"Idon't care; but if myunclehears,he'll not like it, I can tell you."
"I should not for any earthly consideration have made myself accessory to anything that could possibly have given a moment's pain to my honoured patron, the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney, or to my honoured pupil——"
"Why, yes, my uncle might do you a mischief; as for me, I don't care. Only I think it was rather cool, considering how savage he has always been—what a lot of money he has cost us—getting up contests and petitions, and vilifying us wherever he could. He has left no stone unturned—but that's all over; and I think you've committed an indiscretion, because he hasn't a guinea left, and my sensible old grandmother will positively make you pay the rent, and that will be as unpleasant as sharing your tithes with the vicar."
"We are not all so wise as perhaps we should be in our generation," said the Reverend Isaac Dixie, with an apostolic simper that was plaintive and simple. To quiet the reader's uneasiness, however, I may mention that this good man had taken particular care to secure himself against apossible loss of a shilling in the matter. "And there are claims to which it is impossible to be deaf—there is a voice that seems to say, turn not thou away."
"Dostop that. You know very well that Booth Fanshawe was once a man who could give you a lift; and you did not know, perhaps, that he is ruined."
"Pardon me; but too well. It is to protect him against immediate and melancholy consequences that I ventured, at some little risk, perhaps, to seek for him an asylum in the seclusion of Malory."
"Well, it wasn't all sentiment, my dear Dixie; there's a gold thread of a ravelled tuft running through it somewhere; for whatever the romance of Christianity may say, the practice of the apostles is, very much, nothing for nothing; and if old Fanshawe wasn't worth obliging, I dare say Hammerdon wrote or spoke to you. Come, your looks confess it."
"Lord Hammerdon, I have no hesitation in saying, did suggest——"
"There, that will do. Will you come over to Ware, and dine with me? I'm sure old Jones can give you a bed."
The Reverend Isaac Dixie, however, could not come. There was to be a religious meeting inthe morning at Clay school-house; the bishop was to be there; and the rector was himself to move a resolution, and had not yet considered what he was to say.
So he stepped with a bland countenance and a deliberate stride into his fly again; and from its window smirked sadly, and waved his hand to the future patron of Fridon-cum-Fleece, as he drove away; and the clergyman, who was not always quite celestial, and could, on safe occasions, be sharp and savage enough, exploded in a coarse soliloquy over the money, and the day and the ease he had sacrificed to the curiosity of that young man, who certainlyhadsome asodiouspoints as it had ever been his lot to meet with.
Cleve Verneynext afternoon was again, on board his yacht. Wind and tide both favouring, the cutter was running under a press of canvas that brought her gunwale to the water's edge once more for Penruthyn Priory. This time it was no mere aquatic whim; it was pursuit.
Searching the wooded sea-board of Malory with his glass, from the terrace of Ware, he had seen an open sail-boat waiting at the jetty. Down came a servant with cloaks and rugs. Cleve grew more and more interested as he adjusted the focus of his glass more exactly. On a sudden, from the little door in the boundary wall, emerged two ladies. There was no mistake; he could swear to them. They were the very same whom he had seen on Sunday in the Malory seat.
He watched till he saw the boat round the point, and then—"Yes," he thought, "they are certainly going to Penruthyn Priory."
And away went Cleve Verney in pursuit of the shadow which he secretly adored. From Ware to Penruthyn Priory is about six miles, and by the time the pursuing cutter was in motion the chase had made more than a mile of her course, and was within two of the landing point at the ruin.
Cleve saw the two ladies disembark. It was now plain that they had come either to visit the ruins, or for a walk in that wild and lonely park called the Warren. Cleve had brought his gun with him, only for an excuse.
Little more than five minutes after the arrival of the open boat, Cleve Verney set his foot upon the rude landing place, as old perhaps as the Priory itself; a clumsy little pier, constructed of great rocks, overgrown with sea-rack, over which slippery platform he strode with reckless haste, and up by that steep and pretty little winding lane, the trees overhanging which look centuries old, stooping and mantled in ivy. They may have heard the tinkle of the bells of the prior's mule, as he ambled beneath their boughs, and the solemn swell of the monkish requiem from the melancholy little churchyard close by, under the old Priory windows. The thick stone wall that fences this ancient by-road is clasped together with ivy, and hoar with lichens, irregular, and broken as the battlements of a ruined tower.The approach, and the place itself, are in their picturesque sadness and solitude the very scene and setting of such a romance as Cleve Verney was pursuing.
