Thenext day was the day of Charlie’s arrival. His mother and sisters looked for him with anxiety, pleasure, and a little nervousness—much concerned about Papa’s opinion, and not at all indifferent to Charlie’s own. Rachel, who for two days past had been in a state of perfectly flighty and overpowering happiness, joined the Athelings this evening, at the risk of being “wanted” by Mrs Edgerley, and falling under her displeasure, with a perfectly innocent and unconscious disregard of any possible wish on the part of her friends to be alone with their new-come brother. Rachel could form no idea whatever of that half-wished-for, half-dreaded judgment of Papa, the anticipation of which so greatly subdued Marian, and made Mrs Atheling herself so grave and pale. Louis, with a clearer perception of the family crisis, kept away, though, as his sister wisely judged, at no great distance, chewing the cud of desperate and bitter fancy,almost half-repenting, for the moment, of the rash attachment which had put himself and all his disadvantages upon the judicial examination of a father and a brother. The idea of this family committee sitting upon him, investigating and commenting upon his miserable story, galled to the utmost the young man’s fiery spirit. He had no real idea whatever of that good and affectionate father, who was to Marian the first of men,—and had not the faintest conception of the big boy. So it was only an abstract father and brother—the most disagreeable of the species—at whom Louis chafed in his irritable imagination. He too had come already out of the first hurried flush of delight and triumph, to consider the step he had taken. Strangely into the joy and pride of the young lover’s dream came bitter and heavy spectres of self-reproach and foreboding—he, who had ventured to bind to himself the heart of a sensitive and tender girl—he, who had already thrown a shadow over her young life, filled her with premature anxieties, and communicated to these young eyes, instead of their fearless natural brightness, a wistful forecasting gaze into an adverse world—he, who had not even a name to share with his bride! On this memorable evening, Louis paced about by himself, crushing down the rusted fern as he strode through the wood in painful self-communion. The wind was high among the trees,and grew wild and fitful as the night advanced, bringing down showers of leaves into all the hollows, and raving with the most desolate sound in nature among the high tops of the Scotch firs, which stood grouped by themselves, a reserved and austere brotherhood, on one side of Badgeley Wood. Out of this leafy wilderness, the evening lay quiet enough upon the open fields, the wan gleams of water, and the deserted highway; but the clouds opened in a clear rift of wistful, windy, colourless sky, just over Oxford, catching with its pale half-light the mingled pinnacles and towers. Louis was too much engrossed either to see or to hear the eerie sights and sounds of the night, yet they had their influence upon him unawares.
In the mean time, and at the same moment, in the quiet country gloaming, which was odd, but by no means melancholy to him, Charlie trudged sturdily up the high-road, carrying his own little bag, and thinking his own thoughts. And down the same road, one talking a good deal, one very little, and one not at all, the three girls went to meet him, three light and graceful figures, in dim autumnal dresses—for now the evenings became somewhat cold—fit figures for this sweet half-light, which looked pleasant here, though it was so pale and ghostly in the wood. The first was Rachel, who, greatly exhilarated by her unusual freedom, and by all that had happened duringthese few days past, almost led the little party, protesting she was sure to know Charlie, and very near giddy in her unthinking and girlish delight. The second was Agnes, who was very thoughtful and somewhat grave, yet still could answer her companion; the third, a step behind, coming along very slow and downcast, with her veil over her drooping face, and a shadow upon her palpitating little heart, was Marian, in whose gentle mind was something very like a heavy and despondent shadow of the tumult which distracted her betrothed. Yet not that either—for there was no tumult, but only a pensive and oppressive sadness, under which the young sufferer remained very still, not caring to say a word. “What would papa say?” that was the only audible voice in Marian Atheling’s heart.
“There now, I am sure it is him—there he is,” cried Rachel; and it was Charlie, beyond dispute, shouldering his carpet-bag. The greeting was kindly enough, but it was not at all sentimental, which somewhat disappointed Rachel, at whom Charlie gazed with visible curiosity. When they turned with him, leading him home, Marian fell still farther back, and drooped more than ever. Perhaps the big boy was moved with a momentary sympathy—more likely it was simple mischief. “So,” said Charlie in her ear, “the Yankee’s cut out.”
Marian started a little, looked at him eagerly, and put her hand with an appealing gesture on his arm. “Oh, Charlie, what did papa say?” asked Marian, with her heart in her eyes.
Charlie wavered for a moment between his boyish love of torture and a certain dormant tenderness at the bottom of his full man’s heart, which this great event happening to Marian had touched into life all at once. The kinder sentiment prevailed after a moment’s pause of wicked intention. “My father was not angry, May,” said the lad; and he drew his shrinking sister’s pretty hand through his own arm roughly but kindly, pleased to feel his own boyish strength a support to her. Marian was so young too—very little beyond the rapid vicissitudes of a child. She bounded forward on Charlie’s arm at the words, drooping no longer, but triumphant and at ease in a moment, hurrying him up the ascending high-road at a pace which did not at all suit Charlie, and outstripping the entire party in her sudden flight to her mother with the good news. That Papa should not be angry was all that Marian desired or hoped.
