassive face. "No wonder she thinks me an unfit friend for dear Margaret. But—oh, there is my dear, darling father! Well, nobody can say anything against him at any rate!" And Janetta's face beamed with sudden joy as she saw Mr. Colwyn coming down the dirty steps to the ricketty little iron gate, and Lady Caroline, who knew the surgeon by sight, nodded to him with friendly condescension.
"How are you, Mr. Colwyn?" she said, graciously. "I have brought your daughter home, you see, and I hope you will not scold her for what has beenmydaughter's fault—not your's."
"I am very glad to see Janetta, under any circumstances," said Mr. Colwyn, gravely, as he raised his hat. He was a tall spare man, in a shabby coat, with a careworn aspect, and kindly, melancholy eyes. Janetta noticed with a pang that his hair was greyer than it had been when last she went back to school.
"We shall be glad to see her again at Helmsley Court," said Lady Caroline. "No, I won't get out, thank you. I have to get back to tea. Your daughter's box is in front. I was to tell you from Miss Polehampton, Mr. Colwyn, that her friend at Worthing would be glad of Miss Colwyn's services after the holidays."
"I am much obliged to your ladyship," said Mr. Colwyn, with grave formality. "I am not sure that I shall let my daughter go."
"Won't you? Oh, but she ought to have all possible advantages! And can you tell me, Mr. Colwyn, by any chance,whoare the people whom we passed on the road to Beaminster—an oldish lady in black and a young man with very dark hair and eyes? They had B on their luggage, I believe."
Mr. Colwyn looked surprised.
"I think I can tell you," he said, quietly. "They were on their way from Beaminster to Brand Hall. The young man was a cousin of my wife's: his name is Wyvis Brand, and the lady in black was his mother. They have come home after an absence of nearly four-and-twenty years."
Lady Caroline was too polite to say what she really felt—that she was sorry to hear it.
On the evening of the day on which Lady Caroline drove with Janetta Colwyn to Beaminster, the lady who had fainted by the wayside was sitting in a rather gloomy-looking room at Brand Hall—a room known in the household as the Blue Drawing-room. It had not the look of a drawing-room exactly: it was paneled in oak, which had grown black with age, as had also the great oak beams that crossed the ceiling and the polished floor. The furniture also was of oak, and the hangings of dark but faded blue, while the blue velvet of the chairs and the square of Oriental carpet, in which blue tints also preponderated, did not add cheerfulness to the scene. One or two great blue vases set on the carved oak mantel-piece, and some smaller blue ornaments on a sideboard, matched the furniture in tint; but it was remarkable that on a day when country gardens were overflowing with blossom, there was not a single flower or green leaf in any of the vases. No smaller and lighter ornaments, no scrap of woman's handiwork—lace or embroidery—enlivened the place: no books were set upon the table. A fire would not have been out of season, for the evenings were chilly, and it would have had a cheery look; but there was no attempt at cheeriness. The woman who sat in one of the high-backed chairs was pale and sad: her folded hands lay listlessly clasped together on her lap, and the sombre garb that she wore was as unrelieved by any gleam of brightness as the room itself. In the gathering gloom of a chilly summer evening, even the rings upon her fingers could not flash. Her white face, in its setting of rough, wavy grey hair, over which she wore a covering of black lace, looked almost statuesque in its profound tranquillity. But it was not the tranquillity of comfort and prosperity that had settled on that pale, worn, high-featured face—it was rather the tranquillity that comes of accepted sorrow and inextinguishable despair.
She had sat thus for fully half an hour when the door was roughly opened, and the young man whom Mr. Colwyn had named as Wyvis Brand came lounging into the room. He had been dining, but he was not in evening dress, and there was something unrestful and reckless in his way of moving round the room and throwing himself in the chair nearest his mother's, which roused Mrs. Brand's attention. She turned slightly towards him, and became conscious at once of the fumes of wine and strong tobacco with which her son had made her only too familiar. She looked at him for a moment, then clasped her hands tightly together and resumed her former position, with her sad face turned to the window. She may have breathed a sigh as she did so, but Wyvis Brand did not hear it, and if he had heard it, would not perhaps have very greatly cared.
"Why do you sit in the dark?" he said at last, in a vexed tone.
"I will ring for lights," Mrs. Brand answered quietly.
"Do as you like: I am not going to stay: I am going out," said the young man.
The hand that his mother had stretched out towards the bell fell to her side: she was a submissive woman, used to taking her son at his word.
"You are lonely here," she ventured to remark, after a short silence: "you will be glad when Cuthbert comes down."
"It's a beastly hole," said her son, gloomily. "I would advise Cuthbert to stay in Paris. What he will do with himself here, I can't imagine."
"He is happy anywhere," said the mother, with a stifled sigh.
Wyvis uttered a short, harsh laugh.
"That can't be said of us, can it?" he exclaimed, putting his hand on his mother's knee in a rough sort of caress. "We are generally in the shadow while Cuthbert is in the sunshine, eh? The influence of this old place makes me poetical, you see."
"Youneed not be in the shadow," said Mrs. Brand. But she said it with an effort.
"Needn't I?" said Wyvis. He thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned back in his chair with another laugh. "I have such a lot to make me cheerful, haven't I?"
His mother turned her eyes upon him with a look of yearning tenderness which, even if the room had been less dimly lighted, he would not have seen. He was not much in the habit of looking for sympathy in other people's faces.
