Aftera long and most laborious investigation of the old parchment, Charlie at last triumphantly made it out to be an old conveyance, to a remote ancestor, of this very little house, and sundry property adjoining, on which the Athelings had now no claim. More than two hundred and fifty years ago!—the girls were as much pleased with it as if it had been an estate, and even Charlie owned a thrill of gratification. They felt themselves quite long-descended and patrician people, in right of the ancestor who had held “the family property” in 1572.
But it was difficult to see what use this could be of in opposition to the claim of Lord Winterbourne. Half the estates in the country at least had changed hands during these two hundred and fifty years; and though it certainly proved beyond dispute that the Old Wood Lodge had once been the property of theAthelings, it threw no light whatever on the title of Miss Bridget. Mrs Atheling looked round upon the old walls with much increase of respect; she wondered if they really could be so old as that; and was quite reverential of her little house, being totally unacquainted with the periods of domestic architecture, and knowing nothing whatever of archaic “detail.”
Miss Anastasia, however, remembered her promise. Only two or three days after Charlie’s visit to her, the two grey ponies made their appearance once more at the gate of the Old Wood Lodge. She was not exactly triumphant, but had a look of satisfaction on her face, and evidently felt she had gained something. She entered upon her business without a moment’s delay.
“Young Atheling, I have brought you all that Mr Temple can furnish me with,” said Miss Anastasia—“his memorandum taken from my father’s instructions. He tells me there was a deed distinct and formal, and offers to bear his witness of it, as I have offered mine.”
Charlie took eagerly out of her hand the paper she offered to him. “It is a copy out of his book,” said Miss Anastasia. It was headed thus: “Mem.—To convey to Miss Bridget Atheling, her heirs and assigns, the cottage called the Old Wood Lodge, with a certain piece of land adjoining, to be described—partly as a proof of Lord Winterbourne’s gratitude forservices, partly as restoring property acquired by his father—to be executed at once.”
The date was five-and-twenty years ago; and perhaps nothing but justice to her dead friend and to her living ones could have fortified Miss Anastasia to return upon that time. She sat still, looking at Charlie while he read it, with her cheek a little blanched and her eye brighter than usual. He laid it down with a look of impatience, yet satisfaction. “Some one,” said Charlie, “either for one side or for the other side, must have this deed.”
“Your boy is hard to please,” said Miss Rivers. “I have offered to appear myself, and so does Mr Temple. What, boy, not content!”
“It is the next best,” said Charlie; “but still not so good as the deed; and the deed must exist somewhere; nobody would destroy such a thing. Where is it likely to be?”
“Young Atheling,” said Miss Anastasia, half amused, half with displeasure, “when I want to collect evidence, you shall do it for me. Has he had a good education?—eh?”
“ToyouI am afraid he will seem a very poor scholar,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little awe of Miss Anastasia’s learning; “but we did what we could for him; and he has always been a very industrious boy, and has studied a good deal himself.”
To this aside conversation Charlie paid not the smallest attention, but ruminated over the lawyer’s memorandum, making faces at it, and bending all the powers of his mind to the consideration—where to find this deed! “If it’s not here, nor in her lawyer’s, nor with this old lady,he’sgot it,” pronounced Charlie; but this was entirely a private process, and he did not say a word aloud.
“I’ve read her book,” said Miss Rivers, with a glance aside at Agnes; “it’s a very clever book: I approve of it, though I never read novels: in my day, girls did no such things—all the better for them now. Yes, my child, don’t be afraid. I’ll not call you unfeminine—in my opinion, it’s about the prettiest kind of fancy-work a young woman can do.”
Under this applause Agnes smiled and brightened; it was a great deal more agreeable than all the pretty sayings of all the people who were dying to know the author ofHope Hazlewood, in the brief day of her reputation at the Willows.
“And as for the pretty one,” said Miss Anastasia, “she, I suppose, contents herself with lovers—eh? What is the meaning of this? I suppose the child’s heart is in it. The worse for her—the worse for her!”
For Marian had blushed deeply, and then become very pale; her heart was touched indeed, and she was very despondent. All the other events of the timewere swallowed up to Marian by one great shadow—Louis was going away!
Whereupon Mrs Atheling, unconsciously eager to attract the interest of Miss Anastasia, who very likely would be kind to the young people, sent Marian up-stairs upon a hastily-invented errand, and took the old lady aside to tell her what had happened. Miss Rivers was a good deal surprised—a little affected. “So—so—so,” she said slowly, “these reckless young creatures—how ready they are to plunge into all the griefs of life! And what does Will Atheling say to this nameless boy?”
“I cannot say my husband is entirely pleased,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little hesitation; “but he is a very fine young man; and to see our children happy is the great thing we care for, both William and me.”
“How do you know it will make her happy?” asked Miss Anastasia somewhat sharply. “The child flushes and pales again, pretty creature as she is, like a woman come into her troubles. A great deal safer to write novels! But what is done can’t be undone; and I am glad to hear of it on account of the boy.”
Then Miss Anastasia made a pause, thinking over the matter. “I have found some traces of my father’s wanderings,” she said again, with a little emotion: “if the old man was tempted to sin in his old days, though it would be a shame to hear of, I should still be gladto make sure; and if by any chance,” continued the old lady, reddening with the maidenly and delicate feeling of which her fifty years could not deprive her—“if by any chance these unfortunate children should turn out to be nearly related to me, I will of course think it my duty to provide for them as if they were lawful children of my father’s house.”
It cost her a little effort to say this—and Mrs Atheling, not venturing to make any comment, looked on with respectful sympathy. It was very well for Miss Anastasia to say, but how far Louis would tolerate a provision made for him was quite a different question. The silence was broken again by the old lady herself.
