CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'W'
e had to wait for a long time at some station, I forget its name. The sun set, and night overtook us before we reached the end of our journey by rail. We had then to drive about twelve miles. The road, for many miles, lay through a desolate black moss. I could not have believed there was anything so savage in England. A thin mist was stretched like a veil over the more distant level of the dark expanse, on which, here and there, a wide pool gleamed faintly under the moonlight. To the right there rose a grand mass of mountain. We were soon driving through a sort of gorge, and found ourselves fenced in by the steep sides of gigantic mountains, as we followed a road that wound and ascended among them. I shall never forget the beautiful effect of the scene suddenly presented, and for the first time, as the road reached its highest elevation, and I saw, with the dark receding sides of the mountain we had been penetrating for a proscenium, my first view of Golden Friars. Oh! how beautiful!
Surrounded by an amphitheatre of Alpine fells, the broad mere of Golden Friars glimmered cold under the moonlight, and the quaint little town of steep gables, built of light grey stone, rose from its grassy margin surrounded by elms, single or in clumps, that looked almost black in contrast with the gleaming lake and the white masonry of the town. It looked like enchanted ground. A silvery hoar-frost seemed to cover the whole scene, giving it a filmy and half-visionary character that enhanced its beauty. I was exclaiming in wonder and delight as every minute some new beauty unfolded itself to view. Mamma was silent, as she looked from the window; I saw that she cried gently, thinking herself unobserved. A beautiful scene, where childish days were passed, awakes so many sweet and bitter fancies! The yearnings for the irrevocable, the heartache of the memory, opened the fountains of her tears; and I was careful not to interrupt her lonely thoughts. I left her to the enjoyment of that melancholy luxury, and gazed on in strange delight.
Here, then, was the dwelling-place of that redoubted enemy of our house whom fate seemed to have ordained as our persecutor. Here lived the old enchanter whose malign spells were woven about us, in busy London and quiet Malory, or the distant scenes of France and Italy. Even this thought added interest to the romantic scene.
We had now descended to the level of the shore of the lake, along whose margin our road swept in a gentle curve. The fells from this level rose stupendous, all around, striking their silvery peaks into the misty moonlight, and looking so aërial that one might fancy a stone thrown would pass through their sides as if they were vapour. Now we passed under the shadow of the first clump of mighty elms; and now the white fronts and chimneys of the village houses rose in the foreground. There was no sign of life but the barking of the watch-dogs, and the cackling of the vigilant geese, and the light that glanced from the hall of the "George and Dragon," the substantial old inn that, looking across the road, faces the lake and distant fells. At the door of this ancient and comfortable inn drew up our chaise and four horses, no mere ostentation, but a simple necessity, where carriage and luggage were pulled, towards the close of so long a stage, over the steeps where the road pushes its way high among the fells.
So our journey was over; and we stood in the hall. Before we went up to our rooms mamma inquired whether Lady Lorrimer had arrived. Yes, her ladyship had been there since the day before yesterday. Mamma seemed nervous and uncomfortable. She sent down her maid to find out whether Sir Harry Rokestone was in the country; and when the servant returned and told her that he was not expected to arrive at Dorracleugh before a fortnight, she sighed, and I heard her say faintly, "Thank God!"
I confess it was rather a disappointment than a relief to me. I rather wished to see this truculent old wizard. After a sound sleep, which we both needed, I got up and had a little peep at that beautiful place, in the early sunlight, before breakfast. Lady Lorrimer's maid came with inquiries from her mistress, for mamma and me. Her ladyship was not very well, and could not see us till about twelve. She was so vexed at having to put us off, and hoped we were not tired; and also that we would take our dinner with her. To this mamma agreed.
I was curious to see Lady Lorrimer once more. My ideas had grown obscure, and my theory of that kinswoman had been disagreeably disturbed, ever since the evening on which she, or her double, had passed by me so resolutely in the street.
Having heard that she was quite ready to see us, we paid our visit. I wondered how she would receive me, and my suspense amounted almost to excitement as I reached the door. A moment more, and I could not believe that Lady Lorrimer and the woman who so resembled her were the same. Nothing could be more affectionate than Lady Lorrimer. She received us with a very real welcome, and so much pleasure in her looks, tones, and words. She was not, indeed, looking well, but her spirits seemed cheerful. She embraced mamma, and kissed her very fondly; then she kissed me over and over again. I was utterly puzzled, and more than doubted the identity of this warm-hearted, affectionate woman with the person who had chosen to cut me with such offensive and sinister persistence.
"See how this pretty creature looks at me!" she said to mamma, laughing, as she detected my conscious scrutiny.
I blushed and looked down; I did not know what to say.
"I'm very much obliged to you, dear, for looking at me, so few people do now-a-days; and I was just going to steal a good look at you, when I found I was anticipated. I have just been saying to your mamma that I have ordered a boat, and we must all have a sail together on the lake after dinner; what do you say?"
Of course I was delighted; I thought the place perfectly charming.
"I lived the earlier part of my life here," she resumed, "and so did your mamma, you know—when she was a little girl, and until she came to be nineteen or twenty—I forget which you were, dear, when you were married?" she said, turning to mamma.
"Twenty-two," said mamma, smiling.
"Twenty-two? Really! Well, we lived at Mardykes. I'll point out the place on the water when we take our sail; you can't see it from these windows."
"And where does Sir Harry Rokestone live?" I asked.
"You can't see that either from these windows. It is further than Mardykes, at the same side. But we shall see it from the boat."
Then she and mamma began to talk, and I went to the window and looked out.
