Strolling hither and thither, just as his steps led him, for in truth he had no purpose just then, so intense was his mental distress, Mr. Grubb found himself somehow in Jermyn Street. He was passing the Cavendish Hotel, his eyes nowhere, when a hand was laid upon his arm. A little lady in a close bonnet and black veil, standing at the hotel entrance, had arrested him.
"Were you going to pass me, Francis Grubb?"
"Miss Upton!" he exclaimed, coming with an effort, out of his wilderness, and clasping her offered hand. "I did not see you; I was buried in thought."
"In deep thought, as it seemed to me," rejoined Miss Upton, regarding his face with a meaning look. "Come upstairs to my sitting-room."
"Are you staying here?" he asked.
"Only until tomorrow afternoon. I came from home this morning. Sit down and take lunch with me," she added, removing her bonnet. "It is ready, you perceive. I told them to have it on the table by one o'clock. They are punctual, and so am I."
"You have been out?"
"Only to Chenevix House. I came up on business of my own, but I wanted to see the Acorns, so I drove there at once, after reporting myself here to the hotel people, to whom I wrote yesterday to secure my rooms. No meat! Why, what do you live upon?"
Something like a faint smile parted his lips. "Thank you—no, not today. I have no appetite."
"Try," she kindly whispered, leaning forward and laying her hand for a moment upon his. "Other men have had to bear as much before you."
So, then, she knew it! A vivid red dyed his brow. How painful it was, this allusion to it, even from her.
"You have heard it?" he breathed.
"I heard of the trouble about the cheque last week from the Rector, during a flying visit he had to pay Netherleigh. The man was in terrible distress, hardly knowing whether his son was guilty or not guilty. A little further news dropped out later, and yesterday Charles was brought home by his father and stepmother; his name cleared, but some one else's mentioned."
She paused a moment. Mr. Grubb said nothing.
"When I reached Lady Acorn's this morning, she was alone—and in a state, not of temper, but of real, genuine distress," continued Miss Upton. "I told her I had come to hear the whole truth about this miserable business, and she told me all, from beginning to end. She is full of wrath and bitterness: and who can wonder?"
"Against me?"
"Against you! No. Against Adela. She did not spare her daughter in the recital. She said that Mr. Grubb—you—were at that moment with Lord Acorn, negotiating, she believed, the articles of a separation. Was it so?"
"Yes. They are arranged."
"Alas! I have long foreseen that it might come to it. Before there was any notion of this last terrible offence of hers, I thought the day of retribution must surely come, unless she mended her ways. But we will say no more, now. Adela is my god-daughter, and I will do what I can for her, though I would rather have seen her in her grave."
He lifted his eyes to the earnest face.
"I would, indeed. Far rather would I have seen her in her grave than what she is—a heartless woman. You have been to her a husband in a thousand, and this is how she has requited you. And now, tell me—if you don't mind telling tales out of school—how Acorn is going on: for I expect you know. Fighting shy of his debts, as usual?"
In spite of the mental pain that pressed so heavily upon him, Mr. Grubb could not forbear a smile, her tone was so quaint. "Just now his lordship is flourishing," replied he, his voice assuming a lightness he did not feel. "He had a slice of luck at the Derby: won, it is said, between ten and twelve thousand pounds."
Miss Upton lifted her hands. "What a sum of money to win, or to lose! He might have lost it, I suppose, as easily as gained it: and then where would he have been? How can men do these things lightly? How much does he owe you?"
The question was put abruptly. A faint colour tinged Mr. Grubb's face. He hesitated.
"You do not care to say," quickly spoke Miss Upton. "Quite right of you, no doubt. I conclude you feel pretty secure, having taken his bonds on Court Netherleigh—whenever it shall fall in."
"I have not taken any bonds on Court Netherleigh. Believe that, Miss Upton."
"Do you mean to say that he has not offered you bonds on it, as security for your loans?"
"He has offered them over and over again. But I have never taken them. In the first place, it would have been no true security. Court Netherleigh is not his, and there exists, of course, a possibility that it may never be his: for he—is older than its present possessor," concluded Mr. Grubb, his eyes meeting Miss Upton's. "No; for what I have lent Lord Acorn, I possess no security beyond his acknowledgment."
"Ah," shortly commented Miss Upton. "I told you once, you know, that you were safe in letting him borrow money on the Netherleigh estate. But I did not mean to imply that I sanctioned your doing so; certainly not to help him to any extent."
"I have not helped him to any great extent. At least, not to more than I can afford to lose with equanimity. I have never advanced to him a sum, large or small, but in the full consciousness that it would probably never be returned."
Miss Upton nodded her approval, and passed to another topic. "Will you tell me how your mother is?" she asked. "I hear she is so ill as to be in danger, and that you have been afraid to leave her."
"She was in danger three or four days ago, and I was sent for in haste. But the danger has passed, and she is tolerably well again—excepting for weakness. My mother has had several of these attacks now, and it seems to me, that each one is more severe than the last. They are connected with the heart."
"Ay, we must all have some affliction or other as we draw near to the close of life; some reminder, more or less ominous in itself, that God will soon be calling us to that better world where there is neither sickness nor death," she remarked, dreamily. "She is going—and I am going—and yet——"
"Not you, surely, dear Miss Upton!" he interrupted, struck with the words.
She looked at him for a moment, saw his concern, and smiled.
"Are we not all going?" she asked—"some sooner, some later. And yet, I was about to say, what a short time ago it seems since I and Catherine Grant were girls together: dear friends and companions! How much I should like to see her!"
"Would you really like to do so? Would you care to go to Blackheath?"
"I should. But I don't know how to get there. When one comes to be close upon sixty years of age, and not strong, these short railway journeys try one mightily. I know they try me."
"Dear Miss Upton, you can go to Blackheath without the slightest exertion or trouble. My carriage will take you to my mother's door, and bring you back to this. Shall it do so?"
"Without trouble, you say? Then I will go this afternoon. No time like the present. I had meant to do two or three errands for myself, and told the fly to be here at three o'clock, but Annis shall do them for me."
"The carriage shall be here instead. Will you have it open or shut?"
