He went about with Major Bree, looking up old acquaintances, riding over every acre of the estate—lands which stretched far away towards Launceston on one side, towards Bodmin on the other. He held forth largely to the Major on the pettiness and narrowness of an English landscape as compared with that vast continent in which the rivers are as seas and the forests rank and gloomy wildernesses reaching to the trackless and unknown. Sometimes Christabel was their companion in these long rides, mounted on the thoroughbred which Mrs. Tregonell gave her on that last too-happy birthday. The long rides in the sweet soft April air brought health and brightness back to her pale cheeks. She was so anxious to look well and happy for her aunt's sake, to cheer the widow's fading life; but, oh! the unutterable sadness of that ever-present thought of the aftertime, that unanswerable question as to what was to become of her own empty days when this dear friend was gone.
Happy as Leonard seemed at Mount Royal in the society of his mother and his cousin, he did not forego his idea of a month or so in London. He went up to town soon after Easter, took rooms at an hotel near the Haymarket, and gave himself up to a round of metropolitan pleasures under the guidance of Captain Vandeleur, who had made the initiation of provincial and inexperienced youth a kind of profession. He had a neat way of finding out exactly how much money a young man had to dispose of, present or contingent, and put him through it in the quickest possible time and at the pleasantest pace; but he knew by experience that Leonard had his own ideas about money, and was as keen as experience itself. He would pay the current rate for his pleasures, and no more; and he had a prudential horror of Jews, post-obits, and all engagements likely to damage his future enjoyment of his estate. He was fond of play, but he did not go in the way of losing large sums—"ponies" not "monkies" were his favourite animals—and he did not care about playing against his chosen friend.
"I like to have you on my side, Poker," he said amiably, when the captain proposed a devilled bone and a hand at écarté after the play. "You're a good deal too clever for a comfortable antagonist. You play écarté with your other young friends, Poker, and I'll be your partner at whist."
Captain Vandeleur, who by this time was tolerably familiar with the workings of his friend's mind, never again suggested those quiet encounters of skill which must inevitably have resulted to his advantage, had Leonard been weak enough to accept the challenge. To have pressed the question would have been to avow himself a sharper. He had won money from his friend at blind hookey; but then at blind hookey all men are equal—and Leonard had accepted the decree of fate; but he was not the kind of man to let another man get the better of him in a series of transactions. He was not brilliant, but he was shrewd and keen, and had long ago made up his mind to get fair value for his money. If he allowed Jack Vandeleur to travel at his expense, or dine and drink daily at his hotel, it was not because Leonard was weakly generous, but because Jack's company was worth the money. He would not have paid for a pint of wine for a man who was dull, or a bore. At Mount Royal, of course, he was obliged now and then to entertain bores. It was an incident in his position as a leading man in the county—but here in London he was free to please himself, and to give the cold shoulder to uncongenial acquaintance.
Gay as town was, Mr. Tregonell soon tired of it upon this particular occasion. After Epsom and Ascot his enjoyment began to wane. He had made a round of the theatres—he had dined and supped, and played a good many nights at those clubs which he and his friends most affected. He had spent three evenings watching a great billiard match, and he found that his thoughts went back to Mount Royal, and to those he had left there—to Christabel, who had been very kind and sweet to him since his home-coming; who had done much to make home delightful to him—riding with him, playing and singing to him, playing billiards with him, listening to his stories of travel—interested or seeming interested, in every detail of that wild free life. Leonard did not know that Christabel had done all this for her aunt's sake, in the endeavour to keep the prodigal at home, knowing how the mother's peace and gladness depended on the conduct of her son.
And now, in the midst of London dissipations, Leonard yearned for that girlish companionship. It was dull enough, no doubt, that calm and domestic life under the old roof-tree; but it had been pleasant to him, and he had not wearied of it half so quickly as of this fret and fume, and wear and tear of London amusements. Leonard began to think that his natural bent was towards domesticity, and that, as Belle's husband—there could be no doubt that she would accept him when the time came for asking her—he would shine as a very estimable character, just as his father had shone before him. He had questioned his mother searchingly as to Belle's engagement to Mr. Angus Hamleigh, and was inclined to be retrospectively jealous, and to hate that unknown rival with a fierce hatred; nor did he fail to blame his mother for her folly in bringing such a man to Mount Royal.
"How could I suppose that Belle would fall in love with him?" asked Mrs. Tregonell, meekly. "I knew how attached she was to you."
"Attached? yes; but that kind of attachment means so little. She had known me all her life. I was nobody in her estimation—no more than the chairs and tables—and this man was a novelty; and again, what has a girl to do in such an out-of-the-way place as this but fall in love with the first comer; it is almost the only amusement open to her. You ought to have known better than to have invited that fellow here, mother; you knew that I meant to marry Belle. You ought to have guarded her for me—kept off dangerous rivals. Instead of that you must needs go out of your way to get that fellow here."
"You ought to have come home sooner, Leonard."
"That's nonsense. I was enjoying my life where I was. How could I suppose you would be such a fool?"
"Don't say such hard things, Leonard. Think how lonely my life was. The invitation to Mr. Hamleigh was not a new idea; I had asked him half a dozen times before. I wanted to see him and know him for his father's sake."
"His father's sake!—a man whom you loved better than ever you loved my father, I dare say."
"No, Leonard, that is not true."
"You think not, perhaps, now my father is dead; but I dare say while he was alive you were always regretting that other man. Nothing exalts a man so much in a woman's mind as his dying. Look at the affection of widows as compared with that of wives."
Mrs. Tregonell strove her hardest to convince her son that his cousin's affections were now free—that it was his business to win her heart: but Leonard complained that his mother had spoiled his chances—that all the freshness of Christabel's feelings must have been worn off in an engagement that had lasted nearly a year.
"She'll have me fast enough, I daresay," he said, with his easy, confident air—that calm masculine consciousness of superiority, as of one who talks of an altogether inferior creature; "all the faster, perhaps, on account of having made afiascoof her first engagement. A girl doesn't like to be pointed at as jilt or jilted. But I shall always feel uncomfortable about this fellow, Hamleigh. I shall never be able quite to believe in my wife."
"Leonard, how can you talk like that, you who know Christabel's high principles."
"Yes, but I wanted to be sure that she had never cared for any one but me; and you have spoiled my chances of that."
He stayed little more than a month in London, going back to Mount Royal soon after Ascot, and while the June roses were still in their glory. Brief as his absence had been, even his careless eye could see that his mother had changed for the worse since their parting. The hollow cheek had grown hollower, the languid eye more languid, the hand that clung so fondly to his broad, brown palm, was thinner, and more waxen of hue.
