CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE REV. LIONEL RIVERS.

The next day, somewhat to the consternation of this disturbed and troubled family, they were honoured by a most unlooked-for and solemn visit from the Rector. The Rector, in stature, form, and features, considerably resembled Miss Anastasia, and was, as she herself confessed, an undeniable Rivers, bearing all the family features and not a little of the family temper. He seemed rather puzzled himself to give a satisfactory reason for his call—saying solemnly that he thought it right for the priest of the parish to be acquainted with all his parishioners—words which did not come with half so much unction or natural propriety from his curved and disdainful lip, as they would have done from the bland voice of Mr Mead. Then he asked some ordinary questions how they liked the neighbourhood, addressing himself to Mamma, though his very grave and somewhat haughty looks were principally directed to Agnes. Mrs Atheling, in spite of her dislike of the supreme altitude of his churchmanship, had a natural respect for the clergyman, who seemed the natural referee and adviser of people in trouble; and though he was a Rivers, and the next heir after Lord Winterbourne’s only son, it by no means followed on that account that the Rector entertained any affectionate leaning towards Lord Winterbourne.

“I knew your old relative very well,” said the Rector; “she was a woman of resolute will and decided opinions, though her firmness, I am afraid, was in the cause of error rather than of truth. I believe she always entertained a certain regard for me, connected as she was with the family, though I felt it my duty to warn her against her pernicious principles before her death.”

“Her pernicious principles! Was poor Aunt Bridget an unbeliever?” cried Agnes, with an involuntary interest, and yet an equally involuntary and natural spirit of opposition to this stately young man.

“The word is a wide one. No—not an unbeliever, nor even a disbeliever, so far as I am aware,” said the churchman, “but, even more dangerous than a positive error of doctrine, holding these fatal delusions concerning private opinion, which have been the bane of the Church.”

There was a little pause after this, the unaccustomed audience being somewhat startled, yet quite unprepared for controversy, and standing beside in a little natural awe of the Rector, who ought to know so much better than they did. Agnes alone felt a stirring of unusual pugnacity—for once in her life she almost forgot her natural diffidence, and would have liked nothing better than to throw down her woman’s glove to the rampant churchman, and make a rash and vehement onslaught upon him, after the use and wont of feminine controversy.

“My own conviction is,” said the Rector with a little solemnity, yet with a dissatisfied and fiery gleam in his eager dark eyes, “that there is no medium between the infallible authority of the Church and the wildest turmoil of heresy. This one rock a man may plant his foot upon—all beyond is a boundless and infinite chaos. Therefore I count it less perilous to be ill-informed or indifferent concerning some portions of the creed, than to be shaken in the vital point of the Church’s authority—the only flood-gate that can be closed against the boiling tide of error, which, but for this safeguard, would overpower us all.”

Having made this statement, which somehow he enunciated as if it were a solemn duty, Mr Rivers left the subject abruptly, and returned to common things.

“You are acquainted, I understand,” he said, with haste and a little emotion, “with my unfortunate young relatives at the Hall?”

The question was so abrupt and unlooked for, that all the three, even Mamma, who was not very much given to blushing, coloured violently. “Louis and Rachel? Yes; we know them very well,” said Mrs Atheling, with as much composure as she could summon to meet the emergency—which certainly was not enough to prevent the young clergyman from discovering a rather unusual degree of interest in the good mother’s answer. He looked surprised, and turned a hurried glance upon the girls, who were equally confused under his scrutiny. It was impossible to say which was the culprit, if culprit there was. Mr Rivers, who was tall enough at first, visibly grew a little taller, and became still more stately in his demeanour than before.

“I am not given to gossip,” he said, with a faint smile, “yet I had heard that they were much here, and had given their confidence to your family. I have not been so favoured myself,” he added, with a slight curl of disdain upon his handsome lip. “The youth I know nothing of, except that he has invariably repelled any friendship I could have shown him; but I feel a great interest in the young lady. Had my sister been in better health, we might have offered her an asylum, but that is impossible in our present circumstances. You are doubtless better acquainted with their prospects and intentions than I am. In case of the event which people begin to talk about, what does Lord Winterbourne intend they should do?”

“We have not heard of any event—what is it?” cried Mrs Atheling, very anxiously.

“I have no better information than common report,” said the Rector; “yet it is likely enough—and I see no reason to doubt; it is said that Lord Winterbourne is likely to marry again.”

They all breathed more freely after this; and poor little Marian, who had been gazing at Mr Rivers with a blanched face and wide-open eyes, in terror of some calamity, drooped forward upon the table by which she was sitting, and hid her face in her hands with sudden relief. Was that all?

“I was afraid you were about to tell us of some misfortune,” said Mrs Atheling.

“It is no misfortune, of course; nor do I suppose they are like to be very jealous of a new claimant upon Lord Winterbourne’s affections,” said the Rector; “but it seems unlikely, under their peculiar and most unhappy circumstances, that they can remain at the Hall.”

“Oh, mamma!” exclaimed Marian, in a half whisper, “he will be so very, very glad to go away!”

“What I mean,” resumed Mr Rivers, who by no means lost this, though he took no immediate notice of it—“what I wish is, that you would kindly undertake to let them know my very sincere wish to be of service to them. I cannot at all approve of the demeanour of the young man—yet there may be excuses for him. If I can assist them in any legitimate way, I beg you to assure them my best endeavours are at their service.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you—thank you!” cried Mrs Atheling, faltering, and much moved. “God knows they have need of friends!”

“I suppose so,” said the Rector; “it does not often happen—friends are woeful delusions in most cases—and indeed I have little hope of any man who does not stand alone.”

“Yet you offer service,” said Agnes, unable quite to control her inclination to dispute his dogmatisms; “is not your opinion a contradiction to your kindness?”

“I hold no opinions,” said the Rector haughtily, with, for the instant, a superb absurdity almost equal to Mr Endicott: he perceived it himself, however, immediately, reddened, flashed his fiery eyes with a half defiance upon his young questioner, and made an incomprehensible explanation.