"Open in going. Closed in returning, if it be at all late. Catherine and I will have a great deal to say to each other; once we meet, we shall not be in haste to part. That is, if she does not cherish too much resentment to speak to me at all. Of course, you will accompany me?"
"Of course I will," he answered: and hastened away to give the necessary orders. Not to his house; he did not go near that; and did not intend to do so, until fully assured that Lady Adela had left it; he went direct to the stables.
At three o'clock the carriage stood before the door of the hotel. Its master stood waiting for it, and Miss Upton came out, followed by her maid Annis, who was departing to do the errands. Mr. Grubb handed Miss Upton into the carriage, and they drove to Blackheath.
"Catherine!"
"Margery!"
The names simultaneously broke from their lips when the early friends met; they who had lived estranged for the better part of their lives. Mrs. Lynn was in what she called her invalid sitting-room, one that opened from her bed-chamber, and which she occupied when she was too ill to go downstairs. She was lying on a sofa near the open window—from which window there was to be seen so fair a landscape—but she rose when Miss Upton entered.
They sat on the sofa side by side, hand clasping hand. Grievances were forgotten, estrangement was at an end. Miss Upton had taken off her bonnet and mantle, and looked as much at home as though she had lived there for years. They fell to talking of the old days. Francis remained below with his sister.
"I did not expect to see you again, Margery, on this side the grave," spoke Mrs. Lynn. "Not so very long ago, I should have declined a visit from you had you proffered it. It is only when sickness has subdued the spirit that we lay aside old animosities."
"And therefore towards the end of life sickness comes to us. I said so this afternoon to your son. We quarrel and fight and take vengeance on one another in our hotheaded days: but when the blood chills with years and the world is fading from us, we see what our crooked ways have been worth."
"You were all very bitter with me for marrying Christopher Grubb, Margery; and you took care to let me know it. Uncle Francis—as we used to call Sir Francis Netherleigh, though without the slightest right to do so—was the most bitter of all."
"Just as Elizabeth Acorn's girls call me 'aunt' in these later years," remarked Miss Upton. "Yes, Uncle Francis was very angry. He thought you had thrown yourself away."
"Elizabeth Acorn has never condescended to take the slightest notice of me. Although my son has married her daughter, she has never given him the smallest intimation that she remembers we were friends in early life."
"Betsy always had her crotchets; they don't diminish with age," returned Miss Upton. "She may be called a disappointed woman; and disappointment seldom renders any one more genial."
Mrs. Lynn did not understand. "Disappointed in what way?"
"In her husband. Not in himself, but in his circumstances. When Betsy married him, it was to enter, as she supposed, upon a career of unlimited wealth and splendour. Instead of that, she found him to be the most reckless of men as regards money, spending all before him, and her life has been one of almost incessant embarrassment. You little know what shifts she has been sometimes put to. It has soured her, Catherine. What a noble man your son is," added the speaker, after a brief pause. "One in a thousand."
"And what a miserable mistake he made in wedding Adela Chenevix!" returned Mrs. Lynn, with emotion. "She makes him the most wretched wife. He does not open his lips to me, he never will do it; but I can see what a blighted life his is—and I hear others speak of it. I cannot help thinking that he is in some especial trouble with her at the present moment, or why does he remain down here, now that I am better?"
"So they have not thought well to tell his mother," reflected Margery Upton. Neither would she tell her.
"You are happy in your children, Catherine. Of your son the world may be proud—and is. As to your daughter, she is one of the sweetest girls I know."
"Yes, I am truly happy in my children," assented Mrs. Lynn. "It is a wonderful consolation. But happiness does not attend them. Francis we have spoken of. And poor Mary lost her betrothed husband, Robert Dalrymple, by a dreadful fate, as you know. She will never marry."
"Ah, that was a cruel business. Poor Robert! If he had only brought his troubles to me, I would have saved him."
"The singular thing is, that he did not take them to Francis," quickly spoke Mrs. Lynn. "Francis had the power to help him, equally with yourself, and he had the will. The very last day of Robert's life; at least, I think it was the last, he was with Francis in Grosvenor Square, and I believe Francis then offered to help him—or as good as offered to do so."
Margery Upton sighed. It was an unprofitable subject; a gloomy reminiscence. "Let us leave it, Catherine," she said. "Did you give your son the name of Francis in remembrance of Francis Netherleigh?"
"Indeed I did not. Sir Francis Netherleigh had wounded me too greatly for me to wish to retain any remembrance of him. Francis was named after his uncle and his father."
"Were you surprised at Netherleigh's being left to me?" resumed Miss Upton, breaking a pause of silence.
"Not at all. I thought it the most natural thing for Sir Francis to do. I had married, and was discarded; Betsy Cleveland had also married; her husband was a nobleman; mine was rich; and we neither of us needed Netherleigh. It was not likely he would leave it to either of us. You, on the contrary, continued to live with him as his niece—his child—and you had no fortune. It was a just bequest, Margery, in my judgment. It never occurred to me to think of it in any other light."
"Betsy Acorn has never forgiven me for having inherited it—or forgiven Uncle Francis for leaving it to me. I have wondered at odd moments whether you felt about it as she did."
"I?" returned Mrs. Lynn, in surprise. "Never. Sir Francis did right in leaving it to you. And, now, tell me a little about yourself, Margery. Are you in good health? You do not look strong."
We will leave them to themselves. It was a pleasant, and yet partly a sad meeting; and perhaps each opened her heart to the other in more confidential intercourse than had ever been exchanged between them before.
"Won't you come down and stay with me, and see the old place again, Catherine?" spoke entreatingly the mistress of Court Netherleigh, in parting.
"Never again, Margery. I would willingly come to you; I should like to see the dear old spot; but I shall never be able to go another day's journey from this, my home. Not very long now, and I shall be carried from it."
Twilight was advancing, when the carriage came round to take Miss Upton back to London. Lovely sunset colours lingered in the west; a few light clouds floated across the sky; the crescent moon shone with a pale silvery light.
Lost, no doubt, in thoughts of the past interview, Margery Upton sat in silence, leaning back in her corner of the carriage. Mr. Grubb did not break it. So far as could be seen, he was wholly occupied with the beauties of the sky. At least a mile of the way was thus passed. Presently she glanced at him, and noted his outward, dreamy gaze. How this trouble of his had troubled her, she did not care to tell. He had her warmest sympathy.
