poor Mrs. Bonner is dying, and that she desires my attendance on her to refresh her spirit with readings on the Prophecies, and Scriptural converse. No other soul in the house can so soothe her.”
“Then stay,” said Evan.
“Unprotected in the midst of enemies! Truly!”
“I think, Louisa, if you can call Lady Jocelyn an enemy, you must read the Scriptures by a false light.”
“The woman is an utter heathen!” interjected the Countess. “An infidel can be no friend. She is therefore the reverse. Her opinions embitter her mother’s last days. But now you will consent to remain with me, dear Van!”
An implacable negative responded to the urgent appeal of her eyes.
“By the way,” he said, for a diversion, “did you know of a girl stopping at an inn in Fallowfield?”
“Know a barmaid?” the Countess left her eyes and mouth wide at the question.
“Did you send Raikes for her to-day?”
“Did Mr. Raikes—ah, Evan! that creature reminds me, you have no sense of contrast. For a Brazilian ape he resembles, if he is not truly one—what contrast is he to an English gentleman! His proximity and acquaintance—rich as he may be—disfigure you. Study contrast!”
Evan had to remind her that she had not answered him: whereat she exclaimed: “One would really think you had never been abroad. Have you not evaded me, rather?”
The Countess commenced fanning her languid brows, and then pursued: “Now, my dear brother, I may conclude that you will acquiesce in my moderate wishes. You remain. My venerable friend cannot last three days. She is on the brink of a better world! I will confide to you that it is of the utmost importance we should be here, on the spot, until the sad termination! That is what I summoned you for. You are now at liberty. Ta-ta as soon as you please.”
She had baffled his little cross-examination with regard to Mr. Raikes, but on the other point he was firm. She would listen to nothing: she affected that her mandate had gone forth, and must be obeyed; tapped with her foot, fanned deliberately, and was a consummate queen, till he turned the handle of the door, when her complexion deadened, she started up, trembling and tripping towards him, caught him by the arm, and said: “Stop! After all that I have sacrificed for you! As well try to raise the dead as a Dawley from the dust he grovels in! Why did I consent to visit this place? It was for you. I came, I heard that you had disgraced yourself in drunkenness at Fallowfield, and I toiled to eclipse that, and I did. Young Jocelyn thought you were what you are: I could spit the word at you! and I dazzled him to give you time to win this minx, who will spin you like a top if you get her. That Mr. Forth knew it as well, and that vile young Laxley. They are gone! Why are they gone? Because they thwarted me—they crossed your interests—I said they should go. George Uploft is going to-day. The house is left to us; and I believe firmly that Mrs. Bonner’s will contains a memento of the effect of our frequent religious conversations. So you would leave now? I suspect nobody, but we are all human, and wills would not have been tampered with for the first time. Besides,” and the Countess’s imagination warmed till she addressed her brother as a confederate, “we shall then see to whom Beckley Court is bequeathed. Either way it may be yours. Yours, and you suffer their plots to drive you forth. Do you not perceive that Mama was brought here to-day on purpose to shame us and cast us out? We are surrounded by conspiracies, but if our faith is pure who can hurt us? If I had not that consolation—would that you had it, too!—would it be endurable to me to see those menials whispering and showing their forced respect? As it is, I am fortified to forgive them. I breathe another atmosphere. Oh, Evan! you did not attend to Mr. Parsley’s beautiful last sermon. The Church should have been your vocation.”
From vehemence the Countess had subsided to a mournful gentleness. She had been too excited to notice any changes in her brother’s face during her speech, and when he turned from the door, and still eyeing her fixedly, led her to a chair, she fancied from his silence that she had subdued and convinced him. A delicious sense of her power, succeeded by a weary reflection that she had constantly to employ it, occupied her mind, and when presently she looked up from the shade of her hand, it was to agitate her head pitifully at her brother.
“All this you have done for me, Louisa,” he said.
“Yes, Evan,—all!” she fell into his tone.
“And you are the cause of Laxley’s going? Did you know anything of that anonymous letter?”
He was squeezing her hand—with grateful affection, as she was deluded to imagine.
“Perhaps, dear,—a little,” her conceit prompted her to admit.
“Did you write it?”
He gazed intently into her eyes, and as the question shot like a javelin, she tried ineffectually to disengage her fingers; her delusion waned; she took fright, but it was too late; he had struck the truth out of her before she could speak. Her spirit writhed like a snake in his hold. Innumerable things she was ready to say, and strove to; the words would not form on her lips.
“I will be answered, Louisa.”
The stern imperious manner he had assumed gave her no hope of eluding him. With an inward gasp, and a sensation of nakedness altogether new to her, dismal, and alarming, she felt that she could not lie. Like a creature forsaken of her staunchest friend, she could have flung herself to the floor. The next instant her natural courage restored her. She jumped up and stood at bay.
“Yes. I did.”
And now he was weak, and she was strong, and used her strength.
“I wrote it to save you. Yes. Call on your Creator, and be my judge, if you dare. Never, never will you meet a soul more utterly devoted to you, Evan. This Mr. Forth, this Laxley, I said,