At the door, in the darkness, the hasty girl ran into Mamma’s arms. “My father is not angry,” she exclaimed, out of breath, faithfully repeating Charlie’s words; and then Marian, once more the most serviceable of domestic managers, hastened to light thecandles on the tea-table, to draw the chairs around this kindly board, to warn Hannah of the approach of the heir of the house. Hannah came out into the hall to stand behind Mrs Atheling, and drop a respectful curtsy to the young gentleman. The punctilious old family attendant would have been inconsolable had she missed this opportunity of “showing her manners,” and was extremely grateful to Miss Marian, who did not forget her, though she had so many things to think of of her own.
The addition of Rachel slightly embarrassed the family party, and it had the most marvellous effect upon Charlie, who had never before known any female society except that of his sisters. Charlie was full three years younger than the young stranger—distance enough to justify her in treating him as a boy, and him in conceiving the greatest admiration for her. Charlie, of all things in the world, grew actuallyshyin the company of his sisters’ friend. He became afraid of committing himself, and at last began partly to believe his mother’s often-repeated strictures on his “manners.” He did unquestionably look so big, sobrusque, so clumsy, beside this pretty little fairy Rachel, and his own graceful sisters. Charlie hitched up his great shoulders, retreated under the shadow of all those cloudy furrows on his brow, and had actually nothing to say. And Mrs Atheling, occupied with herhusband’s long and anxious letter, forbore to question him; and the girls, anxious as they still were, did not venture to say anything before Rachel. They were not at all at their ease, and somewhat dull as they sat in the dim parlour, inventing conversation, and trying not to show their visitor that she was in the way. But she found it out at last, with a little uneasy start and blush, and hastened to get her bonnet and say good-night. No one seemed to fear that it would be difficult to find Rachel’s escort, who was found accordingly the moment they appeared in the garden, starting, as he did the first time of their meeting, from the darkness of the angle at the end of the hedge. Marian ran forward to him, giving Charlie’s message as it came all rosy and hopeful through the alembic of her own comforted imagination. “Papa is quite pleased,” said Marian, with her smiles and her blushes. She did not perceive the suppressed vexation of Louis’s brow as he tried to brighten at her news. For Marian could not have understood how this haughty and undisciplined young spirit could scarcely manage to bow itself to the approbation and judgment even of Papa.
“Andnow, Charlie, my dear boy, I quite calculate on your knowing about it, since you have been so long at the law,” said Mrs Atheling: “your father is so much taken up about other matters, that he really says very little about this. What are we to do?”
Charlie, whose mobile brow was shifting up and shifting down with all the marks of violent cogitation, bit his thumb at this, and took time before he answered it. “The first thing to be done,” said Charlie, with a little dogmatism, “is to see what evidence can be had—that’s what we have got to do. Has nobody found any papers of the old lady’s?—she was sure to have a lot—all your old women have.”
“No one even thought of looking,” said Agnes, suddenly glancing up at the old cabinet with all its brass rings—while Marian, restored to all her gay spirits, promptly took her brother to task for his contempt of old women. “You ought to see Miss Anastasia—she is a great deal bigger than you,” cried Marian, pulling a shaggy lock of Charlie’s black hair.
“Stuff!—who’s Miss Anastasia?” was the reply.
“And that reminds me,” said Mrs Atheling, “that we ought to have let her know. Do you remember what she said, Agnes?—she was quite sure my lord was thinking of something—and we were to let her know.”
“What about, mother?—and who’s Miss Anastasia?” asked Charlie once more: he had to repeat his question several times before any answer came.
“Who is Miss Anastasia? My dear, I forgot you were a stranger. She is—well, really I cannot pretend to describe Miss Rivers,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little nervousness. “I have always had a great respect for her, and so has your father. She is a very remarkable person, Charlie. I never have known any one like her all my life.”
“Butwhois she, mother? Is she any good?” repeated the impatient youth.
Mrs Atheling looked at her son with a certain horror.
“She is one of the most remarkable persons in the county,” said Mrs Atheling, with all the local spirit of a Banburyshire woman, born and bred—“she is a great scholar, and a lady of fortune, and the only child of the old lord. How strange the ways of Providence are, children!—what a difference it might have madein everything had Miss Anastasia been born a man instead of a woman.” “Indeed,” confessed Mamma, breaking off in an under-tone, “I do really believe it would have been more suitable, even for herself.”
“I suppose we’re to come at it at last,” said Charlie despairingly: “she’s a daughter of the tother lord—now, I want to know what she’s got to do with us.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Atheling eagerly, and with evident pleasure, “I wrote to your father, I am sure, all about it. She has called upon us twice in the most friendly way, and has quite taken a liking for the girls.”
“And she was old Aunt Bridget’s pupil, and her great friend; and it was on account of her that the old lord gave Aunt Bridget this house,” added Agnes, finding out, though not very cleverly, what Charlie’s questions meant.
