“Do you ever meet with great trouble?” said Agnes.
It was quite an unexpected question. The Rector looked at her inquiringly, without the least perception what she meant.
“And when you meet with it,” continued the eager young champion, “what do you say?”
Now this was rather a difficult point with the Rector; it was not naturally his vocation to administer comfort to “great trouble”—in reality, when he was brought face to face with it, he had nothing to say. He paused a little, really embarrassed—thatwas the curate’s share of the business. Mr Rivers was very sorry for the poor people, but had, in fact, no consolation to give, and thought it much more important to play with his own mind and faculties in this solemn and conscientious trifling of his, than to attend to the griefs of others. He answered, after some hesitation: “There are different minds, of course, and different influences applicable to them. Every man consoles himself after his own fashion; for some there are the sublime consolations of Philosophy, for others the rites of the Church.”
“Some time,” said Agnes suddenly, turning upon him with earnest eyes,—“some time, when you come upon great sorrow, will you try the name of our Lord?”
The young man was startled again, and made no answer. He was struck by the singular conviction that this girl, inferior to himself in every point, had a certain real and sublime acquaintance with that wonderful Person of whom she spoke; that this was by no means belief in a doctrine, but knowledge of a glorious and extraordinary Individual, whose history no unbeliever in the world has been able to divest of its original majesty. The idea was altogether new to him; it found an unaccustomed way to the heart of the speculatist—that dormant power which scarcely any one all his life had tried to reach to. “I do not quite understand you,” he said somewhat moodily; but he did not attend to what she said afterwards. He pondered upon the problem by himself, and could not make anything of it. Arguments about doctrines and beliefs were patent enough to the young man. He was quite at home among dogmas and opinions—but, somehow, this personal view of the question had a strange advantage over him. He was not prepared for it; its entire and obvious simplicity took away the ground from under his feet. It might be easy enough to persuade a man out of conviction of a doctrine which he believed, but it was a different matter to disturb the identity of a person whom he knew.
Inthe mean time, immediate interest in their own occupations had pretty nearly departed from the inhabitants of the Old Wood Lodge. Agnes went on with her writing, Mamma with her work-basket, Marian with her dreams; but desk, and needle, and meditations were all alike abandoned in prospect of the postman, who was to be seen making his approach for a very long way, and was watched every day with universal anxiety. What Louis was doing, what Charlie was doing, the progress of the lawsuit, and the plans of Miss Anastasia, continually drew the thoughts of the household away from themselves. Even Rachel’s constant report of the unseen invalid, Miss Lucy, added to the general withdrawal of interest from the world within to the world without. They seemed to have nothing to do themselves in their feminine quietness. Mamma sat pondering over her work—about her husband, who was alone, and did notlike his solitude—about Charlie, who was intrusted with so great a commission—about “all the children”—every one of whom seemed to be getting afloat on a separate current of life. Agnes mused over her business with impatient thoughts about the Rector, with visions of Rachel and Miss Lucy in the invalid chamber, and vain attempts to look into the future and see what was to come. As for Marian, the charmed tenor of her fancies knew no alteration; she floated on, without interruption, in a sweet vision, full of a thousand consistencies, and wilder than any romance. Their conversation ran no longer in the ancient household channel, and was no more about their own daily occupations; they were spectators eagerly looking from the windows at nearly a dozen different conflicts, earnestly concerned, and deeply sympathetic, but not in the strife themselves.
Louis had entered Mr Foggo’s office; it seemed a strange destination for the young man. He did not tell any one how small a remuneration he received for his labours, nor how he contrived to live in the little room, in the second floor of one of those Islington houses. He succeeded in existing—that was enough; and Louis did not chafe at his restrained and narrow life, by reason of having all his faculties engaged and urgent in a somewhat fanciful mode, of securing the knowledge which he longed for concerninghis own birth and derivation. He had ascertained from Mr Atheling every particular concerning the Rivers family whichheknew. He had even managed to seek out some old servants once at the Hall, and with a keen and intense patience had listened to every word of a hundred aimless and inconclusive stories from these respectable authorities. He was compiling, indeed, neither more nor less than alifeof Lord Winterbourne—a history which he endeavoured to verify in every particular as he went on, and which was written with the sternest impartiality—a plain and clear record of events. Perhaps a more remarkable manuscript than that of Louis never existed; and he pursued his tale with all the zest, and much more than the excitement, of a romancer. It was a true story, of which he laboured to find out every episode; and there was a powerful unity and constructive force in the one sole unvarying interest of the tale. Mr Atheling had been moved to tell the eager youthallthe particulars of his early acquaintance with Lord Winterbourne—and still the story grew—the object of the whole being to discover, as Louis himself said, “what child there was whom it was his interest to disgrace and defame.” The young man followed hotly upon this clue. His thoughts had not been directed yet to anything resembling the discovery of MissAnastasia; it had never occurred to him that his disinheritance might be absolutely the foundation of all Lord Winterbourne’s greatness; but he hovered about the question with a singular pertinacity, and gave his full attention to it. Inspired by this, he did not consider his meagre meal, his means so narrow that it was the hardest matter in the world to eat daily bread. He pursued his story with a concentration of purpose which the greatest poet in existence might have envied. He was a great deal too much in earnest to think about the sentences in which he recorded what he learnt. The consequence was, that this memoir of Lord Winterbourne was a model of terse and pithy English—an unexampled piece of biography. Louis did not say a word about it to any one, but pursued his labour and his inquiry together, vainly endeavouring to find out a trace of some one whom he could identify with himself.
Meanwhile, Papa began to complain grievously of his long abandonment, and moved by Louis on one side, and by his own discomfort on the other, became very decided in his conviction that there was no due occasion for the absence of his family. There was great discontent in Number Ten, Bellevue, and there was an equal discontent, rather more overpowering, and quite as genuine, in the Old Wood Lodge, where Mamma and Marian vied with each other in anxiety,and thought no cause sufficiently important to keep them any longer from home. Agnes expressed no opinion either on one side or the other; she was herself somewhat disturbed and unsettled, thinking a great deal more about the Rector than was at all convenient, or to her advantage. After that piece of controversy, the Rector began to come rather often to the Lodge. He never said a word again touching that one brief breath of warfare, yet they eyed each other distrustfully, with a mutual consciousness of what had occurred, and might occur again. It was not a very lover-like point of union, yet it was a secret link of which no one else knew. Unconsciously it drew Agnes into inferences and implications, which were spoken at the Rector; and unconsciously it drew him to more sympathy with common trials, and a singular inclination to experiment, as Agnes had bidden him, with her sublime talisman—that sole Name given under heaven, which has power to touch into universal brotherhood the whole universal heart of man.