Into the Warren, by the stile up this road's side, went Cleve, and climbed the gray rocky hillock that commands an extensive view of that wild park; but there they were not.
Well, they must, then, have pursued the path up to the Priory, and thither he followed.
Oh, ho! here they are; the young lady at a little distance looking up at the singular ruin; the old lady engaged in an active discussion with shrewish old Mrs. Hughes, who was very deaf, and often a little tipsy, and who was now testily refusing the ladies admission within the iron gate which affords access to the ruins, of which she held the keys.
No situation could have been more fortunate for Cleve. The Warren and the Priory being his uncle's property, and the termagant Mrs. Hughes his officer, he walked up to the visitor, and inquired very courteously the object of the application, and forthwith ordered the portress to open the gate and deliver up her keys; which she did, a good deal frightened at sight of so unexpected adeus ex machina.
An unmistakable gentleman, handsome, andplainly a sort of prince in this region, the old lady, although she did not know to whom she was obliged, was pleased at his offer to act as cicerone here, and accepted it graciously.
"My young friend will be very glad; she draws a little, and enjoys such sights immensely. Margaret!" she called. The young lady turned, and Cleve saw before him once more in flesh and blood, that wonderful portrait of Beatrice Cenci, which had haunted him for three days.
The young lady heard what her companion had to say, and for a moment her large eyes rested on Cleve with a glance that seemed to him at once haughty, wild, and shy.
With one hand he held the gate open, and in the other his hat was raised respectfully, as side by side they walked into the open court. They each bowed as they passed, the elder lady very cheerily, the younger with a momentary glance of the same unconscious superiority, which wounded him more than his pride would have allowed; and a puzzled recollection flitted across his mind of having once heard, he could not remember when, that Booth Fanshawe had married a beautiful Italian, an heiress (a princess—wasn't she?)—at all events, a scion of one of their proud old houses, whose pedigrees run back into the Empire, and dwarf into parvenus the great personages ofDebrett's Peerage. What made it worse was, that there was no shyness, no awkwardness. She talked a good deal to her companion, and laughed slightly once or twice, in a very sweet tone. The old lady was affable and friendly; the young lady, on the contrary, so far from speaking to him, seemed hardly to give herself the trouble of listening to what he said. This kind of exclusion, to which the petted young man certainly was not accustomed, galled him extremely, the more so that she looked, he thought, more beautiful than ever, and that her voice, and pretty, slightly foreign accent, added another charm to the spell.
He made them a graceful little lecture on the building, as they stood in the court. If she had any cleverness she would see with what a playful and rapid grace he could convey real information. The young lady looked from building to building as he described them, but with no more interest in the speaker, it seemed to him, than if the bell-man of Cardyllian had been reading it from a handbill. He had never done anything so well in the House of Commons, and here it was accepted as a piece of commonplace. The worst of it was that there was no finesse in all this. It was in perfect good faith that this beautiful young lady was treating him like a footman.Cleve was intensely piqued. Had she been less lovely, his passion might have recoiled into disgust; as it was, with a sort of vindictive adoration, he vowed that he would yet compel her to hang upon his words as angels' music, to think of him, to watch for him, to love him with all that wild and fiery soul which an intuition assured him was hers.
So, with this fierce resolve at his heart, he talked very agreeably with the accessible old lady, seeming, in a spirit, I dare say, altogether retaliatory, to overlook the young lady's presence a good deal.
"I've got the key of the church, also; you'll allow me, I hope, to show it to you. It is really very curious—a much older style than the rest of the building—and there are some curious monuments and epitaphs."
The old lady would be charmed, of course, and her young companion, to whom she turned, would like it also. So Cleve, acting as porter, opened the ponderous door, and the party entered this dim and solemn Saxon chapel, and the young lady paused and looked round her, struck, as it seemed with a sense of something new and very interesting.
"How strange! How rude it is, and irregular; not large, and yet how imposing!" murmuredthe girl, as she looked round with a momentary awe and delight. It was the first remark she had made, which it was possible for Cleve Verney to answer.
"That's so true! considering how small it is, it does inspire a wonderful awe," said he, catching at the opportunity. "It's very dark, to be sure, and that goes a long way; but its style is so rough and Cyclopean, that it overcomes one with a feeling of immense antiquity; and antiquity is always solemn, a gift from the people so remote and mysterious, as those who built this chapel, is affecting."
