CHAPTER XV.LAUNCELOT.

CHAPTER XV.LAUNCELOT.

Mrs. Darrellstood for some time clasped in her son’s embrace, and sobbing violently. The two girls withdrew a few paces, too bewildered to know what to do, in the first shock of the surprise that had come so suddenly upon them.

This was Launcelot Darrell, then, the long absent son, whose portrait hung above the mantel-piece in the dining-room, whose memory was so tenderly cherished, every token of whose former presence was so carefully preserved.

“My boy, my boy,” murmured the widow, in a voice which seemed strange to the two girls, from its new accent of tenderness;“my own and only son, how is it that you come back to me thus? I thought you were in India. I thought——”

“I was in India, mother, when my last letter to you was written,” the young man answered; “but you know how sick and tired I was of the odious climate, and the odious life I was compelled to lead. It grew unbearable at last, and I determined to throw everything up, and come home; so I sailed in the first vessel that left Calcutta after I had formed this determination. You’re not sorry to see me back, are you, mother?”

“Sorry to see you, Launcelot!”

Mrs. Darrell led her son across the lawn and into the house, through an open window. She seemed utterly unconscious of the presence of her two charges. She seemed to have forgotten their very existence in the wonderful surprise of her son’s return. So Laura and Eleanor went up to Miss Mason’s room and shut themselves in to talk over the strange adventures of the evening, while the mother and son were closeted together in the breakfast-room below.

“Isn’t it all romantic, Nelly, dear?” Miss Mason said, with enthusiasm. “I wonder whether he came all the way from India in that dreadful coat and that horrid shabby hat? He looks just like the hero of a novel, doesn’t he, Nell? dark and pale, and tall and slender. Has he come back for good, do you think? I’m sure he ought to have Mr. de Crespigny’s fortune.”

Miss Vane shrugged her shoulders. She was not particularly interested in the handsome prodigal son who had made his appearance so unexpectedly: and she had enough to do to listen to all Laura’s exclamations, and sympathize with her curiosity.

“I shan’t sleep a bit to-night, Nelly,” Miss Mason said as she parted from her friend. “I shall be dreaming of Launcelot Darrell, with his dark eyes and pale face. What a fierce, half-angry look he has, Nell, as if he were savage with the world for having treated him badly. For he must have been badly treated, you know. We know how clever he is. He ought to have been made a governor-general, or an ambassador, or something of that kind, in India. He has no right to be shabby.”

“I should think his shabbiness was his own fault, Laura,” Miss Vane answered, quietly. “If he is clever, you know, he ought to be able to earn money.”

She thought of Richard Thornton as she spoke, working at the Phœnix Theatre for the poor salary that helped to support the Bohemian comforts of that primitive shelter in the Pilasters; and Dick’s paint and whitewash bespattered coat seemed glorified by contrast with that of the young prodigal in the room below.

The two girls went down to the breakfast-room early the next morning, Laura Mason arrayed in her prettiest and brightest muslin morning dress, which was scarcely so bright as herbeaming face. The young lady’s gossamer white robes fluttered with the floating ribbons and delicate laces that adorned them. She was a coquette by nature, and was eager to take her revenge for all the monotonous days of enforced seclusion which she had endured.

Mrs. Darrell was sitting at the breakfast-table when the two girls entered the room. Her Bible lay open amongst the cups and saucers near her. Her face was pale. She looked even more careworn than usual; and her eyes were dimmed by the tears that she had shed. The heroism of the woman who had borne her son’s absence silently and uncomplainingly, had given way under the unlooked-for joy of his return.

She gave her hand to each of the girls as they wished her good morning. Eleanor almost shuddered as she felt the deadly coldness of that wasted hand.

“We will begin breakfast at once, my dears,” Mrs. Darrell said, quietly; “my son is fatigued by a long journey, and exhausted by the excitement of his return. He will not get up, therefore, until late in the day.”

The widow poured out the tea, and for some little time there was silence at the breakfast-table. Neither Eleanor nor Laura liked to speak. They both waited—one patiently, the other very impatiently, until Mrs. Darrell should please to tell them something about her son’s extraordinary return.

It seemed as if the mistress of Hazlewood, usually so coldly dignified and self-possessed, felt some little embarrassment in speaking of the strange scene of the previous night.

“I need scarcely tell you, Laura,” she said, rather abruptly, after a very long pause, “that if anything could lessen my happiness in my son’s return, it would be the manner of his coming back to his old home. He comes back to me poorer than when he went away. He came on foot from Southampton here; he came looking like a tramp and a beggar to his mother’s house. But it would be hard if I blamed my poor boy for this. The sin lies at his uncle’s door. Maurice de Crespigny should have known that Colonel Darrell’s only son would never stoop to a life of commercial drudgery. Launcelot’s letters might have prepared me for what has happened. Their brevity, their bitter, despondent tone, might have told the utter hopelessness of a commercial career for my son. He tells me that he left India because his position there—a position which held out no promise of improvement—had become unbearable. He comes back to me penniless, with the battle of life before him. You can scarcely wonder, then, that my happiness in his return is not unalloyed.”