Whilethe Lodge remained in this ferment of suspense and uncertainty, Miss Anastasia had taken her measures for its defence and preservation. It was wearing now towards the end of October, and winter was setting in darkly. There was no more than a single rose at a time now upon the porch, and these roses looked so pale, pathetic, and solitary, that it was rather sad than pleasant to see the lonely flowers. On one of the darkest days of the month, when they were all rather more listless than usual, Miss Anastasia’s well-known equipage drew up at the gate. They all hailed it with some pleasure. It was an event in the dull day and discouraging atmosphere. She came in with her loud cheerful voice, her firm step, her energetic bearing—and even the prettyfiancéeMarian raised her pretty stooping shoulders, and woke up from her fascinated musing. Rachel alone drew shyly towards the door; she had notovercome a timidity very nearly approaching fear, which she always felt in presence of Miss Anastasia. She was the only person who ever entered this house who made Rachel remember again her life at the Hall.
“I came to show you a letter from your boy; read it while I talk to the children,” said Miss Rivers. Mrs Atheling took the letter with some nervousness; she was a little fluttered, and lost the sense of many of the expressions; yet lingered over it, notwithstanding, with pride and exultation. She longed very much to have an opportunity of showing it to Agnes; but that was not possible; so Mrs Atheling made a virtuous attempt to preserve in her memory every word that her son said. This was Charlie’s letter to his patroness:—
“Madam,—I have not made very much progress yet. The courier, Jean Monte, is to be heard of as you suggested; but it is only known on the road that he lives in Switzerland, and keeps some sort of inn in one of the mountain villages. No more as yet; but I will find him out. I have to be very cautious at present, because I am not yet well up in the language. The town is a ruinous place, and I cannot get the parish registers examined as one might do in England. There are several families of decayed nobles in theimmediate neighbourhood, and, so far as I can hear, Giulietta is a very common name. Travelling Englishmen, too, are so frequent that there is a good deal of difficulty. I am rather inclined to fix upon the villa Remori, where there are said to have been several English marriages. It has been an extensive place, but is now broken down, decayed, and neglected; the family have a title, and are said to be very handsome, but are evidently very poor. There is a mother and a number of daughters, only one or two grown up; I try to make acquaintance with the children. The father died early, and had no brothers. I think possibly this might be the house of Giulietta, as there is no one surviving to look after the rights of her children, did she really belong to this family. Of course, any relatives she had, with any discretion, would have inquired out her son in England; so I incline to think she may have belonged to the villa Remori, as there are only women there.“I have to be very slow on account of my Italian—this, however, remedies itself every day. I shall not think of looking for Monte till I have finished my business here, and am on my way home. The place is unprosperous and unhealthy, but it is pretty, and rather out of the way—few travellers came, they tell me, till within ten years ago; but I have not met with any one yet whose memory carried back at allclearly for twenty years. A good way out of the town, near the lake, there is a kind of mausoleum which interests me a little, not at all unlike the family tomb at Winterbourne; there is no name upon it; it lies quite out of the way, and I cannot ascertain that any one has ever been buried there; but something may be learned about it, perhaps, by-and-by.“When I ascertain anything of the least importance, I shall write again.“Madam,“Your obedient Servant,“Charles Atheling.”
“Madam,—I have not made very much progress yet. The courier, Jean Monte, is to be heard of as you suggested; but it is only known on the road that he lives in Switzerland, and keeps some sort of inn in one of the mountain villages. No more as yet; but I will find him out. I have to be very cautious at present, because I am not yet well up in the language. The town is a ruinous place, and I cannot get the parish registers examined as one might do in England. There are several families of decayed nobles in theimmediate neighbourhood, and, so far as I can hear, Giulietta is a very common name. Travelling Englishmen, too, are so frequent that there is a good deal of difficulty. I am rather inclined to fix upon the villa Remori, where there are said to have been several English marriages. It has been an extensive place, but is now broken down, decayed, and neglected; the family have a title, and are said to be very handsome, but are evidently very poor. There is a mother and a number of daughters, only one or two grown up; I try to make acquaintance with the children. The father died early, and had no brothers. I think possibly this might be the house of Giulietta, as there is no one surviving to look after the rights of her children, did she really belong to this family. Of course, any relatives she had, with any discretion, would have inquired out her son in England; so I incline to think she may have belonged to the villa Remori, as there are only women there.
“I have to be very slow on account of my Italian—this, however, remedies itself every day. I shall not think of looking for Monte till I have finished my business here, and am on my way home. The place is unprosperous and unhealthy, but it is pretty, and rather out of the way—few travellers came, they tell me, till within ten years ago; but I have not met with any one yet whose memory carried back at allclearly for twenty years. A good way out of the town, near the lake, there is a kind of mausoleum which interests me a little, not at all unlike the family tomb at Winterbourne; there is no name upon it; it lies quite out of the way, and I cannot ascertain that any one has ever been buried there; but something may be learned about it, perhaps, by-and-by.
“When I ascertain anything of the least importance, I shall write again.
“Madam,“Your obedient Servant,“Charles Atheling.”
Charlie had never written to a lady before; he was a little embarrassed about it the first time, but this was his second epistle, and he had become a little more at his ease. The odd thing about the correspondence was, that Charlie did not express either hopes or opinions; he did not say what he expected, or what were his chances of success—he only reported what he was doing; any speculation upon the subject, more especially at this crisis, would have been out of Charlie’s way.
“What do you call your brother when you write to him?” asked Miss Anastasia abruptly, addressing Rachel.
Rachel coloured violently; she had so nearly forgottenher old system—her old representative character—that she was scarcely prepared to answer such a question. With a mixture of her natural manner and her assumed one, she answered at last, in considerable confusion, “We call him Louis; he has no other name.”
“Then he will not take the name of Rivers?” said Miss Anastasia, looking earnestly at the shrinking girl.
“We have no right to the name of Rivers,” said Rachel, drawing herself up with her old dignity, like a little queen. “My brother is inquiring who we are. We never belonged to Lord Winterbourne.”
“Your brother is inquiring? So!” said Miss Anastasia; “and he is perfectly right. Listen, child—tell him this from me—do you know what Atheling means? It means noble, illustrious, royally born. In the old Saxon days the princes were called Atheling. Tell your brother that Anastasia Rivers bids him bear this name.”
