Clara turned away and groaned aloud several times as she read; but all she said, as she gave it back to Louis, was, 'What is to be done? You must talk to my uncle.'
'Ah, Clara! young gentlemen of the nineteenth century make but a bad hand of the part of benevolent fairy.'
'I don't think my speaking would be of any use,' said Clara. 'Oh, if this only would have been a boy!'
Lord Ormersfield undertook to sound Mr. Dynevor, and found an early opportunity of asking whether he had heard of poor James's misfortune. Yes, he had known it long ago. No wonder, with such a temper. Kept it from the child, though. Would not have her always hankering after them.
Was he aware of his great distress and difficulties? Ha, ha! thought so! Fine lady wife! No end of children—served him right!—to bring down his pride.
Lord Ormersfield hazarded a hint that James had seen his errors, and the school was no longer in the way.
'No, no!' said Oliver. 'Too late now. Drink as he has brewed. He should have thought twice before he broke my poor mother's heart with his cantankerous ways. Cheveleigh beneath him, forsooth! I'm not going to have it cut up for a lot of trumpery girls! I've settled the property and whatever other pickings there may be upon my little Clara—grateful, and worthy of it! Her husband shall take Dynevor name and arms—unless, to be sure, he had a title of his own. The girl was much admired at Rome last winter, had a fair offer or two, but not a word will she say to any of them. I can't tell what's in her head, not I!'
And he looked knowingly at Lord Ormersfield, and willingly extended his stay at Aix-la-Chapelle, letting Fitzjocelyn organize expeditions from thence to Liege and other places in the neighbourhood.
The two cousins were so glad to be together, and the Earl so much pleased that Louis should have anything which gave him so much delight as this meeting with his old playfellow, that he did all in his power to facilitate and prolong their intercourse. He often sacrificed himself to Oliver's prosings on the Equatorial navigation, that the two young people might be at liberty; and he invited Clara to their early breakfast and walk before her uncle wanted her in the morning. These were Clara's times of greatest happiness, except that it gave her a new and strange sensation to be talked to by his lordship like a grown-up—nay, a sensible woman. Once she said to herself, laughing, 'He really treats me almost as if I were poor Mary herself.' And then came another flash: 'Perhaps he would even like me on the same terms!' And then she laughed again, and shook her head: 'No, no, my Lord, your son is much too good for that! Uncle Oliver would not have looked so benignant at us when we were sitting in the gardens last night, if he had known that I was giving Louis all my Lima letters. I wish they were more worth having! It was very stupid of me not to know Mary better, so that we write like two old almanacs. However, my letter from hence will be worth its journey to Peru.'
Clara's heart was several degrees lighter, both from the pleasure of the meeting and a suggestion of the Earl's, upon which she had at once acted, and which seemed, even as she laid pen to paper, to bring her somewhat nearer to her brother.
Her letter arrived at No. 5, on the next Monday morning at breakfast-time. It did not at first attract the attention of James. The Sunday exertions had again left a mental and physical lassitude, showing how much care and privation had told upon his strength; and Isabel's still tardy convalescence weighed him down with anxiety for the future, and almost with despair, as he thought of the comforts for want of which she suffered, though so patiently and silently dispensing with them. To his further vexation, he had, on the previous Saturday, seen Charlotte receiving at the back-door an amount of meat beyond her orders; and, having checked himself because too angry and too much grieved to speak at once, had reserved the reproof for the Monday, when Charlotte brought in her book of petty disbursements.
Failing to detect the obnoxious item, he said, 'Where's the account of the meat that came in on Saturday?'
'There, sir!' said Charlotte, indicating the legitimate amount, but blushing violently.
'That was not all?' he said, with a look of stern, interrogation.
'Oh! if you please, sir, that was nothing!'
'This will not do, Charlotte! I can have nothing taken into my house without being paid for. I insist on knowing what you could mean?'
'Oh, sir!' tearfully exclaimed the girl, 'it is paid for—I'll show you the account, if you will—with my own money. I'd not have had you hear of it for the world; but I could not bear that nurse's insinuations about her meat five times a-day—she that never nursed nothing like a real lady before! But I meant no harm, sir; and I hope you'll excuse the liberty, for I did not mean to take none; and I'm sure I'm quite contented for my own part, nor never meant to complain.'
'I know you did not, Charlotte! You are only too patient and kind—' But his voice broke down, and he was forced silently to sign to her to leave him.
'Can humiliation go farther!' he thought. 'My boasted independence ending in this poor, faithful servant being stung, by the sneers of this hired woman, into eking out her scanty meals with her own insufficient wages!'
Little Catharine, who had been gazing with dilated black eyes, came scrambling on his knee to caress him, perceiving that he was grieved.
'Ah! Kitty, Kitty!' he said, 'it is well that you are too young to feel these troubles!'
'Papa! letter!' cried Kitty, waving the unregarded letter in the triumph of discovery.
