"I remember your telling me that my parents were unknown to you," answered Janet. "Perhaps the lady to whom I bear so strong a resemblance was my mother."
"No, not your mother, Janet. The lady to whom I refer died unmarried. She and I had been engaged to each other for three years; but death came and claimed her a fortnight before the day fixed for our wedding; and here I am, a lonely old bachelor still."
"Not quite lonely, dear Major Strickland," murmured Janet, as she lifted his hand and pressed it to her lips.
"True, child, not quite lonely. I have George, whom I love as though he were a son of my own. And there is Aunt Felicity, as the children used to call her, who is certainly very fond of me, as I also am of her."
"Not forgetting poor me," said Janet.
"Not forgetting you, dear, whom I love as a daughter."
"And who loves you very sincerely in return."
A few minutes later they drew up at Deepley Walls.
Major Strickland rang the bell, and the door was opened by a servant who was strange to Janet.
"Be good enough to inform Lady Chillington that Major Strickland and Miss Hope have just arrived from town, and inquire whether her ladyship has any commands."
The servant returned presently. "Her ladyship will see Major Strickland. Miss Hope is to go to the housekeeper's room."
"I will see you again, poverina, after my interview with her ladyship," said the Major, as he went off in charge of the footman.
Janet, left alone, threaded her way by the old familiar passages to the housekeeper's room. Dance was not there, being probably in attendance on Lady Chillington, and Janet had the room to herself. Her heart was heavy within her. There was a chill sense of friendlessness, of being alone in the world upon her. Were these cold walls to be the only home her youth would ever know? A few slow salt tears welled from her eyes as she sat brooding over the little wood fire, till presently there came a sound of footsteps, and the Major's hand was laid caressingly upon her shoulder.
"What, all alone!" he said; "and with nothing better to do than read fairy tales in the glowing embers! Is there no one in all this big house to attend to your wants? But Dance will be here presently, I have no doubt, and the good old soul will do her best to make you comfortable. I have been to pay my respects to her ladyship, who is in one of her unamiable moods this evening. I, however, contrived to wring from her a reluctant consent to your paying Aunt Felicity and me a visit now and then at Eastbury, and it shall be my business to see that the promise is duly carried out."
"Then I am to remain at Deepley Walls!" said Janet. "I thought it probable that my visit might be for a few weeks only, as my first one was."
"From what Lady Chillington said, I imagine that the present arrangement is to be a permanent one; but she gave no hint of the mode in which she intended to make use of your services, and that she will make use of you in some way, no one who knows her can doubt. And now, dear, I must say good-bye for the present; good-bye and God bless you! You may look to see me again within the week. Keep up your spirits, and—but here comes Dance, who will cheer you up far better than I can."
As the Major went out, Dance came in. The good soul seemed quite unchanged, except that she had grown older and mellower, andseemed to have sweetened with age like an apple plucked unripe. A little cry of delight burst from her lips the moment she saw Janet. But in the very act of rushing forward with outstretched arms, she stopped. She stopped, and stared, and then curtsied as though involuntarily. "If the dead are ever allowed to come back to this earth, there is one of them before me now!" she murmured.
Janet caught the words, but her heart was too full to notice them just then. She had her arms round Dance's neck in a moment, and her bright young head was pressed against the old servant's faithful breast.
"Oh, Dance, Dance, I am so glad you are come!"
"Hush, dear heart! hush, my poor child! you must not take on in that way. It seems a poor coming home for you—for I suppose Deepley Walls is to be your home in time to come—but there are those under this roof that love you dearly. Eh! but you are grown tall and bonny, and look as fresh and sweet as a morning in May. Her ladyship ought to be proud of you. But she gets that cantankerous and cross-grained in her old age that you never know what will suit her for two minutes at a time. For all that, her spirit is just wonderful, and she is a real lady, every inch of her. And you, Miss Janet, you are a thorough lady; anybody can see that, and her ladyship will see it as soon as anybody. She will like you none the worse for being a gentlewoman. But here am I preaching away like any old gadabout, and you not as much as taken your bonnet off yet. Get your things off, dearie, and I'll have a cup of tea ready in no time, and you'll feel ever so much better when you have had it."
Dance could scarcely take her eyes off Janet's face, so attracted was she by the likeness which had rung from her an exclamation on entering the room.
But Janet was tired, and reserved all questions till the morrow; all questions, except one. That one was—
"How is Sister Agnes?"
Dance shook her head solemnly. "No worse and no better than she has been for the last two months. There is something lingering about her that I don't like. She is far from well, and yet not exactly what we call ill. Morning, noon and night she seems so terribly weary, and that is just what frightens me. She has asked after you I don't know how many times, and when tea is over you must go and see her. Only I must warn you, dear Miss Janet, not to let your feelings overcome you when you see her—not to make a scene. In that case your coming would do her not good, but harm."
Janet recovered her spirits in a great measure before tea was over. She and Dance had much to talk about, many pleasant reminiscences to call up and discuss. As if by mutual consent, Lady Chillington's name was not mentioned between them.
As soon as tea was over, Dance went to inquire when Sister Agnes would see Miss Hope. The answer was, "I will see her at once."
So Janet went with hushed footsteps up the well-remembered staircase, opened the door softly, and stood for a moment on the threshold. Sister Agnes was lying on a sofa. She put her hand suddenly to her side and rose to her feet as Janet entered the room. A tall, wasted figure robed in black, with a thin, spiritualised face, the natural pallor of which was just now displaced by a transient flush that faded out almost as quickly as it had come. The white head-dress had been cast aside for once, and the black hair, streaked with silver, was tied in a simple knot behind. The large dark eyes looked larger and darker than they had ever looked before, and seemed lit up with an inner fire that had its source in another world than ours.
Sister Agnes advanced a step or two and held out her arms. "My darling!" was all she said as she pressed Janet to her heart, and kissed her again and again. They understood each other without words. The feeling within them was too deep to find expression in any commonplace greeting.
The excitement of the meeting was too much for the strength of Sister Agnes. She was obliged to lie down again. Janet sat by her side, caressing one of her wasted hands.
"Your coming has made me very, very happy," murmured Sister Agnes after a time.
"Through all the seven dreary years of my school life," said Janet, "the expectation of some day seeing you again was the one golden dream that the future held before me. That dream has now come true. How I have looked forward to this day none save those who have been circumstanced as I have can more than faintly imagine."
"Are you at all acquainted with Lady Chillington's intentions in asking you to come to Deepley Walls?"
"Not in the least. A fortnight ago I had no idea that I should so soon be here. I knew that I could not stay much longer at the Pension Clissot, and naturally wondered what instructions Madame Delclos would receive from Lady Chillington as to my disposal. The last time I saw her ladyship, her words seemed to imply that, after my education should be finished, I should have to trust to my own exertions for earning a livelihood. In fact, I have looked upon myself all along as ultimately destined to add one more unit to the great tribe of governesses."
