*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69428 ***

Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.




THE WELLFIELDS.




  THE WELLFIELDS.

  A Novel.

  BY
  JESSIE FOTHERGILL,
  AUTHOR OF ‘THE FIRST VIOLIN’ AND ‘PROBATION.’

  IN THREE VOLUMES.
  VOL. I.

  [Illustration]

  LONDON:
  RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
  Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
  1880.

  [_All Rights Reserved._]




  To

  MY FRIENDS AT LOWESWATER,

  IN REMEMBRANCE OF SOME PLEASANT DAYS
  SPENT THERE WITH THEM.




[Illustration]




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.


                                                   PAGE

  PRELUDE                                             1


  STAGE I.

  CHAPTER

  I. EMS                                             16

  II. FRAU VON TROCKENAU’S ‘GESELLSCHAFT’            41

  III. A LANDPARTEI                                  72

  IV. OF THE WELLFIELDS                             116

  V. FATHER AND SON ARRANGE ACCOUNTS                133

  VI. AVICE READS A CHAPTER OF A NEW BOOK           155

  VII. LIFE’S FULLEST STREAM                        163

  VIII. ‘CONTENT THEE WITH ONE BITTER WORD, ADIEU!’ 183

  IX. ELLEN’S OPINION                               195


  STAGE II.

  I. WHAT MR. NETLEY SAID                           204

  II. MONK’S GATE                                   217

  III. THE NEW MAN AND THE OLD ACRES                229

  IV. NITA’S DIARY                                  258

  V. WITH THE STREAM                                265




[Illustration]




THE WELLFIELDS.




PRELUDE.


In very early days, in the beginnings of Saxon Christianity, a certain
Saxon potentate erected a church at Wellfield, now a village in the
north-east corner of a great and wealthy English county. This church he
called, as many churches in those times were called, the White Church;
and since it stood in a peculiar situation, in close proximity to the
foot of a lovely wooded rise, he added the further distinguishing
title of ‘under the Hill,’ and for hundreds of years it was known as
the ‘White Church under the Hill.’ Generations came and went, and
worshipped there, and led lives pious or otherwise: it was a wild
race of people that dwelt in that well-watered valley, and the White
Church under the Hill was known far and wide, long before such things
as monasteries and cloisters, with their attendant good and evil, were
thought of. It was a wild and lovely region, watered by three fair
streams well stocked with fish, while venison and game abounded in the
woods and on the moors around. Gradually a village clustered around
the White Church. Wealthy and pious persons made gifts to it, and
built houses in the vicinity of it, until the Normans came, and soon
after that changes took place. Monasteries and abbeys and nunneries
sprang up, here and there, throughout the land; and it so chanced that
a certain pious baron presented to a company of Cistercian monks a
very fair site by the river, and not far from the White Church. There
they began to build themselves an abbey, the fame of which soon spread
far and wide in the land. Its farms were fat, its lands productive,
its abbots proud, its hospitality unbounded; for three centuries they
built at it and lavished upon it all manner of beauty, in the shape
of rare carvings of oak and stone. Its church was as large as many a
cathedral; it stood on an exquisite site beside the river, and the size
of the abbey-grounds soon exceeded that of the whole village and the
White Church counted into the bargain. Then, while it was still in its
glory and still unfinished, while the proudest and most domineering of
its abbots was ruling the land around with a rod of iron, and hunting
out witches and chasing them over Penhull, the great hill hard by,
and burning them when he caught them, and was rioting in power—then,
under the ferocious auspices of the Eighth Harry of glorious memory,
a reform was effected—a reform which took the shape of a sack of
the glorious abbey. Its church was demolished, the friars disbanded,
the proud abbot was gibbeted in full view of his birthplace over the
water, on a wooded mound called to this day ‘The Abbot’s Knoll.’ All
the church plate and jewellery was confiscated by the royal robber;
while the abbey and the lands thereof were magnanimously presented by
him—what was left of them—to two of the neighbouring gentry, one John
de Wellfield and one Ralph de Burnshire, which gentlemen had gallantly
espoused the cause of the king, and had assisted in driving forth the
monks from the abbey at the end of the pike. The families of Wellfield
and Burnshire presently were united by the marriage of the sole heiress
of the Burnshires with the sole heir of the Wellfields, and it was
at this juncture that another great property called Brentwood, some
three miles away, lapsed, through lack of direct heirs male, from the
Burnshire family to a collateral branch of the same, named Waddington,
which Waddingtons continued to be devout Roman Catholics, while the
Wellfields turned heretics, to the great distress of the reverend
fathers, the Jesuits, who about this period in the family history were
beginning to make a great noise in the world, and to exert their power
and make it felt. Wellfield Abbey, then, got into heretic hands, and
the heretics continued to be men of mark; while the pious and devout
Waddingtons had the ill luck (or the ill grace) to die out, and their
representatives, in the year of grace 1794, let their ancient abode
on the hill-side at a nominal rent to those Jesuit fathers who were
driven from their French college at L—— by the Revolution. They were
thrifty, these Jesuit fathers, and eventually bought the whole estate,
and their representatives possess it to this day, and have made of it
the first Roman Catholic seminary in the north at any rate, if not in
the whole of England. Indeed, that corner of this favoured land is a
Catholic stronghold.