'The Reverend James Frost.' It was the writing formed by his own copies, which he could not see without a sharp pang of self-reproach for cruel injustice and unkindness.
Kitty slid down with the empty envelope to act reading to the twins, whom she caught by turns as they crawled away, and set up straight before her. Her operations and their remonstrances, though as loud as they were inarticulate, passed utterly unheard and unheeded by their father, as he read:—
'Hotel du Grand Monarque. Aix-la-Chapelle,
Sept. 18th.
'My Dearest James,—As a mere matter of honesty and justice, I may venture to write to you. You always accepted from dear grandmamma the income from the money in the Stocks. I did not know that half of it has since come to me, till Lord Ormersfield paid me this last year's dividend; and if you will not have his enclosed cheque for it, put it in the fire, for I will never have it in any form. It is not my uncle's, but my own; and if you would make me very happy, write to me here. You must not suppose that I am trying to buy a letter; but I look on this as yours, and I thought you had it till Lord Ormersfield told me about it. We met him and Louis quite unexpectedly—the best thing that has happened to me for years, though they told me much that grieves me exceedingly—but I cannot write about it till I know that I may. Tell me of dear Isabel and the babes. My heart yearns after them! it would leap up at the sight of a stone from the Terrace!
'Your ever affectionate
'Clara.'
His first impulse was, as though he feared to repent, to turn to his desk, the tears of feeling still in his eyes, and dash off these words:—
'Your bounty, my dearest sister, is scarcely less welcome than the forgiving spirit which prompted it. I will not conceal that I was sorely in need of means to supply Isabel with the comforts that she requires. That your affection can survive my treatment last year, makes me equally grateful to you and ashamed of what then took place.'
He scarcely dared to look upon those phrases. Great as were his needs, and kindly as the proffer was made, it was new and painful to him to be under any such obligation, and he could hardly bend his spirit to know that never again should he be able to feel that he had never been beholden for money to a living creature. And while he felt it due to his sister to own the full extent of the benefit, he weighed his words as he wrote on, lest the simplest facts should look like a craving for further assistance.
Charlotte came up to remove the breakfast, and he looked up to give an order for some nourishing dainty for her mistress, adding, 'What did that mutton come to? No, I am not displeased with you, but Miss Clara has sent me some money.'
His assurance was needed, for Charlotte went down thinking she had never seen master look so stern. He had spoken from a sense that the truth was due to the generous girl, but each word had been intense pain. He wrote on, often interrupted by little riots among the children, and finally by a sharp contention, the twins having possessed themselves of a paper-knife, which Kitty, with precocious notions of discipline, considered as forbidden; and little Mercy was rapped over the fingers in the struggle. The roar brought down interference, and Kitty fell into disgrace; but when, after long persuasion, she was induced to yield the paper-cutter, kiss and make friends, Mercy, instead of embracing, locked her fingers into her dark curls, and tugged at them in a way so opposite to her name, that all Kitty's offence was forgotten in her merit for stopping her scream half-way at the sight of her father's uplifted finger, and his whisper of 'Poor mamma!'
That life of worry and baby squabbles, the reflection of his own faults, was hard to bear; and with a feeling of seeking a refuge, when the two little ones had fallen into their noonday sleep, and were left with their mother to the care of good Miss Mercy, he set out for some parish work at Ormersfield, still taking with him little Kitty, whose quicksilver nature would never relieve her elders by a siesta.
He was afraid to speak to Isabel until he should have composed himself, and, harassed and weary in spirits and in frame, he walked slowly, very sore at the domestic discovery, and scarcely feeling the diminution of the immediate pressure in the new sense of degradation. He could own that it was merited, and was arguing with himself that patience and gratitude were the needful proofs that the evil temper had been expelled. He called back his thankfulness for his wife's safety, his children's health, the constancy of his kind friends, and the undeserved ardour of his young sister's affection, as well as poor little Charlotte's unselfishness. The hard exasperated feeling that once envenomed every favour, and barbed every dart that wounded him, was gone; he could own the loving kindness bestowed on him, both from Heaven and by man, and began to find peace and repose in culling the low fragrant blossoms which cheered even the Valley of Humiliation.
He turned down the shady lane, overhung by the beech-trees of Mr. Calcott's park, and as he lifted Kitty in his arms to allow her the robin-redbreast, he did not feel out of tune with the bird's sweet autumnal notes, nor with the child's merry little voice, but each refreshed his worn and contrite spirit.
The sound of hoofs approaching made him turn his head; and while Kitty announced 'horse!' and 'man!' he recognised Mr. Calcott, and felt abashed, and willing to find a retreat from the meeting; but there was no avoiding it, and he expected, as usual, to be passed with a bow; but the Squire slackened his pace as he overtook him, and called out, good-humouredly, 'Ha, Mr. Frost, good morning' (once it would have been Jem). 'I always know you by the little lady on your shoulder. I was intending to call on you this afternoon on a little business; but if you will step up to the house with me, I shall be much obliged.'
