On the third night after the events just recorded Charles Yeldham and Gordon Frere were walking up and down the departure platform at London Bridge, by the side of the mail-train just about to start. Frere was dressed in travelling costume, and looked, as most young fellows do in such garb, sufficiently picturesque. But his face was deadly pale, save where there were blotches of bright red under his eyes.
"Now listen, Charley," said he, "and hear my last words. I go away, cursing that woman. You know I'm not romantic, or melodramatic, or any thing of that kind; but she's spoilt my life for me, and I curse her for it. It's too bad,--by the Lord, it's too bad! You know how I--yes, damme, how I loved her. Followed her about like a spaniel, and she could have done any thing with me. And then never to keep her appointment, never to send me a line; and then when I write and make her a regular offer, never to take the least notice--not a line, by Jove!--and to leave her infernal old father to write to me that she's engaged to that cold-blooded, mannerless beast, Streightley! O, I know he's a friend of yours; but, damme it's too bad! And when the governor, dear old boy, had actually got me a nomination to the Treasury, and--however, that's thrown up, and I'm going out to an infernal German principality to be secretary to that bewigged old fool in that carriage, and leaving you, and all through the tricks of that heartless coquette! O yes, all right! I hear the bell, and I'm going to get in. Now, God bless you, old boy; but recollect my last words. I leave this place cursing that girl, and I'll be even with her yet!"
Mr. Frere wrung his friend's hand and sprang into the carriage as the train began to move. Charles Yeldham waited until the last glimmer of its red lamps had died away, then turned slowly round, and walked towards his dreary chambers.
"It's very bad for you, Gordon, my poor boy!" said he to himself as he strolled along; "very bad indeed, just now! but I sadly fear it will be worse for others in the long-run--and for poor Bob Streightley worst of all!"
The morning sun, which arose on the world with its accustomed regularity, shone steadily on to its noonday splendour; but found Katharine no more resigned or peaceful than she had been on the previous night. She had been little used to opposition or contradiction, and she did not brook them easily. That she should have been disappointed in the matter of Mrs. Tresillian's ball was natural enough; but that she should have been put so completely out of temper and out of spirits by the disappointment as to have made the fact glaringly apparent to her father and the "City man," was not at all natural to Katharine's well-bred self-command and sense of what was due to good manners and her self-respect. She was discontented with herself, provoked with Lady Henmarsh, and miserable in reflecting upon the disappointment which Gordon Frere had doubtless sustained, and in fancying that he might have imputed her absence to coldness or caprice. Love had taken possession of the girl, had utterly humbled her, and she had no thought of her own charms, her own importance, no notion that Frere might hesitate to ask her to share a destiny which could not be represented as brilliant; she never considered or questioned his position for a moment. She knew he was well-born, well-connected, and in good society; but she knew and cared to know nothing beyond. She had acquired the enchanting certainty that he loved her; she felt that the next time they met he would tell her so; and her heart had no room for any thing but the mingled rapture and suspense which proceeded from the delightful experience of the preceding day, and the pitiable disappointment of the preceding evening.
Katharine did not see her father on the morning after the Botanical Fête. When she went down to breakfast the dusty footman gave her a message from Mr. Guyon, to the effect that he found himself obliged to go out early on particular business, and as he could not say how long he might be detained, she must not expect him to ride with her--he would return to dinner. This message was a fresh annoyance to Katharine, a new exacerbation of her already irritated temper. There now, she should be unable to ride, and no doubt Gordon was looking forward to meeting her in the Park, and would be again disappointed; indeed he might think she was purposely avoiding him,--who could tell? Katharine pushed her untasted breakfast from her and hurried upstairs to the drawing-room, where she paced up and down before the long windows with an impatient tread. Would he come? Would he call on her at the delightfully unconventional early hour he had selected for his first well-remembered visit? Perhaps--nay surely, he would! It was not far from eleven now; she glanced at the chimney-glass, smoothed her glossy hair, inspected the condition of her neat morning-dress; and then sat down to her piano to play all the tunes which he liked, and so get over the interval before his coming would be possible. But the expedient was not successful; the gay strains died away in harmonised reveries, sometimes into silence, as the girl sat and thought of her lover--glorified by her imagination and exalted by her own fervent nature into a very different being from the real Gordon Frere. If Katharine could but have seen him at that hour, what a difference might it not have made to them and to others! He was turning over the leaves of a Railway Guide, and talking away to Yeldham in all the newborn impetuosity of his approval of his friend's advice, and his resolution to act upon it. Yes, he would go at once; he would not delay an hour, he would not trust himself to see Katharine again. If he had met her at the Tresillians, he should certainly have committed himself; and Yeldham was right, quite right; of course Mr. Guyon would only laugh at him; and very justly, unless he could put forward some decided prospect for his consideration. Perhaps it was better that he had had no understanding with Katharine as to meeting within a day or two; he might not have been able to resist seeing her again. He would write her a note though, just a line saying he should be out of town for a few days--he must indeed, for she had asked him to inquire for some music she wanted at Cramer's: he could just write the note and get the music, and send both to Queen Anne Street before starting for the station. He flung down the Railway Guide, took up his hat and departed, whistling as he descended the staircase with an invincible light-heartedness, whereat Charles Yeldham smiled. The smile was not gay, however, and it vanished quickly, and the barrister laid down his pen, leaned his chin upon his folded hands, and gazed out of the window with eyes that saw nothing they looked upon. It was a most unusual thing for Charles Yeldham to indulge in a fit of abstraction, and the indulgence was brief. He brought his gaze and his thoughts back again with an effort, shook his hair from his forehead, and resumed his work doggedly.
