Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) by Charlotte M Yonge (page 6)

laughing mood, that she would neither sleep herself nor let the rest do so; and Kitty rose up out of her crib, and lectured us all. Now, don’t wake them–no, you must not even kiss the twin cherries; for if they have one of papa’s riots, they will hardly sleep all night.’

‘Then you must take me away; it is like going into a flower-garden, and being told not to gather.’

‘Charlotte is almost ready to come to them, and in the meantime here is something for you to criticise,’ said she, taking from the recess of her matronly workbasket a paper with a pencilled poem, on the Martyrs of Carthage, far more terse and expressive than anything she used to write when composition was the object of the day. James read and commented, and was disappointed when they broke off short–

‘Ah! there baby woke.’

‘Some day I shall give you a subject. Do you know how Sta. Francesca Romana found in letters of gold the verse of the Psalm she had been reading, and from which she had been five times called away to attend to her household duties?’

‘I thought you were never to pity me again–‘

‘Do you call that pitying you?’

‘Worse,’ said Isabel, smiling.

‘Well, then, what I came for was to ask if you can put on your bonnet, and take a walk in the lanes this lovely evening.’

A walk was a rare treat to the busy mother, and, with a look of delight, she consented to leave her mending and her children to Charlotte. There seldom were two happier beings than that pair, as they wandered slowly, arm-in-arm, in the deep green lanes, in the summer twilight, talking sometimes of the present, sometimes of the future, but with the desultory, vague speculation of those who feared little because they knew how little there was to fear.

‘It is well they are all girls,’ said James, speaking of that constant topic, the children; ‘we can manage their education pretty well, I flatter myself, by the help of poor Clara’s finishing governess, as Louis used to call you.’

‘If the edge of my attainments be not quite rusted off. Meantime, you teach Kitty, and I teach nothing.’

‘You don’t lose your singing. Your voice never used to be so sweet.’

‘It keeps the children good. But you should have seen Kitty chaunting ‘Edwin and Angelina’ to the twins this morning, and getting up an imitation of crying at ‘turn Angelina, ever dear,’ because, she said, Charlotte always did.’

‘That is worth writing to tell Fitzjocelyn! It will be a great disappointment if they have to stay abroad all this winter; but he seems to think it the only chance of his father getting thoroughly well, so I suppose there is little hope of him. I should like for him to see Kitty as she is now, she is so excessively droll!’

‘Yes; and it must be a great deprivation to have to leave all his farm to itself, just as it is looking so well; only he makes himself happy with whatever he is doing.’

‘How he would enjoy this evening! I never saw more perfect rest!’

‘Yes;–the sounds of the town come through the air in a hush! and the very star seems to twinkle quietly!’

They stood still without speaking to enjoy that sense of stillness and refreshment, looking up through the chestnut boughs that overshadowed the deep dewy lane, where there was not air enough even to waft down the detached petals of the wild rose.

‘Such moments as these must be meant to help one on,’ said James, ‘to hinder daily life from running into drudgery.’

‘And it is so delightful to have a holiday given, now and then, instead of having a life all holiday. Ah! there’s a glow-worm–look at the wonder of that green lamp!’

‘I must show it to Kitty,’ said James, taking it up on a cushion of moss.

‘Her acquaintance will begin earlier than mine. Do you remember showing me my first glow-worm at Beauchastel? I used to think that the gem of my walks, before I knew better. It is a great treat to have poor Walter here in the holidays, so good and pleasant; but I must say one charm is the pleasure of being alone together afterwards.’

‘A pleasure it is well you do not get tired of, my dear, and I am afraid it will soon be over for the present. I do believe that is Richardson behind us! An attorney among the glow-worms is more than I expected.’

‘Good evening, sir,’ said the attorney, coming up with them; ‘is Mrs. Frost braving the dew?’ And then, after some moments, ‘Have you heard from your sister lately, Mr. Frost?’

‘About three weeks ago.’

‘She did not mention then,’ said Mr. Richardson, hesitating, ‘Mr. Dynevor’s health?’

‘No! Have you heard anything?’

‘I thought you might wish to be aware of what I learnt from, I fear, too good authority. It appears that Mr. Dynevor paid only a part of the purchase-money of the estate, giving security for the rest on his property in Peru; and now, owing to the failure of the Equatorial Steam Navigation Company, Mr. Dynevor is, I fear, actually insolvent.’

‘Did you say he was ill?’

‘I heard mentioned severe illness–paralytic affection; but as you have not heard from Miss Clara, I hope it may be of no importance.’

After a few more inquiries, and additional information being elicited, good-nights were exchanged, and Mr. Richardson passed on. At first neither spoke, till Isabel said–

‘And Clara never wrote!’

‘She would identify herself too much with her uncle in his misfortune. Poor dear child! what may she not be undergoing!’

‘You will go to her?’

‘I must. Whether my uncle will forgive me or not, to Clara I must go. Shall I write first ?’

‘Oh! no; it will only make a delay, and your uncle might say ‘don’t come.”

‘Right; delay would prolong her perplexities. I will go to-morrow, and Mr. Holdsworth will see to the workhouse people.’

His alert air showed how grateful was any excuse that could take him to Clara, the impulse of brotherly love coming uppermost of all his sensations. Then came pity for the poor old man whose cherished design had thus crumbled, and the anxious wonder whether he would forgive, and deign to accept sympathy from his nephew.

‘My dear,’ said James, doubtfully; ‘supposing, what I hardly dare to imagine, that he should consent, what should you say to my bringing him here?

‘I believe it would make you happy,’ said Isabel. ‘Oh! yes, pray do- -and then we should have Clara.’

‘I should rejoice to offer anything like reparation, though I do not dare to hope it will be granted; and I do not know how to ask you to break up the home comfort we have prized so much.’

‘It will be all the better comfort for your mind being fully at ease; and I am sure we should deserve none at all, if we shut our door against him now that he is in distress. You must bring him, poor old man, and I will try with all my might to behave well to him.’

‘It is a mere chance; but I am glad to take your consent with me. As to our affording it, I suppose he may have, at the worst, an allowance from the creditors, so you will not have to retrench anything.’

‘Don’t talk of that, dearest. We never knew how little we could live on till we tried; and if No. 12 is taken, and you are paid for the new edition of the lectures, and Walter’s pay besides–‘

‘And Sir Hubert,’ added James.

‘Of course we shall get on,’ said Isabel. ‘I am not in the least afraid that the little girls will suffer, if they do live a little harder for the sake of their old uncle. I only wish you had had your new black coat first, for I am afraid you won’t now.’

‘You need not reckon on that. I don’t expect that I shall be allowed the comfort of doing anything for him. But see about them I must. Oh, may I not be too late!’

Early the next morning James was on his way, travelling through the long bright summer day; and when, after the close, stifling railway carriage, full of rough, loud-voiced passengers, he found himself in the cool of the evening on the bare heath, where the slanting sunbeams cast a red light, he was reminded by every object that met his eye of the harsh and rebellious sensations that he had allowed to reign over him at his last arrival there, which had made him wrangle over the bier of one so loving and beloved, and exaggerate the right till it wore the semblance of the wrong.

By the time he came to the village, the parting light was shining on the lofty church tower, rising above the turmoil and whirl of the darkening world below, almost as sacred old age had lifted his grandmother into perpetual peace and joy, above the fret and vexation of earthly cares and dissensions. The recollection of her confident trust that reconciliation was in store, came to cheer him as he crossed the park, and the aspect of the house assured him that at least he was not again too late.

The servant who answered the bell said that Mr. Dynevor was very ill, and Miss Dynevor could see no one. James sent in his card, and stood in an agony of impatience, imagining all and more than all he deserved, to have taken place–his uncle either dying, or else forcibly withholding his sister from him.

At last there was a hurried step, and the brother and sister were clasping each other in speechless joy.

‘O Jem! dear Jem! this is so kind!’ cried Clara, as with arms round each other they crossed the hall. ‘Now I don’t care for anything!’

‘My uncle?’

‘Much better,’ said Clara; ‘he speaks quite well again, and his foot is less numb.’

‘Was it paralysis?’

‘Yes; brought on by trouble and worry of mind. But how did you know, Jem?’

‘Richardson told me. Oh, Clara, had I offended too deeply for you to summon me?’

‘No, indeed,’ said Clara, pressing his arm, ‘I knew you would help us as far as you could; but to throw ourselves on you would be robbing the children, so I wanted to have something fixed before you heard.’

‘My poor child, what could be fixed?’

‘You gave me what is better than house and land,’ said Clara. ‘I wrote to Miss Brigham; she will give me employment in the school till I can find a place as daily governess, and she is to take lodgings for us.’

‘And is this what it has come to, my poor Clara?’

‘Oh, don’t pity me! my heart has felt like an India-rubber ball ever since the crash. Even poor Uncle Oliver being so ill could not keep me from feeling as if the burthen were off my back, and I were little Clara Frost again. It seemed to take away the bar between us; and so it has! O Jem! this is happiness. Tell me of Isabel and the babies.’

‘You will come home to them. Do you think my uncle would consent?’

She answered with an embrace, a look of rapture and of doubt, and then a negative. ‘Oh, no, we cannot be a burthen on you. You have quite enough on your hands. And, oh! you have grown so spare and thin. I mean to maintain my uncle, if–‘ and her spirited bearing softened into thoughtfulness, as if the little word conveyed that she meant not to be self-confident.

‘But, Clara, is this actual ruin? I know only what Richardson could tell me.’

‘I do not fully understand,’ said Clara. ‘It had been plain for a long time that something was on Uncle Oliver’s mind; he was so restless all the winter at Paris, and at last arranged our coming home very suddenly. I think he was disappointed in London, for he went out at once, and came back very much discomposed. He even scolded me for not having married; and when I tried to coax him out of it, he said it was for my good, and he wanted to see after his business in Peru. I put him in mind how dear granny had begged him to stay at home; but he told me I knew nothing about it, and that he would have gone long ago if I had not been an obstinate girl, and had known how to play my cards. I said something about going home, but that made him more furious than ever. But, after all, it is not fair to tell all about the last few months. Dr. Hastings says his attack had been a long time coming on, and he must have been previously harassed.’

