Chapter Ten.New-Found Relations.“Speak of me as I am: nothing extemporate.”Shakespeare.The drowsy cabman was aroused from his slumbers to be, rather to his surprise, paid and dismissed, but paid so handsomely that he went off thinking himself for once in the way of good luck. Then Mr Morison said a few words to his coachman and, getting into the brougham, took his seat beside his niece.“Lettice,” he said quietly, speaking at once to relieve her embarrassment, “I have told the coachman to drive round a quiet way before we go home, to give you time to tell me all you can, every detail, about Arthur, so that we may not lose an hour. Will you now give me the whole particulars?”Calmed by his quiet, almost matter-of-fact manner, Lettice did so, though the recital led her into much painful to relate. For now that, thanks to the terrible anxiety through which she was passing, the scales had fallen from her eyes, she saw in its true light, even perhaps with exaggerated harshness—for Lettice was never one to do things by halves—her own wilful blindness, her own prejudice, unreason, and self-will. And when she came to tell her uncle how she had written to Arthur, she altogether broke down.“I had better show you his letter,” she said, amidst her tears; “it will make you understand him. Hehasexaggerated, has he not?” she said, looking up wistfully. “If he had not been overstrained and morbid, he would not have taken it up so, would he?”She sat quietly waiting till Mr Morison had read the letter. His face was very grave as he handed it back to Lettice. But it was grave with anxiety not with indignation.“He was certainly in a very excited and morbid state when he wrote this,” he said. “He has been overworking himself probably. No one in possession of their senses would do anything but laugh at his imagining himself disgraced for life by having failed in his first attempt at passing for Woolwich;” and Mr Morison could not help smiling.“I am afraid I helped him to think so,” said Lettice; “you see, he refers to what I wrote. I could not understand his seeming so much less in earnest than he used to be, and so spiritless, and I wrote meaning to rouse him. I didnotknow, that is my only excuse—indeed, I didnotknow till now, what explains it all—the dislike he had taken to his intended profession,” she added earnestly.“My dear child,” said her uncle, kindly patting the hand she had involuntarily laid on his arm, “do not plead so piteously as if I were constituting myself a judge over you. What you say seems to me to have been the principal point—the only point—on which Arthur is really to blame. Why did he not tell you that he no longer felt any liking for the service?”“Ah,” said Lettice, “I fear that was my influence again. I think he was afraid of telling it, afraid of how I should take it.”“But that was cowardice,moralcowardice,” for he felt that Lettice winced at the strong, expression. “I am very plain-spoken, Lettice,” he added, though looking at her so kindly that the words had no harshness in them. “When I see Arthur, I shall try to make him understand where he was wrong, and I think he will agree with me. But he has got false notions on other points, I see. What is all this about independence, repaying what he would never have used had he understood the whole, working in the hopes of some day doing so, etcetera?”“It was what Godfrey told us,” said Lettice in a low voice, “about—about all you had done and risked to save our money.”For the first time Mr Morison’s face darkened, and Lettice realised that, though gentle, he could also make his anger felt.“Auriol!” he exclaimed. “How could he have so represented, or misrepresented, things? There was no need for anything to be said about it. I, very reluctantly, gave him leave to tell you, or your mother rather, that I had done what I could at a critical time. But it wassolelyto show her how ready, howeagerI was to be of use. But as to its calling forth any other feeling—”“Gratitude, at least,” said Lettice timidly.“No, not gratitude even. It was nothing but natural, purely and thoroughly natural. And to think of Auriol’s having stated it so as to give you any painful sense of obligation—how can he have done so?”Lettice hesitated. Her cup of self-abasement was to be drunk to the dregs, it seemed. She turned round, with a look of determination on her face.“Uncle Ingram,” she began, and in the pleasure of hearing himself so addressed by her, Mr Morison’s face relaxed, “I will try to explain all; I will not spare myself. It was not Mr Auriol’s fault. He did tell it us just as you would have wished. He wanted to soften me, to make me reasonable. But I repelled him. I made him angry. I lost my temper, and made him, a little, I think, lose his, too,”—and Lettice was too absorbed by her own recital to see what perhaps it was as well she did not observe, a slight smile of amusement which here crossed her uncle’s face—“and then he said what was true—that we owed you gratitude we could never repay. Itistrue, Uncle Ingram, andnowI don’t mind it. But, don’t you see, that while we—I—was resisting you, refusing to count you our uncle, itwasa painful obligation?”“And if fate, or something better than fate,” said Mr Morison, “had not brought us together to-day, it would—would it, Lettice—have remained so?”“I don’t know,” said Lettice in a low voice; “I can’t think sonow. But—”“But what?”“I had no idea you would be like what you are. I could not have imagined any one being so generous.”Mr Morison turned his face away for a moment. When he spoke again, it was with a little effort.“Lettice,” he said, “I am always considered a very practical and prosaic person. Even my wife thinks I was born with very little romance in me. But, do you know, I have had one romance, one dream in my life, and that has been to do something to make up to my brother’s children for my having been put in his place.” Here Lettice seemed as if she was going to speak, but he made a little sign for her to wait. “I know you are going to say it was not my fault, but I want you to understand thefeeling, the sentiment I have always associated with it. I hardly remember my brother—that is to say, in reality I scarcely knew him. But the few times I saw him as a child made the most vivid impression on me. He was to me a perfect hero of romance. His appearance, his bright manly beauty, his charm of manners—all left a picture on my mind that I shall never forget, and the bitterest tears I ever shed as a boy were when, after glorying in the honours he had won, and dreaming of his return to us, I was told one day by my father that I was never to mention his name again. I resented it bitterly. I thought my father cruel and unjust, and later I told him so, not once, but often; first with a boy’s impetuosity, afterwards, as a man, more deliberately, though more respectfully. But it was no use. It was the only disagreement we ever had, my poor father and I. Only, as you know, on his deathbed he left his blessing for your father, and it was to me he confided it. But,” he went on in a different tone, “we must come back to the present. About Arthur—I will be quite frank with you—my great fear is that he may have fallen ill from the reaction, from the overstrained state he has evidently been in. I think the first thing to do is for me to see his tutor. It is only an hour from town. I know the place. I will go down there at once.”“May I go with you?” said Lettice eagerly.“I see no use in your doing so,” replied her uncle. “He is notthere, that is about all we are sure of. I cannot understand Mr Downe’s not having written or telegraphed to you already.”“He would not send tous,” said Lettice; “he would naturally send to Mr Auriol, and he, you know, is away.”“To be sure,” said Mr Morison. “That must be it. Well, any way, the first thing to do is to see Mr Downe, and get all additional particulars from him. And, in the meantime, you must keep up your spirits and rest yourself. Your aunt will do her best to cheer you.”“My aunt?” repeated Lettice.“Yes, of course. Your aunt Gertrude, my wife,” he said, with a smile.“I have never had an aunt before,” said Lettice apologetically.“Well, you will have one now worthy of the name, though I shouldn’t praise my own belongings,” he said brightly.In another minute or two the carriage stopped before the door of a handsome house. Mr Morison turned to Lettice.“Will you wait here, while I go in to explain to your aunt?” he said.And Lettice, her heart beating more quickly than usual at the thought of this unknown relation, gladly consented.The explanation must have been quickly made. Before Lettice could have thought it possible, her uncle was back again. There was an orange coloured envelope in his hand.“This is from Auriol,” he said, taking out its pink paper enclosure, which was as follows: “Bad news of Arthur. Impossible to get away. Beg you to see Downe at once, and decide what to do.” “So, you see,” continued Mr Morison, “my credentials are nowquitecomplete, are they not? Come in, my dear child. There is Gertrude at the door; she is so eager to see you.”Lettice had no time to feel embarrassed before she felt herself warmly kissed by the lady in mourning, who was waiting to receive her in the hall.“My dear Lettice,” she said simply, but with a ring of true cordiality, “I amsohappy to see you. How cold you must be! Tea is waiting. Ingram,” as she led her newly found niece into the pretty drawing-room, “you have time for a cup of tea before you go?”“Hardly,” he said; “I would rather not risk it. Now Lettice is in good hands, I would rather be off at once. If I am not back by eight or nine o’clock, don’t expect me to-night. But in that case I shall telegraph.”“Uncle Ingram,” said Lettice, as he was hurrying off, “will you do one thing more? Will you telegraph to poor Nina that—that I am all right, and with you, and that you are doing all possible about Arthur?”“Certainly, I will. I know the address,” he added, smiling. “And, Lettice, will you do one thing for me?”“Of course. What is it?” she said eagerly.She was standing close beside him at the moment.“Give me a kiss, as a sign of—” He hesitated.“Of gratitude to you for forgiving me,” she half whispered.“Of better than that: of your accepting me from now as your uncle—your uncle who has always loved you, as your dear father’s brother, who longs to supply his place to you as well as he can.”“Uncle Ingram,” said Lettice as she kissed him, “you are like papa. I understand now what made me look at you so when I first caught sight of you.”A pleased expression came into Mr Morison’s face, though he said nothing. But when he had left them Mrs Morison turned to Lettice with a smile.“You could not have said anything to please him as much;” and Lettice answered simply as she felt—“I am so glad.”It was like a dream to her. The finding herself in the comfortable house, where everything was in perfect taste, though nothing overdone, tended and caressed by the pretty aunt, of whose existence almost she had twelve hours before been in ignorance. And her uncle! Nothing had ever touched Lettice as much as his way of talking of her father. To think that he, of all men, should have cherished such tender admiration of him, went to her very heart. And her cheeks burned with wholesome shame when she recalled the way in which she had spoken of him—the absurd as well as unworthy prejudice in which she had indulged. No wonder that Godfrey Auriol had lost patience with her; no wonder he had resolved on leaving her henceforth to herself. She only felt now that she would be ashamed ever to look him in the face again.But if that were all—if her own humiliation and punishment were all, Lettice felt she could have borne it. But alas! how much more was involved! Arthur, poor Arthur, of whom she had hardly courage to think, and Nina. And as she thought of Nina again, that afternoon’s conversation with Philip Dexter returned to her mind. She had meant to do right; why had she always done wrong? She had honestly thought that Godfrey would be a much more desirable husband for Nina than Philip, and she had acted accordingly, forgetting, or trying to ignore, that in such matters somebody else’s “thinking” has very little to do with it, and that interference, save where urgently called for on the part of parent or guardian, is wholly unjustifiable. She had, she confessed to herself, possibly, probably even, ruined the happiness of two lives through her own prejudice and self-will. And when she came to this part of her reflections she sighed so deeply that her aunt looked at her with real anxiety.“My dear Lettice,” she said, “youmusttry to be hopeful. Your uncle or a telegram is sure to be here within an hour. Do try, dear.”Lettice looked up dejectedly.“It isn’t only that; it isn’t only Arthur I’m thinking of, Aunt Gertrude,” she said. “It is everything. I have done so many wrong things. I have made such dreadful mistakes, and I don’t see—though I would do anything—anything—how they can ever be put right again.”Mrs Morison sat down beside her and took her hand in hers.“Who knows, dear?” she said gently. “After a while, when your mind is less disturbed, and you feel more at rest, perhaps you may tell me some of these troubles, and perhaps—you may be sure I shall do my best—perhaps I may be able to help you.”And just then it flashed into Lettice’s mind, what in the confusion and disturbance of the day she had forgotten, her aunt Gertrude was Philip Dexter’s aunt too. And with this remembrance came a little ray of light and hope.She had need of it, for when a few minutes later, her uncle returned, he had no very good news to give. He had seen Mr Downe, Arthur’s tutor, and heard all particulars. Arthur’s state of health had not seemed satisfactory for some time; he was nervous and feverishly excitable, and his tutor had suggested his deferring going up for his examination for six months, but the young man would not hear of it. But even before the end of the first day he had been forced to give in, having fainted in his place among the candidates. Mr Downe had sent him home at once, but on his return later in the evening, had been much alarmed at finding him gone, and had telegraphed to Mr Auriol. That had, in fact, been all he knew, and till Mr Morison’s visit he had been in hopes that the young man had gone to his own home.“He is, of course, very sorry and anxious,” continued Mr Morison, “but only for fear of Arthur’s having fallen ill. As for his doing anything wrong, or even reckless, he is sure we need not be uneasy. He speaks of him in the very highest terms, and he says, too, that he has plenty of good sense. But he had begun to guess the truth—that Arthur had no liking or inclination for a military life, and that, hard as he has been working, it has been altogether against the grain.”Here a deep sigh from Lettice interrupted him. “And what is to be done?” asked Mrs Morison.“We have already set on foot in a quiet way fill the inquiries possible. But Mr Downe, and I agree with him, is much against employing detectives, or anything of that sort.”“Oh yes,” said Lettice. “Arthur wouldneverget over it.”“Besides,” said Mr Morison, “he promises in his letter to Lettice to write again in a day or two. I think we must wait for another letter before resorting to extreme measures. Unless, of course, no letter comes. Downe does not much believe in the America idea; he thinks Arthur will cool down before that. But we have taken measures that he need never know of to prevent his leaving Liverpool for America. Thatwasnecessary. And now, my child, you must go to bed and try to sleep. To-morrow I have to ask your advice on a number of things.”“Myadvice?” said Lettice humbly. “Uncle, you are too good to me.”
