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the travel. “I shall find out all about that immediately when I get to town;
and there is a passport to be seen after. When I am ready to start—which
will be just as soon as the thing can be done—I shall let you know how I am
to travel, and write immediately when I arrive there;—I know what you
mean me to do.”
Then Miss Anastasia gave him—(a very important part of the business)
—two ten-pound notes, which was a very large sum to Charlie, and directed
him to go to the banking-house with which she kept an account in London,
and get from them a letter of credit on a banker in Milan, on whom he could
draw, according to his occasions. “You are very young, young Atheling,”
said Miss Rivers; “many a father would hesitate to trust his son as I trust
you; but I’m a woman and an optimist, and have my notions: you are only a
boy, but I believe in you—forget how young you are while you are about
my business—plenty of time after this for enjoying yourself—and I tell you
again, if you do your duty, your fortune is made.”
The old lady and the youth went out together, to where the little carriage
and the grey ponies stood at the solicitor’s door. Charlie, in his present
development, was not at all the man to hand a lady with a grace to her
carriage; nor was this stately gentlewoman, in her brown pelisse, at all the
person to be so escorted; but they were a remarkable pair enough, as they
stood upon the broad pavement of one of the noblest streets of
Christendom. Miss Anastasia held out her hand with a parting command
and warning, as she took her seat and the reins.—“Young Atheling,
remember! it is life and death!”
She was less cautious at that moment than she had been during all their
interview. The words full upon another ear than his to whom they were
addressed. Lord Winterbourne was making his way at the moment with
some newly-arrived guests of his, and under the conduct of a learned pundit
from one of the colleges, along this same picturesque High Street; and, in
the midst of exclamations of rapture and of interest, his suspicious and
alarmed eye caught the familiar equipage and well-known figure of Miss
Anastasia. Her face was turned in the opposite direction,—she did not see
him,—but a single step brought him near enough to hear her words. “Young
Atheling!” Lord Winterbourne had not forgotten his former connection with
the name, but the remembrance had long lain dormant in a breast which was
used to potent excitements. William Atheling, though he once saved a
reckless young criminal, could do no harm with his remote unbelievable
story to a peer of the realm,—a man who had sat in the councils of the
State. Lord Winterbourne had begun his suit for the Old Wood Lodge with
the most contemptuous indifference to all that could be said of him by any
one of this family; yet somehow it struck him strangely to hear so sudden a
naming of this name. “Young Atheling!” He could not help looking at the
youth,—meeting the stormy gleam in the eyes of Charlie, whose sudden
enmity sprung up anew in an instant. Lord Winterbourne was sufficiently
disturbed already by the departure of Louis, and with the quick observation
of alarm remarked everything. He could understand no natural connection
whatever between this lad and Miss Anastasia. His startled imagination
suggested instantly that it bore some reference to Louis, and what
interpretation was it possible to give to so strange an adjuration—“It is life
and death!”
 CHAPTER IV.

GOING AWAY.

“Charlie, my dear boy,” said Mrs Atheling, with a slight tremble in her
voice, “I suppose it may be months before we see you again.”
“I can’t tell, mother; but it will not be a day longer than I can help,” said
Charlie, who had the grace to be serious at the moment of parting. “There’s
only one thing, you know,—I must do my business before I come home.”
“And take care of yourself,” said Mrs Atheling; “take great care when
you are going over those mountains, and among those people where bandits
are—you know what stories we have read about such robbers, Charlie,—
and remember, though I should be very glad to hear good news about Louis,
Louis is not my own very boy, like you.”
“Hush, mother—no need for naming him,” said Charlie; “he is of more
moment than me, however, this time—for that’s my business. Never fear—
thieves may be fools there as well as at home, but they’re none such fools
as to meddle with me. Now, mother, promise me, the last thing,—Agnes, do
you hear?—don’t tell Marian a word, nor him. I’ll tell old Foggo the whole
story, and Foggo will do what he can for him when he gets to London; but
don’t you go and delude him, telling him of this, for it would just be as
good as ruin if I don’t succeed; and it all may come to nothing, as like as
not. I say, Agnes, do you hear?”
“Yes, I hear, very well; but I am not given to telling secrets,” said Agnes,
with a little dignity.
Charlie only laughed as he arranged himself in the corner of the second-
class carriage, and drew forth his grammar; there was no time for anything
more, save entreaties that he would write, and take care of himself; and the
train flashed away, leaving them somewhat dull and blank in the reaction of
past excitement, looking at each other, and half reluctant to turn their faces
homeward. Their minds hurried forth, faster than either steam or electricity,
to the end of Charlie’s journey. They went back with very slow steps and
very abstracted minds. What a new world of change and sudden revolution
might open upon them at Charlie’s return!
Mrs Atheling had some business in the town, and the mother and
daughter pursued their way silently to that same noble High Street where
Charlie had seen Lord Winterbourne, and where Lord Winterbourne and his
party were still to be caught sight of, appearing and reappearing by
glimpses as they “did” the halls and colleges. While her mother managed
some needful business in a shop, Agnes stood rather dreamily looking down
the stately street; its strange old-world mixture of the present and the past;
its union of all kinds of buildings; the trim classic pillars and toy cupolas of
the eighteenth century—the grim crumbling front of elder days—the gleams
of green grass and waving trees through college gateways—the black-
gowned figures interrupting the sunshine—the beautiful spire striking up
into it as into its natural element,—a noble hyacinthine stem of immortal
flowers. Agnes did not know much about artistic effect, nor anything about
orders of architecture, but the scene seized upon her imagination, as was its
natural right. Her thoughts were astray among hopes and chances far
enough out of the common way—but any dream of romance could make
itself real in an atmosphere like this.
She was pale,—she was somewhat of an abstracted and musing aspect.
When one took into consideration her misfortune of authorship, she was in
quite a sentimental pose and attitude—so thought her American
acquaintance, who had managed to secure an invitation to the Hall, and was
one of Lord Winterbourne’s party. But Mr Endicott had “done” all the
colleges before, and he could afford to let his attention be distracted by the
appearance of the literary sister of the lady of his love.
“I am not surprised at your abstraction,” said Mr Endicott. “In this,
indeed, I do not hesitate to confess, my country is not equal to your Island.
What an effect of sunshine! what a breadth of shade! I cannot profess to
have any preference, in respect to Art, for the past, picturesque though it be
—a poet of these days, Miss Atheling, has not to deal with facts, but
feelings; but I have no doubt, before I interrupted you, the whole panorama
of History glided before your meditative eye.”
“No, indeed; I was thinking more of the future than of the past,” said
Agnes hurriedly.
 “The future of this nation is obscure and mysterious,” said Mr Endicott,
gathering his eyebrows solemnly. “Some man must arise to lead you—to
glory—or to perdition! I see nothing but chaos and darkness; but why
should I prophesy? A past generation had leisure to watch the signs of the
times; but for us ‘Art is long and time is fleeting,’ and happy is the man
who can snatch one burning experience from the brilliant mirage of life.”
Agnes, a little puzzled by this mixture of images, did not attempt any
answer. Mr Endicott went on.
“I had begun to observe, with a great deal of interest, two remarkable
young minds placed in a singular position. They were not to be met, of
course, at the table of Lord Winterbourne,” said the American with dignity;
“but in my walks about the park I sometimes encountered them, and always
endeavoured to draw them into conversation. So remarkable, in fact, did
they seem to me, that they found a place in my Letters from England;
studies of character entirely new to my consciousness. I believe, Miss
Atheling, I had once the pleasure of seeing them in your company. They
stand—um—unfortunately in a—a—an equivocal relationship to my noble
host.”
“Ah! what of them?” cried Agnes quickly, and with a crimsoned cheek.
She felt already how difficult it was to hear them spoken of, and not
proclaim at once her superior knowledge.
“A singular event, I understand, happened last night,” continued Mr
Endicott. “Viscount Winterbourne, on his own lawn, was attacked and
insulted by the young man, who afterwards left the house under very
remarkable circumstances. My noble friend, who is an admirable example
of an old English nobleman, was at one time in actual danger, and I believe
has been advised to put this fiery youth—”
“Do you mean Louis?” cried Agnes, interrupting him anxiously. “Louis!
—do you mean that he has left the Hall?”
“I am greatly interested, I assure you, in tracing out this romance of real
life,” said Mr Endicott. “He left the Hall, I understand, last evening—and
my noble friend is advised to take measures for his apprehension. I look
upon the whole history with the utmost interest. How interesting to trace the
motives of this young mind, perhaps the strife of passions—gratitude
mixing with a sense of injury! If he is secured, I shall certainly visit him: I
know no nobler subject for a drama of passion; and dramas of the passions
are what we want to ennoble this modern time.”
“Mother!” cried Agnes, “mother, come; we have no time to lose—Mr
Endicott has told me—Mamma, leave these things to another time. Marian
is alone; there is no one to support her. Oh, mother, mother! make haste! We
must go home!”
She scarcely gave a glance to Mr Endicott as he stood somewhat
surprised, making a study of the young author’s excitable temperament for
his next “letter from England”—but hastened her mother homeward,
explaining, as she went, though not very coherently, that Louis had attacked
Lord Winterbourne—that he had left the Hall—that he had done something
for which he might be apprehended. The terror of disgrace—that most dread
of all fears to people in their class—overwhelmed both mother and
daughter, as they hastened, at a very unusual pace, along the road, terrified
to meet himself in custody, or some one coming to tell them of his crime.
And Marian, their poor beautiful flower, on whom this storm would fall so
heavily—Marian was alone!
 CHAPTER V.

