She paused a little in the garden in the stillness—not for rest, but that she might arrange her thoughts, without interruption. But there was no stillness there that night. The music came to her on the soft wind, now lower, now louder; the sound of the carriage wheels coming and going kept up a low, continuous roll; now and then there would come the sound of a voice. It was still early; only a few timid guests who feared late hours, old people and spectators like the Haldanes, were leaving the ball. It was in full career. The very sky seemed flushed over Dura House, with its numberless lights.
Helen formed her plan as she crept about the garden in the moonlight. Oh, if some kindly cloud would but rise, and veil for a little this poor earth with its mysteries! But all was clear, well seen, visible; the clear night and the blue heavens were not pitiful, like Helen. Man is often hard upon man, heaven knows, yet it is man only who can feel for the troubles of mankind.
While her mother was thus occupied Norah was taking her fill of pleasure. She 'danced every dance'—beatific fulfilment of every girlish wish in respect to a ball. She was so young and so fresh that this perpetual motion filled up the measure of her desires, and left her little time to think. To be sure, once or twice it had come over her that Ned, poor Ned, was not here to share in all this delight; and if Norah had been destitute of partners, or less sought than she thought her due, no doubt her heart would have been very heavy on account of Ned. But she had as many partners as any girl could desire, and she had no time to think. She was as happy as the night was long. The dancing was delightful to her for itself, the music was delightful, and the 'kindness' of everybody, which was Norah's modest, pretty synonym for the admiration she received; and she asked no more of heaven than this, which she was receiving in such full measure. To be sure, her mother's disappearance disturbed her for the moment. But when Mrs Dalton had sworn by all her gods that Mrs Drummond was not ill, Norah resigned herself once more to her happy fate.
There was, at the same time, a special point which exhilarated Norah, satisfied her pride, and raised her spirits. During all the festivities of the afternoon she had kept Cyril Rivers at arm's length. Perhaps if he had not shown so much anxiety to approach nearer, Norah would not have felt the same satisfaction in this—but his explanation, it was evident, was hanging on his very lips, and she had triumphantly kept him from making it. The same process was repeated in the evening. She had rushed into a perfect crowd of engagements in order to escape him. Poor Charlie Dalton, whom Clara had no longer any thought of, and who for the greater part of the evening had been standing about, dolefully gazing after her, was pressed unceremoniously into Norah's service. Once, when she happened to be disengaged and saw Rivers approaching, she was so lost to all sense of shame as to seize him breathlessly by the arm. 'Dance this dance with me, Charlie,' she whispered impatiently.
'Why must I dance?' said the poor boy, who had no heart for it.
'Because I am determined not to dance with him,' said Norah, energetically leading off her captive. And thus she kept the other at a distance, though perhaps she would have been less rigid in evasion had he been more indifferent to the opportunity. It was late in the night, after supper, when he secured her at last.
'Miss Drummond, you have avoided me all night——'
'I!' cried Norah, 'but that is ridiculous. Why should I avoid you, Mr Rivers? Indeed I am sure I have spoken to you at least a dozen times this evening. It is not one's own fault when one is engaged.'
'And I have been so anxious to see you—to explain to you,' he cried, his eagerness, and the long, tantalizing delay having overcome his wisdom. 'I have been quite miserable.'
'About what, Mr. Rivers?'
'About what you must have thought very abominable behaviour—that day at the pictures; fancy, it is two months since, and you have never allowed me a moment in which I could say it till now!'
'At the pictures?' said Norah, feigning surprise. 'I don't think we have seen you very often lately, and two months is a long time to remember. Oh, I recollect! you left us in a hurry.'
'My mother had come to look for me—there was some business in hand that I had to be consulted about. I cannot tell you what a wretched ass I felt myself, dragged away without a moment to explain—without even time to say, "This is my mother."'
'Mr Rivers,' said Norah, drawing her small person to its full height, and loosing her hold of his arm, 'I think it would have been good taste not to say anything about this. When we did not remark upon it, why should you? I am only a girl, I am nineteen, and I never disobeyed mamma that I know of; but still, do you think I should have let her carry me off like a baby from my friends whom I cared for, without a word? There are some things that one ought not to be asked to believe. You were not obliged to say anything at all about it. I should like to be polite, but I can't make myself a fool to please you. And, on the other hand, you know Lady Rivers is nothing to us. I did not ask to be introduced to her, and poor mamma was too ill even to know. Please don't say any more about it. It would have been much better not to have mentioned it at all.'
'But, Miss Drummond!——'
'Yes, I know. You wanted to be polite. But never mind. I am quite, quite satisfied,' said Norah with a gleam of triumph. 'Look here! Let us have Katie for ourvis-a-vis. Don't you think Clara Burton is looking quite beautiful to-night?'
Mr Rivers did not reply. He said to himself that he had never been so completely snubbed in his life. He had never felt so small, so cowed, and that is not pleasant to a man. Her very pardon, her condonation of his offence, was humbling to him. Had she resented it, he had a hundred weapons with which to meet her resentment; but he had not one to oppose to her frank indignation, and her pardon. And yet, with curious perversity, never before had Norah seemed so sweet to him. He had felt the wildest jealousy of poor Charlie during that dance, which he went through so unwillingly; and, but for the cheerful strains of the Lancers, which commenced at this point, and set them all—so many who enjoyed it, so many who did not enjoy it—in motion, it was in his mind to commit himself as he had never yet done—to throw himself upon her mercy. This thought gave to his handsome face a look which Norah in her triumph secretly enjoyed, and called 'sentimental.' 'But I am not one of those girls that fall down and worship a man, and think him a demigod,' Norah said to herself. 'He is no demigod! he has not so much courage as I have. He is frightened of—me! Oh, if Ned were but here!' This last little private exclamation was accompanied with the very ghost of a sigh—half of a quarter of a sigh, Norah would have said, had she described it—Ned was afraid of her too, and was not the least like a demigod. I do not defend Norah for her sauciness, nor do I blame her; for, after all, the young men of the present day are very unlike demigods; and there are some honest girls left in the world capable of loving a man as his wife ought, without worshipping him as his slave, and without even bowing herself down in delicious inferiority before him, grovelling as so many heroines do. Norah was incapable of grovelling under any circumstances; but then she had been brought up by her mother, in the traditions of womanly training such as they used to be in a world which we are told is past.
