“Yes, I only came to-day,” said Rachel, who kept her eyes wistfully upon Mrs Atheling, though she spoke to Agnes. “They made me go to town after you left, and then kept mesolong at the Willows. Next season they say I am to come out, and somebody has offered me an engagement; but indeed, indeed,” cried Rachel, suddenly firing with one of her outbursts of unexpected energy, “I never will!”
The girls scarcely knew what answer to make in presence of their mother. They had not been trained to have independent friendships, and now waited anxiously, turning silent looks of appeal upon Mamma. Mamma all at once had become exceedingly industrious, and neither looked up nor spoke.
“But then you might live in London, perhaps, instead of here; and I should be very glad if you were near us,” said Agnes, with a good deal of timidity.Agnes, indeed, was not thinking what she said—her whole attention wandered to her mother.
“I do not mind for myself,” said Rachel, with a deep sigh. “I do not think I should care if there were a hundred people to hear me sing, instead of a dozen, for I know very well not one of them would care anything forme; but I have to remember Louis. I cannot disgrace Louis. It is bad enough for him as it is, without adding any more.”
Again there was a pause. Rachel’s poor little palpitating heart beat very loud and very high. “I thought I should be welcome when I came here,” she said, freezing half into her unnatural haughtiness, and half with an unconscious and pitiful tone of appeal; “but I never intruded upon any one—never! and if you do not wish me to be here, I can go away.”
She turned to go away as she spoke, her little figure rising and swelling with great subdued emotion; but Mrs Atheling immediately rose and stretched out her hand to detain her. “Do not go away, my dear; the girls are very fond of you,” said Mrs Atheling; and it cost this good mother, with her ideas of propriety, a very considerable struggle with herself to say these simple words.
Rachel stood before her a moment irresolute and uncertain, not appearing even to hear what Agnes andMarian, assured by this encouragement, hastened to say. The contest was violent while it lasted between Louis’s sister, who was his representative, and the natural little humble child Rachel, who had no pride, and only wanted the kindly succour of love; but at last nature won the day. She seized upon Mrs Atheling’s hand hastily and kissed it, with a pretty appealing gesture. “They do everything you tell them,” cried Rachel suddenly. “I never had any mother—never even when we were babies. Oh, will you tell me sometimes what I ought to do?”
It was said afterwards in the family that at this appeal Mamma, fairly vanquished and overcome, “almost cried;” and certain it was that Rachel immediately took possession of the stool beside her, and remained there not only during this visit, but on every after occasion when she came. She brightened immediately into all her old anxious communicativeness, concealing nothing, but pouring out her whole heart.
“Louis told me he had seen you in the garden,” said Rachel, with a low laugh of pleasure; “but when I asked which it was, he said he knew nothing of Agnes and Marian, but only he had seen a vision looking over the old gate. I never know what Louis means when he speaks nonsense,” said Rachel, with an unusual brightness; “and I am so glad. I never heard him speak so much nonsense since we came to the Hall.”
“And are you left in the Hall all by yourselves, two young creatures?” asked Mrs Atheling, with curiosity. “It must be very melancholy for you.”
“Not to be alone!” cried Rachel. “But very soon my lord is coming, with a great household of people; and then—I almost faint when I think upon it. What shall I do?”
“But, Rachel, Mrs Edgerley is very kind to you,” said Agnes.
Rachel answered after her usual fashion: “I do not care at all for myself—it is nothing to me; but Louis—oh, Louis!—if he is ever seen, the people stare at him as they would at a horse or a hound; and Lord Winterbourne tries to have an opportunity to speak and order him away, and when he shoots, he says he will put him in prison. And then Louis knows when they send for me, and sometimes stands under the window and hears me singing, and is white with rage to hear; and then he says he cannot bear it, and must go away, and then I go down upon my knees to him. I know how it will happen—everything, everything! It makes him mad to have to bear it. Oh, I wish I knew anything that I could do!”
“Mamma,” said Agnes earnestly, “Rachel used to tell us all this at the Willows. Do you not think he ought to go away?”
Mrs Atheling shook her head in perplexity; andinstead of answering, asked a question, “Does he not think it his duty, my dear, to obey your—your father?” said Mamma doubtfully.
“But he is not our father—oh no, no, indeed he is not! I should know he was not, even without Louis,” cried Rachel, unaware what a violent affirmation this was. “Louis says we could not have any father who would not be a disgrace to us, being as we are—and Louis must be right; but even though he might be a bad man, he could not be like Lord Winterbourne. He takes pleasure in humiliating us—he never cared for us all our life.”
There was something very touching in this entire identification of these two solitary existences which still were but one life; and Rachel was not Rachel till she came to the very last words. Before that, with the strange and constantly varying doubleness of her sisterly character, she had been once again the representative of Louis. One thing struck them all as they looked at her small features, fired with this sudden inspiration of Louis’s pride and spirit. About as different as possible—at the extreme antipodes of unresemblance—were their two visitors of this day,—this small little fairy, nervous, timid, and doubtful, fatherless, homeless, and without so much as a name, and that assured and commanding old lady, owning no superior, and as secure of her own position and authority as anyreigning monarch. Yes, they were about as dissimilar as two human creatures could be; yet the lookers-on were startled to recognise that subtle link of likeness, seldom a likeness of features, which people call family resemblance. Could it have come through this man, who was so repugnant to them both?
“They are all coming down on Monday next week,” said Rachel, “so we have just three days all to ourselves; and I thought, perhaps—perhaps, if you please to let me, I might bring Louis to-night?”
“Surely, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling.
“Oh, thank you!—thank you very much!” cried Rachel, once more bestowing an eager yet shy caress upon that motherly hand. “Louis is not like me at all,” added the anxious sister, afraid lest he should suffer by any preconceived notion of resemblance. “He is a man; and old Miss Bridget used to call him a noble brave boy, like what you read of in books. I do not know,” said Rachel, “I never read of any one, even in a book, like Louis. I think he ought to be a king.”
“But, indeed, Rachel,” said Agnes, “I am quite sure you are wrong. Ask mamma. You ought to let him go away.”
“Doyouthink so?” said Rachel wistfully, looking up in Mrs Atheling’s face.
But Mrs Atheling, though under any other circumstancesshe would of course have insisted upon the absolute propriety of a young man “making his own way,” paused, much perplexed, and answered nothing for the moment. “My dears,” she said at last, very doubtfully, “I do not know at all what to say. You should have some one who could advise you better; and it depends on the young gentleman’s inclinations, and a great many things beside that I am not able to judge of; for, indeed, though it may only be my old-fashioned notions, I do not like to hear of young people going against the advice of their friends.”
