CHAPTER III, (Continued.)
“Well, find the men, me dear child,” said Lady Louisa. “There’s some at the Lodge with old Sir Thomas, and there’s that nephew of the Admiral’s—and your friend Everard Stoke. They’re great friends, Mrs. Mulgrave, though you’ll be shocked to hear me say it I don’t interfere with me girls when they’re but amusing themselves. Norah knows it’s a thing can go no further. He has good connections and knows the world, but I don’t suppose he’s got a penny. I know me girls’ principles, Mrs. Mulgrave, and how far I can trust them; and why shouldn’t they amuse themselves, poor things, so long as they know how far to go?”
“Yes,” said I with a little eagerness, while Norah watched me, growing pale; “but though it may be safe enough for them, it may be hard upon—the young men.” Heaven knows I did not care in this case for the young men—but what was one to say?
“Ah then, he’ll take care of himself,” said Lady Louisa lightly. “He’s no fool, me dear ma’am, and you may be sure he’d never believe I’d throw away one of me girls on a well-bred beggar, for sure that’s what it comes to. When people have lived in the world all their lives they understand each other.—Norah, go and tell the boy.—Me dear, I wouldn’t speak before the child, but ye may make your mind easy. If it was a young curate or any of the school-boy sort, I’d put a stop to it—but they’re both well born, and they’re both beggars as ye may say, and better brought up than to think of any nonsense, except amusing themselves,—there’s no harm in that.”
“But, mamma, I do think,” said Priscilla, coming up to us hastily, “since Norah is not here—”
“Me child, ye were born a little old woman, and ye don’t understand,” said Lady Louisa. “Let her alone. I’ve got me eye on them. He’s very pleasant, I don’t deny, and if he had a good income, and his character more settled—”
“But, indeed, I fear it is not at all settled,” said I. “Dear Lady Louisa, I have no confidence in his principles—I don’t know if you will let me say so.”
“My dear lady, men are but men,” said Lady Louisa, turning her back on her elder daughter, and giving me a series of little comical nods. “We don’t talk of such things before the girls, but ye can’t mend the creatures, and ye must just swallow them as they are. Sure, when I can’t answer for me own boys, I’ve nothing to do with casting stones at Everard Stoke. Hush! Mrs. Mulgrave and I are consulting about cups and saucers, me dear,” she added in a louder tone, turning again to the table. I dare say all the same Priscilla heard; and Norah too, for that matter, who came in after doing her errand to the stable-boy, with a preoccupation such as had never been seen before in her sunset eyes.
“Are you gossiping about our neighbors?” said Norah, with a kind of sneer which did not become her, except, indeed, that it quivered on her lip as if that soft Cupid’s bow had been too tightly strung.
“Ah, then, and shouldn’t we like it above everything?” said Lady Louisa; “but you see Mrs. Mulgrave’s going, me dears—and not vexed at all your nonsense, I hope. What are they but children, me dear lady, and their poor mother’s companions, and always brought up to speak out their mind.”
“And Irish!” cried Norah, as she went with me to the door. “Does not that mean everything that is indiscreet?” But the girl did not leave me when she had opened the door for me. She snatched up her hat as she passed, and followed me out, calling my attention, in the candid way which belonged to the family, to the state of the lawn, as long as we were within hearing of the open windows. “I own!” she said, “if it were a haymaking mamma meant to give, it would be more suitable, and greater fun too.” Then Norah lowered her voice, and approached me closely, with an anxious glance. “Did you tell mamma about him,” she said, “when I was gone? I know you told mamma.”
I did not make her any answer. I looked her very closely in the face and shook my head. “Oh Norah—” I began.
“Nothing more—don’t say anything more,” cried the girl. “I know what you mean when you say ‘Oh Norah!’ Is it so bad as that? you mean to say; and I tell you it is not bad at all, Mrs. Mulgrave. I know all—he has told me all, poor fellow, and I am so sorry for him. It does not matter to me—or rather, he is my friend and it does matter—but not in the way you think. Only because people are so queer and so prejudiced, I would not have you tell mamma.”
“Then you ought to save him from what may be coming upon him,” said I. “If Lady Louisa is going to have a number of people from town, how can you insure that there will not be somebody who knows all—better than you do—somebody who might expose him, which is what I don’t want to do—for everybody knew,” I said.
It seemed incomprehensible that on this spot, where the very earth seemed to have thrilled with the story of Everard Stoke’s ill-doings, an innocent young creature like this should be standing all flushed and eager to defend him. And knowing all, as she said.
She had grown very pale as I spoke. “Expose him?” she said, in a tremulous, almost whispering voice, and then shook her head as if with an effort to shake off the effect of my words. “I don’t understand what you mean,—but I will ask nobody but himself,” she cried—“nobody but himself. He must answer for himself.”
I do not know how much longer Norah would have held me there talking about it, but I saw how vain it was. And Patrick made his appearance from the stable-yard with a big scythe, bigger than himself, over his shoulder. Mowing-machines were not so common then as they are now, and even had they been more general, I don’t think anything but the primitive method of getting rid of the grass would have been adopted at the Mansion. The impatient girl saw the approach of the man of all work with an irritation which almost looked like temper. “I did not say you were to begin this very minute, When there are people here,” she cried, and caught at my hand to stop me. “Wait, Mrs. Mulgrave; I am going with you a little way.”
I do not know what I could have done to free myself of her if she had persevered, and it may be supposed that I had little desire to receive any confidences from Norah, or to argue with her in her present state of mind. It was the stable-boy who came to my assistance—a novel, unexpected auxiliary. “Sure, Miss Norah, and it’s them as will be tired waiting for you at the gate.”
Norah gave me a terrified glance and grew scarlet, and then she turned upon the lad with a kind of fury. “Them? Who? and who gave you leave to speak?” she cried, wild with vexation. Perhaps there was enough in that glance to give the lad his instructions, or perhaps his ready wit suggested the explanation.