Lady Lorrimer, with all her airs of conventual seclusion, hungered and thirsted after gossip; and whenever they met, she learned all the stories from mamma, and gave her, in return, old scandal and ridiculous anecdotes about the predecessors of the people with whose sayings, doings, and mishaps mamma amused her.
Two o'clock dinners, instead of luncheons, were the rule in this part of the world. And people turned tea into a very substantial supper, and were all in bed and asleep before the hour arrived at which the London ladies and gentlemen are beginning to dress for a ball.
You are now to suppose us, on a sunny evening, on board the boat that had been moored for some time at the jetty opposite the door of the "George and Dragon." We were standing up the lake, and away from the Golden Friars shore, towards a distant wood, which they told me was the forest of Clusted.
"Look at that forest, Ethel," said Lady Lorrimer. "It is the haunted forest of Clusted—the last resort of the fairies in England. It was there, they say, that Sir Bale Mardykes, long ago, made a compact with the Evil One."
Through the openings of its magnificent trees, as we nearer, from time to time, the ivied ruins of an old manor-house were visible. In this beautiful and, in spite of the monotony of the gigantic fells that surround the lake, ever-varying scenery, my companions gradually grew silent for a time; even I felt the dreamy influence of the scene, and liked the listless silence, in which nothing was heard but the rush of the waters, and the flap of the sail now and then. I was living in a world of fancy: they in a sadder one of memory.
In a little while, in gentle tones, they were exchanging old remembrances; a few words now and then sufficed; the affecting associations of scenes of early life re-visited were crowding up everywhere. As happens to some people when death is near, a change, that seemed to be quite beautiful, came over mamma's mind in the air and lights of this beautiful place! How I wished that she could remain always as she was now!
With the old recollections seemed to return the simple rural spirit of the early life. What is the town life, of which I had tasted, compared with this? How much simpler, tenderer, sublimer, this is! How immensely nearer heaven! The breeze was light, and the signs of the sky assured the boatmen that we need fear none of those gusts and squalls that sometimes burst so furiously down through the cloughs and hollows of the surrounding mountains. I, with the nautical knowledge acquired at Malory, took the tiller, under direction of the boatmen. We had a good deal of tacking to get near enough to the shore at Clusted to command a good view of that fine piece of forest. We then sailed northward, along the margin of the "mere," as they call the lake; and, when we had gone in that direction for a mile or more, turned the boat's head across the water, and ran before the breeze towards the Mardykes side. There is a small island near the other side, with a streak of grey rock and bushes nearly surrounding what looked like a ruined chapel or hermitage, and Lady Lorrimer told me to pass this as nearly as I could.
The glow of evening was by this time in the western sky. The sun was hidden behind the fells that form a noble barrier between Golden Friars and the distant moss of Dardale, where stands Haworth Hall. In deepest purple shadow the mountains here closely overhang the lake. Under these, along the margin, Lady Lorrimer told me to steer.
We were gliding slowly along, so that there was ample leisure to note every tree and rock upon the shore as we passed. As we drifted, rather than sailed, along the shore, there suddenly opened from the margin a narrow valley, reaching about a quarter of a mile. It was a sudden dip in the mountains that here rise nearly from the edge of the lake. Steep-sided and wild was this hollow, and backed by a mountain that, to me, looking up from the level of the lake, appeared stupendous.
The valley lay flat in one unbroken field of short grass. A broad-fronted, feudal tower, with a few more modern buildings about it, stood far back, fronting the river. A rude stone pier afforded shelter to a couple of boats, and a double line of immense lime-trees receded from that point about half-way up to the tower. Whether it was altogether due to the peculiar conformation of the scene, or that it owed its character in large measure to its being enveloped in the deep purple shadow cast by the surrounding mountain, and the strange effect of the glow reflected downward from the evening clouds, which touched the summits of the trees, and the edges of the old tower, like the light of a distant conflagration, I cannot say; but never did I see a spot with so awful a character of solitude and melancholy.
In the gloom we could see a man standing alone on the extremity of the stone pier, looking over the lake. This figure was the only living thing we could discover there.
"Well, dear, now you see it. That's Dorracleugh—that's Harry Rokestone's place," said Lady Lorrimer.
"What a spot! Fit only for a bear or an anchorite. Do you know," she added, turning to mamma, "he is there a great deal more than he used to be, they tell me. I know if I were to live in that place for six months I should never come out of it a sane woman. To do him justice, he does not stay very long here when he does come, and for years he never came at all. He has other places, far away from this; and if a certain event had happened about two-and-twenty years ago," she added, for my behalf, "he intended building quite a regal house a little higher up, on a site that is really enchanting, but your mamma would not allow him; and so, and so——" Lady Lorrimer had turned her glasses during her sentence upon the figure which stood motionless on the end of the pier; and she said, forgetting what she had been telling me, "I really think—I'm nearly certain—that man standing there is Harry Rokestone!"
Mamma started. I looked with all my eyes; little more than a hundred yards interposed, but the shadow was so intense, and the effect of the faint reflected light so odd and puzzling, that I could be certain of nothing, but that the man stood very erect, and was tall and powerfully built. Lady Lorrimer was too much absorbed in her inspection to offer me her glasses, which I was longing to borrow, but for which I could not well ask, and so we sailed slowly by, and the hill that flanked the valley gradually glided between us and the pier, and the figure disappeared from view. Lady Lorrimer, lowering her glasses, said:
"I can't say positively, but I'm very nearly certain it was he."
Mamma said nothing, but was looking pale, and during the rest of our sail seemed absent and uncomfortable, if not unhappy.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'W'
e drank tea with Lady Lorrimer. Mamma continued very silent, and I think she had been crying in her room.