THE OLD WOOD HOUSE.

Louis passed the night in the Rector’s library. He had no inclination for
sleep; indeed, he was almost scornful of the idea that he could sleep under
his new and strange circumstances; and it was not until he roused himself,
with a start, to see that the pale sheen of the moonlight had been succeeded
by the rosy dawn of morning, that he knew of the sudden, deep slumber,
that had fallen upon him. It was morning, but it was still a long time till
day; except the birds among the trees there was nothing astir, not even the
earliest labourer, and he could not hear a sound in the house. All the events
of the previous night returned upon Louis’s mind with all the revived
freshness of a sudden awaking. A great change had passed upon him in a
few hours. He started now at once out of the indefinite musings, the flush of
vain ambition, the bitter brooding over wrong which had been familiar to
his mind. He began to think with the earnest precision of a man who has
attained to a purpose. Formerly it had been hard enough for his proud
undisciplined spirit, prescient of something greater, to resolve upon a plan
of tedious labour for daily bread, or to be content with such a fortune as had
fallen to such a man as Mr Atheling. Even with love to bear him out, and
his beautiful Marian to inspire him, it was hard, out of all the proud
possibilities of youth, to plunge into such a lot as this. Now he considered it
warily, with the full awakened consciousness of a man. Up to this time his
bitter dislike and opposition to Lord Winterbourne had been carried on by
fits and starts, as youths do contend with older people under whose sway
they have been all their life. He took no reason with him when he decided
that he was not the son of the man who opposed him. He never entered into
the question how he came to the Hall, or what was the motive of its master.
He had contented himself with a mere unreasoning conviction that Lord
Winterbourne was not his father; but only one word was wanted to awaken
the slumbering mind of the youth, and that word had been spoken last night.
Now a clear and evident purpose became visible before him. What was
Lord Winterbourne’s reason for keeping him all his life under so killing a
bondage? What child was there in the world whom it was Lord
Winterbourne’s interest to call illegitimate and keep in obscurity? His heart
swelled—the colour rose in his face. He did not see how hopeless was the
search—how entirely without grounds, without information, he was. He did
not perceive how vain, to every reasonable individual, would seem the
fabric he had built upon a mere conviction of his own. In his own eager
perception everything was possible to that courage, and perseverance
indomitable, which he felt to be in him; and, for the first time in his life,
Louis came down from the unreasonable and bitter pride which had shut his
heart against all overtures of friendship. Friendship—help—advice—the aid
of those who knew the world better than he did—these were things to be
sought for, and solicited now. He sat in the Rector’s chair, leaning upon the
Rector’s writing-table; it was not without a struggle that he overcame his
old repugnance, his former haughtiness. It was not without a pang that he
remembered the obligation under which this stranger had laid him. It was
his first effort in self-control, and it was not an easy one; he resolved at last
to ask counsel from the Rector, and lay fully before him the strange
circumstances in which he stood.
The Rector was a man of capricious hours, and uncertain likings. He was
sometimes abroad as early as the earliest ploughman; to-day it was late in
the forenoon before he made his appearance. Breakfast had been brought to
Louis, by himself, in the library; in this house they were used to solitary
meals at all hours—and he had already asked several times for the Rector,
when Mr Rivers at last entered the room, and saluted him with stately
courtesy. “My sister, I find, has detained your sister,” said the Rector. “I
hope you have not been anxious—they tell me the young lady will join us
presently.”
Then there was a pause; and then Mr Rivers began an extremely polite
and edifying conversation, which must have reminded any spectator of the
courtly amity of a couple of Don Quixotes preparing for the duello. The
Rector himself conducted it with the most solemn gravity imaginable. This
Lionel Rivers, dissatisfied and self-devouring, was not a true man.
Supposing himself to be under a melancholy necessity of disbelieving on
pain of conscience, he yet submitted to an innumerable amount of practical
shams, with which his conscience took no concern. In spite of his great
talents, and of a character full of natural nobleness, when you came to its
foundations, a false tone, an artificial strain of conversation, an unreal and
insincere expression, were unhappily familiar enough to the dissatisfied
clergyman, who vainly tried to anchor himself upon the authority of the
Church. Louis, on the contrary, knew nothing of talk which was a mere veil
and concealment of meaning; he could not use vain words when his heart
burned within him; he had no patience for those conversations which were
merely intended to occupy time, and which meant and led to nothing. Yet it
was very difficult for him, young, proud, and inexperienced as he was,
without any invitation or assistance from his companion, to enter upon his
explanation. He changed colour, he became uneasy, he scarcely answered
the indifferent remarks addressed to him. At length, seeing nothing better
for it, he plunged suddenly and without comment into his own tale.
“We have left Winterbourne Hall,” said Louis, reddening to his temples
as he spoke. “I have long been aware how unsuitable a home it was for me.
I am going to London immediately. I cannot thank you enough for your
hospitality to my sister, and to myself, last night.”
“That is nothing,” said the Rector, with a motion of his hand. “Some
time since I had the pleasure of saying to your friends in the Lodge that it
would gratify me to be able to serve you. I do not desire to pry into your
plans; but if I can help you in town, let me know without hesitation.”
“So far from prying,” said Louis, eagerly, interrupting him, “I desire
nothing more than to explain them. All my life,” and once again the red
blood rushed to the young man’s face,—“all my life I have occupied the
most humiliating of positions—you know it. I am not a meek man by
nature; what excuse I have had if a bitter pride has sometimes taken
possession of me, you know——”
The Rector bowed gravely, but did not speak. Louis continued in haste,
and with growing agitation, “I am not the son of Lord Winterbourne—I am
not a disgraced offshoot of your family—I can speak to you without feeling
shame and abasement in the very sound of your name. This has been my
conviction since ever I was capable of knowing anything—but Heaven
knows how subtly the snare was woven—it seemed impossible, until now
when we have done it, to disengage our feet.”
“Have you made any discovery, then? What has happened?” said the
Rector, roused into an eager curiosity. Here, at the very outset, lay Louis’s
difficulty—and he had never perceived it before.
 “No; I have made no discovery,” he said, with a momentary
disconcertment. “I have only left the Hall—I have only told Lord
Winterbourne what he knows well, and I have known long, that I am not his
son.”
“Exactly—but how did you discover that?” said the Rector.
“I have discovered nothing—but I am as sure of it as that I breathe,”
answered Louis.
The Rector looked at him—looked at a portrait which hung directly
above Louis’s head upon the wall, smiled, and shook his head. “It is quite
natural,” he said; “I can sympathise with any effort you make to gain a
more honourable position, and to disown Lord Winterbourne—but it is
vain, where there are pictures of the Riverses, to deny your connection with
my family. George Rivers himself, my lord’s heir, the future head of the
family, has not a tithe as much of the looks and bearing of the blood as
you.”
Louis could not find a word to say in face of such an argument—he
looked eagerly yet blankly into the face of the Rector—felt all his pulses
throbbing with fiery impatience of the doubt thus cast upon him—yet knew
nothing to advance against so subtle and unexpected a charge of kindred,
and could only repeat, in a passionate undertone, “I am not Lord
Winterbourne’s son.”
“I do not know,” said the Rector, “I have no information which is not
common to all the neighbourhood—yet I beg you to guard against delusion.
Lord Winterbourne brought you here while you were an infant—since then
you have remained at the Hall—he has owned you, I suppose, as much as a
man ever owns an illegitimate child. Pardon me, I am obliged to use the
common words. Lord Winterbourne is not a man of extended benevolence,
neither is he one to take upon himself the responsibility or blame of another.
If you are not his son, why did he bring you here?”
Louis raised his face from his hands which had covered it—he was very
pale, haggard, almost ghastly. “If you can tell me of any youth—of any
child—of any man’s son, whom it was his interest to disgrace and remove
out of the way,” said the young man with his parched lips, “I will tell you
why I am here.”
The Rector could not quite restrain a start of emotion—not for what the
youth said, for that was madness to the man of the world—but for the
extreme passion, almost despair, in his face. He thought it best to soothe
rather than to excite him.
“I know nothing more than all the world knows,” said Mr Rivers; “but,
though I warn you against delusions, I will not say you are wrong when you
are so firmly persuaded that you are right. What do you mean to do in
London—can I help you there?”
Louis felt with no small pang this giving up of the argument—as if it
were useless to discuss anything so visionary—but he roused himself to
answer the question: “The first thing I have to do,” he said quickly, “is to
maintain my sister and myself.”
The Rector bowed again, very solemnly and gravely—perhaps not
without a passing thought that the same duty imposed chains more galling
than iron upon himself.
“That done, I will pursue my inquiries as I can,” said Louis; “you think
them vain—but time will prove that. I thank you now, for my sister’s sake,
for receiving us—and now we must go on our way.”
“Not yet,” said the Rector. “You are without means, of course—what, do
you think it a disgrace, that you blush for it?—or would you have me
suppose that you had taken money from Lord Winterbourne, while you
deny that you are his son? For this once suppose me your friend; I will
supply you with what you are certain to need; and you can repay me—oh,
with double interest if you please!—only do not go to London unprovided
—for that is the maddest method of anticipating a heartbreak; your sister is
young, almost a child, tender and delicate—let it be, for her sake.”
“Thank you; I will take it as you give it,” said Louis. “I am not so
ungenerous as you suppose.”
There was a certain likeness between them, different as they were—there
was a likeness in both to these family portraits on the walls. Before such
silent witnesses Louis’s passionate disclaimer, sincere though it was, was
unbelievable. For no one could believe that he was not an offshoot of the
house of Rivers, who looked from his face and the Rector’s to those calm
ancient faces on the walls.
 CHAPTER VI.