Meanwhile, the heretic Wellfields of Wellfield continued to flourish,
seemingly, like a green bay-tree; though, taking the royalist side
in the Stuart troubles, they are said to have suffered heavy losses
therefrom. The most perfect _entente cordiale_ always existed between
them and the neighbouring Catholic gentry, and the reverend fathers at
Brentwood; and they were always classed amongst the first families of
the neighbourhood when they were at home. Of late years they had lived
much abroad. At the time now referred to, 18—, there were only two
representatives of the line: John Felix Wellfield, and a son; the said
John Felix had been an only child, as had his father before him, and
his own wife was recently dead.

Meantime, while the gorgeous abbey church, which had been centuries
a-building, had been so razed to the ground as that hardly a vestige
of it remained, save a green space in the shape of a cross to show
where it had once stood, and while the two great entrances of the
abbey—Monk’s-gate and Abbot’s-gate—were like great ruined caverns,
grown over with ivy; while the cloisters were a line of hoary ruins,
and nought of the abbey remained save enough to make a quaint old
dwelling-house—all this time the White Church under the Hill stood
intact—added to a little here and there; enriched by the spoils of
the abbey—they rescued the exquisite carved black oak stalls and a
magnificent rood-screen, and set them up in the humbler building. Now
it was a Protestant place of worship; in the midst of the old oak pews
some evangeliser had set up a ‘three-decker,’ in which the service was
performed, and there is no record of this piece of vandalism having met
with the condign punishment it deserved. It—the ‘three-decker’—stared
down upon an ancient pew of black carved oak which glittered like a
mirror, which pew was said—along with many others—to be the oldest
in England. Built by one Roger of Wellfield, it had been left by him
as a legacy for ‘the proud dames of Wellfield’ to sit in every Sunday,
which ‘proud dames’ are at this date represented by three decrepit
old women, who enjoy the best view in the church of—the pulpit. The
old church is sturdy yet, having survived so many changes, including
a visit from George Fox, in the days when he went about denouncing
‘steeple-houses,’ and who stood in the aisle and stigmatised the then
priest of Wellfield as ‘a light, scornful, chaffy fellow.’ It shows no
signs of decay. May it be long before such symptoms appear in it!

       *       *       *       *       *

A party of visitors, thirty years ago and more, were strolling round
this old church one summer afternoon, escorted by a young woman who had
the keys, and who had told them all she knew about the place and its
history.

‘Then does the present Mr. Wellfield not live at the abbey?’ inquired a
young lady who was of the party.

‘No, ma’am. They say he lives a deal in Italy, and the lady he married
came from those parts. Young Mr. Wellfield is staying at the abbey now,
and his tutor says it’s because of his health; but they do say that Mr.
Wellfield is going to be married again, and wants him away.’

The visitors exchanged glances, and the young woman continued:

‘See, there’s the young gentleman looking in now, and his playfellow,
old Mr. Leyburn’s lad.’

Indeed, at this moment two boys, whose ages might be ten and eleven, or
eleven and twelve years, came strolling into the church by the chancel
door, which stood open, their arms about one another’s shoulders,
and their faces rubbing together now and then after the fashion of a
couple of friendly ponies. One was tall and slender, and was of an
extraordinary beauty of face and figure, with solemn, liquid dark
eyes, and a very un-English look. The other was not quite so tall,
was sturdy, square and strong, but clumsily built—‘a little _pleb_,’
thought the young lady, who was watching them with interest. The rest
of her party had strolled on with the young woman to look at proud
Abbot ——’s tombstone, which, said tradition, if a Wellfield walked
over it, he should not live out the year. But the girl—she was no
more—remained where she was until the boys came up to her, and they
were all standing at the foot of the chancel steps, just outside the
rood-screen.

‘Have you come to see the church?’ she asked, smiling.

‘We saw the door open, _signorina_, and came in,’ said the beautiful
boy; ‘but we can see it as often as we want—twice every Sunday.’

His voice was sweet; his accent more than half Italian.

‘Do you live here then? What is your name?’ she asked, wishing to draw
him out.

‘No; I do not live here. I am only staying a few months here. I am
called Jerome Wellfield, and the abbey belongs to my father.’

‘Indeed! Would you not like to live in such a beautiful home?’

‘If it were not so cold in England I would; but I like Italy: it is
warm there.’

‘Yes. And you—what are you called?’ she asked, turning to the other
lad.

‘John Leyburn,’ he made answer, looking at her with clear,
considerate, rather light-brown eyes, which looked very ineffective
beside the velvet softness and darkness of young Wellfield’s.

‘You live here, I am sure.’

‘Yes; I live at Abbot’s Knoll with my father and mother.’

‘And are you great friends? Have you known one another long?’

‘Oh! we have known one another a long time—two months,’ replied young
Wellfield; ‘and we are great friends, aren’t we, Jack?’

‘Yes,’ replied ‘Jack,’ with much deliberation.

Indeed all he did and said was deliberate.

‘And can you tell me what each of you likes better than anything else?’
she asked, loth to break off the conversation, and charmed with Master
Jerome’s grace and beauty. ‘You, Jerome Wellfield, what do you like
best?’

