CHAPTER III.
"Tear follows tear, where long no tear hath been;
I see the present on a distant goal,
The past, revived, is present to my soul."
Blackie's Faust.
Francesca reached their home about half an hour before Lucy; but so occupied was she with her own agitated thoughts, that time passed without notice. Supper was the only meal which Lawrence Aylmer took with his daughter, when the business of the day was at end, and he had, as he would have termed it, "a right to enjoy himself." But he fell into the common mistake of putting enjoyment off over long; and night usually found him too thoroughly tired out with the day's fatigue to take more than the passive pleasure of silence and rest.
Francesca's abstraction was of such general occurrence that it could excite no particular attention. Lucy, from being afraid of her father, was always quiet; and Lawrence Aylmer went on with an occasional sentence touching the rumours of risings and conspiracies in the neighbourhood, quite unconscious of the agitated state of his listeners. Yet Francesca could not but marvel that the unusual absence and trouble of Lucy could escape her father's eye. Shy she always was, but attentive. She listened anxiously to the little that he said, and was careful that any delicacy which had been prepared should be held out as an inducement for him to eat—not so much for the thing itself as a slight mark of her own care. But to-night she was quite absorbed. A rich colour mantled like wine into her cheek—a sweet, uncertain smile played about her mouth; and the downcast eyes seemed to repose on the happy and beating heart within.
When supper was over, all sought at once their own chambers. Lucy's farewell for the night to Francesca was even affectionate; it was more so than usual, for her lips overflowed with the tender and excited feelings, whose delicious consciousness was now upon the charmed present. One question from her companion would have drawn forth her precious secret; for Lucy was silent from timidity, not from reserve. But that question Francesca could not ask—she felt unequal to it. She needed the solitude of her own room to compose her scattered thoughts—she dared not trust herself to say aught on the impulse. She embraced Lucy, and bade her a hurried good-night; and each sought what was to each a sleepless pillow—but sleepless from what different causes!
Lucy was in the flutter of excited spirits, of winged hopes—of all that makes the early paradise of love. To have seen Evelyn under any circumstances would have been a joy to make the treasure of long and after-absence; but to meet him, still unchanged, and still her own, what wonder, in the quiet midnight, that his voice—every word a vow or a flattery—seemed to haunt her ear!—that those flashing eyes arose distinct almost as reality, before which it was so strange, yet sweet to shrink! Distrust is an acquired feeling—we never doubt till we have been deceived; and falsehood in no shape had formed part of Lucy's experience. She would as soon have questioned the truth of her own affection, as one assertion of Evelyn's: she believed him implicitly. Her only idea of fear sprang from a timid sense of her own inferiority. Was it possible that she could be loved by a descendant of that haughty race to which, from childhood, she had been accustomed to yield such deference—to look up to with such veneration?
Evelyn's attachment to her was of a much more mixed kind. Her affection he certainly was decided on winning; but what to do with it when won was a point he had considered as little as possible—to chance he trusted the destiny of that young and innocent heart. Just at present, even her slight services were of infinite value. Disappointed in a scheme of personal aggrandisement which he had been led to form on the accession of Richard to the Protectorate, he had rashly engaged in a conspiracy for the restoration of the exiled family. He trusted, in his own neighbourhood, especially during Lord Avonleigh'a absence, that his influence would be considerable; and a rising of some extent had been planned, and a promising scheme laid, to surprise the castle at Southampton.
The recesses of the forest answered well the purposes of concealment, and Lucy was useful both as an unsuspected messenger, and also for the intelligence she was able to obtain. She, poor girl, in the meantime, was lulled in that waking dream,—the dearest and the most evanescent of all the visions wherewith the heart beguiles the care and the sorrow of actual existence.
But if Lucy was restless with the fever of hope and joy, Francesca was as sleepless on her unquiet pillow, from far other causes. The bitter recollections revived by the sudden appearance of Evelyn soon merged in the gloomy monotony which had become the ruling tone of her mind. But not so did her affectionate interest in Lucy. So young, so gentle, so unsuspecting, was her happiness to be another sacrifice?—should she tell her all that had come to her own knowledge—all the painful records of her own experience? And yet it was possible he might love her—love her truly and deeply: if so, of what avail would it be to lower him in her esteem? It were best for Lucy still to gaze with sightless eyes on her idol.
Little good ever came of another's interference; and hours after hours passed by, and Francesca only grew more and more inclined to silence. Perhaps the languor that hung over her somewhat influenced this resolve. She could nerve herself to exertion—she could not speak of the past.