CHAPTER XXI.ON THE TRACK.
Thelittle pony-carriage drove on to the station; and Eleanor, like some traveller in a dream, saw the castle walls and turrets, the busy street and hurrying people, spin past her eyes and melt into confusion. She did not know how she entered the railway station, or how she came to be walking quietly up and down the platform with Mrs. Darrell. There was a choking sensation in her dry throat, a blinding mist before her eyes, and a confusion that was almost terrible to bear in her brain. She wanted to get away—anywhere, so long as it was away from all the world. In the meantime she walked up and down the platform, with Launcelot Darrell’s mother by her side.
“I am mad,” she thought, “I am mad! Itcannotbe so!”
Again and again, in the course of Eleanor Vane’s brief association with the widow’s son, something,—some fancy, some shadowy recollection, vague and impalpable as the faintest clouds in the summer sky above Hazlewood—had flitted across her mind, only to be blotted away before she could even try to define or understand it. But now these passing fancies all culminated in one conviction. Launcelot Darrell was the man whom she had seen lounging on the kerbstone of the boulevard on the night of her last parting with her father.
In vain she reasoned with herself that she had no justifiable grounds for this conviction—the conviction remained, nevertheless. The only foundation for her belief that Launcelot Darrell, from amongst all other men, was the one man whom she sought to pursue, was a resemblance in his attitude, as he stood lounging in the Windsor street, to the attitude of the young man on the boulevard. Surely this was the slightest, the weakest foundation on which belief ever rested! Eleanor Vane could acknowledge this; but she could not lessen the force of that belief.At the very moment when the memory of her father and her father’s death had been farthest from her thoughts, this sudden conviction, rapid and forcible as inspiration, had flashed upon her.
The matter was beyond reason, beyond argument.
The young man loitering listlessly upon the kerbstone of the Windsor street was the man who had loitered on the boulevard, waiting, sulkily enough, while his companion tempted George Vane to his destruction.
It seemed as if the girl’s memory, suddenly endowed with a new and subtle power, took her back to that August night in the year ’53, and placed her once more face to face with her father’s enemy. Once more the dark restless eyes, the pale cowering face and moustachioed lip, overshadowed by the slouched hat, flashed upon her for a moment, before the sulky stranger turned away to keep moody silence throughout his companion’s babble. And with that memory of the past was interlinked the face and figure of Launcelot Darrell—so closely that, do what she would, Eleanor Vane could not dissociate the two images.
And she had suffered this man, of all other men, to tell her that he loved her; she had taken a romantic pleasure in his devotion. Day after day, and hour after hour, she had been his companion, sharing his enjoyments, sympathizing with his pursuits, admiring and believing him. This day—this very day—he had held her hand, he had looked in her face; and the words she had spoken to Richard Thornton had proved only a vain boast after all. No instinct in her own breast had revealed to her the presence of her father’s murderer.
Mrs. Darrell looked furtively every now and then at the girl’s face. The iron rigidity of that white face almost startled the widow. Was it the expression of terrible grief restrained by a superhuman effort of will?
“Does this girl love my son, I wonder?” the widow thought; and then the answer, prompted by a mother’s pride, came quickly after the question: “Yes, how could she do otherwise than love him? How could any woman on earth be indifferent to my boy?”
Something almost akin to pity stirred faintly in the heart which was so cold to every creature upon earth except this spoiled and prodigal son; and Mrs. Darrell did her best to comfort the banished girl.
“I am afraid you are ill, my dear Miss Vincent,” the widow said. “The excitement of this sudden departure has been too much for you. Pray, my dear, do not think that I submit to this necessity without very great regret. You have given me perfect satisfaction in everything you have done ever since you entered my house. No praises I can bestow upon you inrecommending you to a new home will go beyond the truth. Forgive me! Forgive me, my poor child; I know I must seem very cruel; but I love my son so dearly—I love him so dearly!”
There was real feeling in the tone in which these words were spoken; but the widow’s voice sounded far away to Eleanor Vane, and the words had no meaning. The girl turned her stony face towards the speaker, and made a feeble effort to understand what was said to her; but all power of comprehension seemed lost in the confusion of her brain.
“I want to get back to London,” she said, “I want to get away from this place. Will it be long before the train starts, Mrs. Darrell?”
