WEEKS and months have passed by at Mirk Abbey; the snow has thawed, and the cold winds of March have done their worst, and the spring is clothing nature's nakedness with garments of green. Yet all this time, my Lady, who is so fond of outdoor exercise, even in rough weather, and such a constant visitor of the poor, has never been seen beyond the Park gates. To be sure, she has had more to keep her within than usual, for the captain has got his leave prolonged at the beginning of the year, but came home for three weeks very shortly after, and is at Mirk again at the present time. Miss Rose Aynton, too, a very nice young lady, and most attentive to her hostess, seems to have become quite a resident at the Abbey, for, with the exception of a week's absence in London, she has remained there since Christmas, her departure having indeed been vaguely fixed more than once, but only to be as indefinitely postponed. It is now understood that she will certainly stay over the festivities attendant upon Sir Richard's coming of age in June. The baronet himself, who, his detractors say, always prefers the country, where he is somebody, to town, where baronets are plentiful, has scarcely been away at all. He writes to inquiring friends in London, most of whom happen to have marriageable daughters, that he is immersed in business connected with the estate, and cannot leave Mirk at present. Mr Rinkel, the agent, however, has seen no cause to relax his ordinary exertions, in consequence of this new-born application of the young gentleman to his own affairs; and Walter wickedly asserts that his brother is in reality occupied with no other business whatever, save that of keeping the man Derrick from trespassing upon the Abbey lands. He is very glad, he says, that Richard has at last found an object in life, and hopes that, like the French sportsman's woodcock, it will last him for a good long time.
It does not help to heal the breach between the brothers that Walter and this same man have grown very intimate, a fact which Sir Richard (assuming to himself a metaphor usually applied only to Providence) stigmatises as “flying in his face.”—His mother, however, declines to take this view of it—declines even to express an opinion about it one way or another, and avoids the subject as much as she can. Even with the confidential maid, notwithstanding her decision about Mr Derrick's ineligibility as a suitor, she forbears to reason with respect to this matter, although it is understood that the forbidden swain is gaining ground in the affections of Mistress Forest. There is but one person to whom my Lady has opened her lips concerning the man she dimly saw by lantern-light on Christmas Eve, and has never seen since. Her confidant—if one can be called so to whom so little was confided—is Mr Arthur Haldane, the only son of the doctor, and one who has been a great favourite with Lady Lisgard from his youth up, not for his own sake merely, although he is honest and kind, and very winning with those who look beyond externals (for he is not goodlooking, or, at least, does not appear so by contrast with her own handsome sons), but for another reason: my Lady owed him a reparation of love for a wrong that she had inadvertently done his father.
Dr Haldane and the late Sir Robert had been at school together, and their boy-friendship had lasted, as it seldom does, through their university course. Their mutual esteem had not afterwards suffered by propinquity, when they came to pass their days within a few hundred yards of one another; and when my Lady married, she found that the dearest friend her husband had on earth was Dr Haldane. She was not the woman to come between her husband's friends and himself; and the doctor (who had had his doubts about the matter before he came to know her) was wont to declare the Abbey was even more of a second home to him than it used to he, now that his old friend had placed so charming a mistress at the head of it. He was always welcome there, and being himself a widower, was glad to take advantage of Sir Robert's hospitality whenever he could; a knife and fork were laid for him at table all the year round; and when he did not appear at the dinner-hour, either husband or wife was sure to observe: “I am afraid we shall not see the doctor with us to-day.” It would have seemed as though nothing short of death could have interrupted such cordiality as this.
But in those days there was such a thing as Politics. The baronet was a Tory, and his friend a Whig of what was afterwards called “advanced opinions.” They bickered over their wine three nights out of every seven, though they never failed to drink each other's healths before they sought the company of the hostess. These political discussions (unfortunately, as it turned out) were scrupulously confined to the diningroom, so that my Lady had no idea of the strength of the respective prejudices of the combatants, and of the severity of the trial to which their friendship was so often subjected. Brought up as she had been among persons in humble life, who were engaged in bread-winning (a very monopolising occupation), and educated in France, where the question of English reform was never mooted, she knew little or nothing of the matters which formed the subjects of dispute, although they were setting half England together by the ears. It seems strange to read of now, but the idol which Toryism had set up to worship at that epoch was a heartless and vulgar fop, whom it sycophantically dubbed the First Gentleman in Europe; while the Whigs pinned their faith upon the virtue of his wife, a woman as vulgar as himself, and whom her enemies endeavoured to shew was almost as vicious. Over this good-for-nothing pair, Lords, Commons, and People were quarrelling together, like a mob at a dog-fight, and the public press was solely occupied with hounding them on. To dip into a newspaper of that date is to make an excursion to Billingsgate, for both parties, equally unable to whitewash their candidate, confined themselves to vilifying their opponent.
When the report upon the bill of Pains and Penalties against Queen Caroline was finally approved by a majority of nine only, and those nine representing the votes of the ministers themselves, the popular excitement culminated. The Whigs decreed that there should be illuminations throughout the kingdom, and (what seems hard) that their adversaries should express the same satisfaction in a similar manner. For three consecutive nights, the Londoners made plain the innocence of their queen, so far as pyrotechnics and oil-lamps could do it; and for one night, the country was expected to do the like. Vast mobs paraded the streets of the provincial towns, to see that this was done, and even made excursions to the country-houses of the Disaffected. Among others, Mirk Abbey was threatened with a visitation of this sort; and I must confess that the doctor rather chuckled over the notion, that the stubborn Sir Robert, who had called his sovereign lady so many opprobrious epithets, would have to dedicate his candles to her, as though she were his patron saint. The baronet, on his part, protested that every window in his house should be broken rather than exhibit so much as a farthing-dip; but he said nothing to his wife about the matter, lest it should make her nervous.