‘And you had to bear with it all?’

‘He was never unkind. Oh, no; but it was sad to see him so miserable, and not to know why–and so uncertain, too! Sometimes he would insist on giving grand parties, and yet he was angry with the expense of my poor little pony-carriage. I don’t think he always quite knew what he was about; and while he hoped to pull through, I suppose he was afraid of any one guessing at his embarrassments. On this day fortnight he was reading his letters at breakfast–I saw there was something amiss, and said something stupid about the hot rolls, because he could not bear me to notice. I think that roused him, for he got up, but he tottered, and by the time I came to him he seemed to slip down into my arms, quite insensible. The surgeon in the village bled him, and he came to himself, but could not speak. I had almost sent for you then, but Dr. Hastings came, and thought he would recover, and I did not venture. Indeed, Jane forbade me; she is a sort of lioness and her whelps. Well, the next day came Mr. Morrison, who is the Mr. Richardson to this concern, and by-and-by he asked to see me. He kept the doctor in the next room. I believe he thought I should faint or make some such performance, for he began about his painful duty, and frightened me lest my poor uncle should be worse, only he was not the right man to tell me. So at last it came out that we were ruined, and I was not an heiress at all, at all! If it had not been for poor Uncle Oliver, I should have cried ‘Hurrah!’ I did nearly laugh to hear him complimenting my firmness. I believe the history is this:–Hearing that this place was for sale, brought Uncle Oliver home before his affairs could well do without him. He paid half the price, and promised to pay the rest in three years, giving security on the mines and the other property in Peru; but somehow the remittances have never come properly, and he trusted to some great success with the Equatorial Company to set things straight, but it seems that it has totally failed, and that was the news that overthrew him. Then the creditors, who had been put off with hopes, all came down on him together, and there seems to be nothing to be done but to give up everything to them. Poor Uncle Oliver!–I sat watching him that evening, and thinking how Louis would say the sea had swept away his whole sand castle with one wave.’

‘Does he know it? Have any steps been taken?’

‘Mr. Morrison showed me what my poor uncle had done. He had really executed a deed giving me the whole estate; he would have borne all the disgrace and persecution himself–for you know it would have been a most horrible scrape, as he had given them security on property that was not really secure. Mr. Morrison said the deed would hold, and that he would bring me counsel’s opinion if I liked. But, oh, Jem! I was so thankful that my birthday was over, and I was my own woman! I made him draw up a paper, and I signed it, undertaking that they shall have quiet possession provided they will come to an amicable settlement, and not torment my uncle.’

‘I hope he is a man of sense, who will make the best terms?’

‘You may see to that now. I’m sure he is a man of compliments. He tells me grand things about my disinterestedness, and the creditors and they have promised to let us stay unmolested as long as I please, which will be only till my uncle can move, for I must get rid of all these servants and paraphernalia, and in the meantime they are concocting the amicable adjustment, and Mr. Morrison said he should try to stipulate for a maintenance for my uncle, but he was not sure of it, without giving up what may yet come from Peru. Jane’s annuity is safe–that is a comfort! What work I had to make her believe it! and now she wants us all to live upon it.’

‘That was a rare and beautiful power by which my grandmother infused such faithful love into all her dependants. But now for the person really to be pitied.’

‘It was only three days ago that it was safe to speak of it, but then he had grown so anxious that the doctors said I must begin. So I begged and prayed him to forgive me, and then told what I had done, and he was not so very angry. He only called me a silly child, and said I did not know what I had done in those few days that I had been left to myself. So I told him dear granny had had it, and that was all that signified, and that I never had any right here. Then,’ said Clara, tearfully, ‘he began to cry like a child, and said at least she had died in her own home, and he called me Henry’s child: and then Jane came and turned me out, and wont let me go near him unless I promise to be good and say nothing. But I must soon; for however she pats him, and says, ‘Don’t, Master Oliver,’ I see his mind runs on nothing else, and the doctor says he may soon hear the plans, and be moved.’

‘Can you venture to tell him that I am here?’

Before Clara could answer, Jane opened the door–‘Miss Clara, your uncle;’ and there she stopped, at the unexpected sight of the brother and sister still hand in hand. ‘Here, Jane, do you see him?’ cried Clara; and James came forward with outstretched hand, but he was not graciously received.

‘Now, Master James, you ain’t coming here to worrit your poor uncle?’

‘No, indeed, Jane. I am come in the hope of being of some use to him.’

‘I’d rather by half it had been Lord Fitzjocelyn,’ muttered Jane, ‘he was always quieter.’

‘Now, Jane, you should not be so cross,’ cried Clara, ‘when it is your own Jemmy, come on purpose to help and comfort us all! You are going to tell Uncle Oliver, and make him glad to see him, as you know you are.’

‘I know,’ said James, ‘that last time I was here, I behaved ill enough to make you dread my presence, Jane; but I have learnt and suffered a good deal since that time, and I wish for nothing so much as for my uncle’s pardon.’

Mrs. Beckett would have been more impressed, had she ever ceased to think of Master Jemmy otherwise than as a self-willed but candid boy; and she answered as if he had been throwing himself on her mercy after breaking a window, or knocking down Lord Fitzjocelyn–

‘Well, sir, that is all you can say. I’m glad you are sorry. I’ll see if I can mention, it to your uncle.’

Off trotted Jane, while Clara’s indignation and excited spirits relieved themselves by a burst of merry laughter, as she hung about her brother, and begged to hear of the dear old home.

The old servant, in her simplicity, went straight upstairs, and up to her nursling, as he had again become. ‘Master Oliver,’ said she, ‘he is come. Master Jem is come back, and ‘twould do your heart good to see how happy the children are together–just like you and poor Master Henry.’

‘Did she ask him here?’ said Mr. Dynevor, uneasily.

‘No, sir, he came right out of his own head, because he thought she would feel lost.’

Oliver vouchsafed no reply, and Jane pressed no farther. He never alluded to his guest; but when Clara came into the room, his eye dwelt on her countenance of bright content and animation, and the smiles that played round her lips as she sat silent. Her voice was hushed in the sick-room, but he heard it about the house with the blithe, lively ring that had been absent from it since he carried her away from Northwold; and her steps danced upstairs, and along the galleries, with the light, bounding tread unknown to the constrained, dignified Miss Dynevor. Ah the notice he took that night was to say, petulantly, when Clara was sitting with him, ‘Don’t stay here; you want to be down-stairs.’

‘Oh, no, dear uncle, I am come to stay with you. I don’t want, in the least, to be anywhere but here.’

He seemed pleased, although he growled; and next morning Jane reported that he had been asking for how long his nephew had come, and saying he was glad that Miss Dynevor had someone to look after her–a sufferance beyond expectation. In his helpless state, Jane had resumed her nursery relations with him; and he talked matters over with her so freely that it was well that the two young people were scarcely less her children, and had almost an equal share of her affection, so that Clara felt that matters might be safely trusted in her hands.

Clara’s felicity could hardly be described, with her fond affections satisfied by her brother’s presence, and her fears of managing ill, removed by reliance on him; and many as were the remaining cases, and great as was the suspense lest her uncle should still nourish resentment, nothing could overcome the sense of restored joy ever bubbling up, not even the dread that James might not bear patiently with continued rebuffs. But James was so much more gentle and tolerant than she had ever known him, that at first she could not understand missing the retort, the satire, the censure which had seemed an essential part of her brother. She was always instinctively guarding against what never happened, or if some slight demonstration flashed out, he caught himself up, and asked pardon before she had perceived anything, till she began to think marriage had altered him wonderfully, and almost to owe Isabel a grudge for having cowed his spirit. She could hardly believe that he was waiting so patiently in the guise of a suppliant, when she thought him in the right from the first; though she could perceive that the task was easier now that the old man was in adversity, and she saw that he regarded his exclusion from his uncle’s room in the light of a just punishment, to be endured with humility.

James, on his side, was highly pleased with his sister. Having only seen her as the wild, untamed Giraffe, he was by no means prepared for the dignity and decision with which Miss Dynevor reigned over the establishment. Her tall figure, and the simple, straightforward ease of her movements and manners, seemed made to grace those large, lofty rooms; and as he watched her playing the part of mistress of the house so naturally in the midst of the state, the servants, the silver covers, and the trappings, he felt that heiress-ship became her so well, that he could hardly believe that her tenure there was over, and unregretted. ‘Even Isabel could not do it better,’ he said, smiling; and she made a low curtsey for the compliment, and laughed back, ‘I’m glad you have come to see my performance. It has been a very long, dull pageant, and here comes Mr. Morrison, I hope with the last act.’

Morrison was evidently much relieved that Miss Dynevor should have some relative to advise with, since he did not like the responsibility of her renunciation, though owning that it was the only thing that could save her uncle from disgraceful ruin, and perhaps from prosecution; whereas now the gratitude and forbearance of the creditors were secured, and he hoped that Mr. Dynevor might be set free from the numerous English involvements, without sacrificing his remaining property in Peru. The lawyer seemed to have no words to express to James his sense of Miss Dynevor’s conduct in the matter, her promptitude and good sense having apparently struck him as much as her generosity, and there was no getting him to believe, as Clara wished, that the sacrifice was no sacrifice at all–nothing, as she said, but ‘common honesty and a great riddance.’ He promised to take steps in earnest for the final settlement with the creditors; and though still far from the last act, Clara began to consider of hastening her plans. It was exceedingly doubtful whether Oliver would hear of living at Dynevor Terrace, and Clara could not be separated from him; besides which, she was resolved that her brother should not be burthened, and she would give James no promises, conditional or otherwise.

Mr. Dynevor had discovered that Morrison had been in the house, and was obviously restless to know what had taken place. By-and-by he said to Jane, with an air of inquiry, ‘Why does not the young man come near me?’