“I am as little fortified against self-contradiction as my fellows,” said Mr Rivers, “but I eschew vague opinions; they are dangerous for all men, and doubly dangerous in a clergyman. I may be wrong in matters of feeling; opinions I have nothing to do with—they are not in my way.”

Again there followed a pause, for no one present was at all acquainted with sentiments like these.

“I am not sure whether we will continue long here,” said Mrs Atheling, with a slight hesitation, half afraid of him, yet feeling, in spite of herself, that she could consult no one so suitably as the Rector. “Lord Winterbourne is trying to put us away; he says the house was only given to old Miss Bridget for her life!”

“Ah! but that is false, is it not?” said the Rector without any ceremony.

Mrs Atheling brightened at once. “We think so,” she said, encouraged by the perfectly cool tone of this remark, which proved a false statement on the part of my lord no wonder at all to his reverend relative; “but, indeed, the lawyer advises us not to contest the matter, since Lord Winterbourne does not care for expense, and we are not rich. I do not know what my husband will say; but I am sure I will have a great grudge at the law if we are forced, against justice, to leave the Old Wood Lodge.”

“Papa says it was once the property of the family, long, long before Aunt Bridget got it from Lord Winterbourne,” said Agnes, with a little eagerness. This shadow of ancestry was rather agreeable to the imagination of Agnes.

“And have you done anything—are you doing anything?” said the Hector. “I should be glad to send my own man of business to you; certainly you ought not to give up your property without at least a legal opinion upon the matter.”

“We expect my son to-morrow,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little pride. “My son, though he is very young, has a great deal of judgment; and then he has been—brought up to the law.”

The Rector bowed gravely as he rose. “In that case, I can only offer my good wishes,” said the churchman, “and trust that we may long continue neighbours in spite of Lord Winterbourne. My sister would have been delighted to call upon you, had she been able, but she is quite a confirmed invalid. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. Good morning, madam; good morning, Miss Atheling. I am extremely glad to have met with you.”

The smallest shade of emphasis in the world invested with a different character than usual these clergymanly and parochial words: for the double expression of satisfaction was addressed to Agnes; it was to her pointedly that his stately but reverential bow bore reference. He had come to see the family; but he was glad to know Agnes, the intelligent listener who followed his sermons—the eager bright young eyes which flashed warfare and defiance on his solemn deliverances—and, unawares to herself, saw through the pretences of his disturbed and troubled spirit. Lionel Rivers was not very sensitively alive to the beautiful: he saw little to attract his eye, much less his heart, in that pretty drooping Marian, who was to every other observer the sweetest little downcast princess who ever gained the magic succours of a fairy tale. The Rector scarcely turned a passing glance upon her, as she sat in her tender beauty by the table, leaning her beautiful head upon her hands. But with a different kind of observation from that of Mr Agar, he read the bright and constant comment on what he said himself, and what others said, that ran and sparkled in the face of Agnes. She who never had any lovers, had attracted one at least to watch her looks and her movements with a jealous eye. He was not “in love,”—not the smallest hairbreadth in the world. In his present mood, he would gladly have seen her form an order of sisters, benevolent votaresses of St Frideswide, or of some unknown goddess of the medieval world, build an antique house in the “pointed” style, and live a female bishop ruling over the inferior parish, and being ruled over by the clergy. Such a colleague the Rector fancied would be highly “useful,” and he had never seen any one whom he could elect to the office with so much satisfaction as Agnes Atheling. How far she would have felt herself complimented by this idea was entirely a different question, and one of which the Rector never thought.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHARLIE.

The next day was the day of Charlie’s arrival. His mother and sisters looked for him with anxiety, pleasure, and a little nervousness—much concerned about Papa’s opinion, and not at all indifferent to Charlie’s own. Rachel, who for two days past had been in a state of perfectly flighty and overpowering happiness, joined the Athelings this evening, at the risk of being “wanted” by Mrs Edgerley, and falling under her displeasure, with a perfectly innocent and unconscious disregard of any possible wish on the part of her friends to be alone with their new-come brother. Rachel could form no idea whatever of that half-wished-for, half-dreaded judgment of Papa, the anticipation of which so greatly subdued Marian, and made Mrs Atheling herself so grave and pale. Louis, with a clearer perception of the family crisis, kept away, though, as his sister wisely judged, at no great distance, chewing the cud of desperate and bitter fancy, almost half-repenting, for the moment, of the rash attachment which had put himself and all his disadvantages upon the judicial examination of a father and a brother. The idea of this family committee sitting upon him, investigating and commenting upon his miserable story, galled to the utmost the young man’s fiery spirit. He had no real idea whatever of that good and affectionate father, who was to Marian the first of men,—and had not the faintest conception of the big boy. So it was only an abstract father and brother—the most disagreeable of the species—at whom Louis chafed in his irritable imagination. He too had come already out of the first hurried flush of delight and triumph, to consider the step he had taken. Strangely into the joy and pride of the young lover’s dream came bitter and heavy spectres of self-reproach and foreboding—he, who had ventured to bind to himself the heart of a sensitive and tender girl—he, who had already thrown a shadow over her young life, filled her with premature anxieties, and communicated to these young eyes, instead of their fearless natural brightness, a wistful forecasting gaze into an adverse world—he, who had not even a name to share with his bride! On this memorable evening, Louis paced about by himself, crushing down the rusted fern as he strode through the wood in painful self-communion. The wind was high among the trees, and grew wild and fitful as the night advanced, bringing down showers of leaves into all the hollows, and raving with the most desolate sound in nature among the high tops of the Scotch firs, which stood grouped by themselves, a reserved and austere brotherhood, on one side of Badgeley Wood. Out of this leafy wilderness, the evening lay quiet enough upon the open fields, the wan gleams of water, and the deserted highway; but the clouds opened in a clear rift of wistful, windy, colourless sky, just over Oxford, catching with its pale half-light the mingled pinnacles and towers. Louis was too much engrossed either to see or to hear the eerie sights and sounds of the night, yet they had their influence upon him unawares.