“And she hates Lord Winterbourne,” said Marian in an expressive appendix, with a distinct emphasis of sympathy and approval on the words.
“Now I call that satisfaction,” said Charlie,—“that’s something like the thing. So I suppose she must have had to do with the whole business, and knows all about it—eh? Why didn’t you tell me so at once?—why, she’s the first person to see, of course. I had better seek her out to-morrow morning—first thing.”
“You!” Mamma looked with motherly anxiety, mixed with disapproval. It was so impossible, even with the aid of all partialities, to make out Charlie to be handsome. And Miss Anastasia came of a handsome race, and had a prejudice in favour of good looks. Then, though his large loose limbs began to be a little more firmly knitted and less unmanageable, and though he was now drawing near eighteen, he was still only a boy. “My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, “she is a very particular old lady, and takes dislikes sometimes, and very proud besides, and might not desire to be intruded on; and I think, after all, as you do not know her, and they do, I think it would be much better if the girls were to go.”
“The girls!” exclaimed Charlie with a boy’s contempt—“a great deal they know about the business! You listen to me, mother. I’ve been reading up hard for six months, and I know something about the evidence that does for a court of law—women don’t—it’s not in reason; for I’d like to see the woman that could stand old Foggo’s office, pegging in at these old fellows for precedent, and all that stuff. You don’t suppose I mind what your old lady thinks of me—and I know what I want, which is the main thing, after all. You tell me where she lives—that’s all I want to know—and see if I don’t make something of it before another day.”
“Where she lives?—it is six miles off, Charlie: you don’t know the way—and, indeed, you don’t know her either, my poor boy.”
“Don’t you trouble about that—that’s my business, mother,” said Charlie; “and a man can’t lose his way in the country unless he tries—a long road, and a fingerpost at every crossing. When a man wants to lose himself, he had better go to the City—there’s no fear in your plain country roads. You set me on the right way—you know all the places hereabout—and just for this once, mother, trust me, and let me manage it my own way.”
“I always did trust you, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling evasively; but she did not half like her son’s enterprise, and greatly objected to put Miss Anastasia’s friendship in jeopardy by such an intrusion as this.
However, the young gentleman now declared himself tired, and was conducted up-stairs in state, by his mother and sisters—first to Mrs Atheling’s own room to inspect it, and kiss, half reluctantly, half with genuine fondness, the little slumbering cherub faces of Bell and Beau. Then he had a glimpse of the snowy decorations of that young-womanly and pretty apartment of his sisters, and was finally ushered into the little back-room, his own den, from which the lumber had been cleared on purpose for his reception. They left him then to his repose, and dreams, if the couchof this young gentleman was ever visited by such fairy visitants, and retired again themselves to that dim parlour, to read over in conclave Papa’s letter, and hold a final consultation as to what everybody should do.
Papa’s letter was very long, very anxious, and very affectionate, and had cost Papa all the leisure of two long evenings, and all his unoccupied hours for two days at the office. He blamed his wife a little, but it was very quietly,—he was grieved for the premature step the young people had taken, but did not say a great deal about his grief,—and he was extremely concerned, and evidently did not express half of his concern, about his pretty Marian, for whom he permitted himself to say he had expected a very different fate. There was not much said of personal repugnance to Louis, and little comment upon his parentage, but they could see well enough that Papa felt the matter very deeply, and that it needed all his affection for themselves, and all his charity for the stranger, to reconcile him to it. But they were both very young, he said,and must do nothing precipitate—which sentence Papa made very emphatic by a very black and double underscoring, and which Mrs Atheling, but fortunately not Marian, understood to mean that it was a possibility almost to be hoped for, that this might turn out one of those boy-and-girl engagementsmade to be broken, and never come to anything after all.
It was consolatory certainly, and set their minds at rest, but it was not a very cheering letter, and by no means justified Marian’s joyful announcement that “papa was quite pleased.” And so much was the good father taken up with his child’s fortune, that it was only in a postscript he took any notice of Lord Winterbourne’s summons and their precarious holding of the Old Wood Lodge. “We will resist, of course,” said Papa. He did not know a great deal more about how to resist than they did, so he wisely left the question to Charlie, and to “another day.”
And now came the question, what everybody was to do? which gradually narrowed into much smaller limits, and became wholly concerned with what Charlie was to do, and whether he should visit Miss Anastasia. He had made up his mind to it with no lack of decision. What could his mother and his sisters say, save make a virtue of necessity, and yield their assent?