“Speak of me as I am: nothing extemporate.”Shakespeare.
“Speak of me as I am: nothing extemporate.”Shakespeare.
The drowsy cabman was aroused from his slumbers to be, rather to his surprise, paid and dismissed, but paid so handsomely that he went off thinking himself for once in the way of good luck. Then Mr Morison said a few words to his coachman and, getting into the brougham, took his seat beside his niece.
“Lettice,” he said quietly, speaking at once to relieve her embarrassment, “I have told the coachman to drive round a quiet way before we go home, to give you time to tell me all you can, every detail, about Arthur, so that we may not lose an hour. Will you now give me the whole particulars?”
Calmed by his quiet, almost matter-of-fact manner, Lettice did so, though the recital led her into much painful to relate. For now that, thanks to the terrible anxiety through which she was passing, the scales had fallen from her eyes, she saw in its true light, even perhaps with exaggerated harshness—for Lettice was never one to do things by halves—her own wilful blindness, her own prejudice, unreason, and self-will. And when she came to tell her uncle how she had written to Arthur, she altogether broke down.
“I had better show you his letter,” she said, amidst her tears; “it will make you understand him. Hehasexaggerated, has he not?” she said, looking up wistfully. “If he had not been overstrained and morbid, he would not have taken it up so, would he?”
She sat quietly waiting till Mr Morison had read the letter. His face was very grave as he handed it back to Lettice. But it was grave with anxiety not with indignation.
“He was certainly in a very excited and morbid state when he wrote this,” he said. “He has been overworking himself probably. No one in possession of their senses would do anything but laugh at his imagining himself disgraced for life by having failed in his first attempt at passing for Woolwich;” and Mr Morison could not help smiling.
“I am afraid I helped him to think so,” said Lettice; “you see, he refers to what I wrote. I could not understand his seeming so much less in earnest than he used to be, and so spiritless, and I wrote meaning to rouse him. I didnotknow, that is my only excuse—indeed, I didnotknow till now, what explains it all—the dislike he had taken to his intended profession,” she added earnestly.
“My dear child,” said her uncle, kindly patting the hand she had involuntarily laid on his arm, “do not plead so piteously as if I were constituting myself a judge over you. What you say seems to me to have been the principal point—the only point—on which Arthur is really to blame. Why did he not tell you that he no longer felt any liking for the service?”
“Ah,” said Lettice, “I fear that was my influence again. I think he was afraid of telling it, afraid of how I should take it.”
“But that was cowardice,moralcowardice,” for he felt that Lettice winced at the strong, expression. “I am very plain-spoken, Lettice,” he added, though looking at her so kindly that the words had no harshness in them. “When I see Arthur, I shall try to make him understand where he was wrong, and I think he will agree with me. But he has got false notions on other points, I see. What is all this about independence, repaying what he would never have used had he understood the whole, working in the hopes of some day doing so, etcetera?”
“It was what Godfrey told us,” said Lettice in a low voice, “about—about all you had done and risked to save our money.”
For the first time Mr Morison’s face darkened, and Lettice realised that, though gentle, he could also make his anger felt.
“Auriol!” he exclaimed. “How could he have so represented, or misrepresented, things? There was no need for anything to be said about it. I, very reluctantly, gave him leave to tell you, or your mother rather, that I had done what I could at a critical time. But it wassolelyto show her how ready, howeagerI was to be of use. But as to its calling forth any other feeling—”
“Gratitude, at least,” said Lettice timidly.
“No, not gratitude even. It was nothing but natural, purely and thoroughly natural. And to think of Auriol’s having stated it so as to give you any painful sense of obligation—how can he have done so?”
Lettice hesitated. Her cup of self-abasement was to be drunk to the dregs, it seemed. She turned round, with a look of determination on her face.
“Uncle Ingram,” she began, and in the pleasure of hearing himself so addressed by her, Mr Morison’s face relaxed, “I will try to explain all; I will not spare myself. It was not Mr Auriol’s fault. He did tell it us just as you would have wished. He wanted to soften me, to make me reasonable. But I repelled him. I made him angry. I lost my temper, and made him, a little, I think, lose his, too,”—and Lettice was too absorbed by her own recital to see what perhaps it was as well she did not observe, a slight smile of amusement which here crossed her uncle’s face—“and then he said what was true—that we owed you gratitude we could never repay. Itistrue, Uncle Ingram, andnowI don’t mind it. But, don’t you see, that while we—I—was resisting you, refusing to count you our uncle, itwasa painful obligation?”
“And if fate, or something better than fate,” said Mr Morison, “had not brought us together to-day, it would—would it, Lettice—have remained so?”
“I don’t know,” said Lettice in a low voice; “I can’t think sonow. But—”
“But what?”
“I had no idea you would be like what you are. I could not have imagined any one being so generous.”
Mr Morison turned his face away for a moment. When he spoke again, it was with a little effort.
“Lettice,” he said, “I am always considered a very practical and prosaic person. Even my wife thinks I was born with very little romance in me. But, do you know, I have had one romance, one dream in my life, and that has been to do something to make up to my brother’s children for my having been put in his place.” Here Lettice seemed as if she was going to speak, but he made a little sign for her to wait. “I know you are going to say it was not my fault, but I want you to understand thefeeling, the sentiment I have always associated with it. I hardly remember my brother—that is to say, in reality I scarcely knew him. But the few times I saw him as a child made the most vivid impression on me. He was to me a perfect hero of romance. His appearance, his bright manly beauty, his charm of manners—all left a picture on my mind that I shall never forget, and the bitterest tears I ever shed as a boy were when, after glorying in the honours he had won, and dreaming of his return to us, I was told one day by my father that I was never to mention his name again. I resented it bitterly. I thought my father cruel and unjust, and later I told him so, not once, but often; first with a boy’s impetuosity, afterwards, as a man, more deliberately, though more respectfully. But it was no use. It was the only disagreement we ever had, my poor father and I. Only, as you know, on his deathbed he left his blessing for your father, and it was to me he confided it. But,” he went on in a different tone, “we must come back to the present. About Arthur—I will be quite frank with you—my great fear is that he may have fallen ill from the reaction, from the overstrained state he has evidently been in. I think the first thing to do is for me to see his tutor. It is only an hour from town. I know the place. I will go down there at once.”
“May I go with you?” said Lettice eagerly.
“I see no use in your doing so,” replied her uncle. “He is notthere, that is about all we are sure of. I cannot understand Mr Downe’s not having written or telegraphed to you already.”
“He would not send tous,” said Lettice; “he would naturally send to Mr Auriol, and he, you know, is away.”
“To be sure,” said Mr Morison. “That must be it. Well, any way, the first thing to do is to see Mr Downe, and get all additional particulars from him. And, in the meantime, you must keep up your spirits and rest yourself. Your aunt will do her best to cheer you.”
“My aunt?” repeated Lettice.
“Yes, of course. Your aunt Gertrude, my wife,” he said, with a smile.
“I have never had an aunt before,” said Lettice apologetically.
“Well, you will have one now worthy of the name, though I shouldn’t praise my own belongings,” he said brightly.
In another minute or two the carriage stopped before the door of a handsome house. Mr Morison turned to Lettice.
“Will you wait here, while I go in to explain to your aunt?” he said.
And Lettice, her heart beating more quickly than usual at the thought of this unknown relation, gladly consented.
The explanation must have been quickly made. Before Lettice could have thought it possible, her uncle was back again. There was an orange coloured envelope in his hand.
“This is from Auriol,” he said, taking out its pink paper enclosure, which was as follows: “Bad news of Arthur. Impossible to get away. Beg you to see Downe at once, and decide what to do.” “So, you see,” continued Mr Morison, “my credentials are nowquitecomplete, are they not? Come in, my dear child. There is Gertrude at the door; she is so eager to see you.”
Lettice had no time to feel embarrassed before she felt herself warmly kissed by the lady in mourning, who was waiting to receive her in the hall.
“My dear Lettice,” she said simply, but with a ring of true cordiality, “I amsohappy to see you. How cold you must be! Tea is waiting. Ingram,” as she led her newly found niece into the pretty drawing-room, “you have time for a cup of tea before you go?”
“Hardly,” he said; “I would rather not risk it. Now Lettice is in good hands, I would rather be off at once. If I am not back by eight or nine o’clock, don’t expect me to-night. But in that case I shall telegraph.”
“Uncle Ingram,” said Lettice, as he was hurrying off, “will you do one thing more? Will you telegraph to poor Nina that—that I am all right, and with you, and that you are doing all possible about Arthur?”
“Certainly, I will. I know the address,” he added, smiling. “And, Lettice, will you do one thing for me?”
“Of course. What is it?” she said eagerly.
She was standing close beside him at the moment.
“Give me a kiss, as a sign of—” He hesitated.
“Of gratitude to you for forgiving me,” she half whispered.
“Of better than that: of your accepting me from now as your uncle—your uncle who has always loved you, as your dear father’s brother, who longs to supply his place to you as well as he can.”
“Uncle Ingram,” said Lettice as she kissed him, “you are like papa. I understand now what made me look at you so when I first caught sight of you.”
A pleased expression came into Mr Morison’s face, though he said nothing. But when he had left them Mrs Morison turned to Lettice with a smile.
“You could not have said anything to please him as much;” and Lettice answered simply as she felt—
“I am so glad.”
It was like a dream to her. The finding herself in the comfortable house, where everything was in perfect taste, though nothing overdone, tended and caressed by the pretty aunt, of whose existence almost she had twelve hours before been in ignorance. And her uncle! Nothing had ever touched Lettice as much as his way of talking of her father. To think that he, of all men, should have cherished such tender admiration of him, went to her very heart. And her cheeks burned with wholesome shame when she recalled the way in which she had spoken of him—the absurd as well as unworthy prejudice in which she had indulged. No wonder that Godfrey Auriol had lost patience with her; no wonder he had resolved on leaving her henceforth to herself. She only felt now that she would be ashamed ever to look him in the face again.
But if that were all—if her own humiliation and punishment were all, Lettice felt she could have borne it. But alas! how much more was involved! Arthur, poor Arthur, of whom she had hardly courage to think, and Nina. And as she thought of Nina again, that afternoon’s conversation with Philip Dexter returned to her mind. She had meant to do right; why had she always done wrong? She had honestly thought that Godfrey would be a much more desirable husband for Nina than Philip, and she had acted accordingly, forgetting, or trying to ignore, that in such matters somebody else’s “thinking” has very little to do with it, and that interference, save where urgently called for on the part of parent or guardian, is wholly unjustifiable. She had, she confessed to herself, possibly, probably even, ruined the happiness of two lives through her own prejudice and self-will. And when she came to this part of her reflections she sighed so deeply that her aunt looked at her with real anxiety.
“My dear Lettice,” she said, “youmusttry to be hopeful. Your uncle or a telegram is sure to be here within an hour. Do try, dear.”
Lettice looked up dejectedly.
“It isn’t only that; it isn’t only Arthur I’m thinking of, Aunt Gertrude,” she said. “It is everything. I have done so many wrong things. I have made such dreadful mistakes, and I don’t see—though I would do anything—anything—how they can ever be put right again.”
Mrs Morison sat down beside her and took her hand in hers.
“Who knows, dear?” she said gently. “After a while, when your mind is less disturbed, and you feel more at rest, perhaps you may tell me some of these troubles, and perhaps—you may be sure I shall do my best—perhaps I may be able to help you.”
And just then it flashed into Lettice’s mind, what in the confusion and disturbance of the day she had forgotten, her aunt Gertrude was Philip Dexter’s aunt too. And with this remembrance came a little ray of light and hope.
She had need of it, for when a few minutes later, her uncle returned, he had no very good news to give. He had seen Mr Downe, Arthur’s tutor, and heard all particulars. Arthur’s state of health had not seemed satisfactory for some time; he was nervous and feverishly excitable, and his tutor had suggested his deferring going up for his examination for six months, but the young man would not hear of it. But even before the end of the first day he had been forced to give in, having fainted in his place among the candidates. Mr Downe had sent him home at once, but on his return later in the evening, had been much alarmed at finding him gone, and had telegraphed to Mr Auriol. That had, in fact, been all he knew, and till Mr Morison’s visit he had been in hopes that the young man had gone to his own home.