They happened to be engaged to pass that November week at a friend's house in the country, and left home accordingly.
The gentleman with whom they stayed himself suffered some inconvenience from the rioters on the night in question; and when Sir Robert came back, he was even less inclined to be a convert to his Whig friend's opinions than before.
“But youdidilluminate,” said the doctor with a chuckle, as they sat together after dinner, as usual, upon the day of his return.
“I did nothing of the kind, sir,” returned the baronet angrily.
“Well, your servants did it for you, then, and I presume by your orders. Mr Brougham himself could not have exhibited his patriotism more significantly. The Abbey was a blaze of light from basement to garret.”
“That is a lie!” cried Sir Robert, making the glasses jump with the force with which he brought his fist down upon the table.
“A what?” exclaimed the doctor, rising from the table livid with rage. “Do you, then, call me a liar?”
“Yes,” thundered the baronet; “like all your radical crew.”
The two men that had so long been nearer and dearer to each other than brothers never again interchanged one word.
Dr Haldane left the Abbey, solemnly protesting that he would never cross its threshold again during the lifetime of its owner; and he kept his determination even in the hour when his old friend lay a-dying.
Now, poor Lady Lisgard was the person to blame for all this. Before Sir Robert and she had set out on their visit, the housekeeper had told her that everybody was going to illuminate their houses on the 12th, on account of what had happened in London with respect to Queen Caroline; and she was afraid that if some sign of rejoicing was not shewn at the Abbey, the mob would do some damage. A candle in each of the windows would save a hundred pounds of mischief belike. “Well, then, put a candle,” said my Lady, not dreaming that by that simple order she was wounding her husband in his most vital point, his pride, and making a sacrifice of principles that he held only second to those of the Christian Religion. She did not even think it necessary to tell him that she had left this command behind her; but when she heard him praise the determination of the friend with whom they stayed, not to submit to the dictation of the rabble, she had not the heart to tell him of the mistake she had committed, and which it was by that time too late to remedy. That mistake, and, still more, her unfortunate reticence, had caused the quarrel, destined never to be healed, betwixt her husband and his friend. They both forgave her, but she could not forgive herself. It seemed to her that she could never do enough to shew how sorry she was for her grievous fault. We have said how she made up so far as was in her power, in love and duty to Sir Robert, for the loss of his friend; but to that friend himself, self-exiled from her roof, and out of the reach, as it were, of reparation, how was she to atone for the wrong she had inadvertently done him? When the quarrel first took place, the doctor's wrath was quite unquenchable; he would listen to nothing except an apology—a debt which Sir Robert (although he certainly owed it) most resolutely refused to pay. The doctor, who had hitherto confined his Whiggism to after-dinner eloquence, and coarse but biting epigrams, which had earned him the reputation of a philosopher with those of his own party, thereupon became an active political partisan, and not only voted at election-time, but canvassed with might and main against the Lisgard interest; nay, he even composed, as we have ventured to hint, satirical ballads against the paternal rule of that respectable family.
But although neither sex nor age was spared in those savage days, not one word did the vengeful doctor breathe about my Lady; nay, it was on record that when some too uncompromising apostle of Liberty had reflected upon her humble extraction in the presence of that friend estranged, he had risen to his full height of five feet eight, and levelled the slanderer to the earth. Perhaps my Lady did not esteem him the less upon that account; but certain it was that the first visit she paid after Sir Robert's death was to the doctor's house, taking with her, it was said, from her husband's dying lips, a message of affectionate reconciliation. The baronet had never brought himself to alter the words in his will by which he had appointed his tried and loving friend, Bartholomew Haldane, trustee for his children; and of course the doctor accepted his trust. He never could be induced to visit the Abbey, although his oath no longer forbade it; but the Lisgard children were his constant guests, and his only son, Arthur Haldane, was as another brother to them, and almost as another son to my Lady. His nature was grave and serious, like Sir Richard's, but very tender withal, and she felt that she could confide in him what she could not have confided to the rigid young baronet, although he was her own flesh and blood; nevertheless, or perhaps for that very reason, when she took Arthur's arm that April morning, upon pretence of shewing him some alterations that were proposed to be made at a place in the Abbey-grounds called the “Watersmeet,” she thought it necessary to preface what she was going to say to him with an explanation.
“My dear Arthur,” said she, when they had got out of view of the house, “you will think it cruel that I have brought you away from the society of that charming young lady, Miss Aynton, to chat with an old woman like me, who have boys of my own to take counsel with; but the fact is, I have inveigled you hither to get an opinion from you which I could scarcely ask of your learned brother.”
This was conferring a brevet rank upon Sir Richard, who had not yet been called to the Bar, although he was reading for it; while Arthur had been in practice for some years.
“My dear Lady Lisgard,” returned the other smiling, “I must, for my professional credit's sake, enter my protest against what you say about Miss Aynton, as irrelevant, and travelling out of the record, but besides that, it is a delusion which I should be sorry to see you entertain. Miss Aynton is nothing whatever to me; although, indeed, if she were, I would rather chat with you than with any young lady (save one) in Christendom.”