This is the very worst place in the world for a digression, I allow; it is to permit of the dancing of that figure which they were just about to commence. Clara Burton was dancing in the same set, with Mr Golden. And as her own partner after this little episode was for some time anything but lively, Norah gave her mind to the observation of Clara. Clara and Mr Golden were great friends. She had said to Lord Merewether that he was like papa, but it may be doubted whether papas generally, even when most indulgent, are looked up to by their children as Clara looked up to her father's friend. All Dura had remarked upon it before now; all Dura had wondered, did the parents see it? What did Mrs Burton mean by permitting it? But it never once entered into Mrs Burton's cool, clever little head to fancy it possible that the attractions of such a man could move her child. Everybody in the neighbourhood, except those most concerned, had seen Clara wandering with this man, who was nearly as old as her father, through the Dura woods. Everybody had seen the flushed, eager, tender way in which she hung upon him, and looked up to him; and his constant devotion to her. 'If I were you I should speak to Mr Burton about it,' the rector's wife had said half a dozen times over; but the rector had that constitutional dislike to interfere in anything which is peculiar to Englishmen. That night Clara was beautiful, as Norah had said; she was full of agitation and excitement—even of something which looked like feeling; her colour was splendid, her blue eyes as blue as the sea when it is stirred, her hair like masses of living gold, her complexion like the flushings of the sunset upon snow. As for her partner, a certain air of warning mingled in his assiduity. Once Norah saw him hold up his finger, as if in remonstrance. He was wary, watchful, observant of the glances round him; but Clara, who never restrained herself, put on no trammels to-night. She stood looking up at him, talking to him incessantly, forgetting the dance, and when she was compelled to remember it, hurrying through the figure that she might resume the intermitted conversation. Gradually the attention of the other dancers became concentrated on her. It was her moment of triumph, no doubt—her birthday, her coming of age as it were, though she was but eighteen—her entry, many people thought, into the glory of heiress-ship. But all this was not enough to account for the intoxication of excitement, the passion that blazed in Clara's eyes. What did it mean? When the dance was over, the majority of the dancers made their way into the coolness of the conservatory, which was lighted with soft lamps. Mr Rivers took Norah back to Mrs Dalton. His dark eyes had grown larger, his air more sentimental than ever. He withdrew a little way apart, and folded his arms, and stood gazing at her, just, Norah reflected with impatience, as a man would do who was the hero in a novel. But very different ideas were in Norah's mind. She seized upon Charlie once more, who was sentimental too. 'Come out on the terrace with me. I want to speak to Clara,' she said. They were stopped just inside the open window by a stream of people coming in for the next dance. Norah had been pushed close to the window, half in half out, by the throng. This was how she happened to hear the whispered talk of a pair outside, who were close by her without knowing it, and whom nobody else could hear.
'At the top of the avenue, at three o'clock. Wrap a cloak round you, my darling. In the string of carriages ours will never be noticed. It is the best plan.'
'And everything is ready?' asked another voice, which was Clara's.
'Everything, my love! In an hour and a half——'
'For you! I could do it only for you!'
In a minute after the two came in, pushing past Norah and her companion, who, both pale as statues, let them pass. The others were not pale. Clara's face was dyed with vivid colour, and Mr Golden, bending over her, looked almost young in the glow of animation and admiration with which he gazed at her. Charlie Dalton had not heard the scrap of dialogue, which meant so much; but he ground his teeth and stared at his supplanter, and crushed Norah's hand which held his arm. 'That fellow!' Charlie said between his teeth. 'Had it been some one else, I could have borne it.'
'Oh, Charlie, take me back to your mother,' cried Norah. Her thoughts went like the wind; already she had made out her plan—but what was the use of saying anything to him, poor simpleton, to make him more unhappy? Norah went back, and placed herself by Mrs Dalton's side. 'I do not mean to dance any more. I am tired,' she said; and, though the music tempted her, and her poor little feet danced in spite of her, keeping time on the floor, she did not change her resolution. Mr Rivers came, finding the opportunity he sought; but Norah paid no heed to him. The men whose names were written upon her card came too, in anxiety and dismay. But to all she had the same answer. 'I am tired. I shall dance no more to-night.'
'Let me look at you, child,' said kind Mrs Dalton; 'indeed you look tired—you look as if you had seen a ghost.'
'And so I have,' said Norah. She felt as if she must cry; Clara Burton had been her play-fellow, almost her sister, as near to her as Katie, and as much beloved. What was it Clara was going to do? The child shivered in her terror. When the dancers were all in full career once more, Norah put her mouth close to Mrs Dalton's ear and whispered forth her story. 'What can we do? What shall we do?' she asked. It would be impossible to describe Mrs Dalton's consternation. She remonstrated, struggled against the idea, protested that there must be some mistake. But still Norah asked, 'What can we do? what can we do?'
'My dear Norah! see, they are not near each other—they are not looking at each other. You have made a mistake.'
'Why should they look at each other? everything is arranged and settled,' said Norah. Mrs Dalton, if you will not come with me, I will go myself. Clara must not be allowed to go. Oh, only think of it! Clara, one of us! I have made up my plan; and if you will not come, I will go myself.'
'Norah, where will you go? What canyoudo—a child? And, oh, how can I go after Clara and leave the girls?' replied Mrs Dalton in her distress.
'You can leave them with Charlie,' said Norah. It had struck two before this explanation was made, and already a few additional guests had begun to depart. There was very little time to lose. Before Mrs Dalton was aware she found herself hurried into the cloak-room, wrapped in some wrap which was not hers, and out under the moonlight again, scarcely knowing how she got there.
'This is not my cloak, Norah,' she said piteously; 'my cloak was white.'
'Never mind, dear Mrs Dalton; white would have been seen,' said Norah, who was far too much excited to think of larceny. And then, impetuous as a little sprite, she led her friend round the farther side of the lawn, and placed her under the shadow of a clump of evergreens. 'There is a brougham standing here which never budges,' whispered Norah, 'with a white horse. I have seen him driving a white horse. Now stand very still. Oh, do stand still, please!'
'But, Norah, I see no one. It is Mrs Ashurst's old white horse; it is the fly from the inn. Norah, it is very cold. Our carriage will be coming. If it comes while we are gone—'
Norah grasped her tremulous companion by the arm. 'You would go barefoot from here to London,' she said in her ear, with a voice which was husky with excitement, 'to save any one, you know you would; and this is Clara—Clara!'
Some one came rapidly across the grass—a dark, veiled, hooded figure, keeping in the shadow. The morning was breaking in the east and mingled mysteriously with the moonlight, making a weird paleness all about among the dark trees and bushes. There was such a noise and ceaseless roll of carriages passing, of servants waiting about, of impatient horses, pawing and tossing their heads, that the very air was full of confusion. Mrs Dalton's alarm was undescribable. She held back the impetuous girl by her side, who was rushing upon that new-comer. 'Norah! it is some lady looking for her carriage. Norah!'
Norah paid no heed; she rushed forward, and laid hold upon the long grey cloak in which the new-comer was muffled. 'Clara!' she cried. 'Oh, Clara! stop, stop! and come back.'
At this moment there suddenly appeared among them another figure, in an overcoat, with a soft felt hat slouched over his face, who took Clara by the hand and whispered, 'Quick! there is not a moment to lose.'
'Is it you, Norah?' said Clara from under her cloak. 'You spy! you prying inquisitive—! Go back yourself. You have nothing to do with me.'