‘I like so many things that are nice,’ said the boy, with a pensive
smile; and glancing downwards, the long lashes swept his pale cheek.
‘I like music; and I liked mamma. I liked her drawing-room at Frascati,
where the beautiful ladies used to come when I was a little boy. I
like—oh! I like everything that is not ugly,’ he concluded, looking
rather bored.

‘And you, my boy?’ she turned to the other.

‘I like birds’-nesting,’ was the reply, deliberate, but prompt.

‘What, better than anything? Oh, horrible!’

‘He does not mean birds’-nesting, exactly,’ Jerome explained for him.
‘He means all sorts of things—going into the woods, and learning about
birds and watching them, and plants, and butterflies, and all that sort
of thing.’

‘Oh, natural history!’

‘Yes; natural history,’ replied the sturdy-looking boy.

‘I don’t care for the birds in the woods here,’ said Jerome,
carelessly; ‘ugly little brown things! I liked the golden pheasants,
and the scarlet humming-birds, and the big white macaw, and the
_papagei_—parrot, you know—in Countess Necromi’s aviary.’

‘Laura, my dear, we must go. We have to do Brentwood yet, you know, and
then to drive to the Lathebys.’

‘Yes; I suppose we have. Well, boys, good afternoon. Will you shake
hands with me?’

‘Yes, _signorina_. _À rivederci_,’ said young Wellfield, looking so
enchantingly amiable that Miss Laura stooped and kissed him.

‘Since you say _à rivederci_, I suppose you do not count me as an ugly
thing?’ she said, laughing.

‘Oh no, the very opposite!’ he smiled, and she tapped his cheek,
and said he was a precocious boy. She felt no interest in poor John
Leyburn, but being of a kind disposition held out her hand to him too.
He flushed all over his plain young face, and asked:

‘Will you—would you tell me what you are called?’

With a rapid flash of intuition ‘Laura’ realised that with all Jerome’s
pretty words and liquid glances, he had not troubled himself on this
point. She put her hand on the plain boy’s shoulder, and kissed him
too, saying:

‘My name is Laura Dewhirst. By the time you are grown up you will have
forgotten it, and I shall be such an old woman that you would not know
me if you met me.’

All three laughed, and with another nod to the boys Miss Dewhirst ran
after her papa and mamma. The two boys left the church, and the young
woman locked the door and contemplated the gratuity she had received
with great satisfaction.

‘Where shall we go?’ asked Jerome.

‘To Mr. Philips, to do our Latin.’

‘Oh, Latin!’ sighed the boy. ‘I never used to do any Latin when mamma
was alive—before I came to England.’

‘Would you like to go back to Italy?’

‘Not much, because papa always makes me feel such a very little boy.
Mr. Philips doesn’t.’

‘Well, come along then! Was not that a beautiful lady?’

‘Very pretty. She liked talking to us.’

‘I liked talking to her,’ said John Leyburn, sedately, as they turned
in at the abbey gate, and went up the river walk.




[Illustration]




STAGE I.




CHAPTER I.

EMS.


It was half-past nine in the evening. The concert in the great Saal of
the _Kurhaus_ at Ems was just over, and the audience streamed out, with
a clatter of conversation, and a sudden restoration of animation, into
the fresher and yet deliciously warm air of the gardens. It was the end
of July, the height of the season at Ems; and that small, enervating,
fashionable watering-place was thronged with visitors of every age,
nation, and rank, from the royal and imperial, as represented in the
persons of Germany and Russia, down to the English family of Robinson,
who had never felt so genteel before, or been in (whether of or not)
such aristocratic company in their lives, and the German family of
Braun, who were wealthy, and who revelled luxuriously each day at a
different _table d’hôte_ of a different hotel, and who sat in a row
in the _Kurgarten_, morning and afternoon, listening devotedly to the
music, and occasionally murmuring ‘_Schön!_’ if it pleased them. Or, oh
joy! standing in rapt respect and attention, as an old white-headed,
white-moustached man in a grey summer-suit came walking along, very
erect, one hand behind his back, in friendly converse with, now one,
now another, bare-headed gentleman who kept just a pace behind him.

‘There’s the emperor! _dear_ old thing!’ whisper all the Miss
Robinsons, standing up too, as the grey old gentleman comes past.

‘_Unser Kaiser!_’ murmur the Brauns with beaming smiles of
satisfaction, and gazing at him with broad-faced loyalty.

This ‘watching for the emperors,’ and the thrills of emotion which ran
through every loyal heart when they were visible, was the chief pastime
of the day; and if one failed to see the emperors, there were always
those who had lived near them—princesses, countesses, baronesses,
and their consorts; highnesses of every degree of transparency and
serenity, half the _vons_ in the Almanach de Gotha; together with
unpronounceable Russians, fascinating Poles, well-known diplomatists,
representing both the _suaviter in modo_ and the _fortiter in re_—to
wit, the ‘blood and iron’ policies of their respective courts. All
these were there, besides the shoals of nobodies who bought up the
_Kurlisten_ in order to read their own names in close proximity to
those of somebodies, and who, it is to be hoped, felt rewarded by these
and similar privileges for the crowding and pushing and swindling to
which they were in other matters subjected.