Itmay be supposed that, after all they had heard of him, the Athelings prepared themselves with a little excitement for the visit of Louis. Even Mrs Atheling, who disapproved of him, could not prevent herself from wandering astray in long speculations about the old lord—and it seemed less improper to wonder and inquire concerning a boy, whom the Honourable Anastasia herself inquired after and wondered at. As for the girls, Louis had come to be an ideal hero to both of them. The adored and wonderful brother of Rachel—though Rachel was only a girl, and scarcely so wise as themselves—the admiration of Miss Bridget, and the anxiety of Miss Anastasia, though these were only a couple of old ladies, united in a half deification of the lordly young stranger, whose own appearance and manner were enough to have awakened a certain romantic interest in their simple young hearts. Theywere extremely concerned to-night about their homely tea-table—that everything should look its best and brightest; and even contrived, unknown to Hannah, to filch and convert into a temporary cake-basket that small rich old silver salver, which had been wont to stand upon one of Miss Bridget’s little tables for cards. Then they robbed the garden for a sufficient bouquet of flowers; and then Agnes, half against her sister’s will, wove in one of those pale roses to Marian’s beautiful hair. Marian, though she made a laughing protest against this, and pretended to be totally indifferent to the important question, which dress she should wear? clearly recognised herself as the heroine of the evening.Sheknew very well, if no one else did, what was the vision which Louis had seen at the old gate, and came down to Miss Bridget’s prim old parlour in her pretty light muslin dress with the rose in her hair, looking, in her little flutter and palpitation, as sweet a “vision of delight” as ever appeared to the eyes of man.
And Louis came—came—condescended to take tea—stayed some two hours or so, and then took his departure, hurriedly promising to come back for his sister. This much-anticipated hero—could it be possible that his going away was the greatest relief to them all, and that no one of the little party felt at all comfortable or at ease till he was gone? It was moststrange and deplorable, yet it was most true beyond the possibility of question; for Louis, with all a young man’s sensitive pride stung into bitterness by his position, haughtily repelled the interest and kindness of all these women. He was angry at Rachel—poor little anxious timid Rachel, who almost looked happy when they crossed this kindly threshold—for supposing these friends of hers, who were all women, could be companions for him; he was angry at himself for his anger; he was in the haughtiest and darkest frame of his naturally impetuous temper, rather disposed to receive as an insult any overture of friendship, and fiercely to plume himself upon his separated and orphaned state. They were all entirely discomfited and taken aback by their stately visitor, whom they had been disposed to receive with the warmest cordiality, and treat as one whom it was in their power to be kind to. Though his sister did so much violence to her natural feelings that she might hold her ground as his representative, Louis did not by any means acknowledge her deputyship. In entire opposition to her earnest and anxious frankness, Louis closed himself up with a jealous and repellant reserve; said nothing he could help saying, and speaking, when he did speak, with a cold and indifferent dignity; did not so much as refer to the Hall or Lord Winterbourne, and checked Rachel, when she was about to do so,with an almost imperceptible gesture, peremptory and full of displeasure. Poor Rachel, constantly referring to him with her eyes, and feeling the ground entirely taken from beneath her feet, sat pale and anxious, full of apprehension and dismay. Marian, who was not accustomed to see her own pretty self treated with such absolute unconcern, took downFatherless Fannyfrom the bookshelf, and played with it, half reading, half “pretending,” at one of the little tables. Agnes, after many vain attempts to draw Rachel’s unmanageable brother into conversation, gave it up at last, and sat still by Rachel’s side in embarrassed silence. Mamma betook herself steadily to her work-basket. The conversation fell away into mere questions addressed to Louis, and answers in monosyllables, so that it was an extreme relief to every member of the little party when this impracticable visitor rose at last, bowed to them all, and hastened away.
Rachel sat perfectly silent till the sound of his steps had died upon the road; then she burst out in a vehement apologetic outcry. “Oh, don’t be angry with him—don’t, please,” said Rachel; “he thinks I have been trying to persuade you to be kind to him, and he cannot bearthateven from me; and indeed, indeed you may believe me, it is quite true! I never saw him, except once or twice, in such a humour before.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, with that dignified tone which Mamma could assume when it was necessary, to the utter discomfiture of her opponent—“my dear, we are very glad to see your brother, but of course it can be nothing whatever to us the kind of humour he is in; that is quite his own concern.”
Poor Rachel now, having no other resource, cried. She was only herself in this uncomfortable moment. She could no longer remember Louis’s pride or Louis’s dignity; for a moment the poor little subject heart felt a pang of resentment against the object of its idolatry, such as little Rachel had sometimes felt when Louis was “naughty,” and she, his unfortunate little shadow, innocently shared in his punishment; but now, as at every former time, the personal trouble of the patient little sister yielded to the dread that Louis “was not understood.” “You will know him better some time,” she said, drying her sorrowful appealing eyes. So far as appearances went at this moment, it did not seem quite desirable to know him better, and nobody said a word in return.
After this the three girls went out together to the garden, still lying sweet in the calm of the long summer twilight, under a young moon and some early stars. They did not speak a great deal. They were all considerably absorbed with thoughts of this samehero, who, after all, had not taken an effective method of keeping their interest alive.
And Marian did not know how or whence it was that this doubtful and uncertain paladin came to her side in the pleasant darkness, but was startled by his voice in her ear as she leaned once more over the low garden-gate. “It was here I saw you first,” said Louis, and Marian’s heart leaped in her breast, half with the suddenness of the words, half with—something else. Louis, who had been so haughty and ungracious all the evening—Louis, Rachel’s idol, everybody’s superior—yet he spoke low in the startled ear of Marian, as if that first seeing had been an era in his life.
“Come with us,” said Louis, as Rachel at sight of him hastened to get her bonnet—“come along this enchanted road a dozen steps into fairyland, and back again. I forget everything, even myself, on such a night.”
And they went, scarcely answering, yet more satisfied with this brief reference to their knowledge of him, than if the king had forsaken his nature, and become as confidential as Rachel. They went their dozen steps on what was merely the terraced pathway, soft, dark, and grassy, to Agnes and Rachel, who went first in anxious conversation, but which the other two,coming silently behind, had probably a different idea of. Marian at least could not help cogitating these same adjectives, with a faint inquiry within herself, what it was which could make this an enchanted road or fairyland.
Thenext morning, while the mother and daughters were still in the full fervour of discussion about this same remarkable Louis, he himself was seen for the first time in the early daylight passing the window, with that singular rapidity of step which he possessed in common with his sister. They ceased their argument after seeing him—why, no one could have told; but quite unresolved as the question was, and though Mamma’s first judgment, unsoftened by that twilight walk, was still decidedly unfavourable to Louis, they all dropped the subject tacitly and at once. Then Mamma went about various domestic occupations; then Agnes dropped into the chair which stood before that writing-book upon the table, and, with an attention much broken and distracted, gradually fell away into her own ideal world; and then Marian, leading Bell and Beau with meditative hands, glided forth softly to the garden, with downcast face and drooping eyes,full of thought. The children ran away from her at once when their little feet touched the grass, but Marian went straying along the paths, absorbed in her meditation, her pretty arms hanging by her side, her pretty head bent, her light fair figure gliding softly in shadow over the low mossy paling and the close-clipped hedge within. She was thinking only what it was most natural she should think, about the stranger of last night; yet now and then into the stream of her musing dropped, with the strangest disturbance and commotion, these few quiet words spoken in her ear,—“It was here I saw you first.” How many times, then, had Louis seen her? and why did he recollect so well that first occasion? and what did he mean?