Mrs. Beckett was too happy to report the invitation, telling ‘Master Jem’ at the same time that ‘he was not to rake up nothing gone and past; there was quite troubles enough for one while.’ Clara thought the same, and besides was secretly sure that if he admitted that he had been wrong in part, his uncle would imagine him to mean that he had been wrong in the whole. Their instructions and precautions were trying to James, whose chaplaincy had given him more experience of the sick and the feeble than they gave him credit for; but he was patient enough to amaze Clara and pacify Jane, who ushered him into the sick-chamber. There, even in his worst days, he must have laid aside ill-feeling at the aspect of the shrunken, broken figure in the pillowed arm-chair, prematurely aged, his hair thin and white, his face shrivelled, his eyelid drooping, and mouth contracted. He was still some years under sixty; but this was the result of toil and climate–of the labour generously designed, but how conducted, how resulting?

He had not learned to put out his left hand–he only made a sharp nod, as James, with tender and humble respect, approached, feeling that, how his grandmother was gone, this frail old man, his father’s brother, was the last who claimed by right his filial love and gratitude. How different from the rancour and animosity with which he had met his former advances!

He ventured gently on kindly hopes that his uncle was better, and they were not ill taken, though not without fretfulness. Presently Oliver said, ‘Come to look after your sister? that’s right–good girl, good girl!’

‘That she is!’ exclaimed James, heartily.

‘Too hasty! too great hurry,’ resumed Oliver; ‘she had better have waited, saved the old place,–never mind what became of the old man, one-half dead already.’

‘She would not have been a Clara good for much, if she had treated you after that fashion, sir,’ said James, smiling.

He gave his accustomed snort. ‘The mischief a girl let alone can do in three days, when once she’s of age, and one can’t stop her! Women ought never to come of age, ain’t fit for it, undo all the work of my lifetime with a stroke of her pen!’

‘For your sake, sir!’

‘Pshaw! Pity but she’d been safe married–tied it up well with settlements then out of her power. Can’t think what that young Fitzjocelyn was after–it ain’t the old affair. Ponsonby writes me that things are to be settled as soon as Ward comes back.’

‘Indeed!’

‘Aye, good sort of fellow–no harm to have him in our concerns–I hope he’ll look into the accounts, and find what Robson is at. After all, I shall soon be out there myself, and make Master Robson look about him. Mad to allow myself to stay–but I’ll wait no longer. Morrison may put the fellows off’–I’ll give him a hint; we’ll save the place, after all, when I once get out to Lima. If only I knew what to do with that girl!’

James could not look at him without a conviction that he would never recover the use of his hand and foot; but this was no time to discourage his spirits, and the answer was–‘My sister’s natural home would be with me.’

‘Ha! the child would like it, I suppose. I’d make a handsome allowance for her. I shall manage that when my affairs are in my own hands; but I may as well write to the mountains as to Ponsonby. Aye, aye! Clara might go to you. She’ll have enough any way to be quite worth young Fitzjocelyn’s while, you may tell him. That mine in the San Benito would retrieve all, and I’ll not forget. Pray, how many children have you by this time?’

‘Four little girls, sir,’ said James, restraining the feeling which was rising in the contact with his uncle, revealing that both were still the same men.

‘Hm! No time lost, however! Well, we shall see! Any way, an allowance for Clara’s board won’t hurt. What’s your notion?’

James’s notion was profound pity for the poor old man. ‘Indeed, sir,’ he said, ‘Clara is sure to be welcome. All we wish is, that you would kindly bring her to us at once. Perhaps you would find the baths of service; we would do our utmost to make you comfortable, and we are not inhabiting half the house, so that there would be ample space to keep the children from inconveniencing you.’

‘Clara is set on it, I’ll warrant.’

‘Clara waits to be guided by your wishes; but my wife and I should esteem it as the greatest favour you could do us.’

‘Ha! we’ll see what I can manage. I must see Morrison’–and he fell into meditation, presently breaking from it to say fretfully, ‘I say, Roland, would you reach me that tumbler?’

Never had James thought to be grateful for that name! He would gladly have been Roland Dynevor for the rest of his days, if he could have left behind him the transgressions of James Frost! But the poor man’s shattered thoughts had been too long on the stretch; and, without further ceremony, Jane came in and dismissed his nephew.

Clara hardly trusted her ears when she was told shortly after, by her uncle, that they were to go to Northwold. Roland wished it; and, poor fellow! the board and lodging were a great object to him. He seemed to have come to his senses now it was too late; and if Clara wished it, and did not think it dull, there she might stay while he himself was gone to Lima.

‘A great object the other way,’ Clara had nearly cried, in her indignation that James could not be supposed disinterested in an invitation to an old man, who probably was destitute.

Brother and uncle appeared to have left her out of the consultation; but she was resolved not to let him be a burthen on those who had so little already, and she called her old friend Jane to take counsel with her, whether it would not be doing them an injury to carry him thither at all. So much of Jane’s heart as was not at Cheveleigh was at Dynevor Terrace, and her answer was decided.

‘To be sure, Miss Clara, nothing couldn’t be more natural.’

‘Nothing, indeed, but I can’t put them to trouble and expense.’

‘I’ll warrant,’ said Jane, ‘that I’ll make whatever they have go twice as far as Charlotte ever will. Why, you know I keeps myself; and for the rest, it will be a mere saving to have me in the kitchen! There’s no air so good for Master Oliver.’

‘I see you mean to go, Jane,’ said Clara. ‘Now, I have to look out for myself.’

‘Bless me, Miss Clara, don’t you do nothing in a hurry. Go home quiet and look about you.’

Jane had begun to call Northwold home; and, in spite of her mournings over the old place, Clara thought she had never been so happy there as in her present dominion over Master Oliver, and her prospects of her saucepans and verbenas at No. 5.

Poor Oliver! what a scanty measure of happiness had his lifelong exertions produced! Many a human sacrifice has been made to a grim and hollow idol, failing his devotees in time of extremity. Had it not been thus with Oliver Dynevor’s self-devotion to the honour of his family?

CHAPTER XIX.

FAREWELL TO GREATNESS.

Soon from the halls my fathers reared Their scutcheons must descend.
Scott

Mr. Holdsworth contrived to set James at liberty for a fortnight, and he was thus enabled to watch over the negotiation, and expedite matters for the removal. The result was, that the resignation of the estate, furniture, and of Clara’s jewels, honourably cleared off the debts contracted in poor Mr. Dynevor’s eagerness to reinstate the family in all its pristine grandeur, and left him totally dependent on whatever might be rescued in Peru. He believed this to be considerable, but the brother and sister founded little hopes on the chance; as, whatever there might be, had been entangled in the Equatorial Company, and nothing could be less comprehensible than Mr. Robson’s statements.

Clara retained her own seventy pounds per annum, which, thrown into the common stock, would, James assured her, satisfy him, in a pecuniary point of view, that he was doing no wrong to his children; though he added, that even if there had been nothing, he did not believe they would ever be the worse for what might be spent on their infirm old uncle.

Notice was sent to Isabel to prepare, and she made cordial reply that the two rooms on the ground-floor were being made ready for Mr. Dynevor, and Clara’s own little room being set in order; Miss Mercy Faithfull helping with all her might, and little Kitty stamping about, thinking her services equally effectual.

Oliver was in haste to leave a place replete with disappointment and failure, and was so helpless and dependent as to wish for his nephew’s assistance on the journey; and it was, therefore, fixed for the end of James’s second week. No one called to take leave, except the Curate and good Mr. Henderson, who showed Clara much warm, kind feeling, and praised her to her brother.

She begged James to walk with her for a farewell visit to her grandmother’s other old friend. Great was her enjoyment of this expedition; she said she had not had a walk worth having since she was at Aix-la-Chapelle, and liberty and companionship compensated for all the heat and dust in the dreary tract, full of uncomfortable shabby-genteel abodes, and an unpromising population.

‘One cannot regret such a tenantry,’ said Clara.

‘Poor creatures!’ said James. ‘I wonder into whose hands they will fall. Your heart may be free, Clara; you have followed the clear path of duty; but it is a painful thought for me, that to strive to amend these festering evils, caused very likely by my grandfather’s speculations, might have been my appointed task. I should not have had far to seek for occupation. When I was talking to the Curate yesterday, my heart smote me to think what I might have done to help him.’

‘It would all have been over now.’

‘It ought not. Nay, perhaps, my presence might have left my uncle free to attend to his own concerns.’

‘I really believe you are going to regret the place!’

‘After all, Clara, I was a Dynevor before my uncle came home. It might have been my birthright. But, as Isabel says, what we are now is far more likely to be safe for the children. I was bad enough as I was, but what should I have been as a pampered heir! Let it go.’

‘Yes, let it go,’ said Clara; ‘it has been little but pain to me. We shall teach my poor uncle that home love is better than old family estates. I almost wish he may recover nothing in Peru, that he may learn that you receive him for his own sake.’

‘That is more than I can wish,’ said James. ‘A hundred or two a-year would come in handily. Besides, I am afraid that Mary Ponsonby may be suffering in this crash.’

‘She seems to have taken care of herself,’ said Clara. ‘She does not write to me, and I am almost ready to believe her father at last. I could not have thought it of her!’

‘Isabel has always said it was the best thing that could happen to Louis.’

‘Isabel never had any notion of Louis. I don’t mean any offence, but if she had known what he was made of, she would never have had you.’

‘Thank you, Clara! I always thought it an odd predilection, but no one can now esteem Fitzjocelyn more highly than ahe does.’

‘Very likely; but if she thinks Louis can stand Mary’s deserting him–‘

‘It will be great pain, no doubt; but once over, he will be free.’

‘It never will be over.’

‘That is young-ladyism.’

‘I never was a young lady, and I know what I mean. Mary may not be all he thinks her, and she may be dull enough to let her affection wear out; but I do not believe he will ever look at any one again, as he did after Mary on your wedding-day.’

‘So you forbid him to be ever happy again!’

‘Not at all, only in that one way. There are many others of being happy.’

‘That one way meaning marriage.’

‘I mean that sort of perfect marriage that, according to the saying, is made in heaven. Whether that could have been with Mary, I do not know her well enough to guess; but I am convinced that he will always have the same kind of memory of her that a man has of a first love, or first wife.’