“No, indeed, dear Mrs. Darrell,” Laura answered, eagerly; “but still you must be very glad to have him back: and if hedidn’t make a fortune in India, he can make one in England, I dare say. He is so handsome, and so clever, and——”

The young lady stopped suddenly, blushing under the cold scrutiny of Ellen Darrell’s eyes. Perhaps in that moment a thought flashed across the mind of the widow—the thought of a wealthy marriage for her handsome son. She knew that Laura Mason was rich, for Mr. Monckton had told her that his ward would have all the advantages in after life which wealth can bestow; but she had no idea of the amount of the girl’s fortune.

Launcelot Darrell slept late after his pedestrian journey. Miss Mason’s piano was kept shut, out of consideration for the traveller; and Laura and Eleanor found the bright summer’s morning unusually long. They had so few pursuits, or amusements, that to be deprived of one seemed very cruel. They were in a shady nook in the shrubbery, after their early dinner, Laura lying on the ground, reading a novel, and Eleanor engaged in some needlework achievement, which was by-and-by to be presented to the Signora; when the rustling leaves of the laurel screen that enclosed and sheltered their retreat were parted, and the handsome face, the face which had looked worn and haggard last night, but which now had only an aristocratic air of languor, presented itself before them in a frame of dark foliage.

“Good morning, or good afternoon, young ladies,” said Mr. Darrell, “for I hear that your habits at Hazlewood are very primitive, and that you dine at three o’clock. I have been looking for you during the last half-hour, in my anxiety to apologize for any alarm I may have given you last night. When the landless heir returns to his home, he scarcely expects to find two angels waiting for him on the threshold. I might have been a little more careful of my toilet, had I been able to foresee my reception. What luggage I had I left at Southampton.”

“Oh! never mind your dress, Mr. Darrell,” Laura answered, gaily, “we are both so glad you have come home. Ain’t we, Eleanor? for our lives are so dreadfully dull here, though your mamma is very kind to us. But do tell us all about your voyage home, and your journey here on foot, and all the troubles you have gone through? Do tell us your adventures, Mr. Darrell?”

The young lady lifted her bright blue eyes with a languishing glance of pity; but suddenly dropped them under the young man’s gaze. He looked from one to the other of the two girls, and then, strolling into the grassy little amphitheatre where they were sitting, flung himself into a rustic arm-chair, near the table at which Eleanor Vane sat at work.

Launcelot Darrell was a handsome likeness of his mother. The features, which in her face were stern and hard, had in his an almost feminine softness. The dark eyes had a lazy light in them, and were half hidden by the listless droop of the blacklashes that fringed their full white lids. The straight nose, low forehead, and delicately moulded mouth, were almost classical in their physical perfection; but there was a something wanting in the lower part of the face; the chin receded a little where it should have projected, the handsome mouth was weak and undecided in expression.

Mr. Darrell might have sat as a painter’s model for all the lovers in prose or poetry; but he would never have been mistaken for a hero or a statesman. He had all the attributes of grace and beauty, but not one of the outward signs of greatness. Eleanor Vane felt this want of power in the young man as she looked at him. Her rapid perception seized upon the one defect which marred so much perfection.

“If I had need of help against the murderer of my father,” the girl thought, “I would not ask this man to aid me.”

“And now, Mr. Darrell,” said Laura, throwing down her book, and settling herself for a flirtation with the prodigal son, “tell us all your adventures. We are dying to hear them.”

Launcelot Darrell shrugged his shoulders.

“What adventures, my dear Miss Mason?”

“Why, your Indian experiences, of course, and your journey home. All your romantic escapes, and thrilling perils, tiger-hunting, pig-sticking—that doesn’t sound romantic, but I suppose it is—lonely nights in which you lost yourself in the jungle, horrible encounters with rattlesnakes, brilliant balls at the Government House—you see I know all about Indian life—rides on the race-course, flirtations with Calcutta belles.”

The young man laughed at Miss Mason’s enthusiasm.

“You know more about the delights of an Indian existence than I do,” he said, rather bitterly; “a poor devil who goes out to Calcutta with only one letter of introduction, and an empty purse, and is sent up the country, within a few days of his arrival, to a lonely station, where his own face is about the only white one in the neighbourhood, hasn’t very much chance of becoming familiar with Government House festivities or Calcutta belles, who reserve their smiles for the favoured children of fortune, I can assure you. As to tiger-hunts and pig-sticking, my dear Miss Mason, I can give you very little information upon those points, for an indigo planter’s overseer, whose nose is kept pretty close to the grindstone, has enough to do for his pitiful stipend, and very little chance of becoming a Gordon Cumming or a Jules Gerard.”