On the night in question the concert-room had been thronged, for the
two emperors and their suites had condescended to look in for a few
moments, and the orchestra had performed the Russian national hymn with
great spirit and much applause. The distinguished guests were felt to
be still lingering somewhere about the gardens; and moreover the river
was illuminated, and was dazzling with lines of fairy lights, from the
bridge opposite the Darmstädter Hof to the other bridge at the extreme
end of the _Kurgarten_—and of civilisation, of course, in Ems—and
beyond the house called the _Vier Thürme_, at which the Russian monarch
was lodging.

Two barges, brightly illuminated with the imperial crowns and
lovingly-entwined initials of Russia and Germany, were floating about
the river, while ‘the music’ on board alternately played _Die Wacht
am Rhein_ and the Russian national anthem—a spectacle most thrilling
and edifying for all loyal souls; if somewhat less enchanting to the
musicians and boatmen who perspired in the glare and smell and heat
of the lamps, and industriously paddled up and down the little Lahn,
below the walls of the broad walk of the _Kurgarten_.

Down that broad walk, from the concert-room, came a crowd of the
notabilities and otherwise, who had composed the audience; all
chattering, laughing, flirting, and intriguing in almost every European
tongue.

About the middle of the throng came a group of some four or five ladies
and gentlemen, and walking a little in advance of the others with one
of the men beside her, a tall girl whose accent was English, though she
spoke German. Some dark thick trees overhung that part of the walk,
making it dark on the side next the river wall; but the lamps cast a
bright light upon the girl’s face, and showed its every feature and the
play of its expression clearly and distinctly to one who sat on a bench
in one of the little recesses in the wall which almost overhung the
river; and who from this position had for some time been indifferently
watching the brilliant throng as they trooped past.

As the girl came on, now looking straight before her, now turning
her head to speak to the man, who from the thickness of the crowd
was compelled to go just half a pace behind her, the hidden watcher
observed her closely and intently. She was tall, well-formed, and
well-developed. There was much grace and a great deal of pride in her
carriage; her head was habitually carried high, as might easily be
seen; her face was very handsome indeed, even splendid, with a brow
like Chaucer’s nun:

  ‘And sickerly she had a fayre forehead,
  It was almoste a spanne brode, I trow,
  For hardily she was not undergrowe.’

A large, well-cut mouth, in the sweep of whose lips there was both
thought and grandeur; bright, glossy, chestnut hair, rich in hue
and crisply waving; fine dark-grey eyes, with level brows, the eyes
deep-set and critical in expression; her whole aspect was dignified,
and yet there was assuredly a gleam of humour in her eyes, as she
stepped composedly on, in her light, softly falling dress and broad
plumed black hat.

‘Tell me, Herr von Lemde—you have made a study of the nobility, I
know——’

‘It is true, _mein Fräulein_. What ought a man to study, if not his own
order?’

‘And that _such_ an order! Indeed, you are right. I want to know who
that lovely woman near us was, in a dress like a cloud of creamy muslin
and lace. I thought she must be a Pole, from her gracefulness and from
the spirited way in which she spoke.’

‘You were right,’ he said earnestly. ‘It was the Princess ——.’

‘Thank you very much. I feel happier now. Suppose it had turned out to
be some Mrs. Smith, or Frau Müller!’

‘I fear, _mein Fräulein_, that you are a little tinged with——’

‘But, _liebe_ Sara,’ cried a lady behind, ‘it is getting late, and we
have such a long drive.’

‘Oh, Carla, don’t go yet!’ expostulated, not Sara, but a German girl,
dark, handsome, and defiant-looking. ‘It is so fine; and we have not
seen the emperor, and, after all, it is not so late.’

‘Oh, it is quite early!’ said an English girl who was of the party.

She addressed as Sara at this moment turned, and the whole group
paused, a few paces from the place where the silent watcher sat. He had
turned aside as soon as Sara had passed, and was now gazing intently
down into the mysterious eddies of the river, his chin propped on his
hand.

‘Just as you like, Gräfin,’ said Sara Ford, smiling; ‘it is very nice
here, and Herr von Lemde’s society makes dullness out of the question.’

Evidently Miss Ford, dignified though she looked, was not above amusing
herself at the expense of a rather stupid young man.

Baron Lemde smiled all over his handsome, meaningless face, and dropped
a little into the rear, embracing Miss Ford’s shawl with effusion,
while she stood, still the centre of the group, and the Countess of
Trockenau paused, looking thoughtful.

‘It is too bad of you, Miss Ford,’ said the other English girl in her
ear. ‘How can you make fun of poor Lemde and make others laugh at him
in that way?’

Sara smiled a bright, frank, disdainful smile, and the Countess of
Trockenau said:

‘Well, shall we be going?’

‘Oh—h—h!’ sighed the younger English girl, with an accent of
disappointment.

‘_Mein Fräulein_,’ began Lemde, bending towards Sara, who neither heard
nor saw him; or if she did, did not notice him.