“I ask your pardon, Miss Norah. Sure it’s the young ladies from the Cottage—who else?”
The blush was still burning on her face when Norah turned and left me. She gave me a little nervous nod, and muttered something, I do not know what, and I know she turned round when she had gone a little way, to see if I was looking after her. Poor child I Because I objected to Everard I had become her enemy. She feared me and distrusted me, though I was, as I believed, the only one who tried to save her. Could his sisters be aiding Everard in this piece of selfish villainy? The question had scarcely risen in my mind when I saw Lottie Stoke coming to meet me. Then it became evident that it must be a lie—and Patrick could not have had his story so ready had it been the first time that any one had waited for Norah at the other gate.
I had no heart to speak to Lottie when she came up. All I could say to myself was that I wished I could glide through the world taking interest in nobody, letting people look after their own affairs, and minding my own business. But then my own business is so very trilling in this world, and one can’t help loving people—no, nor even disliking people, though that perhaps is wrong—I will not go so far as to say hating, for that would not be true.
“Now you have been seeing Norah,” said Lottie Stoke, “and I hope you have been more successful on that side.”
“I have nothing to do with Norah,” I said a little sharply. “I am neither her mother nor her keeper. She—and others—so far as I can see, must please themselves.”
“Ah, that’s what Everard is doing,” said Lottie, “what he always did all his life. Of course he can’t marry—even if she were rich I don’t believe he would ever think of marrying. He is only amusing himself. There are times when I could shoot him, though he is my brother—or kick him, which is worse,” cried Lottie, with sharp contempt
“She is amusing herself too,” said I. “Never mind; she knows she must marry money, and she knows her mother would never look at such a man. Why should we vex ourselves that have nothing to do with it? Let them amuse themselves. They ought to know their own meaning best.”
“But it will make people talk, as you said, and we shall hear that dreadful story all raked up again,” said Lottie, with sudden tears. “Oh, I can’t help it—I am out of my senses, and they only encourage him in all his doings at home.”
And I had to take her in with me, and comfort her, and show her that I could do nothing—which was very poor comfort, either to her or to me.
CHAPTER IV.
This tragical undercurrent which ran on all through Lady Louisa’s preparations for her parties made the fun of them less enjoyable, to me at least, though the Green in general made mighty merry over the saries of tays. When the lawn was mowed by Patrick it looked so much like a hayfield from which the crop had just been removed that a glance of dismay had momentarily overwhelmed Lady Louisa’s delightful confidence. But she soon recovered. “Sure it’s in the country,” she said. “It’s Nature—what can ye expect? Young Everton, my Cousin Fascally’s eldest son, a charming, handsome young fellow and the best of sons, was in raptures with it. He’d have Norah take him to see the moon. ‘Nonsense, my young friend,’ said I ‘it’s rheumatism will go with you, and not Norah.’ For, me dear ma’am, the family’s poor, and the boy must marry money like the rest of them. It’s not I would be such a bad friend to him as to throw me pretty daughter in his way.”
“Indeed, when nothing can come of it, I think it is wrong, very wrong,” said I, with emphasis which made Lady Louisa stare.
“And that is true,” she said, with vague surprise. “It is one of the things I will never allow. When a young man owes it to his family to make a marriage of a certain kind, it’s cruel, it’s downright barbarity, me dear ma’am, to go poking your pretty girls into the poor boy’s way. There was Lord Muddleton’s boy that went all wrong—there’s been some intermarriages between his family and ours, but I own I can’t tell ye the connection—I would not have let that boy so much as see me child; it would have gone against me conscience, but if you’ll believe me, there was a woman, an aunt of his own, the fool, left him with one of the Dermotts, a pretty creature without a penny, and the next thing his poor parents heard of it he was engaged. And sure they married and came to a bad end. I have my ambition for me children, Mrs. Mulgrave. Not under a hundred thousand for me boys, and for me poor girls, ye know, what Heaven may send them. Isn’t it all the business that’s left me in life?”
And yet next minute she was chatting with Everard Stoke, who came with the pretense of some message from his sisters. He had taken to calling at the Mansion for some days past, since the day when Patrick betrayed his presence at the other gate. Probably Norah had been alarmed in spite of herself by that strange sensation of discovery, and the tingle of shame which had scorched her cheeks, and had put a stop to those half clandestine, half accidental meetings. And accordingly he took to calling openly, and amused Lady Louisa and told her bits of scandal. “The men fish up everything at their clubs, ye know,” she said; and none of us had the courage to tell her that Everard Stoke, in spite of his good connections, had managed to banish himself forever from that condition in which clubs are possible.
There was a good deal of excitement on the Green about the first of the saries of tays, and Heaven knows some of us had good occasion to remember the day. The only sensible one of the Stokes did not take as she should have done my suggestion on the subject. I advised her with all my might to persuade Everard not to go. “There are people coming from the town,” I said, “and how can he tell whom he may meet? Anybody from his old office—any of his old friends. You know how disagreeable it would be.” “Men are not brutes,” said Lottie, indignantly, “at least not young men in society. Even if there did happen to be some one there, they would not have the heart to make any scene. And beside, people forget, when they don’t happen to be friends and take an interest in one,” poor Lottie said, with a little bitter meaning. I took no notice of her unkindness, poor child. It is very true that people forget when you don’t much care for their recollection, but a secret rarely dies out, especially if there is shame in it. It hangs about in the general memory—a sort of shadow—and with one individual here and there always lives keen enough and sharp enough to defy oblivion. This has always been my experience, at least.