"Such a fate shall not be yours if my weak arm has power to avert it," said Sister Agnes. "For the present your services are required at Deepley Walls, in the capacity of 'companion' to Lady Chillington—in brief, to occupy the position held by me for so many years, but from which I am now obliged to secede on account of ill-health."
Janet was almost too astounded to speak.
"Companion to Lady Chillington! I! Impossible!" was all that she could say.
"Why impossible, dear Janet?" asked Sister Agnes, with her low,sweet voice. "I see no element of impossibility in such an arrangement. The duties of the position have been filled by me for many years; they have now devolved upon you, and I am not aware of anything that need preclude your acceptance of them."
"We are not all angels like you, Sister Agnes," said Janet. "Lady Chillington, as I remember, is a very peculiar woman. She has no regard for the feelings of others, especially when those others are her inferiors in position. She says the most cruel things she can think of and cares nothing how deeply they may wound. I am afraid that she and I would never agree."
"That Lady Chillington is a very peculiar woman I am quite ready to admit. That she will say things to you that may seem hard and cruel, and that may wound your feelings, I will also allow. But granting all this, I can deduce from it no reason why the position should be refused by you. Had you gone out as governess, you would probably have had fifty things to contend against quite as disagreeable as Lady Chillington's temper and cynical remarks. You are young, dear Janet, and life's battle has yet to be fought by you. You must not expect that everything in this world will arrange itself in accordance with your wishes. You will have many difficulties to fight against and overcome, and the sooner you make up your mind to the acceptance of that fact, the better it will be for you in every way. If I have found the position of companion to Lady Chillington not quite unendurable, why should it be found so by you? Besides, her ladyship has many claims upon you—upon your best services in every way. Every farthing that has been spent upon you from the day you were born to the present time has come out of her purse. Except mere life itself, you owe everything to her. And even if this were not so, there are other and peculiar ties between you and her, of which you know nothing (although you may possibly be made acquainted with them by-and-by), which are in themselves sufficient to lead her to expect every reasonable obedience at your hands. You must clothe yourself with good temper, dear Janet, as with armour of proof. You must make up your mind beforehand that however harsh her ladyship's remarks may sometimes seem, you will not answer her again. Do this, and her words will soon be powerless to sting you. Instead of feeling hurt or angry, you will be inclined to pity her—to pray for her. And she deserves pity, Janet, if any woman in this sinful world ever did. To have severed of her own accord those natural ties which other people cherish so fondly; to see herself fading into a dreary old age, and yet of her own free will to shut out the love that should attend her by the way and strew flowers on her path; to have no longer a single earthly hope or pleasure beyond those connected with each day's narrow needs or with the heaping together of more money where there was enough before—in all this there is surely room enough for pity, but none for any harsher feeling."
"Dear Sister Agnes, your words make me thoroughly ashamed of myself," said Janet, with tearful earnestness. "Arrogance ill becomes one like me who have been dependent on the charity of others from the day of my birth. Whatever task may be set me either by Lady Chillington or by you, I will do it to the best of my ability. Will you for this once pardon my petulance and ill-temper, and I will strive not to offend you again?"
"I am not offended, darling; far from it. I felt sure that you had good-sense and good-feeling enough to see the matter in its right light when it was properly put before you. But have you no curiosity as to the nature of your new duties?"
"Very little at present, I must confess," answered Janet, with a wan smile. "The chief thing for which I care just now is to know that so long as I remain at Deepley Walls I shall be near you; and that of itself would be sufficient to enable me to rest contented under worse inflictions than Lady Chillington's ill-temper."
"You ridiculous Janet! Ah! if I only dared to tell you everything. But that must not be. Let us rather talk of what your duties will be in your new situation."
"Yes, tell me about them, please," said Janet, "and you shall see in time to come that your words have not been forgotten."
"To begin: you will have to go to her ladyship's room precisely at eight every morning. Sometimes she will not want you, in which case you will be at liberty till after breakfast. Should she want you it will probably be to read to her while she sips her chocolate, or it may be to play a game of backgammon with her before she gets up. A little later on you will be able to steal an hour or so for yourself, as while her ladyship is undergoing the elaborate processes of the toilette, your services will not be required. On coming down, if the weather be fine, she will want the support of your arm during her stroll on the terrace. If the weather be wet, she will probably attend to her correspondence and book-keeping, and you will have to fill the parts both of amanuensis and accountant. When Mr. Madgin, her ladyship's man of business, comes up to Deepley Walls, you will have to be in attendance to take notes, write down instructions, and so on. By-and-by will come luncheon, of which, as a rule, you will partake with her. After luncheon you will be your own mistress for an hour while her ladyship sleeps. The moment she wakes you will have to be in attendance, either to play to her, or else to read to her—perhaps a little French or Italian, in both of which languages I hope you are tolerably proficient. Your next duty will be to accompany her ladyship in her drive out. When you get back, will come dinner, but only when specially invited will you sit down with Lady Chillington. When that honour is not accorded you, you and I will dine here, darling, by our two selves."
"Then I hope Lady Chillington will not invite me oftener than once a month," cried impulsive Janet.
"The number of your invitations to dinner will depend upon the extent of her liking for you, so that we shall soon know whether or no you are a favourite. She may or may not require you after dinner. If she does require you, it may be either for reading or music, or to play backgammon with her; or even to sit quietly with her without speaking, for the mere sake of companionship. One fact you will soon discover for yourself—that her ladyship does not like to be long alone. And now, dearest, I think I have told you enough for the present. We will talk further of these things to-morrow. Give me just one kiss and see what you can find to play among that heap of old music on the piano. Madame Delclos used to write in raptures of your style and touch. We will now prove whether her eulogy was well founded."
Janet found that she was not to occupy the same bed-room as on her first visit to Deepley Walls, but one nearer that of Sister Agnes. She was not sorry for this, for there had been a secret dread upon her of having to sleep in a room so near that occupied by the body of Sir John Chillington. She had never forgotten her terrible experience in connection with the Black Room, and she wished to keep herself entirely free from any such influences in time to come. The first question she asked Dance when they reached her bed-room was—
"Does Sister Agnes still visit the Black Room every midnight?"
"Yes, for sure," answered Dance. "There is no one but her to do it. Her ladyship would not allow any of the servants to enter the room. Rather than that, I believe she would herself do what has to be done there. Sister Agnes would not neglect that duty if she was dying."
Janet said no more, but then and there she made up her mind to a certain course of action of which nothing would have made her believe herself capable only an hour before.
Early next forenoon she was summoned to an interview with Lady Chillington. Her heart beat more quickly than common as she was ushered by Dance into the old woman's dressing-room.