This address entirely confused Rachel, who remained gazing at Miss Rivers blankly, unable to say anything. Marian stirred upon her chair with sudden eagerness, and put down her needlework, gazing also, but after quite a different fashion, in Miss Anastasia’s face. The old lady caught the look of both, but only replied to the last.
“You are startled, are you, little beauty? Did you never hear the story of Margaret Atheling, who was an exile, and a saint, and a queen? My child, I should be very glad to make sure that you were a true Atheling too.”
Marian was not to be diverted from her curiosity by any such observation. She cast a quick look from Miss Rivers to her mother, who was pondering over Charlie’s letter, and from Mrs Atheling to Agnes, who had not been startled by the strange words of Miss Anastasia; and suspicion, vague and unexplainable, began to dawn in Marian’s mind.
“The autumn assizes begin to-day,” said Miss Anastasia with a little triumph; “too soon, as Mr Temple managed it, for your case to have a hearing; it must stand over till the spring now—six months—by that time, please God; we shall be ready for them. Agnes Atheling, how long is it since you began to be deaf and blind?”
Agnes started with a little confusion, and made a hurried inarticulate answer. There was a little quiet quarrel all this time going on between Agnes and Miss Rivers; neither the elder lady nor the younger was quite satisfied—Agnes feeling herself something like a conspirator, and Miss Anastasia a little suspicious of her, as a disaffected person in the interest of the enemy. But Mamma by this time had come to an end ofCharlie’s letter, and, folding it up very slowly, gave it back to its proprietor. The good mother did not feel it at all comfortable to keep this information altogether to herself.
“It is not to be tried till spring!” said Mrs Atheling, who had caught this observation. “Then, I think, indeed, Miss Rivers, we must go home.”
And, to Mamma’s great comfort, Miss Anastasia made no objection. She said kindly that she should miss her pleasant neighbours. “But what may be in the future, girls, no one knows,” said Miss Rivers, getting up abruptly. “Now, however, before this storm comes on, I am going home.”
Afterthis the family made immediate preparations for their return. Upon this matter Rachel was extremely uncomfortable, and much divided in her wishes. Miss Lucy, who had been greatly solaced by the gentle ministrations of this mild little girl, insisted very much that Rachel should remain with her until her friends returned in spring, or till her brother had “established himself.” Rachel herself did not know what to do; and her mind was in a very doubtful condition, full of self-arguments. She did not think Louis would be pleased—that was the dark side. The favourable view was, that she was of use to the invalid, and remaining with her would be “no burden to any one.” Rachel pondered, wept, and consulted over it with much sincerity. From the society of these young companions, whom the simple girl loved, and who were so near her own age; from Louis, her lifelong ruler and example; from the kindly fireside, to which she had looked forwardso long—it was hard enough to turn to the invalid chambers, the old four-volume novels, and poor pretty old Miss Lucy’s “disappointment in love.” “And if afterwards I had to sing or give lessons, I should forget all my music there,” said Rachel. Mrs Atheling kindly stepped in and decided for her. “It might be a very good thing for you, my dear, if you had no friends,” said Mrs Atheling. Rachel did not know whether to be most puzzled or grateful; but to keep a certain conscious solemnity out of her tone—a certain mysterious intimation of something great in the future—was out of the power of Mamma.
Accordingly, they all began their preparations with zeal and energy, the only indifferent member of the party being Agnes, who began to feel herself a good deal alone, and to suspect that she was indeed in the enemy’s interest, and not so anxious about the success of Louis as she ought to have been. A few days after Miss Anastasia’s visit, the Rector came to find them in all the bustle of preparation. He appeared among them with a certain solemnity, looking haughty and offended, and received Mrs Atheling’s intimation of their departure with a grave and punctilious bow. He had evidently known it before, and he looked upon it, quite as evidently, as something done to thwart him—a personal offence to himself.
“Miss Atheling perhaps has literary occupation tocall her to town,” suggested Mr Rivers, returning to his original ground of displeasure, and trying to get up a little quarrel with Agnes. She did not reply to him, but her mother did, on her behalf.
“Indeed, Mr Rivers, it does not make any difference to Agnes; she can write anywhere,” said Mrs Atheling. “I often wonder how she gets on amongst us all; but my husband has been left so long by himself—and now that the trial does not come on till spring, we are all so thankful to get home.”
“The trial comes on in spring?—I shall endeavour to be at home,” said the Rector, “if I can be of any service. I am myself going to town; I am somewhat unsettled in my plans at present—but my friends whom I esteem most are in London—people of scientific and philosophical pursuits, who cannot afford to be fashionable. Shall I have your permission to call on you when we are all there?”
“I am sure we shall all be very much pleased,” said Mrs Atheling, flattered by his tone—“you know what simple people we are, and we do not keep any company; but we shall be very pleased, and honoured too, to see you as we have seen you here.”
Agnes was a little annoyed by her mother’s speech. She looked up with a flash of indignation, and met, not the eyes of Mrs Atheling, but those of Mr Rivers, who was looking at her. The eyes had a smile inthem, but there was perfect gravity upon the face. She was confused by the look, though she did not know why. The words upon her lip were checked—she looked down again, and began to arrange her papers with a rising colour. The Rector’s look wandered from her face, because he perceived that he embarrassed her, but went no further than her hands, which were pretty hands enough, yet nothing half so exquisite as those rose-tipped fairy fingers with which Marian folded up her embroidery. The Rector had no eyes at all for Marian; but he watched the arrangement of Agnes’s papers with a quite involuntary interest—detected in an instant when she misplaced one, and was very much disposed to offer his own assistance, relenting towards her. What he meant by it—he who was really the heir of Lord Winterbourne, and by no means unaware of his own advantages—Mrs Atheling, looking on with quick-witted maternal observation, could not tell.
Then quite abruptly—after he had watched all Agnes’s papers into the pockets of her writing-book—he rose to go away; then he lingered over the ceremony of shaking hands with her, and held hers longer than there was any occasion for. “Some time I hope to resume our argument,” said Mr Rivers. He paused till she answered him: “I do not know about argument,” said Agnes, looking up with a flash of spirit—“I should be foolish to try it against you. I know only what I trust in—that is not argument—I never meant it so.”