His mother welcomed him with warmest love.
"My dearest one," she said, tenderly, "this is an unexpected delight. It is so good of you to come back to me so soon. I want to have you with me, dear, as much as possible—now."
"Why, mother?" he asked, kindly, for a dull pain in his breast seemed to answer to these words of hers.
"Because I do not think it will be for long. I am very weak, dear. Life seems to be slipping away from me; but there is no pain, no terror. I feel as if I were being gently carried along a slow gliding stream to some sheltered haven, which I can picture to myself, although I have never seen it. I have only one care, Leonard, one anxiety, and that is for your future happiness. I want your life to be full of joy, dearest, and I want it to be a good life, like your father's."
"Yes, he was a good old buffer, wasn't he?" said Leonard. "Everybody about here speaks well of him; but then, I daresay that's because he had plenty of money, and wasn't afraid to spend it, and was an easy master, and all that sort of thing, don't you know. That's a kind of goodness which isn't very difficult for a man to practise."
"Your father was a Christian, Leonard—a sound, practical, Christian, and he did his duty in every phase of life," answered the widow, half proudly, half reproachfully.
"No doubt. All I say is, that it's uncommonly easy to be a Christian under such circumstances."
"Your circumstances will be as easy, I trust, Leonard, and your surroundings no less happy, if you win your cousin for your wife. And I feel sure you will win her. Ask her soon, dear—ask her very soon—that I may see you married to her before I die."
"You think she'll say yes, if I do? I don't want to precipitate matters, and get snubbed for my pains."
"I think she will say yes. She must know how my heart is set upon this marriage. It has been the dream of my life."
Despite his self-assurance—his fixed opinion as to his own personal and social value—Leonard Tregonell hesitated a little at asking that question which must certainly be one of the most solemn inquiries of a man's life. His cousin had been all kindness and sweetness to him since his return; yet in his inmost heart he knew that her regard for him was at best of a calm, cousinly quality. He knew this, but he told himself that if she were only willing to accept him as her husband, the rest must follow. It would be his business to see that she was a good wife, and in time she would grow fonder of him, no doubt. He meant to be an indulgent husband. He would be very proud of her beauty, grace, accomplishments. There was no man among his acquaintance who could boast of such a charming wife. She should have her own way in everything: of course, so long as her way did not run counter to his. She would be mistress of one of the finest places in Cornwall, the house in which she had been reared, and which she loved with that foolish affection which cats, women, and other inferior animals feel for familiar habitations. Altogether, as Mr. Tregonell told himself, in his simple and expressive language, she would have a very good time, and it would be hard lines if she were not grateful, and did not take kindly to him. Yet he hesitated considerably before putting the crucial question; and at last took the leap hurriedly, and not too judiciously, one lovely June morning, when he and Christabel had gone for a long ride alone. They were not in the habit of riding alone, and Major Bree was to have been their companion upon this particular morning, but he had sent at the last moment to excuse himself, on account of a touch of sciatica. They rode early, leaving Mount Royal soon after eight, so as to escape the meridian sun. The world was still fresh and dewy as they rode slowly up the hill, and then down again into the lanes leading towards Camelford; and there was that exquisite feeling of purity in the atmosphere which wears off as the day grows older.
"My mother is looking rather seedy, Belle, don't you think," he began.
"She is looking very ill, Leonard. She has been ill for a long time. God grant we may keep her with us a few years yet, but I am full of fear about her. I go to her room every morning with an aching heart, dreading what the night may have brought. Thank God, you came home when you did. It would have been cruel to stay away longer."
"That's very good in you, Belle—uncommonly good—to talk about cruelty, when you must know that it was your fault I stayed away so long."
"My fault? What had I to do with it?"
"Everything. I should have been home a year and a half ago—home last Christmas twelvemonth. I had made all my plans with that intention, for I was slightly home-sick in those days—didn't relish the idea of three thousand miles of everlasting wet between me and those I loved—and I was coming across the Big Drink as fast as a Cunard could bring me, when I got mother's letter telling me of your engagement. Then I coiled up, and made up my mind to stay in America till I'd done some big licks in the sporting line."
"Why should that have influenced you?" Christabel asked, coldly.
"Why? Confound it! Belle, you know that without asking. You must know that it wouldn't be over-pleasant for me to be living at Mount Royal while you and your lover were spooning about the place. You don't suppose I could quite have stomached that, do you—to see another man making love to the girl I always meant to marry?—for you know, Belle, I always did mean it. When you were in pinafores I made up my mind that you were the future Mrs. Tregonell."
"You did me a great honour," said Belle, with an icy smile, "and I suppose I ought to be very proud to hear it—now. Perhaps, if you had told me your intention while I was in pinafores I might have grown up with a due appreciation of your goodness. But you see, as you never said anything about it, my life took another bent."
"Don't chaff, Belle," exclaimed Leonard, "I'm in earnest. I was hideously savage when I heard that you had got yourself engaged to a man whom you'd only known a week or two—a man who had led a racketty life in London and Paris——"
"Stop," cried Christabel, turning upon him with flashing eyes, "I forbid you to speak of him. What right have you to mention his name to me? I have suffered enough, but that is an impertinence I will not endure. If you are going to say another word about him I'll ride back to Mount Royal as fast as my horse can carry me."
"And get spilt on the way. Why, what a spitfire you are, Belle. I had no idea there was such a spice of the devil in you," said Leonard, somewhat abashed by this rebuff. "Well I'll hold my tongue about him in future. I'd much rather talk about you and me, and our prospects. What is to become of you, Belle, when the poor mother goes? You and the doctor have both made up your minds that she's not long for this world. For my own part, I'm not such a croaker, and I've known many a creaking door hanging a precious long time on its hinges. Still, it's well to be prepared for the worst. Where is your life to be spent, Belle, when the mater has sent in her checks?"
"Heaven knows," answered Christabel, tears welling up in her eyes, as she turned her head from the questioner. "My life will be little worth living when she is gone—but I daresay I shall go on living, all the same. Sorrow takes such a long time to kill any one. I suppose Jessie and I will go on the Continent, and travel from place to place, trying to forget the old dear life among new scenes and new people."
"And nicely you will get yourself talked about," said Leonard, with that unhesitating brutality which his friends called frankness—"a young and handsome woman, without any male relative, wandering about the Continent."
"I shall have Jessie."
"A paid companion—a vast protection she would be to you—about as much as a Pomeranian dog, or a poll parrot."
"Then I can stay in England," answered Christabel, indifferently. "It will matter very little where I live."