“He is, of course, very sorry and anxious,” continued Mr Morison, “but only for fear of Arthur’s having fallen ill. As for his doing anything wrong, or even reckless, he is sure we need not be uneasy. He speaks of him in the very highest terms, and he says, too, that he has plenty of good sense. But he had begun to guess the truth—that Arthur had no liking or inclination for a military life, and that, hard as he has been working, it has been altogether against the grain.”
Here a deep sigh from Lettice interrupted him. “And what is to be done?” asked Mrs Morison.
“We have already set on foot in a quiet way fill the inquiries possible. But Mr Downe, and I agree with him, is much against employing detectives, or anything of that sort.”
“Oh yes,” said Lettice. “Arthur wouldneverget over it.”
“Besides,” said Mr Morison, “he promises in his letter to Lettice to write again in a day or two. I think we must wait for another letter before resorting to extreme measures. Unless, of course, no letter comes. Downe does not much believe in the America idea; he thinks Arthur will cool down before that. But we have taken measures that he need never know of to prevent his leaving Liverpool for America. Thatwasnecessary. And now, my child, you must go to bed and try to sleep. To-morrow I have to ask your advice on a number of things.”
“Myadvice?” said Lettice humbly. “Uncle, you are too good to me.”
Chapter Eleven.Home-Sick.“Slight withal may be the things which bringBack on the heart the weight which it would flingAside for ever: it may be a sound,A tone of music—summer’s eve, or spring—A flower—the wind—the ocean.”Byron.And so things went on for a day or two. As regards Arthur, that is to say. As regarded the anxious little party at Faxleham Cottage, Mr Morison took immediate steps. He went down there the following day to give them news of Lettice, and to arrange for their all coming to spend Christmas with him and his wife. Lettice would gladly have accompanied him, but the morning had found her completely knocked up, and in her now thoroughly awakened fear of her own self-will, she gave in without a murmur to her uncle and aunt’s decision that she must stay where she was. Nor was she the only one to exercise self-denial. Mr and Mrs Morison, quite against their custom, determined to stay in London for Christmas, so that they should be nearer at hand for any news of Arthur, or to take further steps, should such be necessary.Lettice was overwhelmed with gratitude. She was satisfied, too, that all that could be done was being done. She was gentle to a fault. But her punishment was of the severest.“If they—if you—reproached me,” she said to Nina, weeping in her arms, the evening of their arrival, “I could, I think, better bear it. But to have nothing but kindness, nothing but constant proofs of affection that I don’t deserve. Oh, Nina, it humiliates me.”“But itshouldnot,” said Nina. “For one thing, Lettice, do you not owe it to our uncle and aunt to try to seem a little less wretched? Is it not selfish to think of nothing but our anxiety? Are you not in danger, perhaps, of exaggerating things now the other way—blaming yourselftoomuch, and making those about you unhappy from your very sorrow for having done so in the past?”A very short time ago Nina would not have dared to speak thus to her sister, and even now she felt that Lettice shrank back a little from her, as she listened.“It may be so,” she said wearily, and with a shade of bitterness in her tone. “No doubt I am bad and wrong every way. I can’t think what God lets me live for.”“Oh, Lettice!” said Nina with deep reproach. And the fit of petulance was over in a moment. “I know I shouldn’t speak so. Forgive me again, Nina. I will try.”“And you know we have some reason for cheerfulness. Think how glad we should be of that other letter of Arthur’s, showing at least that he is well, and certainly not off to America as yet.”For the second letter, which has been referred to, had been received from Arthur. It told them of his well-being, but gave no trace of his whereabouts—the faithful Dawson, through ways and means best known to himself, managing to post each letter sent him to forward, in a different part of London. So that for the moment, beyond putting advertisements in some of the leading papers, there seemed nothing else to do. For Arthur’s sake, when heshouldreturn, his uncle was determined to avoid all possible hue and cry, and so long as they knew that he was safe and well, his sisters thoroughly joined in this feeling. Still, it was weary work waiting.“I feel sure we shall have another letter this week,” continued Nina. “He is certain to write to us at or about Christmas.”“Yes, I think he will,” agreed Lettice. “I have no doubt he will keep on writing regularly. But what good does that do? It relieves, so far, our anxiety, but so long as we cannot communicate with him, what hope have we of his returning? How can we make him understand how we long for him? That he would be in no way reproached, and would be as free as air to choose the future he best likes.”“I don’t know how it will come,” said Nina, “but I feel sure some way will offer itself. For one thing, I think after a while he will long for news of us, and will propose some way for us to write to him. Uncle Ingram has written it all to Aunt Gertrude’s brother, Mr Winthrop. He lives somewhere in the north, not so very far from Liverpool, and Uncle Ingram is sure he would go there if we like, and look about—where the docks are, you know. Arthur may be in Liverpool, and may sometimes go about them, if he has any idea of America still.”“But he, Mr Winthrop, he does not even know Arthur by sight,” objected Lettice.“No, but—Aunt Gertrude has an idea, she was speaking of it this evening—Philip Dexter is at the Winthrops’ for Christmas. Aunt Gertrude was saying ifhewent with Mr Winthrop.”It was a good idea, though very distasteful to Lettice. She would have done anything to prevent Philip’s hearing of their trouble about Arthur, for she had a fear that he would in some way blame her for it. But she checked herself.“I must bear what I have brought on myself,” she reflected. “I would give anything never to see Philip again, for he can never either like or respect me. He will not believe I even meant to speak the truth. But if he cares for Nina, and she for him, I have less right than ever to interfere. There is only one comfort—Godfrey Auriol never can know anything aboutthat, and I’m certainly not bound to confess tohint. Indeed, it would be indelicate to Nina to do so.”It was a relief to her that he was still in Scotland, and not to be back for Christmas. Her pride rose rampant at the thought of seeing him again, and at the triumph over her which she imagined he would feel. But she comforted herself somewhat with the reflection that for the future she need see very little of him, much less than heretofore, as her uncle, now really in his right position as their guardian, would be the one they would naturally consult.And thus they spent Christmas Day. Some among them so thankful for the unexpected lifting of the clouds that they could not but be hopeful for the future—poor Lettice, though grateful and humble, yet feeling that it was the saddest Christmas she had ever spent.Though Christmas Eve had brought some unexpected news, which seemed to throw a little light on the matter of which all their hearts were full. This was a letter from Mr Winthrop, in answer to the one telling him of Arthur Morison’s disappearance, and asking his advice or help if he saw any way of giving either. He had at once caught up the idea that “the gentleman tramp” and Arthur were one and the same, and wrote giving all details of the two or three days during which he took refuge at the rectory, of his personal appearance, what he had said and refused to say, and everything there was to tell.“When Philip comes—we expect him to-morrow,” he wrote—“I will get him to go with me to Liverpool. There I shall at once see Simcox, for whom I gave Arthur, if it was he, a letter, and I have very little doubt but that we shall there hear of him. He was socompletelyignorant of my being in any way connected with his family, that he will have had no fear as to availing himself of my introduction.”For the good rector had no knowledge of the conversation between the boys and Arthur when they accompanied him “a bit of the way” on his road. And Tom and Ralph were far too careless and unobservant to have noticed the start with which the young man had heard them speak of their “Uncle Ingram,” or the questions he had put to them.And Arthur himself, for whom so many hearts were aching and anxious, how did he spend this strange Christmas far from all he cared for, in such an entirely different atmosphere from any he had ever known?Nothing could have been kinder, considering the circumstances in which he had come among them, than the way he was received and treated by the old farmer’s family. Till Christmas was over he was to be a guest and nothing more.“There’s a time for all things,” said James, who was jovially inclined—rather too much so sometimes for his Eliza’s tastes. “Let business lay by till Christmas is over, any way, and then we’ll see about it;” and he was profoundly distressed that no persuasions would make “John” drink a glass of wine, or even taste the bowl of punch with which they wound up, though in no unseemly fashion, the yearly festivities; while Eliza, on the other hand, was inclined to look upon it as a sign of his gentility.The Christmas dinner was a dinner and no mistake. It began as soon as they had all got home from church in the morning; for James was a churchwarden, and would have been greatly scandalised had any one of the family played truant. So Eliza and her mother had to smother their anxieties as to the goose and the roast beef, the plum-pudding and mince-pies, in their housewifely bosoms, and their self-control was rewarded by finding all had prospered under the care of the little maid-of-all-work, in their absence.On Christmas evening, when all the good cheer had been done justice to, and the draper and his family, with a few friends who had come in to taste the punch, were comfortably ensconced round the fire, Arthur managed to steal up to his room, to sit there quietly for a few minutes’ thought. It was a small room, with a sloping roof and a dormer window, through which he could see the twinkling lights of the little town below, and the purer radiance of the innumerable stars above. For it was a most beautiful winter night. Not a cloud obscured the sky, but it was bitterly cold. Arthur got down his great-coat from the peg where it was hanging, and wrapped it round him, for he felt still colder from the contrast with the warmth of the room downstairs. And then he sat gazing out of the little window, feeling as absolutely cut off from all he had known and cared for, as if the sea already rolled between them! Some of the excitement which had led to the step he had taken had worn off. He no longer felt quite so sure that it had been the best and most unselfish thing to do, and there were times even, when he began to fancy that perhaps he, as well as Lettice, had exaggerated the consequences of his failure. But with this reflection, in his calmer state of mind, came another. Was not the present state of things, had not all his troubles been brought about by his want of moral courage? It was all very well to call it his consideration for Lettice’s feelings; he was far too right-judging not to know that consideration of that kind carried too far, becomes insincerity, and foolish, wrong self-sacrifice. He knew, too, at the bottom of his heart, that for all the stress Lettice had laid on his dead father’s and mother’s wishes, they would have been the last to have urged upon him a profession which he had no taste for.“They might have beendisappointed,” he said to himself, “but I can’t think that they would have been angry. Not at least, if I had been frank with them.” And words of his father’s, which he had been too young at the time fully to understand, came back to his mind. “Don’t be in too great a hurry, my boy. I have suffered too much from other people deciding my course in life for me before I was old enough to know my own mind. Ihopeyou will be a soldier, but don’t be in a hurry.”Why had this never come back to his memory before? He remembered it now so clearly. They were standing, his father and he, by a window—where was it?—somewhere from whence a wide expanse of sky was visible, and it must have been at night. “Yes, the stars were sparkling brightly, it was cold and clear.” It must have been the association of these outward circumstances as well as the direction of his thoughts, that had revived the remembrance. But Arthur sighed deeply as he went on to reflect that it was now too late, the die was cast, he must go on with what he had begun, desolate and dreary though it now looked to him. The best he could hope for was by working hard and faithfully in this situation which had so unexpectedly offered itself, to earn enough money, joined to what he had, to take him to America, where, with a good recommendation, he might, it seemed to him, have a chance of something better. But even then, how many years must pass before he could hope to do more than maintain himself? He might, probably would, be a middle-aged man before he could begin to do anything towards repaying what his uncle had done. And all these years, to have no tidings of his sisters and brother!—for he had recognised that only by cutting himself thus adrift, could he go on with what he had begun. It was too terrible to think of. And he set to work, as Nina had foreseen, to plan how he could manage to hear of them without revealing where he was.“I don’t want them to write to me, for Nina and the little ones would be entreating me to come back, and I could not bear it. And, Lettice, even though it is in a sense her doing, is sure not to see it as I do.Shewould want me to try again to pass;” and Arthur shivered at the thought. “No, I dare not ask them to write to me. What can I do? How can I hear of them?”He had not let Christmas Day pass without writing to them. It was strange to think that in a day or two they would have his letter, and know that he was safe and well, while he could hear nothing of them. The idea began to haunt him, so that at last he got up, took off his coat, and went downstairs again to the chatter and warmth of the draper’s best parlour.How different to the Christmases he could remember! How different from last Christmas at Esparto! How different to the Christmas evening they would, so he imagined, be spending at Faxleham Cottage! Instead of the simple refinement, the low voices of his sisters, here were Eliza and her friends decked out in brilliant colours, laughing loudly at the jokes of their husbands and brothers, and little able to understand the new-comer’s not joining in the fun. He was very “genteel,” no doubt, the young ladies of the company agreed, but rather “stuck-up,” they should say, “for a young man as had his way to make in the world.” And Arthur, overhearing some of these remarks, wished that the fates had thrown him into the household of the old farmer and his wife rather than into that of their daughter. For, in their perfect simplicity and unpretentiousness, there was nothing to grate on him, and, as they sat rather apart from the rest, dutifully admiring all that was said and done, though perhaps wishing themselves back in their own quiet farmhouse, he felt that when they went away the next day things would seem still more uncongenial.“I wish I knew anything about farming,” he said to his old friend, when he was sitting quietly by him; “I’d have asked you to take me on your farm.”“And I’d have been glad to do it, my lad,” said the old man, whose liking for the young stranger had steadily increased, and whose thoughts this Christmas evening were softened by the remembrance of the son whom he fancied he “favoured;” “but thou’rt not made for farming. It takes a tougher sort than thee. And, what’s more, as it’s making money thou’st got in thy head, don’t go for to fancy as people make fortunes nowadays by farming. Better stick to James. He’s a bit short-like at first; but if you get into one another’s ways, you’ll find him a good master.”The next day the draper had a long talk with his guest. He explained to him some part of the work, and told him he would by degrees teach him the whole.“But, first,” he said, “I must tell you that before I show you the whole of my business, or even as much of it as you should know, which would take some time, and give me a good deal of trouble, as, of course, it’s all perfectly new to you, I should like to have some sort of security.”Here Arthur interrupted him. “I can get some money,” he said. “Did Mr Felshaw,”—Mr Felshaw was the old farmer—“did he not tell you? I have some money I can give you as surety for my honesty;” and his face got red as he said it.“No, no,” James replied. “It’s not security of that kind I mean. I’m not afraid of your honesty, somehow. I’d rather risk it. I think I know an honest face when I see one. What I was going to say was that I’d like some security that you’d stay, not be throwing it up at the end of a three months or so, and saying as how you were tired of it, or maybe,”—and here the draper hesitated a little—“it’s not likely now, is it, that any of your fine friends might be coming after you, and saying as you weren’t to stay? You’re not of age yet by a long way, I should say.”“No,” said Arthur; “I’m not quite eighteen.”“That’s three years off still, then,” said James. “But,” continued Arthur, “my friends are not likely to interfere, as they don’t know where I am.”James raised his eyebrows.“Are they likely to try to find out?” he said. “It’s not difficult to track any one nowadays. But you’ve no father and mother living Mr Felshaw told me.”“No,” said Arthur; and then he hesitated. “My friends have not tried to find me yet,” he said.“But,” continued James, “before you engage yourself to me, for a year say, mightn’t it be best to have it all clear and straightforward, and see as no one who has any right to interfere is likely to do so? Couldn’t you write and ask?” Arthur shook his head.“I don’t want to give them any trouble about me,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong; but I’ve had a great deal of trouble and difficulty, and I want to show that I can manage for myself.”“Well, well,” said James, “think it over, my lad. You can just go on for a while quietly, doing what you can. And then, when you have tried it a bit, and we see how we suit each other, if so be as you feel disposed to engage yourself for a year, I’ll put you in the way of things. You can employ yourself this morning in measuring off these bales of merino and alpaca, and marking the lengths of each. I’ll be in the front shop, and, if I want you, I’ll call you, just for you to begin to get used to it like.”“Thank you very much indeed,” said Arthur. “I’ll think it over, and give you an answer as soon as I can.”For even to his inexperience it was clear that he was being treated with unusual kindness and consideration. He did not overhear what James said to his wife that evening.“You take my word for it, he’ll not be with us long,” he said. “He’s not in his place, and he’ll never take to it. He blushed up scarlet every time I called him, even though it was only old mother Green wanting grey flannel for a best jacket, or Miss Snippers’ apprentice for some hooks and needles. If it had been any of the quality, I believe he’d have turned tail altogether. You’ll see his friends’ll be fetching him away. But if he likes to stay for a bit, he’s welcome. I like a lad with a spirit of his own.”“And there’s no doubt he has a very genteel appearance,” observed Eliza complacently.