AN ADVENTURER.

“They have left the Hall.”

That was all Marian said when she came to the door to meet her mother
and sister, who paused in the porch, overcome with fatigue, haste, and
anxiety. Mrs Atheling was obliged to pause and sit down, not caring
immediately to see the young culprit who was within.
“And what has happened, Marian,—what has happened? My poor child,
did he tell you?” asked Mrs Atheling.
“Nothing has happened, mamma,” said Marian, with a little petulant
haste; “only Louis has quarrelled with Lord Winterbourne; but, indeed, I
wish you would speak to him. Oh, Agnes, go and talk to Louis; he says he
will go to London to-day.”
“And so he should; there is not a moment to be lost,” said Agnes,—“I
will go and tell him; we can walk in with him to Oxford, and see him safely
away. Tell Hannah to make haste, Marian,—he must not waste an hour.”
“What does she mean,—what is the matter? Oh, what have you heard,
mamma?” said Marian, growing very pale.
“Hush, dear; I daresay it was not him,—it was Mr Endicott, who is sure
to hate him, poor boy; he said Lord Winterbourne would put him in prison,
Marian. Oh,” said Mrs Atheling, getting up hurriedly, “he ought to go at
once to Papa.”
But they found Louis, whom they all surrounded immediately with
terror, sympathy, and encouragement, entirely unappalled by the threatened
vengeance of Lord Winterbourne.
“There is nothing to charge me with; he can bring no accusation against
me; if he did ever say it, it must have been a mere piece of bravado,” said
Louis; “but it is better I should go at once without losing an hour, as Agnes
says. Will you let Rachel stay? and you, who are the kindest mother in the
world, when will you have compassion on us and come home?”
 “Indeed, I wish we were going now,” said Mrs Atheling; and she said it
with genuine feeling, and a sigh of anxiety. “You must tell Papa we will not
stay very long; but I suppose we must see about this lawsuit first; and I am
sure I cannot tell who is to manage it now, since Charlie is gone.”
“Shall you go to Papa at once, Louis?” asked Marian, who was very
anxious to conceal from every one the tears in her downcast eyes.
“Surely, at once,” said Louis. “We are in different circumstances now; I
have a great deal to ask any one who knows the family of Rivers. Do you
know it never before occurred to me that Lord Winterbourne must have had
some powerful inducement for keeping me here, knowing as well as I do
that I am not his son.”
Mrs Atheling and Agnes turned a sudden guilty look upon each other;
but neither had betrayed the secret;—what did he mean?
“Unless it was his interest in some way—unless it was for his evident
advantage to disgrace and disable me,” said Louis, groping in the dark,
when they knew one possible solution of the mystery so well, “I am
convinced he never would have kept me as he has done at the Hall.”
He spoke in a tone different to that which he had used to the Rector, and
very naturally different—for Louis here was triumphant in the faith of his
audience, and did not hesitate to say all he felt, nor fear too close an
investigation into the grounds of his belief. He spoke fervently; and Marian
and Rachel looked at him with the faith of enthusiasm, and Mrs Atheling
and Agnes with wonder, agitation, and embarrassment. But, as he went on,
it became too much for the self-control of the good mother. She hurried out
on pretence of superintending Hannah, and was very soon followed by
Agnes. “I durst not stay, I should have told him,” said Mrs Atheling, in a
hurried whisper. “Who could put so much into his head, Agnes? who could
lead him so near the truth?—only God! My dear child, I believe in it all
now.”
Agnes had believed in it all from the first moment of hearing it, but so
singular a strain was upon the minds of both mother and daughter, knowing
this extraordinary secret which the others did not know, that it was not
wonderful they should give a weight much beyond their desert to the
queries of Louis. Yet, indeed, Louis’s queries took a wonderfully correct
direction, and came very near the truth.
 It was a day of extreme agitation to them all, and not until Louis, who
had no travelling-bag to pack, had been accompanied once more to the
railway, and seen safely away, with many a lingering farewell, was any one
able to listen to, or understand, Rachel’s version of the events of last night.
When he was quite gone—when it was no longer possible to wave a hand to
him in the distance, or even to see the flying white plume of the miraculous
horseman who bounded along with all that line of carriages, the three girls
came home together through the quiet evening road—the disenchanted
road, weary and unlovely, which Marian marvelled much any one could
prefer to Bellevue. They walked very close together, with Marian in the
midst, comforting her in an implied, sympathetic, girlish fashion—for
Rachel, though Louis had belonged to her so very much longer, and was her
sole authority, law-giver, and hero, instinctively kept her own feelings out
of sight, and took care of Marian. These girls were very loyal to their own
visionary ideas of the mysterious magician who had not come to either of
them yet, but whose coming both anticipated some time, with awe and with
smiles.
And then Rachel told them how it had fared with her on the previous
night. Rachel had very little to say about the Rector; she had given him up
conscientiously to Agnes, and with a distant and reverent admiration of his
loftiness, contemplated him afar off, too great a person for her friendship.
“But in the morning the maid came and took me to Miss Rivers—did you
ever see Miss Rivers?—she is very pale—and pretty, though she is old, and
a very, very great invalid,” said Rachel. “Some one has to sit up with her
every night, and she has so many troubles—headaches, and pains in her