"Come, Belle," said Leonard, in a friendly, comfortable tone, laying his broad strong hand on her horse's neck, as they rode slowly side by side up the narrow road, between hedges filled with honeysuckle and eglantine, "this is flying in the face of Providence, which has made you young and handsome, and an heiress, in order that you might get the most out of life. Is a young woman's life to come to an end all at once because an elderly woman dies? That's rank nonsense. That's the kind of way widows talk in their first edition of crape and caps. But they don't mean it, my dear; or, say they think they mean it, they never hold by it. That kind of widow is always a wife again before the second year of her widowhood is over. And to hear you—not quite one-and-twenty, and as fit as a fid—in the very zenith of your beauty," said Leonard, hastily correcting the horsey turn of his compliment,—"to hear you talk in that despairing way is too provoking. Come, Belle, be rational. Why should you go wandering about Switzerland and Italy with a shrewish little old maid like Jessie Bridgeman—when—when you can stay at Mount Royal and be its mistress. I always meant you to be my wife, Belle, and I still mean it—in spite of bygones."
"You are very good—very forgiving," said Christabel, with most irritating placidity, "but unfortunately I never meant to be your wife then—and I don't mean it now."
"In plain words, you reject me?"
"If you intend this for an offer, most decidedly," answered Christabel, as firm as a rock. "Come, Leonard, don't look so angry; let us be friends and cousins—almost brother and sister—as we have been in all the years that are gone. Let us unite in the endeavour to make your dear mother's life happy—so happy, that she may grow strong and well again—restored by perfect freedom from care. If you and I were to quarrel she would be miserable. We must be good friends always—if it were only for her sake."
"That's all very well, Christabel, but a man's feelings are not so entirely within his control as you seem to suppose. Do you think I shall ever forget how you threw me over for a fellow you had only known a week or so—and now, when I tell you how, from my boyhood, I have relied upon your being my wife—always kept you in my mind as the one only woman who was to bear my name, and sit at the head of my table, you coolly inform me that it can never be? You would rather go wandering about the world with a hired companion——"
"Jessie is not a hired companion—she is my very dear friend."
"You choose to call her so—but she came to Mount Royal in answer to an advertisement, and my mother pays her wages, just like the housemaids. You would rather roam about with Jessie Bridgeman, getting yourself talked about at every table d'hôte in Europe—a prey for every Captain Deuceace, or Loosefish, on the Continent—than you would be my wife, and mistress of Mount Royal."
"Because nearly a year ago I made up my mind never to be any man's wife, Leonard," answered Christabel, gravely. "I should hate myself if I were to depart from that resolve."
"You mean that when you broke with Mr. Hamleigh you did not think there was any one in the world good enough to stand in his shoes," said Leonard, savagely. "And for the sake of a man who turned out so badly that you were obliged to chuck him up, you refuse a fellow who has loved you all his life."
Christabel turned her horse's head, and went homewards at a sharp trot, leaving Leonard, discomfited, in the middle of the lane. He had nothing to do but to trot meekly after her, afraid to go too fast, lest he should urge her horse to a bolt, and managing at last to overtake her at the bottom of a hill.
"Do find some grass somewhere, so that we may get a canter," she said; and her cousin knew that there was to be no more conversation that morning.
After this Leonard sulked, and the aspect of home life at Mount Royal became cloudy and troubled. He was not absolutely uncivil to his cousin, but he was deeply resentful, and he showed his resentment in various petty ways—descending so low as to give an occasional sly kick to Randie. He was grumpy in his intercourse with his mother; he took every opportunity of being rude to Miss Bridgeman; he sneered at all their womanly occupations, their charities, their church-going. That domestic sunshine which had so gladdened the widow's heart, was gone for ever, as it seemed. Her son now snatched at every occasion for getting away from home. He dined at Bodmin one night—at Launceston, another. He had friends to meet at Plymouth, and dined and slept at the "Duke of Cornwall." He came home bringing worse devils—in the way of ill-temper and rudeness—than those which he had taken away with him. He no longer pretended the faintest interest in Christabel's playing—confessing frankly that all classical compositions, especially those of Beethoven, suggested to him that far-famed melody which was fatal to the traditional cow. He no longer offered to make her a fine billiard-player. "No woman ever could play billiards," he said, contemptuously—"they have neither eye nor wrist; they know nothing about strengths; and always handle their cue as if it was Moses's rod, and was going to turn into a snake and bite 'em."
Mrs. Tregonell was not slow to guess the cause of her son's changed humour. She was too intensely anxious for the fulfilment of this chief desire of her soul not to be painfully conscious of failure. She had urged Leonard to speak soon—and he had spoken—with disastrous result. She had seen the angry cloud upon her son's brow when he came home from that tête-à-tête ride with Christabel. She feared to question him, for it was her rash counsel, perhaps, which had brought this evil result to pass. Yet she could not hold her peace for ever. So one evening, when Jessie and Christabel were dining at Trevalga Rectory, and Mrs. Tregonell was enjoying the sole privilege of her son's company, she ventured to approach the subject.
"How altered you have been lately"—lately, meaning for at least a month—"in your manner to your cousin, Leonard," she said, with a feeble attempt to speak lightly, her voice tremulous with suppressed emotion. "Has she offended you in any way? You and she used to be so very sweet to each other."
"Yes, she was all honey when I first came home, wasn't she, mother?" returned Leonard, nursing his boot, and frowning at the lamp on the low table by Mrs. Tregonell's chair. "All hypocrisy—rank humbug—that's what it was. She is still bewailing that fellow whom you brought here—and, mark my words, she'll marry him sooner or later. She threw him over in a fit of temper, and pride, and jealousy; and when she finds she can't live without him she'll take some means of bringing him back to her. It was all your doing, mother. You spoiled my chances when you brought your old sweetheart's son into this house. I don't think you could have had much respect for my dead father when you invited that man to Mount Royal."
Mrs. Tregonell's mild look of reproach might have touched the hardest heart; but it was lost on Leonard, who sat scowling at the lamp, and did not once meet his mother's eyes.
"It is not kind of you to say that, Leonard," she said gently; "you ought to know that I was a true and loving wife to your father, and that I have always honoured his memory, as a true wife should. He knew that I was interested in Angus Hamleigh's career, and he never resented that feeling. I am sorry your cousin has rejected you—more sorry than even you yourself can be, I believe—for your marriage has been the dream of my life. But we cannot control fate. Are you really fond of her, dear?"
"Fond of her? A great deal too fond—foolishly—ignominiously fond of her—so fond that I am beginning to detest her."
"Don't despair then, Leonard. Let this first refusal count for nothing. Only be patient, and gentle with her—not cold and rude, as you have been lately."