He made no reply save by a bow, and went away leaving her rather excited, a little angry, a little moved. Then they began to plague her with questions—What did Mr Rivers mean? There was nothing in the world which Agnes knew less of than what Mr Rivers meant. She tried to explain, in a general way, the conversation she had with him before, but made an extremely lame explanation, which no one was satisfied with, and escaped to her own room in a very nervous condition, quite disturbed out of her self-command. Agnes did not at all know what to make of her anomalous feelings. She was vexed to the heart to feel how much she was interested, while she disapproved so much, and with petulant annoyance exclaimed to herself, that she wanted no more argument if he would but let her alone!
And then came the consideration of Lionel’s false hope—the hope which some of these days would be taken from him in a moment. If she could only let him know what she knew, her conscience would be easy. As she thought of this, she remembered how people have been told in fables secrets as important; the idea flashed into her mind with a certain relief—then came the pleasure of creation, the gleam of lifeamong her maze of thoughts; the fancy brightened into shape and graceful fashion—she began unconsciously to hang about it the shining garments of genius—and so she rose and went about her homely business, putting together the little frocks of Bell and Beau, ready to be packed, with the vision growing and brightening before her eyes. Then the definite and immediate purpose of it gave way to a pure native delight in the beautiful thing which began to grow and expand in her thoughts. She went down again, forgetting her vexation. If it did no other good in the world, there was the brightest stream of practical relief and consolation in Agnes Atheling’s gift.
Oncemore the Old Wood Lodge stood solitary under the darkening wintry skies, with no bright faces at its windows, nor gleam of household firelight in the dim little parlour, where Miss Bridget’s shadow came back to dwell among the silence, a visionary inhabitant. Once more Hannah sat solitary in her kitchen, lamenting that it was “lonesomer nor ever,” and pining for the voices of the children. Hannah would have almost been content to leave her native place and her own people to accompany the family to London; but that was out of the question; and, spite of all Mamma’s alarms, Susan had really conducted herself in a very creditable manner under her great responsibility as housekeeper at Bellevue.
The journey home was not a very eventful one. They were met by Papa and Louis on their arrival,and conducted in triumph to their own little house, which did not look so attractive, by any means, as it used to do. Then they settled down without more ado into the family use and wont. With so great a change in all their prospects and intentions—so strange an enlargement of their horizon and extension of their hopes—it was remarkable how little change befell the outward life and customs of the family. Marian, it was true, was “engaged;” but Marian might have been engaged to poor Harry Oswald without any great variation of circumstances; and that was always a possibility lying under everybody’s eyes. It did not yet disturb thehabitsof the family; but this new life which they began to enter—this life of separated and individual interest—took no small degree of heart and spirit out of those joint family pleasures and occupations into which Marian constantly brought a reference to Louis, which Agnes passed through with a preoccupied and abstracted mind, and from which Charlie was far away. The stream widened, the sky grew broader, yet every one had his or her separate and peculiar firmament. A maturer, perhaps, and more complete existence was opening upon them; but the first effect was by no means to increase the happiness of the family. They loved each other as well as ever; but they were not so entirely identical. It was a disturbing influence, foreign and unusual; it was notthe quiet, assured, undoubting family happiness of the days which were gone.
Then there were other unaccordant elements. Rachel, whom Mrs Atheling insisted upon retaining with them, and who was extremely eager on her own part to find something to do, and terrified to think herself a burden upon her friends; and Louis, who contented himself with his pittance of income, but only did his mere duty at the office, and gave all his thoughts and all his powers to the investigation which engrossed him. Mrs Atheling was very much concerned about Louis. If all this came to nothing, as was quite probable, she asked her husband eagerly what was to become of these young people—what were they to do? For at present, instead of trying to get on, Louis, who had no suspicion of the truth, gave his whole attention to a visionary pursuit, and was content to have the barest enough which he could exist upon. Mr Atheling shook his head, and could not make any satisfactory reply. “There was no disposition to idleness about the boy,” Papa said, with approval. “He was working very hard, though he might make nothing by it; and when this state of uncertainty was put an end to, then they should see.”
And Marian of late had become actively suspicious and observant. Marian attacked her mother boldly, and without concealment. “Mamma, it is somethingabout Louis that Charlie has gone abroad for!” she said, in an unexpected sally, which took the garrison by surprise.
“My dear, how could you think of such a thing?” cried the prudent Mrs Atheling. “What could Miss Anastasia have to do with Louis? Why, she never so much as saw him, you know. You must, by no means, take foolish fancies into your head. I daresay, after all, he must belong to Lord Winterbourne.”
Marian asked no more; but she did not fail to communicate her suspicions to Louis at the earliest opportunity. “I am quite sure,” said Marian, not scrupling even to express her convictions in presence of Agnes and Rachel, “that Charlie has gone abroad for something about you.”
“Something about me!” Louis was considerably startled; he was even indignant for a moment. He did not relish the idea of having secret enterprises undertaken for him, or to know less about himself than Marian’s young brother did. “You must be mistaken,” he said, with a momentary haughtiness. “Charlie is a very acute fellow, but I do not see that he is likely to trouble himself about me.”
“Oh, but it was Miss Anastasia,” said Marian, eagerly.
Then Louis coloured, and drew himself up. Hisfirst idea was that Miss Anastasia looked for evidence to prove him the son of Lord Winterbourne; and he resented, with natural vehemence, the interference of the old lady. “We are come to a miserable pass, indeed,” he said, with bitterness, “when people investigate privately to prove this wretched lie against us.”
“But you do not understand,” cried Rachel. “Oh, Louis, I never told you what Miss Anastasia said. She said you were to take the name of Atheling, because it meant illustrious, and because the exiled princes were named so. Both Marian and Agnes heard her. She is a friend, Louis. Oh, I am sure, if she is inquiring anything, it is all for our good!”
The colour rose still higher upon Louis’s cheek. He did not quite comprehend at the moment this strange, sudden side-light which glanced down upon the question which was so important to him. He did not pause to follow, nor see to what it might lead; but it struck him as a clue to something, though he was unable to discover what that something was. Atheling! the youth’s imagination flashed back in a moment upon those disinherited descendants of Alfred, the Edgars and Margarets, who, instead of princely titles, bore only that addition to their name. He was as near the truth at that moment as people wandering in profound darkness are often near thelight. Another step would have brought him to it; but Louis did not take that step, and was not enlightened. His heart rose, however, with the burning impatience of one who comes within sight of the goal. He started involuntarily with haste and eagerness. He was jealous that even friendly investigations should be the first to find out the mystery. He felt as if he would have a better right to anything which might be awaiting him, if he discovered it himself.