Earlyon the next morning, accordingly, Charlie set out for Abingford. It was with difficulty he escaped a general superintendence of his toilette, and prevailed upon his mother to content herself with brushing his coat, and putting into something like arrangement the stray locks of his hair; but at last, tolerably satisfied with his appearance, and giving him many anxious instructions as to his demeanour towards Miss Anastasia, Mrs Atheling suffered him to depart upon his important errand. The road was the plainest of country roads, through the wood and over the hill, with scarcely a turn to distract the regard of the traveller. A late September morning, sunny and sweet, with yellow leaves sometimes dropping down upon the wind, and all the autumn foliage in a flush of many colours under the cool blue, and floating clouds of a somewhat dullish yet kindly sky. The deep underground of ferns, where they were notbrown, were feathering away into a rich yellow, which relieved and brought out all the more strongly the harsh dark green of these vigorous fronds, rusted with seed; and piles of firewood stood here and there, tied up in big fagots, provision for the approaching winter. The birds sang gaily, still stirring among the trees; and now and then into the still air, and far-off rural hum, came the sharp report of a gun, or the ringing bark of a dog. Charlie pushed upon his way, wasting little time in observation, yet observing for all that, with the novel pleasure of a town-bred lad, and owning a certain exhilaration in his face, and in his breast, as he sped along the country road, with its hedges and strips of herbage; that straight, clear, even road, with its milestones and fingerposts, and one market-cart coming along in leisurely rural fashion, half a mile off upon the far-seen way. The walk to Abingford was a long walk even for Charlie, and it was nearly an hour and a half from the time of his leaving home, when he began to perceive glimpses through the leaves of a little maze of water, two or three streams, splitting into fantastic islands the houses and roofs before him, and came in sight of an old gateway, with two windows and a high peaked roof over it, which strode across the way. Charlie, who was entirely unacquainted with such peculiarities of architecture,made a pause of half-contemptuous boyish observation, looking up at the windows, and supposing it must be rather odd to live over an archway. Then he bethought him of asking a loitering country lad to direct him to the Priory, which was done in the briefest manner possible, by pointing round the side of the gate to a large door which almost seemed to form part of it. “There it be,” said Charlie’s informant, and Charlie immediately made his assault upon the big door.
Miss Rivers was at home. He was shown into a large dim room full of books, with open windows, and green blinds let down to the floor, through which the visitor could only catch an uncertain glimpse of waving branches, and a lawn which sloped to the pale little river: the room was hung with portraits, which there was not light enough to see, and gave back a dull glimmer from the glass of its great bookcases. There was a large writing-table before the fireplace, and a great easy-chair placed by it. This was where Miss Anastasia transacted business; but Charlie had not much time, if he had inclination, for a particular survey of the apartment, for he could hear a quick and decided step descending a stair, as it seemed, and crossing over the hall. “Charles Atheling—who’sCharlesAtheling?” said a peremptory voice outside. “I know no one of the name.”
With the words on her lips Miss Anastasia entered the room. She wore a loose morning-dress, belted round her waist with a buckled girdle, and a big tippet of the same; and her cap, which was not intended to be pretty, but only to be comfortable, came down close over her ears, snow white, and of the finest cambric, but looking very homely and familiar indeed to the puzzled eyes of Charlie. Not her homely cap, however, nor her odd dress, could make Miss Anastasia less imperative or formidable. “Well sir,” she said, coming in upon him without very much ceremony, “which of the Athelings do you belong to, and what do you want with me?”
“I belong to the Old Wood Lodge,” said Charlie, almost as briefly, “and I want to ask what you know about it, and how it came into Aunt Bridget’s hands.”
“What I know about it? Of course I know everything about it,” said Miss Anastasia. “So you’re young Atheling, are you? You’re not at all like your pretty sisters; not clever either, so far as I can see, eh? What are you good for, boy?”
Charlie did not say “stuff!” aloud, but it was only by a strong effort of self-control. He was not at all disposed to give any answer to the question. “What has to be done in the mean time is to save my father’s property,” said Charlie, with a boyish flush of offence.
“Save it, boy! who’s threatening your father’s property?What! do you mean to tell me already that he’s fallen foul of Will Atheling?” said the old lady, drawing her big easy-chair to her big writing-table, and motioning Charlie to draw near. “Eh? why don’t you speak? tell me the whole at once.”
“Lord Winterbourne has sent us notice to leave,” said Charlie; “he says the Old Wood Lodge was only Aunt Bridget’s for life, and is his now. I have set the girls to look up the old lady’s papers; we ourselves know nothing about it, and I concluded the first thing to be done was to come and ask you.”
“Good,” said Miss Anastasia; “you were perfectly right. Of course it is a lie.”
This was said perfectly in a matter-of-course fashion, without the least idea, apparently, on the part of the old lady, that there was anything astonishing in the lie which came from Lord Winterbourne.
“I know everything about it,” she continued; “my father made over the little house to my dear old professor, when we supposed she would have occasion to leave me:thatturned out a vain separation, thanks tohimagain;” and here Miss Rivers grew white for an instant, and pressed her lips together. “Please Heaven, my boy, he’ll not be successful this time. No. I know everything about it; we’ll foil my lord in this.”
“But there must have been a deed,” said Charlie; “do you know where the papers are?”