I dressed to go to Lady Louisa’s on that particular evening with a thrill of presentiment. I knew something was going to happen. Whether it might take the special form I feared, of course no one could say, but I felt that somehow a storm was coming. And I don’t think I was alone in thinking so. There was a flush on Norah’s face, which, as a rule, was almost too pale, and a tremulous expression about her nostril and movement of her lip, which showed me that she, too, was full of the excitement of a crisis. Lottie Stoke, on. the other hand, had lost all her color. The soft English rose on her cheeks had fled before the breath of this emotion; her eyes looked out of her face large and anxious, with a certain dilatation about them like stars in a summer night, when they seem positively projecting out of the sky. Not a soul entered the room who was not noted from head to foot by Lottie. She had been angry with me for warning her, but yet my warning had not been in vain. Everard, on the contrary, was perfectly charming—I never saw him look so well, nor talk so well, nor make himself so agreeable. We ladies on the Green, who know all about it, absolved him, I am sure, finally that night “You can’t imagine, you know, that he ever did anything dishonorable. It’s not in nature,” said Mrs. Damerel, who had never been one of his friends, to me. As for the party, it was just like other parties, I am sorry to say. There was really nothing original about it, except that it was the first of a saries of tays. If it had been called an evening party, like other people’s, we should all have yawned in comers behind our fans, as one generally does. There were a few men down from town, but they had come to dinner, and were still sitting over their wine when we all assembled. I suppose they did not think us worth their while. We had all got shaken together, and the music and the talk had begun to get lively, and our usual groups were forming—for of course, being all so intimate with each other, we naturally fell into groups—when at last they began to come in. I don’t know whether Everard was at all nervous himself, but at all events he kept away behind the old grand piano in a corner, turning over the music, and whispering to Martha Foster in a way which I could see Norah did not at all like. She was quite flushed and excited, poor child. Though I watched her so closely, I did not know half of what had occurred to excite her. But as soon as Colonel Fitzgerald came in, I saw one thing—that it was Norah at whom he had thrown his handkerchief. Priscilla, more like a little hen than ever, was at the other end of the room trying to amuse the dull people, who generally fall into a heap together at such gatherings, but it was to Norah’s side that the Colonel betook himself. He bent over her, being a very tall man, and talked, and evidently did his very best to entertain her. He even placed himself so, standing before her, that nobody else could get near the girl. It might be because they had all claimed him as a relative, which gives a man courage, or perhaps because he had a contempt for us mere country people, but certain it was that he monopolized Norah in a very significant way—too significant for a party. Poor Norah received these attentions with anything but satisfaction. Her color came and went, her natural fun and nonsense seemed all at an end. When she answered him it was only with a word or two. Sometimes she would give a frightened glance towards Lady Louisa, sometimes to where Everard stood by the piano, now with one girl, now with another. It was evident to me that she was afraid of them both—afraid of exciting Everard to jealousy, afraid of alarming her mother, vexed and annoyed at the ostentatious attentions of the man by her side. She gave even me an appealing glance, as if praying me to come and help her; but I could not take that upon me in Lady Louisa’s house, and knowing what her wishes were. Old Ferms, the butler, and Patrick, the wonderful stable-boy, in a livery coat too long for him, were handing round the tea while this little scene was going on. Colonel Fitzgerald was the first of the gentlemen to leave the dining-room; the others were just beginning to straggle in.
“Give me your arm, Mr. Stoke,” said Lady Louisa all at once; and notwithstanding the hum of talk, and all the murmur of the room, Norah heard it and so did I. “Give me your arm; I want to introduce you to me cousin, Lady Fascally. I want ye to tell her about the Dorchesters. She’s been spending the winter in Naples and knows them well.”
Lady Louisa ran on, but I did not make out what she was saying more. Everard coming towards her turned his face full upon all the assembly, including the gentlemen who were coming in at the door. I don’t know if he had already seen that he had something to dread, or if a mere vague fear, communicated somehow in the atmosphere from us women who were afraid, had crept over him. He was very pale and very grave, like a man turning his face towards visible danger. I cannot say that he was a handsome man, but there was something about him of that charm which is more attractive than beauty.
As Norah turned towards her mother, Colonel Fitzgerald naturally turned too; and started, to my dismay, with a muttered exclamation, “By Jove!” Everard came in with Lady Louisa on his arm, passing close by them. He had swept the whole room with his eyes, and it was evident that he had collected himself for the encounter. “Ah, Fitzgerald, how d’ye do?” he said lightly as he passed. Colonel Fitzgerald did not answer a word; he stood like a man scared, biting his moustache with a kind of convulsive energy. It was he who was silenced and put down, and not Everard. He collapsed altogether, and stood staring before him, and did not seem to have another word to say.
Then Norah turned to me over the arm of her sofa—turned right round, and gave me a triumphant look. “Do you see?” her eyes said; “Which is the victor now?” But at this moment something else occurred. A sudden hush fell on the room, nobody knew why; and then there came a voice quite distinct above everything else, as if it were the only voice in the room. “Good God!” it said, “That fellow here!” Not much certainly to make such a commotion, but it froze Norah into ice as she sat with her head turned round to look at me. I turned too, and so did everybody. It was a fat little man in a white waistcoat who had uttered that exclamation. He was standing direct in Everard’s way, stopping him. Lady Louisa had dropped his arm and was begging the gentlemen not to quarrel, and inquiring what was the matter,—while young Everton stepped forward and stood before Lady Fascally, who had been frozen into ice too, with the smile which she had put on to receive Everard petrifying on her lips.
“Don’t quarrel, me friends,” said Lady Louisa, in her perturbation. “Sir Charles, me dear man, sit down and be quiet, for Heaven’s sake. Sure and nobody wants to know, what it’s about. Mr. Stoke, he’s an old man and no credit to fight. Go and sit down by Norah yonder, and talk to the child, and for goodness’ sake let us have no more.”