The young barrister's tone was so unnecessarily earnest and impressive, that one so acute as Lady Lisgard could scarcely have failed to see that he courted inquiry concerning such excess of zeal. She either saw it not, however, or refused to see it; and he was far too delicate by nature to press it upon her attention. “And now,ma mère,” continued he, taking her hand in his affectionately, “in what way can I be of use to you?”
“By your good sense, and by your good feeling, Arthur. I need the aid of your talents and your virtues, too, dear boy; I want your best advice, and then your promise that you will never disclose that I have asked it.”
“You shall have both those, ma mère. As the pashas say to the sultan when there is nothing to fear: 'I bring you my head;' as for my heart—that has been devoted to you these many years.”
LADY LISCARD and her young friend had by this time arrived at the Watersmeet, a lovely spot, where the river branched into two streams, the one still pursuing its course through the Lisgard property, and the other escaping under a sort of swing palisade—which prevented the passage of boats—into public life. The way had lain for some time along a broad beech-walk, paved with an exquisite checker-work of light and shade; but they now came upon an open spot on which a rustic bench was placed for those who would admire at leisure what was called the home-view. The prospect from this seat was remarkable, since it took in all that was best worth seeing at Mirk, without laying under contribution anything, with the exception of the church, that was not the property of the family. Two sides of the Abbey, an irregular but very picturesque structure, could from here be seen, at a distance not so great as to lose the bolder features of the architecture, or to mass the ivy which Time had hung about the southern front; the sloping lawn, with its marble fountain, and alcove of trellis-work, which the spring-time had but sparely clothed with leaf; the boat-house, with its carved and gilded roof—all these, backed by a living wall of stately woods, made up a charming picture. The Park lay across the stream, which, although both broad and deep, was only used by pleasure-boats; and above the one-arched bridge which linked it with the hither bank beyond the lawn, stood up the gray church tower. Gazing upon this view, not as one who had seen it a thousand times before, and might behold it as often again, but with eyes that had a strange yearning and regret in them, Lady Lisgard thus addressed her companion.
“I want to speak to you about my Walter, Arthur. A mother, alas! cannot know her son as his friend knows him; and you, I believe, are Walter's truest friend”——
“One moment, Lady Lisgard,” interrupted the young man gravely; “everybody is Walter's friend, but some are his flatterers. I must tell you at once that he is displeased with me at present because I am not one of those.”
“Yes; you have warned him of some danger, and he is piqued because he thinks that is treating him as a child.”
“Since you know that,ma mère, you know all that is necessary to be said. Go on.”
“What is the bond, Arthur, that links my Walter to this person Derrick? I pray you, do not hesitate to tell me. There is more depends upon your answer than you can possibly guess.”
“Really, Lady Lisgard,” returned the young man hesitatingly, “you ask a difficult thing, and, in truth, a delicate. There are some things, as you say, which a son does not tell his mother, and far less wishes to have told to her by another. Women and men take such different views of the same matter. If men are vicious—which I do not deny—in their love of horse-racing, for instance, women reprobate it in an exaggerated way.”
“Horse-racing!” murmured Lady Lisgard, clasping her hands. “Does my Walter bet? Is he a gambler?”
“I did not say that,” answered the young man with irritation. “If you insist upon making me a tale-bearer, Lady Lisgard, do not at least heighten the colour of my scandals.”
“I beg your pardon, Arthur; I was wrong. Perhaps this eagerness to suspect the worst is the cause of that distrust which the young entertain of the old. And yethemight have told me all, and been sure of forgiveness.”
“Doubtless,ma mère; but then we don't tell our mothers all. Now, pray, be reasonable, and assure yourself that Walter is no worse than other young men, because he makes up a book upon the Derby.”
“Youdo not do so, Arthur. Why should Walter?”
“Ido not,ma mère, because my taste does not lie in that direction. My vices—and I have plenty—are of another sort. I unsettle my mind with heterodox publications. I entertain opinions which are subversive of the principles of good government as believed in by your Ladyship's family. You know in what sort of faith I have been brought up. Moreover, I live in town among a slow, hard-working set, who have neither time nor inclination for going to race-courses; and, indeed, I am now getting a little practice at the bar myself. If I were a handsome young swell in a regiment of Light Dragoons, then, instead of publishing that amusing work upon theLaw of Entail, which, with a totally inexcusable pang, I saw lying upon your library-table to-dayuncut, I should without doubt be making a betting-book. Having no call towards that sort of employment, however, I am very severe upon it. I term it waste of time, loss of money, &c.; and in the case of your son, I have even been so foolish as to remonstrate with him on that very account—an interference which, I fear, has cost me his friendship.”
“Has he lost money through this man Derrick, think you?”
“Not yet, or they would not be upon such good terms. A turf friendship ceases at the first bad bet. The fact is, it was about his imtimacy with this drunken fellow that I ventured to speak; it increases the misunderstanding already unhappily existing between your sons; for you know what a dislike Sir Richard has shewn for this person, while for Walter himself I believe him to be a most dangerous acquaintance.”
“Dangerous?” inquired my Lady hurriedly—“how mean you dangerous?”
“He is bad company for any young man, and he has acquaintances who are worse. Walter is 'hail-fellow-well-met' with everybody, and may find himself one day so deeply involved with these folks, that extrication may not be easy. He has plenty of wits, and well knows how to take care of himself in a general way; but all his great advantages are useless to him among this particular class. His genial wit, his graceful ways, his tenderness of heart—nay, even his high spirits, all go for nothing with such vulgar good-for-naughts, whom, in my opinion, he will be lucky not to find downright cheats and scoundrels.”
“Is this man Derrick, then,” inquired my Lady, gazing fixedly upon the dark swirling stream, “irredeemably base and vicious?”