“Slight withal may be the things which bringBack on the heart the weight which it would flingAside for ever: it may be a sound,A tone of music—summer’s eve, or spring—A flower—the wind—the ocean.”Byron.
“Slight withal may be the things which bringBack on the heart the weight which it would flingAside for ever: it may be a sound,A tone of music—summer’s eve, or spring—A flower—the wind—the ocean.”Byron.
And so things went on for a day or two. As regards Arthur, that is to say. As regarded the anxious little party at Faxleham Cottage, Mr Morison took immediate steps. He went down there the following day to give them news of Lettice, and to arrange for their all coming to spend Christmas with him and his wife. Lettice would gladly have accompanied him, but the morning had found her completely knocked up, and in her now thoroughly awakened fear of her own self-will, she gave in without a murmur to her uncle and aunt’s decision that she must stay where she was. Nor was she the only one to exercise self-denial. Mr and Mrs Morison, quite against their custom, determined to stay in London for Christmas, so that they should be nearer at hand for any news of Arthur, or to take further steps, should such be necessary.
Lettice was overwhelmed with gratitude. She was satisfied, too, that all that could be done was being done. She was gentle to a fault. But her punishment was of the severest.
“If they—if you—reproached me,” she said to Nina, weeping in her arms, the evening of their arrival, “I could, I think, better bear it. But to have nothing but kindness, nothing but constant proofs of affection that I don’t deserve. Oh, Nina, it humiliates me.”
“But itshouldnot,” said Nina. “For one thing, Lettice, do you not owe it to our uncle and aunt to try to seem a little less wretched? Is it not selfish to think of nothing but our anxiety? Are you not in danger, perhaps, of exaggerating things now the other way—blaming yourselftoomuch, and making those about you unhappy from your very sorrow for having done so in the past?”
A very short time ago Nina would not have dared to speak thus to her sister, and even now she felt that Lettice shrank back a little from her, as she listened.
“It may be so,” she said wearily, and with a shade of bitterness in her tone. “No doubt I am bad and wrong every way. I can’t think what God lets me live for.”
“Oh, Lettice!” said Nina with deep reproach. And the fit of petulance was over in a moment. “I know I shouldn’t speak so. Forgive me again, Nina. I will try.”
“And you know we have some reason for cheerfulness. Think how glad we should be of that other letter of Arthur’s, showing at least that he is well, and certainly not off to America as yet.”
For the second letter, which has been referred to, had been received from Arthur. It told them of his well-being, but gave no trace of his whereabouts—the faithful Dawson, through ways and means best known to himself, managing to post each letter sent him to forward, in a different part of London. So that for the moment, beyond putting advertisements in some of the leading papers, there seemed nothing else to do. For Arthur’s sake, when heshouldreturn, his uncle was determined to avoid all possible hue and cry, and so long as they knew that he was safe and well, his sisters thoroughly joined in this feeling. Still, it was weary work waiting.
“I feel sure we shall have another letter this week,” continued Nina. “He is certain to write to us at or about Christmas.”
“Yes, I think he will,” agreed Lettice. “I have no doubt he will keep on writing regularly. But what good does that do? It relieves, so far, our anxiety, but so long as we cannot communicate with him, what hope have we of his returning? How can we make him understand how we long for him? That he would be in no way reproached, and would be as free as air to choose the future he best likes.”
“I don’t know how it will come,” said Nina, “but I feel sure some way will offer itself. For one thing, I think after a while he will long for news of us, and will propose some way for us to write to him. Uncle Ingram has written it all to Aunt Gertrude’s brother, Mr Winthrop. He lives somewhere in the north, not so very far from Liverpool, and Uncle Ingram is sure he would go there if we like, and look about—where the docks are, you know. Arthur may be in Liverpool, and may sometimes go about them, if he has any idea of America still.”
“But he, Mr Winthrop, he does not even know Arthur by sight,” objected Lettice.
“No, but—Aunt Gertrude has an idea, she was speaking of it this evening—Philip Dexter is at the Winthrops’ for Christmas. Aunt Gertrude was saying ifhewent with Mr Winthrop.”
It was a good idea, though very distasteful to Lettice. She would have done anything to prevent Philip’s hearing of their trouble about Arthur, for she had a fear that he would in some way blame her for it. But she checked herself.
“I must bear what I have brought on myself,” she reflected. “I would give anything never to see Philip again, for he can never either like or respect me. He will not believe I even meant to speak the truth. But if he cares for Nina, and she for him, I have less right than ever to interfere. There is only one comfort—Godfrey Auriol never can know anything aboutthat, and I’m certainly not bound to confess tohint. Indeed, it would be indelicate to Nina to do so.”
It was a relief to her that he was still in Scotland, and not to be back for Christmas. Her pride rose rampant at the thought of seeing him again, and at the triumph over her which she imagined he would feel. But she comforted herself somewhat with the reflection that for the future she need see very little of him, much less than heretofore, as her uncle, now really in his right position as their guardian, would be the one they would naturally consult.
And thus they spent Christmas Day. Some among them so thankful for the unexpected lifting of the clouds that they could not but be hopeful for the future—poor Lettice, though grateful and humble, yet feeling that it was the saddest Christmas she had ever spent.
Though Christmas Eve had brought some unexpected news, which seemed to throw a little light on the matter of which all their hearts were full. This was a letter from Mr Winthrop, in answer to the one telling him of Arthur Morison’s disappearance, and asking his advice or help if he saw any way of giving either. He had at once caught up the idea that “the gentleman tramp” and Arthur were one and the same, and wrote giving all details of the two or three days during which he took refuge at the rectory, of his personal appearance, what he had said and refused to say, and everything there was to tell.
“When Philip comes—we expect him to-morrow,” he wrote—“I will get him to go with me to Liverpool. There I shall at once see Simcox, for whom I gave Arthur, if it was he, a letter, and I have very little doubt but that we shall there hear of him. He was socompletelyignorant of my being in any way connected with his family, that he will have had no fear as to availing himself of my introduction.”
For the good rector had no knowledge of the conversation between the boys and Arthur when they accompanied him “a bit of the way” on his road. And Tom and Ralph were far too careless and unobservant to have noticed the start with which the young man had heard them speak of their “Uncle Ingram,” or the questions he had put to them.
And Arthur himself, for whom so many hearts were aching and anxious, how did he spend this strange Christmas far from all he cared for, in such an entirely different atmosphere from any he had ever known?
Nothing could have been kinder, considering the circumstances in which he had come among them, than the way he was received and treated by the old farmer’s family. Till Christmas was over he was to be a guest and nothing more.
“There’s a time for all things,” said James, who was jovially inclined—rather too much so sometimes for his Eliza’s tastes. “Let business lay by till Christmas is over, any way, and then we’ll see about it;” and he was profoundly distressed that no persuasions would make “John” drink a glass of wine, or even taste the bowl of punch with which they wound up, though in no unseemly fashion, the yearly festivities; while Eliza, on the other hand, was inclined to look upon it as a sign of his gentility.
The Christmas dinner was a dinner and no mistake. It began as soon as they had all got home from church in the morning; for James was a churchwarden, and would have been greatly scandalised had any one of the family played truant. So Eliza and her mother had to smother their anxieties as to the goose and the roast beef, the plum-pudding and mince-pies, in their housewifely bosoms, and their self-control was rewarded by finding all had prospered under the care of the little maid-of-all-work, in their absence.
On Christmas evening, when all the good cheer had been done justice to, and the draper and his family, with a few friends who had come in to taste the punch, were comfortably ensconced round the fire, Arthur managed to steal up to his room, to sit there quietly for a few minutes’ thought. It was a small room, with a sloping roof and a dormer window, through which he could see the twinkling lights of the little town below, and the purer radiance of the innumerable stars above. For it was a most beautiful winter night. Not a cloud obscured the sky, but it was bitterly cold. Arthur got down his great-coat from the peg where it was hanging, and wrapped it round him, for he felt still colder from the contrast with the warmth of the room downstairs. And then he sat gazing out of the little window, feeling as absolutely cut off from all he had known and cared for, as if the sea already rolled between them! Some of the excitement which had led to the step he had taken had worn off. He no longer felt quite so sure that it had been the best and most unselfish thing to do, and there were times even, when he began to fancy that perhaps he, as well as Lettice, had exaggerated the consequences of his failure. But with this reflection, in his calmer state of mind, came another. Was not the present state of things, had not all his troubles been brought about by his want of moral courage? It was all very well to call it his consideration for Lettice’s feelings; he was far too right-judging not to know that consideration of that kind carried too far, becomes insincerity, and foolish, wrong self-sacrifice. He knew, too, at the bottom of his heart, that for all the stress Lettice had laid on his dead father’s and mother’s wishes, they would have been the last to have urged upon him a profession which he had no taste for.
“They might have beendisappointed,” he said to himself, “but I can’t think that they would have been angry. Not at least, if I had been frank with them.” And words of his father’s, which he had been too young at the time fully to understand, came back to his mind. “Don’t be in too great a hurry, my boy. I have suffered too much from other people deciding my course in life for me before I was old enough to know my own mind. Ihopeyou will be a soldier, but don’t be in a hurry.”