“This bold boy of yours has set me to look over all my old papers,” said Miss Anastasia, with a twinkle of satisfaction and amusement in her eye, as she looked over at Charlie, still making faces at the lawyer’s note. “Now that I have begun forhersake, dear old soul, I continue for my own, and for curiosity: I would give a great deal to find out the story of these children. Young Atheling, if I some time want your services, will you give them to me?”
Charlie looked up with a boyish flush of pleasure. “As soon as this business is settled,” said Charlie. Miss Anastasia, whom his mother feared to look at lest she should be offended, smiled approvingly; patted the shoulder of Agnes as she passed her, left “her love forthe other poor child,” and went away. Mrs Atheling looked after her with a not unnatural degree of complacency. “Now, I think it very likely indeed that she will either leave them something, or try what she can do for Louis,” said Mamma; she did not think how impossible it would be to do anything for Louis, until Louis graciously accepted the service; nor indeed, that the only thing the young man could do under his circumstances was to trust to his own exertions solely, and seek service from none.
Thevisit of Miss Rivers was an early one, some time before their mid-day dinner; and the day went on quietly after its usual fashion, and fell into the stillness of a sunny afternoon, which looked like a reminiscence of midsummer among these early October days. Mrs Atheling sat in her big chair, knitting, with a little drowsiness, a little stocking—though this was a branch of art in which Hannah was found to excel, and had begged her mistress to leave to her. Agnes sat at the table with her blotting-book, busy with her special business; Charlie was writing out a careful copy of the old deed. The door was open, and Bell and Beau, under the happy charge of Rachel, ran back and forwards, out and in, from the parlour to the garden, not omitting now and then a visit to the kitchen, where Hannah, covered all over with her white bib and apron, was making cakes for tea. Their merry childish voices and prattling feet gave no disturbance to the busypeople in the parlour; neither did the light fairy step of Rachel, nor even the songs she sang to them in her wonderful voice—they were all so well accustomed to its music now. Marian and Louis, who did not like to lose sight of each other in these last days, were out wandering about the fields, or in the wood, thinking of little in the world except each other, and that great uncertain future which Louis penetrated with his fiery glances, and of which Marian wept and smiled to hear. Mamma sitting at the window, between the pauses of her knitting and the breaks of her gentle drowsiness, looked out for them with a little tender anxiety. Marian, the only one of her children who was “in trouble,” was nearest of all at that moment to her mother’s heart.
When suddenly a violent sound of wheels from the high-road broke in upon the stillness, then a loud voice calling to horses, and then a dull plunge and heavy roll. Mrs Atheling lifted her startled eyes, drowsy no longer, to see what was the matter, just in time to behold, what shook the little house like the shock of a small earthquake, Miss Anastasia’s two grey horses, trembling with unusual exertion, draw up with a bound and commotion at the little gate.
And before the good mother could rise to her feet, wondering what could be the cause of this secondvisit, Miss Rivers herself sprang out of the carriage, and came into the house like a wind, almost stumbling over Rachel, and nearly upsetting Bell and Beau. She did not say a word to either mother or daughter, she only came to the threshold of the parlour, waved her hand imperiously, and cried, “Young Atheling, I wantyou!”
Charlie was not given to rapid movements, but there was no misunderstanding the extreme emotion of this old lady. The big boy got up at once and followed her, for she went out again immediately. Then Mrs Atheling, sitting at the window in amaze, saw her son and Miss Anastasia stand together in the garden, conversing with great earnestness. She showed him a book, which Charlie at first did not seem to understand, to the great impatience of his companion. Mrs Atheling drew back troubled, and in the most utter astonishment—what could it mean?
“Young Atheling,” said Miss Anastasia abruptly, “I want you to give up this business of your father’s immediately, and set off to Italy on mine. I have made a discovery of the most terrible importance: though you are only a boy I can trust you. Do you hear me?—it is to bring to his inheritance my father’s son!”
Charlie looked up in her face astonished, and without comprehension. “My father’s business is of importanceto us,” he said, with a momentary sullenness.
“So it is; my own man of business shall undertake it; but I want an agent, secret and sure, who is not like to be suspected,” said Miss Anastasia. “Young Atheling, look here!”
Charlie looked, but not with enthusiasm. The book she handed him was an old diary of the most commonplace description, each page divided with red lines into compartments for three days, with printed headings for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on, and columns for money. The wind fluttered the leaves, so that the only entry visible to Charlie was one relating to some purchase, which he read aloud, bewildered and wondering. Miss Anastasia, who was extremely moved and excited, looked furious, and as if she was almost tempted to administer personal chastisement to the blunderer. She turned over the fluttered leaves with an impetuous gesture. “Look here,” she said, pointing to the words with her imperative finger, and reading them aloud in a low, restrained, but most emphatic voice. The entry was in the same hand, duly dated under the red line—“Twins—one boy—and Giulietta safe. Thank God. My sweet young wife.”
“Now go—fly!” cried Miss Anastasia, “find out their birthday, and then come to me for money and directions. I will make your fortune, boy; you shallbe the richest pettifogger in Christendom. Do you hear me, young Atheling—do you hear me! He is the true Lord Winterbourne—he is my father’s lawful son!”
To say that Charlie was not stunned by this sudden suggestion, or that there was no answer of young and generous enthusiasm, as well as of professional eagerness in his mind, to the address of Miss Rivers, would have been to do him less than justice. “Is it Italy?—I don’t know a word of Italian,” cried Charlie. “Never mind, I’ll go to-morrow. I can learn it on the way.”
The old lady grasped the boy’s rough hand, and stepped again into her carriage. “Let it be to-morrow,” she said, speaking very low; “tell your mother, but no one else, and do not, for any consideration, let it come to the ears of Louis—Louis, my father’s boy!—But I will not see him, Charlie; fly, boy, as if you had wings!—till you come home. I will meet you to-morrow at Mr Temple’s office—you know where that is—at twelve o’clock. Be ready to go immediately, and tell your mother to mention it to no creature till I see her again.”