Upon all this tumult of thought and feeling, Agnes looked on, saying nothing—looked on, by no means enjoying her spectatorship and superior knowledge. It was a “situation” which might have pleased Mr Endicott, but it terribly embarrassed Agnes, who found it no pleasure at all to be so much wiser than her neighbours. She dared not confide the secret to Louis any more than she could to the Rector; and she would have been extremely unhappy between them, but for the relief and comfort of that fable, which was quickly growing into shape and form. It had passed out of her controlling hands already, and began to exercise over her the sway which a real created thing always exercises over the mind even of its author: it had ceased to be the direct personal affair she had intended to make it; it told its story, but after a more delicateprocess, and Agnes expended all her graceful fancy upon its perfection. She thought now that Louis might find it out as well as the Rector. It was an eloquent appeal, heart-warm and touching to them both.
AfterLouis, the most urgent business in the house of the Athelings was that of Rachel, who was so pertinaciously anxious to be employed, that her friends found it very difficult to evade her constant entreaties. Rachel’s education—or rather Rachel’s want of education—had been very different from that of Marian and Agnes. She had no traditions of respectability to deter her from anything she could do; and she had been accustomed to sing to the guests at Winterbourne, and concluded that it would make very little difference to her, whether her performance was in a public concert-room or a private assembly. “No one would care at all for me; no one would ever think of me or look at me,” said Rachel. “If I sang well, that would be all that any one thought of; and we need not tell Louis—and I would not mind myself—and no one would ever know.”
“But I have great objections to it, my dear,” saidMrs Atheling, with some solemnity. “I should rather a hundred times take in work myself, or do anything with my own hands, than let my girls do this. It is not respectable for a young girl. A public appearance! I should be grieved and ashamed beyond anything. I should indeed, my dear.”
“I am very sorry, Mrs Atheling,” said Rachel, wistfully; “but it is not anything wrong.”
“Not wrong—but not at all respectable,” said Mrs Atheling, “and unfeminine, and very dangerous indeed, and a discreditable position for a young girl.”
Rachel blushed, and was very much disconcerted, but still did not give up the point. “I thought it so when they tried to force me,” she said in a low tone; “but now, no one need know; and people, perhaps, might have me at their houses; ladies sing in company. You would not mind me doing that, Mrs Atheling? Or I could give lessons. Perhaps you think it is all vanity; but indeed they used to think me a very good singer, long ago. Oh, Agnes, do you remember that old gentleman at the Willow? that very old gentleman who used to talk to you? I think he could help me if you would only speak to him.”
“Mr Agar? I think he could,” said Agnes; “but, Rachel, mamma says you must not think of it. Marian does not do anything, and why should you?”
“I am no one’s daughter,” said Rachel, sadly.“You are all very kind; but Louis has only a very little money; and I will not—indeed I will not—be a burden upon you.”
“Rachel, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling, “do not speak so foolishly; but I will tell you what we can do. Agnes shall write down all about it to Miss Anastasia, and ask her advice, and whether she consents to it; and if she consents, I will not object any more. I promise I shall not stand in the way at all, if Miss Anastasia decides for you.”
Rachel looked up with a little wonder. “But Miss Anastasia has nothing to do with us,” said the astonished girl. “I would rather obey you than Miss Rivers, a great deal. Why should we consulther?”
“My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, with importance, “you must not ask any questions at present.I have my reasons.Miss Anastasia takes a great interest in you, and I have a very good reason for what I say.”
This made an end of the argument; but Rachel was extremely puzzled, and could not understand it. She was not very quick-witted, this gentle little girl; she began to have a certain awe of Miss Anastasia, and to suppose that it must be her superior wisdom which made every one ask her opinion. Rachel could not conclude upon any other reason, and accordingly awaited with a little solemnity the decision of Miss Rivers. They were in a singular harmony, all theseyoung people; not one of them but had some great question hanging in the balance, which they themselves were not sufficient to conclude upon—something that might change and colour the whole course of their lives.
Another event occurring just at this time, made Rachel for a time the heroine of the family. Charlie wrote home with great regularity, like a good son as he was. His letters were very short, and not at all explanatory; but they satisfied his mother that he had not taken a fever, nor fallen into the hands of robbers, and that was so far well. In one of these epistles, however, the young gentleman extended his brief report a little, to describe to them a family with which he had formed acquaintance. There were a lot of girls, Charlie said; and one of them, called Giulia Remori, was strangely like “Miss Rachel;” “not exactly like,” wrote Charlie,—“not like Agnes and Marian” (who, by the way, had only a very vague resemblance to each other). “You would not suppose them to be sisters; but I always think of Miss Rachel when I see this Signora Giulia. They say, too, she has a great genius for music, and I heard her sing once myself, like——; well, I cannot say what it was like. The most glorious music, I believe, under the skies.”
“Mamma, that cannot be Charlie!” said the girlssimultaneously; but it was Charlie, without any dispute, and Marian clapped her hands in triumph, and exclaimed that he must be in love; and there stood Rachel, very much interested, wistful, and smiling. The tender-hearted girl had the greatest propensity to make friendships. She received the idea of this foreign Giulia into her heart in a moment, and ran forth eagerly at the time of Louis’s usual evening visit to meet him at the gate, and tell him this little bit of romance. It moved Louis a great deal more deeply than it moved Rachel. This time his eye flashed to the truth like lightning. He began to give serious thought to what Marian had said of Charlie’s object, and of Miss Anastasia. “Hush, Rachel,” he said, with sudden gravity. “Hush, I see it; this is some one belonging to our mother.”
“Our mother!” The two orphans stood together at the little gate, silenced by the name. They had never speculated much upon this parent. It was one of the miseries of their cruel position, that the very idea of a dead mother, which is to most minds the most saintlike and holy imagination under heaven, brought to them their bitterest pang of disgrace and humiliation. Yet now Louis stood silent, pondering it with the deepest eagerness. A burning impatience possessed the young man; a violent colour rose over his face. He could not tolerate the idea of an unconcernedinquirer into matters so instantly momentous to himself. He was not at all amiable in his impulses; his immediate and wild fancy was to rush away, on foot and penniless, as he was; to turn off Charlie summarily from his mission, if he had one; and without a clue, or a guide, or a morsel of information which pointed in that direction, by sheer force of energy and desperation to find it out himself. It was misery to go in quietly to the quiet house, even to the presence of Marian, with such a fancy burning in his mind. He left Rachel abruptly, without a word of explanation, and went off to make inquiries about travelling. It was perfectly vain, but it was some satisfaction to the fever of his mind. Louis’s defection made Marian very angry; when he came next day they had their first quarrel, and parted in great distraction and misery, mutually convinced of the treachery and wretchedness of this world; but made it up again very shortly after, to the satisfaction of every one concerned. With these things happening day by day, with their impatient and fiery Orlando, always in some degree inflaming the house, it is not necessary to say how wonderful a revolution had been wrought upon the quiet habitudes of this little house in Bellevue.