"It's easy to talk," said Leonard, contemptuously. "But do you suppose I can feel very kindly towards a girl who refused me as coolly as if I had been asking her to dance, and who let me see at the same time that she is still passionately in love with Angus Hamleigh? You should have seen how she blazed out at me when I mentioned his name—her eyes flaming—her cheeks first crimson and then deadly pale. That's what love means. And, even if she were willing to be my wife to-morrow, she would never give me such love as that. Curse her," muttered the lover between his clenched teeth; "I didn't know how fond I was of her till she refused me—and now, I could crawl at her feet, and sue to her as a palavering Irish beggar sues for alms, cringing and fawning, and flattering and lying—and yet in my heart of hearts I should be savage with her all the time, knowing that she will never care for me as she cared for that other fellow."
"Leonard, if you knew how it pains me to hear you talk like that," said Mrs. Tregonell. "It makes me fearful of your impetuous, self-willed nature."
"Self-will be——! somethinged!" growled Leonard. "Did you ever know a man who cultivated anybody else's will? Would you have me pretend to be better than I am—tell you that I can feel all affection for the girl who preferred the first stranger who came in her way to the playfellow and companion of her childhood?"
"If you had been a little less tormenting, a little less exacting with her in those days, Leonard, I think she would have remembered you more tenderly," said Mrs. Tregonell.
"If you are going to lecture me about what I was as a boy we'd better cut the conversation," retorted Leonard. "I'll go and practise the spot-stroke for half an hour, while you take your after-dinner nap."
"No, dear, don't go away. I don't feel in the least inclined for sleep. I had no idea of lecturing you, Leonard, believe me; only I cannot help regretting, as you do, that Christabel should not be more attached to you. But I feel very sure that, if you are patient, she will come to think differently by-and-by."
"Didn't you tell me to ask her—and quickly?"
"Yes, that was because I was impatient. Life seemed slipping away from me—and I was so eager to be secure of my dear boy's happiness. Let us try different tactics, Leo. Take things quietly for a little—behave to your cousin just as if there had been nothing of this kind between you—and who knows what may happen."
"I know of one thing that may and will happen next October, unless the lady changes her tune," answered Leonard, sulkily.
"What is that?"
"I shall go to South America—do a little mountaineering in the Equatorial Andes—enjoy a little life in Valparaiso, Truxillo—Lord knows where! I've done North America, from Canada to Frisco, and now I shall do the South."
"Leonard, you would not be so cruel as to leave me to die in my loneliness; for I think, dear, you must know that I have not long to live."
"Come, mother, I believe you fancy yourself ever so much worse than you really are. This jog-trot, monotonous life of yours would breed vapours in the liveliest person. Besides, if you should be ill while I am away, you'll have your niece, whom you love as a daughter—and perhaps your niece's husband, this dear Angus of yours—to take care of you."
"You are very hard upon me, Leonard—and yet, I went against my conscience for your sake. I let Christabel break with her lover. I said never one word in his favour, although I must have known in my heart that they would both be miserable. I had your interest at heart more than theirs—I thought, 'here is a chance for my boy.'"
"You were very considerate—a day after the fair. Don't you think it would have been better to be wise before the event, and not to have invited that coxcomb to Mount Royal?"
He came again and again to the charge, always with fresh bitterness. He could not forgive his mother for this involuntary wrong which she had done to him.
After this he went off to the solitude of the billiard-room, and a leisurely series of experiments upon the spot-stroke. It was his only idea of a contemplative evening.
He was no less sullen and gloomy in his manner to Christabel next morning at breakfast, for all his mother had said to him overnight. He answered his cousin in monosyllables, and was rude to Randie—wondered that his mother should allow dogs in her dining-room—albeit Randie's manners were far superior to his own.
Later in the morning, when Christabel and her aunt were alone, the girl crept to her favourite place beside Mrs. Tregonell's chair, and with her folded arms resting on the cushioned elbow, looked up lovingly at the widow's grave, sad face.
"Auntie, dearest, you know so well how fondly I love you, that I am sure you won't think me any less loving and true, if I ask you to let me leave you for a little while. Let me go away somewhere with Jessie, to some quiet German town, where I can improve myself in music, and where she and I can lead a hard-working, studious life, just like a couple of Girton girls. You remember, last year you suggested that we should travel, and I refused your offer, thinking that I should be happier at home; but now I feel the need of a change."
"And you would leave me, now that my health is broken, and that I am so dependent on your love?" said Mrs. Tregonell, with mild reproachfulness.
Christabel bent down to kiss the thin, white hand that lay on the cushion near her—anxious to hide the tears that sprang quickly to her eyes.
"You have Leonard," she faltered. "You are happy, are you not, dearest, now Leonard is at home again?"
"At home—yes, I thank God that my son is under my roof once more. But how long may he stay at home? How much do I have of his company—in and out all day—anywhere but at my side—making every possible excuse for leaving me? He has begun, already, to talk of going to South America in the autumn. Poor boy, he is restless and unhappy; and I know the reason. You must know it too, Belle. It is your fault. You have spoiled the dream of my life."
"Auntie, is this generous, is this fair?" pleaded Christabel, with her head still bent over the pale wasted hand.
"It is natural at least," answered the widow, impetuously. "Why cannot you care for my boy, why cannot you understand and value his devotion? It is not an idle fancy—born of a few weeks' acquaintance—not the last new caprice of a batteredroué, who offers his worn-out heart to you when other women have done with it. Leonard's is the love of long years—the love of a fresh unspoiled nature. I know that he has not Angus Hamleigh's refinement of manner—he is not so clever—so imaginative—but of what value is such surface refinement when the man's inner nature is coarse and profligate. A man who has lived among impure women must have become coarse; there must be deterioration, ruin, for a man's nature in such a life as that," continued Mrs. Tregonell, passionately, her resentment against Angus Hamleigh kindling as she thought how he had ousted her son. "Why should you not value my boy's love?" she asked again. "What is there wanting in him that you should treat him so contemptuously? He is young, handsome, brave—owner of this place of which you are so fond. Your marriage with him would bring the Champernowne estate together again. Everybody was sorry to see it divided. It would bring together two of the oldest and best names in the county. You might call your eldest son Champernowne Tregonell."
"Don't, Auntie, don't go on like that," entreated Christabel, piteously: "if you only knew how little such arguments influence me: 'the glories of our rank and state are shadows, not substantial things.' What difference do names and lands make in the happiness of a life? If Angus Hamleigh had been a ploughman's son, like Burns—nameless—penniless—only just himself, I should have loved him exactly the same. Dearest, these are the things in which we cannot be governed by other people's wisdom. Our hearts choose for us; in spite of us. I have been obliged to think seriously of life since Leonard and I had that unlucky conversation the other day. He told you about it, perhaps?"