‘It may have been a mistake to drive him into the attachment, which Isabel thinks has been favoured by absence, leaving scope for imagination; but I cannot give up the hope that his days of happiness are yet to come.’

‘Nor do I give up Mary, yet,’ said Clara. ‘Till she announces her defection I shall not believe it, for it would be common honesty to inform poor Louis, and in that she never was deficient.’

‘It is not a plant that seems to thrive on the Peruvian soil.’

‘No; and I am dreadfully afraid for Tom Madison. There were hints about him in Mr. Ponsonby’s letters, which make me very anxious; and from what my uncle says, it seems that there is such an atmosphere of gambling and trickery about his office, that he thinks it a matter of course that no one should be really true and honest.’

‘That would be a terrible affair indeed! I don’t know for which I should be most concerned, Louis or our poor little Charlotte. But after all, Clara, we have known too many falsehoods come across the Atlantic, to concern ourselves about anything without good reason.’

So they talked, enjoying the leisure the walk gave them for conversation, and then paying the painful visit, when Clara tried in vain to make it understood by the poor old lady that she was going away, and that James was her brother. They felt thankful that such decay had been spared their grandmother, and Clara sighed to think that her uncle might be on the brink of a like loss of faculties, and then felt herself more than ever bound to him.

On the way home they went together to the church, and pondered over the tombs of their ancestry,–ranging from the grim, defaced old knight, through the polished brass, the kneeling courtier, and the dishevelled Grief embracing an urn, down to the mural arch enshrining the dear revered name of Catharine, daughter of Roland, and wife of James Frost Dynevor, the last of her line whose bones would rest there. Her grave had truly been the sole possestion that her son’s labours had secured for her; that grave was the only spot at Cheveleigh that claimed a pang from Clara’s heart. She stood beside it with deep, fond, clinging love and reverence, but with no painful recollections to come between her and that fair, bright vision of happy old age. Alas! for the memories that her brother had sown to spring up round him now!

Apart from all these vipers of his own creating, James after all felt more in the cession of Cheveleigh than did his sister. These were days of change and of feudal feeling wearing out; but James, long as he had pretended to scorn ‘being sentimental about his forefathers,’ was strongly susceptible of such impressions; and he was painfully conscious of being disinherited. He might have felt thus, without any restoration or loss, as the mere effect of visiting his birthright as a stranger; but, as he received all humbly instead of proudly, the feeling did him no harm. It softened him into sympathy with his uncle, and tardy appreciation of his single-minded devotion to the estate, which he had won not for himself, but for others, only to see it first ungratefully rejected, and then snatched away. Then, with a thrill of humiliation at his own unworthiness, came the earnest prayer that it might yet be vouchsafed to him to tend the exhausted body, and train the contracted mind to dwell on that inheritance whence there could be no casting out.

Poor Oliver was fretful and restless, insisting on being brought down to his study to watch over the packing of his papers, and miserable at being unable to arrange them himself. Even the tenderest pity for him could not prevent him from being an exceeding trial; and James could hardly yet have endured it, but for pleasure and interest in watching his sister’s lively good-humour, saucy and determined when the old man was unreasonable, and caressing and affectionate, when he was violent in his impotence; never seeming to hear, see, or regard anything unkind or unpleasant; and absolutely pleased and gratified when her uncle, in his petulance, sometimes ungraciously rejected her services in favour of those of ‘Roland,’ who, he took it for granted, must, as a man, have more sense. It would sometimes cross James, how would Isabel and the children fare with this ill-humour; but he had much confidence in his wife’s sweet calm temper, and more in the obvious duty; and, on the whole, he believed it was better not to think about it.

The suffering that the surrender cost Oliver was only shown in this species of petty fractiousness, until the last morning, when his nephew was helping him across the hall, and Clara close at his side, he made them stand still beside one of the pillars, and groaned as he said, ‘Here I waited for the carriage last time! Here I promised to get it back again!’

‘I wish every one kept promises as you did,’ said James, looking about for something cheerful to say.

‘I had hope then,’ said Oliver; and well might he feel the contrast between the youth, with such hopes, energies, and determination mighty within him, and the broken and disappointed man.

‘Hope yet, and better hope!’ James could not help saying.

‘Not while there’s such a rascal in the office at Lima,’ cried Oliver, testily.

‘Oh! Uncle Oliver, he did not mean that!’ exclaimed Clara.

Mr. Dynevor grumbled something about parsons, which neither of them chose to hear; and Clara cut it short by saying, ‘After all, Uncle Oliver, you have done it all! Dear grandmamma came back and was happy here, and that was all that signified. You never wanted it for yourself, you know, and my dear father was not here to have it. And for you, what could you have had more than your nephew and niece to– to try to be like your children! And hadn’t you rather have them without purchase than with?’ And as she saw him smile in answer to her bright caress, she added merrily, ‘There’s nothing else to pity but the fir trees and gold fish; and as they have done very happily before without the Pendragon reign, I dare any they will again; so I can’t be very sorry for them!’

This was Clara’s farewell to her greatness, and cheerily she enlivened her uncle all the way to London, and tried to solace him after the interviews that he insisted on with various men of business, and which did not tend to make him stronger in health or spirits through the next day’s journey.

The engine whistled its arriving shriek at Northwold. Happy Clara! What was the summer rain to her? Every house, every passenger, were tokens of home; and the damp rain-mottled face of the Terrace, looking like a child that had been crying, was more welcome to her longing eyes than ever had been lake or mountain.

Isabel and little Catharine stood on the step; but as Mr. Dynevor was lifted out, the little girl shrank out of sight with a childish awe of infirmity. The dining-room had been made a very comfortable sitting-room for him, and till he was settled there, nothing else could be attended to; but he was so much fatigued, that it was found best to leave him entirely to Jane; and Clara, after a few moments, followed her brother from the room.

As she shut the door, she stood for some seconds unobserved, and unwilling to interfere with the scene before her. Halfway upstairs, James had been pulled down to sit on the steps, surrounded by his delighted flock. The baby was in his arms, flourishing her hands as he danced her; Kitty, from above, had clasped tightly round his neck, chattering and kissing with breathless velocity; one twin in front was drumming on his knee, and shrieking in accordance with every shout of the baby; and below, leaning on the balusters, stood their mother’s graceful figure, looking up at them with a lovely smiling face of perfect gladness. She was the first to perceive Clara; and, with a pretty gesture to be silent, she pointed to the stand of the Wedgewood jar, under which sat the other little maid, her two fat arms clasped tight round her papa’s umbrella, and the ivory handle indenting her rosy cheek, as she fondled it in silent transport.

‘My little Salome,’ whispered Isabel, squeezing Clara’s hand, ‘our quiet one. She could not sleep for expecting papa, and now she is in a fit of shy delight; she can’t shout with the others; she can only nurse his umbrella.’

Just then James made a desperate demonstration, amid peals of laughter from his daughters. ‘We are stopping the way! Get out, you unruly monsters! Let go, Kitty–Mercy; I shall kick! Mamma, catch this ball;’ making a feint of tossing the crowing Fanny at her.

Assuredly, thought Clara, pity was wasted; there was not one too many. And then began the happy exulting introductions, and a laugh at little Mercy, who stood blank and open-mouthed, gazing up and up her tall aunt, as if there were no coming to the top of her. Clara sat down on the stairs, to bring her face to a level, and struck up a friendship with her on the spot, while James lilted up his little Salome, her joy still too deep and reserved for manifestation; only without a word she nestled close to him, laid her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes, as if languid with excess of rapture- a pretty contrast to her sister’s frantic delight, which presently alarmed James lest it should disturb his uncle, and he called them up-stairs.

But Clara must first run to the House Beautiful, and little Mercy must needs come to show her the way, and trotted up before her, consequentially announcing, ‘Aunt Cara.’ Miss Faithfull alone was present; and, without speaking, Clara dropped on the ground, laid her head on her dear old friend’s lap, and little Mercy exclaimed, in wondering alarm, ‘Aunt Cara naughty–Aunt Cara crying!’

‘My darling,’ said Miss Faithfull, as she kissed Clara’s brow and stroked her long flaxen hair, ‘you have gone through a great deal. We must try to make you happy in your poor old home.’

‘Oh, no! oh, no! It is happiness! Oh! such happiness! but I don’t know what to do with it, and I want granny!’

She was almost like little Salome; the flood of bliss in returning home, joined with the missing of the one dearest welcome, had come on her so suddenly that she was almost stifled, till she had been calmed and soothed by the brief interval of quiet with her dear old friend. She returned to No. 5, there to find that her uncle was going to bed, and Charlotte, pink and beautiful with delight, was running about in attendance on Jane. She went up straight to her own little room, which had been set out exactly as in former times, so that she could feel as if she had been not a day absent; and she lost not a moment in adding to it all the other little treasures which made it fully like her own. She looked out at the Ormersfield trees, and smiled to think how well Louis’s advice had turned out; and then she sighed, in the fear that it might yet be her duty to leave home. If her uncle could live without her, she must tear herself away, and work for his maintenance.

However, for the present, she might enjoy to the utmost, and she proceeded to the little parlour, which, to her extreme surprise, she found only occupied by the four children–Kitty holding the youngest upon her feet, till, at the new apparition, Fanny suddenly seated herself for the convenience of staring.

‘Are you all alone here!’ exclaimed Clara.

‘I am taking care of the little ones,’ replied Kitty, with dignity.

‘Where’s mamma!’

‘She is gone down to get tea. Papa is gone to the Union; but we do not mean to wait for him,’ answered the little personage, with an air capable, the more droll because she was on the smallest scale, of much less substance than the round fat twins, and indeed chiefly distinguishable from them by her slender neat shape; for the faces were at first sight all alike, brown, small-featured, with large dark eyes, and dark curly hair–Mercy, with the largest and most impetuous eyes, and Salome with a dreamy look, more like her mother. Fanny was in a different style, and much prettier; but her contemplation ended in alarm and inclination to cry, whereupon Kitty embraced her, and consoled her like a most efficient guardian; then seeing Mercy becoming rather rude in her familiarities with her aunt, held up her small forefinger, and called out gravely, ‘Mercy, recollect yourself!’