Yetthe household felt, in spite of itself, a difference by no means agreeable between the Old Wood Lodge and Bellevue. The dull brick wall of Laurel House was not nearly so pleasant to look upon as that great amphitheatre with its maze of wan waters and willow-trees, where the sunshine flashed among the spires of Oxford; neither was Miss Willsie, kind and amusing as she was, at all a good substitute for Miss Anastasia. They had Louis, it was true, but Louis was in love, and belonged to Marian; and no one within their range was at all to be compared to the Rector. Accustomed to have their interest fixed, after their own cottage, upon the Old Wood House and Winterbourne Hall, they were a little dismayed, in spite of themselves, to see the meagreness and small dimensions even of Killiecrankie Lodge. It was a different world altogether—and they did not know at the first glance how to make the two compatible. The little house in the country, nowthat they had left it, grew more and more agreeable by comparison. Mrs Atheling forgot that she had thought it damp, and all of them, Mamma herself among the rest, began to think of their return in spring.
And as the winter went on, Agnes made progress with her fable. She did not write it carefully, but she did write it with fervour, and the haste of a mind concerned and in earnest. The story had altered considerably since she first thought of it. There was in it a real heir whom nobody knew, and a supposed heir, who was the true hero of the book. The real heir had a love-story, and the prettiestfiancéein the world; but about her hero Agnes was timid, presenting a grand vague outline of him, and describing him in sublime general terms; for she was not at all an experienced young lady, though she was an author, but herself regarded her hero with a certain awe and respect and imperfect understanding, as young men and young women of poetic conditions are wont to regard each other. From this cause it resulted that you were not very clear about the Sir Charles Grandison of the young novelist. Her pretty heroine was as clear as a sunbeam; and even the Louis of her story was definable, and might be recognised; but the other lay half visible, sometimes shining out in a sudden gleam of somewhat tremulous light, but for the mostpart enveloped in shadow: everybody else in the tale spoke of him, thought of him, and were marvellously influenced by him; but his real appearances were by no means equal to the importance he had acquired.
The sole plot of the story was connected with the means by which the unsuspected heir came to a knowledge of his rights, and gained his true place; and there was something considerably exciting to Agnes in her present exercise of the privilege of fiction, and the steps she took to make the title of her imaginary Louis clear. She used to pause, and wonder in the midst of it, whether such chances as these would befall the true Louis, and how far the means of her invention would resemble the real means. It was a very odd occupation, and interested her strangely. It was not very much of a story, neither was it written with that full perfection of style which comes by experience and the progress of years; but it had something in its faulty grace, and earnestness, and simplicity, which was perhaps more attractive than the matured perfectness of a style which had been carefully formed, and “left nothing to desire.” It was sparkling with youth, and it was warm from the heart. It went into no greater bulk than one small volume, which Mr Burlington put into glowing red cloth, embellished with two engravings, and ornamented with plenty of gilding. It came out, a wintry Christmas flower, making no such excitementin the house asHope Hazlewoodhad done; and Agnes had the satisfaction of handing over to Papa, to lock up in his desk in the office, a delightfully crisp, crackling, newly-issued fifty-pound note.
And Christmas had just given way to the New Year when the Rector made his appearance at Bellevue. He was still more eager, animated, and hopeful than he had been when they saw him last. His extreme high-church clerical costume was entirely abandoned; he still wore black, but it was not very professional, and he appeared in these unknown parts with books in his hands and smiles on his face. When he came into the little parlour, he did not seem at all to notice its limited dimensions, but greeted them all with an effusion of pleasure and kindness, which greatly touched the heart of Agnes, and moved her mother, in her extreme gratification and pride, to something very like tears. Mr Rivers inquired at once for Louis, with great gravity and interest, but shook his head when he heard what his present occupation was.
“This will not do; will he come and see me, or shall I wait upon him?” said the Rector with a subdued smile, as he remembered the youthful haughtiness of Louis. “I should be glad to speak to him about his prospects—here is my card—will you kindly ask him to dine with me to-night, alone? He is a young manof great powers; something better may surely be found for him than this lawyer’s office.”
Mrs Atheling was a little piqued in spite of herself. “My son, when he is at home, is there,” said the good mother; and her visitor did not fail to see the significance of the tone.
“He is not at home now—where is he?” said the Rector.
There was a moment’s hesitation. Agnes turned to look at him, her colour rising violently, and Mrs Atheling faltered in her reply.
“He has gone abroad to —— to make some inquiries,” said Mrs Atheling; “though he is so very young, people have great confidence in him; and—and it may turn out very important indeed, what he has gone about.”
Once more Agnes cast a troubled glance upon the Rector—he heard of it with such perfect unconcern—this inquiry which in a moment might strike his ambition to the dust.
He ceased at once speaking on this subject, which did not interest him. He said, turning to her, that he had brought some books about which he wanted Miss Atheling’s opinion. Agnes shrank back immediately in natural diffidence, but revived again, before she was aware, in all her old impulse of opposition. “If it is wrong to write books, is it right to form opinionsupon them?” said Agnes. Mr Rivers imperceptibly grew a little loftier and statelier as she spoke.
“I think I have explained my sentiments on that point,” said the Rector; “there is no one whose appreciation I should set so high a value on as that of an intelligent woman.”
It was Agnes’s turn to blush and say nothing, as she met his eye. When Mr Rivers said “an intelligent woman,” he meant, though the expression was not romantic, his own ideal; and there lay his books upon the table, evidences of his choice of a critic. She began to busy herself with them, looking quite vacantly at the title-pages; wondering if there was anything besides books, and controversies, and opinions, to be found in the Rector’s heart.
When Mrs Atheling, in her natural pride and satisfaction, bethought her of that pretty little book with its two illustrations, and its cover in crimson and gold, she brought a copy to the table immediately. “My dear, perhaps Mr Rivers might like to look at this?” said Mrs Atheling. “It has only been a week published, but people speak very well of it already. It is a very pretty story. I think you would like it—Agnes, my love, write Mr Rivers’ name.”