“Papers! I tell you I am acquainted with every circumstance—I myself. You can call me as a witness,” said the old lady. “No, I can’t tell you where the papers are. What’s about them? eh? Do you mean to say they are of more consequence than me?”
“There are sure to be documents on the other side,” said Charlie; “the original deed would settle the question, without needing even a trial: without it Lord Winterbourne has the better chance. Personal testimony is not equal to documents in a case like this.”
“Young Atheling,” said Miss Rivers, drawing herself up to her full height, “do you think a jury of this county would weighhisword against mine?”
Charlie was considerably embarrassed. “I suppose not,” he said, somewhat abruptly; “but this is not a thing of words. Lord Winterbourne will never appear at all; but if he has any papers to produce proving his case, the matter will be settled at once; and unless we have counterbalancing evidence of the same kind, we’d better give it up before it comes that length.”
He said this half impatient, half despairing. Miss Rivers evidently took up this view of the question with dissatisfaction; but as he persevered in it, came gradually to turn her thoughts to other means of assisting him. “But I know of no papers,” she said,with disappointment; “my father’s solicitor, to be sure, he is the man to apply to. I shall make a point of seeing him to-morrow; and what papers I have I will look over. By the by, now I remember it, the Old Wood Lodge belonged to her grandfather or great-grandfather, dear old soul, and came to us by some mortgage or forfeit. It was given back—restored, not bestowed upon her. For her life!—I should like to find out now what he means by such a lie!”
Charlie, who could throw no light upon this subject, rose to go, somewhat disappointed, though not at all discouraged. The old lady stopped him on his way, carried him off to another room, and administered, half against Charlie’s will, a glass of wine. “Now, young Atheling, you can go,” said Miss Anastasia. “I’ll remember both you and your business. What are they bringing you up to? eh?”
“I’m in a solicitor’s office,” said Charlie.
“Just so—quite right,” said Miss Anastasia. “Let me see you bafflehim, and I’ll be your first client. Now go away to your pretty sisters, and tell your mother not to alarm herself. I’ll come to the Lodge in a day or two; and if there’s documents to be had, you shall have them. Under any circumstances,” continued the old lady, dismissing him with a certain stateliness, “you can callme.”
But though she was a great lady, and the most remarkable person in the county, Charlie did not appreciate this permission half so much as he would have appreciated some bit of wordy parchment. He walked back again, much less sure of his case than when he set out with the hope of finding all he wanted at Abingford.
WhenCharlie reached home again, very tired, and in a somewhat moody frame of mind, he found the room littered with various old boxes undergoing examination, and Agnes seated before the cabinet, with a lapful of letters, and her face bright with interest and excitement, looking them over. At the present moment, she held something of a very perplexing nature in her hand, which the trained eye of Charlie caught instantly, with a flash of triumph. Agnes herself was somewhat excited about it, and Marian stood behind her, looking over her shoulder, and vainly trying to decipher the ancient writing. “It’s something, mamma,” cried Agnes. “I am sure, if Charlie saw it, he would think it something; but I cannot make out what it is. Here is somebody’s seal and somebody’s signature, and there, I am sure, that is Atheling; and a date, ‘xiij. of May, M.D.LXXII.’ What does that mean, Marian? M. a thousand, D. five hundred; there it is!I am sure it is an old deed—a real something ancestral—1572!”
“Give it to me,” said Charlie, stretching his hand for it over her shoulder. No one had heard him come in.
“Oh, Charlie, what did Miss Anastasia say?” cried Marian; and Agnes immediately turned round away from the cabinet, and Mamma laid down her work. Charlie, however, took full time to examine the yellow old document they had found, though he did not acknowledge that it posed him scarcely less than themselves, before he spoke.
“She said she’d look up her papers, and speak to the old gentleman’s solicitor. I don’t see thatshe’smuch good to us,” said Charlie. “She says I might call her as a witness, but what’s the good of a witness against documents? This has nothing to do with Aunt Bridget, Agnes—have you found nothing more than this? Why, you know there must have been a deed of some kind. The old lady could not have been so foolish as to throw away her title. Property without title-deeds is not worth a straw; and the man that drew up her will is my lord’s solicitor! I say, he must be what the Yankees call a smart man, this Lord Winterbourne.”
“I am afraid he has no principle, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling with a sigh.
“And a very bad man—everybody hates him,” said Marian under her breath.
She spoke so low that she did not receive that reproving look of Mamma which was wont to check such exclamations. Marian, though she had a will of her own, and was never like to fall into a mere shadow and reflection of her lover, as his poor little sister did, had unconsciously imbibed Louis’s sentiments. She did not know what it was tohate, this innocent girl. Had she seen Lord Winterbourne thrown from his horse, or overturned out of his carriage, these ferocious sentiments would have melted in an instant into help and pity; but in the abstract view of the matter, Marian pronounced with emotion the great man’s sentence, “Everybody hates Lord Winterbourne.”