side, and coughs, and every sort of thing! She told me all about them as she
lay on the sofa in her pretty white dressing-gown, and in such a soft voice
as if she was quite used to them, and did not mind. Do you think you could
be a nurse to any one who was ill, Agnes?”
“She has been a nurse to all of us when we were ill,” said Marian,
rousing herself for the effort, and immediately subsiding into the
pensiveness which the sad little beauty would not suffer herself to break,
even though she began in secret to be considerably interested about the
interior of the mysterious Wood House, and the invisible Miss Rivers.
Marian thought Louis would not be pleased if he could imagine her
thinking of any one but him, so soon after he had gone away.
 “But I don’t mean at home—I mean a stranger,” said Rachel, “one whom
you did not love. I think it must be rather hard sometimes; but do you know
I was very nearly offering to be nurse to Miss Rivers, she spoke so kindly to
me? And then Louis will have to work,” continued the faithful little sister,
with tears in her eyes; “you must tell me what I can do, Agnes, not to be a
burden upon Louis. Oh, do you think any one would give me money for
singing now?”
 CHAPTER VII.

LORD WINTERBOURNE.

Lord Winterbourne, all his life, had been a man of guile; he was so long
experienced in it, that dissimulation became easy enough to him, when he
was not startled or thrown suddenly off his guard. Already every one around
him supposed he had quite forgiven and forgotten the wild escapade of
Louis. He had no confidant whatever, not even a valet or a steward, and his
most intimate associate knew nothing of his dark and secret counsels. When
any one mentioned the ungovernable youth who had fled from the Hall,
Lord Winterbourne said, “Pooh, pooh—he will soon discover his mistake,”
and smiled his pale and sinister smile. Such a face as his could not well
look benign; but people were accustomed to his face, and thought it his
misfortune—and everybody set him down as, in this instance at least, of a
very forgiving and indulgent spirit, willing that the lad should find out his
weakness by experiment, but not at all disposed to inflict any punishment
upon his unruly son.
The fact was, however, that Lord Winterbourne was considerably excited
and uneasy. He spent hours in a little private library among his papers—
carefully went over them, collating and arranging again and again—
destroyed some, and filled the private drawers of his cabinet with others. He
sent orders to his agent to prosecute with all the energy possible his suit
against the Athelings. He had his letters brought to him in his own room,
where he was alone, and looked over them with eager haste and something
like apprehension. Servants, always sufficiently quick-witted under such
circumstances, concluded that my lord expected something, and the
expectation descended accordingly through all the grades of the great
house; but this did not by any means diminish the number of his guests, or
the splendour of his hospitality. New arrivals came constantly to the Hall—
and very great people indeed, on their way to Scotland and the moors,
looked in upon the disappointed statesman by way of solace. He had made
an unspeakable failure in his attempt at statesmanship; but still he had a
certain amount of influence, and merited a certain degree of consideration.
The quiet country brightened under the shower of noble sportsmen and fair
ladies. All Banburyshire crowded to pay its homage. Mrs Edgerley brought
her own private menagerie, the newest lion who could be heard of; and
herself fell into the wildest fever of architecturalism—fitted up an oratory
under the directions of a Fellow of Merton—set up an Ecclesiological
Society in the darkest of her drawing-rooms—made drawings of “severe
saints,” and purchased casts of the finest “examples”—began to embroider
an altar-cloth from the designs of one of the most renowned connoisseurs in
the ecclesiological city, and talked of nothing but Early English, and Middle
Pointed. Politics, literature, and the fine arts, sport, flirtation, and festivity,
kept in unusual excitement the whole spectator county of Banbury, and the
busy occupants of Winterbourne Hall.
In the midst of all this, the Lord of Winterbourne spent solitary hours in
his library among his papers, took solitary rides towards Abingford,
moodily courted a meeting with Miss Anastasia, even addressed her when
they met, and did all that one unassisted man could do to gain information
of her proceedings. He was in a state of restless expectation, not easy to
account for. He knew that Louis was in London, but not who had given him
the means to go there; and he could find no pretence for bringing back the
youth, or asserting authority over him. He waited in well-concealed but
frightfully-felt excitement for something, watching with a stealthy but
perpetual observation the humble house of the Athelings and the Priory at
Abingford. He did not say to himself what it was he apprehended, nor
indeed that he apprehended anything; but with that strange certainty which
criminals always seem to retain, that fate must come some time, waited in
the midst of his gay, busy, frivolous guests, sharing all the occupations
round him, like a man in a dream,—waited as the world waits in a pause of
deadly silence for the thunderclap. It would rouse him when it came.
It came, but not as he looked for it. Oh blind, vain, guilty soul, with but
one honest thought among all its crafts and falsehoods! It came not like the
rousing tumult of the thunder, but like an avalanche from the hills; he fell
under it with a groan of mortal agony; there was nothing in heaven or earth
to defend him from the misery of this sudden blow. All his schemes, all his
endeavours, what were they good for now?
 CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEW HEIR.