Why had this never come back to his memory before? He remembered it now so clearly. They were standing, his father and he, by a window—where was it?—somewhere from whence a wide expanse of sky was visible, and it must have been at night. “Yes, the stars were sparkling brightly, it was cold and clear.” It must have been the association of these outward circumstances as well as the direction of his thoughts, that had revived the remembrance. But Arthur sighed deeply as he went on to reflect that it was now too late, the die was cast, he must go on with what he had begun, desolate and dreary though it now looked to him. The best he could hope for was by working hard and faithfully in this situation which had so unexpectedly offered itself, to earn enough money, joined to what he had, to take him to America, where, with a good recommendation, he might, it seemed to him, have a chance of something better. But even then, how many years must pass before he could hope to do more than maintain himself? He might, probably would, be a middle-aged man before he could begin to do anything towards repaying what his uncle had done. And all these years, to have no tidings of his sisters and brother!—for he had recognised that only by cutting himself thus adrift, could he go on with what he had begun. It was too terrible to think of. And he set to work, as Nina had foreseen, to plan how he could manage to hear of them without revealing where he was.
“I don’t want them to write to me, for Nina and the little ones would be entreating me to come back, and I could not bear it. And, Lettice, even though it is in a sense her doing, is sure not to see it as I do.Shewould want me to try again to pass;” and Arthur shivered at the thought. “No, I dare not ask them to write to me. What can I do? How can I hear of them?”
He had not let Christmas Day pass without writing to them. It was strange to think that in a day or two they would have his letter, and know that he was safe and well, while he could hear nothing of them. The idea began to haunt him, so that at last he got up, took off his coat, and went downstairs again to the chatter and warmth of the draper’s best parlour.
How different to the Christmases he could remember! How different from last Christmas at Esparto! How different to the Christmas evening they would, so he imagined, be spending at Faxleham Cottage! Instead of the simple refinement, the low voices of his sisters, here were Eliza and her friends decked out in brilliant colours, laughing loudly at the jokes of their husbands and brothers, and little able to understand the new-comer’s not joining in the fun. He was very “genteel,” no doubt, the young ladies of the company agreed, but rather “stuck-up,” they should say, “for a young man as had his way to make in the world.” And Arthur, overhearing some of these remarks, wished that the fates had thrown him into the household of the old farmer and his wife rather than into that of their daughter. For, in their perfect simplicity and unpretentiousness, there was nothing to grate on him, and, as they sat rather apart from the rest, dutifully admiring all that was said and done, though perhaps wishing themselves back in their own quiet farmhouse, he felt that when they went away the next day things would seem still more uncongenial.
“I wish I knew anything about farming,” he said to his old friend, when he was sitting quietly by him; “I’d have asked you to take me on your farm.”
“And I’d have been glad to do it, my lad,” said the old man, whose liking for the young stranger had steadily increased, and whose thoughts this Christmas evening were softened by the remembrance of the son whom he fancied he “favoured;” “but thou’rt not made for farming. It takes a tougher sort than thee. And, what’s more, as it’s making money thou’st got in thy head, don’t go for to fancy as people make fortunes nowadays by farming. Better stick to James. He’s a bit short-like at first; but if you get into one another’s ways, you’ll find him a good master.”
The next day the draper had a long talk with his guest. He explained to him some part of the work, and told him he would by degrees teach him the whole.
“But, first,” he said, “I must tell you that before I show you the whole of my business, or even as much of it as you should know, which would take some time, and give me a good deal of trouble, as, of course, it’s all perfectly new to you, I should like to have some sort of security.”
Here Arthur interrupted him. “I can get some money,” he said. “Did Mr Felshaw,”—Mr Felshaw was the old farmer—“did he not tell you? I have some money I can give you as surety for my honesty;” and his face got red as he said it.
“No, no,” James replied. “It’s not security of that kind I mean. I’m not afraid of your honesty, somehow. I’d rather risk it. I think I know an honest face when I see one. What I was going to say was that I’d like some security that you’d stay, not be throwing it up at the end of a three months or so, and saying as how you were tired of it, or maybe,”—and here the draper hesitated a little—“it’s not likely now, is it, that any of your fine friends might be coming after you, and saying as you weren’t to stay? You’re not of age yet by a long way, I should say.”
“No,” said Arthur; “I’m not quite eighteen.”
“That’s three years off still, then,” said James. “But,” continued Arthur, “my friends are not likely to interfere, as they don’t know where I am.”
James raised his eyebrows.
“Are they likely to try to find out?” he said. “It’s not difficult to track any one nowadays. But you’ve no father and mother living Mr Felshaw told me.”
“No,” said Arthur; and then he hesitated. “My friends have not tried to find me yet,” he said.
“But,” continued James, “before you engage yourself to me, for a year say, mightn’t it be best to have it all clear and straightforward, and see as no one who has any right to interfere is likely to do so? Couldn’t you write and ask?” Arthur shook his head.
“I don’t want to give them any trouble about me,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong; but I’ve had a great deal of trouble and difficulty, and I want to show that I can manage for myself.”
“Well, well,” said James, “think it over, my lad. You can just go on for a while quietly, doing what you can. And then, when you have tried it a bit, and we see how we suit each other, if so be as you feel disposed to engage yourself for a year, I’ll put you in the way of things. You can employ yourself this morning in measuring off these bales of merino and alpaca, and marking the lengths of each. I’ll be in the front shop, and, if I want you, I’ll call you, just for you to begin to get used to it like.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” said Arthur. “I’ll think it over, and give you an answer as soon as I can.”
For even to his inexperience it was clear that he was being treated with unusual kindness and consideration. He did not overhear what James said to his wife that evening.
“You take my word for it, he’ll not be with us long,” he said. “He’s not in his place, and he’ll never take to it. He blushed up scarlet every time I called him, even though it was only old mother Green wanting grey flannel for a best jacket, or Miss Snippers’ apprentice for some hooks and needles. If it had been any of the quality, I believe he’d have turned tail altogether. You’ll see his friends’ll be fetching him away. But if he likes to stay for a bit, he’s welcome. I like a lad with a spirit of his own.”
“And there’s no doubt he has a very genteel appearance,” observed Eliza complacently.
Chapter Twelve.Ending Well.“Wondrous it is to see in diverse mindesHow diversely Love doth his pageant play,And shows his power in variable kindes.”Spenser.The days went on. It was nearly a fortnight past the New Year, and nothing of moment had happened. Arthur’s letter, written on Christmas Day, had been duly received, but it, any more than its predecessors, gave no clue to his present quarters. But to his sisters—to Nina especially—there was a softer tone in it; it was less bitter and yet less morbid. He wrote of his intense wish to see them, of hishopethat he had acted rightly, of his earnest trust that some day they would, Lettice above all, learn to think of him as no longer one to be ashamed of, as a poor miserable failure. In all this there was comfort to Nina, but not to Lettice.“I am sure, I can see he is getting into a healthier state of mind,” said the younger sister eagerly. “If we could but write to him and tell him all we feel, I am sure he would come back, and we should all be happy again.”But Lettice shook her head.“It is I,” she said. “It is always I. Don’t you see, Nina? It is I that he is afraid of. But for me I dare say he would come back; but for me he would never have gone away.”Godfrey Auriol had not yet returned. All this time Mr Morison was looking forward to his coming back as to a sort of goal.“He is so quick-witted and alert,” he said to Nina, for to Lettice he seldom spoke of his fellow-guardian—it was easy to see that the mention of his name always was met by her with shrinking and reluctance. “He is so energetic and clever, and he knows Arthur personally. I cannot help thinking that when he returns he will suggest something. Hitherto certainly everything has lamentably failed!”For Mr Winthrop and Philip had been to Liverpool, had seen Mr Simcox, who could only assure them that no one in the least answering to the description of Arthur, or “the gentleman tramp,” had applied to him, and that he had never received the letter of introduction; they had inquired, so far as they dared without transgressing Mr Morison’s injunctions of privacy, in every part of the town, but without any result. There was even, after all, some amount of uncertainty as to whether the young man who had been so kindly received at the rectoryhadbeen Arthur Morison; though whether he were, or were not, Mr Winthrop was equally at a loss to explain his never having made use of the introduction he had so thankfully received.“I wonder Philip has not come back to town, when he knows we are all here together,” said Mrs Morison one evening. “I never knew him stay so long at the Winthrops’ before.”“There may be some attraction,” said Mr Morison. “You forget, my dear Gertrude, that your niece Daisy is seventeen now, and she bade fair to be a very pretty girl.”Nina was sitting at the piano. She had been playing, and had turned half carelessly on the stool, to join in the conversation going on. Suddenly she wheeled round and began playing again, more loudly and energetically than was her wont. Lettice, on her side, who was helping her aunt to pour out the tea, grew so pale that Mrs Morison was on the point of asking her what was the matter, when a slight warning touch of the girl’s hand on her arm restrained her.“I must warn Ingram,” thought Mrs Morison, some vague remembrance returning to her of having heard or been told by some one of her nephew Philip’s having greatly admired one of her husband’s nieces. Lettice or Nina, which was it? Oh, Nina it must have been, that time she was staying with the Curries near Philip’s home. And she stole a glance of sympathy at the girl at the piano, who continued to play, more softly now and with an undertone of sadness in her touch which seemed to appeal to her aunt’s kind heart.“Poor little thing,” she thought. “But if thereisanything in it, it will not be difficult to put it right.”She turned to look for Lettice, with some vague idea of seeking her confidence on the subject. Lettice was sitting quietly at a little distance, with a book open before her. Mrs Morison was crossing the room to sit down beside her, when a ring at the bell made them all start. Not that rings at the bell are so uncommon an occurrence in a London house, but it was getting late, no visitor was expected, and the ring had a decided and slightly authoritative sound.“It is like Auriol’s ring,” said Mr Morison; and the words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door was thrown open, and Mr Auriol was announced.Every one jumped up. For a few minutes there was a bustle of surprise and welcome, questions asked and answered, so that Lettice’s quiet greeting passed among the rest, without any one specially remarking it. She was inexpressibly thankful when it was over, and in her heart grateful to Godfrey for making this first meeting under the so strangely altered circumstances pass so easily.“I have only just got back,” he said when the hubbub had subsided, and Mrs Morrison had rung for fresh tea. “I came on here as soon as I had changed my clothes. I have been travelling all day. That last place where I was at is so frightfully out of the way, but I stayed a night at the Winthrops’.”He spoke faster than usual, and it was not difficult for any one used to him to detect some underlying excitement Lettice, at least, did so, and sympathised in it, as for the first time it struck her that this meeting was for him, too, difficult and trying. She said nothing, but when her aunt exclaimed, “Travelling all to-day? Dear me! You must be tired,” she murmured gently, “Yes, indeed;” and Godfrey caught her words, faint as they were, and looked pleased.“I was so anxious to hear if—if you had heard anything more,” he said; and though he did not name Arthur, every one knew that was what he meant.“Nothing more,” said Mr Morison, for the last letter, bearing date now nearly a fortnight ago, had been communicated to Mr Auriol. “I must have a long talk with you about it all, Auriol. I think it is about time to be doing something more energetic, and yet we have all agreed in feeling very reluctant to making any ‘to-do’ that could possibly be avoided.”“Oh yes,” said Nina fervently, clasping her hands.Mr Auriol sat silent for a moment or two. Then he looked up and said—“You have no idea, I suppose, who it is that posts his letters for him?”Mr Morison looked a little bewildered.“They are all posted in London, I think you told me?” added Mr Auriol.“To be sure,” said Mr Morison. “Yes. I have once or twice wondered who does it, unless it is himself? No, by-the-by, he has distinctly said he is not in London. Ihavethought of it, but not very much. I fancied it so hopeless to get any clue in that way.”“But it must be some one in his confidence, some one, I should almost say, whom he had a claim on,” said Godfrey. “For there is a certain amount of risk in doing it; the person might be blamed for having taken any part in it. Is there no one any of you have ever heard of who would be likely to agree to do Arthur a service of the kind?” He looked round, but his glance seemed to rest on Lettice. No one spoke.“You must all think it over,” he said. “It’s only a suggestion, but something may come of it.” And soon after, allowing that hewasvery tired, he said “Good night,” and went away.Lettice, in the quiet of her own room, realised how kindly and considerately he had behaved. His matter-of-fact manner had been the greatest relief, and nothing that he could have said could have been so full of tact and delicacy as his saying nothing.“I do believe,” thought the girl, her impulsive nature aglow again, “I do believe he hurried out here to-night as much for my sake as on account of his anxiety. He knew his coming in that sudden unlooked-for way would carry off the awkwardness. It is very generous of him.” Then her thoughts reverted to what he had suggested.Didshe know any one standing in such a position to Arthur? She sat long thinking, asking herself the question, when suddenly, by that curious process by which it sometimes seems as if the machinery of our brain obeyed our orders unconsciously to ourselves—there dashed into her memory a name, a sentence she had heard Arthur utter. The name was “Dawson,” and as she repeated it to herself, she seemed to hear her brother’s voice saying thoughtfully—“Yes, I do believe there’s one person in the world who’d do anything for me. It’s that fellow Dawson. I’ve told you about him, Lettice?” Yes, he had told her about him, though he probably had forgotten doing so, just as she, till this moment, had forgotten having heard it. Now, by slow degrees, it came back to her. Dawson had been a young servant in Mr Downe’s service, and by a fall from a ladder had broken his leg. Being naturally delicate, this accident had altogether ruined his health; he was pronounced incurably lame, and Arthur had done his utmost to help and comfort the poor boy. I do not know that Lettice remembered all these details so clearly, but they were the facts, and she recalled enough to make her sure that Dawson was worth looking up. She knew hehadbeen living at the little town near to which was Mr Downe’s “cramming” establishment; she felt almost sure his home was there. In any case, it was more than probable he would there be heard of; and surely, surely it was worth trying!Whatever were Lettice Morison’s faults and failings, want of courage and determination were not among them. Her plans were soon made.It was but little sleep that fell to her share that night.“I must go alone,” she said to herself. “If I have discovered Arthur’s secret I have no right to share it with any other till I know what he himself wishes. Besides, it is I who am to blame for his having been driven away; it is I who should bring him back.”She quickly made her arrangements. For the second time in the course of but a few weeks, she wrote a note for Nina to find after she should have left—a note to some extent explaining what she was about.