"Is the place worse than you expected?" she asked, with a tremor in her voice.
"It is mouldier—and smaller," he replied, curtly. "One's childish impressions don't go for much. And it is in a miserable state—roof out of repair—fences falling down—drainage imperfect. It has been allowed to go to rack and ruin while we were away."
"Wyvis, Wyvis," said his mother, in a tone of pain, "I kept you away for your own sake. I thought you would be happier abroad."
"Oh—happier!" said the young man, rather scornfully. "Happiness isn't meant for me: it isn't in my line. It makes no difference to me whether I am here or in Paris. I should have been here long ago if I had had any idea that things were going wrong in this way."
"I suppose," said Mrs. Brand, carefully controlling her voice, "that you will not have the visitors you spoke of if the house is in so bad a state."
"Not have visitors? Of course I shall have visitors. What else is there for me to do with myself? We shall get the house put pretty straight by the 12th. Not that there will be any shooting worth speaking of onmyplace."
"If nobody comes before the 12th, I think we can make the house habitable. I will do my best, Wyvis."
Wyvis laughed again, but in a softer key. "You!" he said. "You can't do much, mother. It isn't the sort of thing you care about. You stay in your own rooms and do your needle-work; I'll see to the house. Some men are coming long before the 12th—the day after to-morrow, I believe."
"Who?"
"Oh, Dering and St. John and Ponsonby, I expect. I don't know whether they will bring any one else."
"The worst men of the worst set you know!" sighed his mother, under her breath. "Could not you have left them behind?"
She felt rather than saw how he frowned—how his hand twitched with impatience.
"What sort of friends am I likely to have?" he said. "Why not those that amuse me most?"
Then he rose and went over to the window, where he stood for some time looking out. Turning round at last, he perceived from a slight familiar movement of his mother's hand over her eyes that she was weeping, and it seemed as if his heart smote him at the sight.
"Come, mother," he said, kindly, "don't take what I say and do so much to heart. You know I'm no good, and never shall do anything in the world. You have Cuthbert to comfort you—"
"Cuthbert is nothing to me—nothing—compared with you, Wyvis."
The young man came to her side and put his hand on her shoulder. The passionate tone had touched him.
"Poor mother!" he said, softly. "You've suffered a good deal through me, haven't you? I wish I could make you forget all the past—but perhaps you wouldn't thank me if I could."
"No," she said, leaning forward so as to rest her forehead against his arm. "No. For there has been brightness in the past, but I see little brightness in the future either for you or for me."
"Well, that is my own fault," said Wyvis, lightly but bitterly. "If it had not been for my own youthful folly I shouldn't be burdened as I am now. I have no one but myself to thank."
"Yes, yes, it was my fault. I pressed you to do it—to tie yourself for life to the woman who has made you miserable!" said Mrs. Brand, in a tone of despairing self-accusation. "I fancied—then—that we were doing right."
"I suppose we were doing right," said Wyvis Brand sternly, but not as if the thought gave him any consolation. "It was better perhaps that I should marry the woman whom I thought I loved—instead of leaving her or wronging her—but I wish to God that I had never seen her face!"
"And to think that I persuaded you into marrying her," moaned the mother, rocking herself backward and forward in the extremity of her regretful anguish; "I—who ought to have been wiser—who might have interfered——"
"You couldn't have interfered to much purpose. I was mad about her at the time," said her son, beginning to walk about the room in a restless, aimless manner. "I wish, mother, that you would cease to talk about the past. It seems to me sometimes like a dream; if you would but let it lie still, I think that I could fancy it was a dream. Remember that I do not blame you. When I rage against the bond, I am perfectly well aware that it was one of my own making. No remonstrance, no command would have availed with me for a moment. I was determined to go my own way, and I went."
It was curious to remark that the roughness and harshness of his first manner had dropped away from him as it did drop now and then. He spoke with the polished utterance of an educated man. It was almost as though he at times put on a certain boorishness of demeanor, feeling it in some way demanded of him by circumstances—but not natural to him after all.
"I will try not to vex you, Wyvis," said his mother, wistfully.
"You do not vex me exactly," he answered, "but you stir my old memories too often. I want to forget the past. Why else did I come down here, where I have never been since I was a child? where Juliet never set foot, and where I have no association with that miserable passage in my life?"
"Then why do you bring those men down, Wyvis? Fortheyknow the past:theywill recall old associations——"
"They amuse me. I cannot be without companions. I do not pretend to cut myself off from the whole world."
As he spoke thus briefly and coldly, he stopped to strike a match, and then lighted the wax candles that stood on the black sideboard. By this act he meant perhaps to put a stop to the conversation of which he was heartily tired. But Mrs. Brand, in the half-bewildered condition of mind to which long anxiety and sorrow had reduced her, did not know the virtue of silence, and did not possess the magic quality of tact.
"You might find companions down here," she said, pertinaciously, "people suited to your position—old friends of your father's, perhaps——"
"Will they be so willing to make friends with my father's son?" Wyvis burst out bitterly. Then, seeing from her white and stricken face that he had hurt her, he came to her side and kissed her penitently. "Forgive me, mother," he said, "if I say what you don't like. I've been hearing about my father ever since I came to Beaminster two days ago. I have heard nothing but what confirmed my previous idea about his character. Even poor old Colwyn couldn't say any good of him. He went to the devil as fast as ever he could go, and his son seems likely to follow in his footsteps. That's the general opinion, and, by George, I think I shall soon do something to justify it."