“No, not so,” answered the young man frankly; “he has the lees of good still left in him, without which, indeed, he would be less harmful. Walter was taken from the first with his openness and candour—which are so great that he seems quite lost to the sense of shame—and with his lavish generosity, which is probably the result of rapid fortunemaking. He made five thousand pounds or so, it seems, in a few weeks at gold-digging, and I should think he was in a fair way to spend it in almost as short a period.”
“Perhaps he may have been spoilt by that mode of life,” observed Lady Lisgard pitifully.
“I speak as I find, ma mère,” said the young man, shrugging his shoulders. “It is nothing to us if this man may have been a good boy at one time. You may charitably suppose, if you like, that he has been crossed in love, or unfortunately married——— Ah! that reminds you, I see, of histendressefor Mistress Forest. Since it moves you so deeply, you must look that matter in the face, Lady Lisgard, and very soon, if you wish to keep Mary. If something about this fellow pleases Walter, you need not wonder that it has fascinated your waiting-maid.”
“Is it this fancy of his, then, think you, which alone keeps him here at Mirk?” asked my Lady, who had started for a moment as though stung, but was now once more looking thoughtfully at the river.
“No. Being totally without anchorage in the world, the cable-strand of a partnership in a race-horse at present at Chifney's stables here holds him to the place where he can be near his property. His pecuniary affairs are, as I understand, bound up in that fourfooted creature, and beyond them he has nothing to look to. You who have all things settled about you, Lady Lisgard, with home, children, and friends, and from whom so many interests radiate, are doubtless unable to picture to yourself such a state of things. But if this man should marry Mistress Forest, and still keep his share inMenelaus, I should not be surprised if he were to take up his residence at Mirk altogether.”
“God in his mercy forbid!” ejaculated my Lady, clasping her hands.
“My dear Lady Lisgard!” cried the young man, in alarm at her emotion, “I am afraid I must have said something very foolish, to have frightened you about this fellow thus. After all, there is no harm done, and I may have been very wrong—as my mind misgives me, I have been very officious—in anticipating any harm.”
“No, no,” cried my Lady, rocking herself to and fro; “your good sense has only told you Truth. Do not—do not forsake me, Arthur. I look to you not only for warning, but for succour. Are you sure that you have told me all? Is there no other reason besides those you have mentioned why this man, having lain in wait, and entrapped my Walter, should sit down before this house, and, as it were, besiege it thus?”
“Well, Lady Lisgard,” returned the young man gravely, “there is, I fear, another reason; but it is one I am very loath to speak of——- Are you cold,ma mère?I fear it is too early for this sitting by the river.”
“No, Arthur, I am not cold. Why should you hesitate to tell me anything about this—this stranger?”
“Because, Lady Lisgard, I respect you as though you were indeed my mother—as you have shewn towards me always a mother's love; and this matter in some sort concerns yourself.”
“Myself?” whispered my Lady hoarsely. “No, not myself, good Arthur. What can there be in common between this man—whom I have never seen—and me?”
“Ay, there it is,” replied the young man quietly. “It would have been far better had you not shut yourself up, as you have done these three months, expressly to avoid this fellow—by that means making him think himself of consequence.”
“Who says I have done that?” asked my Lady vehemently, “Who dares to say it? Why should I fear him? Why should I think about him well or ill? What is he to me, or I to him?”
“Ay, what indeed,ma mère!All this arises from giving ourselves such airs, and carrying matters with so high a hand: you have nothing but Sir Richard's pride to thank for it, to which I must say, in this instance, you have injudiciously, and, most unlike yourself, succumbed. It was a harsh measure, surely, to forbid this man your house, when coming, as you knew he would, upon a lawful errand of courtship; but to serve the landlord of an inn with notice of ejectment if a certain guest should not remove himself—which your eldest son has caused to be done with Steve—is a most monstrous exercise of authority. No wonder this Derrick was greatly irritated; any man so treated would be: but, in the present case, Sir Richard has made the unhappiest mistake. He is dealing with one who is to the full as obstinate as himself; and (what makes the odds overwhelmingly against him) a man entirely reckless and unprincipled. Your son does not understand how any one can be proud who is not a gentleman. Now, this fellow is possessed of a very devil of pride. He is come from an outlying colony, where there is conventional respect for nothing; and where every man does pretty much what is right in his own eyes. He has been lucky there; raised by a freak of fortune, and not by plodding industry (although he has doubtless worked hard too), to comparative wealth, he is by no means inclined to consider people his superiors. A beggar on horseback if you will, he is stillmounted, and may ride in Rotten Row itself if it pleases him. He resents, of course, being thus meddled with; he is one of that class who would deem it a great liberty in the law should it punish his actual transgressions—who would think it hard to be smitten for his faults—but to be interfered with in a harmless avocation, such as lovemaking, or to be dictated to as to where he is to reside, stirs his bile, I can imagine, pretty considerably. It is my belief that he would have got tired of Mirk and Mary too before this, and wandered off somewhere else, scattering his bank-notes on the way, poor devil, like the hare in a school-boy's paper chase, but for this unjustifiable attempt on the part of Sir Richard to curtail his liberties. I am sure, also, that Walter was at first inclined to patronise this man, for the very reason that his brother had exhibited towards him such uncalled-for animosity.”
“This may be all very true,” said my Lady sighing, but at the same time not without a certain air of relief; “but I cannot understand how it affectsme, Arthur.”