Wonders would never cease! Here was Isabel coming up with the tea- tray in her own hands!

‘My dear, do you always do that?’

‘No, only when Charlotte is busy; and,’ as she picked up the baby, ‘now Kitty may bring the rest.’

So, in various little journeys, the miniature woman’s curly head arose above the loaf, and the butter-dish, and even the milk-jug, held without spilling; while Isabel would have set out the tea-things with one hand, if Clara had not done it for her; and the workhouse girl finally appeared with the kettle.

Was this the same Isabel whom Clara last remembered with her baby in her lap, beautiful and almost as inanimate as a statue? There was scarcely more change from the long-frocked infant to the bustling important sprite, than from that fair piece of still life to the active house-mother. Unruffled grace was innate; every movement had a lofty, placid deliberation and simplicity, that made her like a disguised princess; and though her beauty was a little worn, what it had lost in youth was far more than compensated by sweetness and animation. The pensive cast remained, but the dreaminess had sobered into thought and true hope. Her dress was an old handsome silk, frayed and worn, but so becoming to her, that the fading was unnoticed in the delicate neatness of the accompaniments. And the dear old room! It looked like a cheerful habitation; but Clara’s almost instant inquiry was for the porcelain Arcadians, and could not think it quite as tidy and orderly as it used to be in old times, when she was the only fairy Disorder. ‘However, I’ll see to that,’ quoth she to herself. And she gave herself up to the happy tea- drinking, when James was welcomed by another tumult, and was pinned down by Kitty and Salome on either side–mamma making tea in spite of Fanny on her lap–Mercy adhering to the new-comer–the eager conversation–Kitty thrusting in her little oar, and being hushed by mamma–the grand final game at romps, ending with Isabel carrying off her little victims, one by one, to bed; and James taking the tea-tray down stairs. Clara followed with other parts of the equipage, and then both stood together warming themselves, and gossiped over the dear old kitchen fire, till Isabel came down and found them there. And then, before any of the grand news was discussed, all the infant marvels of the last fortnight had to be detailed; and the young parents required Clara’s opinion whether they were spoiling Kitty.

Next, Clara found her way to the cupboard, brought the shepherd and shepherdess to light, looked them well over, and satisfied herself that there was not one scar or wound on either–nay, it is not absolutely certain that she did not kiss the damsel’s delicate pink cheek–set them up on the mantelpiece, promised to keep them in order, and stood gazing at them till James accused her of regarding them as her penates!

‘Why, Jem!’ she said, turning on him, ‘you are a mere recreant if you can feel it like home without them!’

‘I have other porcelain figures to depend on for a home!’ said James.

‘Take care, James!’ said his wife, with the fond sadness of one whose cup overflowed with happiness; ‘Clara’s shepherdess may look fragile, but she has kept her youth and seen many a generation pass by of such as you depend on!’

‘She once was turned out of Cheveleigh, too, and has borne it as easily aa Clara,’ said James, smiling. ‘I suspect her worst danger is from Fanny. There’s a lady who, I warn you, can never withstand Fanny!’

Isabel took up her own defence, and they laughed on. Poor Uncle Oliver! could he but have known how little all this had to do with Cheveleigh!

CHAPTER XX.

WESTERN TIDINGS.

O lady! worthy of earth’s proudest throne! Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit
Beside an unambitious hearth to sit Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown– Queen and handmaid lowly.
WORDSWORTH.

A house in the Terrace was let, and the rent was welcome; and shortly after, Clara had an affectionate letter from her old school-enemy, Miss Salter, begging her to come as governess to her little brother, promising that she should be treated like one of the family, and offering a large salary.

Clara was much afraid that it was her duty to accept the proposal, since her uncle seemed very fairly contented, and was growing very fond of ‘Roland,’ and the payment would be so great an assistance, but James and Isabel were strongly averse to it; and her conscience waa satisfied by Miss Mercy Faithfull’s discovery of a family at the Baths in search of a daily governess.

Miss Frost was not a person to be rejected, and in another week she found herself setting out to breakfast with a girl and three boys, infusing Latin, French, and geography all the forenoon, dining with them, sometimes walking with them, and then returning to the merry evening of Dynevor Terrace.

Mr. Dynevor endured the step pretty well. She had ascendancy enough over him always to take her own way, and he was still buoyed up by the hope of recovering enough to rectify his affairs in Peru. He was better, though his right side remained paralysed, and Mr. Walby saw little chance of restoration. Rising late, and breakfasting slowly, the newspaper and visits from James wiled away the morning. He preferred taking his meals alone; and after dinner was wheeled out in a chair on fine days. Clara came to him as soon as her day’s work was over; and, when he was well enough to bear it, the whole party were with him from the children’s bedtime till his own. Altogether, the invalid-life passed off pretty well. He did not dislike the children, and Kitty liked anything that needed to be waited on. He took Clara’s services as a right, but was a little afraid of ‘Mrs. Dynevor,’ and highly flattered by any attention from her; and with James his moods were exceedingly variable, and often very trying, but, in general, very well endured.

Peruvian mails were anticipated in the family with a feeling most akin to dread. The notice of a vessel coming in was the signal for growlings at everything, from the post-office down to his dinner; and the arrival of letters made things only worse. As Clara said, the galleons were taken by the pirates; the Equatorial Company seemed to be doing the work of Caleb Balderston’s thunderstorm, and to be bearing the blame of a deficit such as Oliver could not charge on it. The whole statement was backed by Mr. Ponsonby, whose short notes spoke of indisposition making him more indebted than ever to the exertions of Robson. This last was gone to Guayaquil to attempt to clear up the accounts of the Equatorial Company, leaving the office at Lima in the charge of Madison and the new clerk, Ford; and Mr. Dynevor was promised something decisive and satisfactory on his return. Of Mary there was no mention, except what might be inferred in a postscript:–‘Ward is expected in a few weeks.’

Mr. Dynevor was obliged to resign himself; and so exceedingly fractious was he, that Clara had been feeling quite dispirited, when her brother called her to tell her joyously that Lord Ormersfield and Louis were coming home, and would call in on their way the next evening. Those wretched children must not take her for a walk.

Nevertheless, the wretched children did want to walk, and Clara could not get home till half-an-hour after she knew the train must have come in; and she found the visitors in her uncle’s room. Louis came forward to the door to meet her, and shook her hand with all his heart, saying, under his breath,

‘I congratulate you!’

‘Thank you!’ she said, in the same hearty tone.

‘And now, look at him! look at my father! Have not we made a good piece of work of keeping him abroad all the winter? Does not he look as well as ever he did in his life?’

This was rather strong, for Lord Ormersfield was somewhat grey, and a little bent; but he had resumed all his look of health and vigour, and was a great contrast to his younger, but far older-looking cousin. He welcomed Clara with his tone of courteous respect, and smiled at his son’s exultation, saying, Fitzjocelyn deserved all the credit, for he himself had never thought to be so patched up again, and poor Oliver was evidently deriving as much encouragement as if rheumatism had been paralysis.

‘I must look in at the House Beautiful,’ said Louis, presently. ‘Clara, I can’t lose your company. Won’t you come with me?’

Of course she came; and she divined why, instead of at once entering the next house, he took a turn along the Terrace, and, after a pause, asked, ‘Clara, when did you last hear from Lima?’

‘Not for a long time. I suppose she is taken up by her father’s illness.’

He paused, collected himself, and asked again, ‘Have you heard nothing from your uncle?’

‘Yes,’ said Clara, sadly, ‘but Louis,’ she added, with a lively tone, ‘what does not come from herself, I would not believe.’

‘I do not.’

‘That’s right, don’t be vexed when it may be nothing.’

‘No; if she had found any one more worthy of her, she would not hesitate in making me aware of it. I ought to be satisfied, if she does what is best for her own happiness. Miss Ponsonby believes that this is a man of sterling worth, probably suiting her better than I might have done. She was a good deal driven on by circumstances before, and, perhaps, it was all a mistake on her side.’ And he tried to smile.

Clara exclaimed that ‘Mary could not have been all he had believed, if–‘

‘No,’ he said, ‘she is all, and more than all. I comprehend her better now, and could have shown her that I do. She has been the blessing of my life so far, and her influence always will be so. I shall always be grateful to her, be the rest as it may, and I mean to live on hope to the last. Now for the good old ladies. Really, Clara, the old Dynevor Terrace atmosphere has come back, and there seems to be the same sort of rest and cheering in coming into these old iron gates! After all, Isabel is growing almost worthy to be called Mrs. Frost.’ And in this manner he talked on, up to the very door of the House Beautiful, as if to cheat himself out of despondency.

‘That was a very pretty meeting,’ said Isabel to her husband, when no witness was present but little Fanny.

‘What, between his lordship and my uncle?’

‘You know better.’

‘My dear, your mother once tried match-making for Fitzjocelyn. Be warned by her example.’

‘I am doing no such thing. I am only observing what every one sees.’

‘Don’t be so common-place.’

‘That’s all disdain–you must condescend. I have been hearing from Mr. Dynevor of the excellent offers that Clara refused.’

‘Do you think Uncle Oliver and Clara agree as to excellence?’

‘Still,’ continued Isabel, ‘considering how uncomfortable she was, it does not seem improbable that she would have married, unless some attachment had steeled her heart and raised her standard. I know she was unconscious, but it was Fitzjocelyn who formed her.’

‘He has been a better brother to her than I have been; but look only at their perfect ease.’

‘Now it is my belief that they were made for each other, and can venture to find it out, since she is no longer an heiress, and he is free from his Peruvian entanglement.’

‘Fanny, do you hear what a scheming mamma you have? I hope she will have used it all upon Sir Hubert before you come out as the beauty of the Terrace!’

‘Well, I mean to sound Clara.’

‘You had better leave it alone.’

‘Do you forbid me?’

‘Why, no, for I don’t think you have the face to say anything that would distress her, or disturb the friendship which has been her greatest benefit.’

‘Thank you. All I intend is, that if it should be as I suppose, the poor things should not miss coming to an understanding for want–‘

‘Of a Christmas-tree,’ said James, laughing. ‘You may have your own way. I have too much confidence in your discretion and in theirs to imagine that you will produce the least effect.’