“I will obey you, Lady Louisa,” said Everard; his eyes gave one flash and he made the short stranger a bow, and turned and came straight up to Norah. “Come into the conservatory and look at the flowers,” he said, offering her his arm; “It is your mother who sends me.” It all passed with such rapidity that no one could interfere. Norah turned to him as if by compulsion, not as if she had any will of her own. She rose up to her feet trembling, and grew deadly pale, as if she were going to faint—but made a clutch at his arm and saved herself. Colonel Fitzgerald for his part made a movement in a confused, heavy-dragoon way, having only half recovered his senses, as if to interfere between them. “Pardon me, it is Lady Louisa who sent me,” said Everard. He was a little pale, but quite calm, and knew what he was about, which no one else in the room did. There was even a touch of scorn in his voice as he passed the heavy, astonished soldier. “By Jove!” was all Colonel Fitzgerald could say. And Everard led the poor child away, as white as her dress, through the people at the other end of the room, who had not heard much of the disturbance (if it could be called a disturbance). His mother called to him softly as they passed, “What is it, Everard? for God’s sake,” she cried, poor woman. I shall never forget his answer: “Nothing, mother,” he said, with the quietest voice, “except that Lady Louisa has sent me to take Norah out for a breath of fresh air. It is so hot—that is all.”
I had risen, I could not tell why, and was following them with a vague terror I could not express, when Mrs. Stoke grasped my dress, all trembling, and drew me to a chair beside her. “What has happened? Tell me, for God’s sake,” she said. What could I do? Lady Louisa had authorized him to go to her daughter. Norah had trusted herself with him. How was I to interfere? I sat down beside his mother, watching the door of the tiny conservatory which had closed upon them. All this passed in about five minutes from the instant when Lady Louisa took Everard’s arm. I told his mother all I knew, which was nothing, and then I rose, being too nervous to keep still. I would have gone after them into the conservatory at all hazards, but that I saw some others of the young people going. And what could I do? I returned to my old seat, which was near Lady Louisa. I found her in an unmistakable flutter. Colonel Fitzgerald and the little man in the white waistcoat were standing by her, and the group was made up by Mr. Beresford and Lady Fascally, who still sat petrified in the background, with her son in front of her in defence.
“No better than a swindler,” said the fat man. “Took the money, Lady Louisa, ay, and spent it, too, and disappeared, as they mostly do. If I had been told that I should meet that fellow in your house, giving you his arm, I should have sworn that it was impossible. On my honor, I could not believe my eyes.”
“And driven out of the regiment, by Jove,” said Colonel Fitzgerald, into his moustache. “Sent to Coventry.”
“God bless me, don’t make such a fuss about it, me dear friends,” said Lady Louisa, fanning herself violently. “Sure I thought he’d been wild, like the rest of the young men. It’s a mistake, that’s all, and if me Lady Denzil received the poor boy, why shouldn’t I? Don’t go make a fuss and upset me party. I’ll have nothing more to say to him, I promise ye. Ah, now, Mr. Beresford, can’t ye go and look after your guests? What a thing to have happen to me, me dear,” Lady Louisa said, with a half sob, as she dropped into a chair beside her cousin. She was a woman who was always very audible at all times, and it had not occurred to her to lower her voice.
“What an awkward, disagreeable thing to have happened to me.”
“More than awkward, Louisa,” said Lady Fascally, who was a sly woman of quality; “I should ask these ladies what they mean by it, if I were you.”
“Me dear,” said Lady Louisa, “it’s clear enough what they mean by it. The boy’s reformed, and is young, with good connections, and he’s amusing, the poor young creature. I feel for them, poor things. And sure our own boys, me dear, they’re not saints. As for spending money, there’s me second—and not so particular where he’d get it neither. Me heart aches for the poor boy.”
“You had all but presented him to me,” said Lady Fascally, with her petrified air.
“Ah, then, me dear, and what harm could he have done ye?” said the softer woman. “After all, it’s not Don Juan he is,” Lady Louisa added, with a low mellow laugh; the shock had not fallen very severely on her, and the success of her “tay” was more important than Everard. Then her eye fell on me, and she seized upon me on the spot to amuse her difficult relation.
“Talk it all over, me dear ma’am, and tear the boy to pieces, and I’ll be everlastingly obliged to you;” but still the mother said not a word about Norah, whom she had trusted to him—not a look of anxiety, or even of discomposure, was on her face, and I tried to speak, but she was gone, leaving me to amuse her friends.
It was a very hard business; and as Lady Fascally, being a great lady, kept solemn possession of her chair, I had to await the arrival of another victim before I could get free. The night went on, to me at least, like a feverish dream; there was music, there was laughter, and the everlasting sound of Lady Fascall’s fine talk, and yet she and all the rest looked like so many ghosts. I never saw Norah return out of that conservatory; she might have done so, perhaps, when my back was turned, or she might have come into the house another way; she might have gone upstairs to her room with a headache, as Norah sometimes did, I knew, or she might—could she? was it possible?—be wandering about the garden with Everard, listening to what wild talk the excitement of the moment might have put into his selfish mind. With such a generous, undisciplined, impulsive creature the one thing was as likely as the other, and what was certain was, that I saw her no more that night. “She has got into a row with her mamma,” I heard Susy Stoke whisper to another, “and gone off to bed.”
But I had no confidence in Susy Stoke. And it was with a most miserable mind, not knowing what to think, that I got up to follow Lady Denzil when she and Sir Thomas said good night. Priscilla was standing near her mother, white as a ghost. “Are you very tired?” I said to her, longing to say something more. “Tired to death,” the poor little woman answered, looking piteously up in my face, as if asking me the question I longed to ask her. But Lady Louisa was just as cheerful as ever. “Thank you, me dear ma’am,” she said, as she bade me good-night, with a comic glance at her grand relation, such as Irish eyes know so well how to give. And when the child’s mother was so perfectly composed, what right had any one else to be anxious? That is what I said to myself as I went, miserable, home.