Mr. Guyon, returning from his business expedition at about one o'clock, and proposing to let himself into the house by means of his latch-key, as he did not feel particularly desirous of an interview with Katharine just then, and feared she might come down to seek him, if she heard a ring, found a commissionaire just in the act of pulling the bell.
"Wait a minute, my man," said Mr. Guyon in his cheery way; "I'll open the door," and he suited the action to the word. "What have you got there? O, I see,--a parcel and a note for my daughter. You're paid, are you, eh? Never mind; here's another sixpence--good-day."
The man turned away, well pleased, and Mr. Guyon, carrying the parcel in his hand, went on into his own room. There was a note with the parcel; which was evidently a roll of music. Mr. Guyon looked at it, considered it, finally, muttering "It will always be easy to say the fellow must have lost it," he opened and read the missive. As he did so, his face brightened up. "Out of town, eh? on important business; trusts to see her the moment he returns, eh? Not if I know it, Mr. Frere,--not if I know it." Then Mr. Guyon put the note carefully away in his pocketbook, for destruction at a convenient season.
He next proceeded to search among a heap of cards stuck into the frame of the chimney-glass for one bearing the inscription "Mr. Gordon Frere," passed it under the riband with which the parcel was fastened, and rang the bell.
"Take this to Miss Guyon," said he to the footman, who answered the summons. "A commissionaire brought it just now."
Katharine was standing by one of the windows when the man entered the drawing-room, salver in hand. Her tall graceful figure and proud head expressed eager anticipation and waiting in their attitude.
"A parcel, ma'am," said the man; "a commissioner 'ave brought it."
"Put it down," she said, without turning her head; and several minutes elapsed before she looked round, or remembered the interruption. At length she sighed impatiently, and said aloud: "He will hardly come now, it is too near lunchtime; and if he comes later, the room is sure to be full of bores, as usual. However, I had rather he came, no matter who may be here. But it is very stupid of him not to call early." At this moment her eye lighted on the parcel, and the card attached to it. The colour rushed violently into her face, and then subsided, leaving Katharine many shades paler than usual.
Mr. Guyon was in very good spirits when he met his daughter at lunch. He talked and laughed and made himself as agreeable as if she had been somebody else's daughter and worth cultivating. He congratulated Katharine on her appearance both at the fête and at dinner on the previous day; he asked her where her bonnet came from, and whether her milliner was determined to ruin him completely this season? To all these sallies Katharine replied little; she was pale, distraite, decidedly out of humour. Mr. Guyon shot sharp inquiring glances at her across the table, wholly unperceived. He was a little surprised at her mood. "By Jove!" he thought, "she has been harder bit than I suspected, and this has been a near thing, I fancy. I've only given Hetty the office just in time. Something must be done before this dandy fellow comes back,--and it won't be too easy to manage Kate either."
These reflections troubled Mr. Guyon a little, and repressed the fine flow of his spirits; but his daughter took as little notice of one of his moods as of the other.
"Have you heard how Lady Henmarsh is to-day?" she asked absently; and the seemingly harmless question brought a more impartially diffused colour to Mr. Guyon's face than the evenly-defined bloom which usually embellished it.
"No," he replied decisively; "have you?"
"I have not," said Katharine. "I was thinking of walking round there to inquire for her; but James makes out that there is so much to do, after yesterday, that I saw he would only grumble if I took him out,"--Mr. Guyon breathed rather quickly, and then looked relieved,--"and, as I knew if any thing serious had been the matter with her or Sir Timothy, she would have put us off for to-day, it didn't matter."
"Ah, by the bye, yes!" returned her father, "we dine there to-day."
It was rather odd that Mr. Guyon should have said this in a tone of reminiscent surprise; for his particular business of that morning had included, if not entirely consisted of, a long interview with Lady Henmarsh; which interview had concluded with these words:
"Well, then, good-bye until seven. You quite understand?" on the part of the gentleman; and "Yes, I quite understand," on the part of the lady.