Saying which, Miss Rivers turned her ponies, Charlie hurried into the house, and his mother sat gazing out of the window, with the most blank and utter astonishment. Miss Anastasia had not a glance to spare forthe watcher, and took no time to pull her rose from the porch. She drove home again at full speed, solacing her impatience with the haste of her progress, and repeating, under her breath, again and again, the same words. “One boy—and Giulietta safe. My sweet young wife!”
END OF VOL. II.PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
Contents volume 3.
Book III.—Chapter I.,II.,III.,IV.,V.,VI.,VII.,VIII.,IX.,X.,XI.,XII.,XIII.,XIV.,XV.,XVI.,XVII.,XVIII.,XIX.,XX.,XXI.,XXII.,XXIII.,XXIV.,XXV.,XXVI.,XXVII.,XXVIII.,XXIX.,XXX.,XXXI.,XXXII.,XXXIII.,XXXIV.XXXV.
(etext transcriber's note)
OR
THE THREE GIFTSBY MARGARET OLIPHANT
“I’ the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hitThe roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,In simple and low things, to prince it muchBeyond the trick of others.”CYMBELINE
“I’ the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hitThe roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,In simple and low things, to prince it muchBeyond the trick of others.”CYMBELINE
“I’ the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hitThe roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,In simple and low things, to prince it muchBeyond the trick of others.”CYMBELINE
IN THREE VOLUMESVOL. III.WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONSEDINBURGH AND LONDONMDCCCLVIIORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
BOOK III.—WINTERBOURNE HALL
“Now, mother,” said Charlie, “I’m in real earnest. My father would tell me himself if he were here. I want to understand the whole concern.”
Mrs Atheling and her son were in Charlie’s little room, with its one small lattice-window, overshadowed and embowered in leaves—its plain uncurtained bed, its small table, and solitary chair. Upon this chair, with a palpitating heart, sat Mrs Atheling, and before her stood the resolute boy.
And she began immediately, yet with visible faltering and hesitation, to tell him the story she had told the girls of the early connection between the present Lord Winterbourne and the Atheling family. ButCharlie’s mind was excited and preoccupied. He listened, almost with impatience, to the sad little romance of his father’s young sister, of whom he had never heard before. It did not move him at all as it had moved Agnes and Marian. Broken hearts and disappointed loves were very far out of Charlie’s way; something entirely different occupied his own imagination. He broke forth with a little effusion of impatience when the story came to an end. “And is this all? Do you mean to say this is the whole, mother? And my father had never anything to do with him but through a girl!”
“You are very unfeeling, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, who wiped her eyes with real emotion, yet with a little policy too, and to gain time. “She was a dear innocent girl, and your father was very fond of her—reason enough to give him a dislike, if it were not sinful, to the very name of Lord Winterbourne.”
“I had better go on with my packing, then,” said Charlie. “So, that was all? I suppose any scamp in existence might do the same. Do you really mean to tell me, mother, that there was nothing but this?”
Mrs Atheling faltered still more under the steady observation of her son. “Charlie,” said his mother, with agitation, “your father never would mention it to any one. I may be doing very wrong. If he only were here himself to decide! But if I tell you, youmust give me your word never so much as to hint at it again.”
Charlie did not give the necessary pledge, but Mrs Atheling made no pause. She did not even give him time to speak, however he might have been inclined, but hastened on in her own disclosure with agitation and excitement. “You have heard Papa tell of the young gentleman—he whom you all used to be so curious about—whom your father did a great benefit to,” said Mrs Atheling, in a breathless hurried whisper. “Charlie, my dear, I never said it before to any creature—that washim.”
She paused only a moment to take breath. “It was before we knew how he had behaved to dear little Bride,” she continued, still in haste, and in an undertone. “What he did was a forgery—a forgery! people were hanged for it then. It was either a bill, or a cheque, or something, and Mr Reginald had written to it another man’s name. It happened when Papa was in the bank, and before old Mr Lombard died—old Mr Lombard had a great kindness for your father, and we had great hopes then—and by good fortune the thing was brought to Papa. Your father was always very quick, Charlie—he found it out in a moment. So he told old Mr Lombard of it in a quiet way, and Mr Lombard consented he should take it back to Mr Reginald, and tell him it was found out, and hush allthe business up. If your papa had not been so quick, Charlie, but had paid the money at once, as almost any one else would have done, it all must have been found out, and he would have been hanged, as certain as anything—he, a haughty young gentleman, and a lord’s son!”
“And a very good thing, too,” exclaimed Charlie; “saved him from doing any more mischief. So, I suppose now, it’s all my father’s blame.”
“This Lord Winterbourne is a bad man,” said Mrs Atheling, taking no notice of her son’s interruption: “first he was furious to William, and then he cringed and fawned to him; and of course he had it on his conscience then about poor little Bride, though we did not know—and then he raved, and said he was desperate, and did not know what to do for money. Your father came home to me, quite unhappy about him; for he belonged to the same country, and everybody tried to make excuses for Mr Reginald, being a young man, and the heir. So William made it up in his own mind to go and tell the old lord, who was in London then. The old lord was a just man, but very proud. He did not take it kind of William, and he had no regard for Mr Reginald; but for the honour of the family he sent him away. Then we lost sight of him long, and Aunt Bridget took a dislike to us, and poorlittle Bride was dead, and we never heard anything of the Lodge or the Hall for many a year; but the old lord died abroad, and Mr Reginald came home Lord Winterbourne. That was all we ever knew. I thought your father had quite forgiven him, Charlie—we had other things to think of than keeping up old grudges—when all at once it came to be in the newspapers that Lord Winterbourne was a political man, that he was making speeches everywhere, and that he was to be one of the ministry. When your father saw that, he blazed up into such an anger! I said all I could, but William never minded me. He never was so bitter before, not even when we heard of little Bride. He said, Such a man to govern us and all the people!—a forger! a liar!—and sometimes, I think, he thought he would expose the whole story, and let everybody know.”