CHAPTER V.
It was still early when I got home—not more than half-past eleven; for the party had been disturbed, and everybody was glad to get away. I went upstairs and put on my dressing-gown, and came down again, not feeling ready for bed. A summer night is a cheerless thing at such a moment. When one feels wakeful in winter one comes down to the fire, and that is always company. But the lamp is not sufficient lustre to a room when there is nobody in it but one. And shadows seem to get into the corners—shadows that look as if they might take form sometimes and come and sit by one’s side. I came into the dim room feeling very unhappy. It was dimmer than usual that night; my maid had placed a shade over the lamp, so that there was but one brilliant spot on the table, and all the rest was in darkness. Outside it was a lovely moonlight night; but when one is alone, and past the age for that, the lamplight comes more natural than the moonlight. One goes in and sits down—and one sighs. It is as natural as smiling is at a different time.
But I had scarcely sat down and taken up a book, the first which came to hand, when I heard some one knock at the door and the footsteps of two people outside. My heart leaped to my mouth, and I sat listening with the intensity which one only feels when something very serious is happening. Could it be Norah, come to take refuge with me? But it was not Norah. A minute after, her sister Priscilla came trembling like a little ghost into the room. She was muffled in a great cloak, with the hood over her head, but had not changed her white evening dress, and her face was whiter than her gown. She came in, shutting the door and sending away my maid with a little trembling voice.
“That will do, thank you; don’t trouble any more. Your mistress knows it is me, and the boy will wait in the hall,” she said, and then came to me and knelt down by my side and looked piteously in my face.
“What is it?” I said, taking her hands into mine. They were very cold, and she was shivering with a nervous chill, though it was so warm a night.
“She has gone away with him,” said Priscilla—like myself too much overcome to waste her words. “I cannot find her anywhere. Oh! Mrs. Mulgrave, what am I to do?”
“Gone with him?” I said, in my horror. And yet I did not feel surprised. I seemed to have known all along that it must be so.
“I hoped she had gone to bed,” moaned Priscilla. “I told mamma so. Mamma has gone to her room quite easy in her mind, thinking so. But she is not there. Where is she? Oh, where is she? And what must we do?”
Just at that moment there came an impatient knocking at the window which opened to the garden. It was very soft yet very hasty—like one who came by stealth and yet had not a moment to spare. Priscilla sprang to her feet, and so did I. The shutters were all shut close; for it was on the ground floor, and easily accessible from the road. Once more I thought it was Norah, and so did her sister at my side. I don’t know which of us it was that got the window open, we were both trembling so much, and obstructing each other in our eagerness. When we threw it open, a whole flood of moonlight and soft-scented night air came pouring in; but nothing else. We stood straining our eyes out, filled with I don’t know what superstitious terror. Priscilla clutched at me with her little icy hand. Nothing we could have seen would have appalled us like that beautiful, awful vacancy, after the human sounds of appeal for admittance. I was so terrified at last by the rigid grasp of the white creature beside me, and the moon gleaming upon her staring eyes and pallid, ghostly little figure, that I turned round to support her. And then it was, I suppose, that Lottie Stoke ventured to come forward out of the shadow. Priscilla gave a terrible scream and fell down at my feet. I cannot deny but I had almost fainted too, when the other figure suddenly appeared behind me, and helped to lift her up. What saved me was that Lottie grasped my arm with a kind of violence. “It is me,” she said, “Lottie,” almost shaking me in her impatience. She had been afraid to come in, seeing two of us, and thus we lost ten precious minutes, as she said afterwards; for we had to bring Priscilla to her senses before we could hear each other speak.
“He has carried her off!” said Lottie, who had all the appearance of breathless haste. She had run all the way from the cottage, but had taken time to change her dress, and was evidently ready for action. “And I think I know where, Mrs. Mulgrave, if you have the courage to come. Have you the courage to come? Priscilla, be still, and don’t pay any attention; you are just coming out of a faint Mrs. Mulgrave, if you will come we may save them yet.”
I cannot give any idea of the breathless way in which Lottie spoke. She could not stand still. She kept sprinkling the eau-de-cologne over Priscilla, though she had come to by this time. And then she went and shut the windows, putting the shutters close with vigorous, trembling hands, and talking all the time. Priscilla, more dead than alive, sat up on the sofa where we had placed her.
“You will go, Mrs. Mulgrave?” she said. “Oh, go—for God’s sake! before mamma knows.”
“Where is it? What can we do? Children, you are driving me stupid,” I cried. “Where can we go in the middle of the night?”
Then they both huddled close to me, and Lottie told her story. She had feared something from the moment they had disappeared into the conservatory; and Everard was not to be found. When they got home they found he had been there and had sent to the Barley-Mow for the gig. He told the servants he had been sent for to town, and that one of his sisters was going to see him off, and took a cloak of Lottie’s and a hat. He was to leave the gig at a little inn near the Brentworth station, which was where the night express stopped. The maid, who had been curious, reported that the gig took him up with his companion under the shade of the lodge trees, so that she could not see which of the young ladies it was.
“Brentworth is six miles off,” Lottie said, as she ended her tale. “Your pony would do it if you would come. When she said Brentworth, I knew where he must have gone. I will tell you on the road, Mrs. Mulgrave; only come.”
“Oh, Mrs. Mulgrave, darling, go!” cried Priscilla, clasping her cold arms around me. My mind went slower than theirs—being older, I suppose.
“What good could we do?” said I. “There is not another train to-night. I would go if it would do any good. Lottie, my dear, think a moment; there is no train, and it is the middle of the night”
“He has not gone by the train,” said Lottie; “I know where he has gone. I am sure I know. It is full moon, and the roads are light as day. I am not afraid to go anywhere, if you will come. Oh! Mrs. Mulgrave, after all we have suffered, for my poor mother’s sake.”