“No, no, mamma!” cried Agnes hurriedly; she put away the red book from her, and went away from the table in haste and agitation. Very true, it was writtenalmost for him—but she was dismayed at the idea of being called to write in it Lionel Rivers’ name.
He took up the book, however, and looked at it in the gravest silence.The Heir;—he read the title aloud, and it seemed to strike him; then without another word he put the little volume safely in his pocket, repeated his message to Louis, and a few minutes afterwards, somewhat grave and abstracted, took his leave of them, and hastened away.
TheRector became a very frequent visitor during the few following weeks at Bellevue. Louis had gone to see him, as he desired, and Mr Rivers anxiously endeavoured to persuade the youth to suffer himself to be “assisted.” Louis as strenuously resisted every proposal of the kind; he was toiling on in pursuit of himself, through his memoir of Lord Winterbourne—still eager, and full of expectation—still proud, and refusing to be indebted to any one. The Rector argued with him like an elder brother. “Let us grant that you are successful,” said Mr Rivers; “let us suppose that you make an unquestionable discovery, what position are you in to pursue it? Your sister, even—recollect your sister—you cannot provide for her.”
His sister was Louis’s grand difficulty; he bit his lip, and the fiery glow of shame came to his face. “Icannot provide for her, it is true. I am bitterly ashamed of it; but, at least, she is among friends.”
“You do me small credit,” said the Rector; “but I will not ask, on any terms, for a friendship which is refused to me. You are not even in the way of advancement; and to lose your time after this fashion is madness. Let me see you articled to these people whom you are with now; that is, at least, a chance, though not a great one. If I can accomplish it, will you consent to this?”
Louis paused a little, grateful in his heart, though his tongue was slow to utter his sentiments. “You are trying to do me a great service,” said the young man; “you think me a churl, and ungrateful, but you endeavour to benefit me against my will—is it not true? I am just in such a position that no miracle in the world would seem wonderful to me; it is possible, in the chances of the future, that we two may be set up against each other. I cannot accept this service from you—from you, or from any other. I must wait.”
The Rector turned away almost with impatience. “Do you suppose you can spend your life in this fashion—your life?” he exclaimed, with some heat.
“My life!” said Louis. He was a little startled with this conclusion. “I thank you,” he added abruptly, “for your help, for your advice, for your reproof—I thank you heartily, but I have no more to say.”
That was how the conversation ended. Lionel, grieved for the folly of the boy, smiling to himself at Louis’s strange delusion that he, who was the very beau-ideal of the race of Rivers, belonged to another house, went to his rest, with a mind disturbed, full of difficulties, and of ambition, working out one solemn problem, and touched with tender dreams; yet always remembering, with a pleasure which he could not restrain, the great change in his position, and that he was now, not merely the Rector, but the heir of Winterbourne. Louis, on his part, went home to his dark little lodging, with the swell and tumult of excitement in his mind, and could not sleep. He seemed to be dizzied with the rushing shadows of a crowd of coming events. He was not well; his abstinence, his studiousness, his change of place and life, had weakened his young frame; these rushing wings seemed to tingle in his ears, and his temples throbbed as if they kept time. He rose in the middle of the night, in the deep wintry silence and moonlight, to open his window, and feel the cold air upon his brow. There he saw the moonbeams falling softly, not on any imposing scene, but on the humble roof underneath whose shelter sweet voices and young hearts, devout and guileless, prayed for him every night; the thought calmed him into sudden humility and quietness; and, in his poverty, and hope, and youth, he returned to his humble bed, and slept.Lionel was waking too; but he did not know of any one who prayed forhimin all this cold-hearted world.
But the Rector became a very frequent visitor in Bellevue. He had read the little book—read it with a kind of startled consciousness, the first time, that it looked like a true story, and seemed somehow familiar to himself. But by-and-by he began to keep it by him, and, not for the sake of the story, to take it up idly when he was doing nothing else, and refer to it as a kind of companion. It was not, in any degree whatever, an intellectual display; he by no means felt himself pitted against the author of it, or entering into any kind of rivalship with her. The stream sparkled and flashed to the sunshine as it ran; but it flowed with a sweet spontaneous readiness, and bore no trace of artificial force and effort. It wanted a great many of the qualities which critics praise. There was no great visible strain of power, no forcible evidence of difficulties overcome. The reader knew very well thathecould not have done this, nor anything like it, yet his intellectual pride was not roused. It was genius solacing itself with its own romaunt, singing by the way; it was not talent getting up an exhibition for the astonishment, or the enlightenment, or the instruction of others. Agnes defeated her own purpose by the very means she had taken to procure it. The Rector forgot all about the story, thinking of the writer of it; hebecame indifferent to what she had to tell, but dwelt and lingered—not like a critic—like something very different—upon the cadence of her voice.
To tell the truth, between his visits to Bellevue, and his musings thereafter—his study of this little fable of Agnes’s, and his vague mental excursions into the future, Lionel Rivers, had he yielded to the fascination, would have found very near enough to do. But he was manful enough to resist this trance of fairyland. He was beginning to be “in love;” nobody could dispute it; it was visible enough to wake the most entire sympathy in the breasts of Marian and Rachel, and to make for the mother of the family wakeful nights, and a most uneasy pillow; but he was far from being at ease or in peace. His friends in London were of a class as different as possible from these humble people who were rapidly growing nearer than friends. They were all men of great intelligence, of great powers, scholars, philosophers, authorities—men who belonged, and professed to belong, to the ruling class of intellect, prophets and apostles of a new generation. They were not much given to believing anything, though some among them had a weakness for mesmerism or spiritual manifestations. They investigated all beliefs and faculties of believing, and received all marvellous stories, from the Catholic legends of the saints to the miracles of the New Testament, on onegeneral ground of indulgence, charitable and tender, as mythical stories which meant something in their day. Most of them wrote an admirable style—most of them occasionally said very profound things which nobody could understand; all of them were scholars and gentlemen, as blameless in their lives as they were superior in their powers; and all of them lived upon a kind of intellectual platform, philosophical demigods, sufficient for themselves, and looking down with a good deal of curiosity, a little contempt, and a little pity, upon the crowds who thronged below of common men.
These were the people to whom Lionel Rivers, in the first flush of his emancipation, had hastened from his high-churchism, and his country pulpit—some of them had been his companions at College—some had inspired him by their books, or pleased him by their eloquence. They were a brotherhood of men of great cultivation—his equals, and sometimes his superiors. He had yearned for their society when he was quite removed from it; but he was of a perverse and unconforming mind. What did he do now?