He saw that her eyes were fixed upon some one who approached them; her
lips were gravely set, yet in their sweet and gracious curve there was
an expression which, though it was not for him, made the simple young
baron’s heart beat faster. His glance followed hers. The silent watcher
had arisen from his hiding-place, and was advancing towards them. He
met Sara Ford’s eyes, and took off his hat. In another moment they were
shaking hands, and though she was self-possessed, and almost distant in
her manner, poor Hans von Lemde’s heart fell.

‘Good-evening, Miss Ford.’

‘Good-evening, Mr. Wellfield. I did not see you at the concert. Were
you not there?’

‘No; I have been sitting here by the river instead. I hope you are
well?’

‘Quite well, I thank you. And your——’

The countess had seen and accosted him, and he turned towards her.

‘You stay late to-night, _gnädige Frau_,’ said he, kissing her hand
with sedate gravity.

‘Mr. Wellfield! ah, that reminds me—your _Herr Vater_, how is he—any
better? I sent one of my men to inquire while we were in the concert,
but have not seen him yet.’

She was a very pretty woman of eight or nine and twenty—a small,
brilliant brunette; and Jerome Wellfield was dark too, yet the contrast
between them was a startling one.

‘I thank you,’ he answered; ‘my father is somewhat stronger to-night. I
trust he will soon be quite well again.’

‘I hope so; and your sister, she is not with you to-night?’

‘Avice—she did not wish to leave my father; and then, she is a child
as yet.’

‘Is she? I should have said—What is it?’

‘See, _liebe_ Trockenau, his majesty is coming,’ said a German lady of
the party, and with a quick movement the group was divided.

The German ladies, being both of rank, and _geborenen_ of distinguished
families, and Hans Lemde, stood stock-still by the roadside, waiting
until the emperor should pass, to make their reverences and receive a
recognition; while the English girls, Jerome Wellfield, and a German
man who was not a _von_, strolled off down a side-walk. Sara Ford and
Jerome Wellfield insensibly, but as if by general consent, dropped a
little behind. The underlying sparkle of malice and mockery had died
out of the young lady’s eyes, as she turned to her companion, saying:

‘I am glad your father is better, Mr. Wellfield, for I had heard that
he was very ill.’

‘You are very kind. He really does seem better to-night, and I am in
hopes that the attack will pass over, as all the others have done,
though it has certainly been a severer one than usual.’

‘You look as if you had been watching and sitting up—have you?’

‘Oh, a mere trifle. My father gets nervous, and, as you may easily
imagine, a large hotel is not the most comfortable place in which to be
taken ill.’

‘No, indeed.’

‘Avice insisted on my coming out to-night. And you, Miss Ford, are you
enjoying yourself at Count Trockenau’s?’

‘Very much. The change from the hot, dusty town, and from my
paint-smelling atelier is really delightful. Everything up at Trockenau
is so fresh, and the society is very amusing—yes, really exceedingly
amusing.’

Sara laughed as she spoke—a pleasant, round, though not loud laugh.

‘Herr von Lemde’s society makes dulness out of the question,’ said
Wellfield, composedly.

Miss Ford reddened a little.

‘Oh, did you hear all that? Well, who could be dull with Herr von
Lemde? So long as I know that I may quit his society whenever I choose,
he is delightfully amusing; and if I knew that I had to endure his
society whether I liked it or not, I should at once become desperate,
and capable of any crime, I think, so that in any case dulness is out
of the question.’

Wellfield laughed.

‘How long are you staying?’ he asked.

‘Another week, I think, at least. The countess is very kind, and will
not hear of my leaving sooner. You, I suppose, will remain with your
father?’

‘I shall remain with my father at present,’ he answered.

There was a pause as they paced along the side-walk, somewhat removed
from the glare of the lamps, and felt, each with a different degree of
intensity, that they were alone. The other girls and their companions
had fallen behind, and the countess and the others had not yet come
up, glorified and hallowed by their interview with their Imperial
Master.

Sara Ford, beautiful, talented, and charming, was an artist, almost
alone in the world, fatherless, motherless, and with very little
money, but with great talent and high ambition. She was spending her
holiday at the country house, near Nassau, of the Count and Countess of
Trockenau, her fast friends, and almost her only rich or distinguished
patrons. Jerome Wellfield, who walked by her side, was the heir to an
old name and a fair estate, of whose beauty she had heard him speak in
terms which, with him, might pass for enthusiastic. This enthusiasm
was the result of a visit to the said house years ago, when he had
been a mere child, and so deep had been the impression then made upon
him by the beauty and desirableness of the house of his fathers, that
he was firmly resolved, far from following his father’s example of
absenteeism, to settle there as soon as conveniently might be. His
acquaintance with Sara Ford had not been a very long one; he had met
her at the Countess of Trockenau’s house about a month ago, during the
first part of her visit; yet, even now, neither ever saw the other
without feeling a secret thrill of joy. As they silently walked on,
she suddenly looked up at him, almost involuntarily—for though she
was ‘more than common tall,’ he had somewhat to bend his head to speak
to her—and found his dark, sombre, and, as she felt, most beautiful
eyes, fixed upon her face. She blushed a little, and sighed quickly.
His face, like some exquisite ivory cameo in its perfect outlines,
and in the still, severe beauty of its contours, haunted her with a
persistence which would not be accounted for merely by the fact that
she, as an artist by nature and by trade, must delight in all things
beautiful. For it was not all delight, far from it, which she felt in
the haunting presence of that face. There was delight, but even more
strongly there was the sense of captivity, the intuitive consciousness
that she, like Gretchen, might make her moan:

  ‘Meine Ruh’ ist hin,
  Mein Herz ist schwer;
  Ich finde sie nimmer
  Und nimmermehr!’