'Oh, Clara!' cried the other girl, clasping her hands; 'don't go away like this. It is almost morning. They will see you—in your ball dress. Clara, Clara, dear! Hate me if you like—only, for heaven's sake, come back.'
And now Mrs Dalton crept out from the shadow of the bushes. 'Mr Golden, leave her. Let her go. How dare you over-persuade a child like that? Let her go, or I will call out to stop you. Clara!'
He pushed them apart—one to one side, one to the other. 'Quick!' he cried, with a low call to a servant who stood close by. 'Quick, Clara! don't lose a moment.' He had pushed them aside roughly, and stood guarding her retreat, facing round upon them. 'What is it to you,' he said, 'if I am employed to take Miss Burton to her father? You may call any one you please—you may go and tell her mother. I am coming—now, for your life!'
The brougham dashed off with dangerous speed, charging, as it seemed, into the mass of carriages. There was a tumult and trampling of horses, a cry as of some one hurt; but all that the two terrified women on the lawn saw was Clara's face, looking back at them from the carriage window, with an insolent, triumphant look. She had partially thrown off her cloak, and appeared from under it in her white dress, a beautiful, strange vision—and then there came the sound of the collision and conflict, and the struggle of horses, and the cry. But whoever was wounded, it was not anybody belonging to that equipage. The white horse could be traced down the avenue like a long, lessening streak of light. So far, at least, the scheme had been successful. They were gone.
Norah could not speak; she walked about upon the lawn, among the servants, wringing her hands. The morning dew, which was beginning to fall, shone wet upon her hair. 'What can we do—what can we do?' she cried.
'My dear child, we have done all we can. Oh, that foolish, foolish girl! Norah, your feet must be wet, and so I am sure are mine; and your pretty white tarlatan all spoiled. Oh, heaven help us! is this what it has all come to? I dare not send Charlie after them. Norah, run and call Mr Dalton. He might go, perhaps. Norah, oh, you must not go alone!' cried the rector's wife.
But Norah was gone. She rushed into the house, through all the departing guests, her cloak and her hair all wet with dew. She made her way into the ball-room in that plight, and rushed up to Mr Dalton, and led him alarmed out into the hall. Mrs Dalton had followed, and was slowly gathering up her dress. Her heart was full of dismay and trouble; that Clara should thus destroy herself—break her parents' hearts! and Norah must certainly have spoilt her pretty new dress. 'One would not have minded had it done any good,' she murmured within herself. When they met the rector in the hall, a hurried consultation ensued.
'Take our fly, George,' said Mrs Dalton heroically. 'We can get home somehow. Take it! They cannot be very far gone—you may overtake them yet.'
'Overtake them! Though I don't even know which way they have gone,' said the rector, fretful with this strange mission. But, all the same, he went off, and hunted out the fly, and offered the driver half a sovereign if he could overtake the brougham with a white horse. But everything retarded Mr Dalton. His horse was but a fly horse, not the most lively of his kind. The man had been drinking Miss Burton's health, and was more disposed to continue that exercise than to gallop vaguely about the roads, even with the promise of an additional half-sovereign; Mrs Dalton, in the mean while, threw off her borrowed cloak, and went into the almost deserted ball-room in search of the mistress of the house; and Mary and Katie, wondering and shivering, standing close to Charlie, who was their protector for the moment, made a group round Norah in the hall, with the daylight every moment brightening over their faces, weariness stealing over them, and mystery oppressing them, and no appearance of either father or mother, or the fly!
Norah leant against Katie's shoulder and cried. After all her impetuous exertions the reaction was sharp. She would not give any explanation, but leant upon her friend, and cried, and shivered.
'Oh, where can mamma be? Where is the fly? Oh, Norah, have my cloak too; I don't want it. How cold you are! Charlie, run and look for the fly,' cried Katie. They stood all clinging together, while the people streamed past, getting into their carriages, going away. The daylight grew clearer, the sun began to rise, while still they stood there forlorn. And what with weariness, what with wonder and anxiety and vexation, Mary and Katie were almost crying too.
Finally Mrs Dalton appeared, when almost all the guests were gone, with a flush on her kind face, and an energy which triumphed over her weariness. 'Come, children, we must pluck up our courage and walk,' she said. 'Take up your dresses, girls, and help Norah with hers. Poor child, perhaps the walk will be the best thing for her. It is of no use waiting for the fly.'
Here Charlie came back to report that the fly was nowhere visible, but that some one who had been knocked down by a runaway horse was being carried up to the house, much injured. 'A white horse in a brougham. They say it took fright, and dashed down the avenue; and they are afraid the man is badly hurt,' said Charlie. The ladies shuddered as the poor fellow was carried past them, his head bound round with a handkerchief stained with blood. They were the last to leave, and came down the steps just as this figure was being carried in. It was broad daylight now, and they all felt guilty and miserable in their ball dresses. This was how the last ball ended which was given by the Burtons in Dura House.
They walked down weary, feeling some weight upon them which the majority of the party did not understand, all the length of the leafy avenue, where the birds were singing, and the new morning sending arrows of gold. The fly, with Mr Dalton in it, very tired and fretful, met them at the gate. He had not so much as come within sight of the brougham with the white horse. But yet he was ready to go up to the great house as duty demanded, to put himself at the service of its mistress. Charlie, enlightened all in a moment as to the meaning of the night's proceedings, went with him, like a ghost of misery and wrath. The girls and the mother went home alone through the sunshine. And the echoes grew still about that centre of tumult and rejoicing. The rejoicing had ended now; and, with that feast, the reign of the Burtons at Dura had come to an end.
A summer night passes quickly to those who have need of darkness for their movements. When Mrs Drummond found herself at liberty to carry out the plan she had formed, the time before her was very short. She went back to the kitchen, and called Susan to her. Mr Burton woke up as she came in, and they had a hurried consultation; the consequence of which was that Susan was sent to the stables, which were not very far from the garden door of the Gatehouse, to order a carriage to be dispatched instantly to pick up Mr Burton at the north gate, two miles off, in the opposite direction from the village. He could walk thus through the grounds by paths he was familiar with, and drive to a station five miles further off on another railway. So readily do even innocence and ignorance fall into the shifty ways of guilt that this was Helen's plan. He was to wait here till Susan returned, and the experiment of her going would be a proof if the way was quite safe for him. When Susan was gone Mrs Drummond returned alone to where her guest sat before the kitchen fire. She had her blotting-book under her arm, and an inkstand in her hand. 'Before you go,' she said in a low voice, 'I want you to do something for me.'
'I will do anything for you,' he cried—'anything! Helen, I have not deserved it. You might have treated me very differently. You have been my salvation.'
'Hush!' she said. His thanks recalled her old feelings of distrust and dislike rather than the new ones of pity. She put down her writing things on the table. 'I have my conditions as well as other people,' she said. 'I want now to know the truth.'
'What truth?'
'About Rivers's,' she said.
'Helen!'