It will be remembered that Mr. Guyon had despatched a note to his complaisant cousin in the course of the preceding day, which note had borne fruit in Katharine's disappointment of the evening. It had also prepared Lady Henmarsh for Mr. Guyon's visit, and had convinced her that he "meant business." It is unnecessary to go into the details of the interview, which had taken place while Katharine had watched and waited throughout the dreary hours, and in which her fate was settled, so far as it was in the power of her father and her chaperone to settle it. Its bearings will all be clearly developed by the results; it is enough at present that each of the parties was satisfied with the views entertained and the promises made by the other.
Katharine looked very bright and beautiful that evening, and her manner was as gay and gracious as if Lady Henmarsh had not inflicted a severe disappointment upon her and seriously disconcerted all, her plans and hopes for one day and night at least. Her pride had received a slight wound, not a deep or deadly one as yet, but it was keen, and sensitive, and thrilled to a touch; and that card, without note or message, had touched it. She recalled her last words to Gordon Frere, his last words to her, and their tone, which meant so much more; and she could not but recoil from this incident. There was some relief in fancying that he might have taken this way of evincing pique at her absence from the ball; and when this idea occurred to her she cherished it, and at last it gave her complete comfort. There is a sort of charm in such piques and pets, when they are not carried too far, and Katharine did not care to remember that had Gordon been offended, and taken such a way of showing it, he must have indulged temper at the cost of sense, as he must have known her absence arose from no fault of hers. But Katharine, a remarkably clear-sighted person in most cases, was as blind and as silly as the rest of the world in this, and caught with eagerness at a reason which seemed to exalt her lover's devotion at the expense of his common sense. Yes, that was it of course! How foolish she had been! they would meet to-morrow; even if he did not call, he always went to Lady Tredgold's "evenings," and there they should meet, and "make it up." Katharine's girlish spirits rose, under the influence of the conviction that she had been worrying herself unnecessarily, and she was even unusually charming. The dinner-party was a pleasantly-assorted one; Sir Timothy, a perfect gentleman, old and invalided as he was, prosed away indeed, at the end of the table, but she was not near him at dinner, and he never appeared in the drawing-room. She talked brilliantly; her low well-bred laugh was heard like frequent music amid the buzz of conversation; and Mr. Mostyn, who honoured Lady Henmarsh on the present occasion, made up his mind that Katharine should be his next heroine. He calmly contemplated her animated face, and studied the details of her dress, considering whether she should be wedded to a clever Irish political adventurer (he knew a man whom he could "do" for the part admirably, and what was more and better, every one else knew him also), rescued from his brutality by the hero (Mr. Mostyn would be his own hero), and suffered to die of a broken heart in consequence of her hopeless passion for her rescuer; or whether she should merely retire, in her maiden bloom, into a convent, when the hero marries the duchess, out of compassion, and hangs wreaths of immortelles on the bell-handle of the holy house of our Lady of the Seven Dolours on each anniversary of the double event. While his mind was agitated by this dilemma, he heard Mr. Guyon say to Lady Henmarsh,
"Yes, we saw him yesterday at the Botanical Fête. I don't know that he mentioned your invitation. Katharine, did Mr. Frere say whether he was to dine with Lady Henmarsh to-day?"
Katharine turned her head quickly towards her father, and there was a slight frown on her fair brow as she answered,
"No, papa,--certainly not! I did not know he had been asked. When did you invite him, Lady Henmarsh?"
"Several days ago, Kate;--when I asked you all. I suppose he had something better to do; and really he is so horribly conceited, and represents himself as in such request every where, he is quite welcome to stay away for me."
The matter dropped there, but Katharine was very silent now; and Mr. Mostyn, attributing her depression to the near termination of dinner, and the inevitable move, decided that her pensive tenderness was even more charming than her sparkling allurement.
In the drawing-room she was silent still. When opportunity offered she said to Lady Henmarsh:
"How did you send Mr. Frere your invitation?"
"How? Why, Kate, how inquisitive you are!" and her ladyship laughed,--rather a forced laugh;--"by post, of course. To the Temple; that's all right, isn't it? I said, to meet a few friends, the Guyons, and one or two others. But, my child, I can't stay gossipping with you; there's Mrs. Weldon preparing to consider herself neglected and to take offence."