In the mean time, and at the same moment, in the quiet country gloaming, which was odd, but by no means melancholy to him, Charlie trudged sturdily up the high-road, carrying his own little bag, and thinking his own thoughts. And down the same road, one talking a good deal, one very little, and one not at all, the three girls went to meet him, three light and graceful figures, in dim autumnal dresses—for now the evenings became somewhat cold—fit figures for this sweet half-light, which looked pleasant here, though it was so pale and ghostly in the wood. The first was Rachel, who, greatly exhilarated by her unusual freedom, and by all that had happened during these few days past, almost led the little party, protesting she was sure to know Charlie, and very near giddy in her unthinking and girlish delight. The second was Agnes, who was very thoughtful and somewhat grave, yet still could answer her companion; the third, a step behind, coming along very slow and downcast, with her veil over her drooping face, and a shadow upon her palpitating little heart, was Marian, in whose gentle mind was something very like a heavy and despondent shadow of the tumult which distracted her betrothed. Yet not that either—for there was no tumult, but only a pensive and oppressive sadness, under which the young sufferer remained very still, not caring to say a word. “What would papa say?” that was the only audible voice in Marian Atheling’s heart.

“There now, I am sure it is him—there he is,” cried Rachel; and it was Charlie, beyond dispute, shouldering his carpet-bag. The greeting was kindly enough, but it was not at all sentimental, which somewhat disappointed Rachel, at whom Charlie gazed with visible curiosity. When they turned with him, leading him home, Marian fell still farther back, and drooped more than ever. Perhaps the big boy was moved with a momentary sympathy—more likely it was simple mischief. “So,” said Charlie in her ear, “the Yankee’s cut out.”

Marian started a little, looked at him eagerly, and put her hand with an appealing gesture on his arm. “Oh, Charlie, what did papa say?” asked Marian, with her heart in her eyes.

Charlie wavered for a moment between his boyish love of torture and a certain dormant tenderness at the bottom of his full man’s heart, which this great event happening to Marian had touched into life all at once. The kinder sentiment prevailed after a moment’s pause of wicked intention. “My father was not angry, May,” said the lad; and he drew his shrinking sister’s pretty hand through his own arm roughly but kindly, pleased to feel his own boyish strength a support to her. Marian was so young too—very little beyond the rapid vicissitudes of a child. She bounded forward on Charlie’s arm at the words, drooping no longer, but triumphant and at ease in a moment, hurrying him up the ascending high-road at a pace which did not at all suit Charlie, and outstripping the entire party in her sudden flight to her mother with the good news. That Papa should not be angry was all that Marian desired or hoped.

At the door, in the darkness, the hasty girl ran into Mamma’s arms. “My father is not angry,” she exclaimed, out of breath, faithfully repeating Charlie’s words; and then Marian, once more the most serviceable of domestic managers, hastened to light the candles on the tea-table, to draw the chairs around this kindly board, to warn Hannah of the approach of the heir of the house. Hannah came out into the hall to stand behind Mrs Atheling, and drop a respectful curtsy to the young gentleman. The punctilious old family attendant would have been inconsolable had she missed this opportunity of “showing her manners,” and was extremely grateful to Miss Marian, who did not forget her, though she had so many things to think of of her own.

The addition of Rachel slightly embarrassed the family party, and it had the most marvellous effect upon Charlie, who had never before known any female society except that of his sisters. Charlie was full three years younger than the young stranger—distance enough to justify her in treating him as a boy, and him in conceiving the greatest admiration for her. Charlie, of all things in the world, grew actually shy in the company of his sisters’ friend. He became afraid of committing himself, and at last began partly to believe his mother’s often-repeated strictures on his “manners.” He did unquestionably look so big, so brusque, so clumsy, beside this pretty little fairy Rachel, and his own graceful sisters. Charlie hitched up his great shoulders, retreated under the shadow of all those cloudy furrows on his brow, and had actually nothing to say. And Mrs Atheling, occupied with her husband’s long and anxious letter, forbore to question him; and the girls, anxious as they still were, did not venture to say anything before Rachel. They were not at all at their ease, and somewhat dull as they sat in the dim parlour, inventing conversation, and trying not to show their visitor that she was in the way. But she found it out at last, with a little uneasy start and blush, and hastened to get her bonnet and say good-night. No one seemed to fear that it would be difficult to find Rachel’s escort, who was found accordingly the moment they appeared in the garden, starting, as he did the first time of their meeting, from the darkness of the angle at the end of the hedge. Marian ran forward to him, giving Charlie’s message as it came all rosy and hopeful through the alembic of her own comforted imagination. “Papa is quite pleased,” said Marian, with her smiles and her blushes. She did not perceive the suppressed vexation of Louis’s brow as he tried to brighten at her news. For Marian could not have understood how this haughty and undisciplined young spirit could scarcely manage to bow itself to the approbation and judgment even of Papa.

CHAPTER XXX.

A CONSULTATION.

“No one even thought of looking,” said Agnes, suddenly glancing up at the old cabinet with all its brass rings—while Marian, restored to all her gay spirits, promptly took her brother to task for his contempt of old women. “You ought to see Miss Anastasia—she is a great deal bigger than you,” cried Marian, pulling a shaggy lock of Charlie’s black hair.

“Stuff!—who’s Miss Anastasia?” was the reply.

“And that reminds me,” said Mrs Atheling, “that we ought to have let her know. Do you remember what she said, Agnes?—she was quite sure my lord was thinking of something—and we were to let her know.”

“What about, mother?—and who’s Miss Anastasia?” asked Charlie once more: he had to repeat his question several times before any answer came.

“Who is Miss Anastasia? My dear, I forgot you were a stranger. She is—well, really I cannot pretend to describe Miss Rivers,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little nervousness. “I have always had a great respect for her, and so has your father. She is a very remarkable person, Charlie. I never have known any one like her all my life.”

“But who is she, mother? Is she any good?” repeated the impatient youth.

Mrs Atheling looked at her son with a certain horror.

