CHAPTER XXXVIII.MR. MONCKTON BRINGS GLOOMY TIDINGS FROM WOODLANDS.
Forsome few days after the Frenchman’s arrival, Launcelot Darrell stopped away from the Priory, much to the regret of his betrothed, whose delight in hertrousseauwas not sufficient to fill the blank made by her lover’s absence. Miss Mason roamed disconsolately about the house, looking out at the bare trees, and the desolate garden walks, and quoted Tennyson until she became obnoxious to her fellow-creatures by reason of her regret thathedid not come, and her anxiety that the day should be done, and other lamentations to the same effect.
She ran out of doors sometimes under the bleak February sky, with a cambric handkerchief over her head as a sensible protection from the bitter atmosphere, and her light ringlets flying in the wind, to stand at a little doorway in the high garden wall, and watch for her lover’s coming by a narrow pathway through the wood, by which it was his wont to make a short cut for himself in dry weather.
She was standing in this narrow doorway upon the afternoon of the 22nd of February—only twenty-one days before that eventful morning which was to make her Launcelot Darrell’swife—with Eleanor Monckton by her side. The short winter’s day was closing in, and the shadows were thickening in the low woodland, whatever light might linger on the hill-tops above Tolldale. The two women were silent: Eleanor was in very low spirits, for on this day she had lost her friend and counsellor, Richard Thornton, who had had no alternative but to leave Tolldale, or to forfeit a very remunerative and advantageous engagement at one of the Edinburgh Theatres, whither he had been summoned to paint the scenery for a grand Easter burlesque, about to be produced with unusual splendour, by a speculative Scottish manager; and who had, therefore, departed, taking his aunt with him. George Vane’s daughter felt terribly helpless in the absence of this faithful ally. Richard had promised to attend to her summons, and to return to Tolldale at any hour, if she should have need of his services; but he was separated from her by a long distance, and how could she tell when the moment of that need might come? She was alone, amongst people who had no sympathy with the purpose of her life, and she bitterly felt the desolation of her position.
It was no very great wonder, then, if she was thoughtful and silent, and by no means the joyous, light-hearted companion whom Laura Mason had loved and clung to at Hazlewood, before the coming of Launcelot Darrell. This young lady watched her now, furtively, almost fearfully, wondering at the change in her, and speculating as to the cause of it.
“Shemusthave been in love with Launcelot,” Laura thought; “how could she help being in love with him? And she married my guardian because he’s rich, and now she’s sorry for having done so. And she’s unhappy because I’m going to be married to Launcelot. And, oh! suppose Launcelot should still be in love with her; like the hero of a dreadful French novel!”
The dusk was deepening in the wood, when two figures emerged from the narrow pathway. A tall, slenderly-built young man, who switched the low brushwood and the fern with his light cane as he walked along, and a puffy little individual with a curly-brimmed hat, who trotted briskly by his side.
Laura was not slow to recognize her lover even in that doubtful light, and Eleanor knew that the young man’s companion was the French commercial traveller.
Mr. Darrell introduced his friend to the two ladies.
“Monsieur Victor Bourdon, Mrs. Monckton, Miss Mason,” he muttered, hastily. “I dare say you have thought me very neglectful, Laura,” he added; “but I have been driving Monsieur Bourdon about the neighbourhood for the last day or two. He’s a stranger in this part of the country, though he’s almost as much an Englishman as I am.”
Monsieur Bourdon laughed as he acknowledged the compliment, with an air that was evidently intended to be fascinating.
“Y-a-a-se,” he said, “we have been to Vindsor. It is very naice.”
Launcelot Darrell frowned, and looked angrily at his companion.
“Yes, Bourdon wanted to have a look at the state apartments,” he said; “he wanted to compare them with those interminable galleries at Versailles, I suppose, to the disparagement of our national glory.”
“But the apartments are closed,” said Eleanor.
“Oh! of course,” answered Mr. Darrell, looking at her rather suspiciously, “they always are closed when you happen to want to see them. Just like everything else in this world of anomalies and paradoxes.”
“He has taken his friend to Windsor,” Eleanor thought; “had this visit any relation to his last visit? Did he go there to see Mr. Lawford’s clerk?”
She was helpless without Richard, and could not answer this question.
“I’ll write to him to-night,” she thought, “and ask him to come back to me directly.”