Katharine was not so much annoyed as she was puzzled by this incident. It is hardly necessary to tell the intelligent reader that no such invitation had ever been sent to Gordon Frere, and that the fabrication had been a happy idea of Mr. Guyon's, and hurriedly imparted to his colleague by a note before dinner. Frere's absence might be very short, and was undoubtedly very precious; and Mr. Guyon had determined to play a game which, if not exactly desperate, was very daring. This was the first card; he had played it, not with perfect, but with tolerable, success. With increased eagerness Katharine looked forward to the morrow; with such eagerness as took the healthy colour from her cheek and the limpid brightness from her eye, and replaced the one by a flickering flush, and the other by a look of anxiety and absorption. The morrow came, and she rode in the Park with her father, but did not see Gordon Frere. The routine of a London day followed; she drove out with Mrs. Stanbourne, and on her return looked over the cards which had been left during her absence, but there was not one bearing the name she longed to see. At dinner her father was in the gay spirits which had distinguished him since he had made Robert Streightley's acquaintance, and took no notice of her silence and dejection. She went to Lady Tredgold's reception, and there endured such pangs of expectation, suspense, mortification and anger, love and longing, as only a mind totally undisciplined by sorrow, and unaccustomed to finding its calculations disturbed by conflicting results, could undergo.
The history of the two days which succeeded that of the Botanical Fête, which had been such an eventful date in Katharine's life, and was destined to remain fixed in her memory for ever, was repeated in those which followed them. Weary waiting and wondering, heartsick longing and anger, the blind wrath of a proud heart stung and outraged, the remorseful relenting of a girlish passionate heart,--through all these, and numberless other phases of feeling and suffering, Katharine Guyon struggled friendless and alone. Pride ruled the girl outwardly, as much as love reigned in her inwardly; and the only person to whom she would have spoken, Mrs. Stanbourne, had left town suddenly, having been called away to a friend who was dangerously ill. Katharine might not have spoken to her indeed, had she been available for purposes of confidence--the calmness and steadiness of the lady's nature might have repelled her, for this was an unfortunate effect which those qualifies had frequently produced upon the impetuous and passionate young girl; but now that she was away, she felt that she would have done so, and regarded Mrs. Stanbourne's absence as an additional grievance and aggravation of the bitterness of her lot. The season was over, town was thinning fast, their own particular set had all broken up, and autumn engagements were either being eagerly discussed or busily entered upon. Days wore on--how wearily, they only who know how long time is to those who watch and wait, can tell--and Katharine did not see the face of Gordon Frere or hear his name. The girl changed visibly under the suffering of this period; the anxious look, so strange to her lustrous eyes, became fixed in them; the soft music of her laugh ceased to ring in the ears of her companions; her girlish gracefulness hardened into something defiant, very attractive to strangers, but which would have made one who loved her sad to see, and apprehensive for her future; but no one who loved her was there to watch the change in Katharine Guyon with prescient eyes.
The day was hot, sultry, breathless; the autumn had fairly set in, and beat fiercely upon the weary Londoners; the sense of oppression produced by the immense circumference of stone and brick was heavy upon such of the world as had any chance of escaping from it. Such as had no chance probably did not like it; "but then," in homely expressive speech, they had to "lump it;" and very few were likely to trouble themselves about them. The last flicker of the gaieties of the season had died out; and even Mr. Guyon had found it impossible to get up a Greenwich dinner-party to comprise more than four individuals, including Robert Streightley and Daniel Thacker. He had avoided his daughter as much as possible of late; and Mr. Streightley had sedulously sought her society, with every kind of tacit encouragement within her father's power to give him. It was the day named for the Greenwich dinner; and Katharine, glad to be alone, and yet feverish and miserable in her solitude, had refused to go to Lady Henmarsh's, there to hold a causerie on their several autumn plans.
"She will drag poor old Sir Timothy to some German baths or French watering-place, and she wants me to back her up in the cruelty," thought Katharine, as she contemptuously twisted up the note, which had contained the invitation, and desired Lady Henmarsh's page to tell his mistress she was busy and could not come; "but I won't. Why can't she go down to Deanthorpe and keep quiet?" She had been dawdling over her luncheon and feeding her Skye terrier, without taking any interest in either occupation; and she now leaned idly against the window-frame and gazed out wearily. She saw the hot, baked streets; she saw the poor old woman opposite sitting by her basket of full-blown blowsy nosegays, sheltering them and herself under the shade of a huge umbrella, fallen from its high estate on some family coach-box, and displaying sundry patches ignominious in their discrepancy with each other and general incongruity with the original fabric. The old woman was yawning, and sleeping by snatches, and Katharine's impatient weariness was increased by watching her. She turned away, and went upstairs to her own room. A newspaper lay on the table in the hall, and she took it up mechanically, and carried it with her. Her own room was spacious and airy, and physical ease and refreshment at least came to her with its stillness and its shade.
She sat down in an arm-chair by the window, and fell a-thinking on the invariable subject; wondering, yearning, raging, as she had done now for days which had run on into weeks, during every hour which had not been tranquillised by the anodyne of sleep. After a while she looked idly at the newspaper in her hand; and in a few minutes her eyes lighted on a paragraph which announced the departure of Lord A---- as British chargé d'affaires to the court of F----, accompanied by Mr. Gordon Frere, who attended his lordship in the character of private secretary, and a numerous suite.