They had heard from Charlie, who had already set out upon his journey;
they had heard from Louis, whom Mr Foggo desired to take into his office
in Charlie’s place in the mean time; they had heard again and again from
Miss Anastasia’s solicitor, touching their threatened property; and to this
whole family of women everything around seemed going on with a singular
speed and bustle, while they, unwillingly detained among the waning
September trees, were, by themselves, so lonely and so still. The only one
among them who was not eager to go home was Agnes. Bellevue and
Islington, though they were kindly enough in their way, were not meet
nurses for a poetic child;—this time of mountainous clouds, of wistful
winds, of falling leaves, was like a new life to Agnes. She came out to stand
in the edge of the wood alone, to do nothing but listen to the sweep of the
wild minstrel in those thinning trees, or look upon the big masses of cloud
breaking up into vast shapes of windy gloom over the spires of the city and
the mazes of the river. The great space before and around—the great
amphitheatre at her feet—the breeze that came in her face fresh and chill,
and touched with rain—the miracles of tiny moss and herbage lying low
beneath those fallen leaves—the pale autumn sky, so dark and stormy—the
autumn winds, which wailed o’ nights—the picturesque and many-featured
change which stole over everything—carried a new and strange delight to
the mind of Agnes. She alone cared to wander by herself through the wood,
with its crushed ferns, its piled faggots of firewood, its yellow leaves, which
every breeze stripped down. She was busy with the new book, too, which
was very like to be wanted before it came; for all these expenses, and the
license which their supposed wealth had given them, had already very much
reduced the little store of five-pound notes, kept for safety in Papa’s desk.
One afternoon during this time of suspense and uncertainty, the Rector
repeated his call at the Lodge. The Rector had never forgiven Agnes that
unfortunate revelation of her authorship; yet he had looked to her
notwithstanding through those strange sermons of his, with a constantly-
increasing appeal to her attention. She was almost disposed to fancy
sometimes that he made special fiery defences of himself and his
sentiments, which seemed addressed to her only; and Agnes fled from the
idea with distress and embarrassment, thinking it a vanity of her own. On
this day, however, the Rector was a different man—the cloud was off his
brow—the apparent restraint, uneasy and galling, under which he had
seemed to hold himself, was removed; a flash of aroused spirit was in his
eye—his very step was eager, and sounded with a bolder ring upon the
gravel of the garden path—there was no longer the parochial bow, the
clergymanly address, or the restless consciousness of something unreal in
both, which once characterised him; he entered among them almost
abruptly, and did not say a word of his parishioners, but instead, asked for
Louis—told Rachel his sister wished to see her—and, glancing with
unconcealed dislike at poor Agnes’s blotting-book, wished to know if Miss
Atheling was writing now.
“Mr Rivers does not think it right, mamma,” said Agnes. She blushed a
little under her consciousness of his look of displeasure, but smiled also
with a kind of challenge as she met his eye.
“No,” said the young clergyman abruptly; “I admire, above all things,
understanding and intelligence. I can suppose no appreciation so quick and
entire as a woman’s; but she fails of her natural standing to me, when I
come to hear of her productions, and am constituted a critic—that is a false
relationship between a woman and a man.”
And Mr Rivers looked at Agnes with an answering flash of pique and
offence, which was as much as to say, “I am very much annoyed; I had
thought of very different relationships; and it is all owing to you.”
“Many very good critics,” said Mrs Atheling, piqued in her turn—“a
great many people, I assure you, who know about such things, have been
very much pleased with Agnes’s book.”
The Rector made no answer—did not even make a pause—but as if all
this was merely irrelevant and an interruption to his real business, said
rapidly, yet with some solemnity, and without a word of preface, “Lord
Winterbourne’s son is dead.”
“Who?” said Agnes, whom, unconsciously, he was addressing—and they
all turned to him with a little anxiety. Rachel became very pale, and even
Marian, who was not thinking at all of what Mr Rivers said, drew a little
nearer the table, and looked up at him wistfully, with her beautiful eyes.
“Lord Winterbourne’s son, George Rivers, the heir of the family—he
who has been abroad so long; a young man, I hear, whom every one
esteemed,” said the Rector, bending down his head, as if he exacted from
himself a certain sadness, and did indeed endeavour to see how sad it was
—“he is dead.”
Mrs Atheling rose, greatly moved. “Oh, Mr Rivers!—did you say his
son? his only son? a young man? Oh, I pray God have pity upon him! It will
kill him;—it will be more than he can bear!”
The Rector looked up at the grief in the good mother’s face, with a look
and gesture of surprise. “I never heard any one give Lord Winterbourne
credit for so much feeling,” he said, looking at her with some suspicion;
“and surely he has not shown much of it to you.”
“Oh, feeling! don’t speak of feeling!” cried Mrs Atheling. “It is not that I
am thinking of. You know a great many things, Mr Rivers, but you never
lost a child.”
“No,” he said; and then, after a pause, he added, in a lower tone, “in the
whole matter, certainly, I never before thought of Lord Winterbourne.”
And there was nobody nigh to point out to him what a world beyond and
above his philosophy was this simple woman’s burst of nature. Yet in his
own mind he caught a moment’s glimpse of it; for the instant he was
abashed, and bent his lofty head with involuntary self-humiliation; but
looking up, saw his own thought still clearer in the eye of Agnes, and turned
defiant upon her, as if it had been a spoken reproof.
“Well!” he said, turning to her, “was I to blame for thinking little of the
possibility of grief in such a man?”
“I did not say so,” said Agnes, simply; but she looked awed and grave, as
the others did. They had no personal interest at all in the matter; they
thought in an instant of the vacant places in their own family, and stood
silent and sorrowful, looking at the great calamity which made another
house desolate. They never thought of Lord Winterbourne, who was their
enemy; they only thought of a father who had lost his son.
And Rachel, who remembered George Rivers, and thought in the
tenderness of the moment that he had been rather kind to her, wept a few
tears silently.
 All these things disconcerted the Rector. He was impatient of excess of
sympathy—ebullitions of feeling; he was conscious of a restrained, yet
intense spring of new hope and vigour in his own life. He had endeavoured
conscientiously to regret his cousin; but it was impossible to banish from
his own mind the thought that he was free—that a new world opened to his
ambition—that he was the heir!
And he had come, unaware of his own motive, to share this
overpowering and triumphant thought with Agnes Atheling, a girl who was
no mate for him, as inferior in family fortune and breeding as it was
possible to imagine—and now stood abashed and reproved to see that all
his simple auditors thought at once, not of him and his altered position, but
of those grand and primitive realities—Death and Grief. He went away
hastily and with impatience, displeased with them and with himself—went
away on a rapid walk for miles out of his way, striding along the quiet
country roads as if for a race; and a race it was, with his own thoughts,
which still were fastest, and not to be overtaken. He knew the truths of
philosophy, the limited lines and parallels of human logic and reason; but he
had not been trained among the great original truths of nature; he knew only
what was true to the mind,—not what was true to the heart.
 CHAPTER IX.

A VISIT.