“For my Norah’s sake!” cried Priscilla, joining her two hands.
“I can put in the pony, myself!” Lottie cried, springing to her feet. “After all, we have not lost much time. I will tell Mary to bring you a glass of wine, and give me a light, and your big cloak. I have done it before. I shall be ready in ten minutes.”
The emergency had brought out all the energy in her, while I, though I am not generally timid, sat trembling, not seeing my way. Two women alone driving across the country, in the middle of the night, through all that bright, prying, ghastly moonlight. We might meet tramps, or something worse, on the way. We might fall into evil hands. We might be murdered, for anything I could tell. And there was no trace to follow the fugitives to town by. Though, they hurried me on with their impetuosity, I was afraid.
“It is not safe, it is not possible!” I cried. “We must wait till the morning. Two ladies alone! Lottie, you do not think what you say.”
“Patrick came with me,” said Priscilla, “he is as faithful as one of ourselves. He would go through fire and water for her. Oh, my Norah! I feel as if I dare not name her. Take Patrick, Mrs. Mulgrave, and for God’s sake go!”
In ten minutes I found myself sitting wrapped up, and ready, waiting for the pony-carriage to come round. I could not resist them, though I could see no object in it.
“If mamma finds out, I will say she has come here in one of her tempers,” said Priscilla. “I will say she has gone to you. If mamma knew—and oh! she was so aggravating to-day, and made Norah wild. I don’t wonder at anything she did.”
“Was it about him?” said Lottie, for I would not speak.
“Oh, no! it was about the other,” said Priscilla. “He preferred her, as he was sure to do. The men all prefer Norah, she is so pretty and so lively; and sometimes the women too.”
“Because you never let us see how good you are!” cried Lottie, starting up, as we heard the sound of wheels. And for my part, all trembling and excited as I was, I took Priscilla into my arms and kissed her. Her tears came on my face warmer than her cheek was. We watched her make a tremulous rush down through the moonlight, and get safely within her own gate; and then Lottie and I, with Patrick behind us, turned off across the Green.
I have made many strange journeys in my life, and mostly on account of other people, having little enough to do for myself, but I don’t recollect anything like that drive in the moonlight with the Irish stable-boy and Lottie Stoke. How still it was; how the moon shone and shone, growing bigger and fuller every moment, and wrapping us round and round in light. Every house on the road was fast asleep. The lights all out. The windows all covered, and the moonlight climbing in at them, an unsuspected thief, and whitening walls and roofs, and throwing awful ghastly shadows on everything in its way. There was scarcely a breath of air stirring. The roads were hard and dry, echoing under the pony’s feet. Sometimes we thought we heard sounds of somebody before us. Sometimes of somebody pursuing, and would stop and hold our breath. It was the silence, I suppose, and the strange feeling of being all alone, awake and alive as it were, in the midst of this dead, motionless, sleeping world. And yet, Patrick the stable-boy was a kind of comfort . too. Lottie told me where we were going as we went. An old servant of the Stokes, an old nurse, had a little farm near Brentworth. Lottie thought he would not take Norah to London, but there; and that what he said about the train was only to delude us. She thought he would stay there till the first noise of the discovery was over. And then she burst forth all at once with a passion of indignation, and rage, and scorn that bewildered me. “He is my brother!” she cried. “Oh, that one should have to despise one’s brother! I seem to hate him when I think of it. He has done it for revenge, because he was disgraced there to-night. She is poor; she has nothing. He never wanted to marry her, Mrs. Mulgrave. He will keep her there till everybody knows she has gone away with him, and then he will not marry her. I know him. Sometimes he is like the Devil himself!” cried Lottie, “and that is why I would not lose a moment I will bring her home if I should die!”
“Lottie!” I cried, “he could not be such a villain. Men are bad enough, but not so bad as that.”
“I do not mean he will do her any harm,” said Lottie, with a violent crimson blush, which I could see, even in the moonlight; and her whip rose, and my poor pony started forward on the silent, silent road. The girl was excited and did not know what she was doing. I made her no answer, feeling sure that her indignation and agitation had carried her away, and warped her judgment even. Men are bad enough, but nowadays they don’t do such things as that.
The nearer we came to our destination, the more silent we grew, and the faster went the pony, urged on by Lottie, who did not know what she was doing. When we passed Brentworth station, some one looked out from the little house by the railway, evidently startled by the noise we made, and threw up a window to watch us two ladies and the boy behind. He must have thought us ghosts, or madwomen. Then we turned down a long narrow country lane, all shaded with trees, and dark, which was still more terrifying than the light; and at last came to the farmhouse gate. Patrick jumped down to open it. We had never said a word to the lad of what our mission was; but he came up to the side of the carriage with a whisper, “Sure it’s the gate is open, Miss. I’ll go bail somebody’s been here before us,” he said. The chase had roused him, and so indeed, to some extent, it had me; hopeless though I was.
We drove up to the door—never was a house, to all appearance, more completely asleep. Perfect silence, darkness, windows closed, not so much as a creature stirring in the barnyard, or a dog to bark. “It is nonsense, Lottie,” I said, thinking how we should possibly be able to explain to any innocent, unconscious people our object in this extraordinary visit; but Lottie was now too much excited to think of anything. When Patrick, by her orders, went and thundered at the door, the sound seemed to wake up the whole country. A dog in the farmyard behind bayed deep and loud, and simultaneously, from a distance of miles all round, as one would have thought, other dogs replied to him. There was a universal stir in the air, in the trees, in the whole neighborhood. Night was surprised, and echoed and thrilled all over, but not a sound woke in the house. While we waited for an answer, the noise extinguished itself, as it were, and dead silence fell all around us again—dead silence, not a movement or breath in the Castle of Dreams we were assailing. Then the boy came round once more to the side of the carriage. “Sure they’re a deal too quiet,” he said; “if they didn’t hear they’d be stirring. Will I knock again?” “Louder!” cried Lottie, in her impatience; and this time the summons was hideous. The first indication of response was the opening of a window in the other side of the house, and then Lottie called out loudly: “Mrs. Drayton, open the door,” she said, “you are wanted. I know you hear me. Mrs. Stoke has sent for you; open the door!”