“Well, you see, my dear Lady Lisgard, although Sir Richard issues these foolish edicts, it is you who are responsible for them; and I have no doubt this Derrick has been told as much. At least, I hear, that over his cups he has declared he will never leave Mirk till he has had a sight of this Queen of all the Roosias (as he terms you), who holds herself so—— Pardon me,ma mère;I was wrong to repeat this fellow's impertinence. Heaven help us! Why, my Lady has fainted!”
Arthur Haldane spoke the truth. For the moment, Lady Lisgard's mind was freed from all its anxieties, of whatever nature they might be. The young man sprang down the bank, and dipping his handkerchief in the stream, applied its wet folds to her forehead. Gradual and slow the lifeblood flowed again, and with it thought, although confused and tangled.
“Save me, save my Walter!” murmured she. “Tell him I will die first. He shall never look upon my face.”
“He never shall,ma mèresaid the young man soothingly, while he chafed my Lady's stiffened fingers.
“Keep him away!” cried she, endeavouring to rise; “he is tearing off my wedding-ring. Help! help!”
“No, no, it is not he; it is I, Arthur Haldane—a well-meaning fool, but who has worked a deal of mischief. I have told you all I know, and I wish my tongue had been cut out first. It makes my heart bleed to see you thus distressed.”
“Then give me comfort, Arthur,” groaned my Lady; “you have warned me well, but what is the use of warning without advice. How shall I make him cease to persecute us? Gold will not buy him. I have heard of such a man, who, being bribed, cried but the more 'Give, give;' as the whirlpool swallows ship after ship, and yet gapes for more—-for navies.”
“Bribe him? No, Heaven forbid! That, indeed, would be the very way to keep him what he is—to make that chronic which is now, let us hope, but a passing ailment. But I would take care, if I were you, that nothing further he done to irritate him. He may-revenge himself—I only say hemay—by doing Walter some ill turn. And, above all, you must persuade Mistress Forest to give him hiscongé. If once you get her to say 'No,' of her own freewill, he will soon tire of haunting the Abbey; while, if his race-horse does not do the great things expected of him—and what race-horse ever did?—he will soon tire of Mirk itself.”
My Lady shook her head.
“Come, ma mère, there is no need for despondency about this fellow's going—nor, indeed, for much apprehension if he stays—and, moreover, I really think the matter lies in your own hands; at all events, you have more influence over your waiting-maid than any one else, and my advice is that you speak to her at once.”
“Yes, I will speak to her,” said Lady Lisgard mechanically. “Thank you, good Arthur, much.” She rose from her seat, and, heaving a deep sigh as she turned from the fair home-scene, was about to saunter to the beech-walk, when the young man laid his hand upon her arm. It was the lightest touch, but, like that of an enchanter's wand, it seemed to remove all trace of selfish trouble, and in its place to evoke the tenderest sympathy for another.
“You wish to speak to me upon your own account, dear boy; and, alas! I know the subject you would choose.”
“Alas, ma mère!whyalas?I want to talk to you about your Letty.”
“Not now, not now,” cried Lady Lisgard. “Spare me, dear Arthur, for this time; I feel so unhinged and woe-stricken, I can give you neither 'Yea nor 'Nay.'”
“I hoped that you would not have thought of 'Nay,' dear Lady Lisgard,” said the young man pathetically. “I did not look for the same cruel arguments of difference of station and the like fromyouas from—others. I shall have a home to offer your daughter such as will be wanting in no comfort, although it may not be one so fair as yonder Abbey. My professional prospects are, I am glad to say”——
“It is notthat, dear boy,” broke in Lady Lisgard hastily. “You should know me better than to suppose so, Arthur; yet I cannot, nay, I dare not tell you what it is. It may be you will hear the truth some day, though never from these lips; it may be—I pray Heaven for that—that you will never need to hear it. But for the present, press me for no reply; for when you ask to be my daughter's husband, Arthur Haldane, you know not what you ask.”
“That is what Sir Richard says,” replied the young man bitterly. “The Lisgards are such an ancient race, their blood so pure, their scutcheon”———
“Spare me, spare me, Arthur!” cried my Lady earnestly. “Give me only time, and I will do my best. If I have said anything to wound you, ah! forgive it for the sake of those old times, which you may think of some day, boy, not without tears, when I shall be to you but a memory. Think then—whatever's said—'Well, she was always kind to me; and when I wooed her daughter (you will own) she was kind too, although I did not think so then.'” My Lady's face was hidden in her hands, but through the fair white fingers, as though the diamonds in her rings had started from their sockets, oozed the large tears.
“Dear Lady Lisgard, good, kind friend, ma mère,” exclaimed the young man, deeply moved, “what sorrow is it which overwhelms you thus? I pray you, let me share it. I am young and strong, and I love you and yours, and there is help in me. Come, let me try.”
“No, Arthur, no,” answered my Lady gravely, as she once more arose, and re-entered the beech-walk. “I must bear my own burden—that is only right and fitting. Heaven knows I am willing to suffer to the uttermost, if I be only permitted to suffer alone. It is when the innocent suffer for us that the burden galls the most. No; you can do nothing for me but keep silence about all that we have spoken of to-day. Not to do so, would be to do me a grievous hurt. You have passed your word, Arthur Haldane—remember that.”
“Yes, ma mère,” replied the young man sighing. “The Haldanes always keep their promises, you know.”
OF all the pleasant rooms—and they were many—that were to be found at Mirk Abbey, the Library was by far the most charming. An architect might have said that the rest of the house had been somewhat sacrificed to it; a bookworm might have wished it gloomier and more retired; but for a lover of literature who was also a judge of beauty, it was well-nigh perfect. It was upon the first floor, and occupied the space of at least three reception-rooms.