“Come down, Agnes, make haste; mamma wants you—and Miss

Anastasia’s carriage is just driving up to the door.”
So said Marian, coming languidly into their sleeping-room, and quite
indifferent to Miss Anastasia. She was rather glad indeed to hasten Agnes
away, to make an excuse for herself, and gain a half-hour of solitude to read
over again Louis’s letter. It was worth while to get letters like those of
Louis. Marian sat down on one of Miss Bridget’s old-fashioned chairs, and
leaned her beautiful head against its high unyielding angular back. The
cover on it was of an ancient blue-striped tabinet, faded, yet still retaining
some of its colour, which answered very well to relieve those beautiful half-
curled, half-braided locks of Marian’s hair, which had such a tendency to
escape from all kinds of bondage. She lay there half reclining upon this stiff
uneasy piece of furniture, not at all disturbed by its angularity, her pretty
cheek flushing, her pretty lips trembling into half-conscious smiles, reading
over again Louis’s letter, which she held after an embracing fashion in both
her hands.
And Rachel, with great diffidence, yet by the Rector’s invitation, had
gone to visit Miss Rivers at the Old Wood House. When the other Miss
Rivers, chief of the name, entered the little parlour of the Lodge, she found
the mother and daughter, who were both acquainted with her secret,
awaiting her very anxiously. She came in with a grave face and deliberate
step. She had not changed her dress in any particular, except the colour of
her bonnet, which was black, and had some woeful decorations of crape;
but it was evident that she too had been greatly moved and impressed by
her young cousin’s death.
“He is dead,” she said, almost as abruptly as the Rector, when she had
taken her usual place. “Yes, poor young George Rivers, who was the heir of
the house—it was very well for him that he should die.”
“Oh, Miss Rivers!” said Mrs Atheling, “I am very, very sorry for poor
Lord Winterbourne.”
 “Are you?” said Miss Anastasia;—“perhaps you are right,—he will feel
this, I dare say, as much as he can feel anything—but I was sorry for the
boy. Young people think it hard to die—fools!—they don’t know the
blessing that lies in it. Living long enough to come to the crown of youth,
and dying in its blossom—that’s a lot fit for an angel. Agnes Atheling, never
look through your tears at me.”
But Agnes could not help looking at the old lady wistfully, with her
young inquiring eyes.
“What does the Rector do here?—they tell me he comes often,” said
Miss Rivers. “Do you know that now, so far as people understand, he comes
to be heir of Winterbourne?”
“He came to tell us yesterday of the poor young gentleman’s death,” said
Mrs Atheling, “and I thought he seemed a little excited. Agnes, I am sure
you observed it as well as I.”
“No, mamma,” said Agnes, turning away hastily. She went to get some
work, that no one might observe her own looks, with a sudden nervous
tremor and impatience upon her. The Rector had been very kind to Louis,
had done a brother’s part to him—far more than any one else in the world
had ever done to this friendless youth—yet Louis’s friends were labouring
with all their might, working in darkness like evil-doers, to undermine the
supposed right of Lionel—that right which made his breast expand and his
brow clear, and freed him from an uncongenial fate. Agnes sat down
trembling, with a sudden nervous access of vexation, disappointment,
annoyance, which she could not explain. She had been accustomed for a
long time now to follow him with interest and sympathy, and to read his
thoughts in those wild public self-revelations of his, which no one
penetrated but herself; but she felt actually guilty, a plotter, and concerned
against him now.
“I am sorry for Lionel,” said Miss Rivers, who had not lost a single
fluctuation of colour on Agnes’s cheek, nor tremble of emotion in her
hurried hands—“but it would have been more grievous for poor George had
he lived. There will be only disappointment—not disgrace—for any other
heir.”
She paused awhile, still watching Agnes, who bent over her work,
greatly disposed to cry, and in a very agitated condition of mind. Then she
said as suddenly as before, “I forget my proper errand—I have come for the
girls. You are to go up with me to the Priory. Go, make haste—put on your
bonnet—I never wait, even for young ladies; call your sister, and make
ready to go.”
Agnes rose, startled and unwilling, and cast an inquiring look at
Mamma. Mrs Atheling was startled too, but she was not insensible to the
pride and glory of seeing her two daughters drive off to Abingford Priory in
the well-known carriage of Miss Anastasia. “Since Miss Rivers is so good,
make haste, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling; and Agnes had no alternative but
to obey.
When she was gone, Miss Rivers looked round the room inquisitively.
Rachel was no great needlewoman, nor much instructed in ordinary
feminine pursuits; there were no visible traces of the presence of a third
young lady in the little dim parlour. “Where is the girl?” said Miss
Anastasia, cautiously,—“I was told she was here.”
“The Rector asked her to go and see his sister—she is at the Old Wood
House,” said Mrs Atheling. “I am very sorry—but we never thought of you
coming to-day.”
“I might come any day,” said Miss Rivers, abruptly—“but that is not the
question—I prefer not to see her—she is a frightened little dove of a girl—
she is not in my way. Is she good for anything?—you ought to know.”
“She is a very sweet, amiable girl,” said Mrs Atheling, warmly—“and
she sings as I never heard any one sing, all my life.”
“Ah!” said Miss Rivers, with a look of gratification, “it belongs to the
family—music is a tradition among us—yes, yes! You remember my great-
grandfather, the fourth lord—he was a great composer.” Miss Anastasia was
perfectly destitute of the faculty herself, and more than half of the Riverses
wanted that humblest of all musical qualifications, “an ear”—yet it was
amusing to mark the eagerness of the old lady to find a family precedent for
every quality known as belonging to Louis or his sister. “I recollect,” added
Miss Rivers, bending her brows darkly, “they wanted to make a singer of
her—the more disgrace the better—Oh, I understand their tactics! You are
sorry for him?—look at the devilish plans he made.”
Mrs Atheling shook her head, but did not reply; she only knew that she
would have been sorry for the vilest criminal in the world, had he lost his
only son.
 “I have heard from your boy,” said Miss Rivers. “He is gone now, I
suppose. What does Will Atheling think of his son? If he does but as I
expect he will, the boy’s fortune is made; he shall never repent that he did
this service for me.”
“But it is a great undertaking,” said Mrs Atheling. “I know Charlie will
do his best—he is a very good boy, Miss Rivers; but he may not succeed
after all.”
“He will succeed,” said the old lady; “but even if he does not—which I
cannot believe—so long as he does all he can, it will not alter me.”
The mother’s heart swelled high with gratification and pleasure; yet
there was a drawback. All this time—since the first day when she heard of
it, before she made her discovery—Miss Anastasia had never referred to the
engagement between Louis and Marian. Did she desire to discourage it?
Was she likely to perceive a difference in this respect between Louis
nameless and without friends, and Louis the heir of Winterbourne?
But Mrs Atheling’s utmost penetration could not tell. Miss Rivers began
to pull down the books, to look at them, to strike her riding-whip on the
floor, and call out good-humouredly in her loud voice, which every one in
the house could hear, that she was not to be kept waiting by a parcel of
girls. Finally the girls made their appearance in their best dresses; their new
patroness hurried them into her carriage, and drove instantly away.
 CHAPTER X.

MARIAN ON TRIAL.