James's heart beat thick with undefined hope; but, after all, it might be only to witness some paper. After what had occurred, and Mrs. Calcott considering herself affronted by Isabel, bare civility was forgiveness; and he walked up the drive with the Squire, who had dismounted, and was inquiring with cordial kindness for Mrs. Frost, yet with a little awkwardness, as if uncertain on what terms they stood, more as if he himself were to blame than the young clergyman.
Arriving at the house, James answered for his little girl's absence of shyness, and she was turned over to the Miss Calcotts, while the Squire conducted him to the study, and began with hesitation and something of apology—'It had struck him—it was not worth much—he hardly liked to propose it, and yet till something better should turn up—anything was better than doing nothing.' To which poor James heartily agreed. The board of guardians, where Mr. Calcott presided, were about to elect a chaplain to the union workhouse; the salary would be only fifty pounds, but if Mr. Frost would be willing to offer himself, it would be a great blessing to the inmates, and there would be no opposition.
Mr. Calcott, making the proposal from sincere goodwill, but with some dread how the Pendragon blood would receive it, was absolutely astounded by the effect.
Fifty pounds additional per annum was a boon only to be appreciated after such a pinching year as the past; the gratitude for the old Squire's kind pardon was so strong, and the blessing of re-admission to pastoral work touched him so deeply, that, in his weakened and dejected state, he could not restrain his tears, nor for some moments utter a word. At last he said, 'Oh, Mr. Calcott, I have not deserved this at your hands.'
'There, there,' said the Squire, trying to laugh it off, though he too became husky, 'say no more about it. It is a poor thing, and can't be made better; but it will be a real kindness to us to look after the place.'
'Let me say thus much,' said James, 'for I cannot be at peace till I have done so—I am aware that I acted unjustifiably in that whole affair, both when elected and dismissed.'
'No, no, don't let's go over that again!' said Mr. Calcott, in dread of a scene. 'An over-ardent friend may be a misfortune, and you were very young. Not that I would have taken your resignation if it had been left to me, but the world is grown mighty tender. I dare say you never flogged a boy like what I underwent fifty years ago, and was the better for it,' and he launched into some frightful old-world stories of the like inflictions, hoping to lead away from personalities, but James was resolved to say what was on his mind. 'It was not severity,' he said, 'it was temper. I richly deserved some portion of the rebuke, and it would have been well for me if that same temper had allowed me to listen to you, sir, or to reason.'
'Well,' said Mr. Calcott, kindly, 'you think very rightly about the matter, and a man of six-and-twenty has time to be wiser, as I tell Mrs. Calcott, when Sydney treats us to some of his theories. And now you have said your say, you must let me say mine, and that is, that there are very few young couples—aye, or old ones—who would have had the sense to go on as you are doing, fighting it out in your own neighbourhood without nonsense or false shame. I honour you and Mrs. Frost for it, both of you!'
James coloured deeply. He could have found commendation an impertinence, but the old Squire was a sort of patriarch in the county, and appreciation of Isabel's conduct must give him pleasure. He stammered something about her having held up wonderfully, and the salary being an immense relief, and then took refuge in matter-of-fact inquiries on his intended functions.
This lasted till nearly half-past one, and Mr. Calcott insisted on his staying to luncheon. He found the ladies greatly amused with their little guest—a very small, but extremely forward and spirited child, not at all pretty, with her brown skin and womanly eyes, but looking most thoroughly a lady, even in her little brown holland frock, and white sun-bonnet, her mamma's great achievement. Neither shy nor sociable, she had allowed no one to touch her, but had entrenched herself in a corner behind a chair, through the back of which she answered all civilities, with more self-possession than distinctness, and convulsed the party with laughing, when they asked if she could play at bo-peep, by replying that 'the children did.' She sprang from her place of refuge to his knee as soon as he entered, and occupied that post all luncheon time, comporting herself with great discretion. There was something touching in the sight of the tenderness of the young father, taking off her bonnet, and settling her straggling curls with no unaccustomed hands; and Mrs. Calcott's heart was moved, as she remarked his worn, almost hollow cheeks, his eyes still quick, but sunk and softened, his figure spare and thin, and even his dress not without signs of poverty; and she began making kind volunteers of calling on Mrs. Frost, nor were these received as once they would have been.
'He is the only young man,' said Mr. Calcott, standing before the fire, with his hands behind him, as soon as the guest had departed, 'except his cousin at Ormersfield, whom I ever knew to confess that he had been mistaken. That's the difference between them and the rest, not excepting your son Sydney, Mrs. Calcott.'
Mamma and sisters cried in chorus, that Sydney had no occasion for such confessions.
The Squire gave his short, dry laugh, and repeated that 'Jem Frost and young Fitzjocelyn differed from other youths, not in being right but in being wrong.'