Laura Mason looked very much disappointed.

“You didn’t like India, then, Mr. Darrell?” she said.

“I hated it,” the young man answered, between his set teeth.

There was so much suppressed force in Launcelot Darrell’sutterance of these three words, that Eleanor looked up from her work, startled by the young man’s sudden vehemence.

He was looking straight before him, his dark eyes fixed, his strongly marked eyebrows contracted, and a red spot burning in the centre of each pale and rather hollow cheek.

“But why did you hate India?” Laura asked, with unflinching pertinacity.

“Why does a man hate poverty and humiliation, Miss Mason? You might as well ask me that. Suppose we drop the subject. It isn’t a very agreeable one to me, I assure you.”

“But your voyage home,” pursued Laura, quite unabashed by this rebuff; “you can tell us your adventures during the voyage home?”

“I had no adventures. Men who travel by the overland route may have something to tell, perhaps: I came the cheapest and the slowest way.”

“By a sailing vessel?”

“Yes.”

“And what was the name of the vessel?”

“The Indus.”

“The Indus, that’s an easy name to remember. But of course you had all sorts of amusements on board: you played whist in the cuddy—what is the cuddy, by the bye?—and you got up private theatricals, and you started an amateur newspaper, or a magazine, and you crossed the line, and——”

“Oh, yes, we went through the usual routine. It was dreary enough. Pray tell me something about Hazlewood, Miss Mason; I am a great deal more interested in Berkshire than you can possibly be in my Indian experiences.”

The young lady was fain to submit. She told Mr. Darrell such scraps and shreds of gossip as form the “news” in a place like Hazlewood. He listened very attentively to anything Miss Mason had to tell about his uncle, Maurice de Crespigny.

“So those tiger cats, my maiden aunts, are as watchful as ever,” he said, when Laura had finished. “Heaven grant the harpies may be disappointed! Do any of the Vane family ever try to get at the old man?”

Eleanor looked up from her work, but very quietly; she had grown accustomed to hear her name spoken by those who had no suspicion of her identity.

“Oh, no, I believe not,” Miss Mason answered: “old Mr. Vane died two or three years ago, you know.”

“Yes, my mother wrote me word of his death.”

“You were in India when it happened, then?”

“Yes.”

Eleanor’s face blanched, and her heart beat with a fierce heavy throbbing against her breast. How dared they talk ofher dead father in that tone of almost insolent indifference? The one passion of her young life had as strong a power over her now as when she had knelt in the little chamber in the Rue de l’Archevêque, with her clasped hands uplifted to the low ceiling, and a terrible oath upon her girlish lips.

She dropped her work suddenly, and rising from her rustic seat, walked away from the shade of the laurels.

“Eleanor,” cried Laura Mason, “where are you going?”

Launcelot Darrell sat in a lounging attitude, trifling with the reels of silk, and balls of wool, and all the paraphernalia of fancy work scattered upon the table before him, but he lifted his head as Laura uttered her friend’s name, and perhaps for the first time looked steadily at Miss Vane.

He sat looking at her for some minutes while she and Laura stood talking together a few paces from him. It was perhaps only a painter’s habit of looking earnestly at a pretty face that gave intensity to his gaze. He dropped his eyelids presently, and drew a long breath, that sounded almost like a sign of relief.

“An accidental likeness,” he muttered; “there are a hundred such likenesses in the world.”

He got up and walked back to the house, leaving the two girls together. Laura had a great deal to say about his handsome face, and the easy grace of his manner; but Eleanor Vane was absent and thoughtful. The mention of her father’s name had brought back the past. Her peaceful life, and all its quiet contentment, melted away like a curtain of morning mist that rises to disclose the ghastly horror of a battle-field; and the dreadful picture of the past arose before her; painfully vivid, horribly real. The parting on the boulevard; the long night of agony and suspense; the meeting with Richard on the bridge by the Morgue; her father’s torn, disjointed letter; and her own vengeful wrath; all returned to her. Every voice of her heart seemed to call her away from the commonplace tranquillity of her life to some desperate act of justice and retribution.

“What have I to do with this frivolous girl?” she thought; “what is it to me whether Launcelot Darrell’s nose is Grecian or aquiline, whether his eyes are black or brown? What a wretched, useless life I am leading in this place, when I should be hunting through the world for the murderer of my father.”

She sighed wearily as she remembered how powerless she was. What could she do to get one step nearer to the accomplishment of that single purpose, which she called the purpose of her life? Nothing! She remembered with a chill feeling of despair that however, in her moments of exaltation, she might look forward to some shadowy day of triumph and revenge, her better sense always told her that Richard Thornton had spoken the truth. The man whose treachery had destroyed George Vane haddropped into the chaos of on over-crowded universe, leaving no clue behind him by which he might be traced.

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