“Time enough for that,” said Charlie, who had listened to all this without comment, but with the closest attention. “What he did once he’ll do again, mother; but we’re close at his heels this time, and he won’t get off now. I’m going to Oxford now to get some books. I say, mother, you’ll be sure, upon your honour, not to tell the girls?”
“No, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, with a somewhat faint affirmation; “but, my dear, I can’t believe in it.It can’t be true. Charlie, boy! if this was coming true, our Marian—your sister, Charlie!—why, Marian would be Lady Winterbourne!”
Charlie did not say a word in return; he only took down his little travelling-bag, laid it at his mother’s feet to be packed, and left her to that business and her own meditations; but after he had left the room, the lad returned again and thrust in his shaggy head at the door. “Take care of Marian, mother,” said Charlie, in a parting adjuration; “remember my father’s little sister Bride.”
So he went away, leaving Mrs Atheling a good deal disquieted. She had got over the first excitement of Miss Anastasia’s great intelligence and the sudden preparations of Charlie. She had scarcely time enough, indeed, to give a thought to these things, when her son demanded this history from her, and sent her mind away into quite a different channel. Now she sat still in Charlie’s room, pondering painfully, with the travelling-bag lying quite unheeded at her feet. At one moment she pronounced the whole matter perfectly impossible—at the next, triumphantly inconsequent, she leaped to the full consummation of the hope, and saw her own pretty Marian—dazzling vision!—the lady of Winterbourne! and again the heart of the good mother fell, and she remembered little Bride. Louis, as he was now, having no greater friends than theirown simple family, and no pretensions whatever either to birth or fortune, was a very different person from that other Louis who might be heir of lands and lordship and the family pride of the Riverses. Much perplexed, in great uncertainty and pain, mused Mrs Atheling, half-resentful of that grand discovery of Miss Anastasia, which might plunge them all into renewed trouble; while Charlie trudged into Oxford for his Italian grammar—and Louis and Marian wandered through the enchanted wood, drawing homeward—and Rachel sang to the children—and Agnes wondered by herself over the secret which was to be confided only to Mamma.
Thatnight Charlie had need of all his diplomatic talents. Before he returned from Oxford, his mother, by way of precaution lest Agnes should betray the sudden and mysterious visit of Miss Anastasia to Marian, contrived to let her elder daughter know mysteriously, something of the scope and object of the sudden journey for which it was necessary to prepare her brother, driving Agnes, as was to be supposed, into a very fever of suppressed excitement, joy, triumph, and anxiety. Mrs Atheling, conscious, hurried, and studying deeply not to betray herself—and Agnes, watching every one, stopping questions, and guarding off suspicions with prudence much too visible—were quite enough of themselves to rouse every other member of the little company to lively pursuit after the secret. Charlie was assailed by every shape and form of question: Where was he going—what was he to do? He showed no cleverness,we are bound to acknowledge, in evading these multitudinous interrogations; he turned an impenetrable front upon them, and made the most commonplace answers, making vast incursions all the time into Hannah’s cakes and Mamma’s bread-and-butter.
“He had to go back immediately to the office; he believed he had got a new client for old Foggo,” said Charlie, with the utmost coolness; “making no secret of it at all,” according to Mamma’s indignant commentary.
“To the office!—are you only going home, after all?” cried Marian.
“I’ll see when I get there,” answered Charlie; “there’s something to be done abroad. I shouldn’t wonder if they sentme. I say, I wish you’d all come home at once, and make things comfortable. There’s my poor father fighting it out with Susan. I should not stand it if it was me.”
“Hold your peace, Charlie, and don’t be rude,” said Mrs Atheling. “But, indeed, I wish we were at home, and out of everybody’s way.”
“Who is everybody?” said Louis. “I, who am going myself, can wish quite sincerely that we were all at home; but the addition is mysterious—who is in anybody’s way?”
“Mamma means to wish us all out of reach of the Evil Eye,” said Agnes, a little romantically.
“No such thing, my dear. I daresay we could dohima great deal more harm than he can do us,” said Mrs Atheling, with sudden importance and dignity; then she paused with a certain solemnity, so that everybody could perceive the grave self-restraint of the excellent mother, and that she could say a great deal more if she chose.
“But no one thinks what I am to do when you are all gone,” said Rachel; and her tearful face happily diverted her companions from investigating and from concealing the secret. There remained among them all, however, a certain degree of excitement. Charlie was returning home to-morrow—specially called home on business!—perhaps to go abroad upon the same! The fact stirred all those young hearts with something not unlike envy. This boy seemed to have suddenly leaped in one day into a man.