"They can't tell me here whether Harry has arrived or not," said Lady Lorrimer. "He might have returned by the Dardale Road, and if so, he would not have passed through Golden Friars, so it is doubtful. But I'm pretty sure that was he."
"I wish I were sure of that," said mamma.
"Well, I don't know," said Lady Lorrimer, "what to advise. I was just going to say it might be a wise thing if you were to make up your mind to see him, and to beard the lion in his den."
"No," said mamma; "if you mean to meet him and speak to him, I could not do that. I shall never see him again—nothing but pain could come of it; and he would not see me, and he ought not to see me; and he ought not to forgive me—never!"
"Well, dear, I can't deny it, you did use him very ill. And he is, and always was, a fierce and implacable enemy," answered Lady Lorrimer. "I fancied, perhaps, if he did see you, the old chord might be touched again, and yield something of its old tone on an ear saddened by time. But I daresay you are right. It was a Quixotic inspiration, and might have led to disaster; more probably, indeed, than to victory."
"I am quite sure of that—in fact, I know it," said mamma.
And there followed a silence.
"I sometimes think, Mabel—I was thinking so all this evening," said Lady Lorrimer, "it might have been happier for us if we had never left this lonely place. We might have been happier if we had been born under harder conditions; the power of doing what pleases us best leads us so often into sorrow."
Another silence followed. Mamma was looking over her shoulder, sadly, through the window at the familiar view of lake and mountain, indolently listening.
"I regret it, and I don't regret it," continued Lady Lorrimer. "If I could go back again into my early self—I wish I could—but the artificial life so perverts and enervates one, I hardly know, honestly, what I wish. I only know there is regret enough to make me discontented, and I think I should have been a great deal happier if I had been compelled to stay at Golden Friars, and had never passed beyond the mountains that surround us here. I have not so long as you to live, Mabel, and I'm glad of it. I am not quite so much of a Sadducee as you used to think me, and I hope there may be a happier world for us all. And, now that I have ended my homminy, as they call such long speeches in this country, will you, dear Ethel, give me a cup of tea?"
Lady Lorrimer and I talked. I was curious about some of the places and ruins I had seen, and asked questions, which it seemed to delight her to answer. It is a region abounding in stories strange and marvellous, family traditions, and legends of every kind.
"I think," said mamma,à propos des bottes, "if he has returned they are sure to know in the town before ten to-night. Would you mind asking again by-and-by?"
"You mean about Harry Rokestone?"
"Yes."
"I will. I'll make out all about him. We saw his castle to-day," she continued, turning to me. "Our not knowing whether he was there or not made it a very interesting contemplation. You remember the short speech Sheridan wrote to introduce Kelly's song at Drury Lane—'There stands my Matilda's cottage! She must be in it, or else out of it?'"
Again mamma dropped out, and the conversation was maintained by Lady Lorrimer and myself. In a little while mamma took her leave, complaining of a headache; and our kinswoman begged that I would remain for an hour or so, to keep her company. When mamma had bid her good night, and was gone, the door being shut, Lady Lorrimer laughed, and said:
"Now, tell me truly, don't you think if your papa had been with us to-day in the boat, and seen the change that took place in your mamma's looks and spirits from the moment she saw Dorracleugh, and the tall man who stood on the rock, down to the hour of her headache and early good night, he would have been a little jealous?"
I did not quite know whether she was joking or serious, and I fancy there was some puzzle in my face as I answered:
"But it can't be that she liked Sir Harry Rokestone; she is awfully afraid of him—that is the reason, I'm sure, she was so put out. She never liked him."
"Don't be too sure of that, little woman," she answered, gaily.
"Do you really think mamma liked him? Why, she was in love with papa."
"No, it was nothing so deep," said Lady Lorrimer; "she did not love your papa. It was a violent whim, and if she had been left just five weeks to think, she would have returned to Rokestone."
"But there can be no sentiment remaining still," I remarked. "Sir Harry Rokestone is an old man!"
"Yes, he is an old man; he is—let me see—he's fifty-six. And she did choose to marry your papa. But I'm sure she thinks she made a great mistake. I am very sure she thinks that, with all his faults, Rokestone was the more loveable man, the better man, the truer. He would have taken good care of her. I don't know of any one point in which he was your papa's inferior, and there are fifty in which he was immeasurably his superior. He was a handsomer man, if that is worth anything. I think I never saw so handsome a man, in his peculiar style. You think me a very odd old woman to tell you my opinion of your father so frankly; but I am speaking as your mamma's friend and kinswoman, and I say your papa has not used her well. He is good-humoured, and has good spirits, and he has some good-nature, quite subordinated to his selfishness. And those qualities, so far as I know, complete the muster-roll of his virtues. But he has made her, in no respect, a good husband. In some a very bad one. And he employs half-a-dozen attorneys, to whom he commits his business at random; and he is too indolent to look after anything. Of course he's robbed, and everything at sixes and sevens; and he has got your mamma to take legal steps to make away with her money for his own purposes; and the foolish child, the merest simpleton in money matters, does everything he bids her; and I really believe she has left herself without a guinea. I don't like him—no one could who likesher. Poor, dear Mabel, she wants energy; I never knew a woman with so little will. She never showed any but once, and that was when she did a foolish thing, and married your father."
"And did Sir Harry Rokestone like mamma very much?" I asked.
"He was madly in love with her, and when she married your papa, he wanted to shoot him. I think he was, without any metaphor, very nearly out of his mind. He has been a sort of anchorite ever since. His money is of no use to him. He is a bitter and eccentric old man."
"And he can injure papa now?"
"So I'm told. Your papa thinks so; and he seldom takes the trouble to be alarmed about danger three or four months distant."