While she was busy with these fancies, all at once, Marian could not tell how, as suddenly as he appeared last night, Louis was here again—here, within the garden of the Old Wood Lodge, walking by Marian’s side, a second long shadow upon the close-clipped hedge and the mossy paling, rousing her to a guilty consciousness that she had been thinking of him, which brought blush after blush in a flutter of “sweet shamefacednesse” to her cheek, and weighed down still more heavily the shy and dreamy lids of these beautiful eyes.
The most unaccountable thing in the world! butMarian, who had received with perfect coolness the homage of Sir Langham, and whose conscience smote her with no compunctions for the slaying of the gifted American, had strangely lost her self-possession to-day. She only replied in the sedatest and gravest manner possible to the questions of her companion—looked anxiously at the parlour window for an opportunity of calling Agnes, and with the greatest embarrassment longed for the presence of some one to end thistête-à-tête. Louis, on the contrary, exerted himself for her amusement, and was as different from the Louis of last night as it was possible to conceive.
“Ay, there it is,” said Louis, who had just asked her what she knew of Oxford—“there it is, the seat of learning, thrusting up all its pinnacles to the sun; but I think, if the world were wise, this glitter and shining might point to the dark, dark ignorance outside of it, even more than to the little glow within.”
Now this was not much in Marian’s way—but her young squire, who would have submitted himself willingly to her guidance had she given any, was not yet acquainted at all with the ways of Marian.
She said, simply looking at the big dome sullenly throwing off the sunbeams, and at the glancing arrowheads, of more impressible and delicate kind, “I think it is very pretty, with all those different spires and towers; but do you mean it is the poor people whoare so very ignorant? It seems as though people could scarcely help learning who live there.”
“Yes, the poor people—I mean all of us,” said Louis slowly, and with a certain painful emphasis. “A great many of the villagers, it is true, have never been to school; but I do not count a man ignorant who knows what he has to do, and how to do it, though he never reads a book, nor has pen in hand all his life. I save my pity for a more unfortunate ignorance than that.”
“But that is very bad,” said Marian decidedly, “because there is more to do than just to work, and we ought to know about—about a great many things. Agnes knows better than I.”
This was said very abruptly, and meant that Agnes knew better what Marian meant to say than she herself did. The youth at her side, however, showed no inclination for any interpreter. He seemed, indeed, to be rather pleased than otherwise with this breaking off.
“When I was away, I was in strange enough quarters, and learnt something about knowledge,” said Louis, “though not much knowledge itself—heaven help me! I suppose I was not worthy of that.”
“And did you really run away?” asked Marian, growing bolder with this quickening of personal interest.
“I really ran away,” said the young man, a hotflush passing for an instant over his brow; and then he smiled—a kind of daring desperate smile, which seemed to say “what I have done once I can do again.”
“And what did you do?” said Marian, continuing her inquiries: she forgot her shyness in following up this story, which she knew and did not know.
“What all the village lads do who get into scrapes and break the hearts of the old women,” said Louis, with a somewhat bitter jesting. “I listed for a soldier—but there was not even an old woman to break her heart for me.”
“Oh, there was Rachel!” cried Marian eagerly.
“Yes, indeed, there was Rachel, my good little sister,” answered the young man; “but her kind heart would have mended again had they let me alone. It would have been better for us both.”
He said this with a painful compression of his lip, which a certain wistful sympathy in the mind of Marian taught her to recognise as the sign of tumult and contention in this turbulent spirit. She hastened with a womanly instinct to direct him to the external circumstances again.
“And you were really a soldier—a—not an officer—only a common man.” Marian shrunk visibly from this, which was an actual and possible degradation, feared as the last downfall for the “wild sons” ofthe respectable families in the neighbourhood of Bellevue.
“Yes, I belong to a class which has no privileges; there was not a drummer in the regiment but was of better birth than I,” exclaimed Louis. “Ah, that is folly—I did very well. In Napoleon’s army, had I belonged to that day!—but in my time there was neither a general nor a war.”
“Surely,” said Marian, who began to be anxious about this unfortunate young man’s “principles,” “you would not wish for a war?”
“Should you think it very wrong?” said Louis with a smile.
“Yes,” answered the young Mentor with immediate decision; for this conversation befell in those times, not so very long ago, when everybody declared that such convulsions were over, and that it was impossible, in the face of civilisation, steamboats, and the electric telegraph, to entertain the faintest idea of a war.
They had reached this point in their talk, gradually growing more at ease and familiar with each other, when it suddenly chanced that Mamma, passing from her own sleeping-room to that of the girls, paused a moment to look out at the small middle window in the passage between them, and looking down, was amazed to see this haughty and misanthropic Louis passing quietly along the trim pathway of the garden,keeping his place steadily by Marian’s side. Mrs Atheling was not a mercenary mother, neither was she one much given to alarm for her daughters, lest they should make bad marriages or fall into unfortunate love; but Mrs Atheling, who was scrupulously proper, did not like to see her pretty Marian in such friendly companionship with “a young man in such an equivocal position,” even though he was the brother of her friend. “We may be kind to them,” said Mamma to herself, “but we are not to go any further; and, indeed, it would be very sad if he should come to more grief about Marian, poor young man;—how pretty she is!”
Yes, it was full time Mrs Atheling should hasten down stairs, and, in the most accidental manner in the world, step out into the garden. Marian, unfortunate child! with her young roses startled on her sweet young cheeks by this faint presaging breath of a new existence, had never been so pretty all her life.
WhatLouis did or said, or how he made interest for himself in the tender heart of Mamma, no one very well knows; yet a certain fact it was, that from henceforward Mrs Atheling, like Miss Anastasia, became somewhat contemptuous of Rachel in the interest of Louis, and pursued eager and long investigations in her own mind—investigations most fruitless, yet most persevering—touching the old lord and the unknown conclusion of his life. All that was commonly known of the last years of the last Lord Winterbourne was, that he had died abroad. Under the pressure of family calamity he had gone to Italy, and there, people said, had wandered about for several years, leading a desultory and unsettled life, entirely out of the knowledge of any of his friends; and when the present bearer of the title came home, bearing the intelligence of his elder brother’s death, the most entire oblivion closed down upon the foreign grave of the old lord. Backinto this darkness Mrs Atheling, who knew no more than common report, made vain efforts to strain her kindly eyes, but always returned with a sigh of despair. “No!” said Mamma, “he might be proud, but he was virtuous and honourable. I never heard a word said against the old lord. Louis is like him, but it must only be a chance resemblance. No! Mr Reginald was always a wild bad man. Poor things! theymustbe his children; for my lord, I am sure, never betrayed or deceived any creature all his life.”