Her ladyship was in demi-toilette—made up in part for the day, but not yet finished. Her black wig, with its long corkscrew curls, was carefully adjusted; her rouge and powder were artistically laid on, her eyebrows elaborately pointed, and in so far she looked as she always looked when visible to anyone but her maid. But her figure wanted bracing up, so to speak, and looked shrunken and shrivelled in the old cashmere dressing-robe, from which at that early hour she had not emerged. Her fingers—long, lean and yellow—were decorated with some half-dozen valuable rings. Increasing years had not tended to make her hands steadier than Janet remembered them as being when she last saw her ladyship; and of late it had become a matter of some difficulty with her to keep her head quite still: it seemed possessed by an unaccountable desire to imitate theshaking of her hands. She was seated in an easy-chair as Janet entered the room. Her breakfast equipage was on a small table at her elbow.
As the door closed behind Janet, she stood still and curtsied.
Lady Chillington placed her glass to her eye, and with a lean forefinger beckoned to Janet to draw near. Janet advanced, her eyes fixed steadily on those of Lady Chillington. A yard or two from the table she stopped and curtsied again.
"I hope that I have the happiness of finding your ladyship quite well," she said, in a low, clear voice, in which there was not the slightest tremor or hesitation.
"And pray, Miss Hope, what can it matter to you whether I am well or ill? Answer me that, if you please."
"I owe so much to your ladyship, I have been such a pensioner on your bounty ever since I can remember anything, that mere selfishness alone, if no higher motive be allowed me, must always prompt me to feel an interest in the state of your ladyship's health."
"Candid, at any rate. But I wish you clearly to understand that whatever obligation you may feel yourself under to me for what is past and gone, you have no claim of any kind upon me for the future. The tie between us can be severed by me at any moment."
"Seven years ago your ladyship impressed that fact so strongly on my mind that I have never forgotten it. I have never felt myself to be other than a dependent on your bounty."
"A very praiseworthy feeling, young lady, and one which I trust you will continue to cherish. Not that I wish other people to look upon you as a dependent. I wish—" She broke off abruptly, and stared helplessly round the room. Suddenly her head began to shake. "Heaven help me! what do I wish?" she exclaimed; and with that she began to cry, and seemed all in a moment to have grown older by twenty years.
Janet, in her surprise, made a step or two forward, but Lady Chillington waved her fiercely back. "Fool! fool! why don't you go away?" she cried. "Why do you stare at me so? Go away, and send Dance to me. You have spoilt my complexion for the day."
Janet left the room and sent Dance to her mistress, and then went off for a ramble in the grounds. The seal of desolation and decay was set upon everything. The garden, no longer the choice home of choice flowers, was weed-grown and neglected. The greenhouses were empty, and falling to pieces for lack of a few simple repairs. The shrubs and evergreens had all run wild for want of pruning, and in several places the dividing hedges were broken down, and through the breaches sheep had intruded themselves into the private grounds. Even the house itself had a shabby out-at-elbows air, like a gentleman fallen upon evil days. Several of the upper windows were shuttered, some of the others showed a broken pane or two. Here and there a shutter had fallen away, or was hanging by a solitaryhinge, suggesting thoughts of ghostly flappings to and fro in the rough wind on winter nights. Doors and window frames were blistering and splitting for want of paint. Close by the sacred terrace itself lay the fragments of a broken chimney-pot, blown down during the last equinoctial gales and suffered to lie where it had fallen. Everywhere were visible tokens of that miserly thrift which, carried to excess, degenerates into unthrift of the worst and meanest kind, from which the transition to absolute ruin is both easy and certain.
For a full hour Janet trod the weed-grown walks with clasped hands and saddened eyes. At the end of that time Dance came in search of her. Lady Chillington wanted to see her again.
(To be continued.)
Decorative
"When we meet," she said. We neverMet again—the world is wide:Leagues of sea, then Death did severMe from my betrothed Bride.When we parted, long ago—Long it seems in sorrow musing—Fair she stood, with face aglow,In my heart a hope infusing.Now I linger at the grave,While the winds of Winter rave."When we meet," the words are ringingClear as when they left her lips,Clear as when her faith upspringingFronted life and life's eclipse—Rest, dear heart, dear hands, dear feet,Rest; in spite of Death's endeavour,Thou art mine; we soon shall meet,Ocean, Death be passed for ever.Thus I linger by the grave,Cherishing the hope she gave.
"When we meet," she said. We neverMet again—the world is wide:Leagues of sea, then Death did severMe from my betrothed Bride.When we parted, long ago—Long it seems in sorrow musing—Fair she stood, with face aglow,In my heart a hope infusing.Now I linger at the grave,While the winds of Winter rave.
"When we meet," the words are ringingClear as when they left her lips,Clear as when her faith upspringingFronted life and life's eclipse—Rest, dear heart, dear hands, dear feet,Rest; in spite of Death's endeavour,Thou art mine; we soon shall meet,Ocean, Death be passed for ever.Thus I linger by the grave,Cherishing the hope she gave.
John Jervis Beresford, M.A.
(Author of "Last Year's Leaves.")
Disdain of the inevitable end is said to be the finest trait of mankind. Some profess to be weary of life, of its pains and penalties, its anxieties and sufferings, and to look upon death as a relief. Such states of mind are not real; they are either assumed or affected. No one can really hold the unsparing leveller—dreaded of all—in contempt. As to pretended wearisomeness of life, laying aside the love of life and fear of death, which are common to all mankind, there are habits and ties of affection, joys and hopes that never depart from us and make us cling to existence.
There are, no doubt, pains and sufferings which make many almost wish for the time being for death as a release; but these pass away. Time assuages all grief, as Nature relieves suffering beyond endurance by fainting and insensibility. Man may nerve himself to death or become resigned to it and meet it even with cheerfulness; and he may, in all sincerity of heart, offer up his life to his Maker to save that of a beloved one; but there is a latent—an unacknowledged—yet an irrepressible reserve in such frames of mind.
Few men can prepare for death, or offer themselves up for a sacrifice, without feelings of a mixed nature playing a part in the act; whether forced or springing from self-abnegation. As to suicide, it is inevitably accompanied by certain—albeit various and different—degrees of mental alienation or disease. No one who is in a really healthy state of mind, whose faculties are perfectly balanced, or who is at peace with God and man, commits suicide. The temporary exaltation of grief, despondency or disappointment produces as utter a state of insanity as disease itself.
Man, as a rule, desires to live. It is part of his nature to do so; and exceptions to the rule are rare and unnatural—so much so that they in all cases imply a certain degree of mental alienation. Even the weariness, lassitude and despondency which lead some to talk of death as a release is mainly to be met with in the pampered and the idle. Such feelings, no doubt, take possession also of the poor and the lowly; but that, mostly, when there is no work or no incitement to it. There is always joy and happiness in work and in doing one's duty.
It is then the normal condition to wish to live, and a most abnormal one to wish to die; and with many there is even a further aspiration, and that is to prolong a life which, with all its drawbacks, is to so many a desirable state of things.
Examples of rare longevity are carefully treasured up and even placed on record. As whenever a human being is carried away,causes from which we are supposed to be free, or against which we take precautions, are complacently sought for, so instances of longevity are studied to discover what habits and manners, what system of diet, or conduct, and which environing circumstances, have most tended to ensure such a result.