"He told me that you refused him."
"As I would have refused any other man, Auntie. I have made up my mind to live and die unmarried. It is the only tribute I can offer to one I loved so well."
"And who proved so unworthy of your love," said Mrs. Tregonell, moodily.
"Do not speak of him, if you cannot speak kindly. You once loved his father, but you seem to have forgotten that. Let me go away for a little while, Auntie—a few months only, if you like. My presence in this house only does harm. Leonard is angry with me—and you are angry for his sake. We are all unhappy now—nobody talks freely—or laughs—or takes life pleasantly. We all feel constrained and miserable. Let me go, dear. When I am gone you and Leonard can be happy together."
"No, Belle, we cannot. You have spoiled his life. You have broken his heart."
Christabel smiled a little contemptuously at the mother's wailing. "Hearts are not so easily broken," she said, "Leonard's least of all. He is angry because for the first time in his life he finds himself thwarted. He wants to marry me, and I don't want to marry him. Do you remember how angry he was when he wanted to go out shooting, at eleven years of age, and you refused him a gun? He moped and fretted for a week, and you were quite as unhappy as he was. It is almost the first thing I remember about him. When he found you were quite firm in your refusal, he left off sulking, and reconciled himself to the inevitable. He will do just the same about this refusal of mine—when I am out of his sight. But my presence here irritates him."
"Christabel, if you leave me I shall know that you have never loved me," said Mrs. Tregonell, with sudden vehemence. "You must know that I am dying—very slowly, perhaps—a wearisome decay for those who can only watch and wait, and bear with me till I am dead. But I know and feel that I am dying. This trouble will hasten my end, and instead of dying in peace, with the assurance of my boy's happy future—with the knowledge that he will have a virtuous and loving wife, a wife of my own training, to guide him and influence him for good—I shall die miserable, fearing that he may fall into evil hands, and that evil days may come upon him. I know how impetuous, how impulsive he is; how easily governed through his feelings, how little able to rule himself by hard common-sense. And you, who have known him all your life—who know the best and worst of him—you can be so indifferent to his happiness, Christabel. How can I believe, in the face of this, that you ever loved me, his mother?"
"I have loved you asmymother," replied the girl, with her arms round her aunt's neck, her lips pressed against that pale thin cheek. "I love you better than any one in this world. If God would spare you for years to come, and we could live always together, and be all in all to each other as we have been, I think I could be quite happy. Yes, I could feel as if there were nothing wanting in this life. But I cannot marry a man I do not love, whom I never can love."
"He would take you on trust, Belle," murmured the mother, imploringly; "he would be content with duty and good faith. I know how true and loyal you are, dearest, and that you would be a perfect wife. Love would come afterwards."
"Will it make you happier if I don't go away, Auntie?" asked Christabel, gently.
"Much happier."
"Then I will stay; and Leonard may be as rude to me as he likes; he may do anything disagreeable, except kick Randie; and I will not murmur. But you and I must never talk of him as we have talked to-day: it can do no good."
After this came much kissing and hugging, and a few tears; and it was agreed that Christabel should forego her idea of six months' study of classical music at the famous conservatoire at Leipsic.
She and Jessie had made all their plans before she spoke to her aunt; and when she informed Miss Bridgeman that she had given way to Mrs. Tregonell's wish, and had abandoned all idea of Germany, that strong-minded young woman expressed herself most unreservedly.
"You are a fool!" she exclaimed. "No doubt that's an outrageous remark from a person in my position to an heiress like you; but I can't help it. You are a fool—a yielding, self-abnegating fool! If you stay here you will marry that man. There is no escape possible for you. Your aunt has made up her mind about it. She will worry you till you give your consent, and then you will be miserable ever afterwards."
"I shall do nothing of the kind. I wonder that you can think me so weak."
"If you are weak enough to stay, you will be weak enough to do the other thing," retorted Jessie.
"How can I go when my aunt looks at me with those sad eyes, dying eyes—they are so changed since last year—and implores me to stop? I thought you loved her, Jessie?"
"I do love her, with a fond and grateful affection. She was my first friend outside my own home; she is my benefactress. But I have to think of your welfare, Christabel—your welfare in this world and the world to come. Both will be in danger if you stay here and marry Leonard Tregonell."
"I am going to stay here; and I am not going to marry Leonard. Will that assurance satisfy you? One would think I had no will of my own."
"You have not the will to withstand your aunt. She parted you and Mr. Hamleigh; and she will marry you to her son."
"The parting was my act," said Christabel.
"It was your aunt who brought it about. Had she been true and loyal there would have been no such parting. If you had only trusted to me in that crisis, I think I might have saved you some sorrow; but what's done cannot be undone."
"There are some cases in which a woman must judge for herself," Christabel replied, coldly.
"A woman, yes—a woman who has had some experience of life: but not a girl, who knows nothing of the hard real world and its temptations, difficulties, struggles. Don't let us talk of it any more. I cannot trust myself to speak when I remember how shamefully he was treated."
Christabel stared in amazement. The calm, practical Miss Bridgeman spoke with a passionate vehemence which took the girl's breath away; and yet, in her heart of hearts, Christabel was grateful to her for this sudden flash of anger.
"I did not know you liked him so much—that you were so sorry for him," she faltered.
"Then you ought to have known, if you ever took the trouble to remember how good he always was to me, how sympathetic, how tolerant of my company when it was forced upon him day after day, how seemingly unconscious of my plainness and dowdiness. Why there was not a present he gave me which did not show the most thoughtful study of my tastes and fancies. I never look at one of his gifts—I was not obliged to fling his offerings back in his face as you were—without wondering that a fine gentleman could be so full of small charities and delicate courtesy. He was like one of those wits and courtiers one reads of in Burnet—not spotless, like Tennyson's Arthur—but the very essence of refinement and good feeling. God bless him! wherever he is."
"You are very odd sometimes, Jessie," said Christabel, kissing her friend, "but you have a noble heart."
There was a marked change in Leonard's conduct when he and his cousin met in the drawing-room before dinner. He had been absent at luncheon, on a trout-fishing expedition; but there had been time since his return for a long conversation between him and his mother. She had told him how his sullen temper had almost driven Christabel from the house, and how she had been only induced to stay by an appeal to her affection. This evening he was all amiability, and tried to make his peace with Randie, who received his caresses with a stolid forbearance rather than with gratification. It was easier to make friends with Christabel than with the dog, for she wished to be kind to her cousin on his mother's account.