Miss Anastasia “preferred not to see” Rachel—yet, with a wayward

inclination still, was moved to drive by a circuitous road in front of the Old
Wood House, where the girl was. The little vehicle went heavily along the
grassy road, cutting the turf, but making little sound as it rolled past the
windows of the invalid. There was the velvet lawn, the trim flower-plots,
the tall autumnal flowers, the straight and well-kept garden-paths, lying
vacant and shadowless beneath the sun—but there was nothing to be
discovered under the closed blinds of this shut-up and secluded house.
“Why do they keep their blinds down?” said Miss Anastasia; “all the
house surely is not one invalid’s room? Lucy was a little fool always. I do
not believe there is anything the matter with her. She had what these soft
creatures call a disappointment in love—words have different meanings,
child. And why does this girl go to see Lucy Rivers? I suppose because she
is such a one herself.”
“It is because Miss Rivers was kind to her,” said Agnes; “and the Rector
asked her to go——”
“The Rector? Do you mean to tell me,” said Miss Anastasia, turning
quickly upon her companion, “that when Lionel Rivers comes to the Lodge
it is for her he comes?”
“I do not know,” said Agnes. She was provoked to feel how her face
burned under the old lady’s gaze. She could not help showing something of
the anger and vexation she felt. She looked up hastily, with a glance of
resentment. “He has been very much interested in Louis—he has been very
kind to him,” said Agnes, not at all indisposed, for the sake of the Rector,
whom every one plotted against, to throw down her glove to Miss
Anastasia. “I believe, indeed, it has been to inquire about Louis, that he ever
came to the Lodge.”
Miss Anastasia touched her ponies with her whip, and said, “Humph!”
“Both of them! odd enough,” said the old lady. Agnes, who was
considerably offended, and not at all in an amicable state of mind, did not
choose to inquire who Miss Anastasia meant by “both of them,” nor what it
was that was “odd enough.”
Marian occupied the seat behind. She liked it very well, though she
would rather have written her letter to Louis. She did not quite hear the
conversation before her, and did not much care about it. Marian recognised
the old lady only as Agnes’s friend, and had never connected her in any way
with her own fortunes. She was shy of speaking in that stately presence; she
was even resentful sometimes of the remarks of Miss Anastasia; and the
lofty old gentlewoman had formed but an indifferent idea yet of the little
beauty. She was amused with the pretty pout of Marian’s lip, the sparkle,
sometimes of fun, sometimes of petulance, in her eye; but Marian would
have been extremely dismayed to-day had she known that she, and not
Agnes, was the principal object of Miss Anastasia’s visit, and was, indeed,
about to be put upon her trial, to see if she was good for anything. At all
events, she was quite at ease and unalarmed now.
They drove along in silence for some time after this—passing through
the village and past the Park gates. Then Miss Anastasia took a road quite
unfamiliar to the girls—a grass-grown unfrequented path, lying under the
shadow of the trees of Winterbourne. She did not say a word till they came
to a sudden break in the trees, when she stopped her ponies abruptly, and
fixed a sorrowful gaze upon the Hall, which was visible, and close at hand.
The white, broad, majestic front of the great house was not unlike a funeral
pile at any time; now, with white curtains drawn close over all its scarcely
perceptible windows, still veiled in the pomp of mourning, without a gleam
of light or colour, in its blind, grand aspect, turning its back upon the sun—
there was something very sadly imposing in the desolated house. No one
was to be seen about it—not even a servant: it looked like a vast
mausoleum, sacred to the dead. “It was very well for him,” said Miss
Anastasia with a sigh, “very well. If it were not so pitiful a thing to think of,
children, I could thank God.”
But as the old lady spoke, the tears stood heavy in her eyes.
This was very dreadful, very mysterious, altogether beyond
comprehension to Marian. She was glad to turn her eyes away from the
house with dislike and terror—it had been Louis’s prison and place of
suffering, and not a single hope connected with the Hall of Winterbourne
was in Marian’s mind. She drew back from Miss Rivers with a shudder—
she thought it was the most frightful thing in existence to thank God
because this young man had died.
The Priory opened its doors wide to its mistress and her young guests.
She led them herself to her favourite room, a very strange place, indeed, to
their inexperienced eyes. It was a long narrow room, built over the archway
which crossed the entrance to the town of Abingford. This of itself was
peculiarity enough; and the walls were of stone, wainscoted to half their
height with oak, and the roof was ribbed with strong old oaken rafters, and
of course unceiled. Windows on either side, plain lattice-windows, with
thick mullions of stone, admitted the light in strips between heavy bars of
shadow, and commanded a full sight of every one who entered the town of
Abingford. On the country side was a long country road, some trees, and
the pale convolutions of the river; on the other, there was a glimpse of the
market-place of the town, even now astir with a leisurely amount of
business, in the centre of which rose an extraordinary building with a
piazza, while round it were the best shops of Abingford, and the farmers’
inns, which were full on market days. A little old church, rich with the same
rude Saxon ornament which decorated the church of Winterbourne, stood
modestly among the houses at the corner of the market-place. A few
leisurely figures, such as belong to country towns, stood at the doors, or
lounged about the pavement; and market-carts came and went slowly under
the arch. Marian brightened into positive amusement; she thought it very
funny indeed to watch the people and the vehicles slowly disappearing
beneath her, and laughed to herself, and thought it a very odd fancy of Miss
Anastasia, to choose her favourite sitting-room here.
The old lady came and stood beside her, somewhat to the embarrassment
of Marian. She bade the girl take off her bonnet, which produced its
unfailing result, of throwing into a little picturesque confusion those soft,
silken, half-curled tresses of Marian’s hair. Marian looked out of the
window somewhat nervously, a little afraid of Miss Rivers. The old lady
looked at her with a keen scrutiny. She was stooping her pretty shoulders in
an attitude which might have been awkward in a form less elastic, dimpling
her cheek with the fingers which supported it, conscious of Miss
Anastasia’s gaze, somewhat alarmed, and very shy. In spite of the shrinking,
the alarm, and the embarrassment, Miss Rivers looked steadily down upon
her with a serious inspection. But even the cloud which began to steal over
Marian’s brow could not disenchant the eyes that gazed upon her—Miss
Anastasia began to smile as everybody else; to feel herself moved to
affection, tenderness, regard; to own the fascination which no one resisted.
“My dear, you are very pretty,” said the old lady, entirely forgetting any
prudent precautions on the score of making Marian vain; “many people
would tell you, that, with a face like that, you need no other attraction. But I
was once pretty myself, and I know it does not last for ever; do you ever
think about anything, you lovely little child?”
Marian glanced up with an indignant blush and frown; but the look she
met was so kind, that it was not possible to answer as she intended. So the
pretty head sank down again upon the hand which supported it. She took a
little time to compose herself, and then, with some humility, spoke the truth:
“I am afraid, not a great deal.”
“What do you suppose I do here, all by myself?” said Miss Anastasia,
suddenly.
Marian turned her face towards her, looked round the room, and then
turned a wistful gaze to Miss Rivers. “Indeed, I do not know,” said Marian,
in a very low and troubled tone: it was youth, with awe and gravity and pity,
looking out of its bright world upon the loneliness and poverty of age.
That answer and that look brought the examination to a very hasty and
sudden conclusion. The old lady looked at her for an instant with a startled
glance, stooped over her, kissed her forehead and hurried away. Marian
could not tell what she had done, nor why Miss Anastasia’s face changed so
strangely. She could not comprehend the full force of the contrast, nor how
her own simple wonder and pity struck like a sudden arrow to the old lady’s
heart.
Agnes was puzzled too, and could not help her sister to an explanation.
They remained by themselves for some time, rather timidly looking at
everything. There were a few portraits hanging high upon the walls,
portraits which they knew to be of the family, but could not recognise; and
there was one picture of a very strange kind, which all their combined
ingenuity could not interpret. It was like one of those old Dyptichs used to
preserve some rare and precious altarpiece. What was within could not be
seen, but on the closed leaves without were painted two solemn angels, with
a silvery surrounding of wings, and flowers in their hands. If Miss
Anastasia had been a Catholic—even if she had been a dilettante or extreme
High Churchwoman, it might have been a little private shrine: perhaps it
was so: there was a portrait within, which no eyes but her own ever saw.
Between the windows the walls were lined with book-cases; that ancient
joke of poor Aunt Bridget’s, her own initials underneath her pupil’s name—
the B. A., which conferred a degree upon Anastasia Rivers—turned out to
be an intentional thing after all. The girls gazed in awe at Miss Anastasia’s
book-shelves. She was a great scholar, this old lady. She might have been
one of the Heads of Houses in the learned city, but for the unfortunate
femininity which debarred her. All by herself among these tomes of grey
antiquity—all by herself with her pictures, the sole remnant of another time
—it was not wonderful that the two girls paused, looking out from the
sunshine of their youth with reverence, yet with compassion. They
honoured her with natural humility, feeling their own ignorance, but
notwithstanding, were very sorry for Miss Anastasia, all by herself—more
sorry than there was occasion to be—for Miss Anastasia was used to be all
by herself, and found enjoyment in it now.
When Miss Anastasia came back she took them to see her garden, and
the state-apartments of her great stately house. When they were a little
familiar she let them stray on before her, and followed watching. Agnes,
perhaps, was still her own favourite of the two; but all her observation was
given to Marian. As her eyes followed this beautiful figure, her look
became more and more satisfied; and while Marian wandered with her
sister about the garden, altogether unconscious of the great possibilities
which awaited her, Miss Anastasia’s fancy clothed her in robes of state, and
covered her with jewels. “He might have married a duke’s daughter,” she
said to herself, turning away with a pleased eye—“but he might never have
found such a beautiful fairy as this: she is a good little child too, with no
harm in her; and a face for a fairy queen!”
 CHAPTER XI.