At this point Cleve Verney paused; either his ideas failed him, or he felt that they were leading him into an oration. But he saw that the young lady looked at him, as he spoke, with some interest, and he felt more elated than he had done for many a day.
"Is that a broken pillar?" asked Miss Sheckleton,—as I shall for the future call the elder lady.
"That's the font—very ancient—there's some odd carving about it, which has puzzled our antiquaries," said Cleve, leading the way to it.
The young lady had not followed. His exposition was to Miss Sheckleton, whose inquisitiveness protracted it. It was dry work for Cleve.The young lady had seated herself in a sort of oak stall, and was looking up at the groining of the round ribbed arches, at some distance. The effect was singular. She was placed in the deep chiaroscuro, a strong gleam of light entering through a circular aperture in the side wall, illuminated her head and face with a vivid and isolated effect; her rich chestnut hair was now disclosed, her bonnet having fallen back, as she gazed upward, and the beautiful oval face was disclosed in the surrounding shadow with the sudden brilliancy and isolation of a picture in a phantasmagoria.
Verney's eyes were not upon the font on which he was lecturing, his thoughts were wandering too, and Miss Sheckleton observed perhaps some odd vagueness and iteration in his remarks; but the young lady changed her position, and was now examining another part of the church.
Cleve either felt or fancied, seeing, as the Italians say, with the tail of his eye, that she was now, for a moment, looking at him, believing herself unseen. If this were so, was it not the beginning of a triumph? It made him strangely happy.
If Cleve had seen those sights in town, I can't say whether their effect would have been at all similar; but beautiful scenery, like music,predisposes to emotion. Its contemplation is the unconscious abandonment of the mind to sentiment, and once excite tenderness and melancholy, and the transition to love is easy upon small provocations. In the country our visions flit more palpably before us; there is nothing there, as amid the clatter and vulgarities of the town, to break our dreams. The beautiful rural stillness is monotony itself, and monotony is the spell and the condition of all mesmeric impressions. Hence young men, in part, are the dangers of those enchanted castles called country houses, in which you lose your heads and hearts; whither you arrive jubilant and free, and whence you are led by delicate hands, with a silken halter round your necks, with a gay gold ring in your obedient noses, and a tiny finger crooked therein, and with a broad parchment pinned upon your patient shoulders, proclaiming to the admiring world that your estates have gone the way of your liberties, and that you and they are settled for life.
"Now,this," said he, pointing to a block of carved stone placed in the aisle, "is the monument of old Martha Nokes; pray ask your young lady to come for one moment; it's worth reading."
"Margaret!" called the elder visitor, in thesubdued tone suited to the sacred place. "Come, darling, and see this."
"This inscription is worth reading, and I can tell you about the old woman, for I remember her quite well. I was eight years old when she died. Old Martha Nokes; she died in her hundred and twentieth year."
The young lady stood by and listened and read. The epitaph related her length of service, her fidelity, and other virtues, and that "this stone was placed here in testimony of the sincere and merited esteem, respect, and affection cherished for the deceased, by Eleanor, Viscountess (Dowager) Verney, of Malory."
"There's some beautiful embroidery on satin, worked by her more than a hundred and fifteen years ago, at Ware," said Cleve Verney. "They say such work can't be had now. 'In the course of her long pilgrimage,' you see by the epitaph, 'she had no less than twenty-three substantial offers of marriage, all which she declined, preferring her single state to the many cares and trials of wedded life, and willing also to remain to the end of her days in the service of the family of Verney, (to whom she was justly grateful,) and in which she had commenced her active and useful, though humble life, in the reign of King George the First.' So you see she spent all her life with us; and I'lltell our people, if you should happen to pass near Ware—it's not an hour's sail across—and would care to see it, to show you her embroidery, and her portrait; and if there's anything else you think worth looking at; there are some pictures and bronzes—they'll be quite at your service; my uncle is hardly ever at Ware; and I only run down for a little boating and shooting, now and then."
"Thank you," said the old lady, and utter silence followed. Her young companion glanced at her for a moment, and saw her look blank and even confounded. She averted her gaze, and something, I suppose, struck her as comical, for, with a sudden little silvery laugh, she said—
"What a charming, funny old woman she must have been!"