"You need not live as your father did, Wyvis," said his mother, whose tears were flowing fast.
"If I don't, nobody will believe it," said the young man, moodily. "There is no fighting against fate. The Brands are doomed, mother: we shall die out and be forgotten—all the better for the world, too. It is time we were done with: we are a bad lot."
"Cuthbert is not bad. And you—Wyvis, you have your child."
"Have I? A child that I have not seen since it was six months old! Brought up by its mother—a woman without heart or principle or anything that is good! Much comfort the child is likely to be to me when I get hold of it."
"When will that be?" said Mrs. Brand, as if speaking to herself rather than to him. But Wyvis replied:
"When she is tired of it—not before. I do not know where she is."
"Does she not draw her allowance?"
"Not regularly. And she refused her address when she last appeared at Kirby's. I suppose she wants to keep the child away from me. She need not trouble. The last thing I want is her brat to bring up."
"Wyvis!"
But to his mother's remonstrating exclamation Wyvis paid no attention in the least: his mood was fitful, and he was glad to step out of the ill-lighted room into the hall, and thence to the silence and solitude of the grounds about the house.
Brand Hall had been practically deserted for the last few years. A tenant or two had occupied it for a little time soon after its late master's withdrawal from the country; but the house was inconvenient and remote from towns, and it was said, moreover, to be damp and unhealthy. A caretaker and his wife had, therefore, been its only inhabitants of late, and a great deal of preparation had been required to make it fit for its owner when he at last wrote to his agents in Beaminster to intimate his intention of settling at the Hall.
The Brands had for many a long year been renowned as the most unlucky family in the neighborhood. They had once possessed a great property in the county; but gambling losses and speculation had greatly reduced their wealth, and even in the time of Wyvis Brand's grandfather the prestige of the family had sunk very low. In the days of Mark Brand, the father of Wyvis, it sank lower still. Mark Brand was not only "wild," but weak: not only weak, but wicked. His career was one of riotous dissipation, culminating in what was generally spoken of as "a low marriage"—with the barmaid of a Beaminster public-house. Mary Wyvis had never been at all like the typical barmaid of fiction or real life: she was always pale, quiet, and refined-looking, and it was not difficult to see how she had developed into the sorrowful, careworn woman whom Wyvis Brand called mother; but she came of a thoroughly bad stock, and was not untouched in reputation. The county people cut Mark Brand after his marriage, and never took any notice of his wife; and they were horrified when he insisted on naming his eldest son after his wife's family, as if he gloried in the lowliness of her origin. But when Wyvis was a small boy, his father resolved that neither he nor his children should be flouted and jeered at by county magnates any longer. He went abroad, and remained abroad until his death, when Wyvis was twenty years of age and Cuthbert, the younger son, was barely twelve. Some people said that the discovery of some particularly disgraceful deed was imminent when he left his native shores, and that it was for this reason that he had never returned to England; but Mark Brand himself always spoke as if his health were too weak, his nerves too delicate, to bear the rough breezes of his own country and the brusque manners of his compatriots. He had brought up his son according to his own ideas; and the result did not seem entirely satisfactory. Vague rumors occasionally reached Beaminster of scrapes and scandals in which the young Brands figured; it was said that Wyvis was a particularly black sheep, and that he did his best to corrupt his younger brother Cuthbert. The news that he was coming back to Brand Hall was not received with enthusiasm by those who heard it.
Wyvis' own story had been a sad one—perhaps more sad than scandalous; but it was a story that the Beaminster people were never to hear aright. Few knew it, and most of those who knew it had agreed to keep it secret. That his wife and child were living, many persons in Paris were aware; that they had separated was also known, but the reason of that separation was to most persons a secret. And Wyvis, who had a great dislike to chatterers, made up his mind when he came to Beaminster that he would tell to nobody the history of the past few years. Had it not been for his mother's sad face, he fancied that he could have put it out of his mind altogether. He half resented the pertinacity with which she seemed to brood upon it. The fact that she had forwarded—had almost insisted upon—the unfortunate marriage, weighed heavily upon her mind. There had been a point at which Wyvis would have given it up. But his mother had espoused the side of the girl, persuaded the young man to fulfill his promises to her—and repented it ever since. Mrs. Wyvis Brand had developed an uncontrollable love for strong drink, as well as a temper that made her at times more like a mad woman than an ordinary human being; and when she one day disappeared from her husband's home, carrying his child with her, and announcing in a subsequent letter that she did not mean to return, it could hardly be wondered at if Wyvis drew a long breath of relief, and hoped that she never would.
When Lady Caroline drove away from Gwynne Street, Janetta was left by the tumble-down iron gate with her father, in whose hand she had laid both her own. He looked at her interrogatively, smiled a little and said—"Well, my dear?" with a softening of his whole face which made him positively beautiful in Janetta's eyes.
"Dear, dearest father!" said the girl, with an irrepressible little sob. "I am so glad to see you again!"
"Come in, my dear," said Mr. Colwyn, who was not an emotional man, although a sympathetic one. "We have been expecting you all day. We did not think that they would keep you so long at the Court."
"I'll tell you all about it when I get in," said Janetta, trying to speak cheerily, with an instinctive remembrance of the demands usually made upon her fortitude in her own home. "Is mamma in?" She always spoke of the present Mrs. Colwyn, as "mamma," to distinguish her from her own mother. "I don't see any of the children."