“She is one of the most remarkable persons in the county,” said Mrs Atheling, with all the local spirit of a Banburyshire woman, born and bred—“she is a great scholar, and a lady of fortune, and the only child of the old lord. How strange the ways of Providence are, children!—what a difference it might have made in everything had Miss Anastasia been born a man instead of a woman.” “Indeed,” confessed Mamma, breaking off in an under-tone, “I do really believe it would have been more suitable, even for herself.”

“I suppose we’re to come at it at last,” said Charlie despairingly: “she’s a daughter of the tother lord—now, I want to know what she’s got to do with us.”

“My dear,” said Mrs Atheling eagerly, and with evident pleasure, “I wrote to your father, I am sure, all about it. She has called upon us twice in the most friendly way, and has quite taken a liking for the girls.”

“And she was old Aunt Bridget’s pupil, and her great friend; and it was on account of her that the old lord gave Aunt Bridget this house,” added Agnes, finding out, though not very cleverly, what Charlie’s questions meant.

“And she hates Lord Winterbourne,” said Marian in an expressive appendix, with a distinct emphasis of sympathy and approval on the words.

“Now I call that satisfaction,” said Charlie,—“that’s something like the thing. So I suppose she must have had to do with the whole business, and knows all about it—eh? Why didn’t you tell me so at once?—why, she’s the first person to see, of course. I had better seek her out to-morrow morning—first thing.”

“You!” Mamma looked with motherly anxiety, mixed with disapproval. It was so impossible, even with the aid of all partialities, to make out Charlie to be handsome. And Miss Anastasia came of a handsome race, and had a prejudice in favour of good looks. Then, though his large loose limbs began to be a little more firmly knitted and less unmanageable, and though he was now drawing near eighteen, he was still only a boy. “My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, “she is a very particular old lady, and takes dislikes sometimes, and very proud besides, and might not desire to be intruded on; and I think, after all, as you do not know her, and they do, I think it would be much better if the girls were to go.”

“The girls!” exclaimed Charlie with a boy’s contempt—“a great deal they know about the business! You listen to me, mother. I’ve been reading up hard for six months, and I know something about the evidence that does for a court of law—women don’t—it’s not in reason; for I’d like to see the woman that could stand old Foggo’s office, pegging in at these old fellows for precedent, and all that stuff. You don’t suppose I mind what your old lady thinks of me—and I know what I want, which is the main thing, after all. You tell me where she lives—that’s all I want to know—and see if I don’t make something of it before another day.”

“Where she lives?—it is six miles off, Charlie: you don’t know the way—and, indeed, you don’t know her either, my poor boy.”

“Don’t you trouble about that—that’s my business, mother,” said Charlie; “and a man can’t lose his way in the country unless he tries—a long road, and a fingerpost at every crossing. When a man wants to lose himself, he had better go to the City—there’s no fear in your plain country roads. You set me on the right way—you know all the places hereabout—and just for this once, mother, trust me, and let me manage it my own way.”

“I always did trust you, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling evasively; but she did not half like her son’s enterprise, and greatly objected to put Miss Anastasia’s friendship in jeopardy by such an intrusion as this.

However, the young gentleman now declared himself tired, and was conducted up-stairs in state, by his mother and sisters—first to Mrs Atheling’s own room to inspect it, and kiss, half reluctantly, half with genuine fondness, the little slumbering cherub faces of Bell and Beau. Then he had a glimpse of the snowy decorations of that young-womanly and pretty apartment of his sisters, and was finally ushered into the little back-room, his own den, from which the lumber had been cleared on purpose for his reception. They left him then to his repose, and dreams, if the couch of this young gentleman was ever visited by such fairy visitants, and retired again themselves to that dim parlour, to read over in conclave Papa’s letter, and hold a final consultation as to what everybody should do.

Papa’s letter was very long, very anxious, and very affectionate, and had cost Papa all the leisure of two long evenings, and all his unoccupied hours for two days at the office. He blamed his wife a little, but it was very quietly,—he was grieved for the premature step the young people had taken, but did not say a great deal about his grief,—and he was extremely concerned, and evidently did not express half of his concern, about his pretty Marian, for whom he permitted himself to say he had expected a very different fate. There was not much said of personal repugnance to Louis, and little comment upon his parentage, but they could see well enough that Papa felt the matter very deeply, and that it needed all his affection for themselves, and all his charity for the stranger, to reconcile him to it. But they were both very young, he said, and must do nothing precipitate—which sentence Papa made very emphatic by a very black and double underscoring, and which Mrs Atheling, but fortunately not Marian, understood to mean that it was a possibility almost to be hoped for, that this might turn out one of those boy-and-girl engagements made to be broken, and never come to anything after all.

It was consolatory certainly, and set their minds at rest, but it was not a very cheering letter, and by no means justified Marian’s joyful announcement that “papa was quite pleased.” And so much was the good father taken up with his child’s fortune, that it was only in a postscript he took any notice of Lord Winterbourne’s summons and their precarious holding of the Old Wood Lodge. “We will resist, of course,” said Papa. He did not know a great deal more about how to resist than they did, so he wisely left the question to Charlie, and to “another day.”

And now came the question, what everybody was to do? which gradually narrowed into much smaller limits, and became wholly concerned with what Charlie was to do, and whether he should visit Miss Anastasia. He had made up his mind to it with no lack of decision. What could his mother and his sisters say, save make a virtue of necessity, and yield their assent?

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHARLIE’S MISSION.