“That is what the old lady said,” exclaimed Charlie; “she asked me who I thought would believe him against her? But that’s not the question. I don’t want to pit one man against another. My father’s worth twenty of Lord Winterbourne! But that’s no matter. The law cares nothing at all for his principles. What title has he got, and what title have you?—that’s what the law’s got to say. Now, I’ll either have something to put in against him or I’ll not plead. It’s no use taking a step in the matter without proof.”
“And won’t that do, Charlie?” asked Mrs Atheling,looking wistfully at the piece of parchment, signed and sealed, which was in Charlie’s hands.
“That! why, it’s two hundred and fifty years old!” said Charlie. “I don’t see what it refers to yet, but it’s very clear it can’t be to Miss Bridget. No, mother, that won’t do.”
“Then, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling, “I am very sorry to think of it; but, after all, we have not been very long here, and we might have laid out more money, and formed more attachments to the place, if we had gone on much longer; and I think I shall be very glad to get back to Bellevue. Marian, my love, don’t cry; this need not make any difference withanything; but I think it is far better just to make up our minds to it, and give up the Old Wood Lodge.”
“Mother! do you think I mean that?” cried Charlie; “we must find the papers, that’s what we must do. My father’s as good an Englishman as the first lord in the kingdom; I’d not give in to the king unless he was in the right.”
“And not even then, unless you could not help it,” said Agnes, laughing; “but I am not half done yet; there is still a great quantity of letters—and I should not be at all surprised if this romantic old cabinet, like an old bureau in a novel, had a secret drawer.”
Animated by this idea, Marian ran to the antique little piece of furniture, pressing every projection withher pretty fingers, and examining into every creak. But there was no secret drawer—a fact which became all the more apparent when a drawerwasdiscovered, which once had closed with a spring. The spring was broken, and the once-secret place was open, desolate, and empty. Miss Bridget, good old lady, had no secrets, or at least she had not made any provision for them here.
Agnes went on with her examination the whole afternoon, drawn aside and deluded to pursue the history of old Aunt Bridget’s life through scores of yellow old letters, under the pretence that something might be found in some of them to throw light upon this matter; for a great many letters of Miss Bridget’s own—careful “studies” for the production itself—were tied up among the others; and it would have been amusing, if it had not been sad, to sit on this little eminence of time, looking over that strange faithful self-record of the little weaknesses, the ladylike pretences, the grand Johnsonian diction of the old lady who was dead. Poor old lady! Agnes became quite abashed and ashamed of herself when she felt a smile stealing over her lip. It seemed something like profanity to ransack the old cabinet, and smile at it. In its way, this, as truly as the grass-mound, in Winterbourne churchyard, was Aunt Bridget’s grave.
But still nothing could be found. Charlie occupiedhimself during the remainder of the day in giving a necessary notice to Mr Lewis the solicitor, that they had made up their minds to resist Lord Winterbourne’s claim; and when the evening closed in, and the candles were lighted, Louis made his first public appearance since the arrival of the stranger, somewhat cloudy, and full of all his old haughtiness. This cloud vanished in an instant at the first glance. Whatever Charlie’s qualities were, criticism was not one of them; it was clear that though his “No” might be formidable enough of itself, Charlie had not been a member of any solemn committee, sitting upon the pretensions of Louis. He gave no particular regard to Louis even now, but sat poring over the old deed, deciphering it with the most patient laboriousness, with his head very close over the paper, and a pair of spectacles assisting his eyes. The spectacles were lent by Mamma, who kept them, not secretly, but with a little reserve, in her work-basket, for special occasions when she had some very fine stitching to do, or was busy with delicate needlework by candle-light; and nothing could have been more oddly inappropriate to the face of Charlie, with all the furrows of his brow rolled down over his eyebrows, and his indomitable upper-lip pressed hard upon its fellow, than these same spectacles. Then they made him short-sighted, and were only of use when he leaned closely over the paper—Charlie didnot mind, though his shoulders ached and his eyes filled with water. He was making it out!
And Agnes, for her part, sat absorbed with her lapful of old letters, reading them all over with passing smiles and gravities, growing into acquaintance with ever so many extinct affairs,—old stories long ago come to the one conclusion which unites all men. Though she felt herself virtuously reading for a purpose, she had forgotten all about the purpose long ago, and was only wandering on and on by a strange attraction, as if through a city of the dead. But it was quite impossible to think of the dead among these yellow old papers—the littlest trivial things of life were so quite living in them, in these unconscious natural inferences and implications. And Louis and Marian, sometimes speaking and often silent, were going through their own present romance and story; and Mamma, in her sympathetic middle age, with her work-basket, was tenderly overlooking all. In the little dim country parlour, lighted with the two candles, what a strange epitome there was of a whole world and a universal life.