On which topic Mrs. Calcott enlarged, compassionating poor Mr. Frost with a double quantity of pity for his helpless beauty of a fine lady-wife; charitably owning, however, that she really seemed improved by her troubles. She should have thought better of her if she had not kept that smart housemaid, who looked so much above her station, and whom the housekeeper had met running about the lanes in the dark, the very night when Mr. Frost was so ill.
'Pshaw! my dear,' said her husband, 'cannot you let people be judges of their own affairs?'
It was what he had said on the like occasions for the last thirty years; but Mrs. Calcott was as wise as ever in other folks' matters.
The fine lady-wife had meanwhile been arranging a little surprise for her husband. She was too composed to harass herself at his not returning at midday, she knew him and Kitty to be quite capable of taking care of each other, and could imagine him detained by parish work, and disposing of the little maiden with Betty Gervas, or some other Ormersfield friend, but she had thought him looking fagged and worried, she feared his being as tired as he had been on the Sunday, and she could not bear that he should drink tea uncomfortably in the study, tormented by the children. So she had repaired to the parlour, and Miss Mercy, after many remonstrances, had settled her there; and when the good little lady had gone home to her sister's tea, Isabel lay on the sofa, wrapped in her large soft shawl, languidly attempting a little work, and feeling the room dreary, and herself very weak, and forlorn, and desponding, as she thought of James's haggard face, and the fresh anxieties that would be entailed on him if she should become sickly and ailing. The tear gathered on her eyelash as she said to herself, 'I would not exert myself when I could; perhaps now I cannot, when I would give worlds to lighten one of his cares!' And then she saw one little bit of furniture standing awry, in the manner that used so often to worry his fastidious eye; and, in the spirit of doing anything to please him, she moved across the room to rectify it, and then sat down in the large easy chair, wearied by the slight exertion, and becoming even more depressed and hopeless; 'though,' as she told herself, 'all is sure to be ordered well. The past struggle has been good—the future will be good if we can but treat it rightly.'
Just as the last gleams were fading on the tops of the Ormersfield coppices, she heard the hall-door, and James's footstep; and it was more than the ordinary music of his 'coming up the stair;' there was a spring and life in it that thrilled into her heart, and glanced in her eye, as she sat up in her chair, to welcome him with no forced smile.
And as he came in with a pleased exclamation, his voice had no longer the thin, worn sound, as if only resolute resignation prevented peevishness; there was a cheerfulness and solidity in the tone, as he came fondly to her side, regretted having missed her first appearance, and feared she had been long alone.
'Oh, no; but I was afraid you would be so tired! Carrying Kitty all the way, too! But you look so much brighter.'
'I am brighter,' said James. 'Two things have happened for which I ought to be very thankful. My dear, can you bear to be wife to the chaplain of the Union at fifty pounds a-year!'
'Oh! have you something to do? cried Isabel; 'I am so glad! Now we shall be a little more off your mind. And you will do so much good! I have heard Miss Mercy say how much she wished there were some one to put those poor people in the right way.'
'Yes; I hope that concentrated earnestness of attention may do something to make up for my deficiency in almost every other qualification,' said James. 'At least, I feel some of the importance of the charge, and never was anything more welcome.'
'And how did it happen?'
'People are more forgiving than I could have hoped. Mr. Calcott has offered me this, in the kindest way; and as if that were not enough, see what poor little Clara says.'
'Poor little Clara!' said Isabel, reading the letter; 'you don't mean to disappoint her!'
'I should be a brute if I did. No; I wrote to her this morning to thank her for her pardoning spirit.'
'You should have told me; I should like to send her my love. I am glad she has not quite forgotten us, though she mistook the way to her own happiness.'
'Isabel! unless I were to transport you to Cheveleigh a year ago, nothing would persuade you of my utter wrong-headedness.'
'Nor that, perhaps,' said Isabel, with a calm smile.
'Not my having brought you to be grateful for the Union chaplaincy?'
'Not if you had brought me to the Union literally,' said Isabel, smiling. 'Indeed, dear James, I think we have both been so much the better and happier for this last year, that I would not have been without it for any consideration; and if any mistakes on your part led to it, they were mistakes on the right side. Don't shake your head, for you know they were what only a good man could have made.'
'That may be all very well for a wife to believe!'
And the rest of the little dispute was concluded, as Charlotte came smiling up with the tea.
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands!
Tempest
The Ponsonby family were spending the hot season at Chorillos, the Peruvian watering-place, an irregular assembly of cane-built, mud-besmeared ranches, close on the shore of the Pacific, with the mountains seeming to rise immediately in the rear.
They had gone for Mr. Ponsonby's health, and Rosita's amusement; and in the latter object they had completely succeeded. In her bathing-dress, full trousers, and a beautifully-embroidered blouse, belted at the waist, a broad-brimmed straw hat, and her raven hair braided in two long tresses, she wandered on the shore with many another fair Limenian, or entered the sea under the protection of a brown Indian; and, supported by mates or gourds, would float for hours together among her companions, splashing about, and playing all sorts of frolics, like so many mermaids.