Numerous treatises have been written on the subject, both in this country and on the continent; but it cannot be said that the result has been eminently satisfactory. When carefully inquired into, it has been found that the most contradictory state of things has been in existence. It is not always to the strong that long life is given, nor is such, as often supposed, hereditary. Riches and the comforts and luxuries they place at man's disposal no more conduce to long life than poverty. Even moderation and temperance, so universally admitted as essentials to health and long life, are found to have their exceptions in well-attested cases of prolongation of life with the luxurious and self-indulgent and even in the intemperate and the inebriate. Strange to say, even health is not always conducive to long life. There is a common proverb (and most proverbs are founded upon experience) about creaking hinges, and so it is that people always ailing have been known to live longer than the strong, the hearty, and the healthy. The latter have overtaxed their strength, their spirits, and their health. Even vitality itself, stronger in some than others, may in excess conduce to the premature wearing out and decay of the faculties and powers.
It is not surprising, then, that great difficulties have had to be encountered in fixing any general laws by which longevity can be assured; yet such are in existence, and like all the gracious gifts of a most merciful Creator, are at the easy command and disposal of mankind.
They are to be found in implicit obedience to the Laws of God and Nature. These imply the use and not the misuse or abuse of all the powers and faculties given to us by an all-wise and all-merciful Providence. If human beings would only abide by these laws they would not only enjoy long health and long life but they would also pass that life in comfort and happiness.
With respect to the physical, intellectual and moral man, work is the essential factor in procuring health and happiness. Idleness is the bane of both. Man and woman were born to work either by hand or brain. Man in the outer world, woman in the home. The man who lives without an object in life is not only not doing his duty to God, but he is a curse to himself and others. But work, like everything else, should be limited. Many cannot do this, and overtax both their physical and intellectual energies. The employment of labour should be regulated by the capabilities of the working-classes, not by the economy or profits to be obtained by extra labour; and legislation, if paternal, as it should be, ought to protect the toiler in all instances—not in the few in which itattempts to ameliorate his condition. So with every pursuit or avocation, the leisure essential to health and happiness is too often sacrificed to cupidity, and when this is the case there can be no longevity.
Exercise is beneficial to man; but it should not be taken in excess, or in too trying a form. It is very questionable if what are called "Athletic Sports" are not too often as hurtful as they are beneficial. It is quite certain that they cannot be indulged in with impunity after a certain time of life.
Sustenance is essential alike to life and longevity, but it is trite to say it must be in moderation, and as far as possible select. So in the case of temperance, moderation is beneficial, excess hurtful. Total abstainers defeat the very object they propose to advocate when they propose to do away with all because excess is hurtful. Extremes are always baneful, and the monks of old were wise in their generation when they denounced gluttony and intemperance as cardinal vices. The physical powers are as a rule subject to the will, which is the exponent of our passions and propensities and of our moral and intellectual impulses. Were it not so we could not curb our actions, restrain our appetites, or keep within that moderation which is essential to health, happiness and longevity.
Our passions and propensities are imparted to us for a wise purpose, and are therefore beneficial in their use. It is only in their neglect, misuse or abuse that they become hurtful. A French author has pertinently put it thus: "The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot she would be lost."
Even our affections, so pure and beautiful in themselves, may, by abuse, be made sources of mischief, evil and disease. The abuses are too well known to require repetition here. The powers of energy and resistance, beneficial in themselves, in their abuse bring about the spirit of contradiction, violence and combat.
It seems passing strange that even our moral feelings should be liable to abuse; but it is so, even with the best. Benevolence and charity may be misplaced or be in excess of our means. They assume the shape of vices in the form of prodigality and extravagance. The honest desire to acquire the necessities of life or the means for moral and intellectual improvement may in excess become cupidity or covetousness, and lead even to the appropriation of what is not our own. Kleptomania is met with in the book-worm or the antiquarian, as well as in the feminine lover of dress or those in poverty and distress. Firmness may become obstinacy; the justifiable love of self may, by abuse, become pride; and a proper and chaste wish for the approbation of others may be turned into the most absurd of vanities. Even religion itself may be carried to uncharitableness, fanaticism and persecution. Still more strange it must appear that even the intellectual faculties should be liable to abuse; but it is partof the pains and penalties of the constitution of man that it should be so. It is so to teach us that moderation is wisdom and the only conduct that leads to health and happiness.
The abuse of the moral faculties is directly injurious; that of the intellectual faculties mostly so in an indirect manner. Such abuses are more hurtful by the influence they have upon the conduct than they have upon the intellect itself. If a man's judgment is unsound, for example, it leads to deleterious consequences, not only to himself, but to others. If the powers of observation are weak, and a person is deficient in the capacity of judging of form, distance or locality, he will be incapacitated from success in many pursuits of life without his suffering thereby, except in an indirect manner. The imagination, the noblest manifestation of intellect, may, without judgment, be allowed to run riot, or abused by its exaltation; and with the faculty of wonder may lead to superstition, fanaticism and folly. The intellectual faculties may be altogether weak or almost wanting. In such cases we have foolishness merging into idiocy.
The examples here given of use, as opposed to neglect, misuse, or abuse, are simply illustrative of the point in question. They might be extended in an indefinite degree, especially if it were proposed to enter into details. They will, however, suffice for the purpose in view, which is to show that the use of all the powers and faculties granted to us by the Creator is intended for our benefit, and is conducive to health, happiness and longevity, but that their neglect or their abuse leads to misery, pain, affliction, disaster and disease.
The lesson to be conveyed is that moderation is essential in all things. Why is it that the sickly and the ailing sometimes survive the strong and hearty? Because suffering has taught the former moderation, whilst the sense of power leads the latter to excesses which too often prove fatal. Everyone has, in his experience, known instances of the kind.
But the use and not the neglect or abuse of the faculties is the observance of the laws of God and Nature. If neglect and misuse of our faculties lead to loss of power, so their abuse leads to bad conduct and its pains and penalties. What has been here termed moderation, as a medium between neglect, use and abuse, is really obedience to the laws of God and Nature.
The whole secret of health, happiness and longevity lies then in this simple observance, if it can only be fully understood, appreciated in all its importance, and carried out in all the smallest details of life. As such perfection is rare, and somewhat difficult to attain—the trials and temptations of life being so great—so are none of the results here enumerated often arrived at; but that is no reason why man should not endeavour to reach as near perfection as possible, and enjoy as much health and happiness as he can. One of the most common and one of the greatest errors is to suppose that happiness is to be obtained by the pursuit of pleasure and excitement. Thetemporary enjoyment created by such is inevitably followed by reaction—lassitude and weariness—and human nature is palled by the surfeit of amusement as much as it is by the luxuries of the table. There cannot be a more humiliating spectacle than that of the man of the world, as he is called, or the woman of fashion or pleasure. Blasé is too considerate an expression. Such persons are worn-out prematurely in body, mind and intellect—they are soulless and unsympathetic—the wrecks of the noble creatures God created as man and woman in all the simplicity of their nature.