Then, to my disappointment and, also, my relief, that subject dropped. It had interested and pained me; and sometimes I felt that it was scarcely right that I should hear all she was saying, without taking up the cudgels for papa. Now, with great animation, she told me her recollections of her girlish days here at Golden Friars, when the old gentry were such bores and humorists as are no longer to be met with anywhere. And as she made me laugh at these recitals, her maid, whom she had sent down to "the bar" to make an inquiry, returned, and told her something in an undertone. As soon as she was gone, Lady Lorrimer said:
"Yes, it is quite true. Tell your mamma that Harry Rokestone is at Dorracleugh."
She became thoughtful. Perhaps she was rehearsing mentally the mediatory conference she had undertaken.
We had not much more conversation that night; and we soon parted with a very affectionate good-night. My room adjoined mamma's, and finding that she was not yet asleep, I went in and gave her Lady Lorrimer's message. Mamma changed colour, and raised herself suddenly on her elbow, looking in my face.
"Very well, dear," said she, a little flurried. "We must leave this to-morrow morning."
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'A'
bout eleven o'clock next morning our chaise was at the door of the "George and Dragon." We had been waiting with our bonnets on to say good-bye to Lady Lorrimer. I have seen two or three places in my life to which my affections were drawn at first sight, and this was one of them. I was standing at the window, looking my last at this beautiful scene. Mamma was restless and impatient. I knew she was uneasy lest some accident should bring Sir Harry Rokestone to the door before we had set out upon our journey.
At length Lady Lorrimer's foreign maid came to tell us that milady wished to see us now. Accordingly we followed the maid, who softly announced us.
The room was darkened; only one gleam, through a little opening in the far shutter, touched the curtains of her bed, showing the old-fashioned chintz pattern, like a transparency, through the faded lining. She was no longer the gay Lady Lorrimer of the evening before. She was sitting up among her pillows, nearly in the dark, and the most melancholy, whimpering voice you can imagine came through the gloom from among the curtains.
"Is my sweet Ethel there, also?" she asked when she had kissed mamma. "Oh, that's right; I should not have been happy if I had not bid you good-bye. Give me your hand, darling. And so you are going, Mabel? I'm sorry you go so soon, but perhaps you are right—I think you are. It would not do, perhaps, to meet. I'll do what I can, and write to tell you how I succeed."
Mamma thanked and kissed her again.
"I'm not so well as people think, dear, nor as I wish to think myself. We may not meet for a long time, and I wish to tell you, Mabel—I wish to tell you both—that I won't leave you dependent on that reckless creature, Francis Ware. I want you two to be safe. I have none but you left me to love on earth." Here poor Lady Lorrimer began to cry. "Whenever I write to you, you must come to me; don't let anything prevent you. I am so weak. I want to leave you both very well, and I intend to put it out of my power to change it—who's that at the door? Just open it, Ethel, dear child, and see if any one is there—my maid, I mean—you can say you dropped your handkerchief—hush!"
There was no one in the lobby.
"Shut it quietly, dear; I'll do what I say—don't thank me—don't say a word about it to any one, and if you mention it to Francis Ware, charge him to tell no one else. There, dears, both, don't stay longer. God bless you! Go, go; God bless you!"
And with these words, having kissed us both very fondly, she dismissed us.
Mamma ran down, and out to the carriage very quickly, and sat back as far as she could at the far side. I followed, and all being ready, in a minute more we were driving swiftly from the "George and Dragon," and soon town, lake, forest, and distant fells were hidden from view by the precipitous sides of the savage gorge, through which the road winds its upward way.
Our drive into Golden Friars had been a silent one, and so was our drive from it, though from different causes. I was thinking over our odd interview with poor Lady Lorrimer. In what a low, nervous state she seemed, and how affectionately she spoke! I had no inquisitive tendencies, and I was just at the age when people take the future for granted. No sordid speculations therefore, I can honestly say, were busy with my brain.
We were to have stayed at least ten days at Golden Friars, and here we were flying from it before two days were spent. All our plans were upset by the blight of Sir Harry Rokestone's arrival at least a fortnight before the date of his usual visit, just as Napoleon's Russian calculations were spoilt by the famous early winter of 1812. I was vexed in my way. I should not have been sorry to hear that he had been well ducked in the lake. Mamma was vexed in her own way, also, when, about an hour after, she escaped from the thoughts that agitated her at first, and descended to her ordinary level. A gap of more than a week was made in her series of visits. What was to be done with it?
"Where are you going, mamma?" I asked, innocently enough.
"Nowhere—everywhere. To Chester," she answered, presently.
"And where then?" I asked.
"Why do you ask questions that I can't answer? Why should you like to make me more miserable than I am? Everything is thrown into confusion. I'm sure I don't know the least. I have no plans. I literally don't know where we are to lay our heads to-night. There's no one to take care of us. As usual, whenever I want assistance, there's none to be had, and my maid is so utterly helpless, and your papa in town. I only know that I'm not strong enough for this kind of thing; you can write to your papa when we come to Chester. We shan't see him for Heaven knows how long—he may have left London by this time; and he'll write to Golden Friars—and now that I think of it—oh! how am I to live through all this!—I forgot to tell the people there where to send our letters. Oh! dear, oh! dear, it is such a muddle! And I could not have told them, literally, for I don't know where we are going. We had better just stay at Chester till he comes, whenever that may be; and I really could just lie down and cry."
I was glad we were to ourselves, for mamma's looks and tones were so utterly despairing that in a railway carriage we should have made quite an excitement. In such matters mamma was very easy to persuade by any one who would take the trouble of thinking on himself, and she consented to come to Malory instead; and there, accordingly, we arrived next day, much to the surprise of Rebecca Torkill, who received us with a very glad welcome, solemnized a little by a housekeeper's responsibilities.