Early on the next morning, accordingly, Charlie set out for Abingford. It was with difficulty he escaped a general superintendence of his toilette, and prevailed upon his mother to content herself with brushing his coat, and putting into something like arrangement the stray locks of his hair; but at last, tolerably satisfied with his appearance, and giving him many anxious instructions as to his demeanour towards Miss Anastasia, Mrs Atheling suffered him to depart upon his important errand. The road was the plainest of country roads, through the wood and over the hill, with scarcely a turn to distract the regard of the traveller. A late September morning, sunny and sweet, with yellow leaves sometimes dropping down upon the wind, and all the autumn foliage in a flush of many colours under the cool blue, and floating clouds of a somewhat dullish yet kindly sky. The deep underground of ferns, where they were not brown, were feathering away into a rich yellow, which relieved and brought out all the more strongly the harsh dark green of these vigorous fronds, rusted with seed; and piles of firewood stood here and there, tied up in big fagots, provision for the approaching winter. The birds sang gaily, still stirring among the trees; and now and then into the still air, and far-off rural hum, came the sharp report of a gun, or the ringing bark of a dog. Charlie pushed upon his way, wasting little time in observation, yet observing for all that, with the novel pleasure of a town-bred lad, and owning a certain exhilaration in his face, and in his breast, as he sped along the country road, with its hedges and strips of herbage; that straight, clear, even road, with its milestones and fingerposts, and one market-cart coming along in leisurely rural fashion, half a mile off upon the far-seen way. The walk to Abingford was a long walk even for Charlie, and it was nearly an hour and a half from the time of his leaving home, when he began to perceive glimpses through the leaves of a little maze of water, two or three streams, splitting into fantastic islands the houses and roofs before him, and came in sight of an old gateway, with two windows and a high peaked roof over it, which strode across the way. Charlie, who was entirely unacquainted with such peculiarities of architecture, made a pause of half-contemptuous boyish observation, looking up at the windows, and supposing it must be rather odd to live over an archway. Then he bethought him of asking a loitering country lad to direct him to the Priory, which was done in the briefest manner possible, by pointing round the side of the gate to a large door which almost seemed to form part of it. “There it be,” said Charlie’s informant, and Charlie immediately made his assault upon the big door.

Miss Rivers was at home. He was shown into a large dim room full of books, with open windows, and green blinds let down to the floor, through which the visitor could only catch an uncertain glimpse of waving branches, and a lawn which sloped to the pale little river: the room was hung with portraits, which there was not light enough to see, and gave back a dull glimmer from the glass of its great bookcases. There was a large writing-table before the fireplace, and a great easy-chair placed by it. This was where Miss Anastasia transacted business; but Charlie had not much time, if he had inclination, for a particular survey of the apartment, for he could hear a quick and decided step descending a stair, as it seemed, and crossing over the hall. “Charles Atheling—who’s Charles Atheling?” said a peremptory voice outside. “I know no one of the name.”

With the words on her lips Miss Anastasia entered the room. She wore a loose morning-dress, belted round her waist with a buckled girdle, and a big tippet of the same; and her cap, which was not intended to be pretty, but only to be comfortable, came down close over her ears, snow white, and of the finest cambric, but looking very homely and familiar indeed to the puzzled eyes of Charlie. Not her homely cap, however, nor her odd dress, could make Miss Anastasia less imperative or formidable. “Well sir,” she said, coming in upon him without very much ceremony, “which of the Athelings do you belong to, and what do you want with me?”

“I belong to the Old Wood Lodge,” said Charlie, almost as briefly, “and I want to ask what you know about it, and how it came into Aunt Bridget’s hands.”

“What I know about it? Of course I know everything about it,” said Miss Anastasia. “So you’re young Atheling, are you? You’re not at all like your pretty sisters; not clever either, so far as I can see, eh? What are you good for, boy?”

Charlie did not say “stuff!” aloud, but it was only by a strong effort of self-control. He was not at all disposed to give any answer to the question. “What has to be done in the mean time is to save my father’s property,” said Charlie, with a boyish flush of offence.

“Save it, boy! who’s threatening your father’s property? What! do you mean to tell me already that he’s fallen foul of Will Atheling?” said the old lady, drawing her big easy-chair to her big writing-table, and motioning Charlie to draw near. “Eh? why don’t you speak? tell me the whole at once.”

“Lord Winterbourne has sent us notice to leave,” said Charlie; “he says the Old Wood Lodge was only Aunt Bridget’s for life, and is his now. I have set the girls to look up the old lady’s papers; we ourselves know nothing about it, and I concluded the first thing to be done was to come and ask you.”

“Good,” said Miss Anastasia; “you were perfectly right. Of course it is a lie.”

This was said perfectly in a matter-of-course fashion, without the least idea, apparently, on the part of the old lady, that there was anything astonishing in the lie which came from Lord Winterbourne.

“I know everything about it,” she continued; “my father made over the little house to my dear old professor, when we supposed she would have occasion to leave me: that turned out a vain separation, thanks to him again;” and here Miss Rivers grew white for an instant, and pressed her lips together. “Please Heaven, my boy, he’ll not be successful this time. No. I know everything about it; we’ll foil my lord in this.”

“But there must have been a deed,” said Charlie; “do you know where the papers are?”

“Papers! I tell you I am acquainted with every circumstance—I myself. You can call me as a witness,” said the old lady. “No, I can’t tell you where the papers are. What’s about them? eh? Do you mean to say they are of more consequence than me?”

“There are sure to be documents on the other side,” said Charlie; “the original deed would settle the question, without needing even a trial: without it Lord Winterbourne has the better chance. Personal testimony is not equal to documents in a case like this.”

“Young Atheling,” said Miss Rivers, drawing herself up to her full height, “do you think a jury of this county would weigh his word against mine?”

Charlie was considerably embarrassed. “I suppose not,” he said, somewhat abruptly; “but this is not a thing of words. Lord Winterbourne will never appear at all; but if he has any papers to produce proving his case, the matter will be settled at once; and unless we have counterbalancing evidence of the same kind, we’d better give it up before it comes that length.”

He said this half impatient, half despairing. Miss Rivers evidently took up this view of the question with dissatisfaction; but as he persevered in it, came gradually to turn her thoughts to other means of assisting him. “But I know of no papers,” she said, with disappointment; “my father’s solicitor, to be sure, he is the man to apply to. I shall make a point of seeing him to-morrow; and what papers I have I will look over. By the by, now I remember it, the Old Wood Lodge belonged to her grandfather or great-grandfather, dear old soul, and came to us by some mortgage or forfeit. It was given back—restored, not bestowed upon her. For her life!—I should like to find out now what he means by such a lie!”

Charlie, who could throw no light upon this subject, rose to go, somewhat disappointed, though not at all discouraged. The old lady stopped him on his way, carried him off to another room, and administered, half against Charlie’s will, a glass of wine. “Now, young Atheling, you can go,” said Miss Anastasia. “I’ll remember both you and your business. What are they bringing you up to? eh?”