Katharine Guyon was not a fainting woman. She had never fainted in her life, and hysterical affections she held in equal suspicion and disdain. No merciful weakness came to lessen the physical anguish she experienced, when these few lines conveyed to her shrinking soul the full assurance of the fate that had befallen her. The physical suffering of a sudden grief is always terrible, most terrible where strength reigns with tolerable equality in body and mind. Her flesh crept and burned; acute, agonising pain darted into her eyeballs, and transfixed them; a slow shivering anguish seized upon her limbs, and caused her lips to part and shudder over the clenched teeth. No cry escaped her, nor sound except a moan, half of mental pain, half of the deadly sickness, the actual nausea, which every one who has ever sustained a severe shock of pain or fear knows is its invariable accompaniment. Black rings formed themselves in the air, and dropped from under her eyes, into what seemed to her like infinite space. She wondered dimly whether this could be any thing like death; and sat there, so feeling, so wondering, she had no idea what length of time. Her maid came to her when the hour for dressing for dinner arrived, and found her pale, motionless, and tearless.
"I'm not well, Marwood," she said; "as papa is out, I need not go down. If you'll help me to undress, I will go to bed."
The woman was utterly surprised. Illness was unknown to Katharine's vigorous frame and eager spirit. She acknowledged that her mistress looked ill, and suggested sending James for a doctor.
"Not on any account," said Katharine; "I am suffering for my obstinacy in riding too long in the sun yesterday, and eating ices last night. I shall be quite well in the morning."
The woman assisted her to undress, and left her, and Katharine lay down in her bed, feeling as if she should never rise from it again. The evening fell, the beautiful autumn night succeeded the brief twilight, and the fair morning dawned, and still she lay quite motionless, tearless, sleepless; speechless too, but for one short sentence whose agony of anger and outraged feeling defied restraint. It sounded strangely in the quiet of the room:
"He was only amusing himself, after all. He dared to amuse himself with ME!"
Hester Gould had fulfilled her intention of finding out all she could about Robert Streightley's new friends, as she usually fulfilled all her intentions, quietly and completely. She had paid a friendly visit to Daniel Thacker's sisters, resident at Hampstead; and having timed her visit fortunately, or it would be more correct to say judiciously, she had met Daniel, and extracted from him all the information he was disposed to give. She was not in the least deceived in her estimate of his frankness; she knew that he had more to tell respecting Mr. Guyon and his handsome daughter (Mr. Thacker called her "stunning") than the general facts into the disclosure of which she led him; but she was not unreasonable, and she read character accurately. She had not seen much of Daniel Thacker; for not being mistress of her own time, she could rarely visit the dwellers at Corby House at the hours which found that gentleman in the bosom of his family; but she had seen enough of him to understand him much better than most of his acquaintances did, and to feel a comfortable assurance that she could gain an influence over him, if any thing should occur to make it worth her while to do so.
Daniel Thacker possessed at least one sterling virtue--he was an excellent brother. Nothing in reason and within the compass of his means did he deny the handsome, red-lipped, dark-browed girls, who strongly resembled him, and were even more Jewish-looking than he. They had a good house, a comfortable establishment, a sufficiency of society among their own persuasion generally, a sufficiency of theatre- and concert-going, and plenty of the savoury meat which their souls loved. They would have been happier perhaps--or they thought so--if their beloved brother, whom they devoutly believed to be the handsomest and most elegant man in Christendom or Jewry, had lived with them at Corby House; but he had fully explained the impossibility on "business" grounds, and the docile Hebrews, Rebecca and Rachel, acknowledged the plea without hesitation. They were among the firmest, warmest, and most useful of Hester Gould's friends, and they had been for a time her pupils. They had perseveringly spread her fame abroad among their habitués; and as music is an invariable taste among the Jews, and their musical entertainments are splendid and numerous, their praises had done her solid service, and Hester's time was fully filled by very lucrative engagements.
Rachel and Rebecca had been infinitely delighted by Hester's arrival to pass the evening with them, and had gushingly expressed their pleasure.
"Tuesday evening too, Daniel's evening: how delightful!--he hardly ever misses. I am so glad; isn't she a dear?" said Miss Rachel in a sort of monologue, while she applied her large red lips several times to Hester's olive cheek.