'It is useless for you to resist or deny me,' she replied, 'you are in my power. I am willing to do everything to serve you, but I will have a full explanation. Write it how you please—but you shall not leave this place till you have given me the means, when I please, and how I please, of proving the truth.'
'What is the truth, as you call it?' he said sullenly; 'what have I to do with it? Drummond and the rest went into it with their eyes open; all the accounts of the concern were open to them.'
'I do not pretend to understand it,' said Helen. 'But you do. Here are pens and paper. I insist upon a full explanation—how it was that so flourishing a business perished in three years; where those books went to, which Robert was so falsely accused of destroying. Oh, are you not afraid to tire out my patience? Do you know that you are in my power?'
He gave an alarmed look at her. He had forgotten everything but those fables about feminine weakness which are current among such men, and had half laughed in his sleeve half an hour before at her readiness to help and serve him. But now all at once he perceived that laughter was out of place, and there was no time to lose. The reflection that ran through his mind was—All must come out in a week or two—it will do her no good; but it can do me no harm. 'If I am to give an account of the whole history it will take me hours,' he said. 'I may as well give up all thought of getting away to-night.' But he drew the blotting-book towards him. Helen did not relax nor falter. She lighted another candle; she left him to himself with a serious belief in his good faith which startled him. She moved about the kitchen while he wrote, filling a small flask with wine out of the solitary bottle which had been brought out for his refreshment, and which represented the entire cellar of the Gatehouse—even brushing the coat which he had thrown aside, that it might be ready for him. The man watched her with the wonder of an inferior nature. He had loved her once, and it had given him a true pleasure to humble her when the moment came. But now the ascendancy had returned into her hands. Had he been in her place how he would have triumphed! But Helen did not triumph. His misery did not please, it bowed her down to the ground. She was sad—suffering for him, ashamed, anxious. He did not understand it. Gradually, he could not have told how, her look affected him. He tore up the first statement he had commenced, a florid, apologetic narrative. He tore up the second, in which he threw the blame upon the ignorance of business of poor Drummond and his fellow-directors. Finally he was moved so strangely out of himself that he wrote the simple truth, and no more, without a word of apology or explanation. Half-a-dozen lines were enough for that. The apology would, as he said, have taken hours.
And then Susan came back. By this time he had written not only the explanation required of him, but a letter to his wife, and was ready to try his fate once more. Helen herself went with him to the garden door; the path through the woods was dark, hidden from the moonlight by the close copses and high fence, which it skirted for many a mile. And there would not be daylight to betray him for at least an hour. He stood on the verge of the dark wood, and took her hand. 'Helen, you have saved me: God bless you,' he said. And in a moment this strange episode was over, as though it had never been. She stood under the rustling trees, and listened to his footsteps. The night wind blew chill in her face, the dark boughs swayed round her as if catching at her garments. A hundred little crackling sounds, echoes, movements among the copse, all the jars and broken tones of nature that startle the fugitive, made her heart beat with terror. If she had felt a hand on her shoulder, seizing her instead of him, Helen would not have been surprised. But while she stood and listened all the sounds seemed to die away again in the stillness of the night. And the broad moonlight shone, silvering the black trees, out of which all individuality had fled, and the music from Dura came back in a gust, and the roll of the carriages slowly moving about the avenue, waiting for the dancers. And but that Helen stood in so unusual a spot, with that garden door half open behind her, and the big key in her hand, she might have thought that all this was nothing more than a dream.
She went in, and locked the door; and then returned to Susan's kitchen. It was her turn now to feel the cold, after her excitement was over; she went in shivering, and drew close to the fire. She put her head down into her hands. The tears came to her eyes unawares; weariness had come upon her all at once, when the necessity of exertion was over. She held in her hand the paper she had made Burton write, but she had not energy enough to look at it. Would it ever be of any use to her? Would he whom it concerned ever return? Or was all this—the picture, the visit to the Exhibition, the sudden conviction which had seized upon her—were these all so many delusions in her dream? After a while Miss Jane, all unconscious, excited with her unusual pleasure, and full of everything she had seen, came and sat by her and talked. 'I told Susan to go to bed,' said Miss Jane; 'and I wish you would go too, Mrs Drummond. I will sit up for Norah. Oh, how proud I was of that child to-night! I suppose it's very wrong, you know—so my mother says—but I can't help it. It is just as well I am a single woman, and have no children of my own; for I should have been a fool about them. The worst of all is that we shan't keep her long. She will marry, and then what shall we do? I am sure to lose her would break Stephen's heart.'
'She is very young,' said Helen, who answered for civility's sake alone, and who with all the heavy thoughts in her heart and apprehensions for the fugitive, would have given much to be left to herself.
'Yes, she is young; but not too young to do a great deal of mischief. When I saw all those men on their knees before her!' cried Miss Jane, with a laugh of triumph. She had never been an object of much admiration or homage herself; men had not gone on their knees to her, though no doubt she was more worthy than many of the foolish creatures who have been so worshipped; but the result of this was that Miss Jane enjoyed heartily the revenge which other women had it in their power to take for all the slights and scorns to which she and her homely sisters had been subjected. She liked to see 'them' punished, though 'they' were an innocent, new generation, blameless, so far as she was concerned. She would not have injured a fly; but her face beamed all over with delight at the thought that it was Norah's mission to break hearts.
Thus the good soul sat and talked, while Helen listened to every sound, and wondered where was he now? what might be happening? She did not even hear what was being said to her until Miss Jane fell into a moralising vein. 'The Burtons are at the height of their splendour now,' she said. 'I never saw anything so grand as it was. I don't think anything could be grander. But oh, Mrs Drummond, people's sins find them out. There's Clara getting bewitched by that man; everybody could see it. A man old enough to be her father, without a scrap of character, and no money even, I suppose. Think of that! and oh, what will all their grandeur do for them, with Ned at the other end of the world, and Clara throwing herself away?'
'Oh, hush, hush!' cried Helen. 'Don't prophesy any more misfortune; there is enough without that.'
And five minutes after Norah came to the door, surrounded by the party from the Rectory, all pale and terror-stricken, with the news which they felt to be so terrible. 'Clara has gone away!' They stood at the door and told this tale, huddled together in the fresh sunshine, the girls crying, the elder women asking each other, 'what would the Burtons do?' 'She was almost rude to me. She sent me away,' Mrs Dalton said, 'or I should have stayed with her. And Mr Burton is not there! What will she do?' They could scarcely make up their minds to separate, worn out and miserable as they all were. And, opposite, in the morning sunshine, two men still watched the Gatehouse, as they had watched it all through the night.