“I think I have got a clue, dearest Nina,” she said. “But I must follow it up alone. Do not be the least uneasy about me. I shall probably be back in a few hours; if not, I will telegraph in the course of the day.”This was about all that Nina had to show to her uncle, when at breakfast-time that morning she rushed downstairs with the tidings of Lettice’s disappearance. Mr Morison looked, and was, terribly put out. For the first time, his patience seemed about to desert him.“It is really too bad,” he said. “What have I done or left undone that Lettice should meet me with so little confidence? It is all nonsense about her being the only person who could act, if indeed there is anything to act about. It is too bad!” And then, catching sight of the excessive distress in Nina’s gentle face, his kind heart smote him for adding to it.“After all,” he said, more cheerfully than he felt, “I do not know that there is anything to be really uneasy about I quite expect her back by luncheon. We let her off too easily the last time, eh, Nina? Poor child! What a child she is, to do things in this silly, ill-considered way!”They went in to breakfast, and Nina tried to follow her uncle’s example, and to believe that there was nothing to be seriously alarmed about. But neither Mr nor Mrs Morison eat anything, and seemed eager to leave the table, in order, no doubt, to discuss what steps to take.“Dear me,” thought poor Nina, her eyes filling with tears, “whattrouble, from first to last, we have caused them!”Just as the mockery of a breakfast was over—Miss Branksome and the younger children had had theirs earlier—and the three were rising from the table, there came, as the evening before, a short, sharp, authoritative ring at the door-bell.“That sounds like Auriol again,” said Mr Morison, smiling at his own fancifulness, “though of course it can’t be at this time of the morning.” But he was mistaken. ItwasMr Auriol. In he hurried, not waiting for the footman to announce him, a bright, eager expression on his face, an opened envelope in his hand.“Good news!” he cried. “I have a letter from Arthur, giving an address to which I may write, if I have good news forhim. I could not rest till I told you of it, so I rushed up here at once. Will you give me a cup of tea, Mrs Morison? The letter was to be privateunlessI could guaranteeallof you feeling—as I know you do about it, Lettice especially. It all hangs on her, but I know she will be only too ready. Where is she—not down yet?”The three others looked at each other—for a moment forgetting their own trouble in honest reluctance to chill poor Godfrey’s evident delight. Nina was the first to speak.“Oh!” she said, and the exclamation came from the very bottom of her heart, “if Lettice had but waited till breakfast-time!”He looked up in bewildered amazement. Then all had to be told, and Lettice’s letter shown. Godfrey bit his lips till it made Nina nervous to watch him, as he read it.“What is the meaning of it? Is it my fault again? Have I frightened her away?” he said almost piteously.At which, of course, they all exclaimed, though he seemed hardly convinced by what they said. Then he told them about Arthur’s letter. It had been drawn forth by the terrible home-sickness which had began to prey upon him, and by the necessity of his coming to a decision about binding himself to his present employer for a considerable time. He gave no particulars as to where he was, or how employed, but spoke of his misery at being without any tidings of all at home, and how at last the idea had come to him of confiding in Godfrey. “I trust you implicitly, even though you are my guardian,” he said naïvely, “not to speak of this letter, not to endeavour to find me, unless you are assured that they all want me to come back; that they will not be, Lettice especially, ashamed of me; that Lettice will not insist on my trying again when I know I should again fail. All depends on Lettice.”Then he gave the address to which Mr Auriol was to write, but entreated him not to let the person living at that address be blamed, or fall into any trouble on his account. “He has been a faithful friend,” Arthur wrote; “but for him I could not have written home at all.”“Who is it?” asked Mr Morison.“I have no idea,” said Godfrey. “I saw no necessity for inquiring. I meant just to write, and to ask his sisters to do so,” he went on. “I felt sure they, Miss Morison especially, would know how to write so as to bring him back at once. But now—there is no use writing till we know where she is, and what she is doing; and yet,” he glanced at the envelope, “he will be already wondering at my silence. This letter has been following me about for more than a week.”“Mr Auriol,” said Nina suddenly, “do you remember what you asked us last night? To try to think of any one whom Arthur may have employed to post his letters. That may have put something in Lettice’s head; she may have thought of some one. I have a vague idea of some young man, some boy, living near Mr Downe’s, whom Arthur was kind to.”“This may be he,” said Mr Auriol. “The letter is to be sent under cover to ‘T. Dawson,’ in a village near Fretcham, where Mr Downe’s is.”“I believe that is where she has gone. She must have remembered it,” said Mr Morison. “What shall we do?”“I shall start at once,” said Godfrey. ”‘T. Dawson,’ whoever he is, will not be so startled by me as by any one else, as he has sent on this letter to me. And of course there will be no treachery to Arthur in his telling me if Miss Morison has been there.”“Perhaps it is the best thing to do,” said Mr Morison, “though I would gladly have gone myself.”“And I dosohope you will bring Lettice back with you,” said Nina.And almost before they had realised his apparition among them, he was gone.“Another long miserable day of waiting for telegrams,” said poor Nina piteously. And then determining to follow sensible Miss Branksome’s advice, she went in search of her, to beg her to suggest some employment to make the time of suspense pass more quickly.“Give me some piece of hard work, please. A very difficult German translation might do, or a piece of very fine old lace to mend.” And poor Miss Branksome was cudgelling her brains as to what to propose, when Mrs Morison’s voice, calling Nina, interrupted them.“Nina, I want you,” said her aunt. “Will you help me to write some notes and to attend to several little things I want done quickly? For I have just had a word from Philip Dexter. He has come back, and is to be here at luncheon, and I should not like to be busy the first time he comes after so long.”Thus occupation was found both for Nina’s fingers and thoughts.Late, very late that evening, a lady in mourning got out of the train at a junction far away in the north.“This is Merton Junction, is it not?” she said timidly. “It is here that one changes for Greenwell, is it not?”“Greenwell,” said the porter questioningly; “that is on the other side of Middleham, is it not?” For Greenwell was a very little town.“I don’t know,” said Lettice—for Lettice of course it was—“I thought everybody would know it here. They told me in London to take my ticket to Merton, and then get another.”The porter looked confused and rather bothered. He was on the point of leaving the station for the night. There were no more trains for an hour or two. He did not know what to do with this unfortunate traveller, and yet, not being of a surly nature, did not like to throw her off.It ended in the poor man’s giving himself a good deal of trouble to find out that there was no train for Greenwell till four o’clock in the morning. There was nothing for it but for Lettice to spend the night in the desolate waiting-room of the station, for the junction was some distance from the small town of the name. Even had she felt able to walk there, Lettice could hardly have had a couple of hours’ sleep before she would have had to come back again.It was not a cheerful prospect—four or five hours at a railway station in the middle of the night in January. The porter poked up the fire, and told her she’d no need to be “afeard;” he would speak to the night-porters, there’d be a couple of them there, and at four o’clock there’d be some one to give her her ticket. And with a friendly “good night,” none the less so for the fee which Lettice gave him, he went off.Shewasa little frightened. In vain she told herself she had no need to be so. All the horrible stories she had ever heard of in such circumstances returned to her mind. She tried to sleep on the hard horsehair sofa, and succeeded in dozing uncomfortably, to be startled awake by one of the night-porters coming in to stir up the fire. Then she dozed again, to wake shivering with cold, the fire out, the faint gaslight sufficing but to make darkness visible. She started up; there was light enough to see the time by her watch. With the greatest relief, she saw that it was half-past three!Half an hour later, she had got her ticket, and was stepping into a first-class carriage of the train, which had come in from the south, and was going on to Middleham.“Now at last,” thought Lettice, “my troubles are over. In a few hours more I shall be with Arthur.”As she settled herself in her place, she saw by the feeble lamp-light that there were two other persons in the carriage—two gentlemen. She glanced at them, but with no interest curiosity, and she distinguished neither of their faces. One, an elderly man, got out at the first station they stopped at. The little bustle of handing him some of his belongings brought Lettice face to face with the remaining passenger. Both started, both gave vent to an exclamation; but Lettice’s was of dismay, her companion’s of relief.“Mr Auriol!”“Lettice—Miss Morison, how thankful I am to have found you!”Lettice’s face, cold as it was, burned.“Found me!” she repeated. “Have you been sent after me to look for me? There was no need for anything of the kind. I telegraphed yesterday to say I was coming on to—” She hesitated, not sure if she would, tohim, say whither she was bound. But her tone was full of resentment.Godfrey gave a sigh that was half a groan, of something very like despair.“Will youalwaysmisunderstand me?” he said.“What can I say? What can I do? You seem to think I have a mission in life of annoying and insulting you. What can a man do to prove that he does not deserve to be so thought of?”Lettice looked at him in amazement, not unmixed with compunction. Was this the calm, stately Mr Auriol? Did he so care for her opinion? She could hardly take it in; and then, by a quick revulsion, she remembered how only the night before she had called him, and felt that he deserved to be called, generous.“I am sorry for being so hasty,” she said. “But I don’t see why you or any one need have followed me. I wanted,” she went on, and her eyes filled with tears—“I wanted to have done it all myself. It—it was my fault Arthur went away; I wanted to be the one to bring him back.”Godfrey moved away. He could hardly help smiling, and yet he was so sorry for her. What a child she was! What a mixture of gentleness and obstinacy, of generosity and devotion and self-will!“Lettice,” he said very, very gently, but very seriously nevertheless, “there are some things in which youmustyield to those older and more experienced than you. It isnotright for a young creature like you—so—now, you must not be angry—so lovely, and so sure to be remarked, to go running about the country, however good your motive may be. You don’t know, you can hardly imagine, the anxiety they—we have all been in!”—and he hesitated—“I, I do believe, the most of all.”“You,” said Lettice, and the tears in her eyes began slowly to trickle down her face. “You hate me, I know. Why should you mind what I do? It is I that have caused you all the trouble.”“I hate you?” he repeated. “Lettice, are you saying that on purpose? Yes, you have caused me more trouble than any one else has ever done, because, from the first moment I ever saw you, from that first evening at Esparto, I havelovedyou, Lettice. And everything has been against me. I am mad to tell you this; I meant never to have let it pass my lips.”Lettice’s face was burning, but not with anger. She herself could not have defined her own feelings. She tried to speak, but the words were all but inaudible.“You make me ashamed,” she said. “I can’t understand it.”But at that moment the train slackened. The faint morning light was struggling in the cold wintry sky. Mr Auriol sprang from his seat.“We get out here,” he said. “This is Middleham;” and, submissive at last, Lettice allowed him to help her out of the carriage. He took her at once to the best hotel of the place, and then, having ordered some breakfast, of which she was sorely in need, for she had eaten almost nothing the day before, he gave her Arthur’s letter to read, and explained to her what he intended to do.Herplans had been of the simplest.“I meant just to go to the address at Greenwell and ask for him,” she said; and she quickly saw that Mr Auriol’s intention of telegraphing to Arthur at once to come over to see him at Middleham was much better.“It will involve him in no awkwardness,” he said, “nor will it lead to his blaming Dawson, poor fellow. For I,” he added, with a smile, “am armed with his own credentials;” and he touched the letter as he spoke.“You don’t think Arthur will be angry with Dawson,” said Lettice, “or,” she went on, and the idea struck Mr Auriol as very comical, “withme? ImadeDawson tell me.”An hour later Mr Auriol returned to the sitting-room, where he had left Lettice, with an open telegram in his hand.“This is from Arthur,” he said, “or rather from ‘John Morris,’” he added, with a slight smile, as he handed it to Lettice.“Thousand thanks. Will be with you by twelve,” was the telegram.“I don’t think there is much fear of his being angry with anybody,” observed Mr Auriol.“Thanks to you. It was so much better to send for him than to go there,” said Lettice impulsively.Godfrey’s face flushed. He half turned away; then, taking courage, he came nearer again.“Lettice,” he said, “are you not angry withme? I forgot myself. It is very good of you not to resent it.”“Resent it!” said Lettice simply. “HowcouldI do so? I can’t quite believe that you knew what you were saying. I think you must be so sorry for me, for all the trouble I have brought on myself and on other people, that—that—just that you are very sorry for me. For one thing,” and her voice grew very low and her face very red, “I thought you cared for Nina.”“You, too!” he exclaimed. “How extraordinary! It is a good thing I do not, not in that way, for I should have had no chance of success. I met Philip Dexter at the Winthrops’, where I stayed a night; and—I think he would not mind my telling you—in talking together rather confidentially, I found out that he, too, has had that idea, and has been very unhappy. But I put it all right, and he’s back in London by this time. We may hear some news on our return.”“Did he tell you what gave him the idea?” asked Lettice, almost in a whisper.“Some chance words of mine at Esparto,” said Godfrey.“It is very generous of him to have said so. But it was not only that,” said Lettice, her eyes filling with tears.But, somehow or other, the confession she made of this new offence did not lower her in Mr Auriol’s eyes as hopelessly as she had expected.A few days later a happily reunited family were assembled in Mr Morison’s house. How easy it was for Lettice to convince Arthur of the complete change in her feelings, when she told him of the little-hoped-for reconciliation with their uncle, may be imagined! How more than ready to forgive her unfortunate influence in their affairs she found Philip and Nina! How her uncle and aunt promised to forget the anxiety she had caused them, on condition of her never again thus setting aside the judgment and experience of her natural protectors! How more than amazed was everybody when, a few weeks later, by which time Lettice had learnt to believe that Godfrey Aurioldidmean what he said, her engagement to him was announced! All these “hows” I must also leave to my reader’s imagination.The old farmer and his family, whose honest kindliness had so fortunately intervened to save poor Arthur from taking some really foolish step, were not forgotten. And in after-days, when his wish was fulfilled, and he had replaced his uncle at the head of his firm, he would sometimes recall with a smile the days when he had measured grey flannel and wrapped up parcels of tapes and ribbons for the dames of Greenwell.There are many ways in which life’s lessons are taught. Some have to go through hard and sorrowful experiences—harder, it often seems, than they merit; others, like Lettice, learn true humility and sacrifice of self-will by gentler discipline. As she often said to herself—“How can I ever be good enough to show my gratitude? How little have I deserved such happiness—I who might have ruined not merely my own life, but those of others, by my foolish obstinacy!”And “prejudice” was a word and a sentiment which Lettice Auriol’s children were never allowed to know the meaning of.