Isabel’s imagination was busily at work, and she was in haste to make use of her husband’s permission; but it was so difficult to see Clara alone, that some days passed before the two sisters were left together in the sitting-room, while James was writing a letter for his uncle. Isabel’s courage began to waver, but she ventured a commencement.

‘Mr. Dynevor entertains me with fine stories of your conquests, Clara.’

Clara laughed, blushed, and answered bluntly, ‘What a bother it was!’

‘You are very hard-hearted.’

‘You ought to remember the troubles of young ladyhood enough not to wonder.’

‘I never let things run to that length; but then I had no fortune. But seriously, Clara, were all these people objectionable?’

‘Do you think one could marry any man, only because he was not objectionable? There was no harm in one or two; but I was not going to have anything to say to them.’

‘Really, Clara, you make me curious. Had you made any resolution?’

‘I know only two men whom I could have trusted to fulfil my conditions,’ said Clara.

‘Conditions?’

‘Of course! that if Cheveleigh was to belong to any of us, it should be to the rightful heir.’

‘My dear, noble Clara! was that what kept you from thinking of marriage?’

‘Wasn’t it a fine thing to have such a test? Not that I ever came to trying it. Simple no answered my purpose. I met no one who tempted me to make the experiment.’

‘Two men!’ said Isabel, ‘if you had said one, it would have been marked.’

‘Jem and Louis, of course,’ said Clara.

‘Oh! that is as good as saying one.’

‘As good as saying none,’ said Clara, with emphasis.

‘There may be different opinions on that point,’ returned Isabel, not daring to lift her eyes from her work, though longing to study Clara’s face, and feeling herself crimsoning.

‘Extremely unfounded opinions, and rather–‘

‘Rather what?’

‘Impertinent, I was going to say, begging your pardon, dear Isabel.’

‘Nay, I think it is I who should beg yours, Clara.’

‘No, no,’ said Clara, laughing, but speaking gravely immediately after, ‘lookers-on do not always see most of the game. I have always known his mind so well that I could never possibly have fallen into any such nonsense. I respect him far too much.’

Isabel felt as if she must hazard a few words more–‘Can you guess what he will do if Mr. Ponsonby’s reports prove true?’

‘I do not mean to anticipate misfortunes,’ said Clara.

Isabel could say no more; and when Clara next spoke, it was to ask for another of James’s wristbands to stitch. Then Isabel ventured to peep at her face, and saw it quite calm, and not at all rosy; if it had been, the colour was gone.

Thus it was, and there are happily many such friendships existing as that between Louis and Clara. Many a woman has seen the man whom she might have married, and yet has not been made miserable. If there be neither vanity nor weak self-contemplation on her side, nor trifling on his part, nor unwise suggestions forced on her by spectators, the honest, genuine affection need never become passion. If intimacy is sometimes dangerous, it is because vanity, folly, and mistakes are too frequent; but in spite of all these, where women are truly refined, and exalted into companions and friends, there has been much more happy, frank intercourse and real friendship than either the romantic or the sagacious would readily allow. The spark is never lighted, there is no consciousness, no repining, and all is well.

Fresh despatches from Lima arrived; and after a day, when Oliver had been so busy overlooking the statement from Guayaquil that he would not even take his usual airing, he received Clara with orders to write and secure his passage by the next packet for Callao.

‘Dear uncle, you would never dream of it! You could not bear the journey!’ she cried, aghast.

‘It would do me good. Do not try to cross me, Clara. No one else can deal with this pack of rascals. Your brother has not been bred to it, and is a parson besides, and there’s not a soul that I can trust. I’ll go. What! d’ye think I can live on him and on you, when there is a competence of my own out there, embezzled among those ragamuffins?’

‘I am sure we had much rather–‘

‘No stuff and nonsense. Here is Roland with four children already– very likely to have a dozen more. If you and he are fools, I’m not, and I won’t take the bread out of their mouths. I’ll leave my will behind, bequeathing whatever I may get out of the fire evenly between you two, as the only way to content you; and if I never turn up again, why you’re rid of the old man.’

‘Very well, uncle, I shall take my own passage at the same time.’

‘You don’t know what you are talking of. You are a silly child, and your brother would be a worse if he let you go.’

‘If Jem lets you go, he will let me. He shall let me. Don’t you know that you are never to have me off your hands, uncle? No, no, I shall stick to you like a burr. You may go up to the tip-top of Chimborazo if you please, but you’ll not shake me off.’

It was her fixed purpose to accompany him, and she was not solicitous to dissuade him from going, for she could be avaricious for James’s children, and had a decided wish for justice on the guilty party; and, besides, Clara had a private vision of her own, which made her dance in her little room. Mary had written in her father’s stead- there was not a word of Mr. Ward–indeed, Mr. Ponsonby was evidently so ill that his daughter could think of nothing else. Might not Clara come in time to clear up any misunderstanding–convince Mr. Ponsonby–describe Louis’s single-hearted constancy during all these five years, and bring Mary home to him in triumph? She could have laughed aloud with delight at the possibility; and when the other alternative occurred to her, she knit her brows with childish vehemence, as she promised Miss Mary that she would never be her bridesmaid.

Presently she heard Fitzjocelyn’s voice in the parlour, and, going down, found him in consultation over a letter which Charlotte had brought to her master. It was so well written and expressed, that Louis turned to the signature before he could quite believe that it was from his old pupil. Tom wrote to communicate his perplexity at the detection of the frauds practised on his employers. He had lately been employed in the office at Lima, where much had excited his suspicion; and, finally, from having ‘opened a letter addressed by mistake to the firm, but destined for an individual, he had discovered that large sums, supposed to be required by the works, or lost in the Equatorial failure, had been, in fact, invested in America in the name of that party.’ The secret was a grievous burthen. Mr. Ponsonby was far too ill to be informed; besides that, he should only bring suspicion on himself; and Miss Ponsonby was so much occupied as to be almost equally inaccessible. Tom had likewise reason to believe that his own movements were watched, and that any attempt to communicate with her or her father would be baffled; and, above all, he could not endure himself to act the spy and informer. He only wished that, if possible, without mentioning names, Charlotte could give a hint that Mr. Dynevor must not implicitly trust to all he heard.

James was inclined to suppress such vague information, which he thought would only render his uncle more restless and wretched in his helplessness, and was only questioning whether secrecy would not amount to deceit.

‘The obvious thing is for me to go to Peru,’ said Louis.

‘My uncle and I were intending to go,’ said Clara.

‘How many more of you?’ exclaimed James.

‘I would not change my native land For rich Peru and all her gold;’

chanted little Kitty from the corner, where she was building houses for the ‘little ones.’

‘Extremely to the purpose,’ said Louis, laughing. ‘Follow her example, Clara. Make your uncle appoint me his plenipotentiary, and I will try what I can to find out what these rogues are about.’

‘Are you in earnest?’

‘Never more so in my life.’

James beckoned him to the window, and showed him a sentence where Tom said that the best chance for the firm was in Miss Ponsonby’s marriage with Mr. Ward, but that engagement was not yet declared on account of her father’s illness.

‘The very reason,’ said Louis, ‘I cannot go on in this way. I must know the truth.’

‘And your father?’

‘It would be much better for him that the thing were settled. He will miss me less during the session, when he is in London with all his old friends about him. It would not take long, going by the Isthmus. I’ll ride back at once, and see how he bears the notion. Say nothing to Mr. Dynevor till you hear from me; but I think he will consent. He will not endure that she should be left unprotected; her father perhaps dying, left to the mercy of these rascals.’

‘And forgive me, Louis, if you found her not needing you!’

‘If she be happy, I should honour the man who made her so. At least, I might be of use to you. I should see after poor Madison. I have sent him to the buccaneers indeed! Good-bye! I cannot rest till I see how my father takes it!’

It was long since Louis had been under an excess of impetuosity; but he rode home as fast as he had ridden to Northwold to canvass for James, and had not long been at Ormersfield before his proposition was laid before his father.

It was no small thing to ask of the Earl, necessary as his son had become to him; and the project at first appeared to him senseless. He thought Mary had not shown herself sufficiently sensible of his son’s merits to deserve so much trouble; and if she were engaged to Mr. Ward, Fitzjocelyn would find himself in an unpleasant and undignified position. Besides, there was the ensuing session of Parliament! No! Oliver must send out some trustworthy man of business, with full powers.

Louis only answered, that of course it depended entirely on his father’s consent; and by-and-by his submission began to work. Lord Ormersfield could not refuse him anything, and took care, on parting for the night, to observe that the point was not settled, only under consideration.

And consideration was more favourable than might have been expected. The Earl was growing anxious to see his son married, and of that there was no hope till his mind should be settled with regard to Mary. It would be more for his peace to extinguish the hope, if it were never to be fulfilled. Moreover, the image of Mary had awakened the Earl’s own fatherly fondness for her, and his desire to rescue her from her wretched home. Even Mr. Ponsonby could hardly withstand Louis in person, he thought, and must be touched by so many years of constancy. The rest might be only a misunderstanding which would be cleared up by a personal interview. Added to this, Lord Ormersfield knew that Clara would not let her uncle go alone, and did not think it fit to see her go out alone with an infirm paralytic; James could not leave his wife or his chaplaincy, and the affair was unsuited to his profession; a mere accountant would not carry sufficient authority, nor gain Madison’s confidence; in fact, Fitzjocelyn, and no other, was the trustworthy man of business; and so his lordship allowed when Louis ventured to recur to the subject the next morning, and urge some of his arguments.

The bright clearing of Louis’s face spoke his thanks, and he began at once to detail his plans for his father’s comfort, Lord Ormersfield listening as if pleased by his solicitude, though caring for little until the light of his eyes should return.

‘The next point is that you should give me a testimonial that I _am_ a trustworthy man of business.’

‘I will ride into Northwold with you, and talk it over with Oliver.’

Here lay the knotty point; but the last five years had considerably cultivated Fitzjocelyn’s natural aptitude for figures, by his attention to statistics, his own farming-books, and the complicated accounts of the Ormersfield estate,–so that both his father and Richardson could testify to his being an excellent man of business; and his coolness, and mildness of temper, made him better calculated to deal with a rogue than a more hasty man would have been.