Long as it was, its excessive breadth might have been objected to, but that the effect of this was diminished to exactly the right proportions by huge double bookcases, which jutted out at right angles from the walls; thus the place was broken up, as it were, into a number of little studies, closed in upon three sides, but open, of course, towards what in a church would be called the aisle. This aisle, still a broad space, was set alternately with flower-vases and statues of white marble, though none of these were so tall as to hide from one standing at the door the view of the huge painted window at the southern end. In summer-time, this window was swung back, and all the garden scents and drowsy sounds—the level sweep of the scythe upon the lawn, and the murmur of the bees in the limes—were suffered to enter in. In winter, being closed, what light there was came glowing through the pictured panes, or through small windows far above the level of the eye, so that, in that well-warmed room, you could not tell that itwaswinter.
And yet this stately apartment was seldom used in either season. Letty would sometimes take a Godly book from that part of the place marked in dull goldDevotional, but always carried it away to read in her own chamber; and Sir Richard now and then would refresh himself in the topographical department by taking down theHistory of Wheatshire, where all the Family Seats were duly pictured, and the linked sweetness of' the genealogy of the owners long drawn out; but the Lisgards were not a reading race. Moreover, when they did read, it was chiefly out of modern books temporarily supplied by Mr Mudie, or works most glorious to behold as to their bindings, and without which no lady's drawing-room can be said to be complete, but which happily are rarely seen in libraries. My Lady herself had a goodly store of books in her own boudoir, including most of the French and English classics, all presented to her at divers times by her late husband, and all read, if not for her own pleasure, then for his; she therefore visited the Library more rarely than any one except Walter, who would as soon have thought of visiting the laundry. The last time she had gone thither was just after Miss Aynton's first arrival, when she had taken that young lady to see some curious missals there deposited, containing certain initial letters which Rose was desirous of copying.
She enters it now alone upon her return from that interview with Arthur Haldane at the Watersmeet—on a very different errand. She is no longer the kind of somewhat stately hostess, doing her young guest a pleasure, and at the same time perhaps taking a pardonable pride in shewing her the gem of the Abbey—its Library—for the first time. All pride, all stateliness, seem to have departed from that anxious face; her figure, however, is erect as of old, and her step as firm, as she closes the door of the vast room behind her, and walks towards its southern end. She looks neither to left nor right, for she is in search of none of those volumes which line the Library on either side. The place for which she is bound is in a far corner next the window, but very indirectly lighted by it; a small “study,” where, if such a thing as dust were permitted to accumulate at the Abbey at all, it would certainly lie; and where it did lie; a spot unvisited for years, ever since it had been determined that Sir Richard's profession should be the Law, when certain books were taken from it, and carried up to town to stock his chambers; for over this little literary den was written Legal. Truly, as the phrase goes, “it was not a place for a lady,” that dusky little chamber, lined with its bulky, calf-bound volumes, mostly in series, and often as not connected with one another by that emblem of their contents, a spider's web. What could my Lady have come hither to cull from such unpromising books? Is it possible that, unmindful of the proverb, that he who is his own lawyer has got a fool for his client, she can be in search of legal advice gratis? It is plain that she is in doubt, alas, even where to find the information of which she is in search. Her soft white hand wanders from tome to tome, and drags down one after another from its dusty shelf, until she has peopled the sunbeams anew with motes; but her large gray eyes find nothing to arrest them as they wander over the arid pages, although they grow weary with their task.
At last, however, they seem to have been more fortunate. For the first time, my Lady takes her seat beside the slanting desk, and with her head supported by her hands, like one who is in need of all her wits, she reads on patiently enough. She cons the matter over twice or thrice, then sighs, and putting a thin slip of paper in the book to mark the place, returns it to its shelf, and pursues her search as before. Out of several score of volumes, four only seem to have served her purpose, and even from them it is evident that she has gleaned no comfort, but rather confirmation of some fear. Her face is more hopeless than it was a while ago; her sigh—and she sighs deep and often—has despair in it, as well as sorrow. From her wearied eyes, as she gazes upon the opened casement—through which comes a dreamy music in the flutter of the young leaves on a neighbouring elm, and the silver leap of the fountain on the lawn—tear follows tear, although she knows it not, and glides down the new-made furrows in her cheeks.
The luncheon gong was beaten an hour ago, and then was taken out into the garden for her especial behoof, and beaten again; but my Lady heard it not. She has neither eyes nor ears for the present at all. She is thinking of some Future more dark and terrible than death itself, a day of dishonour and disgrace, that is creeping slowly but surely upon her and hers. The young leaves babble of it already, and the fountain with its talking water, and every whispering breath of April wind; and now she listens to them; and now she tries in vain to think and think; and now she listens to them perforce again. They are comforters these mysterious voices, and do but pretend to prattle of her woes, in order that they may woo her to oblivion; for presently the tired arms can no more bear the burden of that piteous face, but sink down on the desk, and on those soft and rounded cushions droops the careworn head; and the eyelids that have scarce shut throughout the livelong night, nor through many a night before, are closed in slumber. The bee-music, the falling water, and the lullaby of the April leaves, through Nature's kindly hands, have given my Lady a nepenthe draught; and, thanks to it, she has forgotten her woes; nay, more, it has substituted for them joys borrowed from the unreturning Past, which, while we tarry in Dreamland, are as real as any.