DISCONTENT.

No one knew the real effect of the blow which had just fallen upon Lord
Winterbourne. The guests, of whom his house was full, dispersed as if by
magic. Even Mrs Edgerley, in the most fashionable sables, with mourning
liveries, and the blinds of her carriage solemnly let down, went forth, as
soon as decency would permit, from the melancholy Hall. After all the
bustle and all the gaiety of recent days, the place fell into a pause of deadly
stillness. Lord Winterbourne sought comfort from no one—showed grief to
no one; he made a sudden pause, like a man stunned, and then, with
increased impetus, and with a force and resolution unusual to him, resumed
his ancient way once more, and rushed forward with exaggerated activity.
Instead of subduing him, this event seemed to have roused all his faculties
into a feverish and busy malevolence, as if the man had said, “I have no one
to come after me—I will do all the harm I can while my time lasts.” All the
other gentry of the midland counties, put together, did not bring so many
poachers to “justice” as were brought by Lord Winterbourne. It was with
difficulty his solicitor persuaded him to pass over the pettiest trespass upon
his property. He shut up pathways privileged from time immemorial,
ejected poor tenants, encroached upon the village rights, and oppressed the
village patriarchs; and animated as he was by this spirit of ill-will to every
one, it was not wonderful that he endeavoured, with all his might, to press
on the suit against the Athelings for the recovery of the Old Wood Lodge.
Mrs Atheling and her daughters, unwilling, embarrassed, and totally
ignorant of their real means of defence, remained in their house at the
pleasure of the lawyer, and much against their own inclination. Mrs
Atheling herself, though with a spark of native spirit she had seconded her
husband’s resolution not to give up his little inheritance, was entirely
worried out with the task of defending it, now that Charlie was gone, and
winter was approaching, and her heart yearned to her husband and her
forsaken house in Bellevue. When she wrote to Mr Atheling, or when she
consulted with Agnes, the good mother expressed her opinion very strongly.
“If it turns out a mistake about Louis, none of us will care for this place,”
said Mrs Atheling; “we shall have the expense of keeping it up, and unless
we were living in it ourselves, I do not suppose it is worth ten pounds a-
year; and if it should turn out true about Louis, of course he would restore it
to us, and settle it so that there could be no doubt upon the subject; and
indeed, Agnes, my dear, the only sensible plan that I can think of, would be
to give it up at once, and go home. I do think it is quite an unfortunate
house for the Athelings; there was your father’s poor little sister got her
death in it; and it is easy to see how much trouble and anxiety have come
into our family since we came here.”
“But trouble and anxiety might come anywhere, mamma,” said Agnes.
“Yes, my dear, that is very true; but we should have known exactly what
we had to look for, if Marian had been engaged to some one in Bellevue.”
Mamma’s counsels, accordingly, were of a very timid and compromising
character. She began to be extremely afraid that the Old Wood Lodge, being
so near the trees, would be damp after all the autumn rains, and that
something might possibly happen to Bell and Beau; and, with all her heart,
and without any dispute, she longed exceedingly to be at home. Then there
was the pretty pensive Marian, a little love-sick, and pining much for the
society of her betrothed. She was a quiet but potent influence, doing what
she could to aggravate the discontent of Mamma; and Agnes had to keep up
the family courage, and develop the family patience, single-handed. Agnes,
in her own private heart, though she did not acknowledge, nor even know it,
was not at all desirous to go away.
The conflict accordingly, about this small disputed possession, lay a
great deal more between Lord Winterbourne and Miss Anastasia than
between that unfriendly nobleman and the house of Atheling. Miss
Anastasia came frequently on errands of encouragement to fortify the
sinking heart of Mrs Atheling. “My great object is to defer the trial of this
matter for six months,” said the old lady significantly. “Let it come on, and
we will turn the tables then.”
She spoke in the presence of Marian, before whom nothing could be said
plainly—in the presence of Rachel even, whom it was impossible to avoid
seeing, but who always kept timidly in the background—and she spoke
with a certain exultation which somewhat puzzled her auditors. Charlie,
though he had done nothing yet, had arrived at the scene of his labours.
Assured of this fact, the courage of his patroness rose. She was a woman
and an optimist, as she confessed. She had the gift of leaping to a
conclusion, equal to any girl in the kingdom, and at the present moment was
not disturbed by any doubts of success.
“Six months!” cried Mrs Atheling, in dismay and horror; “and do you
mean that we must stay here all that time—all the winter, Miss Rivers? It is
quite impossible—indeed I could not do it. My husband is all by himself,
and I know how much I am wanted at home.”
“It is necessary some one should be in possession,” said Miss Rivers.
“Eh? What does Will Atheling say?—I daresay he thinks it hard enough to
be left alone.”
Mrs Atheling was very near “giving away.” Vexation and anxiety for the
moment almost overpowered her self-command. She knew all the buttons
must be off Papa’s shirts, and stood in grievous fear of a fabulous amount of
broken crockery; besides, she had never been so long parted from her
husband since their marriage, and very seriously longed for home.
“Of course it is very dreary for him,” she said, with a sigh.
“Mr Temple is making application to defer the trial on the score of an
important witness who cannot reach this country in time,” said Miss Rivers.
“Of course my lord will oppose that with all his power; he has a natural
terror of witnesses from abroad. When the question is decided, I do not see,
for my part, why you should remain. This little one pines to go home, I see
—but you, Agnes Atheling, you had better come and stay at the Priory—
you love the country, child!”
Both the sisters blushed under the scrutinising eye of Miss Anastasia; but
Agnes was not yet reconciled to the old lady. “We are all anxious to go
home,” she said with spirit, and with considerably more earnestness than
the case at all demanded. Miss Rivers smiled a little. She thought she could
read a whole romance in the fluctuating colour and troubled glance of
Agnes; but she was wrong, as far-seeing people are so often. The girl was
disturbed, uneasy, self-conscious, in a startled and impatient condition of
mind; but the romance, even if it were on the way, had not yet definitely
begun.
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