The calculations of the sisters did not deceive them. Daniel came, smooth, good-humoured, affectionate, and obliging; and they passed a very agreeable evening. Miss Gould had what she called a "confidential cab," which attended her on special occasions, of which this was one; and as she drove away, having accepted an invitation to accompany the sisters to a Botanical "promenade" (it was the last of the season they said, and dear Hester must come), she made a little calculation of the gain of her visit, thus:
"Mr. Guyon is a fast man out at elbows, and a great friend of Daniel Thacker's. That means that he is largely in Daniel's power. Miss Guyon is a handsome, high-spirited girl, much admired, and with no fortune. I can see that Daniel has no notion of her--he would be snubbed, rich as he is, I suspect, even by the out-at-elbows father. But he has seen Robert with Mr. Guyon, and for some reason or other--I don't know what reason yet--he is concerned in promoting a match between him and Miss Guyon. Can I prevent this? I fear not. We shall see; I must be most cautious not to purchase even a fair chance of doing so too dearly,"--here she thought intensely, and her brow clouded over heavily. "If I could find out that the girl does not care for him, I might make my way to her and put her on her guard; but suppose she does? No, no; I must not risk all until I know all."
Mr. Daniel Thacker's perfectly appointed brougham was conveying him rapidly to St. James's half-an-hour later; and as he smoked a choice cigar (part of a bankrupt lot dirt cheap at the price), he pulled his silky beard, and meditated upon Hester Gould and her questions.
"Knows Streightley and his mother and sister very well, does she? Thinks him a 'nice' man, but easily led--thinks his mother is so anxious he should marry, eh? Now what the deuce is her little game? Can't be to marry him herself, I should think, or she's just the woman to do it--to have done it long ago. Devilish nice girl; real good-looking, and a rasper for determination, I should say. 'Gad, I should like to see a good deal more of Hester Gould."
Mr. Guyon was not troubled with sensitive feelings, and bashfulness or hesitation in the carrying out of any project on whose execution he had decided were completely foreign to his character. He possessed a happy mixture of hardness and effrontery, which enabled him to do very cruel things with charming lightness of heart and an engaging unconsciousness of demeanour, which had occasionally even deluded his victims themselves into thinking his intentions more harmless than his acts. He was a man whom even remorse, the evil form of repentance, had never visited, and who had never believed in any agency more supernatural than luck. He had been accustomed to watch the variations of that divinity pretty closely, and had arrived at a sort of scheme of its operations; and just now he regarded good fortune as in the ascendant--a conviction which received signal confirmation by the success of his interview with Streightley. He had not distinctly acknowledged to himself that he dreaded finding an obstacle in Robert's conscientiousness; he had rather put his apprehensions to the score of the "City man's" pride.
"I can't pretend that she likes him, or that she does not like Frere," he had said over and over again, as he turned the hopeful project, which had succeeded so perfectly, in his mind. "He is not quite such a flat as to believe any thing of that sort. It all depends on his being satisfied to have the girl at any price; and he knows so little of the world and of women, that I do believe he'll be idiot enough to take her against her will. A pretty life she'll lead him; but that's no business of mine."
Mr. Guyon possessed one trivial and negative virtue--he never tried to deceive himself. Perhaps one reason why his hypocrisy had frequently been crowned with success was, that he reserved it entirely for his transactions, sternly extruding it from his meditations. Vis-à-vis Ned Guyon, he was the soul of candour. True to this characteristic, when screwing up his courage to the inevitable interview with his daughter, which was the next performance in his programme, Mr. Guyon did not try to persuade himself, as a more shallow scoundrel would have done, that he was in reality doing the very best thing within his power for her, and establishing, in truth, a clear claim to her gratitude. He did not repeat that the man she loved was a frivolous fellow, who could never fill the heart and the intellect of such a woman, and was unworthy of her affection. He said nothing to himself of all he had said to Robert Streightley. He knew nothing, and he cared nothing about Frere's character; and the consideration of Katharine's unhappiness did not concern him in the least.
"She will be very rich," he thought; "and if that does not make her happy, she is a greater fool than I take her for--a greater fool even than Streightley."
Callous and unhesitating as he was, nevertheless Mr. Guyon felt considerable apprehension about the impending explanation with Katharine. No material disagreement had ever taken place between his daughter and himself. He had always had a sense of Katharine's intellectual superiority which had governed him in certain respects; and an unexpressed unwillingness to rouse a temper which he felt a tacit conviction he could not rule had restrained him from opposing her unnecessarily; so that his daughter had always given him credit for much more amiability and complaisance than he actually possessed. He was not afraid of her in any actively restraining sense, or he would not have entertained such a design as that he was now prosecuting against her; but he was afraid of a war of words with her; he was afraid that her keenness might lead her to suspicion; above all, he dreaded her girlish ignorance, her disregard of wealth, when wealth only was what he had to urge upon her acceptance.