They found, on arriving, that James had been talking to Mr. Walby, who pronounced that the expedition to Lima would be mere madness for Mr. Dynevor, since application to business would assuredly cause another attack, and even the calculations of the previous day had made him very unwell, and so petulant and snappish, that he could be pleased with nothing, and treated as mere insult the proposal that he should entrust his affairs to ‘such a lad.’

Even James hesitated to influence him to accept the offer. ‘I scruple,’ he said, drawing the Earl aside, ‘because I thought you had a particular objection to Fitzjocelyn’s being thrown in the way of speculations. I thought you dreaded the fascination.’

‘Thank you, James; I once did so,’ said the Earl. ‘I used to believe it a family mania; I only kept it down in myself by strong resolution, in the very sight of the consequences, but I can trust Fitzjocelyn. He is too indifferent to everything apart from duty to be caught by flattering projects, and you may fully confide in his right judgment. I believe it is the absence of selfishness or conceit that makes him so clear-sighted.’

‘What a change! what a testimony!’ triumphantly thought James. It might be partial, but he was not the man to believe so.

That day was one of defeat; but on the following, a note from James advised Fitzjocelyn to come and try his fortune again; Mr. Dynevor would give no one any rest till he had seen him.

Thereupon Louis was closeted with the old merchant, who watched him keenly, and noted every question or remark he made on the accounts; then twinkled his eyes with satisfaction as he hit more than one of the very blots over which Oliver had already perplexed himself. So clear-headed and accurate did he show himself, that he soon perceived that Mr. Dynevor looked at him as a good clerk thrown away; and he finally obtained from him full powers to act, to bring the villain to condign punishment, and even, if possible, to dispose of his share in the firm.

Miss Ponsonby was much relieved to learn that Lord Fitzjocelyn was going out, though fearing that he might meet with disappointment; but, at least, her brother would be undeceived as to the traitor in whom he was confiding. No letters were to announce Louis’s intentions, lest the enemy should take warning; but he carried several with him, to be given or not, according to the state of affairs; and when, on his way through London, he went to receive Miss Ponsonby’s commissions, she gave him a large packet, addressed to Mary.

‘Am I to give her this at all events!’ he asked, faltering.

‘It would serve her right.’

‘Then I should not give it to her. Pray write another, for she does not deserve to be wounded, however she may have decided.’

‘I do not know how I shall ever forgive her,’ sighed Aunt Melicent.

‘People are never so unforgiving as when they have nothing to forgive.’

‘Ah! Lord Fitzjocelyn, that is not your case. This might have been far otherwise, had I not misjudged you at first.’

‘Do not believe so. It would have been hard to think me more foolish than I was. This probation has been the best schooling for me; and, let it end as it may, I shall be thankful for what has been.’

And in this spirit did he sail, and many an anxious thought followed him, no heart beating higher than did that of little Charlotte, who founded a great many hopes on the crisis that his coming would produce. Seven years was a terrible time to have been engaged, and the little workhouse girl thought her getting almost as old as Mrs. Beckett. She wondered whether Tom thought so too! She did not want to think about Martha’s first cousin, who was engaged for thirty-two years to a journeyman tailor, and when they married at last, they were both so cross that she went out to service again at the end of a month. Charlotte set up all her caps with Tom’s favourite colour, and ‘turned Angelina’ twenty times a-day.

Then came the well-known Peruvian letters, and a thin one for Charlotte. Without recollecting that it must have crossed Lord Fitzjocelyn on the road, she tore it open the instant she had carried in the parlour letters. Alas! poor Charlotte!

‘I write to you for the last time, lest you should consider yourself any longer bound by the engagements which must long have been distasteful. When I say that Mr. Ford has for some months been my colleague, you will know to what I allude, without my expressing any further. I am already embarked for the U. S. My enemies have succeeded in destroying my character and blighting my hopes. I am at present a fugitive from the hands of so-called justice; but I could have borne all with a cheerful heart if you had not played me false. You will never hear more of one who loved you faithfully.

‘TH. MADISON.’

Poor Charlotte! The wound was a great deal too deep for her usual childish tears, or even for a single word. She stood still, cold, and almost unconscious till she heard a step, then she put the cruel letter away in her bosom, and went about her work as usual.

They thought her looking very pale, and Jane now and then reproached her with eating no more than a sparrow, and told her she was getting into a dwining way; but she made no answer, except that she ‘could do her work.’ At last, one Sunday evening, when she had been left alone with the children, her mistress found her sitting at the foot of her bed, among the sleeping little ones, weeping bitterly but silently. Isabel’s kindness at length opened her heart, and she put the letter into her hand. Poor little thing, it was very meekly borne: ‘Please don’t tell no one, ma’am,’ she said; ‘I couldn’t hear him blamed!’

‘But what does he mean? He must be under some terrible error. Who is this Ford?’

‘It is Delaford, ma’am, I make no doubt, though however he could have got there! And, oh dear me! if I had only told poor Tom the whole, that I was a silly girl, and liked his flatteries now and then, but constant in my heart I always was!’

Isabel could not but suppose that Delaford, if it were he, might have exaggerated poor Charlotte’s little flirtation; but there was small comfort here, since contradiction was impossible. The U. S., over which the poor child had puzzled in vain, was no field in which to follow him up–he had not even dated his letter; and it was a very, very faint hope that Lord Fitzjocelyn might trace him out, especially as he had evidently fled in disgrace; and poor Charlotte sobbed bitterly over his troubles, as well as her own.

She was better after she had told her mistress, though still she shrank from any other sympathy. Even Jane’s pity would have been too much for her, and her tender nature was afraid of the tongues that would have discussed her grief. Perhaps the high-toned nature of Isabel was the very best to be brought into contact with the poor girl’s spirit, which was of the same order, and many an evening did Isabel sit in the twilight, beside the children’s beds, talking to her, or sometimes reading a few lines to show her how others had suffered in the same way. ‘It is my own fault,’ said poor Charlotte; ‘it all came of my liking to be treated like one above the common, and it serves me right. Yes, ma’am, that was a beautiful text you showed me last night, I thought of it all day, and I’ll try to believe that good will come out of it. I am sure you are very good to let me love the children! I’m certain sure Miss Salome knows that I’m in trouble, for she never fails to run and kiss me the minute she comes in sight; and she’ll sit so quiet in my lap, the little dear, and look at me as much as to say, ‘Charlotte, I wish I could comfort you.’ But it was all my own fault, ma’am, and I think I could feel as if I was punished right, so I knew poor Tom was happy.’

‘Alas!’ thought Isabel, after hearing Charlotte’s reminiscences; ‘how close I have lived to a world of which I was in utter ignorance! How little did we guess that, by the careless ease and inattention of our household, we were carrying about a firebrand, endangering not only poor Walter, but doing fearful harm wherever we went!’

CHAPTER XXI.

STEPPING WESTWARD.

On Darien’s sands and deadly dew.
Rokeby.

Enterprise and speed both alike directed Fitzjocelyn’s course across the Isthmus of Panama, which in 1853 had newly become practicable for adventurous travellers. A canal conducted him as far as Cruces, after which he had to push on through wild forest and swamp, under the escort of the muleteers who took charge of the various travellers who had arrived by the same packet.

It was a very novel and amusing journey, even in the very discomforts and the strange characters with whom he was thrown, and more discontented travellers used to declare that Don Luis, as he told the muleteers to call him, always seemed to have the best success with the surly hotel-keepers, though when he resigned his acquisitions to any resolute grumbler, it used to be discovered that he had been putting up with the worst share.

A place called Guallaval seemed to be the most squalid and forlorn of all the stations–outside, an atmosphere of mosquitoes; inside, an atmosphere of brandy and smoke, the master an ague-stricken Yankee, who sat with his bare feet high against the wall, and only deigned to jerk with his head to show in what quarter was the drink and food, and to ‘guess that strangers must sleep on the ground, for first- comers had all the beds’–hammocks slung up in a barn, or unwholesome cupboards in the wall.

At the dirty board sat several of the party first arrived, washing down tough, stringy beef with brandy. Louis was about to take his place near a very black-bearded young man, who appeared more civilized than the rest, and who surprised him by at once making room for him, leaving the table with an air of courtesy; and when, in his halting Spanish, he begged ‘his Grace’ not to disturb himself, he was answered, in the same tongue, ‘I have finished.’

After the meal, such as it was, he wandered out of the hut, to escape the fumes and the company within; but he was presently accosted by the same stranger, who, touching his slouched Panama hat, made him a speech in Spanish, too long and fluent for his comprehension, at the same time offering him a cigar. He was civilly refusing, when, to his surprise, the man interrupted him in good English. ‘These swamps breed fever, to a certainty. A cigar is the only protection; and even then there is nothing more dangerous than to be out at sunset.’

‘Thank you, I am much obliged,’ said Louis, turning towards the hut. ‘Have you been long out here?’

‘The first time on the Isthmus; but I know these sort of places. Pray go in, my Lord.’

The title and the accent startled Louis, and he exclaimed, ‘You must be from the Northwold country?’

He drew back, and said bluntly, ‘Never mind me, only keep out of this pestiferous air.’

But the abrupt surliness completed the recognition, and, seizing his hand, Louis cried, ‘Tom! how are you?’ You have turned into a thorough Spaniard, and taken me in entirely.’

‘Only come in, my Lord; I would never have spoken to you, but that I could not see you catching your death.’

‘I am coming: but what’s the matter? Why avoid me, when you are the very man I most wished to see?’

‘I’m done for,’ said Tom. ‘The fellows up there have saddled their rogueries on me, and I’m off to the States. I–‘

‘What do you say? There, I am coming in. Be satisfied, Tom; I am come out with a commission from Mr. Dynevor, to see what can be arranged.’

‘That’s right,’ cried Tom, ‘now poor Miss Ponsonby will have one friend.’

‘Your letter to Charlotte brought me out–‘ began Louis; but Madison broke in with an expression of dismay and self-reproach at seeing him walking somewhat lame.