And with this excuse she laughed more—and again, after a little interval. Nothing more contagious than this kind of laughter, especially when one has an inkling of the cause. Cleve looked at the font, and lowered his large eyes to the epitaph of the Virgin Martha Nokes, and bit his lips, but hedidlaugh a little in spite of himself, for there was something nearly irresistible in pleasant Miss Sheckleton's look of vacant consternation.
Theyoung lady was instantly grave, with even a little fiery gleam of anger in her eyes, he thought. He could not help raising his also, now quite gravely and even respectfully, looking on her.
"I think you know who we are," she said a little suddenly and haughtily.
"You are at present living at Malory, I believe," said he, with a respectful evasion.
"Yes; but I meanwhowe are," said Margaret, very pale, very proud, and with her splendid hazel eyes fixed full upon him with the irresistible inspiration of truth.
"Ihaveheard—in part accidentally—something."
"Yes," said the girl; "you are Mr. Cleve Verney, and my name is Fanshawe; and my father, Sir Booth Fanshawe, is at present living at Malory."
"My dear! are youmad?" gasped Miss Sheckleton aghast.
"Yes. We are the people who live at Malory, and my father had hoped that he might have escaped there the observation of all but the very few persons who take a friendly interest in him. The place was looked out and taken for us by a person of whom we know nothing—a clergyman, I believe. I have now, for the first time, learned from that gravestone to whom the place belongs. We know nothing of the townspeople or of neighbours. We have lived to ourselves; and if he had known that Malory belonged to the Verneys, I hope you believe he would neither have been mad or mean enough to come here, to live in the house of his enemies."
"Oh, Margaret! Margaret! you have ruined your father," said poor Miss Sheckleton, pale as a ghost, and with her trembling fingers in the air.
"I assure you, Miss Fanshawe," said Cleve, "you do me a cruel injustice, when you class me with Sir Booth Fanshawe'senemies. There have been those miserable money matters, in whichInever had, norcouldhave had, any influence whatsoever. And there has been political hostility, in which I have been the victim rather than the aggressor. Of course, I've had to fightmy battles as best I could; but I've never done anything unfair or unmanly. You plainly think me a personal enemy of Sir Booth's. It pains me that you do so. In the sense in which you seem to think it, I never was, nor in any sense could I continue to be so, in his present—his present—"
The young man hesitated for a word or a paraphrase to convey a painful meaning without offence.
"His present ruin, and his approaching exile," said the young lady.
"I'm sure, sir, what you say is exactly so," pleaded poor Miss Sheckleton, nervously. "It was, as you say, all about elections, and that kind of thing, which, with him, you know, never can be again. So, I'm sure, the feeling is all over.Isn't it, Mr. Verney?"
"I don't think it matters much," said the young lady, in the same tone of haughty defiance. "Idon't—girls, I believe, neverdounderstand business and politics. All I know is this—that my father has been ruined. My father has been ruined, and that, I hope, will satisfy his enemies. I knowhethinks, andotherpeople think—people in no way mixed up in his affairs—people who areimpartial—that it was the cruelty and oppression of Mr. Kiffyn Verney, your uncle, Ithink you say—that drove him to ruin. Well, you now know that my father is at Malory."
"He does, darling. We may be overheard," said Miss Sheckleton in an imploring tremor.
But the young lady continued in the same clear tone—
"I can't say what is considered fair and manly, as you say, in political enmity; but, seeing what it has done, I have no reason to believe it very scrupulous or very merciful; therefore, with some diffidence, I ask only, whether you can promise that he shall not be molested for a few days, until some other refuge shall have been provided for us? And when we shall have left England for ever, you will have no more to fear from my father, and can afford, I think, to forget his name."
There was a kind of contradiction here, or rather one of those discords which our sense of harmony requires, and mysteriously delights in—for while her language was toned with something of the anguish of pleading, her mien and look were those of a person dictating terms to the vanquished. Had she but known all, they might have been inspired by the workings of his heart. Her colour had returned more brilliantly, her large eyes gleamed, and her beautiful eyebrow wore thatanguinecurve which is the onlyapproach to a scowl which painters accord to angels. Thus, though her tones were pathetic, she stood like a beautiful image of Victory.
In the silence that followed, Cleve stood before her for a moment confounded. Too many feelings were on a sudden set in motion by this girl's harangue, to find a distinct resultant in words. His pride was stung—something of anger was stirred within him; his finer sympathies, too, were moved, and a deeper feeling still.