‘Did you enjoy the concert?’ asked Jerome, suddenly, after that long
look which had passed between them.

‘Yes, in a way. I don’t much care for the music they have at places
like this, but it was better than usual to-night. But I prefer our
homely Elberthal concerts—so far as music is concerned. Here one goes
to look at the people and the dresses, and to hear the gossip, and very
amusing it is. I think you don’t go much to the concerts?’

‘No! I really cannot stand the everlasting waltzes and mazurkas and
operatic selections. And one gets so tired of watching the same
affected, overdressed women and insipid-looking men engrossed in one
another.’

‘Yesterday the countess and I were sitting in the gardens, when we saw
a man and woman coming along. The woman was dressed most gorgeously,
and could scarcely walk because of her high heels; she hobbled along
looking pitiful. He was a tall, strong, robust-looking fellow, and
he carried her shawl, and her parasol, and her little bag with her
handkerchief and scent-bottle, and he led her little white dog along by
a blue ribbon; and he seemed happy.’

Wellfield laughed a little contemptuously.

‘I can imagine a man, if he were weak-minded, descending to even that
depth, for the sake of some woman,’ continued Sara, reflectively. ‘What
I cannot understand is, that any woman should like him for doing it;
should be gratified in seeing him acting the part of a lady’s-maid to
her. But I have seen many things lately which have puzzled me. Is your
sister fond of music?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘You only think so?’

‘I hardly know her, you know. She is my half-sister. Once, when she was
a mere baby, I saw her; and not again till a month ago—till I came
here. Most likely I shall see more of her now. My father has been
instructing me in my duties towards her, and he is perfectly right. If
he would but come home and settle down at Wellfield all would be well.
It is not good for a girl to live in hotels, with no woman about her
whom she really knows, except her maid.’

‘No, indeed. But your sister does not look in the least spoiled by that
life.’

‘Because she is so isolated. She never goes amongst the people at these
places; she cannot, because my father himself does not. But it is a
dull life for her.’

‘How old is she, exactly?’

‘A little more than sixteen.’

‘You must know, though, that she is very lovely now, and that sometime
she will be remarkably beautiful.’

‘Avice—will she? She is pale, and her hair—yes, her hair is
beautiful, isn’t it?’

‘Mr. Wellfield! your own sister, whom you see daily, and you ask if her
hair is beautiful!’

‘Well, it is the fact of her being my own sister, I suppose, whom
I see daily, that makes me ask,’ said Jerome, calmly. ‘I am not
so—forgetful in all cases. But I was going to say that, though I don’t
in the least know when I shall be free again, yet, when I am free, I am
going to Cologne, where I have some musical friends. Cologne is not far
from Elberthal, and, if you will allow me, Miss Ford’—he hesitated in
a manner which his hearer thought decidedly becoming to him—‘I should
like exceedingly to come over and visit your atelier, if I may—if it
is not too great a favour that I ask.’

‘Oh no! If you care to see my poor attempts at pictures, I shall be
delighted to show you them.’

‘I have heard great things of your “poor attempt at pictures,” Miss
Ford.’

‘Have you? Some partial friend——’

‘It was Professor Wilhelmi, your master, I think.’

‘Yes. Well, he is a very partial friend. He has been goodness itself to
me. I should never have done anything without his help. But when you
see what he has praised, you can judge for yourself.’

‘I am no judge when the work is the work of a friend,’ said Jerome,
smiling.

‘To-morrow they expect at Trockenau a most formidable person—Herr
Rudolf Falkenberg.’

‘The Frankfort banker?’

‘I don’t know whether he is a banker or not, though I believe I have
heard that he is. The important thing to me is, that he is a great
judge of pictures; and that, as he is rich, he can afford to buy them
when they please him: but I have heard as well that he is very severe,
and most difficult to please.’

‘Surely that does not trouble you!’

‘It would trouble me if Herr Falkenberg were to see some of my
pictures, and pronounce them very bad.’

‘As if he would have the ill-breeding to do so!’

Sara laughed.

‘I see, you would never make a critic,’ she said; and just then, coming
to the end of a long walk, they found themselves suddenly in the full
blaze of light which illuminated the linden-planted square where all
the little tables stand, at which people sup or dine, or take coffee,
wine, or ices. A score of heads and twice as many eyes were quickly
turned upon the tall and certainly striking-looking couple who thus
advanced into the light.

‘Take my arm,’ murmured Wellfield; and Sara, dazzled by the light in
which they so suddenly found themselves, and a little embarrassed by
the amount of attention bestowed upon her and her companion by the
well-bred crowd, complied mechanically, and they walked rather quickly
through the square.