“Wondrous it is to see in diverse mindesHow diversely Love doth his pageant play,And shows his power in variable kindes.”Spenser.
“Wondrous it is to see in diverse mindesHow diversely Love doth his pageant play,And shows his power in variable kindes.”Spenser.
The days went on. It was nearly a fortnight past the New Year, and nothing of moment had happened. Arthur’s letter, written on Christmas Day, had been duly received, but it, any more than its predecessors, gave no clue to his present quarters. But to his sisters—to Nina especially—there was a softer tone in it; it was less bitter and yet less morbid. He wrote of his intense wish to see them, of hishopethat he had acted rightly, of his earnest trust that some day they would, Lettice above all, learn to think of him as no longer one to be ashamed of, as a poor miserable failure. In all this there was comfort to Nina, but not to Lettice.
“I am sure, I can see he is getting into a healthier state of mind,” said the younger sister eagerly. “If we could but write to him and tell him all we feel, I am sure he would come back, and we should all be happy again.”
But Lettice shook her head.
“It is I,” she said. “It is always I. Don’t you see, Nina? It is I that he is afraid of. But for me I dare say he would come back; but for me he would never have gone away.”
Godfrey Auriol had not yet returned. All this time Mr Morison was looking forward to his coming back as to a sort of goal.
“He is so quick-witted and alert,” he said to Nina, for to Lettice he seldom spoke of his fellow-guardian—it was easy to see that the mention of his name always was met by her with shrinking and reluctance. “He is so energetic and clever, and he knows Arthur personally. I cannot help thinking that when he returns he will suggest something. Hitherto certainly everything has lamentably failed!”
For Mr Winthrop and Philip had been to Liverpool, had seen Mr Simcox, who could only assure them that no one in the least answering to the description of Arthur, or “the gentleman tramp,” had applied to him, and that he had never received the letter of introduction; they had inquired, so far as they dared without transgressing Mr Morison’s injunctions of privacy, in every part of the town, but without any result. There was even, after all, some amount of uncertainty as to whether the young man who had been so kindly received at the rectoryhadbeen Arthur Morison; though whether he were, or were not, Mr Winthrop was equally at a loss to explain his never having made use of the introduction he had so thankfully received.
“I wonder Philip has not come back to town, when he knows we are all here together,” said Mrs Morison one evening. “I never knew him stay so long at the Winthrops’ before.”
“There may be some attraction,” said Mr Morison. “You forget, my dear Gertrude, that your niece Daisy is seventeen now, and she bade fair to be a very pretty girl.”
Nina was sitting at the piano. She had been playing, and had turned half carelessly on the stool, to join in the conversation going on. Suddenly she wheeled round and began playing again, more loudly and energetically than was her wont. Lettice, on her side, who was helping her aunt to pour out the tea, grew so pale that Mrs Morison was on the point of asking her what was the matter, when a slight warning touch of the girl’s hand on her arm restrained her.
“I must warn Ingram,” thought Mrs Morison, some vague remembrance returning to her of having heard or been told by some one of her nephew Philip’s having greatly admired one of her husband’s nieces. Lettice or Nina, which was it? Oh, Nina it must have been, that time she was staying with the Curries near Philip’s home. And she stole a glance of sympathy at the girl at the piano, who continued to play, more softly now and with an undertone of sadness in her touch which seemed to appeal to her aunt’s kind heart.
“Poor little thing,” she thought. “But if thereisanything in it, it will not be difficult to put it right.”
She turned to look for Lettice, with some vague idea of seeking her confidence on the subject. Lettice was sitting quietly at a little distance, with a book open before her. Mrs Morison was crossing the room to sit down beside her, when a ring at the bell made them all start. Not that rings at the bell are so uncommon an occurrence in a London house, but it was getting late, no visitor was expected, and the ring had a decided and slightly authoritative sound.
“It is like Auriol’s ring,” said Mr Morison; and the words were scarcely out of his mouth when the door was thrown open, and Mr Auriol was announced.
Every one jumped up. For a few minutes there was a bustle of surprise and welcome, questions asked and answered, so that Lettice’s quiet greeting passed among the rest, without any one specially remarking it. She was inexpressibly thankful when it was over, and in her heart grateful to Godfrey for making this first meeting under the so strangely altered circumstances pass so easily.
“I have only just got back,” he said when the hubbub had subsided, and Mrs Morrison had rung for fresh tea. “I came on here as soon as I had changed my clothes. I have been travelling all day. That last place where I was at is so frightfully out of the way, but I stayed a night at the Winthrops’.”
He spoke faster than usual, and it was not difficult for any one used to him to detect some underlying excitement Lettice, at least, did so, and sympathised in it, as for the first time it struck her that this meeting was for him, too, difficult and trying. She said nothing, but when her aunt exclaimed, “Travelling all to-day? Dear me! You must be tired,” she murmured gently, “Yes, indeed;” and Godfrey caught her words, faint as they were, and looked pleased.
“I was so anxious to hear if—if you had heard anything more,” he said; and though he did not name Arthur, every one knew that was what he meant.
“Nothing more,” said Mr Morison, for the last letter, bearing date now nearly a fortnight ago, had been communicated to Mr Auriol. “I must have a long talk with you about it all, Auriol. I think it is about time to be doing something more energetic, and yet we have all agreed in feeling very reluctant to making any ‘to-do’ that could possibly be avoided.”
“Oh yes,” said Nina fervently, clasping her hands.
Mr Auriol sat silent for a moment or two. Then he looked up and said—
“You have no idea, I suppose, who it is that posts his letters for him?”
Mr Morison looked a little bewildered.
“They are all posted in London, I think you told me?” added Mr Auriol.
“To be sure,” said Mr Morison. “Yes. I have once or twice wondered who does it, unless it is himself? No, by-the-by, he has distinctly said he is not in London. Ihavethought of it, but not very much. I fancied it so hopeless to get any clue in that way.”
“But it must be some one in his confidence, some one, I should almost say, whom he had a claim on,” said Godfrey. “For there is a certain amount of risk in doing it; the person might be blamed for having taken any part in it. Is there no one any of you have ever heard of who would be likely to agree to do Arthur a service of the kind?” He looked round, but his glance seemed to rest on Lettice. No one spoke.
“You must all think it over,” he said. “It’s only a suggestion, but something may come of it.” And soon after, allowing that hewasvery tired, he said “Good night,” and went away.
Lettice, in the quiet of her own room, realised how kindly and considerately he had behaved. His matter-of-fact manner had been the greatest relief, and nothing that he could have said could have been so full of tact and delicacy as his saying nothing.
“I do believe,” thought the girl, her impulsive nature aglow again, “I do believe he hurried out here to-night as much for my sake as on account of his anxiety. He knew his coming in that sudden unlooked-for way would carry off the awkwardness. It is very generous of him.” Then her thoughts reverted to what he had suggested.Didshe know any one standing in such a position to Arthur? She sat long thinking, asking herself the question, when suddenly, by that curious process by which it sometimes seems as if the machinery of our brain obeyed our orders unconsciously to ourselves—there dashed into her memory a name, a sentence she had heard Arthur utter. The name was “Dawson,” and as she repeated it to herself, she seemed to hear her brother’s voice saying thoughtfully—
“Yes, I do believe there’s one person in the world who’d do anything for me. It’s that fellow Dawson. I’ve told you about him, Lettice?” Yes, he had told her about him, though he probably had forgotten doing so, just as she, till this moment, had forgotten having heard it. Now, by slow degrees, it came back to her. Dawson had been a young servant in Mr Downe’s service, and by a fall from a ladder had broken his leg. Being naturally delicate, this accident had altogether ruined his health; he was pronounced incurably lame, and Arthur had done his utmost to help and comfort the poor boy. I do not know that Lettice remembered all these details so clearly, but they were the facts, and she recalled enough to make her sure that Dawson was worth looking up. She knew hehadbeen living at the little town near to which was Mr Downe’s “cramming” establishment; she felt almost sure his home was there. In any case, it was more than probable he would there be heard of; and surely, surely it was worth trying!
Whatever were Lettice Morison’s faults and failings, want of courage and determination were not among them. Her plans were soon made.
It was but little sleep that fell to her share that night.
“I must go alone,” she said to herself. “If I have discovered Arthur’s secret I have no right to share it with any other till I know what he himself wishes. Besides, it is I who am to blame for his having been driven away; it is I who should bring him back.”
She quickly made her arrangements. For the second time in the course of but a few weeks, she wrote a note for Nina to find after she should have left—a note to some extent explaining what she was about.
“I think I have got a clue, dearest Nina,” she said. “But I must follow it up alone. Do not be the least uneasy about me. I shall probably be back in a few hours; if not, I will telegraph in the course of the day.”
This was about all that Nina had to show to her uncle, when at breakfast-time that morning she rushed downstairs with the tidings of Lettice’s disappearance. Mr Morison looked, and was, terribly put out. For the first time, his patience seemed about to desert him.
“It is really too bad,” he said. “What have I done or left undone that Lettice should meet me with so little confidence? It is all nonsense about her being the only person who could act, if indeed there is anything to act about. It is too bad!” And then, catching sight of the excessive distress in Nina’s gentle face, his kind heart smote him for adding to it.
“After all,” he said, more cheerfully than he felt, “I do not know that there is anything to be really uneasy about I quite expect her back by luncheon. We let her off too easily the last time, eh, Nina? Poor child! What a child she is, to do things in this silly, ill-considered way!”
They went in to breakfast, and Nina tried to follow her uncle’s example, and to believe that there was nothing to be seriously alarmed about. But neither Mr nor Mrs Morison eat anything, and seemed eager to leave the table, in order, no doubt, to discuss what steps to take.
“Dear me,” thought poor Nina, her eyes filling with tears, “whattrouble, from first to last, we have caused them!”
Just as the mockery of a breakfast was over—Miss Branksome and the younger children had had theirs earlier—and the three were rising from the table, there came, as the evening before, a short, sharp, authoritative ring at the door-bell.
“That sounds like Auriol again,” said Mr Morison, smiling at his own fancifulness, “though of course it can’t be at this time of the morning.” But he was mistaken. ItwasMr Auriol. In he hurried, not waiting for the footman to announce him, a bright, eager expression on his face, an opened envelope in his hand.