The announcement of Gordon Frere's departure was the cause of almost as profound an emotion to Mr. Guyon as to his daughter. To her it meant the extinction of hope, the blighting of joy, the outraging of love and pride, the awakening of passionate anger and agonising grief. To him it meant the termination of a period of most unpleasant suspense, during which he did not dare to take a step towards the furtherance of his plans, lest at any moment they might collapse, and defeat insure detection. But all had turned out rightly for him; he was safe; the young man--"the biggest fool of the lot" Mr. Guyon called him, with coarse contempt for the pliability of his victim--had received his sentence in silence and without protest, and had left England; a circumstance beyond Mr. Guyon's hopes, which had extended only to his keeping out of Katharine's way until the scheme should have succeeded.
On his return from the dinner at Greenwich, which had been rather tedious, and during which Robert Streightley's abstracted look and dispirited manner had excited Mr. Guyon's scorn and apprehension, inducing him to think that if there were much delay Robert might become troublesome and scrupulous after all, he, too, read in the evening journals the announcement which had come upon his daughter like the stroke of doom. Unmixed satisfaction was rapidly succeeded by a determination to act at once. He had seen as little as possible of Katharine for some time, pleading engagements and business when the rapid "thinning" of London prevented his procuring the presence of a third person to insure him against a tête-à-tête. But he had watched her; he had observed her restlessness, her anxiety, her abstraction and indifference. He had noted the shadow on her beauty, he had heard the harsh tone which now sounded in her voice, the unreal ring of her laugh,--had noted them without one touch of pity or hesitation, and been satisfied with the result. He recognised grief in all these symptoms, but he saw still more anger, pride, and defiance. Every thing that he observed gave him encouragement; and Lady Henmarsh, who did not know the whole truth, but had guessed at something very like it, had made satisfactory reports. She understood Katharine much better than her father understood her, and had played the irritating game, in his interests, with a charming air of unconsciousness, and complete success. The first thing to be done was to see Lady Henmarsh; and as she was going to take Sir Timothy out of town in a day or two, no time was to be lost. Mr. Guyon could be an early man when it suited his convenience, and it happened to do so just then. He presented himself at Lady Henmarsh's breakfast-table, much to the surprise and a little to the confusion of "cousin Hetty," who had never quite lost the habit of liking to look well for "cousin Ned," and was conscious that she might have looked better than on this occasion. But "cousin Ned" had neither time nor inclination for the revival of ci-devant sentiment, and Lady Henmarsh soon perceived that "business" engrossed him wholly.
"My dearest Kate," said Lady Henmarsh, as, three hours later, she entered Miss Guyon's room, and found her up and dressed, indeed, but sitting icily by her bedroom-window, and looking as though a month's illness had robbed her eyes of their lustre and her cheek of its bloom,--"what is wrong with you? Clarke tried to prevent my coming upstairs, but of course I knew you would see me. My dear girl, you look shockingly!"
"Do I?" said Katharine, forcing a smile; "I feel wretched enough. It is only the heat, I suppose, and the season. It is time for every one to leave town."
"Every one seems to think so," returned Lady Henmarsh; "except yourself and ourselves, almost every one is gone. I had such a number of callers yesterday, I was quite sick of them. So sorry you could not come round, dear; but you did quite right to keep quiet, if you did not feel well. By the way, Mr. Mostyn--I must not say your admirer, I suppose; but the gentleman who kindly permits you to admire him--came in while the Daventrys were there, and he looked quite sentimental when your message came. He actually condescended to ask why you did not go to Mrs. Tresillian's ball, and to say, but for Miss Guyon's absence, he should have pronounced it the best ball of the season. You know his formal way. I am sorry you missed it, Kate; they all agreed that it was a brilliant affair; and Lily Daventry was in ecstasies about it. To be sure she's new to balls; but how she did go on about Coote and Tinney's band and Gordon Frere's waltzing!"
Katharine winced. Lady Henmarsh played with a ring-stand, took up the rings one by one and examined them, keeping a close watch on the girl as she talked on.
"What a goose that girl is, to be sure, but so pretty! and if the men admire her so much, though she has not any sense, she is as well without it. What a flirt she is too! It amused me to watch her trying her ringlets and her attitudes upon Mr. Mostyn. Now that Gordon Frere--as great a flirt as herself--is out of the way, she tries her hand upon him; and he is so horribly vain, that though he was at the Tresillians' and saw her flirtation with Frere, he actually believes she is quite captivated. Why do you wear an opal ring, Kate? you were not born in October; it's unlucky, my dear."
"Is it?" said Katharine languidly. "I did not know. Are the Daventrys going to Leyton?"
"Yes, they start to-morrow. By the bye, I was so surprised at Gordon Frere's appointment; weren't you? I never heard him mention it, and yet it appears it had been settled a long time. I am sorry I did not see him when he called."