"I'm afraid you think me a very mean person, indeed," said Cleve. "To no one, not to my uncle, not to any living person, will I so much as hint that I know anything of Sir Booth Fanshawe's present place of abode. I don't think that we men are ever quite understood byyou. I hopethatis it. Ihopeit is not that you entertain a particularly ill opinion ofme. I haven't deserved it, you'll find Inevershall. I hope you will employ me. I hope, Miss Sheckleton,youwill employ me, whenever, inanyway, you think I can be of use. Your having, although I know it is perfectly accidental, come to Malory, places me under a kind of obligation, I wish you would allow me to think so, of hospitality; there is no room for generosity here; it would be a misplaced phrase; but I wish,verymuch, that youwould put my goodwill to the proof, and rely upon my fidelity; only give me a trial."
I believe that every one who is speaking all in earnest, and, for the moment, quite from a good impulse, looks more beautiful in that momentary light of paradise, and certainly no handsomer young fellow, to my mind, could have been imagined than Cleve Verney, as he stood uncovered before the beautiful stranger, and pleaded for her good opinion.
The young lady was silent, and looked at Miss Sheckleton, as if deputing her to answer, and then looked away.
"You're very kind. Iknowyou won't deceive us, Mr. Verney," said Miss Sheckleton, with an imploring look, and laying her hand unconsciously upon his arm. "I am sure you won't disappoint us; but it is a great difficulty; you've no idea, for Sir Booth feels very strongly, and in fact we don't mention the name of your family to him; and I'm sure—indeed Iknow—if he were aware that Malory was Verney property, he would never have come here, and if I were to tell him, he would leave it at once. It was a very old friend, Lord Hammerdon, who employed a clergyman, a Mr. Dixie, I think, a friend of his, to look out a suitable place in a very quiet neighbourhood; and so, without making—without,indeed, thepowerof making inquiry, we came down here, and have just made the discovery—two discoveries, indeed—for not only does the place belong to your family, but you, Mr. Verney are aware that Sir Booth is here."
"Sir Booth will do me the justice to trust my word. I assure you—I swear to you—no mortal shall learn the secret of his residence from me. I hope Miss Fanshawe believes me. I'm sureyoudo, Miss Sheckleton," said Cleve.
"We areboth verymuch obliged," said the old lady.
The girl's eyes were lowered. Cleve thought she made just a perceptible inclination to intimate her acquiescence. It was clear, however, that her fears were satisfied. She raised her eyes, and they rested on him for a moment with a grave and even melancholy gaze, in which—was there confidence? That momentary, almost unconscious glance, was averted, but Cleve felt unaccountably happy and even proud.
"It is then understood," said he, "that I am not to charge myself with having caused, however unintentionally, any disturbance or embarrassment of your plans. Do you think—it would give me so much pleasure—that I might venture to call upon Sir Booth Fanshawe, to make him in person that offer of my humble services, in anyway in which he might please to employ me, which I have already tendered to you?"
He saw the young lady turn an alarmed glance upon her companion, and press her hand slightly on her arm, and the old lady said quickly—
"Not for the world! Nothing would vex him more. That is, I mean, it is better he should not think that he has been recognised; he is impetuous, and, as youmustknow, a little fiery, and just now is suffering, and, in fact, I should not venture, although I need not say, I quite appreciate the feeling, and thank you very much."
A silence followed this little speech. The subject that had engrossed and excited the little party, was for the present exhausted, and no one was ready at the moment to start another.
"We have detained you here, most unreasonably, Mr. Verney, I'm afraid," said Miss Sheckleton, glancing towards the door. "The evenings have grown so short, and our boatman said we should be longer returning; and I think we should have been on our way home before now."
"I only wish you would allow me to set you down at Malory, in my boat, but I know that would not do, so you must allow me to see you on board your own."
More time had passed, a great deal, during this odd scene, than it takes to read this note of it. When they stepped forth from the door of the tenebrous little church, the mellow light of sunset was streaming along the broken pavement and grass, and glowing on the gray walls and ivy of the old building.
Margaret Fanshawe was very silent all the way down to the little stone pier, at which the boat was moored. But the old lady had quite recovered her garrulous good spirits and energy. There was something likeable and even winning in Miss Anne Sheckleton, sixty years though she looked. She did not hide her gray locks; they were parted smoothly over her intelligent forehead, and in her clear, pleasant face you could see at times a little gleam of waggery, and sometimes the tenderness of sentiment. So that there remained with her that inextinguishable youth of spirit that attracts to the last.