"Do not let this crush you," she suddenly cried, leaning towards him. "Do not let the world see that it has subdued you; don't give her that triumph. God can never mean that the life of a good and noble Christian man, as you are, should be blighted. Yes, I know," she continued, interrupting some words he spoke, "troubles come to all, and it is on the best of us, as I believe, that they fall most heavily; on God's chosen few."
He laid his other hand upon hers, and kept it there.
"It is, you know, through tribulation that we enter into the Kingdom," she continued, softly; "and tribulation takes various shapes and forms, as may be best suited to our true welfare. The cruelest pain that the world knows may be fraught with guidance to the gate of Eternity: which, otherwise, we might have missed."
He could but give a silent assent.
"Accept this trial, Francis. Bear it like a man, and you will in time live it down. Make no change in your manner of living; do not give up your home or establishment: no, nor your visitors: continue all that as before. It is my best advice to you."
"It is the best advice you could give," he answered, with emotion. "Thank you for all your sympathy, dear Miss Upton. Thank you ever."
She drew back to her corner, and he looked out at the night again. Thus nearly another mile was passed.
"Did you find my mother much changed?" he said by-and-bye. "Should you have known her again?"
"Known her again!"—returned Miss Upton, with a brief smile. "I knew whom I was going to see, and therefore I could trace the features I was once familiar with. We were girls when we parted, young and blooming; now we are old women verging on the grave. Catherine retains her remarkable eyes, undimmed, unclouded. They are beautiful as ever; beautiful as yours."
Francis Grubb had heard so much of his eyes all his life, remarkable eyes, in truth, as Miss Upton called them, and very beautiful, that the allusion fell unheeded, if not unheard, on his ear. Something else in the words laid more hold upon him.
"Not verging on the grave yet, I trust:you. My dear mother will not, I fear, be spared long to us; but she has an incurable disease. Such is not your case, dear Miss Upton; and you should not talk so. You are young yet, as compared with many people. As, in fact, is my mother."
Margery Upton touched his arm, that he should look at her. "How do you know that I have not an incurable disease? Why should not such a thing come to me, as well as to your mother?"
Something in the tone, the earnest look, struck on him with fear. "It cannot be!" he slowly whispered.
"It is. I am dying, Francis. Dying slowly but surely. The probability is that I shall go before your mother goes."
He remembered how worn and weary he had thought her looking for some time past; how especially so on this same morning when she stopped him at the door of the Cavendish. He recalled a sentence, a word, that had fallen from her now and then, seeming to imply that she saw the close of life drawing near. Yet still, with all this presenting itself to him in a sudden mental effort, he could only reiterate: "It cannot be; it cannot be!"
"It is," she repeated. "I have suspected it for some time. I know it now."
A lump seemed to rise in his throat. How truly he esteemed and valued this good lady he never quite realized until this morning. She resumed.
"I know my friends, the few who consider they have a right to concern themselves about me, wonder that I should have come up to town so much more frequently during the past few months than I was wont to come. What I come for is to see my physician, Dr. Stair. I live too far off to expect him to come to me; and the journey does me no harm. I have an appointment with him tomorrow at eleven: after that, I return home."
"Is it the heart?" he asked, drawing a deep breath.
"No: but it is a disorder none the less fatal than some of those diseases that attack the heart. It is about two years ago—perhaps not quite so much," she broke off, "since I began to fear I was not well. I let it go on for a little time; Frost, our local doctor, did not seem to make much out of it; and then I came up to Dr. Stair. He is a straightforward man, and he plainly said he did not like my symptoms, but he thought he could subdue them and set me right. I grew better for a time; the malady seemed to have been checked, though it did not entirely leave me. Latterly it has returned with increased force; and—I know my fate."
The disclosure brought to him the keenest pain. "If I could only avert it!" he cried out, in his sorrow; "if I could only ward it off you!"
"No one on earth can do that. For myself, I am quite resigned; resting, and content to rest, in God's good hands."
"And, how long——"
"How long will it be before the end comes, you would ask," she said, for he did not conclude the sentence. "That I do not know. I mean to put the question to Dr. Stair tomorrow, and I am sure he will answer it to the best of his belief. It may be pretty near."
"Do you suffer pain?"
"Always; more or less. That will grow worse, I suppose, before it is over."
"Alas! alas!" he mentally breathed. "Should not your friends be made acquainted with this, Miss Upton?"
"My chief friends are acquainted with it. I have no very close friends. The Rector of Netherleigh is the closest, and he has known of it for some time. That is, he knows I am suffering from a disorder that I shall probably never get the better of. Your mother knows it, for I told her this evening; and now you know it. My faithful maid Annis knows a little—Frost and Dr. Stair most of all. No one else knows of it in the wide world: and I do not wish that any one should know."
"Is it right? Right to them?"
"Why, what other friends have I? Lady Acorn, you may say. She has never been as afriendto me. Your mother and I, had opportunity permitted, might have been the truest and dearest friends, but I and Betsy Acorn, never. She and I do not assimilate. Time enough to proclaim my condition to the world when I become so ill that it cannot be concealed."
She fell into a reverie; and they scarcely exchanged another word for the rest of the way.
"You will not speak of this to the Acorns," she said to him, as the carriage stopped at the hotel.
"Certainly not, as you do not wish it. Or to any one else."
"It would only give a fillip to Lord Acorn's extravagance. With the prospect of coming into Court Netherleigh close at hand, he would increase his debts thick and threefold."
Francis Grubb nodded assent; he knew how true it was: he shook her hand with a lingering pressure, and watched her up the stairs. Then, dismissing his carriage, he walked through the lighted streets to Charing-Cross Station on his way back to Blackheath.
It may be that he shunned his home lest his wife should still be in it. He need not have feared. Within an hour of his departure from it at midday, while she was still in the depth of the bewilderment which the blow had brought her, Lord Acorn arrived. His errand was to take her away with him; and to take her peremptorily. He did not say to her, "Will you put on your bonnet and come with me, Adela:" he said, curtly, "Come."
"I cannot leave my home in this dreadful way, papa," she gasped, voice and hands alike trembling. "I cannot leave it for ever."