That evening the reign of domestic peace seemed to be renewed. There were no thunder-clouds in the atmosphere. Leonard strolled about the lawn with his mother and Christabel, looking at the roses, and planning where a few more choice trees might yet be added to the collection. Mrs. Tregonell's walks now rarely went beyond this broad velvet lawn, or the shrubberies that bordered it. She drove to church on Sundays, but she had left off visiting that involved long drives, though she professed herself delighted to see her friends. She did not want the house to become dull and gloomy for Leonard. She even insisted that there should be a garden party on Christabel's twenty-first birthday; and she was delighted when some of the old friends who came to Mount Royal that day insinuated their congratulations, in a tentative manner, upon Miss Courtenay's impending engagement to her cousin.
"There is nothing definitely settled," she told Mrs. St. Aubyn, "but I have every hope that it will be so. Leonard adores her."
"And it would be a much more suitable match for her than the other," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, a commonplace matron of irreproachable lineage: "it would be so nice for you to have her settled near you. Would they live at Mount Royal?"
"Of course. Where else should my son live but in his father's house?"
"But it is your house."
"Do you think I should allow my life-interest in the place to stand in the way of Leonard's enjoyment of it," exclaimed Mrs. Tregonell. "I should be proud to take the second place in his house—proud to see his young wife at the head of his table."
"That is all very well in theory, but I have never seen it work out well in fact," said the Rector of Trevalga, who made a third in the little group seated on the edge of the wide lawn, where sportive youth was playing tennis, in half a dozen courts, to the enlivening strains of a military band from Bodmin barracks.
"How thoroughly happy Christabel looks," observed another friendly matron to Mrs. Tregonell, a little later in the afternoon: "she seems to have quite got over her trouble about Mr. Hamleigh."
"Yes, I hope that is forgotten," answered Mrs. Tregonell.
This garden party was an occasion of unspeakable pain to Christabel. Her aunt had insisted upon sending out the invitations. There must be some kind of festival upon her adopted daughter's coming of age. The inheritor of lands and money was a person whose twenty-first birthday could not be permitted to slip by unmarked, like any other day in the calendar.
"If we were to have no garden party this summer people would say you were broken-hearted at the sad end of last year's engagement, darling," said Mrs. Tregonell, when Christabel had pleaded against the contemplated assembly, "and I know your pride would revolt at that."
"Dear Auntie, my pride has been levelled to the dust, if I ever had any; it will not raise its head on account of a garden party."
Mrs. Tregonell insisted, albeit even her small share of the preparations, the mere revision of the list of guests—the discussion and acceptance of Jessie Bridgeman's arrangements—was a fatigue to the jaded mind and enfeebled body. When the day came the mistress of Mount Royal carried herself with the old air of quiet dignity which her friends knew so well. People saw that she was aged, that she had grown pale and thin and wan; and they ascribed this change in her to anxiety about her niece's engagement. There were vague ideas as to the cause of Mr. Hamleigh's dismissal—dim notions of terrible iniquities, startling revelations, occurring on the very brink of marriage. That section of county society which did not go to London knew a great deal more about the details of the story than the people who had been in town at the time and had seen Miss Courtenay and her lover almost daily. For those daughters of the soil who but rarely crossed the Tamar the story of Miss Courtenay's engagement was a social mystery of so dark a complexion that it afforded inexhaustible material for tea-table gossip. A story, of which no one seemed to know the exact details, gave wide ground for speculation, and could always be looked at from new points of view.
And now here was the same Miss Courtenay smiling upon her friends, fair and radiant, showing no traces of last year's tragedy in her looks or manners; being, indeed, one of those women who do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves for daws to peck at. The local mind, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that Miss Courtenay had consoled herself for the loss of one lover by the gain of another, and was now engaged to her cousin.
Clara St. Aubyn ventured to congratulate her upon this happy issue out of bygone griefs.
"I am so glad," she said, squeezing Christabel's hand, during an inspection of the hot-houses. "I like him so much."
"I don't quite understand," replied Christabel, with a freezing look: "who is it whom you like? The new Curate?"
"No dear, don't pretend to misunderstand me. I am so pleased to think that you and your cousin are going to make a match of it. He is so handsome—such a fine, frank, open-hearted manner—so altogether nice."
"I am pleased to hear you praise him," said Christabel, still supremely cold; "but my cousin is my cousin, and will never be anything more."
"You don't mean that?"
"I do—without the smallest reservation."
Clara became thoughtful. Leonard Tregonell was one of the best matches in the county, and he had always been civil to her. They had tastes in common, were both horsey and doggy, and plain-spoken to brusqueness. Why should not she be mistress of Mount Royal, by-and-by, if Christabel despised her opportunities?
At half-past seven, the last carriage had driven away from the porch; and Mrs. Tregonell, thoroughly exhausted by the exertions of the afternoon, reclined languidly in her favourite chair, moved from its winter-place by the hearth, to a deep embayed window looking on to the rose-garden. Christabel sat on a stool at her aunt's feet, her fair head resting against the cushioned elbow of Mrs. Tregonell's chair.
"Well, Auntie, the people are gone and the birthday is over. Isn't that a blessing?" she said lightly.
"Yes, dear, it is over, and you are of age—your own mistress. My guardianship expires to-day. I wonder whether I shall find any difference in my darling now she is out of leading-strings."
"I don't think you will, Auntie. I have not much inclination for desperate flights of any kind. What can freedom or the unrestricted use of my fortune give me, which your indulgence has not already given? What whim or fancy of mine have you ever thwarted? No, Aunt Di, I don't think there is any scope for rebellion on my part."
"And you will not leave me, dear, till the end?" pleaded the widow. "Your bondage cannot be for very long."
"Auntie! how can you speak like that, when you know—when you must know that I have no one in the world but you, now—no one, dearest," said Christabel, on her knees at her aunt's feet, clasping and kissing the pale transparent hands. "I have not the knack of loving many people. Jessie is very good to me, and I am fond of her as my friend and companion. Uncle Oliver is all goodness, and I am fond of him in just the same way. But I neverlovedany one but you and Angus. Angus is gone from me, and if God takes you, Auntie, my prayer is that I may speedily follow you."
"My love, that is a blasphemous prayer: it implies doubt in God's goodness. He means the young and innocent to be happy in this world—happy and a source of happiness to others. You will form new ties: a husband and children will console you for all you have lost in the past."
"No, aunt, I shall never marry. Put that idea out of your mind. You will think less badly of me for refusing Leonard if you understand that I have made up my mind to live and die unmarried."
"But I cannot and will not believe that, Belle: whatever you may think now, a year hence your ideas will have entirely altered. Remember my own history. When George Hamleigh died I thought the world—so far as it concerned me—had come to an end, that I had only to wait for death. My fondest hope was that I should die within the year, and be buried in a grave near his—yet five years afterwards I was a happy wife and mother."