Cleve was not one of those fellows who don't understand even so much self-denial as is necessary to commend them to old ladies on occasion. He was wiser. He walked beside her slight figure and light firm step, talking agreeably, with now and then a stolen glance at the silent girl. Miss Sheckleton was an old woman such as I love. Such as remains young at three score, andis active still with youthful interests, and a vein of benevolent romance.
And now they stood at the gunwale of the boat, and Miss Sheckleton smiling a little anxiously, gave him her hand at parting.
"May I?" said he, in a tone respectful and even melancholy, at the same time, extending his hand with hesitation toward the young lady beside him.
There was a little motion in her hand, as if she would have shut or withdrawn it, but she looked at him with grave eyes; was there doubt in them, or was there confidence? and gave him her hand too, with a sad look. There was one strong violent throb at his heart as he pressed that slender gauge; and then it seemed to stand still for a moment; and he heard the evening breeze among the leaves, like a sigh along the shore. Was it an omen?
The next moment he was standing alone, with his hat in his hand, smiling and waving an adieu over the glittering waves to the receding boat.
Clevevisited the old Priory next day, but there had been no one to look at it since. He took a walk in the warren and killed some innocent rabbits, and returned an hour later. Still no one. He loitered about the ruins for some time longer, but nothing came of it. The next day in like manner, he again inspected the Priory, to the wonderment of Mrs. Hughes, who kept the keys, and his yacht was seen till sunset hovering about Penruthyn. He drove into the town also now and then, and looked in on the shop-keepers, and was friendly as usual; and on these occasions always took a ramble either over the hill or by the old Malory road, in the direction of the Dower House.
But the Malory people seemed to have grown still more cautious and reserved since the adventure of Penruthyn Priory. Sunday came, andMiss Anne Sheckleton sat alone in the Malory pew.
Cleve, who had been early in his place, saw the old lady enter alone and the door shut, and experienced a pang of disappointment—more than disappointment, it amounted to pain.
If in the dim light of the Malory seat he had seen, once more, the Guido that haunted him, he could with pleasure have sat out three services; with three of the longest of good Mr. Splayfoot's long sermons. But as it was, it dragged wofully—it made next to no way; the shrilly school-children and the deep-toned Mr. Bray sang more verses than ever to the solemn drone of the organ, and old Splayfoot preached as though he'd preach his last. Even Cleve's watch, which he peeped at with a frequency he grew ashamed of, limped and loitered over the minutes cruelly.
The service would not have seemed so nearly interminable if Cleve had not resolved to waylay and accost the lady at the other side—even at the risk of being snubbed for his pains; and to him, full of this resolve, the interval was miserable.
When the people stood up after the blessing, Cleve Verney had vanished. From the churchyard he had made his exit, by the postern door, from which he and his enamoured friend, Sedley,had descended a week before to the narrow road, under the town wall, leading to Malory.
Down this he walked listlessly till he reached that lonely part of the road which is over-arched by trees; and here, looking over the sloping fields toward the sea, as if at the distant mountains, he did actually waylay Miss Sheckleton.
The old lady seemed a little flurried and shy, and would, he fancied, have gladly been rid of him. But that did not weigh much with Cleve, who, smiling and respectful, walked by her side after he had made his polite salutation. A few sentences having been first spoken about indifferent things, Cleve said—
"I have been to the old Priory twice since I met you there."
"Oh!" said Miss Anne Sheckleton, looking uneasily toward Malory. He thought she was afraid that Sir Booth's eye might chance to be observing them.
Cleve did not care. He rather enjoyed her alarm, and the chance of bringing matters to a crisis.Shehad not consideredhimmuch in the increased jealousy with which she had cloistered up her beautiful recluse ever since that day which burned in his memory, and cast a train of light along the darkness of the interval. Cleve would have been glad that the old man had discoveredand attacked him. He thought he could have softened and even made him his friend.
"Do you never purpose visiting the ruin again?" asked Cleve. "I had hoped it interested you and Miss Fanshawe too much to be dropped on so slight an acquaintance."
"I don't know. Our little expeditions have been very few and very uncertain," hesitated Miss Sheckleton.
"Pray, don't treat mequiteas a stranger," said Cleve, in a lone and earnest tone; "what I said the other day was not, I assure you, spoken upon a mere impulse. I hope, I am sure, that Miss Fanshawe gives me credit at least for sincerity."
He paused.