"You will," he coldly answered. "You must. You have no alternative. I am come to remove you from it."
"No, no," she pleaded. "Oh, papa, have mercy! Papa, papa!"
"You should have made that prayer to your husband, Adela—while the time to do it yet remained to you."
She clasped her hands in bitter repentance. "He will forgive me yet; I know he will. He may let me——"
"Never," interrupted Lord Acorn. "You may put that notion out of your mind for good, Adela. Francis Grubb will never forgive you, or receive you back while life shall last."
She moaned faintly.
"And you have only yourself to thank for it. Put your things on, as I bid you," he sternly added. "This is waste of time. And send your maid to me for instructions."
And thus Adela was removed from her husband's house overwhelmed with shame and remorse.
In the light of the late but genial autumn sunshine lay Court Netherleigh. September was quickly passing. It was summer weather when we last met the reader; it is getting on for winter now.
In that favourite room of Miss Upton's where we first saw her—Miss Margery's room, as it is called in the household—she sits today, shivering near a blazing fire, a bright cashmere shawl worn over her purple silk gown, a simple cap of rich white lace shading her shrunken features. Her malady is making steady progress, and she always feels cold.
The small, pretty room has been renewed, but its old colours are retained. The glass-doors, that used to stand open when the sun shone or the air was balmy, are closed today, for the faintest breath of wind chills the invalid. On the table at her elbow lies a book of devotion half closed, her spectacles resting between the leaves; one of those books that the gay and busy world turn from as being so gloomy, and that bring comfort so great to those who are leaving it. Miss Upton sits back in her chair, looking up at the blue heavens, where she is so soon to be.
"I cannot help wishing sometimes," she began in low dreamy tones, "that more decided revelation of what heaven will be had been vouchsafed to us. I mean as to our own state there, our work, and occupations. Though I suppose that all work—work, as we call it here—will be as rest there. We know that we shall be in a state of happiness beyond conception; but we know not precisely of what it will consist."
"I suppose we were not meant to know," replied the young lady to whom she spoke, who sat apart on the green satin sofa, her elbow resting on one arm of it, her delicate hand shading her face. The tone of her voice was weary and depressed, the other hand lay listless on her muslin dress. "Time enough for that, perhaps, when we get there—those whodoget there."
"Don't be irreverent," came the quick reproof.
"Irreverent! I did not mean to be so, Aunt Margery."
"You used to be irreverent enough, Lady Adela. As the world knows."
"Ay. Things have changed for me."
It was indeed the Lady Adela sitting there. But she was altered in looks almost as much as Miss Margery. The once careless, saucy, haughty girl had grown sad, her manner utterly spiritless, the once blooming face was pale and thin. Only yesterday had she come to Court Netherleigh, following on a communication from Lady Acorn.
"I can do nothing with her; she is utterly self-willed and obstinate; I shall send her to you for a little while, Margery," wrote Lady Acorn to Miss Upton: and Margery Upton had replied that she might come.
That a wave of trouble had swept over Lady Adela, leaving desolation and despair behind it, was all too visible. To be put away by her husband in the face and eyes of her own family and of the world, was to her proud spirit the very bitterest blow possible to be inflicted on it; a cruel mortification, that she would never quite lose the sting of as long as life lasted.
On the very day the separation was decided upon, not an hour after Mr. Grubb left her in her chamber after apprising her of it, Lord Acorn, as you have read, came to the house, and took her from it without ceremony. His usual débonnaire indifference had given place to a sternness, against which there could be no thought of rebellion.
She took up her abode at Chenevix House that day, and Darvy followed with the possessions that belonged to her. She was not kindly received, or warmly treated. No, she had given too serious offence for that. Her mother did not spare her in the matter of reproach; her father was calmly bitter; Grace was cold. Lady Sarah Hope ran away to the country to avoid her, taking her sister Frances and Alice Dalrymple; and Lady Sarah made no scruple of letting it be known at her father's why she had gone.
Lord and Lady Acorn might have their personal failings, the one be too lavish of money, the other of temper, but they had at least brought up their daughters to be good and honourable women, instilling into them strict principles; and the blow was a sharp one. They deemed it right and just not to spare her who had inflicted it—inflicted it in wanton wilfulness—and they let her pain come home to her. It all told upon Adela.
The world turned upon her a cold shoulder. Rumours of the separation between Mr. and Lady Adela Grubb soon grew into certainty; and the world wanted to know the cause of it. For, after all, the true and immediate cause, that terrible crime she had allowed herself to commit, never transpired. The very few cognizant of it buried the secret within their own bosoms for her good name's sake. No clue transpiring as to this, people fell back upon the other and only cause known, more or less, to them—her long-maintained cavalier treatment of her husband. Mr. Grubb must have come to his senses at last, reasoned society, and sent her home to her mother to be taught better manners. And society considered that he had done righteously.
So the world, taking up other people's business according to custom, turned its back upon her. Which was, to say the least of it, inconsistent. For now, had the Lady Adela been suspected of any grave social crime; one, let us say, involving fears of having to appear before the Judge of the Divorce Court, society would have shaken hands with her as usual, so long as public proceedings remained in abeyance: what every one may privately see or suspect goes for nothing. This other offence was lighter, it did not involve those fatal extremes; this was more as though she were being punished as a naughty child; consequently the world thought fit to let its opinion be known, and to deal out a meed of censure on its own immaculate score.
But it told, I say, on Lady Adela. Told cruelly. Cast off by her husband for good and aye; tacitly reproached daily and hourly by her parents; rejected by her sisters, as though she might tarnish them if brought into too close contact, and looked askance at by society; Lady Adela drank the cup of repentance to the dregs.
If she could, if she could only undo her work—if that one fatal morning, when she found the cheque-book lying on the floor of her husband's dressing-room, had never been numbered in the calendar of the past! She was for ever wishing this fruitless wish. For ever wishing that her treatment of her husband had been different in the time before that one temptation set in.
No more invitations came for her from the gay world. Not that she would have accepted them. For the short time the Chenevix family remained in town after the outbreak, cards would come in, bidding Lord and Lady Acorn and their daughter Grace to this entertainment or to that; but never a one came for Lady Adela Grubb. She might have passed out of existence for all the notice taken of her. Mr. Grubb had suggested to her father that she should have her own carriage. She did not set one up; she would have had no use for it, had it been set up for her.