"Frightened away by the grand carriage, I expect," said Mr. Colwyn, with a grim smile. "I see a head or two at the window. Here, Joey, Georgie, Tiny—where are you all? Come and help to carry your sister's things upstairs." He went to the front door and called again; whereupon a side door opened, and from it issued a slip-shod, untidy-looking woman in a shawl, while over her shoulder and under her arm appeared a little troop of children in various stages of growth and untidiness. Mrs. Colwyn had the peculiarity of never being ready for any engagement, much less for any emergency: she had been expecting Janetta all day, and with Janetta some of the Court party; but she was nevertheless in a state of semi-undress, which she tried to conceal underneath her shawl; and on the first intimation of the approach of Lady Caroline's carriage she had shut herself and the children into a back room, and declared her intention of fainting on the spot if Lady Caroline entered the front door.
"Well, Janetta," she said, as she advanced towards her stepdaughter and presented one faded cheek to be kissed, "so your grand friends have brought you home! Of course they wouldn't come in; I did not expect them, I am sure. Come into the front room—and children, don't crowd so; your sister will speak to you by-and-bye."
"Oh, no, let me kiss them now," said Janetta, who was receiving a series of affectionate hugs that went far to blind her eyes to the general deficiency of orderliness and beauty in the house to which she had come. "Oh, darlings, I am so glad to see you again! Joey, how you have grown! And Tiny isn't Tiny any longer! Georgie, you have been plaiting your hair! And here are Curly and Jinks! But where is Nora?"
"Upstairs, curling her hair," shouted the child who was known by the name of Jinks. While Georgie, a well-grown girl of thirteen, added in a lower tone,
"She would not come down until the Court people had gone. She saidshedidn't want to be patronized."
Janetta colored, and turned away. Meanwhile Mrs. Colwyn had dropped into the nearest arm-chair, and Mr. Colwyn strayed in and out of the room with the expression of a dog that has lost its master. Georgie hung upon Janetta's arm, and the younger children either clung to their elder sister, or stared at her with round eyes and their fingers in their mouths. Janetta felt uncomfortably conscious of being more than usually interesting to them all. Joe, the eldest boy, a dusty lad of fourteen, all legs and arms, favored her with a broad grin expressive of delight, which his sister did not understand. It was Tiny, the most gentle and delicate of the tribe, who let in a little light on the subject.
"Did they send you away from school for being naughty?" she asked, with a grave look into Janetta's face.
A chuckle from Joey, and a giggle from Georgie, were instantly repressed by Mr. Colwyn's frown and Mrs. Colwyn's acid remonstrance.
"What are you thinking of, children? Sister is never naughty. We do not yet quite understand why she has left Miss Polehampton's so suddenly, but of course she has some good reason. She'll explain it, no doubt, to her papa and me. Miss Polehampton has been a great deal put out about it all, and has written a long letter to your papa, Janetta; and, indeed, it seems tomeas if it would have been more becoming if you had kept to your own place and not tried to make friends with those above you——"
"Who are those above her, I should like to know?" broke in the grey-haired surgeon with some heat. "My Janet's as good as the best of them any day. The Adairs are not such grand people as Miss Polehampton makes out—I never heard of such insulting distinctions!"
"Fancy Janetta being sent away—regularly expelled!" muttered Joey, with another chuckle.
"You are very unkind to talk in that way!" said Janetta, addressing him, because at that moment she could not bear to look at Mr. Colwyn. "It was notthatthat made Miss Polehampton angry. It was what she called insubordination. Miss Adair did not like to see me having meals at a side-table—though I didn't mind one single bit!—and she left her own place and sat by me—and then Miss Polehampton was vexed—and everything followed naturally. It was not just my being friends with Miss Adair that made her send me away."
"It seems to me," said Mr. Colwyn, "that Miss Adair was very inconsiderate."
"It was all her love and friendship, father," pleaded Janetta. "And she had always had her own way; and of course she did not think that Miss Polehampton really meant——"
Her weak little excuses were cut short by a scornful laugh from her stepmother.
"It's easy to see that you have been made a cat's-paw of, Janetta," she said. "Miss Adair was tired of school, and took the opportunity of making a to-do about you, so as to provoke the schoolmistress and get sent away. It does not matter to her, of course:shehasn't got her living to earn. And if you lose your teaching, and Miss Polehampton's recommendations by it, it doesn't affect her. Oh, I understand these fine ladies and their ways."
"Indeed," said Janetta, in distress, "you quite misunderstand Miss Adair, mamma. Besides, it has not deprived me of my teaching: Miss Polehampton had told me that I might go to her sister's school at Worthing if I liked; and she only let me go yesterday because she became irritated at—at—some of the things that were said——"
"Yes, but I shall not let you go to Worthing," said Mr. Colwyn, with sudden decisiveness. "You shall not be exposed to insolence of this kind any longer. Miss Polehampton had no right to treat you as she did, and I shall write and tell her so."
"And if Janetta stays at home," said his wife complainingly, "what is to become of her career as a music-teacher? She can't get lessons here, and there's the expense——"
"I hope I can afford to keep my daughter as long as I am alive," said Mr. Colwyn with some vehemence. "There, don't be vexed, my dear child," and he laid his hand tenderly on Janetta's shoulder, "nobody blames you; and your friend erred perhaps from over-affection; but Miss Polehampton"—with energy—"is a vulgar, self-seeking, foolish old woman, and I won't have you enter into relations with her again."