These miseries all ended in a misery which was comic, had any of them had heart enough left to laugh. While she helped to undress Norah, Miss Jane suddenly uttered a scream, which made Helen tremble from head to foot. She had caught in her hands the pretty flounces of that white dress, that lovely dress, Dr Maurice's present, which had turned poor little Cinderella-Norah into an enchanted princess; but now, alas, all limp, damp, ruined! even stained with the dewy grass and gravel across which it had come. Miss Jane could have cried with vexation and dismay. This was the climax of all the agonies of that wonderful night; but, fortunately, it was not so hopeless as the others. An hour later, when the house was all silent, and even Helen lay with her eyes shut, longing to sleep, Miss Jane stole down-stairs again, carrying this melancholy garment on her arm. She went to Susan's kitchen, where the fire was still burning, and spreading it out upon the big table, took it to pieces to see what could be done. And then she made a discovery which drew from her a cry of joy. The dress wasgrenadine, not tarlatan! Dear, ignorant reader, perhaps you do not know what this means? but well did Miss Jane understand. 'Grenadine will wash!' she said to herself triumphantly. She was a clever woman, and she was not unconscious of the fact. She could wash and starch with any professional. Accordingly, she set to work with scissors and soap and starch and hot irons; but, above all, with love—love which makes the fingers cunning and the courage strong.
Mr Burton made his escape safely. He had reached the north gate before the dog-cart did, which came up for him just as the morning was breaking. With this delay it so happened that when he reached the station to which he was bound, a brougham with a white horse appeared in sight behind, and gave him a thrill of terror; it was not a likely vehicle certainly for his pursuers; but still it was possible that they might have found nothing more suitable had they got scent of him at Dura. He sprang out of the dog-cart accordingly, and took refuge in one of the corners of the station. It was a junction, and two early morning trains, one up and one down, passed between four and five o'clock. Both parties accordingly had some time to wait. Mr Burton skulking behind anything that would shelter him, made out, to his great amazement, that the other traveller waiting about was his friend Golden, accompanied by a cloaked and veiled woman. The fugitive grinned in ghastly satisfaction when he saw it. He had no desire just then to encounter Golden, and in such companionship he was safe. It was a lovely morning, fresh and soft, cooler than July usually is, and the pair on the platform walked about in the sun, basking in it. He watched them from behind a line of empty carriages. The woman, whoever she was, clung close to her companion, holding his arm clasped with both her hands; while Golden bent over her, with his face close to her veil. 'I wonder who she is? I wonder what they are doing here at this hour? I wonder if he has been to Dura? And, by Jove, to think of his going in for that sort of thing, as if he were five-and-twenty!' Mr Burton said to himself. He was full of curiosity, almost of amazement, and he longed to go and sun himself on that same platform too; but he was a fugitive, and he dared not. How could he tell who might be about, or what Golden's feelings were towards him? They had been very good friends once; but Burton had stood by Golden but feebly at the time of the trial about Rivers's, and Golden had not stood by Burton warmly during the time of difficulty which had culminated in ruin. He watched them with growing curiosity, with a kind of interest which he could not understand—with—yes, he could not deny it, with a curious wistfulness and envy. He supposed the fellow was happy like that, now? And as for himself, he was not happy—he was cold, weary, anxious, afraid. He had a prison before him, perhaps a felon's sentence—anyhow, at the least, a loud, hoarse roar of English society and the newspapers. If he could but succeed in putting the Channel between him and them! and there was that other man, as guilty as himself, perhaps more guilty ('for he had not my temptations,' Mr Burton said to himself; 'he had not a position to keep up, an expensive establishment, a family'), sunning himself in the full morning light, waiting for his train in the eye of day, not afraid of anybody—nay, probably at the height of pleasure and success, enjoying himself as a young man enjoys himself! When the pair approached a little closer to his hiding-place than they had yet done, Burton, in his haste to get out of the way, slipped his foot, and fell upon the cold iron rails. He rose with a curse in his heart, the poignancy of the contrast was too much for him. Had he but known that his appearance would have confounded his old friend, and set all his plans to nought! Could he but have imagined who it was that clung to Golden's arm!
But he did not. He saw the up-train arrive, and the two get into it. He had meant to go that way himself, feeling London, of all refuges, the most safe; but he had not courage to venture now. He waited for the other train going down into the country. He made a rapid calculation how he could shape his course to the sea, and get off, if not as directly, perhaps more securely. He had found a dark overcoat in the dog-cart, which was a boon to him; he had poor Helen's flask of wine in his pocket. And as he got into the train, and dashed away out of the station and over the silent, sunshiny country, where safety lay, Golden and Golden's companion went out of Mr Burton's mind. He had a hundred things to think of, and yet a hundred more. Why should he trouble himself about that?
Thus the night disappeared like a mist from the face of the world; and the 7th of July, an ordinary working day like the others,—Saturday, the end of a common week,—rose up business-like and usual upon a host of toiling folk, to whom the sight of it was sweet for the sake of the resting day that came after it. Old Ann from Dura Den drove her cart with the vegetables, and the big posy for the sick gentleman, under Stephen's window, and wondered that it should still be closed, though it was ten o'clock. Susan, very heavy-eyed and pale, was cleansing and whitening her steps, upon which there had been so many footsteps last night.
'Well, Susan, youarelate,' said old Ann.
'Our folks were all at that ball last night,' said Susan, 'keeping a body up, awaiting for 'em till morning light.'
'Well, well, young folks must have their diversions. We was fond of 'em oursels once on a day,' said the charitable old woman.
Across the road the blinds were still down in the Rectory. The young people were all asleep; and even the elder people had been overcome with weariness and the excitement through which, more or less, all of them had gone. Before old Ann's cart resumed its progress, however, Stephen's window had been opened, and signs of life began to appear. About eleven Mrs Drummond came down-stairs. She had slept for an hour, and on waking had felt assured that she must have been dreaming, and that all her vision of the night was a delusion; but her head ached so, and her face was so pale when she looked at herself in the glass, that Helen trembled and asked herself if this was the beginning of a fever. Something must have happened—it could not all be a dream. She knelt down to say her prayers in front of the table, where her picture, her idol, was. And then she saw a paper, placed upright beneath it, as flowers might be put at a shrine. She read it then, for the first time, on her knees. It was the paper that Reginald Burton had written, which she had taken from him in her weariness without being able to read it. Half-a-dozen lines, no more. She did not understand it now; but it was enough, it was final. No one, after this, could throw reproach or scorn upon her Robert's name.
Robert! This night had been like a year, like a lifetime. It had made her forget. Now she knelt there, and everything came back to her. She did not say her prayers; the attitude sometimes is all that the heavy-laden are capable of; of itself that attitude is an appeal to God, such as a child might make who plucked at its mother's dress to attract her notice, and looked up to her, though it could find no words to say. Not a word came to Helen's lips. She knelt and recollected, and thought—her mind was in a whirl, yet it was silent, not even forming a wish. It was as if she held her breath and gazed upon something which had taken place before her, something with which she had no connection. 'I have seen the wicked great in power, like a green bay-tree; and I passed again, and lo! he was not.' Was that the story, written in ruin, written in tears? And Robert! Where was he—he who had stretched out his hands to her in the depths of despair, from hell, from across the Atlantic, from—where?