They went to their seat in Oxfordshire, carrying her with them. Lord Acorn returned to town in a day or two: Grace went on to Colonel Hope's place near Cheltenham, to stay with her sisters, Sarah and Frances. This left Adela and Lady Acorn alone; and her ladyship very nearly drove the girl wild with her tartness. She would have driven her quite wild had Adela's spirit been what it once was; but it was altogether subdued.
"Mamma," said Adela to her one day, after some mutual bickering, "do you want me to die?"
"Don't talk like a simpleton," retorted Lady Acorn.
"I think I shall die—if I have to lead this life much longer."
"You are as much likely to die as I am. What do you mean?"
"I mean what I say. I think I must—must kill myself, or something. Take a dose of opium, perhaps."
"You wicked girl! Running on in that false manner! Whatever your life may be, you have brought it upon yourself."
"Yes," thought Adela, "there lies the sting."
"What's the matter with the life?" tartly resumed her mother.
"It is so weary. And there's no hope left in it."
"It would not be weary if you chose to exert yourself. Get music—books—work. Look at Grace, how busy she is when we are staying here, with her sick-clubs, and her poor cottagers, and her schools."
Lady Adela turned up her pretty nose. "Sick-clubs and schools! Yes, that suits Grace."
"At all events, it keeps her from being dull. What do you do all day long! Just sit with your head bent on your hand, or mope about the rooms like one demented! It gives me the fidgets to look at you! You should rouse yourself, Adela."
"Rouse myself to what?" she faintly asked. "There's nothing to rouse myself to."
"Makesomething: some interest for yourself. No life is open to you now except a quiet one. Even were it possible that you could wish for any other, I and your father would take care you did not enter on it. But quiet lives may be made full of interest, if we will; a great deal more so than noisy ones."
Good advice, no doubt: perhaps the only advice now open to Lady Adela. She did not profit by it. The weary time went on, and she grew more weary day by day. Lady Acorn called her obstinate; sometimes Adela retaliated. At last, the countess, losing all patience, wrote to Miss Upton to say she should send her for a little change to Court Netherleigh; for she was quite unaware of the critical state of Miss Upton's health.
And this was the first time, this morning when we see Miss Upton and Adela sitting together, that any special conversation had been held between them. The previous day had been one of Miss Margery's "bad days," when she was confined to the sofa in her chamber, and she had only been able to see Adela for a minute or two, to bid her welcome. Miss Upton criticizing Adela's appearance by the morning light, found her looking ill, but she quite believed her to be just as graceless as ever.
"Things change for all of us, Adela," observed she, continuing the conversation. "They have changed most especially for you."
Lady Adela raised her face, something like defiance on it. Was the miserable past to be recalled to herhere, as well as at home?—was she going to be for ever lectured upon its fruits, as her mother lectured her? She was wretched enough herself about it, Heaven knew, and would undo it if she could; but that was no reason why all the world should be incessantly casting it in her teeth. She answered sharply.
"The past is over, Aunt Margery, and the less said about it the better. To be told of it will do me no good."
Aunt Margery did not like the tone. Could this mistaken girl—she really looked but as a girl—beextenuatingthe past, and her own conduct in it?
"Do you know what I said, Adela, when the news reached me of all you had done, and I thought of the consequences it might involve? I said—and I spoke truly—that I would rather have seen you in your grave."
"Said it to mamma, I suppose?"
"No. I tried to excuse you to her. I said it to your husband."
"Oh—to him," said Adela, assuming an indifference she did not feel.
"And I am not sure but death might have been a happier fate for you than this that you have brought upon yourself—disgrace, the neglect of the world, and a dreary, purposeless life."
It might have been. Adela felt it so to her heart's core. She bit her lips to conceal their trembling.
"All the same, Aunt Margery, he was harsher than he need have been."
"Who was?"
"Mr. Grubb."
"Do you think so, Adela—remembering your long course of scorn and cruelty? My only wonder was that he had not emancipated himself from it long before."
Adela flushed, and began to tap her foot on the carpet in incipient rebellion. Of all things, she hated to be reminded of that mistake of the long-continued years. Miss Margery noted the signs.
"Child, I do not wish to pain you unnecessarily: but, as the topic has come up, I cannot allow you to mistake my opinion. You had a prince of a husband; a man of rare merit: he has, I truly believe, scarcely his equal in the world——"
"I know you always thought him perfection," interrupted Adela.
"Ifoundhim so. As near perfection as mortal man may be here."
"Including his name," she put in, with a touch of her old sauciness.
Miss Upton replied not in words: she simply looked at her. It was a long, steady, and very peculiar look, one that Adela did not understand, and it passed away with a half-smile.
"For true nobility of mind," resumed Miss Margery, "for uprightness of life, for goodness of heart, who is like him? Look at his generosity to all and every one. Recall one slight recent act of his—what he did for that fantastically foolish lad, Charles Cleveland. Most men, provoked as Mr. Grubb had been by you, and in a degree also by Charles, would have abandoned him to his fate. Not he. That is not his way. When the poor Rector was fretting himself to discover what was next to be done with Charles, and the young fellow was mooning about Netherleigh, his hands in his pockets, trying to make up his mind to go and enlist, for he saw no other opening for him, there came a letter to the Rector from Mr. Grubb. He had interested himself with his correspondents in Calcutta—I'm not sure but it is a branch of his own house—and had obtained Charles a place, out there, at just double the salary he enjoyed here."
"And Charley is half-way over the seas on his voyage to it," lightly remarked Adela. "Charley was only a goose, Aunt Margery."
"You cannot say that of your husband," sharply returned Miss Margery, not approving the tone. "Unless it was in his love for you. Your husband was fond of you to folly; he indulged your every whim; he would have made your life happy as a dream of Paradise. And how did you requite him?"
No answer. The rebellious tapping of the foot had ceased.
"It has been a sad, cruel business altogether," sighed Miss Upton: "both for him and for you. It has blighted his life; taken all the sunshine out of it. And what has it done for yours?"