And then he left the room, and Janetta, forcing back the tears in her eyes, did her best to smile when Georgie and Tiny hugged her simultaneously and Jinks beat a tattoo upon her knee.
"Well," said Mrs. Colwyn, lugubriously, "I hope everything will turn out for the best; but it is not at all nice, Janetta, to think that Miss Adair has been expelled for your sake, or that you are thrown out of work without a character, so to speak. I should think the Adairs would see that, and would make some compensation. If they don't offer to do so, your papa might suggest it——"
"I'm sure father would never suggest anything of the kind," Janetta flashed out; but before Mrs. Colwyn could protest, a diversion was effected by the entrance of the missing Nora, and all discussion was postponed to a more fitting moment.
For to look at Nora was to forget discussion. She was the eldest of the second Mrs. Colwyn's children—a girl just seventeen, taller than Janetta and thinner, with the thinness of immature girlhood, but with a fair skin and a mop of golden-brown hair, which curled so naturally that her younger brother's statement concerning those fair locks must surely have been a libel. She had a vivacious, narrow, little face, with large eyes like a child's—that is to say, they had the transparent look that one sees in some children's eyes, as if the color had been laid on in a single wash without any shadows. They were very pretty eyes, and gave light and expression to a set of rather small features, which might have been insignificant if they had belonged to an insignificant person. But Nora Colwyn was anything but insignificant.
"Have your fine friends gone?" she said, peeping into the room in pretended alarm. "Then I may come in. How are you, Janetta, after your sojourn in the halls of dazzling light?"
"Don't be absurd, Nora," said her sister, with a sudden backward dart of remembrance to the tranquil beauty of the rooms at Helmsley Court and the silver accents of Lady Caroline. "Why didn't you come down before?"
"My dear, I thought the nobility and gentry were blocking the door," said Nora, kissing her. "But since they are gone, you might as well come upstairs with me and take off your things. Then we can have tea."
Obediently Janetta followed her sister to the little room which they always shared when Janetta was at home. It might have looked very bare and desolate to ordinary eyes, but the girl felt the thrill of pleasure that all young creatures feel to anything that bears the name of home, and became aware of a satisfaction such as she had not experienced in her luxurious bedroom at Helmsley Court. Nora helped her to take off her hat and cloak, and to unpack her box, insisting meanwhile on a detailed relation of all the events that had led to Janetta's return three weeks before the end of the term, and shrieking with laughter over what she called "Miss Poley's defeat."
"But, seriously, Nora, what shall I do with myself, if father will not let me go to Worthing?"
"Teach the children at home," said Nora, briskly; "and save me the trouble of looking after them. I should like that. Or get some pupils in the town. Surely the Adairs will recommend you!"
This constant reference to possible aid from the Adairs troubled Janetta not a little, and it was with some notion of combatting the idea that she repaired to the surgery after tea, in order to get a few words on the subject with her father. But his first remark was on quite a different matter.
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish, Janet! The Brands are back again!"
"So I heard you say to Lady Caroline."
"Mark Brand was a cousin of your mother's," said Mr. Colwyn, abruptly; "and a bad lot. As for these sons of his, I know nothing about them—absolutely nothing. But their mother——" he shook his head significantly.
"We saw them to day," said Janetta.
"Ah, an accident of that kind would be a shock to her: she does not look strong. They wrote to me from the 'Clown,' where they had stayed for the last two days; some question relative to the drainage of Brand Hall. I went to the 'Crown' and saw them. He's a fine-looking man."
"He has not altogether a pleasant expression," remarked Janetta, thinking of Lady Caroline's strictures; "but I—liked—his face."
"He looks ill-tempered," said her father. "And I can't say that he showed me much civility. He did not even know that your poor mother was dead. Never asked whether she had left any family or anything."
"Did you tell him?" asked Janetta, after a pause.
"No. I did not think it worth while. I am not anxious to cultivate his acquaintance."
"After all, what does it matter?" said the girl coaxingly, for she thought she saw a shadow of disappointment upon his face.
"No, what does it matter?" said her father, brightening up at once. "As long as we are happy with each other, these outside people need not disturb us, need they?"
"Not a bit," said Janetta. "And—you are not angry with me, are you, father, dear?"
"Why should I be, my Janet? You have done nothing wrong that I know of. If there is any blame it attaches to Miss Adair, not to you."
"But I do not want you to think so, father. Miss Adair is the greatest friend that I have in all the world."
And she found a good many opportunities of repeating; this conviction of hers during the next few days, for Mrs. Colwyn and Nora were not slow to repeat the sentiment with which they had greeted her—that the Adairs were "stuck-up" fine people, and that they did not mean to take any further notice of her now that they had got what they desired.
Janetta stood up gallantly for her friend, but she did feel it a little hard that Margaret had not written or come to see her since her return home. She conjectured—and in the conjecture she was nearly right—that Lady Caroline had sacrificed her a little in order to smooth over things with her daughter: that she had represented Janetta as resolved upon going, resolved upon neglecting Margaret and not complying with her requests; and that Margaret was a little offended with her in consequence. She wrote an affectionate note of excuse to her friend, but Margaret made no reply.