Helen rose up piteously, and that suspense which had been momentarily dispossessed by the urgency of more immediate claims upon her attention, came back again, and tore her heart in twain. Oh, they might think her foolish who did not know! but who else except Robert could have seized her very heart with those two up-stretched hands of Dives, hands that could have drawn her down, had she been there, out of the highest heaven? She could trust no longer, she thought, to the lukewarm interest of friends—to men who did not understand. She must bestir herself to find out. She must find out if she should die.
Thus, with dry, bright eyes, and a fire new-lit in her heart which burned and scorched her, she went down-stairs into the common world. 'I will bring your breakfast directly, 'm,' said Susan, meeting her in the passage, and Helen went in to the old, ghostly drawing-room, the place which had grown so familiar to her, almost dear.
Was it the old drawing-room she had lived in yesterday? or what strange vision was it that came across her of another room, far different, a summer evening as this was a summer morning, a child who cried 'Mamma, here is a letter!' Nothing—nothing! only a mere association, one of the tricks fancy plays us. This feverish start, this sudden swimming of the head, and wild question whether she was back in St Mary's Road, or where she was, arose from the sight of a letter which lay, awaiting her, on the centre of a little round table. It lay as that letter had lain some years ago, in which he took his leave of her—as a hundred letters must have lain since. A common letter, thrown down carelessly, without any meaning. Oh, fool, fool that she was!
Mrs Burton was alone in her deserted house. The house was not deserted in the common sense of the word. Up-stairs at this very moment it was buzzing with life and movement; and at least the young men in the smoking-room—men who had come from town, from their duties and their pleasures, expressly for the ball—were commenting to each other carelessly upon the absence of their host. 'Young Burton has been off for six months on a wandering fit, and old Burton is up to the eyes in business, as usual,' Cyril Rivers explained, who was not unfriendly to his entertainers; while the Marchioness, with Lady Florizel in the room of state up-stairs, who was commenting upon Clara's behaviour, and declaring her intention to leave next morning. 'Fortunately, Merewether has not committed himself,' the Marchioness was saying. In another room of the house, Mrs Burton's two aunts, supported by their two maids, were shaking their heads together in mingled sorrow and anger. 'Depend upon it, something will come of all this,' Mrs Everest said, as she put on her nightcap; and Aunt Louisa cried, and exclaimed that when Clara entered on such an extravagant course, she always knew that some chastisement must come. 'I would shut that child up, and feed her on bread and water,' cried the stronger-minded sister; and so said the maids, who thought Miss Clary was bewitched—and with such a man!
While all this was going on, little Mrs Burton was alone in the ball-room, which was still blazing with lights. She was seated wearily in a big chair at one end. But for her diamonds, which sought the light, and made a blaze of radiance round about her, like the aureole of a saint, she would have been invisible in the great, spacious, empty room. A deserted ball-room has been so often described, that I will not repeat the unnecessary picture. This ball-room, however, had not a dismal aspect; everything was too well managed for that. The flowers, arranged in great brilliant banks of colour, were not fading, but looked as brilliant as ever; the lights shone as brightly. Except for some flowers dropped about from the bouquets of the dancers, some shreds of lace and tulle torn from their dresses, it might have been before instead of after the ball. Mrs Burton was seated at the further end. She sat quite motionless, her hands crossed in her lap, her diamonds reflecting the light. What a night this had been for her! The other parties concerned had each had their share—her husband his ruin, her child her elopement; but this small woman with her hands clasped, with this crowded house to regulate and manage, with her part still to play in the world around her, knew all and had all to bear. She sat thus among the ruins, nothing hid from her, nothing postponed. Through her slight little frame there was a dull throbbing of pain; but her head was clear, and did not lose a jot of all that fate had done, of all it had in store. She did not complain. She had foreseen much; she had gone forward with her eyes open; she had even said that were her husband to be bankrupt in two days, she would give a ball on the intermediate night. If it was a brag, she had excelled that brag; she had given her greatest ball, and reached her apotheosis, on the very night when he was flying from justice. And no good angel had interfered to soften to her the news of these successive blows. She had herself opened the ball with old Lord Bobadil—the man of highest rank present; and it was when she had resumed her seat after that solemn ceremonial that Golden, whom she hated, approached her, and whispered in her ear the news of her husband's ruin. She had been prepared for the news, but not then, nor at such a moment; nevertheless, she stood up and received the blow without a cry, without a moment's failure of her desperate courage. And everything had gone on. She was always pale, so that there was nothing to betray her so far as that went, and her cares as hostess never relaxed. She went from side to side, dispensing her attentions, looking after everybody's comfort as if she had been a queen, and all the time asking herself had he been taken? was he a prisoner? how much shame should she have to bear? Then, when the slow hours had gone on, and the insupportable din about her seemed as if it must soon come to an end, there arrived that other messenger of woe, poor kind Mrs Dalton, with tears in her eyes, and a voice which faltered. 'The rector has gone after them. Oh, will you let me stay with you? Can I be of any use to you?' Mrs Dalton had sobbed, attracting, as the other woman—the real sufferer—knew, the attention of those groups about, who had no right to know anything of her private sorrows. 'It is not necessary. My father is here, and my aunts. I can have everything done that is wanted,' Mrs Burton replied: and she had turned round to show some one who came to ask her where the basket was with all the ribbons, and flowers, and pretty toys for the cotillion. Through all this she had stood her ground. She had shaken hands with the last of her guests and had seen the visitors to their rooms before she gave in; and even now she was not giving in. Had any one entered the empty room, Mrs Burton would have proved equal to the occasion; she would have risen to meet them—have talked on any subject with perfect self-command. But, fortunately, no one came.
Poor old Mr Baldwin had arrived at Dura only that night, he had heard a great many disquieting rumours, and he was very unhappy about his son-in-law's position, and about the way in which his daughter took it. Even the fact that she had her settlement scarcely consoled him; for he said to himself that the creditors would 'reflect' upon all this extravagance, and that even about the settlement itself a great deal would be said. He had hovered about her all the evening, looking wistfully at her, inviting her confidence; but Mrs Burton had not said a word to him, even of her daughter's disappearance. She had felt no impulse to do anything about Clary. Whether it was that all her energy was required to bear up against those successive blows, or if her pride shrank from informing even her own friends, or finally, if she felt it useless, and knew that now no power on earth could compel the self-willed girl to return, it is certain that Mrs Burton had 'taken no steps.' Even now she did not think of taking any steps. She allowed her father and her aunts to go to bed without a word. She sat and pondered, and did nothing. Alone in that great blazing deserted room—alone in the house—alone in the world: this was what she felt. Out of doors the birds were singing and the sun shining; but the closed windows admitted only the palest gleam of the daylight. When the servants came to tell her that Mr Dalton was at the door, asking to see her, she sent him a civil message: 'Many thanks; but her father was with her, and could do all she wanted.' Then her maid came to ask if Mrs Burton did not want anything, and was sent away with a wave of her hand. Then the butler came timidly to ask should they shut up? was master to be expected? At that summons Mrs Burton rose.