Mamma enjoyed her simple life here wonderfully—more, a great deal, than I had ventured to hope. She seemed to me naturally made for a rural life, though fate had consigned her to a town one. She reminded me of the German prince mentioned in Tom Moore's journal, who had a great taste for navigation, but whose principality unfortunately was inland.
Papa did not arrive until the day before that fixed for his and mamma's visit to Dromelton. He was in high spirits, everything was doing well; his canvass was prospering, and now Lady Lorrimer's conversation at parting, as reported by mamma, lighted up the uncertain future with a steady glory, and set his sanguine spirit in a blaze. Attorneys, foreclosures, bills of exchange hovering threateningly in the air, and biding their brief time to pounce upon him, all lost their horrors, for a little, in the exhilarating news.
Mamma had been expecting a letter from Lady Lorrimer—one, at length, arrived this morning. Papa had walked round by the mill-road to visit old Captain Etheridge. Mamma and I were in the drawing-room as she read it. It was a long one. She looked gloomy, and said, when she had come to the end:
"I was right—it was not worth trying. I'm afraid this will vex your papa. You may read it. You heard Aunt Lorrimer talk about it. Yes, I was right. She was a great deal too sanguine."
I read as follows:—
"My Dearest Mabel,—I have a disagreeable letter to write. You desired me to relate with rigour every savage thing he said—I mean Harry Rokestone, of course—and I must keep my promise, although I think you will hate me for it. I had almost given him up, and thinking that for some reason he was resolved to forget his usual visit to me, and I being equally determined to make him see me, was this morning thinking of writing him a little cousinly note, to say that I was going to see him in his melancholy castle. But to-day, at about one, there came on one of those fine thunder-storms among the fells that you used to admire so much. It grew awfully dark—portentous omen!—and some enormous drops of rain, as big as bullets, came smacking down upon the window-stone. Perhaps these drove him in; for in he came, announced by the waiter, exactly as a very much nearer clap of thunder startled all the echoes of Golden Friars into a hundred reverberations; a finer heralding, and much more characteristic of the scene and man than that flourish of trumpets to which kings always enter in Shakespeare. In he came, my dear Mabel, looking so king-like, and as tall as the Catstean on Dardale Moss, and gloomy as the sky. He is as like Allan Macaulay, in the 'Legend of Montrose,' as ever. A huge dog, one of that grand sort you remember long ago at Dorracleugh, came striding in beside him. He used to smile long ago. But it is many years, you know, since fortune killed that smile; and he took my poor thin fingers in his colossal hand, with what Clarendon calls a 'glooming' countenance. We talked for some time as well as the thunder and the clatter of the rain, mixed with hail, would let us."By the time its violence was a little abated, I, being as you know, not a bad diplomatist, managed, without startling him, to bring him face to face with the subject on which I wished to move him. I may as well tell you at once, my dear Mabel, I might just as well (to return to my old simile) have tried to move the Catstean. When I described the danger in which the proceedings would involve you, as well as your husband, he suddenly smiled; it was his first smile, so far as I remember, for many a day. It was not pleasant sunlight—it was more like the glare of the lightning."'We have not very far to travel in life's journey,' I said, 'you and I. We have had our enemies and our quarrels, and fought our battles stoutly enough. It is time we should forget and forgive.'"'I have forgotten a great deal,' he answered. 'I'll forgive nothing.'"'You can't mean you have forgotten pretty Mabel?' I exclaimed."'Let me bury my dead out of my sight,' was all he said. He did not say it kindly. It was spoken sulkily and peremptorily."'Well, Harry,' I said, returning upon his former speech, 'I can't suppose you really intend to forgive nothing.'"'It is a hypocritical world,' he answered. 'If it were anything else, every one would confess what every one knows, that no one ever forgave any one anything since man was created.'"'Am I, then, to assume that you will prosecute this matter, to their ruin, through revenge?' I asked, rather harshly."'Certainly not,' said he. 'That feud is dead and rotten. It is twenty years and more since I saw them. I'm tired of their names. The man I sometimes remember—I'd like to see him flung over the crags of Darness Heugh—but the girl I never think of—she's clean forgot. To me they are total strangers. I'm a trustee in this matter; why should I swerve from my duty, and incur, perhaps, a danger for those whom I know not?'"'You are not obliged to do this—you know you are not,' I urged. 'You have the power, that's all, and you choose to exercise it.'"'Amen, so be it; and now we've said enough,' he replied."'No,' I answered, warmly, for it was impossible to be diplomatic with a man like this. 'I must say a word more. I ask you only to treat them as you describe them, that is as strangers. You would not put yourself out of your way to crush a stranger. There was a time when you were kind.'"'And foolish,' said he."'Kind,' I repeated; 'you were a kind man.'"'The volume of life is full of knowledge,' he answered, 'and I have turned over some pages since then.'"'A higher knowledge leads us to charity,' I pleaded."'The highest to justice,' he said, with a scoff. 'I'm no theologian, but I know that fellow deserves the very worst. He refused to meet me, when a crack or two of a pistol might have blown away our feud, since so you call it—feud with such a mafflin!' Every now and then, when he is excited, out pops one of these strange words. They came very often in this conversation, but I don't remember them. 'The mafflin! the coward!'"I give you his words; his truculent looks I can't give you. It is plain he has not forgiven him, and never will. Your husband, we all know, did perfectly right in declining that wild challenge. All his friends so advised him. I was very near saying a foolish thing about you, but I saw it in time, and turned my sentence differently; and when I had done, he said:"'I am going now—the shower is over.' He took my hand, and said 'Good-bye.' But he held it still, and looking me in the face with his gloomy eyes, he added: 'See, I like you well; but if you will talk of those people, or so much as mention their names again, we meet as friends no more.'"'Think better of it, do, Harry,' I called after him, but he was already clanking over the lobby in his cyclopean shoes. Whether he heard me or not, he walked down the stairs, with his big brute at his heels, without once looking over his shoulder."And now, dear Mabel, I have told you everything. You are, of course, to take for granted those Northumbrian words and idioms which drop from him, as I reminded you, as he grows warm in discussion. This is a 'report' rather than a letter, and I have sat up very late to finish it, and I send it to the post-office before I go to bed. Good night, and Heaven bless you, and I hope this gloomy letter may not vex you as much as its purport does me; disappoint you, judging from what you said to me when we talked the matter over, I scarcely think it can."