What indeed? Adela pushed back her pretty brown hair with both hands from her feverish forehead.
"Any way, the blight does not seem to have sensibly affected him, Aunt Margery. One hears of him here, there, and everywhere. You can't take up a newspaper but you see his name reiterated in it—Grubb, Grubb, Grubb!"
She put a great amount of scorn into the name. Miss Upton sighed.
"I am grieved to see you in this frame of mind, Adela."
"I am only saying what's true, Aunt Margery. I'm sure one would think he had taken the whole business of the world upon his shoulders. He is being asked to stand for some county or other now."
"Yes; he is playing an active part in the world," assented Miss Margery. "All honour to him that it is so! Do you suppose that one, wise and conscientious as he is, would put aside his duties to God and man because his heart has been well-nigh broken by a heartless wife? Rather would he be the more earnest in fulfilling them. Occupation will enable him to forget the past sooner and more effectually than anything else would."
"To forget me, I suppose you mean, Aunt Margery."
"Would you wish him to remember you, Adela—and what you have been to him? I tell you, child, that my whole heart aches for your husband: it ached long before you left him; while—I must say it—it was full of resentment against you. I am very sorry for you, Adela; you are my god-daughter, and I will try my best, whilst you stay with me, to soothe your wounds and reconcile you to this inevitable change. It has tried you: I see that, in spite of your pretended carelessness; you appear to me to be anything but strong."
"I am not strong, Aunt Margery. And if I fade away into the grave, I don't suppose any one will miss me or regret me."
"The best thing for her, perhaps, poor child—to be removed from this blighted life to the bright and beautiful life above! And her husband, released from his trammels, would then probably find that comfort in a second wife which he missed in her. Who knows but this may be God's purpose? He is over all."
Was Margery Upton aware that these words were spoken in a murmur—not merely thought? Probably not. They reached Adela: and a curious pang shot through her heart.
The butler came into the room at the moment, bringing a message to his mistress. One of her tenants had called, and wished very much to be allowed a short interview with her. And Miss Upton, who was still able to attend at times to worldly matters, quitted the room at once.
A faint cry escaped Lady Adela as the door closed. She turned her face upon the sofa-cushion, and burst into a flood of distressing tears.
December was in, and winter weather lay on the earth. Court Netherleigh looked out on a lovely view, rare as a scene from fairyland. Snow clung to the branches of the trees in feathery beauty; icicles sparkled in the sun. A new and strange world might have replaced the old one.
Margery Upton lay on the sofa in her dressing-room. She was able to get into it most days, but she had given up going downstairs now. During the months that had gone on since the autumn and the time of Lady Adela's sojourn, the fatal disease which had fastened on Miss Upton had made its persistent though partly imperceptible ravages, and her condition was now no longer a secret; though few people suspected how very near the end might be. In her warm dressing-gown of soft violet silk, for she remained loyal to her favourite colour, and her lace cap shading her face, she lay between the fireplace and the window, gazing at the snowy landscape. She did not look very ill, and Grace Chenevix might be excused for the hopeful thought, now crossing her mind, that perhaps after all Aunt Margery would rally. Grace had come down to spend a few days with her. She sat on the other side the hearthrug, tatting, the small ivory shuttle passing rapidly through her fingers.
"You do not have this beautiful scene in London, Grace," observed Miss Upton.
"Not often, Aunt Margery. Now and then, once, say, in four or five winters, the trees in the park look lovely. Of course we never see so beautiful a prospect as this is in its completeness."
"I wonder if our scenery in the next world will be much more beautiful—or if it will even be anything like this?" came the dreamy remark from the invalid. "Ah, Grace, I suppose I shall soon know now."
Lady Grace checked a sigh. She thought it best to be cheerful. The shuttle had to be threaded again, and she got up to reach the ball of thread.
"Who was your letter from this morning, Gracie? Annis said you had one: from 'foreign parts,' she took care to inform me."
Grace smiled. "Yes, I had, Aunt Margery; I had forgotten it for the moment. It was from Harriet. They are still in Switzerland, and mean to stay there."
"I thought they were to go to Rome for Christmas."
"But Adela objects to it so much, Harriet says; so they intend to remain where they are, in the desolate old château. They have made it as air-tight as they can, and keep up large wood fires. Adela shrinks from meeting the world, and Rome is unusually full of English."
"How is Adela?"
"Just the same. Worse, if anything; more sad, more spiritless. Harriet begins to fear she will become really ill; she seems to have a sort of low fever upon her."
"Poor girl!" sighed Miss Upton. "How she has blighted her life! I had a letter, too, this morning," she resumed, "from Mrs. Lynn. She is very ill; thinks she cannot last much longer—Francis told me so last week. I wonder"—in a half-whisper—"which of us will go first, she or I?"
"Was Mr. Grubb here last week, Aunt Margery?"
"For a few hours. I like him to come to me sometimes; he is a great favourite of mine. Grace, do you know what I have often wished—that that old story, that he proposed foryou, had been fact instead of misapprehension. With you he would have found the happiness he missed with Adela."
A flush passed over Grace's fair, placid face. She bent her head.
"Marriages are said, you know, to be made in heaven," she remarked, looking up with a smile; "so I conclude that all must have been right. Were the years to come over again, Adela would act very differently. She—oh, Aunt Margery, the snowy sprays are disappearing!"
"Ay; the sun has come out, and the snow melts. Few pleasant things last long in this world, child; something or other comes to mar them. But I thought you meant to go to Moat Grange this morning, Grace. You should start at once; it has struck eleven."
"I said I should like to see Selina, and to call on Mrs. Dalrymple on the way."
"Well, do so. Selina will receive you with open arms. She must be amazingly lonely, shut up in that dreary house from year's end to year's end. They see no company."
Grace put her tatting into its little basket, and rose. "Are you sure you shall not feel dull at being left, Aunt Margery?" she stayed to ask.
"I never feel dull, Grace."
Barely had Grace started on her walk, when the maid came to the dressing-room to say the Rector had called. "Will you see him, ma'am?" she inquired.
"Yes, Annis, I wish to see him," was Miss Upton's reply, as she rose from her recumbent position on the sofa and sat down upon it. Annis folded a grey shawl over her mistress's knees, put a footstool under her feet, and sent up Mr. Cleveland.