“I’m in a solicitor’s office,” said Charlie.

“Just so—quite right,” said Miss Anastasia. “Let me see you baffle him, and I’ll be your first client. Now go away to your pretty sisters, and tell your mother not to alarm herself. I’ll come to the Lodge in a day or two; and if there’s documents to be had, you shall have them. Under any circumstances,” continued the old lady, dismissing him with a certain stateliness, “you can call me.”

But though she was a great lady, and the most remarkable person in the county, Charlie did not appreciate this permission half so much as he would have appreciated some bit of wordy parchment. He walked back again, much less sure of his case than when he set out with the hope of finding all he wanted at Abingford.

CHAPTER XXXII.

SEARCH.

When Charlie reached home again, very tired, and in a somewhat moody frame of mind, he found the room littered with various old boxes undergoing examination, and Agnes seated before the cabinet, with a lapful of letters, and her face bright with interest and excitement, looking them over. At the present moment, she held something of a very perplexing nature in her hand, which the trained eye of Charlie caught instantly, with a flash of triumph. Agnes herself was somewhat excited about it, and Marian stood behind her, looking over her shoulder, and vainly trying to decipher the ancient writing. “It’s something, mamma,” cried Agnes. “I am sure, if Charlie saw it, he would think it something; but I cannot make out what it is. Here is somebody’s seal and somebody’s signature, and there, I am sure, that is Atheling; and a date, ‘xiij. of May, M.D.LXXII.’ What does that mean, Marian? M. a thousand, D. five hundred; there it is! I am sure it is an old deed—a real something ancestral—1572!”

“Give it to me,” said Charlie, stretching his hand for it over her shoulder. No one had heard him come in.

“Oh, Charlie, what did Miss Anastasia say?” cried Marian; and Agnes immediately turned round away from the cabinet, and Mamma laid down her work. Charlie, however, took full time to examine the yellow old document they had found, though he did not acknowledge that it posed him scarcely less than themselves, before he spoke.

“She said she’d look up her papers, and speak to the old gentleman’s solicitor. I don’t see that she’s much good to us,” said Charlie. “She says I might call her as a witness, but what’s the good of a witness against documents? This has nothing to do with Aunt Bridget, Agnes—have you found nothing more than this? Why, you know there must have been a deed of some kind. The old lady could not have been so foolish as to throw away her title. Property without title-deeds is not worth a straw; and the man that drew up her will is my lord’s solicitor! I say, he must be what the Yankees call a smart man, this Lord Winterbourne.”

“I am afraid he has no principle, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling with a sigh.

“And a very bad man—everybody hates him,” said Marian under her breath.

She spoke so low that she did not receive that reproving look of Mamma which was wont to check such exclamations. Marian, though she had a will of her own, and was never like to fall into a mere shadow and reflection of her lover, as his poor little sister did, had unconsciously imbibed Louis’s sentiments. She did not know what it was to hate, this innocent girl. Had she seen Lord Winterbourne thrown from his horse, or overturned out of his carriage, these ferocious sentiments would have melted in an instant into help and pity; but in the abstract view of the matter, Marian pronounced with emotion the great man’s sentence, “Everybody hates Lord Winterbourne.”

“That is what the old lady said,” exclaimed Charlie; “she asked me who I thought would believe him against her? But that’s not the question. I don’t want to pit one man against another. My father’s worth twenty of Lord Winterbourne! But that’s no matter. The law cares nothing at all for his principles. What title has he got, and what title have you?—that’s what the law’s got to say. Now, I’ll either have something to put in against him or I’ll not plead. It’s no use taking a step in the matter without proof.”

“And won’t that do, Charlie?” asked Mrs Atheling, looking wistfully at the piece of parchment, signed and sealed, which was in Charlie’s hands.

“That! why, it’s two hundred and fifty years old!” said Charlie. “I don’t see what it refers to yet, but it’s very clear it can’t be to Miss Bridget. No, mother, that won’t do.”

“Then, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling, “I am very sorry to think of it; but, after all, we have not been very long here, and we might have laid out more money, and formed more attachments to the place, if we had gone on much longer; and I think I shall be very glad to get back to Bellevue. Marian, my love, don’t cry; this need not make any difference with anything; but I think it is far better just to make up our minds to it, and give up the Old Wood Lodge.”

“Mother! do you think I mean that?” cried Charlie; “we must find the papers, that’s what we must do. My father’s as good an Englishman as the first lord in the kingdom; I’d not give in to the king unless he was in the right.”

“And not even then, unless you could not help it,” said Agnes, laughing; “but I am not half done yet; there is still a great quantity of letters—and I should not be at all surprised if this romantic old cabinet, like an old bureau in a novel, had a secret drawer.”

Animated by this idea, Marian ran to the antique little piece of furniture, pressing every projection with her pretty fingers, and examining into every creak. But there was no secret drawer—a fact which became all the more apparent when a drawer was discovered, which once had closed with a spring. The spring was broken, and the once-secret place was open, desolate, and empty. Miss Bridget, good old lady, had no secrets, or at least she had not made any provision for them here.

Agnes went on with her examination the whole afternoon, drawn aside and deluded to pursue the history of old Aunt Bridget’s life through scores of yellow old letters, under the pretence that something might be found in some of them to throw light upon this matter; for a great many letters of Miss Bridget’s own—careful “studies” for the production itself—were tied up among the others; and it would have been amusing, if it had not been sad, to sit on this little eminence of time, looking over that strange faithful self-record of the little weaknesses, the ladylike pretences, the grand Johnsonian diction of the old lady who was dead. Poor old lady! Agnes became quite abashed and ashamed of herself when she felt a smile stealing over her lip. It seemed something like profanity to ransack the old cabinet, and smile at it. In its way, this, as truly as the grass-mound, in Winterbourne churchyard, was Aunt Bridget’s grave.