"God was good to you," said Christabel, quietly, thinking all the while that her aunt must have been made of a different clay from herself. There was a degradation in being able to forget: it implied a lower kind of organism than that finely strung nature which loves once and once only.
Having pledged herself to remain with her aunt to the end, Christabel was fain to make the best of her life at Mount Royal, and in order to do this she must needs keep on good terms with her cousin. Leonard's conduct of late had been irreproachable: he was attentive to his mother, all amiability to Christabel, and almost civil to Miss Bridgeman. He contrived to make his peace with Randie, and he made such a good impression upon Major Bree that he won the warm praises of that gentleman.
The cross country rides were resumed, the Major always in attendance; and Leonard and his cousin were seen so often together, riding, driving, or walking, that the idea of an engagement between them became a fixture in the local mind, which held that when one was off with the old love it was well to be on with the new.
And so the summer ripened and waned. Mrs. Tregonell's health seemed to improve in the calm happiness of a domestic life in which there was no indication of disunion. She had never surrendered her hope of Christabel's relenting. Leonard's frank and generous character—his good looks—his local popularity—must ultimately prevail over the memory of another—that other having so completely given up his chances. Mrs. Tregonell was half inclined to recognize the nobleness of that renunciation; half disposed to accept it as a proof that Angus Hamleigh's heart still hankered after the actress who had been his first infatuation. In either case no one could doubt that it was well for Christabel to be released from such an engagement. To wed Angus would have been to tie herself to sickness and death—to take upon herself the burden of early widowhood, to put on sackcloth and ashes as a wedding garment.
It was winter, and there were patches of snow upon the hills, and sea and sky were of one chill slaty hue, before Leonard ventured to repeat that question which he had asked with such ill effect in the sweet summer morning, between hedgerows flushed with roses. But through all the changes of the waning year there had been one purpose in his mind, and every act of his life had tended to one result. He had sworn to himself that his cousin should be his wife. Whatever barriers of disinclination, direct antagonism even, there might be on her side must be broken down by dogged patience, unyielding determination on his side. He had the spirit of the hunter, to whom that prey is most precious which costs the longest chase. He loved his cousin more passionately to-day, after keeping his feelings in check for six months, than he had loved her when he asked her to be his wife. Every day of delay had increased his ardour and strengthened his resolve.
It was New Year's day. Christabel and Miss Bridgeman had been to church in the morning, and had taken a long walk with Leonard, who contrived to waylay them at the church door after church. Then had come a rather late luncheon, after which Christabel spent an hour in her aunt's room reading to her, and talking a little in a subdued way. It was one of Mrs. Tregonell's bad days, a day upon which she could hardly leave her sofa, and Christabel came away from the invalid's room full of sadness.
She was sitting by the fire in the library, alone in the dusk save for Randie's company, when her cousin came in and found her.
"Why, Belle, what are you doing all alone in the dark?" he exclaimed. "I almost thought the room was empty."
"I have been thinking," she said, with a sigh.
"Your thoughts could not have been over-pleasant, I should think, by that sigh," said Leonard, coming over to the hearth, and drawing the logs together. "There's a cheerful blaze for you. Don't give way to sad thoughts on the first day of the year, Belle: it's a bad beginning."
"I have been thinking of your dear mother, Leonard:mymother, for she has been more to me than one mother in a hundred is to her daughter. She is with us to-day—a part of our lives—very frail and feeble, but still our own. Where will she be next New Year's day?"
"Ah, Belle, that's a bad look out for both of us," answered Leonard, seating himself in his mother's empty chair. "I'm afraid she won't last out the year that begins to-day. But she has seemed brighter and happier lately, hasn't she?"
"Yes, I think she has been happier," said Christabel.
"Do you know why?"
His cousin did not answer him. She sat with her face bent over her dog, hiding her tears on Randie's sleek black head.
"I think I know why the mother has been so tranquil in her mind lately, Belle," said Leonard, with unusual earnestness, "and I think you know just as well as I do. She has seen you and me more friendly together—more cousinly—and she has looked forward to the fulfilment of an old wish and dream of hers. She has looked for the speedy realization of that wish, Belle, although six months ago it seemed hopeless. She wants to see the two people she loves best on earth united, before she is taken away. It would make the close of her life happy, if she could see my happiness secure. I believe you know that, Belle."
"Yes, I know that it is so. But that can never be."
"That is a hard saying, Christabel. Half a year ago I asked you a question, and you said no. Many a man in my position would have been too proud to run the risk of a second refusal. He would have gone away in a huff and found comfort somewhere else. But I knew that there was only one woman in the world who could make me happy, and I waited for her. You must own that I have been patient, have I not, Belle?"
"You have been very devoted to your dear mother—very good to me. I cannot deny that, Leonard," Christabel answered gravely.
She had dried her tears, and lifted her head from the dog's neck, and sat looking straight at the fire, self-possessed and sad. It seemed to her as if all possibility of happiness had gone out of her life.
"Am I to have no reward?" asked Leonard. "You know with what hope I have waited—you know that our marriage would make my mother happy, that it would make the end of her life a festival. You owe me nothing, but you owe her something. That is sueingin formâ pauperis, isn't it, Belle? But I have no pride where you are concerned."
"You ask me to be your wife; you don't even ask if I love you," said Christabel, bitterly. "What if I were to say yes, and then tell you afterwards that my heart still belongs to Angus Hamleigh."
"You had better tell me that now, if it is so," said Leonard, his face darkening in the firelight.
"Then I will tell you that it is so. I gave him up because I thought it my duty to give him up. I believed that in honour he belonged to another woman. I believe so still. But I have never left off loving him. That is why I have made up my mind never to marry."
"You are wise," retorted Leonard, "such a confession as that would settle for most men. But it does not settle for me, Belle. I am too far gone. If you are a fool about Hamleigh, I am a fool about you. Only say you will marry me, and I will take my chance of all the rest. I know you will be a good wife; and I will be a good husband to you. And I suppose in the end you will get to care for me, a little. One thing is certain, that I can't be happy without you; so I would gladly run the risk of an occasional taste of misery with you. Come, Belle, is it a bargain," he pleaded, taking her unresisting hands. "Say that it is, dearest. Let me kiss the future mistress of Mount Royal."
He bent over her and kissed her—kissed those lips which had once been sacred to Angus Hamleigh, which she had sworn in her heart should be kissed by no other man upon earth. She recoiled from him with a shiver of disgust—no good omen for their wedded bliss.
"This will make our mother very happy," said Leonard. "Come to her now, Belle, and let us tell her."