"My Dearest Mabel,—I have a disagreeable letter to write. You desired me to relate with rigour every savage thing he said—I mean Harry Rokestone, of course—and I must keep my promise, although I think you will hate me for it. I had almost given him up, and thinking that for some reason he was resolved to forget his usual visit to me, and I being equally determined to make him see me, was this morning thinking of writing him a little cousinly note, to say that I was going to see him in his melancholy castle. But to-day, at about one, there came on one of those fine thunder-storms among the fells that you used to admire so much. It grew awfully dark—portentous omen!—and some enormous drops of rain, as big as bullets, came smacking down upon the window-stone. Perhaps these drove him in; for in he came, announced by the waiter, exactly as a very much nearer clap of thunder startled all the echoes of Golden Friars into a hundred reverberations; a finer heralding, and much more characteristic of the scene and man than that flourish of trumpets to which kings always enter in Shakespeare. In he came, my dear Mabel, looking so king-like, and as tall as the Catstean on Dardale Moss, and gloomy as the sky. He is as like Allan Macaulay, in the 'Legend of Montrose,' as ever. A huge dog, one of that grand sort you remember long ago at Dorracleugh, came striding in beside him. He used to smile long ago. But it is many years, you know, since fortune killed that smile; and he took my poor thin fingers in his colossal hand, with what Clarendon calls a 'glooming' countenance. We talked for some time as well as the thunder and the clatter of the rain, mixed with hail, would let us.
"By the time its violence was a little abated, I, being as you know, not a bad diplomatist, managed, without startling him, to bring him face to face with the subject on which I wished to move him. I may as well tell you at once, my dear Mabel, I might just as well (to return to my old simile) have tried to move the Catstean. When I described the danger in which the proceedings would involve you, as well as your husband, he suddenly smiled; it was his first smile, so far as I remember, for many a day. It was not pleasant sunlight—it was more like the glare of the lightning.
"'We have not very far to travel in life's journey,' I said, 'you and I. We have had our enemies and our quarrels, and fought our battles stoutly enough. It is time we should forget and forgive.'
"'I have forgotten a great deal,' he answered. 'I'll forgive nothing.'
"'You can't mean you have forgotten pretty Mabel?' I exclaimed.
"'Let me bury my dead out of my sight,' was all he said. He did not say it kindly. It was spoken sulkily and peremptorily.
"'Well, Harry,' I said, returning upon his former speech, 'I can't suppose you really intend to forgive nothing.'
"'It is a hypocritical world,' he answered. 'If it were anything else, every one would confess what every one knows, that no one ever forgave any one anything since man was created.'
"'Am I, then, to assume that you will prosecute this matter, to their ruin, through revenge?' I asked, rather harshly.
"'Certainly not,' said he. 'That feud is dead and rotten. It is twenty years and more since I saw them. I'm tired of their names. The man I sometimes remember—I'd like to see him flung over the crags of Darness Heugh—but the girl I never think of—she's clean forgot. To me they are total strangers. I'm a trustee in this matter; why should I swerve from my duty, and incur, perhaps, a danger for those whom I know not?'
"'You are not obliged to do this—you know you are not,' I urged. 'You have the power, that's all, and you choose to exercise it.'
"'Amen, so be it; and now we've said enough,' he replied.
"'No,' I answered, warmly, for it was impossible to be diplomatic with a man like this. 'I must say a word more. I ask you only to treat them as you describe them, that is as strangers. You would not put yourself out of your way to crush a stranger. There was a time when you were kind.'
"'And foolish,' said he.
"'Kind,' I repeated; 'you were a kind man.'
"'The volume of life is full of knowledge,' he answered, 'and I have turned over some pages since then.'
"'A higher knowledge leads us to charity,' I pleaded.
"'The highest to justice,' he said, with a scoff. 'I'm no theologian, but I know that fellow deserves the very worst. He refused to meet me, when a crack or two of a pistol might have blown away our feud, since so you call it—feud with such a mafflin!' Every now and then, when he is excited, out pops one of these strange words. They came very often in this conversation, but I don't remember them. 'The mafflin! the coward!'
"I give you his words; his truculent looks I can't give you. It is plain he has not forgiven him, and never will. Your husband, we all know, did perfectly right in declining that wild challenge. All his friends so advised him. I was very near saying a foolish thing about you, but I saw it in time, and turned my sentence differently; and when I had done, he said:
"'I am going now—the shower is over.' He took my hand, and said 'Good-bye.' But he held it still, and looking me in the face with his gloomy eyes, he added: 'See, I like you well; but if you will talk of those people, or so much as mention their names again, we meet as friends no more.'
"'Think better of it, do, Harry,' I called after him, but he was already clanking over the lobby in his cyclopean shoes. Whether he heard me or not, he walked down the stairs, with his big brute at his heels, without once looking over his shoulder.