But still she mused and dreamed concerning Louis; he seemed to exercise a positive fascination over all these elder people; and Mrs Atheling, more than she had ever desired a friendly gossip with Miss Willsie, longed to meet once more with the Honourable Anastasia, to talk over her conjectures and guesses respecting “the boy.”
In the mean time, Louis himself, relieved from that chaperonship and anxious introduction by his sister, which the haughty young man could not endure, made daily increase of his acquaintance with the strangers. He began to form part of their daily circle, expected and calculated upon; and somehow the family life seemed to flow in a stronger and fuller current with the addition of this vigorous element, the young man, who oddly enough seemed to belong to them rather more than if he had been their brother. He tookthe three girls, who were now so much like three sisters, on long and wearying excursions through the wood and over the hill. He did not mind tiring them out, nor was he extremely fastidious about the roads by which he led them; for, generous at heart as he was, the young man had the unconscious wilfulness of one who all his life had known no better guidance than his own will. Sometimes, in those long walks of theirs, the young Athelings were startled by some singular characteristic of their squire, bringing to light in him, by a sudden chance, things of which these gentle-hearted girls had never dreamed. Once they discovered, lying deep among the great fern-leaves, all brown and rusty with seed, the bright plumage of some dead game, for the reception of which a village boy was making a bag of his pinafore. “Carry it openly,” said Louis, at whose voice the lad started; “and if any one asks you where it came from, send them to me.” This was his custom, which all the village knew and profited by; he would not permit himself to be restrained from the sport, but he scorned to lift the slain bird, which might be supposed to be Lord Winterbourne’s, and left it to be picked up by the chance foragers of the hamlet. At the first perception of this, the girls, we are obliged to confess, were greatly shocked—tears even came to Marian’s eyes. She said it was cruel, in a little outbreak of terror, pity, and indignation.“Cruel—no!” said Louis: “did my gun give a sharper wound than one of the score of fashionable guns that will be waking all the echoes in a day or two?” But Marian only glanced up at him hurriedly with her shy eyes, and said, with a half smile, “Perhaps though the wound was no sharper, the poor bird might have liked another week of life.”
And the young man looked up into the warm blue sky over-head, all crossed and trellised with green leaves, and looked around into the deep September foliage, flaming here and there in a yellow leaf, a point of fire among the green. “I think it very doubtful,” he said, sinking his voice, though every one heard him among the noonday hush of the trees, “if I ever can be so happy again. Do you not suppose it would be something worth living for, instead of a week or a year of sadder chances, to be shot upon the wingnow?”
Marian did not say a word, but shrank away among the bushes, clinging to Rachel’s arm, with a shy instinctive motion. “Choose for yourself,” said Agnes; “but do not decide so coolly upon the likings of the poor bird. I am sure, hadhebeen consulted, he would rather have taken his chance of the guns next week than lain so quiet under the fern-leaves now.”
Whereupon the blush of youth for his own super-elevated and unreal sentiment came over Louis’s face. Agnes, by some amusing process common to younggirls who are elder sisters, and whom nobody is in love with, had made herself out to be older than Louis, and was rather disposed now and then to interfere for the regulation of this youth’s improper sentiments, and to give him good advice.
And Lord Winterbourne arrived: they discovered the fact immediately by the entire commotion and disturbance of everything about the village, by the noise of wheels, and the flight of servants, to be descried instantly in the startled neighbourhood. Then they began to see visions of sportsmen, and flutters of fine ladies; and even without these visible and evident signs, it would have been easy enough to read the information of the arrivals in the clouded and lowering brow of Louis, and in poor little Rachel’s distress, anxiety, and agitation. She, poor child, could no longer join their little kindly party in the evening; and when her brother came without her, he burst into violent outbreaks of rage, indignation, and despair, dreadful to see. Neither mother nor daughters knew how to soothe him; for it was even more terrible in their fancy than in his experience to be the Pariah and child of degradation in this great house. Moved by the intolerable burden of this his time of trial, Louis at last threw himself upon the confidence of his new friends, confided his uncertain and conflicting plans to them, relieved himself of his passionate resentment,and accepted their sympathy. Every day he came goaded half to madness, vowing his determination to bear it no longer; but every day, as he sat in the old easy-chair, with his handsome head half-buried in his hands, a solace, sweet and indescribable, stole into Louis’s heart; he was inspired to go at the very same moment that he was impelled to stay, by that same vision which he had first seen in the summer twilight at the old garden-gate.
Thisstate of things continued for nearly a fortnight after the arrival of Lord Winterbourne and his party at the Hall. They saw Mrs Edgerley passing through the village, and in church; but she either did not see them, or did not think it necessary to take any notice of the girls. Knowing better now the early connection between their own family and Lord Winterbourne’s, they were almost glad of this—almost; yet certainly it would have been pleasanter to declineherfriendly advances, than to find her, their former patroness, quietly dropping acquaintance withthem.
The grassy terraced road which led from Winterbourne village to the highway, and which was fenced on one side by the low wall which surrounded the stables and outhouses of the Rector, and by the hedge and paling of the Old Wood Lodge, but on the other side was free and open to the fields, which sloped down from it to the low willow-dropped banks of oneof those pale rivers, was not a road adapted either for vehicles or horses. The Rivers family, however, holding themselves monarchs of all they surveyed, stood upon no punctilio in respect to the pathway of the villagers, and the family temper, alike in this one particular, brought about a collision important enough to all parties concerned, and especially to the Athelings; for one of those days, when a riding-party from the Hall cantered along the path with a breezy waving and commotion of veils and feathers and riding-habits, and a pleasant murmur of sound, voices a little louder than usual under cover of the September gale mixed only with the jingle of the harness—for the horses’ hoofs struck no sound but that of a dull tread from the turf of the way—it pleased Miss Anastasia, at the very hour and moment of their approach, to drive her two grey ponies to the door of the Old Wood Lodge. Of course, it was the simplest “accident” in the world, this unpremeditated “chance” meeting. There was no intention nor foresight whatever in the matter. When she saw them coming, Miss Anastasia “growled” under her breath, and marvelled indignantly how they could dream of coming in such a body over the grassed road of the villagers, cutting it to pieces with their horses’ hoofs. She never paused to consider how the wheels of her own substantial vehicle ploughed the road; and for her part, theleader of the fair equestrians brightened with an instant hope of amusement. “Here is cousin Anastasia, the most learned old lady in Banburyshire. Delightful! Now, my love, you shall see the lion of the county,” cried Mrs Edgerley to one of her young companions, not thinking nor caring whether her voice reached her kinswoman or not. Lord Winterbourne, who was with his daughter, drew back to the rear of the group instinctively. Whatever was said of Lord Winterbourne, his worst enemy could not say that he was brave to meet the comments of those whom he had harmed or wronged.