Christabel went with slow, reluctant steps, ashamed of the weakness which had yielded to persuasion and not to duty. But when Mrs. Tregonell heard the news from the triumphant lover, the light of happiness that shone upon the wan face was almost an all-sufficing reward for this last sacrifice.
"My love, my love," cried the widow, clasping her niece to her breast. "You have made my last earthly days happy. I have thought you cold and hard. I feared that I should die before you relented; but now you have made me glad and grateful. I reared you for this, I taught you for this, I have prayed for this ever since you were a child. I have prayed that my son might have a pure and perfect wife: and God has granted my prayer."
After this came a period of such perfect content and tranquillity for the invalid, that Christabel forgot her own sorrows. She lived in an atmosphere of gladness; congratulations, gifts, were pouring in upon her every day; her aunt petted and cherished her, was never weary of praising and caressing her. Leonard was all submission as a lover. Major Bree was delighted at the security which this engagement promised for the carrying on of the line of Champernownes and Tregonells—the union of two fine estates. He had looked forward to a dismal period when the widow would be laid in her grave, her son a wanderer, and Christabel a resident at Plymouth or Bath; while spiders wove their webs in shadowy corners of the good old Manor House, and mice, to all appearance self-sustaining, scampered and scurried behind the panelling.
Jessie Bridgeman was the only member of Christabel's circle who refrained from any expression of approval.
"Did I not tell you that you must end by marrying him?" she exclaimed. "Did I not say that if you stayed here the thing was inevitable? Continual dropping will wear away a stone; the stone is a fixture and can't help being dropped upon; but if you had stuck to your colours and gone to Leipsic to study the piano, you would have escaped the dropping."
As there was no possible reason for delay, while there was a powerful motive for a speedy marriage, in the fact of Mrs. Tregonell's precarious health, and her ardent desire to see her son and her niece united before her fading eyes closed for ever upon earth and earthly cares, Christabel was fain to consent to the early date which her aunt and her lover proposed, and to allow all arrangements to be hurried on with that view.
So in the dawning of the year, when Proserpine's returning footsteps were only faintly indicated by pale snowdrops and early violets lurking in sheltered hedges, and by the gold and purple of crocuses in all the cottage gardens, Christabel put on her wedding gown, and whiter than the pale ivory tint of the soft sheeny satin, took her seat in the carriage beside her adopted mother, to be driven down into the valley, and up the hilly street, where all the inhabitants of Boscastle—save those who had gone on before to congregate by the lich-gate—were on the alert to see the bride go by.
Mrs. Tregonell was paler than her niece, the fine regular features blanched with that awful pallor which tells of disease—but her eyes were shining with the light of gladness.
"My darling," she murmured, as they drove down to the harbour bridge, "I have loved you all your life, but never as I love you to-day. My dearest, you have filled my soul with content."
"I thank God that it should be so," faltered Christabel.
"If I could only see you smile, dear," said her aunt. "Your expression is too sad for a bride."
"Is it, Auntie? But marriage is a serious thing, dear. It means the dedication of a life to duty."
"Duty which affection will make very light, I hope," said Mrs. Tregonell, chilled by the cold statuesque face, wrapped in its cloudy veil. "Christabel, my love, tell me that you are not unhappy—that this marriage is not against your inclination. It is of your own free will that you give yourself to my boy?"
"Yes, of my own free will," answered Christabel, firmly.
As she spoke, it flashed upon her that Iphigenia would have given the same answer before they led her to the altar of offended Artemis. There are sacrifices offered with the victim's free consent, which are not the less sacrifices.
"Look, dear," cried her aunt, as the children, clustering at the school-house gate—dismissed from school an hour before their time—waved their sturdy arms, and broke into a shrill treble cheer, "everybody is pleased at this marriage."
"If you are glad, dearest, I am content," murmured her niece.
It was a very quiet wedding—or a wedding which ranks among quiet weddings now-a-days, when nuptial ceremonies are for the most part splendid. No train of bridesmaids in æsthetic colours, Duchess of Devonshire hats, and long mittens—no page-boys, staggering under gigantic baskets of flowers—no fuss or fashion, to make that solemn ceremony a raree-show for the gaping crowd. The Rector of Trevalga's two little girls were the only bridesmaids—dressed after Sir Joshua, in short-waisted dove-coloured frocks and pink sashes, mob caps and mittens, with big bunches of primroses and violets in their chubby hands.
Mrs. Tregonell looked superb in a dark ruby velvet gown, and long mantle of the same rich stuff, bordered with darkest sable. It was she who gave her niece away, while Major Bree acted as best man for Leonard. There were no guests at this winter wedding. Mrs. Tregonell's frail health was a sufficient reason for the avoidance of all pomp and show; and Christabel had pleaded earnestly for a very quiet wedding.
So before that altar where she had hoped to pledge herself for life and till death to Angus Hamleigh, Christabel gave her submissive hand to Leonard Tregonell, while the fatal words were spoken which have changed and blighted some few lives, to set against the many they have blessed and glorified. Still deadly pale, the bride went with the bridegroom to the vestry, to sign that book of fate, the register, Mrs. Tregonell following on Major Bree's arm, Miss Bridgeman—a neat little figure in silver grey poplin—and the child bride-maids crowding in after them, until the small vestry was filled with a gracious group, all glow of colour and sheen of silk and satin, in the glad spring sunshine.
"Now, Mrs. Tregonell," said the Major, cheerily, when the bride and bridegroom had signed, "let us have your name next, if you please; for I don't think there is any of us who more rejoices in this union than you do."
The widow took the pen, and wrote her name below that of Christabel, with a hand that never faltered. The incumbent of Minster used to say afterwards that this autograph was the grandest in the register. But the pen dropped suddenly from the hand that had guided it so firmly. Mrs. Tregonell looked round at the circle of faces with a strange wild look in her own. She gave a faint half-stifled cry, and fell upon her son's breast, her arms groping about his shoulders feebly, as if they would fain have wound themselves round his neck, but could not, encumbered by the heavy mantle.
Leonard put his arm round her, and held her firmly to his breast.
"Dear mother, are you ill?" he asked, alarmed by that strange look in the haggard face.
"It is the end," she faltered. "Don't be sorry, dear. I am so happy."
And thus, with a shivering sigh, the weary heart throbbed its last dull beat, the faded eyes grew dim, the lips were dumb for ever.
The Rector tried to get Christabel out of the vestry before she could know what had happened—but the bride was clinging to her aunt's lifeless figure, half sustained in Leonard's arms, half resting on the chair which had been pushed forward to support her as she sank upon her son's breast. Vain to seek to delay the knowledge of sorrow. All was known to Christabel already, as she bent over that marble face which was scarcely whiter than her own.