"And now, dear Mabel, I have told you everything. You are, of course, to take for granted those Northumbrian words and idioms which drop from him, as I reminded you, as he grows warm in discussion. This is a 'report' rather than a letter, and I have sat up very late to finish it, and I send it to the post-office before I go to bed. Good night, and Heaven bless you, and I hope this gloomy letter may not vex you as much as its purport does me; disappoint you, judging from what you said to me when we talked the matter over, I scarcely think it can."
There is a Latin proverb, almost the only four words of Latin I possess, which says,Omne ignotum pro magnifico, for which, and for its translation, I am obliged to Mr. Carmel: "The unknown is taken for the sublime." I did not at the time at all understand the nature of the danger that threatened, and its vagueness magnified it. Papa came in. He read the letter, and the deeper he got in it the paler his face grew, and the more it darkened. He drew a great breath as he laid it down.
"Well, it's not worse than you expected?" said mamma at last. "I hope not. I've had so much to weary, and worry, and break me down; you have no idea what the journey to the Golden Friars was to me. I have not been at all myself. I've been trying to do too much. Ethel there will tell you all I said to my aunt; and really things go so wrong and so unluckily, no matter what one does, that I almost think I'll go to my bed and cry."
"Yes, dear," said papa, thinking, a little bewildered. "It's—it's—it is—it's very perverse. The old scoundrel! I suppose this is something else."
He took up a letter that had followed him by the same post, and nervously broke the seal. I was watching his face intently as he read. It brightened.
"Here—here's a bit of good luck at last! Where's Mabel? Oh, yes! it's from Cloudesly. There are some leases just expired at Ellenston, and we shall get at least two thousand pounds, he thinks, for renewing. That makes it all right for the present. I wish it had been fifteen hundred more; but it's a great deal better than nothing. We'll tide it over, you'll find." And papa kissed her with effusion.
"And you can give three hundred pounds to Le Panier and Tarlton; they have been sending so often lately," said mamma, recovering from her despondency.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'T'
he autumn deepened, and leaves were brown, and summer's leafy honours spread drifting over the short grass and the forest roots. Winter came, and snow was on the ground, and presently spring began to show its buds, and blades, and earliest flowers; and the London season was again upon us.
Lady Lorrimer had gone, soon after our visit to Golden Friars, to Naples for the winter. She was to pass the summer in Switzerland, and the autumn somewhere in the north of Italy, and again she was to winter in her old quarters at Naples. We had little chance, therefore, of seeing her again in England for more than a year. Her letters were written in varying spirits, sometimes cheery, sometimesde profundis. Sometimes she seemed to think that she was just going to break up and sink; and then her next letter would unfold plans looking far into the future, and talking of her next visit to England. There was an uneasy and even violent fluctuation in these accounts, which did not exactly suggest the idea of a merely fanciful invalid. She spoke at times, also, of intense and exhausting pain. And she mentioned that in Paris she had been in the surgeons' hands, and that there was still uncertainty as to what good they might have done her. This may have been at the root of her hysterical vacillations. But, in addition to this, there was something very odd in Lady Lorrimer's correspondence. She had told mamma to write to her once a fortnight, and promised to answer punctually; but nothing could be more irregular. At one time, so long an interval as two whole months passed without bringing a line from her. Then, again, she would complain of mamma's want of punctuality. She seemed to have forgotten things that mamma had told her; and sometimes she alluded to things as if she had told them to mamma, which she had never mentioned before. Either the post-office was playing tricks with her letters, or poor Lady Lorrimer was losing her head.
I think, if we had been in a quiet place like Malory, we should have been more uneasy about Lady Lorrimer than, in the whirl of London, we had time to be. There was one odd passage in one of her letters; it was as follows: "Send your letters, not by the post, I move about so much; but, when you have an opportunity, send them by a friend. I wish I were happier. I don't do always as I like. If we were for a time together—but all I do is so uncertain!"
Papa heard more than her letters told of her state of health. A friend of his, who happened to be in Paris at the time, told papa that one of the medical celebrities whom she had consulted there had spoken to him in the most desponding terms of poor Lady Lorrimer's chances of recovery, I do not know whether it was referable to that account of her state of health or simply to the approach of the time when he was to make hisdébutin the House; but the fact is that papa gave a great many dinner-parties this season; and mamma took her drives in a new carriage, with a new and very pretty pair of horses; and a great deal of new plate came home; and it was plain that he was making a fresh start in a style suited to his new position, which he assumed to be certain and near. He was playing rather deep upon this throw. It must be allowed, however, that nothing could look more promising.
Sir Luke Pyneweck, a young man, with an estate and an overpowering influence in the town of Shillingsworth, had sat for three years for that borough, not in the House, but in his carriage, or a Bath-chair, in various watering-places at home and abroad—being, in fact, a miserable invalid. This influential young politician had written a confidential letter, with only two or three slips in spelling and grammar, to his friend the Patronage Secretary, telling him to look out for a man to represent Shillingsworth till he had recovered his health, which was not returning quite so quickly as he expected, and promising his strenuous support to the nominee of the minister. Papa's confidence, therefore, was very reasonably justified, and the matter was looked upon by those sages of the lobbies who count the shadowy noses of unborn Houses of Commons as settled. It was known that the dissolution would take place early in the autumn.
Presently there came a letter to the "whip," from his friend Sir Luke Pyneweck, announcing that he was so much better that he had made up his mind to try once more before retiring.