But still nothing could be found. Charlie occupied himself during the remainder of the day in giving a necessary notice to Mr Lewis the solicitor, that they had made up their minds to resist Lord Winterbourne’s claim; and when the evening closed in, and the candles were lighted, Louis made his first public appearance since the arrival of the stranger, somewhat cloudy, and full of all his old haughtiness. This cloud vanished in an instant at the first glance. Whatever Charlie’s qualities were, criticism was not one of them; it was clear that though his “No” might be formidable enough of itself, Charlie had not been a member of any solemn committee, sitting upon the pretensions of Louis. He gave no particular regard to Louis even now, but sat poring over the old deed, deciphering it with the most patient laboriousness, with his head very close over the paper, and a pair of spectacles assisting his eyes. The spectacles were lent by Mamma, who kept them, not secretly, but with a little reserve, in her work-basket, for special occasions when she had some very fine stitching to do, or was busy with delicate needlework by candle-light; and nothing could have been more oddly inappropriate to the face of Charlie, with all the furrows of his brow rolled down over his eyebrows, and his indomitable upper-lip pressed hard upon its fellow, than these same spectacles. Then they made him short-sighted, and were only of use when he leaned closely over the paper—Charlie did not mind, though his shoulders ached and his eyes filled with water. He was making it out!

And Agnes, for her part, sat absorbed with her lapful of old letters, reading them all over with passing smiles and gravities, growing into acquaintance with ever so many extinct affairs,—old stories long ago come to the one conclusion which unites all men. Though she felt herself virtuously reading for a purpose, she had forgotten all about the purpose long ago, and was only wandering on and on by a strange attraction, as if through a city of the dead. But it was quite impossible to think of the dead among these yellow old papers—the littlest trivial things of life were so quite living in them, in these unconscious natural inferences and implications. And Louis and Marian, sometimes speaking and often silent, were going through their own present romance and story; and Mamma, in her sympathetic middle age, with her work-basket, was tenderly overlooking all. In the little dim country parlour, lighted with the two candles, what a strange epitome there was of a whole world and a universal life.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DOUBTS AND FEARS.

Louis had not been told till this day of the peril which threatened the little inheritance of the Athelings. When he did hear of it, the young man gnashed his teeth with that impotent rage which is agony, desperate under the oppression which makes even wise men mad. He scorned to say a word of any further indignities put upon himself; but Rachel told of them with tears and outcries almost hysterical—how my lord had challenged him with bitter taunts to put on his livery and earn the bread he ate—how he had been expelled from his room which he had always occupied, and had an apartment now among the rooms of the servants—and how Lord Winterbourne threatened to advertise him publicly as a vagabond and runaway if he ventured beyond the bounds of the village, or tried to thrust himself into any society. Poor little Rachel, when she came in the morning faint and heart-broken to tell her story, could scarcely speak for tears, and was only with great difficulty soothed to a moderate degree of calm. But still she shrank with the strangest repugnance from going away. It scarcely could be attachment to the home of her youth, for it had always been an unhappy shelter—nor could it be love for any of the family; the little timid spirit feared she knew not what terrors in the world with which she had so little acquaintance. Lord Winterbourne to her was not a mere English peer, of influence only in a certain place and sphere, but an omnipotent oppressor, from whose power it would be impossible to escape, and whose vigilance could not be eluded. If she tried to smile at the happy devices of Agnes and Marian, how to establish herself in their own room at Bellevue, and lodge Louis close at hand, it was a very wan and sickly smile. She confessed it was dreadful to think that he should remain, exposed to all these insults; but she shrank with fear and trembling from the idea of Louis going away.

The next evening, just before the sun set, the whole youthful party—for Rachel, by a rare chance, was not to be “wanted” to-night—strayed along the grassy road in a body towards the church. Agnes and Marian were both with Louis, who had been persuaded at last to speak of his own persecutions, while Rachel came behind with Charlie, kindly pointing out for him the far-off towers of Oxford, the two rivers wandering in a maze, and all the features of the scene which Charlie did not know, and amused, sad as she was, in her conscious seniority and womanhood, at the shyness of the lad. Charlie actually began to be touched with a wandering breath of sentiment, had been seen within the last two days reading a poetry book, and was really in a very odd and suspicious “way.”

“No,” said Louis, upon whom his betrothed and her sister were hanging eagerly, comforting and persuading—“no; I am not in a worse position. It stings me at the moment, I confess; but I am filled with contempt for the man who insults me, and his words lose their power. I could almost be seduced to stay when he begins to struggle with me after this downright fashion; but you are perfectly right for all that, and within a few days I must go away.”

“A few days? O Louis!” cried Marian, clinging to his arm.

“Yes; I have a good mind to say to-morrow, to enhance my own value,” said Louis. “I am tempted—ay, both to go and stay—for sake of the clinging of these little hands. Never mind, our mother will come home all the sooner; and what do you suppose I will do?”

“I think indeed, Louis, you should speak to the Rector,” said Agnes, with a little anxiety. “O no; it is very cruel of you, and you are quite wrong; he did not mean to be very kind in that mocking way—he meant what he said—he wanted to do you service; and so he would, and vindicate you when you were gone, if you only would cease to be so very grand for two minutes, and let him know.”

“Am I so very grand?” said Louis, with a momentary pique. “I have nothing to do with your rectors—I know what he meant, whatever he might say.”

“It is a great deal more than he does himself, I am sure of that,” said Agnes with a puzzled air. “He means what he says, but he does not always know what he means; and neither do I.”

Marian tried a trembling little laugh at her sister’s perplexity, but they were rather too much moved for laughing, and it did not do.

“Now, I will tell you what my plan is,” said Louis. “I do not know what he thinks of me, nor do I expect to find his opinion very favourable; but as that is all I can look for anywhere, it will be the better probation for me,” he added, with a rising colour and an air of haughtiness. “I will not enlist, Marian. I have no longer any dreams of the marshal’s baton in the soldier’s knapsack. I give up rank and renown to those who can strive for them. You must be content with such honour as a man can have in his own person, Marian. When I leave you, I will go at once to your father.”