And it was natural enough that, hearing of this, the mind of Louis should burn and chafe with fierce impatience. Charlie, who was perfectly undemonstrative of his thoughts and imaginations, was a very boy to Louis—yet there was need and occasion for Charlie in the crowd of life, when no one thought upon this fiery and eager young man. It was late that night when Louis left this only home and haven which he had ever known; and though he would fainhave left Rachel there, his little sister would not remain behind him, but clung to his arm with a strange presentiment of something about to happen, which she could not explain. Louis scarcely answered a word to the quiet talk of Rachel as they went upon their way to the Hall. With difficulty, and even with impatience, he curbed his rapid stride to her timid little footsteps, and hurried her along without a glance at the surrounding scene, memorable and striking as it was. The broad moonlight flooded over the noble park of Winterbourne. The long white-columned front of the house—which was a great Grecian house, pallid, vast, and imposing—shone in the white light like a screen of marble; and on the great lawn immediately before it were several groups of people, dwarfed into minute miraculous figures by the great space and silence, and the intense illumination, which was far more striking and particular than the broader light of day. The chances were that Louis did not see them, as he plunged on, in the blindness of preoccupation, keeping no path, through light and shadow, through the trees and underwood, and across the broad unshaded greensward, where no one could fail to perceive him. His little sister clung to his arm in an agony of fear, grief, and confidence—trembling for something about to happen with an overpowering tremor—yet holding a vague faith in her brother,strange and absorbing. She said, “Louis, Louis!” in her tone of appeal and entreaty. He did not hear her, but struck across the broad visible park, in the full stream of the moonlight, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. As they approached, Rachel could not even hear any conversation among the groups on the lawn; and it was impossible to suppose that they had not been seen. Louis’s abrupt direct course, over the turf and through the brushwood, must have attracted the notice of bystanders even in the daylight; it was still more remarkable now, when noiseless and rapid, through the intense white radiance and the perfect stillness, the stately figure of the young man, and his timid, graceful little sister, came directly forward in face of the spectators. These spectators were all silent, looking on with a certain fascination, and Rachel could not tell whether Louis was even conscious that any one was there.
But before they could turn aside into the road which led to the Hall door—a road to which Rachel most anxiously endeavoured to guide her brother—they were suddenly arrested by the voice of Lord Winterbourne. “I must put a stop to this,” said his lordship suddenly and loudly, with so evident a reference to themselves, that even Rachel stopped without knowing it. “Here, young fellow, stop and give an account of yourself—what do you mean by wandering about my park at midnight,eh? I know your poaching practices. Setting snares, I suppose, and dragging about this girl as a protection. Get into your kennel, you mean dog; is this how you repay the shelter I have given you all your life?”
“It would be a fit return,” said Louis. He did not speak so loud, but with a tremble of scorn and bitterness and intense youthful feeling in his voice, before which the echo of his persecutor’s went out and died, like an ignoble thing. “If I were, as you say,” repeated the young man, “setting snares for your game, or for your wealth, or for your life, you know it would be a fit return.”
“Yes, I live a peaceful life with this villanous young incendiary under my roof!” said Lord Winterbourne. “I’ll tell you what, you young ruffian, if nothing better can restrain you, locks and bars shall. Oh, no chance of appealing tomypity, with that fool of a girl upon your arm! You think you can defy me, year after year, because I have given charity to your base blood. My lad, you shall learn to know me better before another week is over our heads. Why, gentlemen, you perceive, by his own confession, I stand in danger of my life.”
“Winterbourne,” said some one over his shoulder, in a reproving tone, “youshould be the last man in the world to taunt this unfortunate lad with his base blood.”
Lord Winterbourne turned upon his heel with a laugh of insult which sent the wild blood dancing in an agony of shame, indignation, and rage even into Rachel’s woman’s face. “Well,” said the voice of their tyrant, “I have supported the hound—what more would you have? His mother was a pretty fool, but she had her day. There’s more of her conditions in the young villain than mine. I have no idea of playing the romantic father to such a son—not I!”
Louis did not know that he threw his sister off his arm before he sprang into the midst of these half-dozen gentlemen. She did not know herself, as she stood behind clenching her small fingers together painfully, with all the burning vehemence of a woman’s passion. The young man sprang forward with the bound of a young tiger. His voice was hoarse with passion, not to be restrained. “It is a lie—a wilful, abominable lie!” cried Louis fiercely, confronting as close as a wrestler the ghastly face of his tyrant, who shrank before him. “I am no son of yours—you know I am no son of yours! I owe you the hateful bread I have been compelled to eat—nothing more. I am without a name—I may be of base blood—but I warn you for your life, if you dare repeat this last insult. It is a lie! I tell every one who condescends to call you friend; and I appeal to God, who knows that you know it is a lie! I may be the sonof any other wretch under heaven, but I am not yours. I disown it with loathing and horror. Do you hear me?—you know the truth in your heart, and so do I!”
Lord Winterbourne fell back, step by step, before the young man, who pressed upon him close and rapid, with eyes which flamed and burned with a light which he could not bear. The insulting smile upon his bloodless face had not passed from it yet. His eyes, shifting, restless, and uneasy, expressed nothing. He was not a coward, and he was sufficiently quick-witted on ordinary occasions, but he had nothing whatever to answer to this vehement and unexpected accusation. He made an unintelligible appeal with his hand to his companions, and lifted up his face to the moonlight like a spectre, but he did not answer by a single word.
“Young man,” said the gentleman who had spoken before, “I acknowledge your painful position, and that you have been addressed in a most unseemly manner—but no provocation should make you forget your natural duty. Lord Winterbourne must have had a motive for maintaining you as he has done. I put it to you calmly, dispassionately—what motive could he possibly have had, except one?”
“Ah!” said Louis, with a sudden and violent start,“he must have had a motive—it is true; he would not waste his cruel powers, even for cruelty’s sake. If any man can tell me what child it was his interest to bastardise and defame, there may be hope and a name for me yet.”
At these words, Lord Winterbourne advanced suddenly with a singular eagerness. “Let us have done with this foolery,” he said, in a voice which was certainly less steady than usual; “I presume we can all be better employed than listening to the vapourings of this foolish boy. Go in, my lad, and learn a lesson by your folly to-night. I pass it over, simply because you have shown yourself to be a fool.”
“I, however, do not pass it over, my lord,” said Louis, who had calmed down after the most miraculous fashion, to the utter amazement of his sister. “Thank you for the provision you have given us, such as it is. Some time we may settle scores upon that subject. My sister and I must find another shelter to-night.”