In the evening she returned to more terrestrial joys, and arraying herself in some of her infinite varieties of ball-dresses, with flowers and jewels in her hair, a tiny Panama hat cocked jauntily on the top of her head, and a rich shawl with one end thrown over the shoulder, she would step daintily out in her black satin shoes, with old Xavier in attendance, or sometimes with Robson as her cavalier, to meet her friends on the beach, or make a call in the lamp-lit corridor of some other rancho. There were innumerable balls, dances, and pic-nics to the rich and fertile villages and haciendas around, and fetes of every description almost every evening; visits to the tombs of the old Peruvians, whose graves were often rudely and lightly searched for the sake of their curious images and golden ornaments. The Senora declared it was the most lovely summer she had ever spent, and that nothing should induce her to return to Lima while her friends remained there.
The other object, of re-invigorating Mr. Ponsonby, had not been attained. He had been ailing for some time past, and, instead of deriving benefit from the sea-breezes, only missed the comforts of home. He was so testy and exacting that Mary would have seldom liked to leave him to himself, even if she had been disposed to lead the life of a fish; and she was seldom away from him, unless Robson came down from Lima to transact business with him.
Mary dreaded these interviews, for her father always emerged from them doubly irritable and dispirited; and when Rosita claimed the Senor Robson as her knight for her evening promenade, and the father and daughter were left alone together, he would blame the one lady for going, the other for staying—then draw out his papers again, and attempt to go over them, with a head already aching and confused—be angry at Mary's entreaties that he would lay them aside, or allow her to help him—and presently be obliged with a sigh to desist, and lie back in his chair, while she fanned him, or cooled his forehead with iced water. Yet he was always eager and excited for Robson to come; and a delay of a day would put his temper in such a state that his wife kept out of his sight, leaving Mary to soothe him as she might.
'Mary,' said her father one evening, when she was standing at the window of the corridor, refreshing her eye with gazing at the glorious sunset in the midst of a pile of crimson and purple clouds, reflected in the ocean—'Mary, Ward is going to Mew York next week.'
'So soon?' said Mary.
'Aye, and he is coming here to-morrow to see you.'
Mary still looked out with a sort of interest to see a little gold flake change its form as it traversed a grand violet tower.
'I hope you will make him a more reasonable answer than you did last time,' said her father; 'it is too bad to keep the poor man dangling on at this rate! And such a man!'
'I am very sorry for it, but I cannot help it,' said Mary; 'no one can be kinder or more forbearing than he has been, but I wish he would look elsewhere.'
'So you have not got that nonsense out of your head!' exclaimed Mr. Ponsonby, with muttered words that Mary would not hear. 'All my fault for ever sending you among that crew! Coming between you and the best match in Lima—the best fellow in the world—strict enough to content Melicent or your mother either! What have you to say against him, Mary? I desire to know that.'
'Nothing, papa,' said Mary, 'except that I wish he could make a better choice.'
'I tell you, you and he were made for each other. It is the most provoking thing in the world, that you will go on in this obstinate way! I can't even ask the man to do me a kindness, with having an eye to these abominable affairs, that are all going to the dogs. There's old Dynevor left his senses behind him when he went off to play the great man in England, writing every post for remittances, when he knows what an outlay we've been at for machinery; and there's the Equatorial Company cutting its own throat at Guayaquil, and that young fellow up at the San Benito not half to be trusted—Robson can't make out his accounts; and here am I such a wretch that I can hardly tell what two and two make; and here's Ward, the very fellow to come in and set all straight in the nick of time; and I can't ask him so much as to look at a paper for me, because I'm not to lay myself under an obligation.'
'But, papa, if our affairs are not prosperous, it would not be fair to connect Mr. Ward or any one with them.'
'Never you trouble yourself about that! You'll come in for a pretty fortune of your own, whatever happens to that abominable cheat of a Company; and that might be saved if only I was the man I was, or Dynevor was here. If Ward would give us a loan, and turn his mind to it, we should be on our legs in an instant. It is touch and go just now!—I declare, Mary,' he broke out again after an interval, 'I never saw anything so selfish as you are! Lingering and pining on about this foolish young man, who has never taken any notice of you since you have been out here, and whom you hear is in love with another woman—married to her very likely by this time—or, maybe, only wishing you were married and out of his way.'
'I do not believe so,' answered Mary, stoutly.
'What! you did not see Oliver's letter from that German place?'
'Yes, I did,' said Mary; 'but I know his manner to Clara.'
'You do? You take things coolly, upon my word!'