'I am tired,' she said, putting on her company calm; for Simmons the butler was as important in his way as old Lord Bobadil. 'I was glad to rest a little after all the worry. Yes, certainly, shut up, and let everybody go to bed. I do not expect your master to-night.'
'If I might make so bold, madam,' said Simmons, 'Tom the groom have just been in to say as orders was took to the stables to send the dog-cart for master to the north gate, and as he took him up there and drove him to Turley station, and as he gave him this note, and said as it was all right.'
'All right!' She repeated the words, looking at him with a ghastly bewilderment which frightened the man. And then she recovered herself, and resumed her former composure. 'That will do, Simmons. Your master had a—journey—to make. I was not aware he would have started so—soon. Have everything shut up as quickly as possible, and let all the servants go to bed.'
She went up-stairs, emerging all at once into the full morning sunshine in the hall, which dazzled and appalled her. The light dazzled her eyes, but not her jewels, which woke at its touch, and blazed about her with living, many-coloured radiance. A little rainbow seemed to form round her as she went up-stairs. How her temples throbbed! What a dull aching was in every limb, in every pulse! She went into Clara's room first. She was not a very tender mother, and never had been; yet almost every night for seventeen years she had gone into that room before retiring to her own. Clara's maid was seated, fast asleep, before a table on which a candle was burning pitifully in the full daylight. The room looked trim and still as a room does which has not been occupied in that early brightness. The maid woke with a shiver as Mrs Burton entered.
'Oh, Miss Clara, I beg your pardon!' she said.
'It is no matter. My daughter will not want you to-night. Go to bed, Jane,' said Mrs Burton. 'And you can tell Barnes to go to bed. Neither of you will be wanted. Go at once.'
When she was left alone, she cast a glance round to see if there was any letter. There was a little three-cornered note fastened on the pin-cushion. She took that into her hand along with her husband's note, which she held there, but did not attempt to read either. With a quick eye she noted that Clara's jewel-case and all the presents which had been showered upon her that morning—her eighteenth birthday—had gone. A faint, mechanical smile came upon her face, and then she locked the door, and went to her own room.
There she sat down again to think, with the diamonds still upon her and all her ornaments, and the two letters in her hand. Why should she read them? She knew exactly what they would be. The one she did open after a long pause was Clary's. The other—had she any interest in it? it gave her a sensation of disgust rather: she tossed it on the table. Clary's note was very short. It ran thus:—
'Dear Mamma,—Feeling sure you never would consent, and as we both know we could not live without each other, I have made up my mind to leave you. I shall be Mrs Golden when you get this, for he has prepared everything. We start immediately for the Lakes, and I will write you from there. Of course it would have been nicer to have been Lady Somebody; but then I never saw any one who was half so nice as he is; and he hopes, and so do I, that you will soon make up your mind to it, and forgive us.'Your affectionateClary.'He bids me say it is to be at St James's, Piccadilly, and that if you inquire, you will find everything quite right.'
'Dear Mamma,—Feeling sure you never would consent, and as we both know we could not live without each other, I have made up my mind to leave you. I shall be Mrs Golden when you get this, for he has prepared everything. We start immediately for the Lakes, and I will write you from there. Of course it would have been nicer to have been Lady Somebody; but then I never saw any one who was half so nice as he is; and he hopes, and so do I, that you will soon make up your mind to it, and forgive us.
'Your affectionateClary.
'He bids me say it is to be at St James's, Piccadilly, and that if you inquire, you will find everything quite right.'
Mrs Burton tossed this from her too on to the same table where the father's letter lay unopened. The scorn with which they filled her stopped for a moment the movements of that wonderful machine for thinking which nothing had yet arrested. It was 'human nature'pur et simple. Clara had taken her jewels, had made sure it was 'all right' about the wedding; and the father had sent the same message—'all right.' All right! A smile flitted across the pale, almost stern, little face of the woman who was left to bear all this, and to bear it alone. Most other women would have made some passionate attempt to do something—to pursue the one or the other—to go to their succour. Mrs Burton had no such impulse. She was like a soldier who has fought to the last gasp; she stood still upon her span of soil, her sword broken, her banner taken from her; nothing to fight for any longer, yet still, with the instinct of battle, holding out, and standing firm. So long as there was any excuse for keeping up the conflict, she would have borne every blow like a stoic; what she could not bear was the thought of giving in; and the hour for giving in had come.
Must it be told? Must she acknowledge before the world that all had been in vain? that her husband was a fugitive, her daughter the victim of a scoundrel, her family for ever crushed down and trampled in the dust? To everything else she could have wound up her high courage. This was the only thing that was really hard for her, and this was what she had to do. How much, she wondered, would she have to suffer? Probably Mr Burton would be taken, tried, share the fate which various men whose names she knew had already borne. Should she have to go to him? to visit him in his prison? to read her own name in the papers—'Mrs Burton spent an hour with the prisoner.' 'His wife was present!' She clasped her small, thin hands together. For a long time she had wondered whether when it came she would feel it. She could have answered her own question now. Ruin, shame, public comment, sudden descent from her high estate, humiliation, sympathy, even pity—all these were before her; and it would have been hard for her to say which was the worst.
The young men roused her with their voices as they came up-stairs. It was not worth while going to bed, she heard one say; a bath, and then a long walk somewhere before breakfast was the only thing possible. This called her attention to the clock striking on the mantelpiece. Six o'clock! No longer night, but day! She rose, and took off her jewels and her evening dress. It troubled, and tired, and irritated her to do all this for herself; but she succeeded at last. A nightly vigil, and even all the emotion through which she had passed did not make the same difference to her colourless countenance which it would have done to a more blooming woman. When she knocked at her father's door, and went in to his bedside to speak to him, he thought her looking very much as usual. He thought he must have overslept himself, which was likely enough, considering how late he had been last night; and that she had come to call him and have a chat with him before all her fine people came down to breakfast. It was kind of Clara. It showed, what he had sometimes doubted, that she was still capable of recollecting that she was his child.
'I have come to tell you of some things that have happened,' she said, sitting down in the big chair by the bed, 'and to ask your advice and help. Some strange things have happened to-night. In the first place, papa, you were a true prophet. Mr Burton has been obliged to go away.'
'To go away?'
'Yes, to escape, to fly—whatever you call it. He is—ruined. I suppose he must be worse than ruined,' she added quietly; 'for—I hear—the police——'
'Oh, Clara! Oh, my poor, poor child!'
'Don't be sorry for me, papa. Let us look at it calmly. I am not one to cry, you know, and get over it in that way. So far as I have heard yet, he has got off: he reached Turley station this morning, I suppose in time for the train. Most likely he has money, as he has not asked for any, and he may get safely off. Stop, papa; that is not all I have to tell you. There is something more.'
'Clara, my own poor girl! there can be nothing so bad.'