Louishad not been told till this day of the peril which threatened the little inheritance of the Athelings. When he did hear of it, the young man gnashed his teeth with that impotent rage which is agony, desperate under the oppression which makes even wise men mad. He scorned to say a word of any further indignities put upon himself; but Rachel told of them with tears and outcries almost hysterical—how my lord had challenged him with bitter taunts to put on his livery and earn the bread he ate—how he had been expelled from his room which he had always occupied, and had an apartment now among the rooms of the servants—and how Lord Winterbourne threatened to advertise him publicly as a vagabond and runaway if he ventured beyond the bounds of the village, or tried to thrust himself into any society. Poor little Rachel, when she came in the morning faint and heart-broken to tell her story, could scarcely speak for tears, andwas only with great difficulty soothed to a moderate degree of calm. But still she shrank with the strangest repugnance from going away. It scarcely could be attachment to the home of her youth, for it had always been an unhappy shelter—nor could it be love for any of the family; the little timid spirit feared she knew not what terrors in the world with which she had so little acquaintance. Lord Winterbourne to her was not a mere English peer, of influence only in a certain place and sphere, but an omnipotent oppressor, from whose power it would be impossible to escape, and whose vigilance could not be eluded. If she tried to smile at the happy devices of Agnes and Marian, how to establish herself in their own room at Bellevue, and lodge Louis close at hand, it was a very wan and sickly smile. She confessed it was dreadful to think that he should remain, exposed to all these insults; but she shrank with fear and trembling from the idea of Louis going away.
The next evening, just before the sun set, the whole youthful party—for Rachel, by a rare chance, was not to be “wanted” to-night—strayed along the grassy road in a body towards the church. Agnes and Marian were both with Louis, who had been persuaded at last to speak of his own persecutions, while Rachel came behind with Charlie, kindly pointing out for him the far-off towers of Oxford, the two rivers wandering in amaze, and all the features of the scene which Charlie did not know, and amused, sad as she was, in her conscious seniority and womanhood, at the shyness of the lad. Charlie actually began to be touched with a wandering breath of sentiment, had been seen within the last two days reading a poetry book, and was really in a very odd and suspicious “way.”
“No,” said Louis, upon whom his betrothed and her sister were hanging eagerly, comforting and persuading—“no; I am not in a worse position. It stings me at the moment, I confess; but I am filled with contempt for the man who insults me, and his words lose their power. I could almost be seduced to stay when he begins to struggle with me after this downright fashion; but you are perfectly right for all that, and within a few days I must go away.”
“A few days? O Louis!” cried Marian, clinging to his arm.
“Yes; I have a good mind to say to-morrow, to enhance my own value,” said Louis. “I am tempted—ay, both to go and stay—for sake of the clinging of these little hands. Never mind, our mother will come home all the sooner; and what do you suppose I will do?”
“I think indeed, Louis, you should speak to the Rector,” said Agnes, with a little anxiety. “O no; itis very cruel of you, and you are quite wrong; he did not mean to be very kind in that mocking way—he meant what he said—he wanted to do you service; and so he would, and vindicate you when you were gone, if you only would cease to be so very grand for two minutes, and let him know.”
“Am I so very grand?” said Louis, with a momentary pique. “I have nothing to do with your rectors—I know what he meant, whatever he might say.”
“It is a great deal more than he does himself, I am sure of that,” said Agnes with a puzzled air. “He means what he says, but he does not always know what he means; and neither do I.”
Marian tried a trembling little laugh at her sister’s perplexity, but they were rather too much moved for laughing, and it did not do.
“Now, I will tell you what my plan is,” said Louis. “I do not know what he thinks of me, nor do I expect to find his opinion very favourable; but as that is all I can look for anywhere, it will be the better probation for me,” he added, with a rising colour and an air of haughtiness. “I will not enlist, Marian. I have no longer any dreams of the marshal’sbatonin the soldier’s knapsack. I give up rank and renown to those who can strive for them. You must be content with such honour as a man can have in his own person, Marian. When I leave you, I will go at once to your father.”
“Oh, Louis, will you? I am so glad, so proud!” and again the little hands pressed his arm, and Marian looked up to him with her radiant face. He had not felt before how perfectly magnanimous and noble his resolution was.
“I think it will be very right,” said Agnes, who was not so enthusiastic; “and my father will be pleased to see you, Louis, though you doubt him as you doubt all men. But look, who is this coming here?”
They were scarcely coming here, seeing they were standing still under the porch of the church, a pair of very tall figures, very nearly equal in altitude, though much unlike each other. One of them was the Rector, who stood with a solemn bored look at the door of his church, which he had just closed, listening, without any answer save now and then a grave and ceremonious bow, to the other “individual,” who was talking very fluently, and sufficiently loud to be heard by others than the Rector. “Oh, Agnes!” cried Marian, and “Hush, May!” answered her sister; they both recognised the stranger at a glance.
“Yes, this is the pride of the old country,” said the voice; “here, sir, we can still perceive upon the sands of time the footprints of our Saxon ancestors. I say ours, for my youthful and aspiring nation boasts as the brightest star in her banner the Anglo-Saxon blood.Wepreserve the free institutions—the hatred of superstition,the freedom of private judgment and public opinion, the great inheritance developed out of the past; but Old England, sir, a land which I venerate, yet pity, keeps safe in her own bosom the external traces full of instruction, the silent poetry of Time—that only poetry which she can refuse to share with us.”