Miss Anastasia stepped from her carriage in the most deliberate manner possible, nodded to Marian and Agnes, who were in the garden—and to whose defence, seeing so many strangers, hastily appeared their mother—and stood patting and talking to her ponies, in her brown cloth pelisse and tippet, and with that oddest of comfortable bonnets upon her head.
“Cousin Anastasia, I vow! You dear creature, where have you been all these ages? Would any one believe it? Ah, how delightful to live always in the country; what a penalty we pay for town and its pleasures! Could any one suppose that my charming cousin was actually older than me?”
And the fashionable beauty, though she did beginto be faded, threw up her delicate hands with their prettiest gesture, as she pointed to the stately old lady before her, in her antique dress, and with unconcealed furrows in her face. Once, perhaps, not even that beautiful complexion of Mrs Edgerley was sweeter than that of Anastasia Rivers; but her beauty had gone from her long ago—a thing which she cared not to retain. She looked up with her kind imperious face, upon which were undeniable marks of years and age. She perceived with a most evident and undisguised contempt the titter with which this comparison was greeted. “Go on your way, Louisa,” said Miss Rivers; “you were pretty once, whatever people say of you now. Don’t be a fool, child; and I advise you not to meddle with me.”
“Delightful! is she not charming?” cried the fine lady, appealing to her companion; “so fresh, and natural, and eccentric—such an acquisition in the Hall! Anastasia, dear, do forget your old quarrel. It was not poor papa’s fault that you were born a woman, though I cannot help confessing it was a great mistake,certainly; but, only for once, you who are such a dear, kind, benevolent creature, come to seeme.”
“Go on, Louisa, I advise you,” said the Honourable Anastasia with extreme self-control. “Poor child, I have no quarrel with you, at all events. You did not choose your father—there, pass on. I leave the Hallto those who choose it; the Old Wood Lodge has more attraction for me.”
“And I protest,” cried Mrs Edgerley, “it is my sweet young friend, the author of ——: my dearest child, whatisthe name of your book? I havesucha memory. Quite the sweetest story of the season; and I am dying to hear of another. Are you writing again? Oh, pray say you are. I should be heartbroken to think of waiting very long for it. You must come to the Hall. There are some people coming who are dying to know you, and I positively cannot be disappointed: no one ever disobeysme! Come here and let me kiss, you pretty creature. Is she not the sweetest little beauty in the world? and her sister has so much genius; it is quite delightful! So you know my cousin Anastasia; isn’t she charming? Now, good morning, coz.—good morning, dear—and be sure you come to the Hall.”
Miss Anastasia stood aside, watching grimly this unexpected demonstration of friendship, and keenly criticising Agnes, who coloured high with youthful dignity and resentment, and Marian, who drew back abashed, with a painful blush, and a grieved and anxious consciousness that Louis, unseen but seeing, was a spectator of this salutation, and somehow would be quite as like to resent Mrs Edgerley’s careless compliment to herself, “as if I had been his sister.”With a steady observation the old lady kept her eyes upon her young acquaintances till the horsemen and horsewomen of Mrs Edgerley’s train had passed. Then she drew herself up to the utmost pitch of her extreme height, and, without raising her eyes, made a profound curtsy to the last of the train—he on his part lifted his hat, and bent to his saddle-bow. This was how Lord Winterbourne and his brother’s daughter recognised each other. Perhaps the wandering eyes in his bloodless face glanced a moment, shifting and uncertain as they were, upon the remarkable figure of Miss Rivers, but they certainly paused to take in, with one fixed yet comprehensive glance, the mother and the daughters, the children playing in the garden—the open door of the house—even it was possible he saw Louis, though Louis had been behind, at the end of the little green, out of sight, trying to train a wild honeysuckle round an extempore bower. Lord Winterbourne scarcely paused, and did not offer the slightest apology for his stare, but they felt, all of them, that he had marked the house, and laid them under the visionary curse of his evil eye. When he had passed, Miss Rivers put them in before her, with an imperative gesture. “Let me know what’s brewing,” said the Honourable Anastasia, as she reposed herself on the little new sofa in the old parlour. “There’s mischief in his eye.”
Thevisit of Miss Rivers was the most complimentary attention which she could show to her new friends, for her visits were few, and paid only to a very limited number of people, and these all of her own rank and class. She was extremely curious as to their acquaintance with Mrs Edgerley, and demanded to know every circumstance from its beginning until now; and this peremptory old lady was roused to quite an eager and animated interest in the poor little book of which, Agnes could not forget, Mrs Edgerley did not remember so much as the name. The Honourable Anastasia declared abruptly that she never read novels, yet demanded to haveHope Hazlewoodplaced without an instant’s delay in her pony-carriage. “Do it at once, my dear: a thing which is done at the moment cannot be forgotten,” said Miss Rivers. “You write books,eh? Well, I asked you if you were clever; why did you not tell me at once?”
“I did not think you would care; it was not worth while,” said Agnes with some confusion, and feeling considerably alarmed by the idea of this formidable old lady’s criticism. Miss Rivers only answered by hurrying her out with the book, lest it might possibly be forgotten. When the girls were gone, she turned to Mrs Atheling. “What can he do to you,” said Miss Anastasia, abruptly, “eh? What’s Will Atheling doing? Can he harm Will?”
“No,” said Mamma, somewhat excited by the prospect of an enemy, yet confident in the perfect credit and honour of the family father, whose good name and humble degree of prosperity no enemy could overthrow. “William has been where he is now for twenty years.”
“So, so,” said Miss Rivers—“and the boy? Take care of these girls; it might be in his devilish way to harm them; and I tell you, when you come to know of it, send me word. So she writes books, this girl of yours? She is no better than a child. Do you mean to say you are not proud?”
Mrs Atheling answered as mothers answer when such questions are put to them, half with a confession, half with a partly-conscious sophism, about Agnes being “a good girl, and a great comfort to her papa and me.”
The girls, when they had executed their commission, looked doubtingly for Louis, but found him gone as they expected. While they were still lingering where he had been, Miss Rivers came to the door again, going away, and when she had said good-by to Mamma, the old lady turned back again without a word, and very gravely gathered one of the roses. She did it with a singular formality and solemness as if it was a religious observance rather than a matter of private liking; and securing it somewhere out of sight in the fastenings of her brown pelisse, waved her hand to them, saying in her peremptory voice, quite loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance, that she was to send for them in a day or two. Then she took her seat in the little carriage, and turned her grey ponies, no very easy matter, towards the high-road. Her easy and complete mastery over them was an admiration to the girls. “Bless you, miss, she’d follow the hounds as bold as any squire,” said Hannah; “but there’s a deal o’ difference in Miss Taesie since the time she broke her heart.”