It is surely worth while, then, considering whether the enjoyment of health and happiness is not worth a little study and a little sacrifice of the vain and imaginary pleasures of the world. There is no doubt that some amount of restraint and some power of self-control are requisite to ensure moderation. But the disdain of many pleasures is a chief part of what is commonly called wisdom.
It is with waking and sleeping, with talking and walking, with eating and drinking, with toil and labour, with all the acts of life, that moderation or obedience to the laws of Nature requires some little sacrifice in their observance; but it is quite certain that without this obedience there is neither health nor happiness nor longevity.
Decorative
Who said that there were slaves? There may be menIn bondage, bought or sold: there are no slavesWhilst God looks down, whilst Christ's most pure blood lavesThe black man's sins; whilst within angel kenHe bears his load and drags his iron chain.The slaves are they whom, on His Judgment Day,God shall renounce for aye and cast away.Oh, Jesus Christ! Thou wilt give justice then!A drop of blood shall seem a swelling sea,More piercing than a cry the lowest moan.Come down, ye mountains! in your gloom come down,And bury deep the sinner's agony!Master and slave have past; Time, thou art gone:Eternity begins—Christ rules alone!
Who said that there were slaves? There may be menIn bondage, bought or sold: there are no slavesWhilst God looks down, whilst Christ's most pure blood lavesThe black man's sins; whilst within angel kenHe bears his load and drags his iron chain.The slaves are they whom, on His Judgment Day,God shall renounce for aye and cast away.Oh, Jesus Christ! Thou wilt give justice then!A drop of blood shall seem a swelling sea,More piercing than a cry the lowest moan.Come down, ye mountains! in your gloom come down,And bury deep the sinner's agony!Master and slave have past; Time, thou art gone:Eternity begins—Christ rules alone!
Julia Kavanagh.
That oft-quoted French saying, a mauvais-quart-d'heure, is a pregnant one, and may apply to small as well as to great worries of life: most of us know it to our cost. But, rely upon it, one of the very worst is that when a bride or bridegroom has to make a disagreeable confession to the other, which ought to have been made before going to church.
Philip Hamlyn was finding it so. Standing over the fire, in their sitting-room at the Old Ship Hotel at Brighton, his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hand shading his eyes, he looked down at his wife sitting opposite him, and disclosed his tale: that when he married her fifteen days ago he had not been a bachelor, but a widower. There was no especial reason for his not having told her, save that he hated and abhorred that earlier period of his life and instinctively shunned its remembrance.
Sent to India by his friends in the West Indies to make his way in the world, he entered one of the most important mercantile houses in Calcutta, purchasing a lucrative post in it. Mixing in the best society, for his introductions were undeniable, he in course of time met with a young lady named Pratt, who had come out from England to stay with her elderly cousins, Captain Pratt and his sister. Philip Hamlyn was caught by her pretty doll's face, and married her. They called her Dolly: and a doll she was, by nature as well as by name.
"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," is as true a saying as the French one. Philip Hamlyn found it so. Of all vain, frivolous, heartless women, Mrs. Dolly Hamlyn turned out to be about the worst. Just a year or two of uncomfortable bickering, of vain endeavours on his part, now coaxing, now reproaching, to make her what she was not and never would be—a reasonable woman, a sensible wife—and Dolly Hamlyn fled. She decamped with a hair-brained lieutenant, the two taking sailing-ship for England, and she carrying with her her little one-year-old boy.
I'll leave you to guess what Philip Hamlyn's sensations were. A calamity such as that does not often fall upon man. While he was taking steps to put his wife legally away for ever and to get back his child, and Captain Pratt was aiding and abetting (and swearing frightfully at the delinquent over the process), news reached them that Heaven's vengeance had been more speedy than theirs. Theship, driven out of her way by contrary winds and other disasters, went down off the coast of Spain, and all the passengers on board perished. This was what Philip Hamlyn had to confess now: and it was more than silly of him not to have done it before.
He touched but lightly upon it now. His tones were low, his words when he began somewhat confused: nevertheless his wife, gazing up at him with her large dark eyes, gathered an inkling of his meaning.
"Don't tell it me!" she passionately interrupted. "Do not tell me that I am only your second wife."
He went over to her, praying her to be calm, speaking of the bitter feeling of shame which had ever since clung to him.
"Did you divorce her?"
"No, no; you do not understand me, Eliza. She died before anything could be done; the ship was wrecked."
"Were there any children?" she asked in a hard whisper.
"One; a baby of a year old. He was drowned with his mother."
Mrs. Hamlyn folded her hands one over the other, and leaned back in her chair. "Why did you deceive me?"
"My will was good to deceive you for ever," he confessed with emotion. "I hate that past episode in my life; hate to think of it: I wish I could blot it out of remembrance. But for Pratt I should not have told you now."
"Oh, he said you ought to tell me?"
"He did: and blamed me for not having told you already."
"Have you any more secrets of the past that you are keeping from me?"
"None. Not one. You may take my honour upon it, Eliza. And now let us—"
She had started forward in her chair; a red flush darkening her pale cheeks, "Philip! Philip! am I legally married? Did you describe yourself as abachelorin the license?"
"No, as a widower. I got the license in London, you know."
"And no one read it?"
"No one save he who married us: Robert Grame, and I don't suppose he noticed it."
Robert Grame! The flush on Eliza's cheeks grew deeper.
"Did youloveher?"
"I suppose I thought so when I married her. It did not take long to disenchant me," he added with a harsh laugh.
"What was her Christian name?"
"Dolly. Dora, I believe, by register. My dear wife, I have told you all. In compassion to me let us drop the subject, now and for ever."
Was Eliza Hamlyn—sitting there with pale, compressed lips, sullen eyes, and hands interlocked in pain—already beginning to reap the fruit she had sown as Eliza Monk by her rebellious marriage? Perhaps so. But not as she would have to reap it later on.
Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn spent nearly all that year in travelling. In September they came to Peacock's Range, taking it furnished for a term of old Mr. and Mrs. Peveril, who had not yet come back to it. It stood midway, as may be remembered, between Church Leet and Church Dykely, so that Eliza was close to her old home. Late in October a little boy was born: it would be hard to say which was the prouder of him, Philip Hamlyn or his wife.
"What would you like his name to be?" Philip asked her one day.
"I should like it to be Walter," said Mrs. Hamlyn.
"Walter!"
"Yes, I should. I like the name for itself, but I once had a dear little brother named Walter, just a year younger than I. He died before we came home to England. Have you any objection to the name?"
"Oh, no, no objection," he slowly said. "I was only thinking whether you would have any. It was the name given to my first child."
"That can make no possible difference—it was not my child," was her haughty answer. So the baby was named Walter James; the latter name also chosen by Eliza, because it had been old Mr. Monk's.
In the following spring Mr. Hamlyn had to go to the West Indies. Eliza remained at home; and during this time she became reconciled to her father.