In the first ardor of a youthful friendship, Janetta's heart ached over this silence, and she meditated much as she lay nights upon her little white bed in Nora's attic (for she had not time to meditate during the day) upon the smoothness of life which seemed necessary to the Adairs and the means they took for securing it. On the whole, their life seemed to her too artificial, too much like the life of delicate hot-house flowers under glass; and she came to the conclusion that she preferred her own mode of existence—troublous and hurried and common as it might seem in the eyes of the world to be. After all, was it not pleasant to know that while she was at home, there was a little more comfort than usual for her over-worked, hardly-driven, careworn father; she could see that his meals were properly cooked and served when he came in from long and weary expeditions into the country or amongst the poor of Beaminster; she could help Joey and Georgie in the evenings with their respective lessons; she could teach and care for the younger children all day long. To her stepmother she did not feel that she was very useful; but she could at any rate make new caps for her, new lace fichus and bows, which caused Mrs. Colwyn occasionally to remark with some complacency that Janetta had been quitewastedat Miss Polehampton's school: her proper destiny was evidently to be a milliner.
Nora was the one person of the family who did not seem to want Janetta's help. Indirectly, however, the elder sister was more useful to her than she knew; for the two went out together and were companions. Hitherto Nora had walked alone, and had made one or two undesirable girl acquaintances. But these were dropped when she had Janetta to talk to, dropped quietly, without a word, much to their indignation, and without Janetta's knowing of their existence.
It became a common thing for the two girls to go out together in the long summer evenings, when the work of the day was over, and stroll along the country roads, or venture into the cool shadow of the Beaminster woods. Sometimes the children went with them: sometimes Janetta and Nora went alone. And it was when they were alone one evening that a somewhat unexpected incident came to pass.
The Beaminster woods ran for some distance in a northerly direction beyond Beaminster, and there was a point where only a wire fence divided them from the grounds of Brand Hall. Near this fence Janetta and her sister found themselves one evening—not that they had purposed to reach the boundary, but that they had strayed a little from the beaten path. As they neared the fence they looked at each other and laughed.
"I did not know that we were so near the lordly dwelling of your relations!" said Nora, who loved to tease, and knew that she could always rouse Janetta's indignation by a reference to her "fine friends."
"I did not know either," returned Janetta, good-humoredly. "We can see the house a little. Look at the great red chimneys."
"I have been over it," said Nora, contemptuously. "It's a poor little place, after all—saving your presence, Netta! I wonder if the Brands mean to acknowledge your existence? They——"
She stopped short, for her foot had caught on something, and she nearly stumbled. Janetta stopped also, and the two sisters uttered a sudden cry of surprise. For what Nora had stumbled over was a wooden horse—a child's broken toy—and deep in the bracken before them, with one hand beneath his flushed and dimpled cheek, there lay the loveliest of all objects—a sleeping child.
"He must have lost his way," said Janetta, bending over him. "Poor little fellow!"
"He's a pretty little boy," said Nora, carelessly. "His nurse or his mother or somebody will be near, I dare say—perhaps gone up to the house. Shall I look about?"
"Wait a minute—he is awake—he will tell us who he is."
The child, roused by the sound of voices, turned a little, stretched himself, then opened his great dark eyes, and fixed them full on Janetta's face. What he saw there must have reassured him, for a dreamy smile came to his lips, and he stretched out his little hands to her.
"You darling!" cried Janetta. "Where did you come from, dear? What is your name?"
The boy raised himself and looked about him. He looked about five years old, and was a remarkably fine and handsome child. It was in perfectly clear and distinct English—almost free from any trace of baby dialect—that he replied—
"Mammy brought me. She said I should find my father here. I don't want my father," he remarked, decidedly.
"Who is your father? What is your name?" Nora asked.
"My name is Julian Wyvis Brand," said the little fellow, sturdily; "and I want to know where my father lives, if you please, 'cause it'll soon be my bed-time, and I'm getting very hungry."
Janetta and her sister exchanged glances.
"Is your father's name Wyvis Brand, too?" asked Janetta.
"Yes, same as mine," said the boy, nodding. He stood erect now, and she noticed that his clothes, originally of fashionable cut and costly material, were torn and stained and shabby. He had a little bundle beside him, tied up in a gaudy shawl; and the broken toy-horse seemed to have fallen out of it.
"But where is your mother?"
"Mammy's gone away. She told me to go and find my father at the big red house there. I did go once; but they thought I was a beggar, and they sent me away. I don't know what to do, I don't. I wish mammy would come."
"Will she come soon?"
"She said no. Never, never, never. She's gone over the sea again," said the boy, with the abstracted, meditative look which children sometimes assume when they are concocting a romance, and which Janetta was quick to remark. "I think she's gone right off to America or London. But she said that I was to tell my father that she would never come back."
"What are we to do?" said Nora, in an under tone.
"We must take him to Brand Hall," Janetta answered, "and ask to see either Mrs. Brand or Mr. Wyvis Brand."
"Won't it be rather dreadful?"
Janetta turned hastily on her sister. "Yes," she said, with decision, "it is very awkward, indeed, and it may be much better that you should not be mixed up in the matter at all. You must stay here while I go up to the house."
"But, Janetta, wouldn't you rather have some one with you?"
"I think it will be easier alone," Janetta answered. "You see, I have seen Mrs. Brand and her son already, and I feel as if I knew what they would be like. Wait for me here: I daresay I shall not be ten minutes. Come, dear, will you go with me to see if we can find your father?"
"Yes," said the boy, promptly putting his hand in hers.