Such an era was like to be rather memorable. The girls thought so, somewhat solemnly, as they went to their work beside their mother. They seemed to be coming to graver times themselves, gliding on in an irresistible noiseless fashion upon their stream of fate.
Louis came again as usual in the evening. Hehadheard Mrs Edgerley, and did resent her careless freedom, as Marian secretly knew he would; which fact she who was most concerned, ascertained by his entire and pointed silence upon the subject, and his vehement and passionate contempt, notwithstanding, for Mrs Edgerley.
“I suppose you are safe enough,” he said, speaking to the elder sister. “You will not break your heart because she has forgotten the name of your book—but, heaven help them, there are hearts which do! There are unfortunate fools in this crazy world mad enough to be elated and to be thrown into misery by a butterfly of a fine lady, who makes reputations. You think them quite contemptible, do you? but there are such.”
“I suppose they must be people who have no friends and no home—or to whom it is of more importance than it is to me,” said Agnes; “for I am only a woman, and nothing could make me miserable out of this Old Lodge, or Bellevue.”
“Ah—that isnow,” said Louis quickly, and he glanced with an instinctive reference at Marian, whose pallid roses and fluctuating mood already began to testify to some anxiety out of the boundary of these charmed walls. “The very sight of your security might possibly be hard enough upon us who have no home—no home! nothing at all under heaven.”
“Except such trifles as strength and youth and astout heart, a sister very fond of you, and some—somefriends—and heaven itself, after all, at the end. Oh, Louis!” said Agnes, who on this, as on other occasions, was much disposed to be this “boy’s” elder sister, and advised him “for his good.”
He did not say anything. When he looked up at all from his bending attitude leaning over the table, it was to glance with fiery devouring eyes at Marian—poor little sweet Marian, already pale with anxiety for him. Then he broke out suddenly—“That poor little sister who is very fond of me—do you know what she is doing at this moment—singing to them!—like the captives at Babylon, making mirth for the spoilers. And my friends—— heaven! you heard what that woman ventured to say to-day.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, who confessed to treating Louis as a “son of her own,” “think of heaven all the day long, and so much the better for you—but I cannot have you using in this way such a name.”
This simple little reproof did more for Louis than a hundred philosophies. He laughed low, and with emotion took Mrs Atheling’s hand for a moment between his own—said “thank you, mother,” with a momentary smile of delight and good pleasure. Then his face suddenly flushed with a dark and violent colour; he cast an apprehensive yet haughty glance at Mrs Atheling, and drew his hand away. The stain inhis blood was a ghost by the side of Louis, and scarcely left him for an instant night nor day.
When he left them, they went to the door with him as they had been wont to do, the mother holding a shawl over her cap, the girls with their fair heads uncovered to the moon. They stood all together at the gate speaking cheerfully, and sending kind messages to Rachel as they bade him good-night—and none of the little group noticed a figure suddenly coming out of the darkness and gliding along past the paling of the garden. “What, boy, you here?” cried a voice suddenly behind Louis, which made him start aside, and they all shrank back a little to recognise in the moonlight the marble-white face of Lord Winterbourne.
“What do you mean, sir, wandering about the country at this hour?” said the stranger—“what conspiracy goes on here, eh?—what areyoudoing with a parcel of women? Home to your den, you skulking young vagabond—what are you doing here?”
Marian, the least courageous of the three, moved by a sudden impulse, which was not courage but terror, laid her hand quickly upon Louis’s arm. The young man, who had turned his face defiant and furious towards the intruder, turned in an instant, grasping at the little timid hand as a man in danger might grasp at a shield invulnerable, “You perceive, my lord, I am beyond the reach either of your insults or yourpatronage here,” said the youth, whose blood was dancing in his veins, and who at that moment cared less than the merest stranger, who had never heard his name, for Lord Winterbourne.
“Come, my lad, if you are imposing upon these poor people—I must set you right,” said the man who was called Louis’s father. “Do you know what he is, my good woman, that you harbour this idle young rascal in despite of my known wishes? Home, you young vagabond, home! This boy is——”
“My lord, my lord,” interposed Mrs Atheling, in sudden agitation, “if any disgrace belongs to him, it is yours and not his that you should publish it. Go away, sir, from my door, where you once did harm enough, and don’t try to injure the poor boy—perhaps we know who he is better than you.”
What put this bold and rash speech into the temperate lips of Mamma, no one could ever tell; the effect of it, however, was electric. Lord Winterbourne fell back suddenly, stared at her with his strained eyes in the moonlight, and swore a muttered and inaudible oath. “Home, you hound!” he repeated in a mechanical tone, and then, waving his hand with a threatening and unintelligible gesture, turned to go away. “So long as the door is yours, my friend, I will take care to make no intrusion upon it,” he said significantly before he disappeared; and then the shadow departedout of the moonlight, the stealthy step died on the grass, and they stood alone again with beating hearts. Mamma took Marian’s hand from Louis, but not unkindly, and with an affectionate earnestness bade him go away. He hesitated long, but at length consented, partly for her entreaty, partly for the sake of Rachel. Under other circumstances this provocation would have maddened Louis; but he wrung Agnes’s hand with an excited gaiety as he lingered at the door watching a shadow on the window whither Marian had gone with her mother. “I had best not meet him on the road,” said Louis: “there is the Curate—for once, for your sake, and the sake of what has happened, I will be gracious and take his company; but to tell the truth, I do not care for anything which can befall me to-night.”
Marian, whom her mother tenderly put to sleep that night, as if she had been a child, yet who lay awake in the long cold hours before the dawn in a vague and indescribable emotion, her heart stirring within her like something which did not belong to her—a new and strange existence—slept late the next morning, exhausted and worn out with all this sudden and stormy influx of unknown feelings. Mamma, who, on the contrary, was very early astir, came into the bed-chamber of her daughters at quite an unusual hour, and, thankfully perceiving Marian’s profound youthful slumber, stood gazing at the beautiful sleeper with tears in her eyes. Paler than usual, with a shadow under her closed eyelids, and still a little dew upon the long lashes—with one hand laid in childish fashion under her cheek, and the other lying, with its pearly rose-tipped fingers, upon the white coverlid, Marian, but for the moved and human agitation which evidentlyhad worn itself into repose, might have looked like the enchanted beauty of the tale—but indeed she was rather more like a child who had wept itself to sleep. Her sister, stealing softly from her side, left her sleeping, and they put the door ajar that they might hear when she stirred before they went, with hushed steps and speaking in a whisper, down stairs.
Mrs Atheling was disturbed more than she would tell; what she did say, as Agnes and she sat over their silent breakfast-table, was an expedient which herself had visibly no faith in. “My dear, we must try to prevent him saying anything,” said Mrs Atheling, with her anxious brow: it was not necessary to name names, for neither of them could forget the scene of last night.