Hubert brought it about. For Hubert lived yet. But he was just a shadow and had to take entirely to the house, and soon to his room. Eliza came to see him, again and again; and finally over Hubert's sofa peace was made—for Captain Monk loved her still, just as he had loved Katherine, for all her rebellion.
Hubert lingered on to the summer. And then, on a calm evening, when one of the glorious sunsets that he had so loved to look upon was illumining the western sky, opening up to his dying view, as he had once said, the very portals of Heaven, he passed peacefully away to his rest.
The next change that set in at Leet Hall concerned Miss Kate Dancox. That wilful young pickle, somewhat sobered by the death of Hubert in the summer, soon grew unbearable again. She had completely got the upper hand of her morning governess, Miss Hume—who walked all the way from Church Dykely and back again—and of nearly everyone else; and Captain Monk gave forth his decision one day when all was turbulence—a resident governess. Mrs. Carradyne could have danced a reel for joy, and wrote to a governess agency in London.
One morning about this time (which was already glowing with thetints of autumn) a young lady got out of an omnibus in Oxford Street, which had brought her from a western suburb of London, paid the conductor, and then looked about her.
"There!" she exclaimed in a quaint tone of vexation, "I have to cross the street! And how am I to do it?"
Evidently she was not used to the bustle of London streets or to crossing them alone. She did it, however, after a few false starts, and so turned down a quiet side street and rang at the bell of a house in it. A slatternly girl answered the ring.
"Governess-agent—Mrs. Moffit? Oh, yes; first-floor front," said she crustily, and disappeared.
The young lady found her way upstairs alone. Mrs. Moffit sat in state in a big arm-chair, before a large table and desk, whence she daily dispensed joy or despair to her applicants. Several opened letters and copies of the daily journals lay on the table.
"Well?" cried she, laying down her pen, "what for you?"
"I am here by your appointment, madam, made with me a week ago," said the young lady. "This is Thursday."
"What name?" cried Mrs. Moffit sharply, turning over rapidly the leaves of a ledger.
"Miss West. If you remember, I—"
"Oh, yes, child, my memory's good enough," was the tart interruption. "But with so many applicants it's impossible to be at any certainty as to faces. Registered names we can't mistake."
Mrs. Moffit read her notes—taken down a week ago. "Miss West. Educated in first-class school at Richmond; remained in it as teacher. Very good references from the ladies keeping it. Father, Colonel in India."
"But—"
"You do not wish to go into a school again?" spoke Mrs. Moffit, closing the ledger with a snap, and peremptorily drowning what the applicant was about to say.
"Oh, dear, no, I am only leaving to better myself, as the maids say," replied the young lady smiling.
"And you wish for a good salary?"
"If I can get it. One does not care to work hard for next to nothing."
"Or else I have—let me see—two—three situations on my books. Very comfortable, I am instructed, but two of them offer ten pounds a-year, the other twelve."
The young lady drew herself slightly up with an involuntary movement. "Quite impossible, madam, that I could take any one of them."
Mrs. Moffit picked up a letter and consulted it, looking at the young lady from time to time, as if taking stock of her appearance. "I received a letter this morning from the country—a family require a well-qualified governess for their one little girl. Your testimonialsas to qualifications might suit—and you are, I believe, a gentlewoman—"
"Oh, yes; my father was—"
"Yes, yes, I remember—I've got it down; don't worry me," impatiently spoke the oracle, cutting short the interruption. "So far you might suit: but in other respects—I hardly know what to think."
"But why?" asked the other timidly, blushing a little under the intent gaze.
"Well, you are very young, for one thing; and they might think you too good-looking."
The girl's blush grew red as a rose; she had delicate features and it made her look uncommonly pretty. A half-smile sat in her soft, dark hazel eyes.
"Surely that could not be an impediment. I am not so good-looking as all that!"
"That's as people may think," was the significant answer. "Some families will not take a pretty governess—afraid of their sons, you see. This family says nothing about looks; for aught I know there may be no sons in it. 'Thoroughly competent'—reading from the letter—'a gentlewoman by birth, of agreeable manners and lady-like. Salary, first year, to be forty pounds.'"
"And will you not recommend me?" pleaded the young governess, her voice full of soft entreaty. "Oh, please do! I know I should be found fully competent, and I promise you that I would do my very best."
"Well, there may be no harm in my writing to the lady about you," decided Mrs. Moffit, won over by the girl's gentle respect—with which she did not get treated by all her clients. "Suppose you come here again on Monday next?"
The end of the matter was that Miss West was engaged by the lady mentioned—no other than Mrs. Carradyne. And she journeyed down into Worcestershire to enter upon the situation.
But clever (and generally correct) Mrs. Moffit made one mistake, arising, no doubt, from the chronic state of hurry she was always in. "Miss West is the daughter of the late Colonel William West," she wrote, "who went to India with his regiment a few years ago, and died there." What Miss West had said to her was this: "My father, a clergyman, died when I was a little child, and my uncle William, Colonel West, the only relation I had left, died three years ago in India." Mrs. Moffit somehow confounded the two.
This might not have mattered on the whole. But, as you perceive, it conveyed a wrong impression at Leet Hall.
"The governess I have engaged is a Miss West; her father was a military man and a gentleman," spake Mrs. Carradyne one morning at breakfast to Captain Monk. "She is rather young—about twenty, I fancy; but an older person might never get on at all with Kate."
"Had good references with her, I suppose?" said the Captain.
"Oh, yes. From the agent, and especially from the ladies who have brought her up."
"Who was her father, do you say?—a military man?"
"Colonel William West," assented Mrs. Carradyne, referring to the letter she held. "He went to India with his regiment and died there."
"I'll refer to the army-list," said the Captain; "daresay it's all right. And she shall keep Kate in order, or I'll know the reason why."
The evening sunlight lay on the green plain, on the white fields from which the grain had been reaped, and on the beautiful woods glowing with the varied tints of autumn. A fly was making its way to Leet Hall, and its occupant, looking out of it on this side and that, in a fever of ecstasy, for the country scene charmed her, thought how favoured was the lot of those who could live out their lives amidst its surroundings.
In the drawing-room at the Hall, watching the approach of this same fly, stood Mrs. Hamlyn, a frown upon her haughty face. Philip Hamlyn was still detained in the West Indies, and since her reconciliation to her father, she would go over with her baby-boy to the Hall and remain there for days together. Captain Monk liked to have her, and he took more notice of the baby than he had ever taken of baby yet. For when Kate was an infant he had at first shunned her, because she had cost Katherine her life. This baby, little Walter, was a particularly forward child, strong and upright, walked at ten months old, and much resembled his mother in feature. In temper also. The young one would stand sturdily in his little blue shoes and defy his grandpapa already, and assert his own will, to the amused admiration of Captain Monk.
Eliza, utterly wrapt in her child, saw her father's growing love for him with secret delight; and one day when he had the boy on his knee, she ventured to speak out a thought that was often in her heart.