"Are these your things in the bundle?"
"Yes; mammy put them there. There's my Sunday suit, and my book of 'Jack, the Giantkiller,' you know. And my wooden horse; but it's broke. Will you carry the horse for me?—and I'll carry the bundle."
"Isn't it too heavy for you?"
"Not a bit," and the little fellow grasped it by both bands, and swung it about triumphantly.
"Come along, then," said Janetta, with a smile. "Wait for me here, Nora, dear: I shall then find you easily when I come back."
She marched off, the boy stumping after her with his burden. Nora noticed that after a few minutes' walk her sister gently relieved him of the load and carried it herself.
"Just like Janetta," she soliloquized, as the two figures disappeared behind a clump of tall trees; "she was afraid of spoiling the moral if she did not let himtryat least to carry the bundle. She always is afraid of spoiling the moral: I never knew such a conscientious person in my life. I am sure, as mamma says, she sets an excellent example."
And then Nora balanced herself on the loose wire of the fence, which made an excellent swing, and poising herself upon it she took off her hat, and resigned herself to waiting for Janetta's return. Naturally, perhaps, her meditations turned upon Janetta's character.
"I wish I were like her," she said to herself. "Wherever she is she seems to find work to do, and makes herself necessary and useful. Now, I am of no use to anybody. I don't think I was ever meant to be of use. I was meant to be ornamental!" She struck the wire with the point of her little shoe, and looked at it regretfully. "I have no talent, mamma says. I can look nice, I believe, and that is all. If I were Margaret Adair I am sure I should be very much admired! But being only Nora Colwyn, the doctor's daughter, I must mend socks and make puddings, and eat cold mutton and wear old frocks to the end of the chapter! What a mercy I am taller than Janetta! My old dresses are cut down for her, but she can't leave mehercast-off ones. That little wretch, Georgie, will soon be as tall as I am, I believe. Thank goodness, she will never be as pretty." And Miss Nora, who was really excessively vain, drew out of her pocket a small looking-glass, and began studying her features as therein reflected: first her eyes, when she pulled out her eyelashes and stroked her eyebrows; then her nose, which she pinched a little to make longer; then her mouth, of which she bit the lips in order to increase the color and judge of the effect. Then she took some geranium petals from the flowers in her belt and rubbed them on her cheeks: the red stain became her mightily, she thought, and was almost as good as rouge.
Thus engaged, she did not hear steps on the pathway by which she and Janetta had come. A man, young and slim, with a stoop and a slight halt in his walk, with bright, curling hair, worn rather longer than Englishmen usually wear it, with thin but expressive features, and very brilliant blue eyes—this was the personage who now appeared upon the scene. He stopped short rather suddenly when he became aware of the presence of a young lady upon the fence—perhaps it was to him a somewhat startling one: then, when he noted how she was engaged, a smile broke gradually over his countenance. He once made a movement to advance, then restrained himself and waited; but some involuntary rustle of the branches above him or twigs under his feet revealed him. Nora gave a little involuntary cry, dropped her looking-glass, and colored crimson with vexation at finding that some one was watching her.
"What ought I to do, I wonder?" Such was the thought that flashed through the young man's mind. He was remarkably quick in receiving impressions and in drawing conclusions. "She is not a French girl, thank goodness, fresh from a convent, and afraid to open her lips! Neither is she the conventional young English lady, or she would not sit on a fence and look at herself in a pocket looking-glass. At least, I suppose she would not: how should I know what English girls would do? At any rate, here goes for addressing her."
All these ideas passed through his mind in the course of the second or two which elapsed while he courteously raised his hat, and advanced to pick up the fallen hand-glass. But Nora was too quick for him. She had slipped off the fence and secured her mirror before he could reach it; and then, with a look of quite unnecessary scorn and anger, she almost turned her back upon him, and stood looking at the one angle of the house which she could see.
The young man brushed his moustache to conceal a smile, and ventured on the remark that he had been waiting to make.
"I beg your pardon; I trust that I did not startle you."
"Not at all," said Nora, with dignity. But she did not turn round.
"If you are looking for the gate into the grounds," he resumed, with great considerateness of manner, "you will find it about twenty yards further to your left. Can I have the pleasure of showing you the way?"
"No, thank you," said Miss Nora, very ungraciously. "I am waiting for my sister." She felt that some explanation was necessary to account for the fact that she did not immediately walk away.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said the young man once more, but this time in a rather disappointed tone. Then, brightening—"But if your sister has gone up to our house why won't you come in too?"
"Yourhouse?" said Nora, unceremoniously, and facing him with an air of fearless incredulity, which amused him immensely. "Butyouare not Mr. Brand?"
"My name is Brand," said the young fellow, smiling the sunniest smile in the world, and again raising his hat, with what Nora now noticed to be a rather foreign kind of grace: "and if you know it, I feel that it is honored already."
Nora knitted her brows. "I don't know what you mean," she said, impatiently, "but you are not Mr. Brand of the Hall, are you?"
"I live at the Hall, certainly, and my name is Brand—Cuthbert Brand, at your service."
"Oh, I see. Not Wyvis Brand?" said Nora impulsively. "Not the father of the dear little boy that we found here just now?"
Cuthbert Brand's fair face colored. He looked excessively surprised.