Then by-and-by Mamma spoke again. “I almost fancy we should go home; she might forget it if she were away. Agnes, my love, you must persuade him not to say anything; he pays great attention to what you say.”
“But, mamma—Marian?” said Agnes.
“Oh, Agnes, Agnes, my dear beautiful child,” said Mrs Atheling, with a sudden access of emotion, “it was only friendship, sympathy—her kind heart; she will think no more of it, if nothing occurs to put it into her head.”
Agnes did not say anything, though she was extremelydoubtful on this subject; but then it was quite evident that Mamma had no faith in her own prognostications, and regarded this first inroad into the family with a mixture of excitement, dread, and agitation which it was not comfortable to see.
After their pretended breakfast, mother and daughter once more stole up-stairs. They had not been in the room a moment, when Marian woke—woke—started with fright and astonishment to see Agnes dressed, and her mother standing beside her; and beginning to recollect, suddenly blushed, and turning away her face, burning with that violent suffusion of colour, exclaimed, “I could not help it—I could not help it; would you stand by and see them drive him mad? Oh mamma, mamma!”
“My darling, no one thinks of blaming you,” said Mrs Atheling, who trembled a good deal, and looked very anxious. “We were all very sorry for him, poor fellow; and you only did what you should have done, like a brave little friend—what I should have done myself, had I been next to him,” said Mamma, with great gravity and earnestness, but decidedly overdoing her part.
This did not seem quite a satisfactory speech to Marian. She turned away again petulantly, dried her eyes, and with a sidelong glance at Agnes, asked, “Why did you not wake me?—it looks quite late. Iam not ill, am I? I am sure I do not understand it—why did you let me sleep?”
“Hush, darling! because you were tired and late last night,” said Mamma.
Now this sympathy and tenderness seemed rather alarming than soothing to Marian. Her colour varied rapidly, her breath came quick, tears gathered to her eyes. “Has anything happened while I have been sleeping?” she asked hastily, and in a very low tone.
“No, no, my love, nothing at all,” said Mamma tenderly, “only we thought you must be tired.”
“Both you and Agnes were as late as me,—why were not you tired?” said Marian, still with a little jealous fear. “Please, mamma, go away; I want to get dressed and come down stairs.”
They left her to dress accordingly, but still with some anxiety and apprehension, and Mamma waited for Marian in her own room, while Agnes went down to the parlour—just in time, for as she took her seat, Louis, flushed and impatient, burst in at the door.
Louis made a most hasty salutation, and was a great deal too eager and hurried to be very well bred. He looked round the room with sudden anxiety and disappointment. “Where is she?—I must see Marian,” cried Louis. “What! you do not mean to say she is ill, after last night?”
“Not ill, but in her own room,” said Agnes, somewhat confused by the question.
“I will wait as long as you please, if I must wait,” said Louis impatiently; “but, Agnes! why should you be against me? Of course, I forget myself; do you grudge that I should? I forget everything except last night; let me see Marian. I promise you I will not distress her, and if she bids me, I will go away.”
“No, it is not that,” said Agnes with hesitation; “but, Louis, nothing happened last night—pray do not think of it. Well, then,” she said earnestly, as his hasty gesture denied what she said, “mamma begs you, Louis, not to say anything to-day.”
He turned round upon her with a blank but haughty look. “I understand—my disgrace must not come here,” he said; “butshedid not mind it; she, the purest lily upon earth! Ah! so that was a dream, was it? And her mother—her mother says I am to go away?”
“No, indeed—no,” said Agnes, almost crying. “No, Louis, you know better; do not misunderstand us. She is so young, so gentle, and tender. Mamma only asked, for all our sakes, if you would consent not to say anythingnow.”
To this softened form of entreaty the eager young man paid not the slightest attention. He began to usethe most unblushing cajolery to win over poor Agnes. It did not seem to be Louis; so entirely changed was his demeanour. It was only an extremely eager and persevering specimen of the genus “lover,” without any personal individuality at all.
“What! not say anything? Could anybody ask such a sacrifice?” cried this wilful and impetuous youth. “It might, as you say, be nothing at all, though it seems life—existence, to me. Not know whether that hand is mine or another’s—that hand which saved me, perhaps from murder?—for he is an old man, though he is a fiend incarnate, and I might have killed him where he stood.”
“Louis! Louis!” cried Agnes, gazing at him in terror and excitement. He grew suddenly calm as he caught her eye.
“It is quite true,” he said with a grave and solemn calmness. “This man, who has cursed my life, and made it miserable—this man, who dared insult me beforeherand you—do you think I could have been a man, and still have borne that intolerable crown of wrong?”
As he spoke, he began to pace the little parlour with impatient steps and a clouded brow. Mrs Atheling, who had heard his voice, but had restrained her anxious curiosity as long as possible, now came down quietly, unable to keep back longer. Louis sprang to her side,took her hand, led her about the room, pleading, reasoning, persuading. Mamma, whose good heart from the first moment had been an entire and perfect traitor, was no match at all for Louis. She gave in to him unresistingly before half his entreaties were over; she did not make even half so good a stand as Agnes, who secretly was in the young lover’s interest too. But when they had just come to the conclusion that he should be permitted to see Marian, Marian herself, whom no one expected, suddenly entered the room. The young beauty’s pretty brow was lowering more than any one before had ever seen it lower; a petulant contraction was about her red lips, and a certain angry dignity, as of an offended child, in her bearing. “Surely something very strange has happened this morning,” said Marian, with a little heat; “even mamma looks as if she knew some wonderful secret. I suppose every one is to hear of it but me.”
At this speech the dismayed conspirators against Marian’s peace fell back and separated. The other impetuous principal in the matter hastened at once to the angry Titania, who only bowed, and did not even look at him. The truth was, that Marian, much abashed at thought of her own sudden impulse, was never in a mood less propitious; she felt as if she herself had not done quite right—as if somehow she had betrayed a secret of her own, and, now found out anddetected, was obliged to use the readiest means to cover it up again; and, besides, the hasty little spirit, which had both pride and temper of its own, could not at all endure the idea of having been petted and excused this morning, as if “something had happened” last night. Now that it was perfectly evident nothing had happened—now that Louis stood before her safe, handsome, and eager, Marian concluded that it was time for her to stand upon her defence.