My Lady is once more a fisherman's daughter, upon the banks of Blea. The river that flows beside her father's door is almost as salt as the sea itself, and twice a day the sea itself comes up and fills the creeks, and sets afloat the boats and colliers that lie sideways on the oozy beach. When it retires, she longs to be taken with it, for ere that tide can reach the open sea, it must needs pass by the port of Bleamouth, where her lover Ralph dwells. Young as she is, she has been wooed by others, and they better matches than this roving sailor, who, although he has saved a little money, does not know, says her father, how to keep it; and when that is gone, how will he keep himself save by going to sea again; much more, then, how will he keep wife Lucy and a household? But these wise sayings are naught in Lucy's ears, in which love whispers always its smooth prophecies, and Ralph's rich laugh dispels the old man's forebodings, or plays upon them as though they were the very strings of mirth.
As handsome and stout-hearted a lad he is as ever was fitted to make his own way through the world; able enough to thrust to left and right all jostling compeers, and by no means one to lack or to let those dear to him lack, while bread is to be got by sweat of brow. A smile comes o'er my Lady's face, and makes it young again, the while she dreams; for now she sees his signals in the coming boat, and now himself, and now he leaps ashore, and clasps her with his stalwart arm, and now her fingers play with the dark locks that curl above his tanned and manly brow. 'Tis more than half a lifetime back—but she knows not that—and the colour comes again to the wan cheek as though it were a maiden's, and once more love awakens in her widowed heart. He speaks; but ere his tongue can shape the words, a sense of doubt begins to perplex and pain her. She is a girl, and yet a woman in the vale of years; a fisher's daughter though a lady bred, with all the circumstances of rank and wealth about her; the voice is her lover's voice, and yet sounds strangely like another's; she is on the borderland 'twixt waking and sleeping, where, as in a dissolving view, the coming and the passing pictures interlace and exchange features, and the Dream and the Reality struggle together for life. Some one is speaking, however, that is certain, and the voice, as no woman can doubt, is tremulous and love-laden.
“And yet, Rose—for I may call you Rose, may I not?—beautiful as these pictures are, I do not think they are more exquisite than those which you have painted yourself.”
“You flatter me, Sir Richard,” returned a second voice, with which my Lady was no better acquainted than with the first; for although she could not but be aware of who the speakers were, since they addressed one another by their names, she did not recognise her own son's speech, so changed it was from its ordinary polite but icy tones; while Rose Aynton's, upon the other hand, generally so quiet and submissive, were tinged with a mocking bitterness. If Sir Richard Lisgard was really about to lay his fortune at the feet of this penniless girl, it seemed strange indeed that she should reply to him in so unnatural a key. That the delirious joy that might well be at her heart should not be altogether repressible, was to be expected, and that her tongue should falter in endeavouring to conceal her triumph; but there was that in the young girl's accents different from anything that could be thus explained. Instead of trembling and hesitation in her speech, there was sheer scorn. Perhaps my Lady should have come forth at once from where she sat an involuntary eavesdropper; but it must be allowed that the temptation to remain was very great. Moreover, there were reasons why she could not explain her own presence in that particular portion of the Library; and again, should she disclose herself, the young people would feel no less uncomfortable than though they should even discover at last that their interview had not been so solitary as they imagined, for how did she know what had occurred while she was sleeping, and how should she persuade Miss Rose, even if her word was sufficient for Richard, that shehadbeen sleeping during that critical period? True, if it was certain that the offer about to be made would be accepted, as indeed there was every likelihood that it would be, it was highly expedient—for various reasons known to my Lady—that she should step forward, and prevent matters from going further; but so strange did the girl's voice strike upon her experienced ear, that Lady Lisgard waited in hopes of she scarce knew what—some almost miracle that might make her personal interposition unnecessary. At the same time her curiosity became so excessive during the protracted pause that followed Rose's “You flatter me,” that she ventured to peer round the corner of the recess wherein she sat, which was now far more in shade than when she had entered it at noon.
They were standing not very far from her—those two unconscious young people—in front of a huge portfolio, which leant against a statue of Cupid and Psyche. The old, old tale of love which the sculpture typified was evidently being anew repeated by one at least of the living pair. Sir Richard, who had been turning over the pictures, kept his hand mechanically on one of them, but his eyes were fixed with a winning softness; which even his mother had never seen in them before, upon his fair companion. Through one of the small western windows, the last gleam of the dying sun had found its way, and rested upon his crisp brown curls; his manly face glowed in a golden haze, while in his eyes there beamed a light that no sun can give, and mellower than the rays of moon or star.
“I do not flatter you, sweet Rose,” he said; “I love you.” She too had one hand upon the picture, and but for it, it seemed for a moment as though she would have fallen, so deadly pale she grew the while he spoke. Her eyelids quivered, and then slowly sank like two white rose-leaves on her cheek; while her unoccupied hand fell from her pale lips, and hung down by her side quite motionless.
“She cannot give him nay,” thought Lady Lisgard; “the girl is overcome with her great joy.”
“Why do you not speak, dear Rose?” continued Sir Richard; “or may I take your silence for consent, and thus set loving seal”——-
He moved towards her, and round her dainty waist had placed his arm, when she sprang from him like a frightened fawn, who, although so seeming tame that it will hover nigh, and even follow one, darts off in terror when we strive to caress it.
“No, Sir Richard, no,” cried she; “I cannot marry you—I dare not; and I will not. You are much too proud and arrogant for me.”