After a short time given to subjects of more vital importance, Miss Upton began to talk of her worldly affairs, induced to it possibly by a question of the Rector's as to whether all things were settled.
"You mean my will, I suppose," she answered, slightly smiling. "Yes, it is settled and done with. Will you be surprised to hear that I made my will within a month of coming into this estate, and that it has never been altered?"
"Indeed!" he remarked.
"I added a codicil to it last year, specifying the legacies I wish to bequeath; but the substance of the will, with its bequest, Court Netherleigh, remains unchanged."
Mr. Cleveland opened his lips to speak, and closed them again. In the impulse of the moment, he was about to say, "To whom have you left it?" But he remembered that it was a question he could not properly put.
"You were about to ask me who it is that will inherit this property, and you do not like to do so," she said, nodding to him pleasantly. "Well——"
"I beg your pardon," he interrupted. "The thought did arise to me, and I almost forgot myself."
"And very natural that it should arise to you. I am about to tell you all about it. I meant to do so before my death: as well now as any other time."
"Have you left it to Lord Acorn?"
"No; that I have not," she replied, in quick, decisive tones, as if the very suggestion did not please her. "Lord Acorn and his wife have chosen to entertain the notion; though they have not had any warranty for it from me, but the contrary: understand me, please, the contrary. Court Netherleigh is willed to Francis Grubb."
Mr. Cleveland's surprise was so great that for the moment he could only gaze at the speaker. He doubted if he heard correctly.
"To Francis Grubb!" he exclaimed.
"Yes; to him, and no other. I see how surprised you are. The world will feel surprise also."
"But Mr. Grubb is so rich!—he does not want Court Netherleigh," debated the Rector: not that he had any wish to cavil with the decree; he simply spoke out the thought that occurred to him.
"Were Mr. Grubb in possession of all the wealth of the Indies, he would still inherit Court Netherleigh," said she, looking across at her listener.
"I see. He is a favourite of yours; and most deservedly so."
"Cast your thoughts outwards, Mr. Cleveland, to the circle known to you and to me," she continued: "can you point out one single individual who has any abstract right to succeed to Court Netherleigh?"
"No, I cannot," he said, after a pause. "It is only because I have been accustomed to think it would become Lord Acorn's that I feel surprise."
"Lord Acorn would only make ducks-and-drakes of it; we all know that. And, to return to the subject of right, or claim, he does not possess so much of that as does Mr. Grubb."
Mr. Cleveland waited. He could not quite understand.
"Listen," said Miss Upton. "We three girls—you know whom I mean—were the only relatives Sir Francis Netherleigh had in the world. The other two married; I was left; and, after my mother's death, I came to live here. One day, during his fatal illness—it was the very last day he ever came downstairs—he bade me put aside my work and listen to him. It was a lovely summer afternoon, and we were sitting in the blue drawing-room, at the open window, he in his easy-chair. Uncle Francis—as we three girls had always called him, though, as you know, he was no uncle of ours—began speaking to me for the first time of his approaching death. I burst into tears, and that did not please him: he could be impatient at times. 'I want you to listen to me rationally, not to cry,' he said; 'and you must have known for some time that I was going.' So I dried my tears as well as I could, and he went on to tell me that it was I who would succeed to Court Netherleigh. I was indeed surprised! I could not believe it; just as you did not believe me now, when I told you I had bequeathed it to Francis Grubb; and I said something about not taking it—thatIwas not of sufficient consequence to be the mistress of Court Netherleigh. That put him out—little things had done so of late—and he testily asked me who else there was to take it. 'I have neither son nor nephew, more's the pity,' he went on, 'no relative of any kind, except you three girls. Had Catherine Grant not married she would have had Court Netherleigh,' he continued, 'but she put herself beyond the pale of society. Betsy Cleveland has done the same; and there is only you.' He then passed on to say how he should wish the place to be kept up. 'And to whom am I to leave it?' I said to him in turn, feeling greatly perplexed; 'I shall not know what to do with it.' 'That is chiefly what I want to talk to you about,' he answered. 'Perhaps you will marry, and have a son——' 'No; I shall never marry—never!' I interrupted. For I had had my little romance in early life," broke off Miss Upton, looking at the Rector, "and that kind of thing had closed for me. You have heard something of it, I fancy?"
Mr. Cleveland nodded: and she resumed.
"Uncle Francis saw I was in earnest; that no heir to Court Netherleigh would ever spring from me. 'In that case,' he said, 'I must suggest some one else,' and there he came to a pause. 'There's Lord Acorn,' I ventured to say, 'Betsy's husband——' 'Hold your tongue, unless you can talk sense!' he called out in anger. 'Would I allow Court Netherleigh to fall into the hands of a spendthrift? If George Acorn came into the property tomorrow, by the end of the year there would be nothing left of it: every acre would be mortgaged away. I charge you,' he solemnly added, 'not to allow George Acorn, or that son of his, little Denne, or any other son he may hereafter have, ever to come into Court Netherleigh. You understand, Margery, I forbid it. Putting aside Acorn's spendthrift nature, which would be an insurmountable barrier, and I dare say his son inherits it, I should not care for a peer to own the property; rather some one who will take the name of Netherleigh, and in whom the baronetcy may perhaps be revived.' You now see," added Miss Upton, glancing at the earnest face of the Rector, "why I am debarred, even though it had been my wish, from bequeathing Court Netherleigh to Lord Acorn."
"I do indeed."
"To go back to my uncle. 'Failing children of your own,' he continued, 'there is only one I can name as your successor—there's no other person living to name—and that is the little son of Catherine Grubb.' 'Catherine'sson!' I interrupted, in very astonishment. 'Yes; why not?' he answered. 'She offended me; but he has not; and I hear, for I have made inquiries through Pencot, that he is a noble little lad: his name, too, is Francis—Pencot has obtained all necessary information. In the years to come, when he shall be a good man—for Pencot tells me no pains are being spared to make himthat—perhaps also a great one, he may come here and reign as my successor, a second Sir Francis Netherleigh. In any case, he must take the name with the property; it must be made a condition: do not forget that.' I promised that I would not forget it, but I could not get over the surprise I felt. This boy was the son of Christopher Grubb; and it was to him, to his calling, so much objection had been raised in the family."