'No,' said Mary. 'I know they are like brother and sister, and Clara could never have written to me as she has done, had there been any such notion. But that is not the point, papa. What I know is, that while my feelings are what they are at present, it would not be right of me to accept any one; and so I shall tell Mr. Ward, if he is still determined to see me. Pray forgive me, dear papa. I do admire and honour him very much, but I cannot do any more; and I am sorry I have seemed pining or discontented, for I tried not to be so.'
A grim grunt was all the answer that Mr. Ponsonby vouchsafed. His conscience, though not his lips, acquitted poor Mary of discontent or pining, as indeed it was the uniform cheerfulness of her demeanour that had misled him into thinking the unfortunate affair forgotten.
He showed no symptoms of speaking again; and Mary, leaning back in her chair, had leisure to recover herself after the many severe strokes that had been made at her. There was one which she had rebutted valiantly at the moment, but which proved to have been a poisoned dart—that suggestion that it might be selfish in her not to set Louis even more free, by her own marriage!
She revolved the probabilities: Clara, formed, guided, supported by himself, the companion of his earlier youth, preferred to all others, and by this time, no doubt, developed into all that was admirable. What would be more probable than their mutual love? And when Mary went over all the circumstances of her own strange courtship, she could not but recur to her mother's original impression, that Louis had not known what he was doing. Those last weeks had made her feel rather than believe otherwise, but they were far in the distance now, and he had been so young! It was not unlikely that even yet, while believing himself faithful to her, his heart was in Clara's keeping, and that the news of her marriage would reveal to them both, in one rush of happiness, that they were destined for each other from the first.
Mary felt intense pain, and yet a strange thrill of joy, to think that Louis might at last be happy.
She drew Clara's last letter out of her basket, and re-read it, in hopes of some contradiction. Clara's letters had all hitherto been stiff. She had not been acknowledged to be in the secret of Mary's engagement while it subsisted, and this occasioned a delicacy in writing to her on any subject connected with it; and so the mention of the meeting at the 'Grand Monarque' came in tamely, and went off quickly into Lord Ormersfield's rheumatism and Charlemagne's tomb. But the remarkable thing in the letter was the unusual perfume of happiness that pervaded it; the conventional itinerary was abandoned, and there was a tendency to droll sayings—nay, some shafts from a quiver at which Mary could guess. She had set all down as the exhilaration of Louis's presence, but perhaps that exhilaration, was to a degree in which she alone could sympathize.
Mary was no day-dreamer; and yet, ere Rosita's satin shoe was on the threshold, she had indulged in the melancholy fabric of a castle at Ormersfield, in which she had no share, except the consciousness that it had been her self-sacrifice that had given Louis at last the felicity for which he was so well fitted.
But at night, in her strange little room, lying in her hammock, and looking up through her one unglazed window, high up in the roof, to the stars that slowly travelled across the space, she came back to a more collected opinion. She had no right to sacrifice Mr. Ward as well as herself. Louis could not be more free than she had made him already, and it would be doing evil that good might come, to accept the addresses of one man while she could not detach her heart from another. 'Have I ever really tried yet? she thought. 'Perhaps I am punishing him and poor Mr. Ward, because, as papa says, I have languished, and have never tried in earnest to wean my thoughts from him. He was the one precious memory, besides my dear mother, and she never thought it would come to good. He will turn out to have been constant to Clara all the time, though he did not know it.'
Even if Mr. Ponsonby had been in full health, he would have had no inclination to spare Mary the conversation with Mr. Ward, who took his hot nine miles' ride from Lima in the early morning, before the shadow of the mountains had been drawn up from the arid barren slope leading to Chorillos.
He came in time for the late breakfast, when the table was loaded with various beautiful tropical fruits, tempting after his ride, and in his state of suspense. He talked of his journey, and of his intended absence, and his regret, in a manner half mechanical, half dreamy, which made Mary quite sorry for him; it was melancholy for a man of his age to have fixed so many fond hopes where disappointment was in store for him. She wished to deal as kindly with him as she could, and did not shrink away when her father left them, muttering something about a letter, and Rosita went to take her siesta.
With anxious diffidence he ventured to ask whether she remembered what had passed between them on the San Benito mountain.
'Yes, Mr. Ward, but I am afraid I do not think differently now, in spite of all your kindness.'
Poor Mr. Ward's countenance underwent a change, as if he had hoped more. 'Your father had given me reason to trust,' he said, 'that you had recovered your spirits; otherwise I should hardly have presumed to intrude on you. And yet, before so long an absence, you cannot wonder that I longed to hear something decisive.'
'Indeed I wished what I said before to be decisive. I am very sorry to give pain to one so much kinder than I deserve, and to whom I look up so much, but you see, Mr. Ward, I cannot say what is untrue.'
'Miss Ponsonby,' said Mr. Ward, 'I think you may be acting on a most noble but mistaken view. I can well believe that what you have once experienced you can never feel again. That would be more than I should dare to ask. My own feeling for you is such that I believe I should be able to rejoice in hearing of the fulfilment of your happiness, in your own way; but since there seems no such probability, cannot you grant me what you can still give, which would be enough to cause me the greatest joy to which I have ever aspired; and if my most devoted affection could be any sufficient return, you know that it is yours already.'