But in the next moment she was ashamed of herself for her selfishness. She might sacrifice her own life to her scheme of vengeance. The voice of her father crying to her from his unsanctified grave, seemed for ever urging her to do that; but she had no right to call upon others to make the same sacrifice.
“No,” she thought, “wherever the road I have chosen may lead me, however difficult the path may be to follow, I will henceforward tread it alone. Poor Dick! I have tormented him long enough with my sorrows and my helplessness.”
“You’ve come to dine, of course, Launcelot,” Miss Mason said, while Eleanor stood motionless and silent in the doorway, absorbed in these thoughts, and looking like some pale statue in the dusk; “and you’ve brought your friend, Monsieur—Monsieur Bourdon, to dine——”
“Ah, but no, mademoiselle,” exclaimed the Frenchman, in a transport of humility. “I am not one of yours. Monsieur Darrell is so good as to call me his friend, but——”
The Frenchman murmured something of a deprecatory nature, to the effect that he was only a humble commercial traveller in the interests of a patent article that was very much appreciated by all the crowned heads of Europe, and which would doubtless, by the aid of his exertions and those of his compatriots, become, before long, a cosmopolitan necessity, and the source of a colossal fortune.
Eleanor shuddered and shrank away from the man with agesture almost expressive of disgust, as he turned to her in his voluble depreciation of himself and glorification of the merchandise which it was his duty to praise.
She remembered that it was this man, this loquacious vulgarian, who had been Launcelot Darrell’s tool on the night of her father’s death. This was the wretch who had stood behind George Vane’s chair, and watched the old man’s play, and telegraphed to his accomplice.
If she could have forgotten Launcelot Darrell’s treachery, this presence would have been enough to remind her of that pitiless baseness, to inspire her with a tenfold disgust for that hideous cruelty. It seemed as if the Frenchman’s coming had been designed by Providence to urge her to new energy, new determination.
“The man who could make this creature his accomplice in a plot against my father shall never inherit Maurice de Crespigny’s fortune,” she thought; “he shall never marry my husband’s ward.”
She linked her arm in Laura’s as she thought this; as if by that simple and involuntary action she would have shielded her from Launcelot Darrell.
In the next moment a footstep—the firm tread of a man—sounded on the crisp gravel of the garden walk behind the two girls, and presently Gilbert Monckton laid his hand lightly upon his wife’s shoulder.
She was startled by his unexpected coming, and turning suddenly round, looked at him with a scared face; which was a new evidence against her in his troubled mind, a new testimony that she was keeping some secret from him.
He had left Tolldale Priory early that morning to give a day’s attention to that business of which he had been lately so neglectful, and had returned a couple of hours before his usual time for coming home.
“What brings you out into the garden this bitter afternoon, Eleanor?” he said, sternly; “you’ll catch cold in that thin shawl; and you, too, Laura; I should have thought a seat by the drawing-room fire far more comfortable than this dreary garden. Good evening, gentlemen; you had better bring your friend into the house, Mr. Darrell.”
The young man muttered something of an apologetic nature, and Monsieur Victor Bourdon acknowledged the lawyer’s cold salutation with an infinite number of bows and smirks.
“You have come home by an earlier train than usual, Gilbert,” Mrs. Monckton said, by way of saying something that might break the silence which had followed her husband’s coming; “we did not expect you until seven.”
“I came to Windsor by the three o’clock express,” answeredMr. Monckton. “I have not come straight home. I stopped at Woodlands to inquire after the invalid.”
Eleanor looked up with a new and eager expression in her face.
“And Mr. de Crespigny—he is better, I hope.”
“No, Eleanor, I fear that you will never see him again. The doctors scarcely hope that he will last out the week.”
The girl set her lips firmly, and raised her head with a resolute gesture—a mute expression of determination and defiance.
“Iwillsee him again,” she thought; “I will not trust my hope of vengeance to a chance. He may have altered his will, perhaps. Come what may, I will stand beside his sick bed. I will tell him who I am, and call upon him, in my dead father’s name, to do an act of justice.”
Launcelot Darrell stood with his head bent and his eyes fixed upon the ground.
As it was the habit of Eleanor to lift her forehead with something of the air of a young war-horse who scents the breath of the battle-field afar, so it was this young man’s manner to look moodily earthward under the influence of any violent agitation.
“So,” he said, slowly, “the old man is dying?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Monckton; “your great-uncle is dying. You may be master of Woodlands, Launcelot, before many days are past.”
The young man drew a long breath.
“Yes,” he muttered; “I may: Imay.”