"Oh! certainly, Mr. Verney, we do."
"And I so wish you would tell her that I have been ever since thinking how I can be of any real use—ever so little—if only to prove my anxiety to make her trust me even a little."
"I think, Mr. Verney, it is quite enough if we don'tdistrust you; and I can assure you we do not," said the spinster.
"My uncle, though not the sort of man you may have been led to suppose him—not at all an unkind man—is, I must allow, a little odd and difficult sometimes—you see I'm not speaking to you as a stranger—and he won't do things in amoment; still if I knew exactly what Sir Booth expected from him—if you think I might venture to ask an interview——"
"Quiteimpossible! You must notthinkof it," exclaimed the lady with a look almost of terror, "just now, while all is so fresh, and feelings so excited, he's in no mood to be reasonable, and no goodcouldcome of it."
"Well,youknow best, of course. But I expect to be called away, my stay at Ware can't be much longer. My uncle writes as if he wants me; and I wish so much, short as it is, that I could improve it to any useful purpose. I can't tell you how very much I pity Miss Fanshawe, immured in that gloomiest of all gloomy places. Such an unnatural and terrifying seclusion for one so very young."
"It is certainly verytriste," said Miss Sheckleton.
"She draws, you told me, and likes the garden, and reads; you must allow me to lend you some books, won't you?youI say; andyoucan lend them to her," he added, seeing a hesitation, "and you need take no trouble about returning them. Just lock them up anywhere in the house when you've done with them, and I'll get them when you leave Malory, which I hope won't be for a long time, unless it be for a very much pleasanter residence."
Here came a pause; the eyes of the two pedestrians were directed toward Malory as they descended the road, but no sign of life was visible in that quarter.
"You got home very well that day from the Priory; I watched you all the way," said he at last.
"Oh! yes; the distance is nothing."
Another little pause followed.
"You're not afraid, Miss Sheckleton, of venturing outside the walls. I fear, however, I've a great deal to answer for in having alarmed Miss Fanshawe, though quite unintentionally, for the safety of Sir Booth's incognito. The secret is known tonoone but tomeand the persons originally entrusted with it; Iswearto you it'sso. There's no reason on earth for your immuring yourselves as you do within those melancholy precincts; it excites curiosity, on the contrary, and people begin to pry and ask questions; and I trust you believe that I would not trifle or mislead you upon such a subject."
"You are very good," answered Miss Sheckleton, looking down. "Yes, weareobliged to be very careful; but it is hardly worth breaking a rule; we may possibly be here for so very short a time, you know. And about the books——"
"Oh! about the books I'll hear nothing; thereare books coming for me to Ware, and I shan't be there to receive them. And I shall be, I assure you, ever so much obliged if you'll only just give them house-room—they'll be so much safer—at Malory; and you won't deny me the pleasure of thinking that you and Miss Fanshawe will look over them?"
He fancied she did not like this; and thought she seemed embarrassed to find an evasion; but before she could speak, he continued, "and how is the little squirrel I saw in the boat the other day; Miss Fanshawe's, I suppose? Such a pretty little thing!"
"Oh! poor little Whisk. There has been a tragedy: some horrid thing, a wild cat or an owl, killed him the other night, and mangled him so; poor little, dear thing, you must not ask."
"Oh dear! I'msosorry; and Miss Fanshawe can so ill spare a companion just now."
"Yes, it has been a great blow; and—and I think, Mr. Verney, I should prefer bidding you good-byehere," said Miss Sheckleton, stopping resolutely, and holding out her fingers for him to take; for she was on odd terms of suspicion and confidence—something more than mere chance acquaintance.
He looked towards the wood of Malory—now overlooking them, almost in the foreground; and,I think, if he had seen Miss Fanshawe under its shadows, nothing would have prevented his going right on—perhaps very rashly—upon the chance of even a word from her. But the groves were empty; neither "Erl King" nor his daughter were waiting for them. So, for simply nothing, it would not do to vex the old lady, with whom, for many reasons, it was desirable that he should continue upon good terms, and with real regret he didthere, as she desired, take his leave, and slowly walk back to Cardyllian, now and then stealing a glance over the old side-walk of the steep road, thinking that just possibly his Guido might appear in the shadow to greet the old lady at the gate. But nothing appeared—she went in, and the darkness received her.