Patrick renewed his summons. This time it was successful. A gradual movement began inside. Some one came down stairs, and at last a bolt was withdrawn, but doubtfully. “It is me,” cried Lottie, springing out of the carriage, “Lottie Stoke; don’t you know my voice? Open the door, Mrs. Drayton; not one of us will ever speak to you again if you don’t open the door.”
“Coming, coming, Miss,” said a frightened voice, and then the door opened, and a woman with dazzled, blinking eyes, and a candle in her hand, made her appearance reluctantly.
“Lord bless us, Miss Lottie! I thought it was robbers. What’s brought you here in the middle of the night?”
“Where is my brother?” cried Lottie. “Don’t try to deceive me. I know he is here.”
“Your brother! Mr. Everard!”
Lottie put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and shook her in her excitement
“Don’t tell me any lies,” she cried. “I know he has been here and some one with him. Where is he? If you try to shield him this time you will ruin him, Drayton. I must see him this instant—this instant! Do you hear?”
The woman began to cry and put down her candle on the door-step—where it flickered wildly—and wrung her hands. “Oh! what am I to do! what am I to do!” she cried.
“Let me see my brother at once,” Lottie repeated, clutching her by the shoulders, while for my part I cried out, “The young lady—the young lady! Bring her to us and let him alone!”
“Miss Lottie, if you will take my word, if you will believe me on my Bible oath,” she cried, “as sure as you are sitting there, he went up to town by the express train.” I could not restrain the groan that came from my lips. I had known it would come to nothing, and yet for a minute I had actually begun to hope. It was my groan that saved us. The woman stopped in her crying to give a curious glance at me. She must have seen, by the outline of my figure in the moonlight, that I was not young. I think she supposed me to be Norah’s mother. She made a step forward and looked at me anxiously. What a strange, wild scene it was! and all the while that lovely moon, that cared nothing for us, shining, and the little flickering candle blazing away at her feet.
“Oh, what is he up to this time!” she cried; “Miss Lottie, tell me! He’s my boy, and I’ll stand up for him through thick and thin, but I’ve always been respectable, I told him so. I won’t do nothing but what’s right.”
“Oh, good woman,” I cried out of my shawls, “kind woman! Nothing shall be done to him if you will tell us where she is.”
A little flicker of hope began to rise in me again. The woman stood irresolute, wringing her hands, and Lottie clutched at her, drew her aside, and began to talk eagerly, urging something upon her. I tried to listen, but they were too far off, and then another faint, indistinct sound caught my ear. What was it? It was like the creaking of a wooden stair, and some one stealing down one step at a time. Then I fancied I heard the sound of hurried, stealthy breathing. I did not scream out, though I was half dead with fright. If Everard Stoke were to spring out upon us, desperate, what should we do? Two wildered women and Patrick, the stable-boy, against a cruel, strong man who would stick at nothing. I kept still and listened, though I was sick with terror, but some unconscious movement I made startled the pony, who took a sudden step forward as if we were starting to go away. Then I heard a short, sharp cry. I echoed it myself in my excitement, and out into the moonlight, overturning the candle, came rushing another figure all white, like a ghost.
“I am coming—I am coming,” she cried, and seized the pony’s reins. Oh, was it possible! I knew then I had never believed it, never hoped for it Was it possible! “Norah! Norah! can it be you?”
She made a pause. She turned for a moment, as if she would go back. “Ah, then who would it be but me,” she sighed. I threw my shawls off and laid my hands on her, and held her fast. Only then could I convince myself that it was true.
“Oh, Norah, come with me! come with me! We have come all this way to fetch you, Norah! Nobody will cross you or scold you—only come back!”
She resisted my arms for I don’t know how long, resisted and held herself away like a naughty child; and then all at once, in her sudden, impulsive way, turned and threw herself on my breast.
“Is it you? I thought it could only be you—and did you come to fetch me, you darling woman? Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do? When he comes back for me to-morrow he will break his heart.”
God forgive me—was it not best to humor her and save her? “He knows where to come for you,” I said. “He can come to me. I will leave a message. Norah, come for his sake! Oh, dear child—listen to me! even a man loves his wife best when he takes her out of another woman’s arms.”
She gave a sudden cry and buried her head on my shoulder. I felt her tremble in my arms. I knew if I could have seen it that her young face pressed against me was crimsoned with shame. But the shame woke resistance in her.
“I have done no harm,” she said, turning her face from me. “He left me here till everything was ready. We are to be married to-morrow. Oh, I cannot go back from my word. In the morning he is to come!”
“Norah,” I said in my desperation, “I will give you to him—he can come to me.”
I cannot tell how long this discussion went on. I became aware somehow that Lottie and the woman of the house were both standing by, spectators of the struggle. I held the girl fast. I never let her hand or her dress escape from me. I promised every wild impossibility that came into my head. I grew hoarse and faint with talking. But whether I should have succeeded, Heaven knows. It was not I who did it at last Patrick, the stable-boy, had stolen round to the side where Norah stood. All at once he put his hand out and touched her. The lad was crying.
“Miss Norah,” he sobbed out, “sure if you don’t come home your darlint sister, your own sister, will break her heart and die.”