Theend of it all was, of course—though Louis had an amount of trouble in the matter which that impetuous young gentleman had not counted upon—that Marian yielded to his protestations, and came forth full of the sweetest agitation, tears, and blushes, to be taken to the kind breast of the mother who was scarcely less agitated, and to be regarded with a certain momentary awe, amusement, and sympathy by Agnes, whose visionary youthful reverence for this unknown magician was just tempered by the equally youthful imp of mischief which plays tricks upon the same. But Mrs Atheling’s brow grew sadder and sadder with anxiety, as she looked at the young man who now claimed to call her mother. What he was to do—how Marian could bear all the chances and changes of the necessarily long probation before them—what influence Lord Winterbourne might have upon the fortunes ofhis supposed son—what Papa himself would say to this sudden betrothal, and how he could reconcile himself to receive a child, and a disgraced child of his old enemy, into his own honourable house,—these considerations fluttered the heart and disturbed the peace of the anxious mother, who already began to blame herself heavily, yet did not see, after all, what else she could have done. A son of shame, and of Lord Winterbourne!—a young man hitherto dependent, with no training, no profession, no fortune, of no use in the world. And her prettiest Marian!—the sweet face which won homage everywhere, and which every other face involuntarily smiled to see. Darker and darker grew the cloud upon the brow of Mrs Atheling; she went in, out of sight of these two happy young dreamers, with a sick heart. For the first time in her life she was dismayed at the thought of writing to her husband, and sat idly in a chair drawn back from her window, wearying herself out with most vain and unprofitable speculations as to things which might have been done to avert this fate.
No very long time elapsed, however, before Mrs Atheling found something else to occupy her thoughts. Hannah came in to the parlour, solemnly announcing a man at the door who desired to see her. With a natural presentiment, very naturally arising from the excited state of her own mind, Mrs Atheling rose, andhastened to the door. The man was an attorney’s clerk, threadbare and respectable, who gave into her hand an open paper, and after it a letter. The paper, which she glanced over with hasty alarm, was a formal notice to quit, on pain of ejection, from the house called the Old Wood Lodge, the property of Reginald, Lord Winterbourne. “The property of Lord Winterbourne!—it is our—it is my husband’s property. What does this mean?” cried Mrs Atheling.
“I know nothing of the business, but Mr Lewis’s letter will explain it,” said the messenger, who was civil but not respectful; and the anxious mistress of the house hastened in with great apprehension and perplexity to open the letter and see what this explanation was. It was not a very satisfactory one. With a friendly spirit, yet with a most cautious and lawyer-like regard to the interest of his immediate client, Mr Lewis, the same person who had been intrusted with the will of old Miss Bridget, and who was Lord Winterbourne’s solicitor, announced the intention of his principal to “resume possession” of Miss Bridget’s little house. “You will remember,” wrote the lawyer, “that I did not fail to point out to you at the time the insecure nature of the tenure by which this little property was held. Granted, as I believe it was, as a gift simply for the lifetime of Miss Bridget Atheling, she had, in fact, no right to bequeath it to any one,and so much of her will as relates to this is null and void. I am informed that there are documents in existence proving this fact beyond the possibility of dispute, and that any resistance would be entirely vain. As a friend, I should advise you not to attempt it; the property is actually of very small value, and though I speak against the interest of my profession, I think it right to warn you against entering upon an expensive lawsuit with a man like Lord Winterbourne, to whom money is no consideration. For the sake of your family, I appeal to you whether it would not be better, though at a sacrifice of feeling, to give up without resistance the old house, which is of very little value to any one, if it were not for my lord’s whim of having no small proprietors in his neighbourhood. I should be sorry that he was made acquainted with this communication. I write to you merely from private feelings, as an old friend.”
Mrs Atheling rose from her seat hastily, holding the papers in her hand. “Resist him!” she exclaimed—“yes, certainly, to the very last;” but at that moment there came in at the half-open door a sound of childish riot, exuberant and unrestrained, which arrested the mother’s words, and subdued her like a spell. Bell and Beau, rather neglected and thrown into the shade for the first time in their lives, were indemnifying themselves in the kitchen, where they reigned over Hannahwith the most absolute and unhesitating mastery. Mamma fell back again into her seat, silent, pale, and with pain and terror in her face. Was this the first beginning of the blight of the Evil Eye?
And then she remained thinking over it sadly and in silence; sometimes, disposed to blame herself for her rashness—sometimes with a natural rising of indignation, disposed to repeat again her first outcry, and resist this piece of oppression—sometimes starting with the sudden fright of an anxious and timid mother, and almost persuaded at once, without further parley, to flee to her own safe home, and give up, without a word, the new inheritance. But she was not learned in the ways of the world, in law, or necessary ceremonial. Resist was a mere vague word to her, meaning she knew not what, and no step occurred to her in the matter but the general necessity for “consulting a lawyer,” which was of itself an uncomfortable peril. As she argued with herself, indeed, Mrs Atheling grew quite hopeless, and gave up the whole matter. She had known, through many changes, the success of this bad man, and in her simple mind had no confidence in the abstract power of the law to maintain the cause, however just, of William Atheling, who would have hard ado to pay a lawyer’s fees, against Lord Winterbourne.
Then she called in her daughters, whom Louis thenonly, and with much reluctance, consented to leave, and held a long and agitated counsel with them. The girls were completely dismayed by the news, and mightily impressed by that new and extraordinary “experience” of a real enemy, which captivated Agnes’s wandering imagination almost as much as it oppressed her heart. As for Marian, she sat looking at them blankly, turning from Mamma to Agnes, and from Agnes to Mamma, with a vague perception that this was somehow because of Louis, and a very heavy heartbreaking depression in her agitated thoughts. Marian, though she was not very imaginative, had caught a tinge of the universal romance at this crisis of her young life, and, cast down with the instant omen of misfortune, saw clouds and storms immediately rising through that golden future, of which Louis’s prophecies had been so pleasant to hear.
And there could be no doubt that this suddenly formed engagement, hasty, imprudent, and ill-advised as it was, added a painful complication to the whole business. If it was known—and who could conceal from the gossip of the village the constant visits of Louis, or his undisguised devotion?—then it would set forth evidently in public opposition the supposed father and son. “But Lord Winterbourne is not his father!” cried Marian suddenly, with tears and vehemence. Mrs Atheling shook her head, and said that peoplesupposed so at least, and this would be a visible sign of war.
But no one in the family counsel could advise anything in this troubled moment. Charlie was coming—that was a great relief and comfort. “If Charlie knows anything, it should be the law,” said Mrs Atheling, with a sudden joy in the thought that Charlie had been full six months at it, and ought to be very well informed indeed upon the subject. And then Agnes brought her blotting-book, and the good mother sat down to write the most uncomfortable letter she had ever written to her husband in all these two-and-twenty years. There was Marian’s betrothal, first of all, which was so very unlike to please him—he who did not even know Louis, and could form no idea of his personal gifts and compensations—and then there was the news of this summons, and of the active and powerful enemy suddenly started up against them. Mrs Atheling took a very long time composing the letter, but sighed heavily to think how soon Papa would read it, to the destruction of all his pleasant fancies about his little home in the country, and his happy children. Charlie was coming—they had all a certain faith in Charlie, boy though he was; it was the only comfort in the whole prospect to the anxious eyes of Mamma.