The grave earnestness with which he spoke went to Mary's heart, and the tears came into her eyes. She felt it almost wrong to withstand a man of so much weight and worth; but she spoke steadily—'This is very kind—very kind indeed; but I do not feel as if it would be right.'
'Will you not let me be the judge of what will satisfy me?'
'You cannot judge of my feelings, Mr. Ward. You must believe me that, with all my esteem and gratitude, I do not yet feel as if I should be acting rightly by you or by any one else, under my present sentiments.'
'You do not yet feel?'
Mary felt that the word was a mistake. 'I do not think I ever shall,' she added.
'You will not call it persecution, if I answer that perhaps I may make the venture once more,' he said. 'I shall live on that word 'yet' while I am at New York. I will tease you no more now; but remember that, though I am too old to expect to be a young lady's first choice, I never saw the woman whom I could love, or of whom I could feel so sure that she would bring a blessing with her; and I do believe that, if you would trust me, I could make you happy. There! I ask no answer. I only shall think of my return next year, and not reckon on that. I know you will tell me whatever is true.' He pressed her hand, and would fain have smiled reassuringly.
He took leave much more kindly than Mary thought she deserved, and did not appear to be in low spirits. She feared that ahe had raised unwarrantable hopes, but the truth was, that Mr. Ponsonby had privately assured him that, though she could not yet believe it, poor girl! the young man in England would be married before many months were over to old Dynevor's niece. There would be no more difficulty by the time he came back, for she liked him heartily already, and was a sensible girl.
So Mr. Ward departed, and Mary was relieved, although she missed his honest manly homage, and sound wise tone of thought, where she had so few to love or lean on. She thought that she ought to try to put herself out of the way of her cousins at home as much as possible, and so she did not try to make time to write to Clara, and time did not come unsought, for her father's health did not improve; and when they returned to Lima, he engrossed her care almost entirely, while his young wife continued her gaieties, and Mary had reason to think the saya y manto disguise was frequently donned; but it was so much the custom of ladies of the same degree, that Mary thought it neither desirable nor likely to be effectual to inform her father, and incite him to interfere. She devoted herself to his comfort, and endeavoured to think as little as she heard of English cousins.
There was not much to hear. After returning home quite well, Lord Ormersfield was laid up again by the first cold winds, and another summer of German brunnens was in store for him and Louis. Lady Conway had taken a cottage in the Isle of Wight, where Walter, having found the Christmas holidays very dull, and shown that he could get into mischief as well without Delaford as with him, she sent him off in a sort of honourable captivity to James and Isabel, expecting that he would find it a great punishment. Instead of this, the change from luxury to their hard life seemed to him a sort of pic-nic. He enjoyed the 'fun' of the waiting on themselves, had the freedom of Ormersfield park for sport; and at home, his sister, whom he had always loved and respected more than any one else. James had time to attend to him, and to promote all his better tastes and feelings; and above all, he lost his heart to his twin nieces. It was exceedingly droll to see the half quarrelsome coquetries between the three, and to hear Walter's grand views for the two little maidens as soon as he should be of age. James and Louis agreed that there could not be much harm in him, while he could conform so happily to such a way of life. Everything is comparative, and the small increase to James's income had been sufficient to relieve him from present pinching and anxiety in the scale of life to which he and Isabel had become habituated. His chaplaincy gave full employment for heart and head to a man so energetic and earnest; he felt himself useful there, and threw himself into it with all his soul; and, what was more wonderful, he had never yet quarrelled with the guardians; and the master told Mr. Calcott that he had heard Mr. Frost was a fiery gentleman, but he had always seen him particularly gentle, especially with the children in school. The old women could never say enough in his praise, and doated on the little brown fairy who often accompanied him.
There was plenty to be done at home—little luxury, and not much rest; but Isabel's strength and spirits seemed a match for all, in her own serene quiet way, and the days passed very happily.
Charlotte had a workhouse girl under her, who neither ate nor broke so vehemently as her predecessor. One night, when Charlotte sat mending and singing in the nursery, the girl came plodding up in her heavy shoes, saying, 'There's one wanting to see ye below.'
'One! Who can it be?' cried Charlotte, her heart bounding at the thought of a denouement to her own romance.
'He looks like a gentleman,' said the girl, 'and he wanted not to see master, but Miss Arnold most particular.' More hopes for Charlotte. She had nearly made one bound downstairs, but waited to lay awful commands on the girl not to leave the children on no account; then flew down, pausing at the foot of the stairs to draw herself up, and remember dignity and maidenliness. Alas for her hopes! It was Delaford! His whiskers still were sleek and curly; he still had a grand air; but his boots were less polished—his hat had lost the gloss—and he looked somewhat the worse for wear.