Norah said not a word more. She broke out into sudden weeping, hysterical and loud, and then shivered so that I thought she would have fallen out of my hold. She was still in her ball dress, with the little white cloak about her which she had worn when she went into the conservatory with that villain. I put one of my shawls round her and she was grateful for it, and then we half lifted, half forced her into the pony carriage. All this time no one said a word; we scarcely ventured to breathe. When she was safe in the back seat, and I beside her with my arms around her; I gave the woman of the house some ridiculous message. Heaven knows what I said. “Tell him to come to me for her; I will give her to him, I pledge my word.” Something like this I said in my folly. I felt Lottie’s breath on my cheek and heard her whisper something which in my excitement I did not understand. And then—I could not believe it, it seemed to be a dream—we were driving back again, with Norah saved!
I thought of nothing as we drove back. The moonlight and the solitude were nothing to me. It was Patrick who drove, and we flew over the echoing roads, running a race with the dawn, and we won it, though I scarcely hoped we could. It was still only twilight when I opened my door like a thief, and stole up to my room with the girl we had snatched out of the jaws of destruction. All this had been like a dream to Norah. She kissed me, and looked piteously in my face, and said, “When he comes to-morrow, you will give me to him,” as I laid her in my own bed. I trembled to think what I was doing, but I promised once again—better come that than the other, however bad it might be.
It was only when I stole down stairs again after this, that Lottie and I had time to look each other in the face in the faint light of the morning. “Do not vex yourself, dear Mrs. Mulgrave,” she said, “he will never come back.”
“It is not possible, Lottie I” “He will never, never come back. He would have left her there—Oh, do you think I don’t know him—to bring shame on the house where he was shamed. You will have no trouble; he will never come near her or think of her again!”
I thought she judged him hardly. I did not believe any man could be capable of such villainy. For my own part, I believed I should have a great deal to go through. I lay down on the sofa in my dressing-gown (which I had worn all this time), and tried to sleep, but could not sleep for thinking what trouble I might have brought upon myself!—and what would her friends say to me! But in the mean time she was safe; nothing had happened; at least there was reason to be glad for that.
But oh how strange it was when Lady Louisa came to me in the morning as cheerful and mellow as ever, knowing nothing, Heaven be praised! of the kind of night we had passed. “I hear you have me runaway child harbored in your house,” she said, “and it’s whipped she ought to be for her saucy ways. But Norah always had a spirit of her own; she takes after me family, not after the Beresfords. Did they tell ye how we quarreled, me dear ma’am?” continued the cheerful mother; and I, a miserable deceiver, did not dare to meet her eye.
“No, mamma, unless Norah did,” said poor little Priscilla, who was as pallid as a ghost. “It was this,” said Lady Louisa; “and me child, you can go and tell your sister I forgive her. Sure we’ll beat her when we get home,” she added with a twinkle in her eye,—“don’t look like a specter, me dear. Bless the man,” Lady Louisa continued, with her hateful candor, “I wish he’d been a thousand miles off. It was me Norah that took his eye, and I don’t blame him, though Prissy was the one for him, me dear lady, and would have made him a darling of a wife. But the men are all fools, and never know what’s good for them. So, as I was saying, it was Norah that took his eyes, and what do you think she came and told me just before dinner, to spoil me appetite: ‘He may have sixty thousand a year if he likes,’ she says, ‘or the queen’s crown, but I won’t have him.’ Think of that, me dear ma’am, for a mother that thinks of nothing but her children! But she takes it of me own family,” said Lady Louisa, with a curious self-consolation. “I was a fool meself in me young days, and downright uncivil to the men. So we had some words, I won’t deny, and what with that, and what with the poor boy Stoke, me tay was a failure. Ah, you’re very polite: but it was a failure, me dear lady, and broke me heart. Please Heaven we’ll do better another time; sure I’ll have the boys down, and it will be different altogether. And as for the Colonel, it’s hard to let ten thousand a year slip through one’s fingers; but do you think even for that I’d be cruel to me own child!”
I begged Lady Louisa, with a troubled heart, to leave Norah with me for a day or two.
If he comes back to claim her, then, I thought, it would be time enough to tell her parents why. But my request was granted with the most cheerful readiness and without a fear. I cannot tell how the day passed. My head spun round and round, and the hours and the world seemed to spin with me. Norah was very grave, and I think a terrible doubt had risen in her mind. She remained in my room all day waiting for Everard. When the afternoon came I sent a messenger to Brentworth. He had not been there. He neither came nor wrote, nor took any further notice. I could not believe it. The second day I drove over myself and made sure. No, he had not come back. And if she had been left there—if no good angel had put the thought in Lottie Stoke’s mind to go and seek her, what would Norah have done? Her folly would have cost her her reputation and probably her life.
It did all but cost her her life as it was. Not immediately, for the child could not dispossess herself of the idea that somebody was to blame, and that Miss Stoke or Priscilla (she did not suspect me) were scheming to keep him away. For months she went about with eyes that seemed to question all the roads for miles off, spying everybody that passed. And then the poor child had a fever, and raved about it, asking of all why we did not let him come. But when she recovered, her delusions departed with the fever. A girl’s painful first love, thank Heaven, seldom stands a great shock, and never surely such a shock as that.
Not very long after this the Beresfords left the mansion, to the great affliction of all Dinglefield. They have been living in Italy since, and all over the world; and the last news we heard was, that the ten thousand a year was, after all, likely to come into the family, but not through Norah. Her dear little sister Priscilla, who had no objections to Colonel Fitzgerald, having, it would seem, caught his heart (if heavy dragoons have hearts) in the rebound. There is a rumor that Norah is after all going to marry young Everton, her cousin, Lady Fascall’s son, notwithstanding the precautions taken by both families, and that everybody is distracted, and they are all very happy. However, I do not vouch for that. But this I am sure, that we would all put up triumphal arches and receive them with open arms if any good fortune should send Lady Louisa back again to complete her sadly interrupted saries of tays.