"The father—a little boy? I am afraid," he said, with some embarrassment of manner, "that I do not exactly know what you mean——"
"It is just this," said Nora, losing her contemptuous manner and coming closer to the speaker; "when my sister and I were walking this way we saw a little boy lying here fast asleep. He woke up and told us that his name was Julian Wyvis Brand, and that his mother had left him here, and told him to find his father, who lived at that red house."
"Good heavens! And the woman—what became of her?"
"The boy said she had gone away and would not come back."
"I trust she may not," muttered Cuthbert angrily to himself. A red flush colored his brow as he went on. "My brother's wife," he said formally, "is not—at present—on very friendly terms with him; we did not know that she intended to bring the child home in this manner: we thought that she desired to keep it—where is the boy, by the way?"
"My sister has taken him up to the Hall. She said that she would see Mr. Brand."
Cuthbert raised his eyebrows. "See my brother?" he repeated as if involuntarily. "My brother!"
"She is his second cousin, you know: I suppose that gives her courage," said Nora smiling at the tone of horror which she fancied must be simulated for the occasion. But Cuthbert was in earnest—he knew Wyvis Brand's temper too well to anticipate anything but a rough reception for any one who seemed inclined to meddle with his private affairs. And if Nora's sister were like herself! For Nora did not look like a person who would bear roughness or rudeness from any one.
"Then are you my cousin, too?" he asked, suddenly struck by an idea that sent a gleam of pleasure to his eye.
"Oh, no," said Nora, demurely. "I'm no relation. It is only Janetta—her mother was Mr. Brand's father's cousin. But that was not my mother—Janetta and I are stepsisters."
"Surely that makes a relationship, however," said Cuthbert, courageously. "If your stepsister is my second cousin, you must be a sort of step-second-cousin to me. Will you not condescend to acknowledge the connection?"
"Isn't the condescension all on your side?" said Nora coolly. "It may be a connection, but it certainly isn't a relationship."
"I am only too glad to hear you call it a connection," said Cuthbert, with gravity. And then the two laughed—Nora rather against her will—Cuthbert out of amusement at the situation, and both out of sheer light-heartedness. And when they had laughed the ice seemed to be broken, and they felt as if they were old friends.
"I did not know that any of our relations were living in Beaminster," he resumed, after a moment's pause.
"I suppose you never even heard our name," said Nora, saucily.
"I don't—know——" he began, in some confusion.
"Of course you don't. Your father had a cousin and she married a doctor—a poor country surgeon, and so of course you forgot all about her existence. She was notmymother, so I can speak out, you know. Your father never spoke to her again after she marriedmyfather."
"More shame to him! I remember now. Your father is James Colwyn."
Nora nodded. "I think it was a very great shame," she said.
"And so do I," said Cuthbert, heartily.
"It was all the worse," Nora went on, quite forgetting in her eagerness whom she was talking to, "because Mr. Brand was not himself so very much thought of, you know—people did not think—oh, I forgot! I beg your pardon!" she suddenly ejaculated, turning crimson as she remembered that the man to whom she was speaking was the son of the much-abused Mr. Brand, who had been considered the black sheep of the county.
"Don't apologize, pray," said Cuthbert, lightly. "I'm quite accustomed to hearing my relations spoken ill of. What was it that people did not think?"
"Oh," said Nora, now covered with confusion, "of course I could not tell you."
"It was so very bad, was it?" said the young man, laughing. "You need not be afraid. Really and seriously, I have been told that my poor father was not very popular about here, and I don't much wonder at it, for although he was a good father to us he was rather short in manner, and, perhaps, I may add, in temper. Wyvis is like him exactly, I believe."
"And are you?" asked Nora.
Cuthbert raised his hat and gave it a tremendous flourish. "Mademoiselle, I have not that honor," he replied.
"I suppose I ought not to have asked," said Nora to herself, but this time she restrained herself and did not say it aloud. "I wonder where Janetta is?" she murmured after a moment's silence. "I did not think that she would be so long."
If Cuthbert thought the remark ungracious, as he might well have done, he made no sign of discomfiture. "Can I do anything?" he asked. "Shall I go to the house and find out whether she has seen my brother? But then I shall have to leave you."
"Oh, that doesn't matter," said Nora, innocently.
"Doesn't it? But I hardly like the idea of leaving you all alone. There might be tramps about. If you are like all the other young ladies I have known, you will have an objection to tramps."
"I am sure," said Nora, with confidence, "that I am not at all like the other young ladies you know; but at the same time I must confess that I don't like tramps."
"I knew it. And I saw a tramp—I am sure I did—a little while ago in this very wood. He was ragged and dirty, but picturesque. I sketched him, but I think he would not be a pleasant companion for you."
"Do you sketch?" said Nora quickly.
"Oh, yes, I sketch a little," he answered in a careless sort of way—for what was the use of telling this little girl that his pictures had been hung in the Salon and the Academy, or that he had hopes of one day rising to fame and fortune in his recently adopted profession? He was not given to boasting of his own success, and besides, this child—with her saucy face and guileless eyes—would not understand either his ambitions or his achievements.
But Nora's one talent was for drawing, and although the instruction she had received was by no means of the best, she had good taste and a great desire to improve her skill. So Cuthbert's admission excited her interest at once.
"Have you been sketching now?" she asked. "Oh, do let me see what you have done?"
Cuthbert's portfolio was under his arm. He laughed, hesitated, then dropped on one knee beside her and began to exhibit his sketches. It was thus—side by side, with heads very close together—that Janetta, much to her amazement, found them on her return.