‘I think, if we turn this way, we shall probably find the others,’ said
Jerome, as they disappeared into the comparative obscurity under the
shade of the Kurhaus.

‘Very likely,’ said Sara, and at that moment Hans Lemde came
breathlessly after them.

‘Ah, _mein Fräulein_, we thought you were lost!’ he said, addressing
Sara, and studiously avoiding even looking at her companion. ‘The
countess is waiting to seek her carriage, for the road to Trockenau is
rough.’

‘Well, show us the way to where she is, please,’ said Sara, with a
touch of impatience.

Hans von Lemde walked stiffly in advance, trying rather feebly to
look dignified. He was not naturally majestic in demeanour, and the
circumstances deprived him of what little scrap of dignity he might in
ordinary moments rejoice in. The effect of the procession was that of a
noble and his lady preceded by a somewhat weak-minded retainer, new to
his duties and afraid of taking too much upon himself.

The Countess of Trockenau was not in the violent hurry which might have
been expected from Lemde’s representations. She had time again to greet
Jerome Wellfield, and to say:

‘By-the-bye, Mr. Wellfield, I have a party to-morrow. Will you come?’

‘A very large party?’

‘Oh, _so ziemlich_—quite without ceremony. The ladies come to coffee
and remain; the gentlemen later, to the _Abendbrod_ and music. And a
little dancing for the young people, I daresay, and wandering in the
garden for those who like it. I shall expect you.’

‘If my father is better, or rather if he should be no worse, _gnädige
Frau_, I shall have the utmost pleasure,’ he said, bowing, while Sara
stood a little apart and carefully fastened her glove. The countess
turned to speak to some one else, and Wellfield, with a half-smile,
politely suggested to Sara that perhaps he could button her glove.

‘There is your carriage, _gnädige Frau_, going slowly down the road,’
exclaimed young Lemde, as if eager to end the scene.

‘Call it, then,’ said Frau von Trockenau, in much the same tone as that
lately used by Miss Ford. It was a tone very generally adopted towards
‘poor Lemde.’

Obediently he hurried forward and hailed the coachman of the lady, who
was still in lively conversation with a friend.

‘The carriage is here, most gracious, by the roadside, waiting!’
announced Hans, in a voice growing gradually louder and more
portentous; and he repeated the information impressively.

‘_Aber, dieser Mensch!_’ murmured the ‘gracious lady,’ as Wellfield
advanced, gave her his arm, and led her across the avenue to the
roadside, where her carriage was waiting.

Lemde wished very much to offer his arm to Sara, but, looking furtively
at her, decided with a sigh not to venture, and turned instead to Emily
Leigh, the other English girl, who immediately put her hand within his
arm, and tripped after Frau von Trockenau with the utmost cheerfulness.
Sara followed, dignified and solitary. It was Jerome Wellfield who
handed her into the carriage.

‘_Also—bis Morgen!_’ said the countess, bowing, and waving her hand as
they drove away. Wellfield and Hans Lemde were left alone.

‘Are you going to the party to-morrow?’ asked Wellfield.

‘I? certainly. I go to all Frau von Trockenau’s parties.’

‘That shows your good taste,’ replied Jerome, gravely, raising his
hat and wishing him good-evening; and then, after another look after
the carriage as it drove rapidly away down the Nassau Road, he turned
and sauntered slowly along the road towards the hotel of the _Vier
Jahreszeiten_, where Mr. Wellfield and his family were staying.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER II.

FRAU VON TROCKENAU’S ‘GESELLSCHAFT.’


The Count and Countess of Trockenau were both young, rich, and what
their countrymen call _lebenslustig_, a word for which we have no
equivalent shorter than a well-rounded sentence of explanation.

Their estate was large, and as beautiful as heart could desire. It
stood sloping up a rounded, richly-wooded hill in the neighbourhood
of K——au; and from its great terrace, as well as from other less
distinguished points of vantage, there was a broad and beautiful vista
over the rich and many-coloured plain, to where in a silver line the
Rhine might be seen winding his way towards Coblenz. Far distant,
like blue clouds on the horizon, lay the soft outlines of the Rhine
mountains; far over hill and dale shone the delicious sunshine, while
the fair land spread her broad bosom, in the rich maturity of the
latter July, to his fervent beams.

All the summer long, Frau von Trockenau loved to have her friends
around her, and those friends were various. Coffee-parties and
picnics—or rather the German equivalents of picnics in the shape of
_fêtes_ and _Landparteien_, suppers and dances, riding and driving,
and, when it was late enough, shooting and _die Jagd_. An admirable
cook, wines of a character not to disgrace the _cuisine_, a hearty
welcome, and unlimited liberty to the guest to follow the bent of his
own wishes—these were the attractions offered to their guests by the
count and countess, and they proved so strong that Frau von Trockenau
very rarely had an invitation refused. People refused or put off other
visits in order to make one to Schloss Trockenau, and persons who were
not spontaneously invited there schemed to get invitations.