AtWare a letter awaited Cleve, from his uncle, the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney. He read it after dinner, with his back to the fire, by a candle, placed on the corner of the chimney-piece. He never was in any great haste to open his uncle's letters, except when he expected a remittance. I must allow they were not entertaining, and did not usually throw much light upon anything. But it was not safe to omit a single line, for his uncle knew them by rote, and in their after meetings asked him questions upon some passages, and referred pointedly to others. Uncle Kiffyn was in fact thin-skinned in his vanities, and was a person with whom it would have been highly inconvenient to have been on any but the very best terms.
Cleve had, therefore, to read these closely written despatches with more attention than evenhis friend Dixie read his Bible. They were a sore trouble, for their length was at times incredible.
As he read these letters, moans, and even execrations, escaped him, such as poets describe as issuing from the abode of torment—"Good heavens! mightn't he have said that in five words?" Then a "Pish!"—"Always grumbling about that executorship. Why did he take it? I do believe he likes it."
And then Cleve read,—"I see no reason why, with respect to you, I may not exercise—as between ourselves, at least—an absolute unreserve with relation to a fact of which, through a channel not necessary to particularise, I have just received an authentic assurance, to the effect, namely, that Sir Booth Fanshawe, whose ruin has been brought about, partly by his virtual insanity in opposing me with an insensate pertinacity and an intense ill feeling, on which I offer no observation, but involving an expense to which his impaired means were obviously inadequate, and partly by early follies, profligacies, and vices, is now living concealed in the Rue de——, in Paris." Cleve laughed. "He is a person to whom neither courtesy nor forbearance, as it appears to me, can reasonably be held to be in any respect due from me. There has been a recent order, charging him, as you may have seen by the public papers,with £2,317 costs in the collateral suit connected with the trust cause, in which I was, though I by no means sought the position, the plaintiff, to foreclose the mortgage over Wycroft. I have written to apprise Milbanke of the fact, that he may take such steps as the nature of the case may suggest." "Well for Sir Booth he does not know he's so near! What's this? A postscript! well"—"P.S.—I have opened my letter to introduce this postscript, in consequence of a letter which has just reached me in course of post from Mr. Jos. Larkin, a solicitor, who was introduced to my notice about two years since by a member of the Brandon family, and who is unquestionably a man of some ability in his position in life. His letter is accompanied by a note from Messrs. Goldshed and Levi, and the two documents involve considerations so sudden, complicated, and momentous, that I must defer opening them, and request your presence at Verney House on the 15th proximo, when I mean to visit town for the purpose of arriving at a distinct solution of the several reports thus submitted upon a subject intimately connected with my private feelings, and with the most momentous interests of my house."
So abruptly ended the postscript, and for a moment Cleve was seriously alarmed. Could those meddling fellows who had agents everywhere have fished up some bit of Cardyllian gossip about his Malory romance?
He knew very well what the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney would think of that. His uncle could make or mar him. He knew that he had dangerous qualities, being a narrow man, with obstinate resentments. He was stunned for a moment; but then he reflected that all the romance in which he was living had been purely psychologic and internal, and that there was no overt act to support the case which he might not confess and laugh at.
"On the 15th proximo"—Very well; on the 15th he would be in town, and hear his uncle upon this subject, involving his "private feelings" and "the most momentous interests of his house." Could it be that his out-cast uncle, who had been dragging out a villanous existence in Turkey, under the hospitable protection of the Porte—who was said to have killed the captain of a French man-of-war, in that contemplative retreat, and whom he was wont respectfully to call "the Old Man of the Mountains," was dead at last?
The postscript would bear this interpretation and a pompous liking for mystery, which was one of his uncle's small weaknesses, would account for his withholding the precise information, and nursing, and making much of his secret, and deliveringit at last, like a Cabinet manifesto or a Sessional address.
"If the Old Man of the Mountains be really out of the way, it's an important event for us!"
And a dark smile lighted the young man's face, as he thought of the long train of splendid consequences that would awake at his death-bed, and begin to march before his funeral.
Ambition, they say, is the giant passion. But giants are placable and sleep at times. The spirit of emulation—the lust of distinction—hominum volitare per ora—digito monstrarier—in a wider, and still widening sphere—until all the world knows something about you—and so on and on—the same selfish aspiration, and at best, the same barren progress, till at last it has arrived—you are a thoroughly advertised and conspicuous mediocrity, still wishing, and often tired, in the midst of drudgery and importance andéclat, and then—on a sudden, theotherthing comes—the first of the days of darkness which are many.