The bystanders were half disposed to smile at the young man’s heroical withdrawal—but they were all somewhat amazed to find that Lord Winterbourne was as far as possible from sharing their amusement. He called out immediately in an access of passion to stop the young ruffian, incendiary, mischief-maker;—called loudly upon the servants, who began to appearat the open door—ordered Louis to his own apartment with the most unreasonable vehemence, and finally turned upon Rachel, calling her to give up the young villain’s arm, and for her life to go home.
But Rachel was wound to the fever point as well as her brother. “No, no, it is all true he has said,” cried Rachel. “I know it, like Louis; we are not your children—you dare not call us so now. I never believed you were our father—never all my life.”
She exclaimed these words hastily in her low eager voice, as Louis drew her arm through his, and hurried her away. The young man struck again across the broad park and through the moonlight, while behind, Lord Winterbourne called to his servants to go after the fugitives—to bring that fellow back. The men only stared at their master, looked helplessly at each other, and went off on vain pretended searches, with no better intention than to keep out of Louis’s way, until prudence came to the aid of Lord Winterbourne. “I shall scarcely think my life in safety while that young fool wanders wild about the country,” he said to his friends, as he returned within doors; but his friends, one and all, thought this a very odd scene.
Meanwhile Louis made his rapid way with his little sister on his arm out over the glorious moonlit park of Winterbourne, away from the only home he had ever known—out to the night and to the world. Rachel,leaning closely upon him, scarcely so much as looked up, as her faltering footstep toiled to keep up with her brother. He, holding his proud young head high, neither turned nor glanced aside, but pressed on straight forward, as if to some visionary certain end before his eye. Then they came out at last to the white silent road, lying ghostlike under the excess of light—the quiet road which led through the village where all the houses slept and everything was still, not a curl of smoke in the moonlight, nor a house-dog’s bark in the silence. It was midnight, vast and still, a great desolate uninhabited world. There was not a door open to them, nor a place where they could rest. But on pressed Louis, with the rapid step and unhesitating course of one who hastened to some definite conclusion. “Where are we going—where shall we go?” said poor little Rachel, drooping on his shoulder. Her brother did not hear her. He was not selfish, but he had not that superhuman consideration for others which might have broken the fiery inspiration of his own momentous thoughts, and made him think of the desolate midnight, and the houseless and outcast condition which were alone present to the mind of Rachel. He did not see a vast homeless solitude—a vagabond and disgraceful wandering, in this midnight walk. He saw a new world before him, such as had never glanced before across his fancy. “He must have had a motive,”he muttered to himself. Rachel heard him sadly, and took the words as a matter of course. “Where are we to go?”—that was a more immediately important question to the simple mind of Rachel.
The Old Wood Lodge was as deep asleep as any house in the village. They paused, reluctant, both of them, to awake their friends within, and went back, pacing rapidly between the house of the Athelings and that of the Rector. The September night was cold, and Rachel was timid of that strange midnight world out of doors. They seemed to have nothing for it but pacing up and down upon the grassy road, where they were at least within sight of a friendly habitation, till morning came.
There was one light in one window of the Old Wood House; Rachel’s eye went wandering to it wistfully, unawares: If the Rector knew—the Rector, who once would have been kind if Louis would have let him. But, as if in very response to her thoughts, the Rector, when they came back to this point again, was standing, like themselves, in the moonlight, looking over the low wall. He called to them rather authoritatively, asking what they did there—but started, and changed his tone into one of wondering interest and compassion when Rachel lifted her pale face to him, with the tears in her eyes. He hastened to the gate at once, and called them to enter. “Nay, nay, no hesitation—come in at once, that she may have rest and shelter,” said the Rector in a peremptory tone, which, for the first time in his life, Louis had no thought of resenting. He went in without a word, leading his little sister. Perhaps it was the first great thing that ever had been done in all her life for Rachel’s sake—for the sake of the delicate girl, who was half a child though a woman in years,—for sake of her tenderness, her delicate frame, her privilege of weakness. The two haughty young men went in silently together into this secluded house, which never opened its doors to any guest. It was an invalid’s home, and some one was always at hand for its ailing mistress. By-and-by Rachel, in the exhaustion of great excitement, fell asleep in a little quiet room looking over that moonlit park of Winterbourne. Louis, who was in no mood for sleep, watched below, full of eager and unquiet thoughts. They had left Winterbourne Hall suddenly; the Rector asked no further questions, expressed no wonder, and left the young man who had repelled him once, with a lofty and dignified hospitality, to his meditations or repose.
Charlie Athelingwas not at all of an imaginative or fanciful turn of mind. His slumbers were not disturbed by castle-building—he wasted none of his available time in making fancy sketches of the people, or the circumstances, among which he was likely to be thrown. He was not without the power of comprehending at a glance the various features of his mission; but by much the most remarkable point of Charlie’s character was his capacity for doing his immediate business, whatever that might be, with undivided attention, and with his full powers. On this early September morning he neither occupied himself with anticipations of his interview with Miss Anastasia, nor his hurried journey. He did not suffer his mind to stray to difficult questions of evidence, nor wander off into speculations concerning what he might have to do when he reached the real scene of his investigation. What he had to do at the moment he didlike a man, bending upon his serious business all the faculties of his mind, and all the furrows of his brow. He got up at six o’clock, not because he particularly liked it, but because these early morning hours had become his habitual time for extra work of every kind, and sat upon Hannah’s bench in the garden, close by the kitchen door, with the early sun and the early wind playing hide-and-seek among his elf-locks, learning his Italian grammar, as if this was the real business for which he came into the world.