"Papa," she said, with impassioned fervour, "heought to be the heir, your own grandson; not Harry Carradyne."
Captain Monk simply stared in answer.
"He lies in thedirectsuccession; he has your own blood in his veins. Papa, you ought to see it."
Certainly the gallant sailor's manners were improving. For perhaps the first time in his life he suppressed the hot and abusive words rising to his tongue—that no son of that man, Hamlyn, should come into Leet Hall—and stood in silence.
"Don'tyou see it, papa?"
"Look here, Eliza: we'll drop the subject. When my brother, your uncle, was dying, he wrote me a letter, enjoining me to make Emma's son the heir, failing a son of my own. It was right itshould be so, he said. Right it is; and Harry Carradyne will succeed me. Say no more."
Thus forbidden to say more, Eliza Hamlyn thought the more, and her thoughts were not pleasant. At one time she had feared her father might promote Kate Dancox to the heirship, and grew to dislike the child accordingly. Latterly, for the same reason, she had disliked Harry Carradyne; hated him, in fact. She herself was the only remaining child of the house, and her son ought to inherit.
She stood this evening at the drawing-room window, this and other matters running in her mind. Miss Kate, at the other end of the room, had prevailed on Uncle Harry (as she called him) to play a game at toy ninepins. Or perhaps he had prevailed on her: anything to keep her tolerably quiet. She was in her teens now, but the older she grew the more troublesome she became; and she was remarkably small and childish-looking, so that strangers took her to be several years younger than she really was.
"This must be your model governess arriving, Aunt Emma," exclaimed Mrs. Hamlyn, as the fly came up the drive.
"I hope it is," said Mrs. Carradyne; and they all looked out. "Oh, yes, that's an Evesham fly—and a ramshackle thing it appears."
"I wonder you did not send the carriage to Evesham for her, mother," remarked Harry, picking up some of the ninepins which Miss Kate had swept off the table with her hand.
Mrs. Hamlyn turned round in a blaze of anger. "Send the carriage to Evesham for the governess! What absurd thing will you say next, Harry?"
The young man laughed in good humour. "Does it offend one of your prejudices, Eliza?—a thousand pardons, then. But really, nonsense apart, I can't see why the carriage should not have gone for her. We are told she is a gentlewoman. Indeed, I suppose anyone else would not be eligible, as she is to be made one of ourselves."
"And think of the nuisance it will be! Do be quiet, Harry! Kate ought to have been sent to school."
"But your father would not have her sent, you know, Eliza," spoke Mrs. Carradyne.
"Then—"
"Miss West, ma'am," interrupted Rimmer, the butler, showing in the traveller.
"Dear me, how very young!" was Mrs. Carradyne's first thought. "And what a lovely face!"
She came in shyly. In her whole appearance there was a shrinking, timid gentleness, betokening refinement of feeling. A slender, lady-like girl, in a plain, dark travelling suit and a black bonnet lined and tied with pink, a little lace border shading her nut-brown hair. The bonnets in those days set off a pretty face better than do these modern ones. That's what the Squire tells us.
Mrs. Carradyne advanced and shook hands cordially; Eliza bent her head slightly from where she stood; Harry Carradyne stood up, a pleasant welcome in his blue eyes and in his voice, as he laughingly congratulated her upon the ancient Evesham fly not having come to grief en route. Kate Dancox pressed forward.
"Are you my new governess?"
The young lady smiled and said she believed so.
"Aunt Eliza hates governesses; so do I. Do you expect to make me obey you?"
The governess blushed painfully; but took courage to say she hoped she should. Harry Carradyne thought it the very loveliest blush he had ever seen in all his travels, and she the sweetest-looking girl.
And when Captain Monk came in he quite took to her appearance, for he hated to have ugly people about him. But every now and then there was a look in her face, or in her eyes, that struck him as being familiar—as if he had once known someone who resembled her. Pleasing, soft dark hazel eyes they were as one could wish to see, with goodness in their depths.
Months passed away, and Miss West was domesticated in her new home. It was not all sunshine. Mrs. Carradyne, ever considerate, strove to render things agreeable; but there were sources of annoyance over which she had no control. Kate, when she chose, could be verily a little elf, a demon; as Mrs. Hamlyn often put it, "a diablesse." And she, that lady herself, invariably treated the governess with a sort of cool, indifferent contempt; and she was more often at Leet Hall than away from it. The Captain, too, gave way to fits of temper that simply terrified Miss West. Reared in the quiet atmosphere of a well-trained school, she had never met with temper such as this.
On the other hand—yes, on the other hand, she had an easy place of it, generous living, was regarded as a lady, and—she had learnt to love Harry Carradyne for weal or for woe.
But not—please take notice—not unsolicited. Tacitly, at any rate. If Mr. Harry's speaking blue eyes were to be trusted and Mr. Harry's tell-tale tones when with her, his love, at the very least, equalled hers. Eliza Hamlyn, despite the penetration that ill-nature generally can exercise, had not yet scented any such treason in the wind: or there would have blown up a storm.
Spring was to bring its events; but first of all it must be said that during the winter little Walter Hamlyn was taken ill at Leet Hall when staying there with his mother. The malady turned out to be gastric fever, and Mr. Speck was in constant attendance. For the few days that the child lay in danger, Eliza was almost wild. Theprogress to convalescence was very slow, lasting many weeks; and during that time Captain Monk, being much with the little fellow, grew to be fond of him with an unreasonable affection.
"I'm not sure but I shall leave Leet Hall to him," he suddenly observed to Eliza one day, not observing that Harry Carradyne was standing in the recess of the window. "Halloa! are you there, Harry? Well, it can't be helped. You heard what I said?"
"I heard, Uncle Godfrey: but I did not understand."
"Eliza thinks Leet Hall ought to go in the direct line—through her—to this child. What should you say to that?"
"What could he say to it?" imperiously demanded Eliza. "He is only your nephew."
Harry looked from one to the other in a sort of bewildered surprise: and there came a silence.
"Uncle Godfrey," he said, starting out of a reverie, "you have been good enough to make me your heir. It was unexpected on my part, unsolicited; but you did do it, and you caused me to leave the army in consequence, to give up my fair prospects in life. I am aware that this deed is not irrevocable, and certainly you have the right to do what you will with your own property. But you must forgive me for saying that you should have made quite sure of your intentions beforehand: before picking me up, if it be only to throw me down again."
"There, there, we'll leave it," retorted Captain Monk testily. "No harm's done to you yet, Mr. Harry; I don't know that it will be."
But Harry Carradyne felt sure that it would be; that he should be despoiled of the inheritance. The resolute look of power on Eliza's face, bent on him as he quitted the chamber, was an earnest of that. Captain Monk was not the determined man he had once been; that was over.