'Some people would think it worse,' she said. 'Papa, don't say any more than you can help. Clara has—eloped. She has gone off with Mr Golden, whom you all forgave, whom I hated, who was—her father's friend.'
The old man gave a great cry. Clary was his grandchild, whom he adored. He loved her with that fond, caressing, irresponsible love which is sometimes sweeter than even a parent's love for his own child. It was for others to find fault with, to correct, her; the grandfather had nothing to do but admire, and pet, and praise. 'Clary!' it was but the other day that he told her stories as she sat on his knee!
'Yes, Clary. Here is her note, and here is—Mr Burton's. They are both gone. All this has happened since last night.'
'Clara, what o'clock is it now?'
'Half-past six,' she said, mechanically taking out her watch, 'and fortunately nobody will be stirring for some time at least. Papa, what are you going to do?'
'I am going to get up,' he said. 'Clara, there is still time. If I can get up to town by the first train, I may be in time to stop it yet.'
'To stop—what?'
'The marriage, child, the marriage! Clary's destruction! Go away, my dear, and let me get up.'
'It would be of no use,' she said. 'Papa, when Clary has made up her mind, nothing that we can say would stop her. You might do it by law, perhaps; but she will never come home again—never hear reason. I know her better. There were a great many things I wanted to ask about——'
'Leave me just now, for heaven's sake, Clara! I must try, at least, to save the child.'
She rose without another word, and went away. A smile once more stole upon her face, and stayed there, rigid and fixed. He might have been of a little help to herself; but he thought of Clary first—Clary, who was obstinate, and whom nothing could move—who was coaxing and winning to those who loved her, and would persuade the old man to anything. Well, Mrs Burton said to herself, she had hoped for his help for a moment; but now it was clear that she must do everything for herself.
She went down-stairs, and took down a cloak which hung in the hall, and wrapping it about her, stepped out into the fresh air. That, at least, might help her, though nothing else would. She walked down to the avenue, to the skirt of the woods. Like a cordial the soft air breathed about her, and gave her a certain strength. She was not a woman who cared about the meaner delights of wealth; all these she would have given up without a pang. But to exchange this large, free, lofty life which she had been leading for the restrained and limited existence of her father's house—to be no longer entire mistress of her own actions, but to be bound by her father's antiquated notions, by what Aunt Everett and Aunt Louisa thought proper—that would be hard to bend her mind to. To give up Dura for Clapham! Even that she could do stoically, and no one would ever be the wiser. But to bear all the shame, all the comments, a husband in prison, a story of romance of real life, ruin of the father, elopement of the daughter, in the newspapers! Mrs Burton gave no outward sign of the struggle that went on within her, but she clasped her little thin white hands together, and she recognised at once, wholly and clearly, without any self-deception, what she would have to bear.
She waited there till her father came up to her on his way to the station. He stopped and told her he would come back as soon as he could.
'Most likely I will take Clary to Clapham first,' he said. 'Better than here, don't you think? She might be frightened to face you after her folly. My dear, take a little courage, if you can. The innocent child has given us all the clue that is necessary—St James's, Piccadilly. No marriage could take place before eight o'clock, and I shall reach there soon after—in time to prevent that, at least. I will take her to Clapham, and then, my dear, I will come straight back to you.'
'Very well, papa,' she said.
In her heart she wondered at his simplicity, at the folly of his hopes; but what was the use of saying anything? If it pleased him to do this, if this was what he thought best, why, let him do it. Let every one act as it seemed good in his own eyes.
'And by-the-by, Clara, one thing more,' he said—'Ned's address. Where is he now? I must telegraph at once for him.'
Then some faint semblance of the tigress guarding her young appeared in Mrs Burton.
'Ned! Why should Ned be brought home? Why should he be involved in trouble he has nothing to do with? He is out of it; he, at least, is safe. No, papa; I will not have him brought back.'
'Clara, you are mad, you are incomprehensible!' cried her father. 'Give me the boy's address.'
'I will not,' she answered, looking at him.
The woman had come to light in her at last—the woman and something of the mother. As a daughter she had neglected none of the observances of respect. She had been dutiful, though she had long been an independent agent, and had forgotten the very idea of obedience. But never had she defied her father before. She did it now calmly, as she did everything. She had upheld her family and its importance as long as mortal strength could do it; and now when that had failed, she could at least defend her boy.
'Clara, you astonish me. I could not have believed it of you,' said her father severely.
But he had no time to remonstrate or to command. He had to hurry away for his train. And she stood and looked after him, her breath for the first time quickened with excitement, her resolution bringing a certain colour to her cheek. Ned was safe, and out of all this trouble. It was the only gleam of comfort in her clouded sky. He who should bring her boy back to undergo all this shame and suffering was her enemy, though it were done on the specious pretence of serving her. To bring her son back to support and help her would be to do her the last and cruellest wrong. She could do without the help and support. She was ready to bear anything, since it must be borne. What relief could it afford her to know that another suffered too, and that other her son? She went back to the house with quickened steps under the sway of the thought, that Ned, at least, was safe and out of it. She was not the kind of woman who would complain of bearing anything alone.
Breakfast was a very late and straggling meal that day at Dura; but Mrs Burton was the first at the table—before even the young man who had proposed a bath and a walk instead of sleep. The breakfast was as sumptuous, as well served, as usual, and there were the same number of servants about, the dogs, as usual, on the lawn, the man with the post-bags, as usual, visible, coming up the avenue. The ordinary eye would have seen no indication of any change. But Mrs Burton made a calm little speech to every new group, which had the most curiously disconcerting effect upon her guests. She said to them that family circumstances compelled her to make preparations at once for leaving Dura; that some things had happened which she need not tell them of—family events—which had changed all her arrangements. She hoped, under these circumstances, they would pardon her, if she said plainly——
'Oh, yes, certainly. Not another word,' the visitors cried, dismayed. They all gazed at each other, and whispered over their teacups when her back was turned. They heard her say the same thing to one party after another—even to the Marchioness herself, who had come down fully primed, meaning to overwhelm Mrs Burton with a theatrical leave-taking.
'Why, why, why!' she cried in her wrath, 'you mean that you want to—get rid of us, Mrs Burton!' and her hair stood on end upon her noble head.
'I am afraid, without making any mystery of it, that is what I do mean, Lady Upshire,' said the woman, who was only the wife of a rich City man—aparvenue, one of thenouveaux riches—fixing her blue eyes calmly upon her splendid guest.
'What pluck she has!' the young men said to themselves. They almost cheered her for her dauntless front. And they were all gone by two o'clock—Marchioness and maid, guardsman and public servant—every visitor, gentle and simple. They disappeared as if by magic. What questions they asked each other, what speculations they entertained among themselves, Mrs Burton neither knew nor cared. The first thing was to be free of them; and when the afternoon came, she was alone with the startled servants and her two aunts, to whom as yet she had given no explanations, and whose private opinion, stated a hundred times that morning, was, that at last beyond all controversy Clara must be mad.