He took the strange fancy suddenly, and telling no man, of wandering through those frightful regions of crime and darkness, which we hide behind our great London streets. He went about through the miserable thoroughfares, looking at the miserable creatures there.What was the benefit to them of these polluted lives of theirs? They had their enjoyments, people said—their enjoyments! Their sorrows, like the sorrows of all humanity, were worthy human tears, consolation, and sympathy,—their hardships and endurances were things to move the universal heart; but their enjoyments—Heaven save us!—the pleasures of St Giles’s, the delights and amusements of those squalid groups at the street corners! If they were to have nothing more than that, what a frightful fate was theirs!
And there came upon the spectator, as he went among them in silence, a sudden eagerness to try that talisman which Agnes Atheling had bidden him use. It was vain to try philosophy there, where no one knew what it meant—vain to offer the rites of the Church to those who were fatally beyond its pale. Was it possible, after all, that the one word in the world, which could stir something human—something of heaven—in these degraded breasts, was that one sole unrivalledName?
He could not withdraw himself from the wretched scene before him. He went on from street to street with something of the consciousness of a man who carries a hidden remedy through a plague-stricken city, but hides his knowledge in his own mind, and does not apply it. A strange sense of guilt—a strange oppression by reason of this grand secret—anoverpowering passionate impulse to try the solemn experiment, and withal a fascinated watchfulness which kept him silent—possessed the mind of the young man.
He walked about the streets like a man doing penance; then he began to notice other passengers not so idle as himself. There were people here who were trying to break into the mass of misery, and make a footing for purity and light among it. They were not like his people;—sometimes they were poor city missionaries, men of very bad taste, not perfect in their grammar, and with no great amount of discretion. Even the people of higher class were very limited people often to the perception of Mr Rivers; but they were at work, while the demigods slept upon their platform. It would be very hard to make philosophers of the wretched population here. Philosophy did not break its heart over the impossibility, but calmly left the untasteful city missionaries, the clergymen, High Church and Low Church, who happened to be in earnest, and some few dissenting ministers of the neighbourhood, labouring upon a forlorn hope to make themmen.
All this moved in the young man’s heart as he pursued his way among these squalid streets. Every one of these little stirrings in this frightful pool of stagnant life was made in the name of Him whom Lionel Rivers once named with cold irreverence, andwhom Agnes Atheling, with a tender awe and appropriation, called “Our Lord.” This was the problem he was busy with while he remained in London. It was not one much discussed, either in libraries or drawing-rooms, among his friends; he discussed it by himself as he wandered through St Giles’s—silent—watching—with the great Name which he himself did not know, but began to cling to as a talisman, burning at his heart.
Whilethe Athelings at home were going on quietly, but with anxiety and disturbance of mind in this way, they were startled one afternoon by a sudden din and tumult out of doors, nearly as great as that which, not much short of a year ago, had announced the first call of Mrs Edgerley. It was not, however, a magnificent equipage like that of the fashionable patroness of literature which drew up at the door now. It was an antique job carriage, not a very great deal better to look at than that venerable fly of Islington, which was still regarded with respect by Agnes and Marian. In this vehicle there were two horses, tall brown bony old hacks, worthy the equipage they drew—an old coachman in a very ancient livery, and an active youth, fresh, rural, and ruddy, who sprang down from the creaking coach-box to assault, but in a moderate country fashion, the door of the Athelings. Rachel, who was peeping fromthe window, uttered an exclamation of surprise—“Oh, Agnes, look! it is Miss Anastasia’s man.”
It was so beyond dispute, and Miss Anastasia herself immediately descended from the creaking vehicle, swinging heavily upon its antiquated springs; she had a large cloak over her brown pelisse, and a great muff of rich sables, big enough to have covered from head to foot, like a case, either little Bell or little Beau. She was so entirely like herself in spite of those additions to her characteristic costume, and withal so unlike other people, that they could have supposed she had driven here direct from the Priory, had that been possible, without any commonplace intervention of railway or locomotive by the way. As the girls came to the door to meet her, she took the face—first of Agnes, then of Marian, and lastly of Rachel, who was a good deal dismayed by the honour—between her hands, thrusting the big muff, like a prodigious bracelet, up upon her arm the while, and kissed them with a cordial heartiness. Then she went into the little parlour to Mrs Atheling, who in the mean time had been gathering together the scattered pieces of work, and laying them, after an orderly fashion, in her basket. Then Papa’s easy-chair was wheeled to the fire for the old lady, and Marian stooped to find a footstool for her, and Agnes helped to loose the big cloak from her shoulders. Miss Anastasia’s heart was touched by the attentions of the young people. She laid her large hand caressingly on Marian’s head, and patted the cheek of Agnes. “Good children—eh? I missed them,” she said, turning to Mamma, and Mamma brightened with pleasure and pride as she whispered something to Agnes about the fire in the best room. Then, when she had held a little conversation with the girls, Miss Rivers began to look uneasy. She glanced at Mrs Atheling with a clear intention of making some telegraphic communication; she glanced at the girls and at the door, and back again at Mamma, with a look full of meaning. Mrs Atheling was not generally so dull of comprehension, but she was so full of the idea that Miss Anastasia’s real visit was to the girls, and so proud of the attraction which even this dignified old lady could not resist, that she could not at all consent to believe that Miss Rivers desired to be left alone with herself.
“There’s a hamper from the Priory,” said Miss Anastasia at last, abruptly; “among other country things there’s some flowers in it, children—make haste all of you and get it unpacked, and tell me what you think of my camellias! Make haste, girls!”
It was a most moving argument; but it distracted Mrs Atheling’s attention almost as much as that of her daughters, for the hamper doubtless containedsomething else than flowers. Mamma, however, remained decorously with her guest, despite the risk of breakage to the precious country eggs; and the girls, partly deceived, partly suspecting their visitor’s motive, obeyed her injunction, and hastened away. Then Miss Rivers caught Mrs Atheling by the sleeve, and drew her close towards her. “Have you heard from your boy?” said Miss Anastasia.
“No,” said Mrs Atheling with a sudden momentary alarm, “not for a week—has anything happened to Charlie?”
“Nonsense—what could happen to him?” cried the old lady, with a little impatience, “here is a note I had this morning—read it—he is coming home.”
Mrs Atheling took the letter with great eagerness. It was a very brief one:—