‘It is only when I am tired, and not thinking of it,’ said Louis; ‘do you know that old ash stick, Tom, my constant friend? See, here are the names of all the places I have seen cut out on it.’

‘I knew it, and you, the moment you sat down by the table,’ said Tom, in a tone of the utmost feeling, as Louis took his arm. ‘You are not one to forget.’

‘And yet you were going to pass me without making yourself known.’

‘A disgraced man has no business to be known,’ said Tom, low and hoarsely. ‘No, I wish none of them ever to hear my name again; and but for the slip of the tongue that came so naturally, you should not, but I was drawn to you, and could not help it. I am glad I have seen you once more, my Lord–‘

He would have left him at the entrance, but Louis held him fast.

‘You are the very man I depend on for unravelling the business. A man cannot be disgraced by any one but himself, and that is not the case with you, Tom.’

‘No, thank Heaven,’ said Tom, fervently; ‘I’ve kept my honesty, if I have lost all the rest.’

Little more was needed to bring Madison to a seat on a wooden bench beside Fitzjocelyn, answering his anxious inquiries. The first tidings were a shock–Mr. Ponsonby was dead. He had long been declining, and the last thing Tom had heard from Lima was, that he was dead; but of the daughter there was no intelligence; Tom had been too much occupied with his own affairs to know anything of her. Robson had returned from Guayaquil some weeks previously, and in the settlement of accounts consequent on Mr. Ponsonby’s death, Tom had demurred giving up all the valuable property at the mines under his charge, until he should have direct orders from Mr. Dynevor or Miss Ponsonby. A hot dispute ensued, and Robson became aware that Tom was informed of his nefarious practices, and had threatened him violently; but a few hours after he had returned, affecting to have learnt from the new clerk, Ford, that Madison’s peculations required to be winked at with equal forbearance, and giving him the alternative of sharing the spoil, or of being denounced to the authorities. He took a night to consider; and, as Louis started at hearing of any deliberation, he said, sadly, ‘You would not believe me, my Lord, but I had almost a mind. They would take away my character, any way; and what advantage was my honesty without that? And as to hurting my employers, they would only take what I did not; and such as that is thought nothing of by very many. I’d got no faith in man nor woman left, and I’d got nothing but suspicion by my honesty; so why should I not give in to the way of the world, and try if it would serve me. But then, my Lord, it struck me that if I had nothing else, I had still my God left.’

Louis grasped his hand.

‘Yes, I’m thankful that Miss Ponsonby asked me to read to the Cornish miners,’ said Madison. ‘One gets soon heathenish in a heathenish place; and but for that I don’t believe I should ever have stood it out. But Joseph’s words, ‘How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God,’ kept ringing in my ears like a peal of bells, all night, and by morning I sent in a note to Mr. Robson, to say No to what he proposed.’

Every other principle would have cracked in such a conflict, and Louis looked up at Tom with intense admiration, while the young man spoke on, not conscious that it had been noble, but ashamed of owning himself to have been brought to a pass where mere integrity had been an effort.

He had gone back at once to his mines, in some hopes that the threats might yet prove nothing but blustering; but he had scarcely arrived there when an Indian muleteer, to whom he had shown some kindness, brought him intelligence that la justida was in quest of him, but in difficulties how to get up the mountains. The poor Indians guided his escape, conducting him down wonderful paths only known to themselves, hiding him in strange sequestered huts, and finally guiding him safely to Callao, where he had secretly embarked on board an American vessel bound for Panama. Louis asked why he had fled, instead of taking his trial, and confuting Robson; but he smiled, and said, my Lord knew little of foreign justice; besides, Ford was ready to bear any witness that Robson might put into his mouth;–and his face grew dark. Who was this Ford? He could not tell; Mr. Robson had picked him up a few months back, when there was a want of a clerk; like loved like, he supposed, but it was no concern of his. Would it be safe for him to venture back to Peru, under Fitzjocelyn’s protection, and assist him in unmasking the treacherous Robson! To this he readily agreed, catching at the hope of establishing his innocence; but declaring that he should then go at once to the States.–‘What, not even go home to see Charlotte? I’ve got a letter for you, when I can get at it.’

Tom made no answer, and Fitzjocelyn feared that, in spite of all his good qualities, his fidelity in love had not equalled his fidelity to his employers. He could not understand his protege during the few days of their journey. He was a great acquisition to his comfort, with his knowledge of the language and people, and his affectionate deference. At home, where all were courtly, he had been almost rude; but here, in the land of ill manners, his attentions were so assiduous that Louis was obliged to beg him to moderate them lest they should both be ridiculous. He had become a fine-looking young man, with a foreign air and dress agreeing well with his dark complexion; and he had acquired much practical ability and information. Mountains, authority, and a good selection of books had been excellent educators; he was a very superior and intelligent person, and, without much polish, had laid aside his peasant rusticities, and developed some of the best qualities of a gentleman. But though open and warm-hearted on many points with his early friend, there was a gloom and moodiness about him, which Louis could only explain by thinking that his unmerited disgrace preyed on him more than was quite manly. To this cause, likewise, Louis at first attributed his never choosing to hear a word about Charlotte; but as the distaste–nay almost sullenness, evoked by any allusion to her, became more apparent, Louis began unwillingly to balance his suspicions between some fresh attachment, or unworthy shame at an engagement to a maidservant.

The poor little damsel’s sweet blushing face and shy courtesy, and all her long and steady faithfulness, made him feel indignant at such a suspicion, and he resolved to bring Madison to some explanation; but he did not find the opportunity till after they had embarked at the beautiful little islet of Toboga for Callao. On board, he had time to find in his portmanteau the letter with which she had entrusted him, and, seeking Madison on deck, gave it to him. He held it in his hand without opening it; but the sparkle in his dark eye did not betoken the bashfulness of fondness, and Louis, taking a turn along the deck to watch him unperceived, saw him raise his hand as if to throw the poor letter overboard at once. A few long steps, and Louis was beside him, exclaiming, ‘What now, Tom–is that the way you treat your letters?’

‘The little hypocrite! I don’t want no more of her false words,’ muttered Tom, returning, in his emotion, to his peasant’s emphatic double negative.

‘Hypocrite! Do you know how nobly and generously she has been helping Mr. and Mrs. Frost through their straits? how faithfully–‘

‘I know better,’ said Tom, hoarsely; ‘don’t excuse her, my Lord; you know little of what passes in your own kitchens.’

‘Too true, I fear, in many cases,’ said Louis; ‘but I have seen this poor child in circumstances that make me feel sure that she is an admirable creature. What misunderstanding can have arisen?’

‘No misunderstanding, my Lord. I saw, as plain as I see you, her name and her writing in the book that she gave to Ford–her copying out of his love-poems, my Lord, in the blank pages,–if I had wanted any proof of what he alleged.’

And he had nearly thrown the letter into the Pacific; but Louis caught his arm.

‘Did you ever read Cymbeline, Tom?’

‘Yes, to be sure I have,’ growled Tom, in surprise.

‘Then remember Iachimo, and spare that letter. What did he tell you?’

With some difficulty Fitzjocelyn drew from Madison that he had for some time been surprised at Ford’s knowledge of Northwold and the neighbourhood; but had indulged in no suspicions till about the epoch of Robson’s return from Guayaquil. Chancing to be waiting in his fellow-clerk’s room, he had looked at his books, and, always attracted by poetry as the rough fellow was, had lighted on a crimson watered-silk volume, in the first page of which he had, to his horror, found the name of Charlotte Arnold borne aloft by the two doves, and in the blank leaves several extremely flowery poems in her own handwriting.

With ill-suppressed rage he had demanded an explanation, and had been met with provokingly indifferent inuendoes. The book was the gift of a young lady with whom Ford had the pleasure to be acquainted; the little effusions were trifles of his own, inscribed by her own fair hands. Oh, yes! he knew Miss Arnold very well–very pretty, very complaisant! Ah! he was afraid there were some broken hearts at home! Poor little thing! he should never forget how she took leave of him, after forcing upon him her little savings! He was sorry for her, too; but a man cannot have compassion on all the pretty girls he sees.

‘And you could be deceived by such shallow coxcombry as this!’ said Louis.

‘I tell you there was the book,’ returned Tom.

‘Well, Tom, if Mr. Ford prove to be the Ford I take him to be, I’ll undertake that you shall see through him, and be heartily ashamed of yourself. Give me back the letter,–you do not deserve to have it.’

‘I don’t want it,’ said Tom, moodily; ‘she has not been as true to me as I’ve been to her, and if she isn’t what I took her for, I do not care to hear of her again. I used to look at the mountain-tops, and think she was as pure as they; and that she should have been making herself the talk of a fellow like that, and writing so sweet to me all the time!–No, my Lord, there’s no excusing it; and ’twas her being gone after the rest that made it so bitter hard to me! If she had been true, I would have gone through fire and water to be an honest man worthy of her; but when I found how she had deceived me, it went hard with me to cut myself off from the wild mountain life that I’d got to love, and my poor niggers, that will hardly have so kind a master set over them.’

‘You have stood the fiery ordeal well,’ said Louis; ‘and I verily believe that you will soon find that it was only an ordeal.’

The care of Tom was a wholesome distraction to the suspense that became almost agony as Louis approached Peru, and beheld the gigantic summits of the more northern Andes, which sunset revealed shining out white and fitfully, like the Pilgrim’s vision of the Celestial City, although, owing to their extreme distance, even on a bright noonday, nothing was visible but clear deep-blue sky. They seemed to make him realize that the decisive moment was near, when he should tread the same soil with Mary, and yet, as he stood silently watching those glorious heights, human hopes and cares seemed to shrink into nothing before the eternity and Infinite Greatness of which the depth and the height spoke. Yet He remembereth the hairs of our heads, Who weigheth the mountains in the balance, and counteth the isles as a very little thing. Louis took comfort, but nerved himself for resignation; his prayer was more, that he might bear rightly whatever might be in store, than that he should succeed. He could hardly have made the latter petition with that submissiveness and reserve befitting all entreaty for blessings of this passing world.