“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do”—that was Charlie’s secret of success. He had only a grammar, a dictionary, and a little New Testament in Italian—and he had not at this moment the slightest ambition to read Dante in the original; but with steady energy he chased those unknown verbs into the deep caverns of his memory—a memory which was prodigious, and lost nothing committed to it. The three books accompanied him when he went in to breakfast, and marched off in his pocket to Oxford when it was time to keep his appointment with Miss Anastasia. Meanwhile the much-delayed travelling-bag only now began to get packed, and Mrs Atheling, silently toiling at this business, felt convinced that Susan would mislay all the things most important for Charlie’s comfort, and very much yearned in her heart to accompany her son home. They were to meet him at the railway, whencehe would depart immediately, after his interview with Miss Rivers; and Charlie’s secret commission made a considerable deal of excitement in the quiet little house.
Miss Anastasia, who was much too eager and impetuous to be punctual, had been waiting for some time, when her young agent made his appearance at the office of her solicitor. After she had charged him with being too late, and herself suffered conviction as being too early, the old lady proceeded at once to business; they were in Mr Temple’s own room, but they were alone.
“I have made copies of everything that seemed to throw light upon my late father’s wanderings,” said Miss Anastasia—“not much to speak of—see! These papers must have been carefully weeded before they came to my hands. Here is an old guide-book marked with notes, and here a letter dated from the place where he died. It is on the borders of Italy—at the foot of the Alps—on the way to Milan, and not very far from there. You will make all speed, young Atheling; I trust to your prudence—betray nothing—do not say a word about these children until you find some certain clue. It is more than twenty years—nearly one-and-twenty years—since my father died; but a rich Englishman, who married among them, was not like to be forgotten in such a village. Find outwho this Giulietta was—if you can discover the family, they might know something. My father had an attendant, a sort of courier, who was with us often—Jean Monte, half a Frenchman half an Italian. I have never heard of him since that time; he might be heard of on the way, andhemight know—but I cannot direct you, boy—I trust to your own spirit, your own foresight, your own prudence. Make haste, as if it was life and death; yet if time will avail you, take time. Now, young Atheling, I trust you!—bring clear evidence—legal evidence—what will stand in a court of law—and as sure as you live your fortune is made!”
Charlie did not make a single protestation in answer to this address. He folded up carefully those fragments of paper copied out in Miss Anastasia’s careful old-fashioned lady’s hand, and placed them in the big old pocket-book which he carried for lack of a better.
“I don’t know much of the route,” said Charlie,—“over the Alps, I suppose,” and for once his cheek flushed with the youthful excitement of the travel. “I shall find out all about that immediately when I get to town; and there is a passport to be seen after. When I am ready to start—which will be just as soon as the thing can be done—I shall let you know how I am to travel, and write immediately when I arrive there;—I know what you mean me to do.”
Then Miss Anastasia gave him—(a very importantpart of the business)—two ten-pound notes, which was a very large sum to Charlie, and directed him to go to the banking-house with which she kept an account in London, and get from them a letter of credit on a banker in Milan, on whom he could draw, according to his occasions. “You are very young, young Atheling,” said Miss Rivers; “many a father would hesitate to trust his son as I trust you; but I’m a woman and an optimist, and have my notions: you are only a boy, but I believe in you—forget how young you are while you are about my business—plenty of time after this for enjoying yourself—and I tell you again, if you do your duty, your fortune is made.”
The old lady and the youth went out together, to where the little carriage and the grey ponies stood at the solicitor’s door. Charlie, in his present development, was not at all the man to hand a lady with a grace to her carriage; nor was this stately gentlewoman, in her brown pelisse, at all the person to be so escorted; but they were a remarkable pair enough, as they stood upon the broad pavement of one of the noblest streets of Christendom. Miss Anastasia held out her hand with a parting command and warning, as she took her seat and the reins.—“Young Atheling, remember! it is life and death!”
She was less cautious at that moment than she had been during all their interview. The words full uponanother ear than his to whom they were addressed. Lord Winterbourne was making his way at the moment with some newly-arrived guests of his, and under the conduct of a learned pundit from one of the colleges, along this same picturesque High Street; and, in the midst of exclamations of rapture and of interest, his suspicious and alarmed eye caught the familiar equipage and well-known figure of Miss Anastasia. Her face was turned in the opposite direction,—she did not see him,—but a single step brought him near enough to hear her words. “Young Atheling!” Lord Winterbourne had not forgotten his former connection with the name, but the remembrance had long lain dormant in a breast which was used to potent excitements. William Atheling, though he once saved a reckless young criminal, could do no harm with his remote unbelievable story to a peer of the realm,—a man who had sat in the councils of the State. Lord Winterbourne had begun his suit for the Old Wood Lodge with the most contemptuous indifference to all that could be said of him by any one of this family; yet somehow it struck him strangely to hear so sudden a naming of this name. “Young Atheling!” He could not help looking at the youth,—meeting the stormy gleam in the eyes of Charlie, whose sudden enmity sprung up anew in an instant. Lord Winterbourne was sufficiently disturbed already by the departure ofLouis, and with the quick observation of alarm remarked everything. He could understand no natural connection whatever between this lad and Miss Anastasia. His startled imagination suggested instantly that it bore some reference to Louis, and what interpretation was it possible to give to so strange an adjuration—“It is life and death!”
“Charlie, my dear boy,” said Mrs Atheling, with a slight tremble in her voice, “I suppose it may be months before we see you again.”
“I can’t tell, mother; but it will not be a day longer than I can help,” said Charlie, who had the grace to be serious at the moment of parting. “There’s only one thing, you know,—I must do my business before I come home.”
“And take care of yourself,” said Mrs Atheling; “take great care when you are going over those mountains, and among those people where bandits are—you know what stories we have read about such robbers, Charlie,—and remember, though I should be very glad to hear good news about Louis, Louis is not my own very boy, like you.”