“Good news!” he cried. “I have a letter from Arthur, giving an address to which I may write, if I have good news forhim. I could not rest till I told you of it, so I rushed up here at once. Will you give me a cup of tea, Mrs Morison? The letter was to be privateunlessI could guaranteeallof you feeling—as I know you do about it, Lettice especially. It all hangs on her, but I know she will be only too ready. Where is she—not down yet?”
The three others looked at each other—for a moment forgetting their own trouble in honest reluctance to chill poor Godfrey’s evident delight. Nina was the first to speak.
“Oh!” she said, and the exclamation came from the very bottom of her heart, “if Lettice had but waited till breakfast-time!”
He looked up in bewildered amazement. Then all had to be told, and Lettice’s letter shown. Godfrey bit his lips till it made Nina nervous to watch him, as he read it.
“What is the meaning of it? Is it my fault again? Have I frightened her away?” he said almost piteously.
At which, of course, they all exclaimed, though he seemed hardly convinced by what they said. Then he told them about Arthur’s letter. It had been drawn forth by the terrible home-sickness which had began to prey upon him, and by the necessity of his coming to a decision about binding himself to his present employer for a considerable time. He gave no particulars as to where he was, or how employed, but spoke of his misery at being without any tidings of all at home, and how at last the idea had come to him of confiding in Godfrey. “I trust you implicitly, even though you are my guardian,” he said naïvely, “not to speak of this letter, not to endeavour to find me, unless you are assured that they all want me to come back; that they will not be, Lettice especially, ashamed of me; that Lettice will not insist on my trying again when I know I should again fail. All depends on Lettice.”
Then he gave the address to which Mr Auriol was to write, but entreated him not to let the person living at that address be blamed, or fall into any trouble on his account. “He has been a faithful friend,” Arthur wrote; “but for him I could not have written home at all.”
“Who is it?” asked Mr Morison.
“I have no idea,” said Godfrey. “I saw no necessity for inquiring. I meant just to write, and to ask his sisters to do so,” he went on. “I felt sure they, Miss Morison especially, would know how to write so as to bring him back at once. But now—there is no use writing till we know where she is, and what she is doing; and yet,” he glanced at the envelope, “he will be already wondering at my silence. This letter has been following me about for more than a week.”
“Mr Auriol,” said Nina suddenly, “do you remember what you asked us last night? To try to think of any one whom Arthur may have employed to post his letters. That may have put something in Lettice’s head; she may have thought of some one. I have a vague idea of some young man, some boy, living near Mr Downe’s, whom Arthur was kind to.”
“This may be he,” said Mr Auriol. “The letter is to be sent under cover to ‘T. Dawson,’ in a village near Fretcham, where Mr Downe’s is.”
“I believe that is where she has gone. She must have remembered it,” said Mr Morison. “What shall we do?”
“I shall start at once,” said Godfrey. ”‘T. Dawson,’ whoever he is, will not be so startled by me as by any one else, as he has sent on this letter to me. And of course there will be no treachery to Arthur in his telling me if Miss Morison has been there.”
“Perhaps it is the best thing to do,” said Mr Morison, “though I would gladly have gone myself.”
“And I dosohope you will bring Lettice back with you,” said Nina.
And almost before they had realised his apparition among them, he was gone.
“Another long miserable day of waiting for telegrams,” said poor Nina piteously. And then determining to follow sensible Miss Branksome’s advice, she went in search of her, to beg her to suggest some employment to make the time of suspense pass more quickly.
“Give me some piece of hard work, please. A very difficult German translation might do, or a piece of very fine old lace to mend.” And poor Miss Branksome was cudgelling her brains as to what to propose, when Mrs Morison’s voice, calling Nina, interrupted them.
“Nina, I want you,” said her aunt. “Will you help me to write some notes and to attend to several little things I want done quickly? For I have just had a word from Philip Dexter. He has come back, and is to be here at luncheon, and I should not like to be busy the first time he comes after so long.”
Thus occupation was found both for Nina’s fingers and thoughts.
Late, very late that evening, a lady in mourning got out of the train at a junction far away in the north.
“This is Merton Junction, is it not?” she said timidly. “It is here that one changes for Greenwell, is it not?”
“Greenwell,” said the porter questioningly; “that is on the other side of Middleham, is it not?” For Greenwell was a very little town.
“I don’t know,” said Lettice—for Lettice of course it was—“I thought everybody would know it here. They told me in London to take my ticket to Merton, and then get another.”
The porter looked confused and rather bothered. He was on the point of leaving the station for the night. There were no more trains for an hour or two. He did not know what to do with this unfortunate traveller, and yet, not being of a surly nature, did not like to throw her off.
It ended in the poor man’s giving himself a good deal of trouble to find out that there was no train for Greenwell till four o’clock in the morning. There was nothing for it but for Lettice to spend the night in the desolate waiting-room of the station, for the junction was some distance from the small town of the name. Even had she felt able to walk there, Lettice could hardly have had a couple of hours’ sleep before she would have had to come back again.
It was not a cheerful prospect—four or five hours at a railway station in the middle of the night in January. The porter poked up the fire, and told her she’d no need to be “afeard;” he would speak to the night-porters, there’d be a couple of them there, and at four o’clock there’d be some one to give her her ticket. And with a friendly “good night,” none the less so for the fee which Lettice gave him, he went off.
Shewasa little frightened. In vain she told herself she had no need to be so. All the horrible stories she had ever heard of in such circumstances returned to her mind. She tried to sleep on the hard horsehair sofa, and succeeded in dozing uncomfortably, to be startled awake by one of the night-porters coming in to stir up the fire. Then she dozed again, to wake shivering with cold, the fire out, the faint gaslight sufficing but to make darkness visible. She started up; there was light enough to see the time by her watch. With the greatest relief, she saw that it was half-past three!
Half an hour later, she had got her ticket, and was stepping into a first-class carriage of the train, which had come in from the south, and was going on to Middleham.
“Now at last,” thought Lettice, “my troubles are over. In a few hours more I shall be with Arthur.”
As she settled herself in her place, she saw by the feeble lamp-light that there were two other persons in the carriage—two gentlemen. She glanced at them, but with no interest curiosity, and she distinguished neither of their faces. One, an elderly man, got out at the first station they stopped at. The little bustle of handing him some of his belongings brought Lettice face to face with the remaining passenger. Both started, both gave vent to an exclamation; but Lettice’s was of dismay, her companion’s of relief.
“Mr Auriol!”
“Lettice—Miss Morison, how thankful I am to have found you!”
Lettice’s face, cold as it was, burned.
“Found me!” she repeated. “Have you been sent after me to look for me? There was no need for anything of the kind. I telegraphed yesterday to say I was coming on to—” She hesitated, not sure if she would, tohim, say whither she was bound. But her tone was full of resentment.
Godfrey gave a sigh that was half a groan, of something very like despair.
“Will youalwaysmisunderstand me?” he said.
“What can I say? What can I do? You seem to think I have a mission in life of annoying and insulting you. What can a man do to prove that he does not deserve to be so thought of?”
Lettice looked at him in amazement, not unmixed with compunction. Was this the calm, stately Mr Auriol? Did he so care for her opinion? She could hardly take it in; and then, by a quick revulsion, she remembered how only the night before she had called him, and felt that he deserved to be called, generous.
“I am sorry for being so hasty,” she said. “But I don’t see why you or any one need have followed me. I wanted,” she went on, and her eyes filled with tears—“I wanted to have done it all myself. It—it was my fault Arthur went away; I wanted to be the one to bring him back.”
Godfrey moved away. He could hardly help smiling, and yet he was so sorry for her. What a child she was! What a mixture of gentleness and obstinacy, of generosity and devotion and self-will!
“Lettice,” he said very, very gently, but very seriously nevertheless, “there are some things in which youmustyield to those older and more experienced than you. It isnotright for a young creature like you—so—now, you must not be angry—so lovely, and so sure to be remarked, to go running about the country, however good your motive may be. You don’t know, you can hardly imagine, the anxiety they—we have all been in!”—and he hesitated—“I, I do believe, the most of all.”
“You,” said Lettice, and the tears in her eyes began slowly to trickle down her face. “You hate me, I know. Why should you mind what I do? It is I that have caused you all the trouble.”
“I hate you?” he repeated. “Lettice, are you saying that on purpose? Yes, you have caused me more trouble than any one else has ever done, because, from the first moment I ever saw you, from that first evening at Esparto, I havelovedyou, Lettice. And everything has been against me. I am mad to tell you this; I meant never to have let it pass my lips.”
Lettice’s face was burning, but not with anger. She herself could not have defined her own feelings. She tried to speak, but the words were all but inaudible.
“You make me ashamed,” she said. “I can’t understand it.”
But at that moment the train slackened. The faint morning light was struggling in the cold wintry sky. Mr Auriol sprang from his seat.
“We get out here,” he said. “This is Middleham;” and, submissive at last, Lettice allowed him to help her out of the carriage. He took her at once to the best hotel of the place, and then, having ordered some breakfast, of which she was sorely in need, for she had eaten almost nothing the day before, he gave her Arthur’s letter to read, and explained to her what he intended to do.Herplans had been of the simplest.
“I meant just to go to the address at Greenwell and ask for him,” she said; and she quickly saw that Mr Auriol’s intention of telegraphing to Arthur at once to come over to see him at Middleham was much better.
“It will involve him in no awkwardness,” he said, “nor will it lead to his blaming Dawson, poor fellow. For I,” he added, with a smile, “am armed with his own credentials;” and he touched the letter as he spoke.
“You don’t think Arthur will be angry with Dawson,” said Lettice, “or,” she went on, and the idea struck Mr Auriol as very comical, “withme? ImadeDawson tell me.”
An hour later Mr Auriol returned to the sitting-room, where he had left Lettice, with an open telegram in his hand.
“This is from Arthur,” he said, “or rather from ‘John Morris,’” he added, with a slight smile, as he handed it to Lettice.
“Thousand thanks. Will be with you by twelve,” was the telegram.
“I don’t think there is much fear of his being angry with anybody,” observed Mr Auriol.
“Thanks to you. It was so much better to send for him than to go there,” said Lettice impulsively.
Godfrey’s face flushed. He half turned away; then, taking courage, he came nearer again.
“Lettice,” he said, “are you not angry withme? I forgot myself. It is very good of you not to resent it.”
“Resent it!” said Lettice simply. “HowcouldI do so? I can’t quite believe that you knew what you were saying. I think you must be so sorry for me, for all the trouble I have brought on myself and on other people, that—that—just that you are very sorry for me. For one thing,” and her voice grew very low and her face very red, “I thought you cared for Nina.”
“You, too!” he exclaimed. “How extraordinary! It is a good thing I do not, not in that way, for I should have had no chance of success. I met Philip Dexter at the Winthrops’, where I stayed a night; and—I think he would not mind my telling you—in talking together rather confidentially, I found out that he, too, has had that idea, and has been very unhappy. But I put it all right, and he’s back in London by this time. We may hear some news on our return.”
“Did he tell you what gave him the idea?” asked Lettice, almost in a whisper.
“Some chance words of mine at Esparto,” said Godfrey.
“It is very generous of him to have said so. But it was not only that,” said Lettice, her eyes filling with tears.
But, somehow or other, the confession she made of this new offence did not lower her in Mr Auriol’s eyes as hopelessly as she had expected.
A few days later a happily reunited family were assembled in Mr Morison’s house. How easy it was for Lettice to convince Arthur of the complete change in her feelings, when she told him of the little-hoped-for reconciliation with their uncle, may be imagined! How more than ready to forgive her unfortunate influence in their affairs she found Philip and Nina! How her uncle and aunt promised to forget the anxiety she had caused them, on condition of her never again thus setting aside the judgment and experience of her natural protectors! How more than amazed was everybody when, a few weeks later, by which time Lettice had learnt to believe that Godfrey Aurioldidmean what he said, her engagement to him was announced! All these “hows” I must also leave to my reader’s imagination.
The old farmer and his family, whose honest kindliness had so fortunately intervened to save poor Arthur from taking some really foolish step, were not forgotten. And in after-days, when his wish was fulfilled, and he had replaced his uncle at the head of his firm, he would sometimes recall with a smile the days when he had measured grey flannel and wrapped up parcels of tapes and ribbons for the dames of Greenwell.
There are many ways in which life’s lessons are taught. Some have to go through hard and sorrowful experiences—harder, it often seems, than they merit; others, like Lettice, learn true humility and sacrifice of self-will by gentler discipline. As she often said to herself—
“How can I ever be good enough to show my gratitude? How little have I deserved such happiness—I who might have ruined not merely my own life, but those of others, by my foolish obstinacy!”
And “prejudice” was a word and a sentiment which Lettice Auriol’s children were never allowed to know the meaning of.