“Not five minutes. I have put up your money in this envelope, my dear—a quarter’s salary; the quarter began in June, you know, and I have paid you up to September. I have paid for your ticket also, in order that your money might not be broken into by that expense. Your luggage will be sent to you to-morrow. You will get a cab at the station, my dear. Your friends will be very much surprised to see you, no doubt.”
“My friends!” repeated Eleanor, in an absent tone.
“Yes, the good music-mistress and her son. I have your address, Miss Vincent, and you may rely on hearing from me in a few days. I shall take care that you suffer no inconvenience from this sudden change in all our plans. Good-bye; and God bless you, my dear!”
Eleanor had taken her seat in the carriage by this time, and the train was about to move. Mrs. Darrell held out her hand; but the girl drew away from her with a sudden movement of terror. “Oh, please do not shake hands with me!” she cried. “I am very, very unhappy!”
The train moved away before the widow could reply to this strange speech; and the last thing that Eleanor saw was the pale face of Launcelot Darrell’s mother turned towards her with a look of surprise.
“Poor child!” thought Mrs. Darrell, as she walked slowly back to the station door, before which her pony-carriage waited. “She feels this very much, but she has acted nobly.”
The widow sighed as she remembered that the worst part of the struggle was yet to come. She would have her son’s indignation to encounter and to endure—not the stormy passion of a strong man unfairly separated from the woman he loves, but the fretful irritation of a spoiled child who has been robbed of a favourite toy.
It was nearly dark when Eleanor Vane reached the Pilasters. She paid and dismissed the cab in Dudley Street, and made her way on foot under the familiar archway and into the Colonnade,where the same children seemed to be playing the same games in the dusky light, the same horses peering from the stable-doors, the same cabmen drinking at the old-fashioned public-house at the corner.
The Signora was giving a singing-lesson to a stolid young person, with a fat face and freckles, who was being prepared for the lyric drama, and wished to appear at one of the opera-houses as Norma, after a dozen lessons or so. Eliza Picirillo was trying her hardest to simplify a difficult passage for this embryo Grisi’s comprehension, when Eleanor Vane opened the door of the little sitting-room and appeared upon the threshold.
It would have been natural to the girl to have rushed to the piano and flung herself into the arms of the Signora at the risk of upsetting the stolid pupil; and there was something so very unnatural in her manner as she paused in the open doorway,—something so wan and ghostlike in her appearance, that Eliza Picirillo rose from her music-stool in alarm, and stared aghast at this unexpected visitor.
“Eleanor!” she exclaimed, “Eleanor!”
“Yes, dear Signora, it is I! I—I know I have come back very unexpectedly; I have a great deal to tell you by-and-by. But I am tired to death. May I sit down, please, while you finish your lesson?”
“Mayyou sit down! My darling Nelly! is that the way you talk in your old home? My dear, dear child! do you think you can ever come so unexpectedly as to fail to find a welcome from Eliza Picirillo? Here, my dear, sit down and make yourself as comfortable as you can until I’m able to attend to you. Excuse me, Miss Dodson; we’ll go on with the duet directly.”
The music-mistress wheeled forward an old easy-chair, her own favourite seat, and Eleanor dropped wearily into it. Signora Picirillo removed the girl’s bonnet, and tenderly smoothed her tumbled hair; murmuring expressions of welcome and affection, and whispering a promise that the lesson should be very soon finished.
She went back to Norma after seeing Eleanor comfortably ensconced in the arm-chair, and hammered away sturdily and conscientiously at the “Deh, Conte” duet, in which Miss Dodson gave a very mild interpretation of the Italian composer’s meaning, and sang about Pollio, her children, and her wrongs, as placidly as if she had been declaiming her wish to be a butterfly, or a daisy, or any other sentiment common to English ballad-singers.
But when Miss Dodson had finished singing, and had put on her bonnet and shawl (which operation occupied a good deal of unnecessary time), and had rolled up her music, and found her gloves—which had fallen off the piano and hidden themselves inan obscure and dusty corner of the room,—and had farther entered into a detailed and intricate explanation of her engagements and domestic circumstances before making an appointment for the next lesson, and had been finally hustled out of the room and lighted down the stairs, and fully instructed as to the nearest way from the Pilasters to Camden Town, Eliza Picirillo was able to give her full attention to the pale-faced girl who had returned so suddenly to her old shelter. The music-mistress was almost frightened at the expression of Eleanor Vane’s face. She remembered only too well having seen that look before, upon the September night in Paris, when the girl of fifteen had sworn to be revenged upon her father’s enemies.