“Hush, mother—no need for naming him,” said Charlie; “he is of more moment than me, however, this time—for that’s my business. Never fear—thieves may be fools there as well as at home, but they’re none such fools as to meddle with me. Now, mother, promise me, the last thing,—Agnes, do you hear?—don’t tell Marian a word, norhim. I’ll tell old Foggo the whole story, and Foggo will do what he can for him when he gets to London; but don’t you go and delude him, telling him of this, for it would just be as good as ruin if I don’t succeed; and it all may come to nothing, as like as not. I say, Agnes, do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear, very well; but I am not given to telling secrets,” said Agnes, with a little dignity.
Charlie only laughed as he arranged himself in the corner of the second-class carriage, and drew forth his grammar; there was no time for anything more, save entreaties that he would write, and take care of himself; and the train flashed away, leaving them somewhat dull and blank in the reaction of past excitement, looking at each other, and half reluctant to turn their faces homeward. Their minds hurried forth, faster than either steam or electricity, to the end of Charlie’s journey. They went back with very slow steps and very abstracted minds. What a new world of change and sudden revolution might open upon them at Charlie’s return!
Mrs Atheling had some business in the town, and the mother and daughter pursued their way silentlyto that same noble High Street where Charlie had seen Lord Winterbourne, and where Lord Winterbourne and his party were still to be caught sight of, appearing and reappearing by glimpses as they “did” the halls and colleges. While her mother managed some needful business in a shop, Agnes stood rather dreamily looking down the stately street; its strange old-world mixture of the present and the past; its union of all kinds of buildings; the trim classic pillars and toy cupolas of the eighteenth century—the grim crumbling front of elder days—the gleams of green grass and waving trees through college gateways—the black-gowned figures interrupting the sunshine—the beautiful spire striking up into it as into its natural element,—a noble hyacinthine stem of immortal flowers. Agnes did not know much about artistic effect, nor anything about orders of architecture, but the scene seized upon her imagination, as was its natural right. Her thoughts were astray among hopes and chances far enough out of the common way—but any dream of romance could make itself real in an atmosphere like this.
She was pale,—she was somewhat of an abstracted and musing aspect. When one took into consideration her misfortune of authorship, she was in quite a sentimentalposeand attitude—so thought her American acquaintance, who had managed to secure an invitationto the Hall, and was one of Lord Winterbourne’s party. But Mr Endicott had “done” all the colleges before, and he could afford to let his attention be distracted by the appearance of the literary sister of the lady of his love.
“I am not surprised at your abstraction,” said Mr Endicott. “In this, indeed, I do not hesitate to confess, my country is not equal to your Island. What an effect of sunshine! what a breadth of shade! I cannot profess to have any preference, in respect to Art, for the past, picturesque though it be—a poet of these days, Miss Atheling, has not to deal with facts, but feelings; but I have no doubt, before I interrupted you, the whole panorama of History glided before your meditative eye.”
“No, indeed; I was thinking more of the future than of the past,” said Agnes hurriedly.
“The future of this nation is obscure and mysterious,” said Mr Endicott, gathering his eyebrows solemnly. “Some man must arise to lead you—to glory—or to perdition! I see nothing but chaos and darkness; but why should I prophesy? A past generation had leisure to watch the signs of the times; but for us ‘Art is long and time is fleeting,’ and happy is the man who can snatch one burning experience from the brilliant mirage of life.”
Agnes, a little puzzled by this mixture of images, did not attempt any answer. Mr Endicott went on.
“I had begun to observe, with a great deal of interest, two remarkable young minds placed in a singular position. They were not to be met, of course, at the table of Lord Winterbourne,” said the American with dignity; “but in my walks about the park I sometimes encountered them, and always endeavoured to draw them into conversation. So remarkable, in fact, did they seem to me, that they found a place in my Letters from England; studies of character entirely new to my consciousness. I believe, Miss Atheling, I had once the pleasure of seeing them in your company. They stand—um—unfortunately in a—a—an equivocal relationship to my noble host.”
“Ah! what of them?” cried Agnes quickly, and with a crimsoned cheek. She felt already how difficult it was to hear them spoken of, and not proclaim at once her superior knowledge.
“A singular event, I understand, happened last night,” continued Mr Endicott. “Viscount Winterbourne, on his own lawn, was attacked and insulted by the young man, who afterwards left the house under very remarkable circumstances. My noble friend, who is an admirable example of an old English nobleman, was at one time in actual danger,and I believe has been advised to put this fiery youth—”
“Do you mean Louis?” cried Agnes, interrupting him anxiously. “Louis!—do you mean that he has left the Hall?”
“I am greatly interested, I assure you, in tracing out this romance of real life,” said Mr Endicott. “He left the Hall, I understand, last evening—and my noble friend is advised to take measures for his apprehension. I look upon the whole history with the utmost interest. How interesting to trace the motives of this young mind, perhaps the strife of passions—gratitude mixing with a sense of injury! If he is secured, I shall certainly visit him: I know no nobler subject for a drama of passion; and dramas of the passions are what we want to ennoble this modern time.”
“Mother!” cried Agnes, “mother, come; we have no time to lose—Mr Endicott has told me—Mamma, leave these things to another time. Marian is alone; there is no one to support her. Oh, mother, mother! make haste! We must go home!”
She scarcely gave a glance to Mr Endicott as he stood somewhat surprised, making a study of the young author’s excitable temperament for his next “letter from England”—but hastened her mother homeward, explaining, as she went, though not verycoherently, that Louis had attacked Lord Winterbourne—that he had left the Hall—that he had done something for which he might be apprehended. The terror of disgrace—that most dread of all fears to people in their class—overwhelmed both mother and daughter, as they hastened, at a very unusual pace, along the road, terrified to meet himself in custody, or some one coming to tell them of his crime. And Marian, their poor beautiful flower, on whom this storm would fall so heavily—Marian was alone!