"How do you mean that his appointment was settled?" asked Katharine, with great self-command. Lady Henmarsh turned her head away from the dressing-table, and looked full at her, as she answered:
"Why, Lord A. had promised to take him as his private secretary, when his turn should come; you know those diplomatic people have their regular order of succession; he told Lily Daventry all about it at the Tresillians' ball. He had been idling through the season, he said, and amusing himself the best way he could, in anticipation of going to work in earnest. He rather thought he should have gone a little earlier; and to tell you the truth, Kate, I wish he had." There was meaning in the speaker's tone, and Katharine understood it. Her eye lighted angrily, as she asked, in the coldest possible voice:
"Indeed! may I ask you why Mr. Gordon Frere's movements are of interest to you, Lady Henmarsh?"
"Come, come, Kate, don't speak like that to me," said her friend; "you know perfectly well how dear you are to me, and what an interest I take in every thing that nearly or remotely concerns you. I'm sure you can't deny that, my dear."
A bend of the head, a softened expression in the face were the sole answer.
"And I must say," continued Lady Henmarsh, "I am very much mortified at the way Gordon Frere has set people talking about you."
"About me?"
"Yes, my dear, about you. He paid you very marked attention, and you received it with quite enough complacency to set people talking--don't be angry, Kate, I don't blame you; you were not to know that he meant nothing. And then, for you, and me, the nearest friend you had--a friend standing, in the eyes of the world, in the place of a mother--to be the only people of his acquaintance, as it appears we are, ignorant of the fact that he was going abroad immediately. Just suppose, Kate, you had cared for him as much as he tried to make you, and as I am very much afraid many people think you do! No, a male flirt is my abhorrence, and Gordon is one aux bouts des ongles. I assure you, Lady Daventry--and you know she is not at all an ill-natured woman, or given to scandal--asked some very unpleasant questions. I really wish I had seen the gentleman; every one else seems to have seen him. He was in town only three days, and I really believe he called in person on every one else, though he only left a card for Sir Timothy. Did he call here?" Lady Henmarsh asked the question very suddenly; and as Katharine answered it, her cheeks reddened with a painful blush, which did not fade again during the interview.
"No, Lady Henmarsh, he did not."
"Ah, I thought so. And now, my dear Kate, let me speak to you, as I feel, with the affection of a mother and the experience of a woman of the world. Gordon Frere has treated you very ill; he has exposed you to comments, very injurious and painful to any girl, still more so to a girl situated as you are. He might have made you miserable, as well as ridiculous, if he had succeeded in making you love him. Now you must defeat his unmanly triumph, and silence all the talk among our countless dear friends who are amusing themselves at your expense. Your being ill just now is peculiarly unfortunate; I know they will say you are shutting yourself up, and doing the Didone abbandonata. You have rather unfortunately good health, Katharine, for this sort of thing, and have long defied hot suns and iced creams too successfully to escape suspicion by pleading them now. I really wish, my dear girl, you would come out for a drive; there are still many people to see you--take an old woman's advice, Kate, and don't disdain precaution, because you are not conscious of its need. No one can afford to be laughed at; and if you are wise, you will reject Mr. Gordon Frere's legacy of ridicule."
Lady Henmarsh spoke earnestly and with much mental trepidation. She had ventured very, very far; much farther than, when she entered Katharine's room, she had believed she would dare to venture, for she too knew that Katharine had what her father called "a devil of a temper;" and there were few things she would not have preferred to rousing it. But the silence of the girl, something of forlornness under her pride, the patience with which she had borne her first approaches, had given Lady Henmarsh courage, and Katharine's demeanour satisfied her that all her suspicions had been more than just, that she had loved Gordon Frere frankly, fully, and with all the truth and ardour which were characteristic of her better nature. A moment's silence ensued when she had ceased speaking, and then Katharine, stately, cold, and graceful, rose from her chair, and, placing her hand upon the bell to summon her maid, said:
"I appreciate your kindness and your advice, Lady Henmarsh. If you will come back for me in half an hour, I will go with you any where you please. But--this subject must never be spoken of again between you and me."
Katharine's maid entered the room, and Lady Henmarsh left it, merely saying in an assenting tone, "Very well, my dear," and descended the stairs to the hall. There she met Mr. Guyon, who attended her to her carriage with great solicitude. A whisper only passed between them, for they treated servants with systematic caution. It was from Lady Henmarsh, who said:
"I don't think you will have much trouble, Ned."
Several persons of her acquaintance met Miss Guyon driving in the Park that afternoon, and had ample leisure to observe her amid the diminished throng. A few regarded her with curiosity--for though Lady Henmarsh had grossly exaggerated the facts, she and Gordon Frere had been "talked of" in their own set--many with admiration, and remarked that she looked particularly well and blooming, not at all cut up by the season. None knew that something had gone out of the beautiful face that was never to return to it--that the woman they admired that day was not the same they had been accustomed to see and to admire, but who was now a thing of the past, never more to have any terrene existence.