“But nottoyou, Rose,” pleaded the young man earnestly. “You shall be my mistress, I your servant always. If I have ever been proud to you, I pray you to forgive it. I do beseech your pardon. It seemed at first that I was right to be so. You do not understand how one like me——”
“So well born and so rich,” interrupted the young girl quietly, looking up into his face with steady gaze. “Yes, I understand that well, Sir Richard; and I, on the other hand, a dependent girl, so inferior to the sort of bride that you had a right to look for; it was well to keep me at a respectful distance.”
“No, not so, Rose,” cried the other hastily; “I swear that you are inferior to no woman whom I have ever seen. But I did not wish——-I thought, at first, that it would not be for your happiness”——
“And your first thought was right, Sir Richard,” broke in the other bitterly. “When you said to yourself, I will not encourage this young girl to think it possible that she should ever be the mistress of Mirk Abbey, you were wise. You did right to hold yourself aloof, to behave with studied stiffness and formality, to let me know though I might worship your exalted station, and admire your handsome face”——
“Rose! Rose!”
“Ay, it is Rose now, but it was Miss Aynton then,” continued she, beating her foot upon the floor. “You determined, I say, within yourself that I should never so forget our relative positions as to misconstrue any attentions you might please to pay me; you held yourself so high, and stooped so condescendingly when you did stoop, that, upon my part at least, you resolved to nip the young beginnings of love, if such there should be, in their very bud. And, Sir Richard Lisgard, you succeeded.”
She rose to her full height, and pointed at him with her white hand contemptuously; her swan-like bosom moved, with rapid ebb and flow, in angry scorn; her curling lips gave wormwood to her words. And yet, although he felt her biting speech, the young man thought he had never seen her half so beautiful, half so worthy to be his wife.
“It is you who are proud now, Rose,” returned he, speaking with effort. “I did not think that I could ever have heard such words from a woman's lips, and yet have sought to woo her. It is your turn to play the tyrant; but though, by Heaven, you look every inch a queen”——
“I thank you, sir,” interrupted the girl coldly; “but you need say no more. There is no necessity to offer me that one more chance which your generosity suggests to you. However incomprehensible and audacious, coming from these humble lips, may such an answer sound, Sir Richard Lisgard is refused.”
“Rose, dear Rose,” cried the young man passionately; “if this be punishment, do not push it, I pray you, further than I can bear. There is something in your face in such ill accordance with your speech, that I cannot yet despair. Is it not possible, sweet girl, that at some future time—not now, but when you have seen how humble and devoted I can be, that you may teach your heart to love me?”
“No.” A full and rounded word, without a flaw of doubt to mar its clearness; a sentence irreversible; a judgment against which he felt there could be no appeal.
“But look you, Rose,” continued the baronet huskily; “it is said that the true love grows after marriage. Suppose I am content to wed you on that chance, as in very truth I am. Look you, the scene is fair you behold through yonder window, and all that you see is mine. The Abbey, too, is mine, or will be so at my mother's death.” [A shadow of pain flits across my Lady's face, to hear her son speak thus so lightly of that loss, to please a girl whom he has not known six months, and who does not even love him.] “I have broad acres, girl, fields, farms—a goodly rent-roll. My wife—the Lady Lisgard—will have more than enough of wealth to maintain her high position. Rose! have you no ambition?”
Miss Aynton here again grew strangely agitated; once more her cheeks grew pale, and her limbs trembled beneath her.
“Wretched girl! can she indeed be going to sell herself?” thought my Lady.
“There is nothing,” pursued the wooer, perceiving his advantage, “which will be out of your reach. You will mix with those same persons to whose society you have been already accustomed, but in a very different relation towards them; you will be their equal in station, and they will be compelled to acknowledge that superiority in all other respects which they have refused to see in you while a mere dependent on your aunt's caprice. You will be enabled, I do not say to repay scorn for scorn—for your sweet nature is incapable of such revenge—but to extend to those who have wounded you forgiveness; to return each kindness fiftyfold.”
“Sir Richard Lisgard,” replied the young girl, speaking slowly, but with great distinctness, “my answer has been given you already. It is true that your last arguments moved me, but not for the reason you imagine. I can marry you neither for love nor for money. You pique yourself, I think, on being a gentleman; being so, you will cease to press me further. I am conscious of the honour you have done me in this matter, and I thank you; but I decline your offer.”
The young man bowed, but without speaking. His features, which had softened to an extraordinary degree throughout their interview, began to assume a look even haughtier than before; his pride was all the greater since he had forced himself to stoop in vain.
“I have only one thing, then, to request, Miss Aynton,” said he after a long silence. “I trust that you will not permit what has just occurred to curtail your stay at Mirk. It is understood that you are to remain here until after the celebration of—of my majority.” He could scarcely get the word out, poor fellow: he had looked forward so to her loving sympathy upon that proud occasion, which now seemed emptied of all its happy auguries.
“Do not fear, Sir Richard,” returned the girl with pity; “no one shall know that the heir of Mirk has met with this disappointment. I will remain here, since you wish it. Your behaviour towards me needs no alteration to conceal the fact that you have ever been my lover.”
He had once more so reinstated himself in his proof-armour of pride, that the young baronet was not even aware that this last shaft had any barb.
“I thank you, Miss Aynton,” said he frigidly; “if at any time it should be within my power to do you or yours a service, please to command me to the uttermost.”
He bowed, and strode away; she heard him close the door, neither softly nor in anger, and then his measured step upon the carpetless oaken stair without.
“I have not broken his heart, that's certain,” muttered Rose Aynton, with a crooked smile; “the lover was lost in the patron soon indeed.”