“Nelly, my darling,” she said, seating herself beside Eleanor’s chair, “how is it that you come home so suddenly? Nothing could be greater happiness than to have you back, my dear. But I know that something has happened; I can see it in your face, Nelly. Tell me, my love, what is it?”
“It is nothing to be sorry about, dear Signora; I have come away because—because Mrs. Darrell wished it. Her son—her only son—has come home from India, and she wants him to marry a rich woman, and—and——”
“And he has fallen in love withyou, eh, Nelly?” asked the Signora. “Well, I’m not surprised to hear that, my dear; and you are honourable enough to beat a retreat, and leave the young man free to make a mercenary marriage at his mother’s bidding. Dear, dear, what strange things people are ready to do for money now-a-days! I’m sure you’ve acted very wisely, my darling; so cheer up, and let me see the bright smile that we’ve been accustomed to. There’s nothing in all this to make you look so pale, Nelly.”
“Do I look pale?”
“Yes, as pale as a ghost weary with a long night’s wandering. Nelly, dear,” said the Signora, very gently, “you weren’t in love with this young man; you didn’t return his affection, did you?”
“In love with him!” cried Eleanor Vane, with a shudder, “oh! no, no.”
“And yet you seem sorry at having left Hazlewood?”
“I am sorry; I—I had many reasons for wishing to stay there.”
“You were attached to your companion, Miss Mason?”
“Yes, I was very much attached to her,” answered Eleanor. “Don’t ask me any more questions to-night, dear Signora. I’m tired out with my journey and the excitement of—all—that has happened to-day; I will explain things more fully to-morrow. I am glad to come back to you—very, very glad to see you once more, dearest friend; but I had a strong reason for wishing to stay at Hazlewood,—I have a powerful motive for wanting to go back there, if I could go back, which I fear I never can.” Thegirl stopped abruptly, as if absorbed in her own thoughts, and almost unconscious of her friend’s presence.
“Well, well, Nelly, I won’t question you any further,” Eliza Picirillo said, soothingly. “Goodness knows, my dear, I am glad enough to have you with me, without worrying you about the why and the wherefore. But I must go and try and get your little room ready again for you, or perhaps, as it’s late, you’d better sleep with me to-night.”
“If you please, dear Signora.”
The music-mistress hurried away to make some preparations in the bedchamber adjoining the little sitting-room; and Eleanor Vane sat staring at the guttering tallow-candles on the table before her—lost in the tumult and confusion of her thoughts, which as yet took no distinct form in her brain.
At the very moment in which she had set a barrier between herself and Hazlewood that might prevent her ever crossing the threshold of its gates, she had made a discovery which rendered that retired country dwelling-house the one spot upon earth to which she had need to have free access.
“I fancied that I was going away from my revenge when I left London to go into Berkshire,” she thought; “now I leave my revenge behind me at Hazlewood. And yet, how can it be as I think? How can it be so? Launcelot Darrell went to India a year before my father died. Can it be only a likeness after all—an accidental likeness—betweenthat manand Mrs. Darrell’s son?”
She sat thinking of these things—reasoning with herself upon the utter improbability of the identity of the two men, yet yielding again and again to that conviction which had forced itself upon her, sudden and irresistible, in the Windsor street,—while the Signora bustled about between the two rooms, stopping to cast a stolen glance now and then at Eleanor Vane’s thoughtful face.
Mr. Richard Thornton came in by-and-by. The Phœnix was closed as to dramatic performances, but the scene-painter’s work never stopped. The young man gave utterance to a cry of delight as he saw the figure sitting in his aunt’s easy-chair.
“Nell!” he exclaimed, “has the world come to an end, and have you dropped into your proper position in the general smash! Eleanor, how glad I am to see you!”
He held out both his hands. Miss Vane rose and, mechanically, put her white fingers in the weatherbeaten-looking palms held out to receive them.
In that moment the scene-painter saw that something had happened.
“What’s the matter, Nell?” he cried, eagerly.
“Hush, Dick,” said the girl in a whisper; “I don’t want the Signora to know.”
“You don’t want the Signora to know what?”
“I have found that man.”
“What man?”
“The man who caused my father’s death.”