This was a stunning blow to papa. Sir Luke could do without the government better than the government could do without him. And do or say what they might, no one could carry the borough against him. The Patronage Secretary really liked my father; and, I believe, would have wished him, for many reasons, in the House. But what was to be done? Sir Luke was neither to be managed nor bullied; he was cunning and obstinate. He did not want anything for himself, and did not want anything for any other person. With a patriot of that type who could do anything?
It was a pity the "whip" did not know this before every safe constituency was engaged. A pity papa did not know it before he put an organ into Shillingsworth church, and subscribed six hundred pounds towards the building of the meeting-house. I never saw papa so cast down and excited as he was by this disappointment. Looking very ill, however, he contrived to rally his spirits when he was among his friends, and seemed resolved, one way or other, to conquer fortune.
Balls, dinners, concerts, garden-parties, nevertheless, devoured our time, and our drives, and shopping, and visits went on, as if nothing had happened, and nothing was impending.
Two notable engagements for the next week, because they were connected, in the event, with my strange story, I mention now. On Tuesday there was Lady Mardykes's ball, on that day week papa had a political party to dinner, among whom were some very considerable names indeed. Lady Mardykes's balls were always, as you know, among the most brilliant of the season. While dancing one of those quadrilles that give us breathing time between the round dances, I saw a face that riveted my attention, and excited my curiosity. A slight old gentleman, in evening costume, with one of those obsolete under-waistcoats, which seemed to me such a pretty fashion (his was of blue satin), was the person I mean. A forbidding-looking man was this, with a thin face, as brown as a nut, hawk's eyes and beak, thin lips, and a certain character of dignified ill-temper, and even insolence, which, however, did not prevent its being a very gentleman-like face. I instantly recognised him as the old man, in the chocolate-coloured coat, who had talked so sharply, as it seemed to me and poor Nelly, with Laura Grey on the Milk-walk, in the shadow of the steep bank and the overhanging trees.
"Who is that old gentleman standing near the door at the end of the room, with that blue satin about his neck? Now he's speaking to Lady Westerbroke."
"Oh! that's Lord Rillingdon," answered my friend.
"He does not go to many places? I have seen him, I think, but once before," I said.
"No, I fancy he does not care about this sort of thing."
"Doesn't he speak very well? I think I've heard——"
"Yes, he speaks only in Indian debates. He's very well up on India—he was there, you know."
"Don't you think he looks very cross?" I said.
"They say he is very cross," said my informant, laughing: and here the dance was resumed, and I heard no more of him.
Old Lord Rillingdon had his eyes about him. He seemed, as much as possible, to avoid talking to people, and I thought was looking very busily for somebody. As I now and then saw this old man, who, from time to time, changed his point of observation, my thoughts were busy with Laura Grey, and the pain of my uncertainty returned—pain mingled with remorse. My enjoyment of this scene contrasted with her possible lot, upbraided me, and for a time I wished myself at home.
A little later I thought I saw a face that had not been seen in London for more than a year. I was not quite sure, but I thought I saw Monsieur Droqville. In rooms so crowded, one sometimes has so momentary a peep of a distant face that recognition is uncertain. Very soon I saw him again, and this time I had no doubt whatever. He seemed as usual, chatty, and full of energy; but I soon saw, or at least fancied, that he did not choose to see mamma or me. It is just possible I may have been doing him wrong. I did not see him, it is true, so much as once glance towards us; but Doctor or Monsieur Droqville was a man who saw everything, as Rebecca Torkill would say, with half an eye—always noting everything that passed; full of curiosity, suspicion, and conclusion, and with an eye quick and piercing as a falcon's.
This man, I thought, had seen, and was avoiding us, without wishing to appear to do so. It so happened, however, that some time later, in the tea-room, mamma was placed beside him. I was near enough to hear. Mamma recognised him with a smile and a little bow. He replied with just surprise enough in his looks and tones to imply that he had not known, up to that moment, that she was there.
"You are surprised to see me here?" he said; "I can scarcely believe it myself. I've been away thirteen months—a wanderer all over Europe; and I shall be off again in a few days. By-the-bye, you hear from Lady Lorrimer sometimes: I saw her at Naples, in January. She was looking flourishing then, but complaining a good deal. She has not been so well since—but I'll look in upon you to-morrow or the next day. I shall be sure to see her again, immediately. Your friends, the Wiclyffs, were at Baden this summer, so were the D'Acres. Lord Charles is to marry that French lady; it turns out she's rather an heiress; it is very nearly arranged, and they seemed all very well pleased. Have you seen my friend Carmel lately?"
"About three weeks ago; he was going to North Wales," she said.
"He is another of those interesting people who are always dying, and never die," said Monsieur Droqville.
I felt a growing disgust for this unfeeling man. He talked a little longer, and then turned to me and said:
"There's one advantage, Miss Ware, in being an old fellow—one can tell a young lady, in such charming and brilliant looks as yours to-night, what he thinks, just as he might give his opinion upon a picture. But I won't venture mine; I'll content myself with making a petition. I only ask that, when you are a very great lady, you'll remember a threadbare doctor, who would be very glad of an humble post about the court, and who is tired of wandering over the world in search of happiness, and finding a fee only once in fifty miles."
I do not know what was in this man's mind at that moment. If he was a Jesuit, he certainly owed very little to those arts and graces of which rumour allows so large a share to the order. But brusque and almost offensive as I thought him, there was something about him that seemed to command acceptance, and carry him everywhere he chose to go. He went away, and I saw him afterwards talking now to one great lady, and now to another. Lord Rillingdon, who looked like the envious witch whom Madame D'Aulnois introduces sometimes at the feasts of her happy kings and queens, throwing a malign gloom on all about them, had vanished.
That night, however, was to recall, as unexpectedly, another face, a more startling reminder of Malory and Laura Grey.