"It does appear rather contradictory on the face of it," agreed Mr. Cleveland.
"Yes. Uncle Francis saw what was in my mind. 'Were the past to come over again,' he observed, 'I might be less harsh with Catherine, more tolerant to him.' 'But Mr. Grubbisin trade, is a merchant, just as he was then,' I returned, wonderingly. 'When our days in this world draw to their close, and we stand on the threshold of another, ideas change,' returned my uncle. 'We see then that the inordinate value we have set on worldly distinctions may have been, to say the least of it, exaggerated; whilst the principles of right and justice become more weighty. What little right or claim there is in the matter, with regard to a successor to Court Netherleigh, lay with Catherine Grant. I have had to substitute you, Margery, for her; but it isrightthat her son should come in after you. I also find that Mr. Grubb's business is of a high standing, altogether different from the ideas we formed of it.'"
"How did any right lie with Catherine Grant—more than with you or Elizabeth Cleveland?" asked the Rector.
"In this way: Catherine Grant was the most nearly related to Sir Francis. Her mother was his first cousin, whereas my mother and Betsy's mother were only second cousins. Catherine also was the eldest of the three, by about a year. So you perceive he spoke with reason—the right of succession, if any right existed, lay with her."
Mr. Cleveland nodded.
"'After you come into possession here, do not lose time in making your will,' he continued. 'Tomorrow I will write down a few particulars to guide you, which you can, at the proper time, show to Pencot. The lad's name, Francis Grubb, will be put in as your successor, and when he comes here, in later years, he must change it to Francis Netherleigh.' 'But,' I rejoined, 'suppose the little boy should grow up a bad man, a man of evil repute, what then?' 'Then,' he said, striking his hand emphatically upon the elbow of his chair, 'I charge you to destroy your first will, and make a fresh one. Look out in the world for yourself, and choose a worthy successor—not any one of the Acorns, mind, I have interdicted that; some gentleman of fair and estimable character, who will do his duty earnestly to God and to his neighbour, and who will take my name. Not the baronetcy. Unless he were of blood relationship to me, though ever so remote, no plea would exist for petitioning for that. But I think better things of this little boy in question,' he added quickly; 'instinct whispers that he will be found worthy.' As heis," emphatically concluded Miss Upton. "And I intend him to be, and hope he will be, a second Sir Francis Netherleigh. I have put things in train for it."
Miss Upton paused a moment, as if lost in the past.
"It is a singular coincidence, not unlike a link in a chain," she went on, dreamily, "that the present Prime Minister should be an old habitué of Court Netherleigh; many a week in his boyhood did he pass here with Uncle Francis, who was very kind to him. He has continued his friendship with me unto this day; coming down to visit me occasionally. I made a confidant of him during his last visit, telling him what I am now telling you, and I asked him to get this accomplished. He promised faithfully to do so, for our old friendship's sake, and in remembrance of his obligations to Uncle Francis, who had been a substantial friend to him. It would not be difficult, he said, Mr. Grubb assenting—whom, by the way, he esteems greatly. Therefore, you will, I hope, at no very prolonged period after my death, see him reigning here, Sir Francis Netherleigh."
"Has Mr. Grubb assented?" asked the Rector.
Miss Upton shook her head and smiled. "Mr. Grubb knows nothing whatever about the matter. He has no more idea that he will inherit Court Netherleigh than I had that I should inherit it before that revelation to me by Uncle Francis. He will know nothing until I am dead. I have written him a farewell letter, which will then reach him, explaining all things; just as I have written out a statement for the world, disclosing the commands laid upon me by Uncle Francis, lest I should be accused of caprice, and possibly—Mr. Grubb of cupidity."
"You are content to leave him your successor?"
"More than content. I look around, and ask myself who else is so worthy. After Uncle Francis's death, I was not content. No, I confess it: Catherine had offended all our prejudices, and her child shared them in my mind. But I never thought of disputing the charge laid upon me, and my will was made in the boy's favour. From time to time, as the years passed on, Mr. Pencot brought me reports of him—that he was growing up all that could be wished for. Still, I could not quite put away my prejudice; and whether I should have sought to make acquaintance with him, had chance not brought it about, I cannot say. I met him first at a railway-station."
"Indeed?" cried Mr. Cleveland, who had never heard of that day's meeting.
"I was going down to Cheltenham with Annis and Marcus, and our train came to grief near Reading; the passengers had to get out whilst the damage, something to an axle, was tinkered up. Francis Grubb was coming up from the Acorns' place in Oxfordshire: it was during the time he was making love to Adela, and the accident to my train stopped his. I was sitting by the wayside disconsolately enough on my little wooden bonnet-box, when one of the nicest-looking and grandest men, for a young man, I ever saw, came up and politely asked if he could be of any service to me. My heart, so to say, went out to him at once, his manner was so winning, his countenance so good and noble. Something in his eyes struck me as familiar—you know how beautiful they are—when in another moment my own eyes fell on the name on his hand-bag, 'C. Grubb.' Then I remembered the eyes; they were Catherine's; and I knew that I saw before me her son and my heir."
"And your silent prejudice against him ceased from that time," laughed the Rector.
"Entirely. I have learnt to love him, to be proud of him. Catherine cannot feel more pride in her son than I feel in him. But I have never given him the slightest hint that he will inherit Court Netherleigh. Not that I have never felt tempted to do so. When Adela has jeered at his name, in her contemptuous way, it has been on the tip of my tongue more than once to say to her: He will bear a better sometime. And I have told himself once—or twice—that he was quite safe in letting Acorn borrow money on Court Netherleigh. He is safe, you see, seeing that it is he himself who will come into it: though, of course, he took it to mean that Acorn would do so."
Mr. Cleveland drew a long breath. These matters had surprised him, but in his heart of hearts he felt thankful that the rich demesnes would become Francis Grubb's and not thriftless George Acorn's.
"Never a word of this abroad until I am gone, my old friend," she enjoined, "not even to your wife; you understand that?"
"I understand it perfectly, dear Miss Upton, and will observe it."
"You will not have long to wait."