To this suitable and appropriate speech, congenial as it must have been to his feelings, the Rector made no answer, save that most deferential and solemn bow, and was proceeding with a certain conscientious haughtiness to show his visitor some other part of the building, when his eye was attracted by the approaching group. He turned to them immediately with an air of sudden relief.
So did Mr Endicott, to whom, to do him justice, not all the old churches in Banburyshire, nor all the opportunities of speechmaking, nor even half-a-dozen rectors who were within two steps of a peerage, could have presented such powerful attractions as did that beautiful blushing face of Marian Atheling, drooping and falling back under the shadow of Louis. The Yankee hastened forward with his best greeting.
“When I remember our last meeting,” said Mr Endicott, bending his thin head forward with the most unusual deference, that tantalising vision of what might have been, “I think myself fortunate indeed to have found you so near your home. I have beenvisiting your renowned city—one of those twins of learning, whose antiquity is its charm. In my country our antiquities stretch back into the eternities; but we know nothing of the fourteenth or the fifteenth century in our young soil. My friend the Rector has been showing me his church.”
Mr Endicott’s friend the Rector stared at him with a haughty amazement, but came forward without saying anything to the new-comers; then he seemed to pause a moment, doubtful how to address Louis—a doubt which the young man solved for him instantly by taking off his hat with an exaggerated and solemn politeness. They bowed to each other loftily, these two haughty young men, as two duellists might have saluted each other over their weapons. Then Louis turned his fair companion gently, and, without saying anything, led her back again on the road they had just traversed. Agnes followed silently, and feeling very awkward, with the Rector and Mr Endicott on either hand. The Rector did not say a word. Agnes only answered in shy monosyllables. The gifted American had it all his own way.
“I understand Viscount Winterbourne and Mrs Edgerley are at Winterbourne Hall,” said Mrs Endicott. “She is a charming person; the union of a woman of fashion and a woman of literature is one so rarely seen in this land.”
“Yes,” said Agnes, who knew nothing else to say.
“For myself,” said Mr Endicott solemnly, “I rejoice to find the poetic gift alike in the palace of the peer and the cottage of the peasant, bringing home to all hearts the experiences of life; in the sumptuous apartments of the Hall with Mrs Edgerley, or in the humble parlour of the worthy and respectable middle class—Miss Atheling, with you.”
“Oh!” cried Agnes, starting under this sudden blow, and parrying it with all the skill she could find. “Do you like Oxford, Mr Endicott? Have you seen much of the country about here?”
But it was too late. Mr Endicott caught a shy backward glance of Marian, and, smothering a mortal jealousy of Louis, eagerly thrust himself forward to answer it—and the Rector had caught his unfortunate words. The Rector drew himself up to a still more lofty height, if that was possible, and walked on by Agnes’s side in a solemn and stately silence—poor Agnes, who would have revived a little in his presence but for that arrow of Mr Endicott’s, not knowing whether to address him, or whether her best policy was to be silent. She went on by his side, holding down her head, looking very small, very slight, very young, beside that dignified and stately personage. At last he himself condescended to speak.
“Am I to understand, Miss Atheling,” said theRector, very much in the same tone as he might have asked poor little Billy Morrell at school, “Are you the boy who robbed John Parker’s orchard?”—“Am I to understand, as I should be disposed to conclude from what this person says, that, like my fashionable cousin at the Hall, you have written novels?—or is it only the hyperbole of that individual’s ordinary speech?”
“No,” said Agnes, very guilty, a convicted culprit, yet making bold to confess her guilt. “I am very sorry he said it, but it is true; only I have written just one novel. Do you think it wrong?”
“I think a woman’s intellect ought to be receptive without endeavouring to produce,” said the Rector, in a slightly acerbated tone. “Intelligence is the noblest gift of a woman; originality is neither to be wished nor looked for.”
“I do not suppose I am very guilty of that either,” said Agnes, brightening again with that odd touch of pugnacity, as she listened once more to this haughty tone of dogmatism from the man who held no opinions. “If you object only to originality, I do not think you need be angry with me.”
She was half inclined to play with the lion, but the lion was in a very ill humour, and would see no sport in the matter. To tell the truth, the Rector was very much fretted by this unlooked-for intelligence. He felt as if it were done on purpose, and meant as apersonal offence to him, though really, after all, for a superior sister of St Frideswide, this unfortunate gift of literature was rather a recommendation than otherwise, as one might have thought.
So the Rev. Lionel Rivers stalked on beside Agnes past his own door, following Louis, Marian, and Mr Endicott to the very gate of the Old Wood Lodge. Then he took off his hat to them all, wished them a ceremonious good-night, and went home extremely wrathful, and in a most unpriestly state of mind. He could not endure to think that the common outer world had gained such a hold upon that predestined Superior of the sisters of St Frideswide.
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.