"A pretty kettle of fish, this is," ruefully soliloquised Harry, as he marched along the corridor. "Eliza's safe to get her will; no doubt of that. And I? what am I to do? I can't repurchase and go back amongst them again like a returned shilling; at least, I won't; and I can't turn Parson, or Queen's Counsel, or Cabinet Minister. I'm fitted for nothing now, that I see, but to be a gentleman-at-large; and what would the gentleman's income be?"
Standing at the corridor window, softly whistling, he ran over ways and means in his mind. He had a pretty house of his own, Peacock's Range, formerly his father's, and about four hundred a-year. After his mother's death it would not be less than a thousand a-year.
"That means bread and cheese at present. Later—Heyday, young lady, what's the matter?"
The school-room door, close by, had opened with a burst, and Miss Kate Dancox was flying down the stairs—her usual progress theminute lessons were over. Harry strolled into the room. The governess was putting the littered table straight.
"Any admission, ma'am?" cried he quaintly, making for a chair. "I should like to ask leave to sit down for a bit."
Alice West laughed, and stirred the fire by way of welcome; he was a very rare visitor to the school-room. The blaze, mingling with the rays of the setting sun that streamed in at the window, played upon her sweet face and silky brown hair, lighted up the bright winter dress she wore, and the bow of pink ribbon that fastened the white lace round her slender, pretty throat.
"Are you so much in need of a seat?" she laughingly asked.
"Indeed I am," was the semi-grave response. "I have had a shock."
"A very sharp one, sir?"
"Sharp as steel. Really and truly," he went on in a different tone, as he left the chair and stood up by the table facing her; "I have just heard news that may affect my whole future life; may change me from a rich man to a poor one."
"Oh, Mr. Carradyne!" Her manner had changed now.
"I was the destined inheritor, as you know—for I'm sure nobody has been reticent upon the subject—of these broad lands," with a sweep of the hand towards the plains outside. "Captain Monk is now pleased to inform me that he thinks of substituting for me Mrs. Hamlyn's child."
"But would not that be very unjust?"
"Hardly fair—as it seems to me. Considering that my good uncle obliged me to give up my own prospects for it."
She stood, her hands clasped in sympathy, her face full of earnest sadness. "How unkind! Why, it would be cruel!"
"Well, I confess I felt it to be so at the first blow. But, standing at the outside window yonder to pull myself together, a ray or two of light crept in, showing me that it may be for the best after all. 'Whateveris, is right,' you know."
"Yes," she slowly said—"if you can think so. But, Mr. Carradyne, should you not have anything at all?—anything to live upon after Captain Monk's death?"
"Just a trifle, I calculate, as the Americans say—and it is calculating I have been—that I need not altogether starve. Would you like to know how much it will be?"
"Oh, please don't laugh at me!"—for it suddenly struck the girl that he was laughing, perhaps in reproof, and that she had spoken too freely. "I ought not to have asked that; I was not thinking—I was too sorry to think."
"But I may as well tell you, if you don't mind. I have a very pretty little place, which you have seen and heard of, called by that delectable title Peacock's Range—"
"Is Peacock's Range yours?" she interrupted, in surprise. "I thought it belonged to Mr. Peveril."
"Peacock's Range is mine and was my father's before me, Miss Alice. It was leased to Peveril for a term of years, but I fancy he would be glad to give it up to-morrow. Well, I have Peacock's Range and about four hundred pounds a-year."
Her face brightened. "Then you need not talk about starving," she said, gaily.
"And, later, I shall have altogether about a thousand a-year. Though I hope it will be very long before it falls to me. Do you think two people might venture to set up at Peacock's Range, and keep, say, a couple of servants upon four hundred a-year? Could they exist upon it?"
"Oh, dear, yes," she answered eagerly, quite unconscious of his drift. "Did you mean yourself and some friend?"
He nodded.
"Why, I don't see how they could spend it all. There'd be no rent to pay. And just think of all the fruit and vegetables in the garden there!"
"Then I take you at your word, Alice," he cried impulsively, passing his arm round her waist. "You are the 'friend.' My dear, I have long wanted to ask you to be my wife, and I did not dare. This place, Leet Hall, encumbered me: for I feared the opposition that I, as its heir, should inevitably meet."
She drew away from him, with doubting, frightened eyes. Mr. Harry Carradyne brought all the persuasion of his own dancing blue ones to bear upon her. "Surely, Alice, you will not say me nay!"
"I dare not say yes," she whispered.
"What are you afraid of?"
"Of it altogether; of your friends. Captain Monk would—would—perhaps—turn me out. And there's Mrs. Carradyne!"
Harry laughed. "Captain Monk can have no right to any voice in my affairs, once he throws me off; he cannot expect to have a finger in everyone's pie. As to my mother—ah, Alice, unless I am much mistaken, she will welcome you with love."
Alice burst into tears: emotion was stirring her to its depths. "Pleaseto let it all be for a time," she pleaded. "If you speak it would be sure to lead to my being turned away."
"Iwilllet it be for a time, my darling, so far as speaking of it goes: for more reasons than one it may be better. But you are my promised wife, Alice; always recollect that."
And Mr. Harry Carradyne, bold as a soldier should be, took a few kisses from her unresisting lips to enforce his mandate.
Some time rolled on, calling for no particular record. Mr. Hamlyn's West Indian property, which was large and lucrative, had been giving him trouble of late; at least, those who had the care of it gave it,and he was obliged to go over occasionally to see after it in person. Between times he stayed with his wife at Peacock's Range; or else she joined him in London. Their town residence was in Bryanstone Square; a very pretty house, but not a large one.
It had been an unfavourable autumn; cold and wet. Snow had fallen in November, and the weather continued persistently dull and dreary. One gloomy afternoon towards the close of the year, Mrs. Hamlyn, shivering over her drawing-room fire, rang impatiently for more coal to be piled upon it.
"Has Master Walter come in yet?" she asked of the footman.
"No, ma'am. I saw him just now playing in front there."
She went to the window. Yes, running about the paths of the Square garden was the child, attended by his nurse. He was a sturdy little fellow. His mother, wishing to make him hardy, sent him out in all weathers, and the boy throve upon it. He was three years old now, but looked older; and he was as clever and precocious as some children are at five or six. Her heart thrilled with a strange joy only at the sight of him: he was her chief happiness in life, her idol. Whether he would succeed to Leet Hall she knew not; since the one time he mentioned it, Captain Monk had said no more upon the subject, for or against it.
Why need she have longed for it so fervently? to the setting at naught the expressed wishes of her deceased uncle and to the detriment of Harry Carradyne? It was just covetousness. As his father's eldest son (there were no younger ones yet) the boy would inherit a fine property, a large income; but his doting mother must give him Leet Hall as well.
Her whole heart went out to the child as she watched him playing there. A few snowflakes were beginning to fall, and dusk would soon be drawing on, but she would not call him in. Standing thus at the window, it gradually grew upon her to notice that something was standing back against the opposite rails, looking fixedly at the houses. A young, fair woman apparently, with a profusion of light hair; she was draped in a close dark cloak which served to conceal her figure, just as the thick veil she wore concealed her face.