Poor Charlotte started back as if she had seen a wild beast in her kitchen. She had heard of his dishonesty, and her thoughts flew distractedly to her spoons, murder, and the children. And here he was advancing gracefully to take her hand. She jumped back, and exclaimed, faintly, 'Mr. Delaford, please go away! I can't think what you come here for!'
'Ah! I see, you have listened to the voice of unkind scandal,' said Mr. Delaford. 'I have been unfortunate, Miss Arnold—unfortunate and misunderstood—guilty never. On the brink of quitting for ever an ungrateful country, I could not deny myself the last sad satisfaction of visiting the spot where my brightest hours have been passed;' and he looked so pathetic, that Charlotte felt her better sense melting, and spoke in a hurry—
'Please don't, Mr. Delaford, I've had enough of all that. Please go, and take my best wishes, as long as you don't come here, for I know all about you.'
But the intruder only put his hand upon his heart, and declared that he had been misrepresented; and let a cruel world think of him as it might, there was one breast in which he could not bear that a false opinion, of him should prevail. And therewith he reached a chair, and Charlotte found herself seated and listening to him, neither believing, nor wishing to believe him, longing that he would take himself away, but bewildered by his rhetoric. In the first place, he had been hastily judged; he had perhaps yielded too much to Sir Walter—but youth, &c.; and when Lady Conway's means were in his hands, it had seemed better—he knew now that it had been a weakness, but so he had judged at the time—to supply the young gentleman's little occasions, than to make an eclat. Moreover, if he had not been the most unfortunate wretch in the world, a few lucky hits would have enabled him to restore the whole before Lord Fitzjocelyn hurried on the inquiry; but the young gentleman thought he acted for the best, and Mr. Delaford magnanimously forgave him.
Charlotte could not follow through half the labyrinth; and sat pinching the corner of her apron, with a vague idea that perhaps he was not so bad as was supposed; but what would happen if her master should find him there? She never looked up, nor made any answer, till he began to give her a piteous account of his condition; how he did not know where to turn, nor what to do; and was gradually beginning to sell off his 'little wardrobe to purchase the necessaries of life.' Then the contrast began to tell on her soft heart, and she looked up with a sound of compassion.
In the wreck of his fortunes and hopes, he had thought of her; he knew she had too generous a spirit to crush a wretch trodden down by adversity, who had loved her truly, and who had once had some few hopes of requital. Those were, alas! at an end; yet still he saw that 'woman, lovely woman, in our hours of ease'—And here he stumbled in his quotation, but the fact was, that his hopes being blasted in England, he had decided on trying his fortune in another hemisphere; but, unfortunately, he had not even sufficient means to pay for a passage of the humblest description, and if he could venture to entreat for a—in fact, a loan—it should be most faithfully and gratefully restored the moment the fickle goddess should smile on him.
Charlotte felt a gleam of joy at the prospect of getting rid of him on any terms. She belonged to a class who seldom find the golden mean in money matters, being either exceedingly close and saving, or else lavish either on themselves or other people. Good old Jane had never succeeded in saving; all her halfpence went to the beggars, and all her silver melted into halfpence, or into little presents; and on the receipt of her wages, she always rushed on to the shop like a child with a new shilling. Reading had given Charlotte a few theories on the subject, but her practice had not gone far. She always meant to put into the savings' bank; but hiring books, and daintiness, though not finery, in dress, had prevented her means from ever amounting to a sum, in her opinion, worth securing. The spirit of economy in the household had so far infected her that she had, in spite of her small wages, more in hand than ever before, and when she found what Mr. Delaford wanted, a strange mixture of feelings actuated her. She pitied the change in his fortunes; she could not but be softened by his flattering sayings,—she could not bear that he should not have another chance of retrieving his character—she knew she had trifled unjustifiably with his feelings, if he had any,—and she had a sense of being in fault. And so the little maiden ran upstairs, peeped into her red-leather work-box, pulled out her bead-purse, and extracted therefrom three bright gold sovereigns, and ran downstairs again, trembling at her own venturesomeness, afraid that their voices might be heard. She put the whole before Delaford, saying—
'There—that is all that lays in my power. Don't mention it, pray. Now, please go, and a happy journey to you.'
How she wished his acknowledgments and faithful promises were over! He did hint something about refreshment, bread-and-cheese and beer, fare which he used to despise as 'decidedly low,' but Charlotte was obdurate here, and at last he took his leave. There stood the poor, foolish, generous little thing, raking out the last embers of the kitchen fire, conscious that she had probably done the silliest action of her life, very much ashamed, and afraid of any one knowing it; and yet strangely light of heart, as if she had done something to atone for the past permission that she had granted him to play with her vanity.
'Some day she might tell Tom all about it, and she did not think he would be angry, for he knew what it was to have nowhere to go, and to want to try for one more chance.'