“Oh, Louis, will you? I am so glad, so proud!” and again the little hands pressed his arm, and Marian looked up to him with her radiant face. He had not felt before how perfectly magnanimous and noble his resolution was.

“I think it will be very right,” said Agnes, who was not so enthusiastic; “and my father will be pleased to see you, Louis, though you doubt him as you doubt all men. But look, who is this coming here?”

They were scarcely coming here, seeing they were standing still under the porch of the church, a pair of very tall figures, very nearly equal in altitude, though much unlike each other. One of them was the Rector, who stood with a solemn bored look at the door of his church, which he had just closed, listening, without any answer save now and then a grave and ceremonious bow, to the other “individual,” who was talking very fluently, and sufficiently loud to be heard by others than the Rector. “Oh, Agnes!” cried Marian, and “Hush, May!” answered her sister; they both recognised the stranger at a glance.

“Yes, this is the pride of the old country,” said the voice; “here, sir, we can still perceive upon the sands of time the footprints of our Saxon ancestors. I say ours, for my youthful and aspiring nation boasts as the brightest star in her banner the Anglo-Saxon blood. We preserve the free institutions—the hatred of superstition, the freedom of private judgment and public opinion, the great inheritance developed out of the past; but Old England, sir, a land which I venerate, yet pity, keeps safe in her own bosom the external traces full of instruction, the silent poetry of Time—that only poetry which she can refuse to share with us.”

To this suitable and appropriate speech, congenial as it must have been to his feelings, the Rector made no answer, save that most deferential and solemn bow, and was proceeding with a certain conscientious haughtiness to show his visitor some other part of the building, when his eye was attracted by the approaching group. He turned to them immediately with an air of sudden relief.

So did Mr Endicott, to whom, to do him justice, not all the old churches in Banburyshire, nor all the opportunities of speechmaking, nor even half-a-dozen rectors who were within two steps of a peerage, could have presented such powerful attractions as did that beautiful blushing face of Marian Atheling, drooping and falling back under the shadow of Louis. The Yankee hastened forward with his best greeting.

“When I remember our last meeting,” said Mr Endicott, bending his thin head forward with the most unusual deference, that tantalising vision of what might have been, “I think myself fortunate indeed to have found you so near your home. I have been visiting your renowned city—one of those twins of learning, whose antiquity is its charm. In my country our antiquities stretch back into the eternities; but we know nothing of the fourteenth or the fifteenth century in our young soil. My friend the Rector has been showing me his church.”

Mr Endicott’s friend the Rector stared at him with a haughty amazement, but came forward without saying anything to the new-comers; then he seemed to pause a moment, doubtful how to address Louis—a doubt which the young man solved for him instantly by taking off his hat with an exaggerated and solemn politeness. They bowed to each other loftily, these two haughty young men, as two duellists might have saluted each other over their weapons. Then Louis turned his fair companion gently, and, without saying anything, led her back again on the road they had just traversed. Agnes followed silently, and feeling very awkward, with the Rector and Mr Endicott on either hand. The Rector did not say a word. Agnes only answered in shy monosyllables. The gifted American had it all his own way.

“I understand Viscount Winterbourne and Mrs Edgerley are at Winterbourne Hall,” said Mrs Endicott. “She is a charming person; the union of a woman of fashion and a woman of literature is one so rarely seen in this land.”

“Yes,” said Agnes, who knew nothing else to say.

“For myself,” said Mr Endicott solemnly, “I rejoice to find the poetic gift alike in the palace of the peer and the cottage of the peasant, bringing home to all hearts the experiences of life; in the sumptuous apartments of the Hall with Mrs Edgerley, or in the humble parlour of the worthy and respectable middle class—Miss Atheling, with you.”

“Oh!” cried Agnes, starting under this sudden blow, and parrying it with all the skill she could find. “Do you like Oxford, Mr Endicott? Have you seen much of the country about here?”

But it was too late. Mr Endicott caught a shy backward glance of Marian, and, smothering a mortal jealousy of Louis, eagerly thrust himself forward to answer it—and the Rector had caught his unfortunate words. The Rector drew himself up to a still more lofty height, if that was possible, and walked on by Agnes’s side in a solemn and stately silence—poor Agnes, who would have revived a little in his presence but for that arrow of Mr Endicott’s, not knowing whether to address him, or whether her best policy was to be silent. She went on by his side, holding down her head, looking very small, very slight, very young, beside that dignified and stately personage. At last he himself condescended to speak.

“Am I to understand, Miss Atheling,” said the Rector, very much in the same tone as he might have asked poor little Billy Morrell at school, “Are you the boy who robbed John Parker’s orchard?”—“Am I to understand, as I should be disposed to conclude from what this person says, that, like my fashionable cousin at the Hall, you have written novels?—or is it only the hyperbole of that individual’s ordinary speech?”

“No,” said Agnes, very guilty, a convicted culprit, yet making bold to confess her guilt. “I am very sorry he said it, but it is true; only I have written just one novel. Do you think it wrong?”

“I think a woman’s intellect ought to be receptive without endeavouring to produce,” said the Rector, in a slightly acerbated tone. “Intelligence is the noblest gift of a woman; originality is neither to be wished nor looked for.”

“I do not suppose I am very guilty of that either,” said Agnes, brightening again with that odd touch of pugnacity, as she listened once more to this haughty tone of dogmatism from the man who held no opinions. “If you object only to originality, I do not think you need be angry with me.”

She was half inclined to play with the lion, but the lion was in a very ill humour, and would see no sport in the matter. To tell the truth, the Rector was very much fretted by this unlooked-for intelligence. He felt as if it were done on purpose, and meant as a personal offence to him, though really, after all, for a superior sister of St Frideswide, this unfortunate gift of literature was rather a recommendation than otherwise, as one might have thought.

So the Rev. Lionel Rivers stalked on beside Agnes past his own door, following Louis, Marian, and Mr Endicott to the very gate of the Old Wood Lodge. Then he took off his hat to them all, wished them a ceremonious good-night, and went home extremely wrathful, and in a most unpriestly state of mind. He could not endure to think that the common outer world had gained such a hold upon that predestined Superior of the sisters of St Frideswide.