To the initiated reader the remark will be almost superfluous that
the practices at Schloss Trockenau must have been characterised by
a certain unconventionality and _laisser faire_ not always found in
German or any other country houses, whether belonging to the nobility
or to the _Bürgerschaft_. This was the case, and the guests of the
countess were by no means confined to persons who were her equals in
rank, many of whom, she was wont to say, might be excellent creatures,
but were often old, and, when they lived in the country, were wont to
be dull. And dulness was the bane of the countess’s existence. In their
hatred of it she and her husband were sworn allies; they were never
known to oppose one another’s schemes for killing time, though it often
happened that in their zeal in that cause they would both have provided
some entertainment for the same time. When this occurred, the rule was
that each should give way in turn, and this plan was found to answer
admirably, and to be productive of the greatest harmony, conjugal and
social.

On the evening after that meeting in the _Kurgarten_, a large company,
or _Gesellschaft_, was assembled in the rooms, or wandering about the
gardens and terraces of the Schloss. It was a mixed and motley society.
There were friends of the count, brother officers who were staying in
the house, or who had come over from Coblenz for the occasion; young
men from Berlin, fashionable or otherwise; some gay cousins of Countess
Carla, very stylish young ladies indeed, who, with their pretty cousin
as a chaperon, were creating havoc by their accomplishments, and by
their airs and graces, in the hearts of all the shy young _Junker_ in
the vicinity, except in that of Hans von Lemde, who was irresistibly
drawn in another direction. There were some young Englishmen from Bonn,
fellow-students and friends of the count’s younger brother. There were
two learned professors, and a poetess whose verses were _fades_, and
who was rightly and universally voted a bore, but who was amongst the
_von_-est of the _vons_, and who distinctly and unmistakably belonged
to the _genus irritabile_, and apparently to no other.

There was Jerome Wellfield, who had just arrived, and who was talking
to his hostess; there was Herr Rudolf Falkenberg, the great banker
and picture-critic, who had arrived that morning. There was a knot of
stout, oddly-dressed, _gauche_-looking ladies of a certain age, who
clubbed together in a corner, and represented the local nobility and
squirearchy.

‘No one knows who else may be coming,’ said one. ‘I think die Trockenau
is much too careless. She does not consider the dignity of our
position.’

‘_Ach, lieber Himmel!_ Who is that?’ murmured another.

‘That’ was Sara Ford, who came sweeping down the room with her head in
the air, followed by Herr Falkenberg, to whom she talked in her frank,
audible, unconstrained English fashion, and who begged her to come
with him to the terrace that he might show her a view which he said
ought to be painted.

The pair were followed by the disapproving looks of the local
_Junkerthum_ before spoken of, and by the round eyes of a number
of young German girls, just arrived at that stage in life which is
known to their countrymen as the _Backfisch_. Now, a _Backfisch_ is a
kind of _ingénue_ not often met amongst English girls; and Sara Ford
could never, by any chance, have had anything of the genus about her.
Consequently she was an object of wonder, and some disapproval to those
who either were or had been _Backfische_ themselves.

‘These English girls!’ sighed one of the native nobility, shaking her
head portentously. ‘If I were to see my Paula monopolise a man in that
way—but she is incapable of even speaking to a gentleman before he
speaks to her. If a girl of mine were to be like that, I should die.’

‘_Gott_, yes!’ answered another, intently watching, while Herr
Falkenberg held open the long glass-door, and Sara stepped through it
and down the steps on to the terrace. The sun was setting as the young
lady and the banker paced towards the point to which he wished to
draw her attention. Sara was dressed in black, and there was nothing
costly about her attire; for she was not rich, and her only jewellery
consisted in certain old rings and a pearl-necklace, which had long
ago belonged to her mother when, as the beautiful Marion Fanshawe,
she had been married to Sara’s father. Plain though the dress was, it
set her noble beauty off to great advantage; and one felt—at least
Herr Falkenberg felt—the same conscientious delight in looking at her
grand, simple loveliness, as results from the contemplation of some
fine carved gem of ancient days, found perhaps by accident in the midst
of a stock of gaudy modern jewellery.

Sara had never met Herr Falkenberg before. His name was well known to
her and to other artists as a judge of almost unerring taste, and a
patron of generous liberality. He was the last of a line of financiers
and bankers of princely fortune and passionate devotion to ‘the noble
pastime of art.’ She had felt highly flattered when Frau von Trockenau
brought him to her, saying:

‘_Liebe_ Sara, Herr Falkenberg wishes to be introduced,’ after which
he had remained beside her chair, speaking of two of her pictures,
and discussing them with an admiration, and at the same time a
discrimination, which instantly showed her that report had not belied
the keenness of his critical powers and the purity of his taste in such
matters. ‘Perhaps,’ thought Sara to herself, repressing a smile of
satisfaction, ‘if she were very amiable, and listened with attention
to his criticisms, he might some day give her an order; and if she
could say to friends and fellow-students, “I am painting this for
Herr Falkenberg,” it would be as good, indeed much better, than fifty
laudatory but unprofitable criticisms.’

‘See!’ said he, as they came to the end of the terrace—and he pointed
to the round shoulder of a hill, round the foot of which a bend of
the river flowed in a silver curve, while the setting sun gave the
most mellow and warm tints to the stretch of the landscape in the
background—‘that is almost perfect; there is a meaning in the scene—a
poetry. Do you not see it?’

‘Indeed I do!’ she replied; the deep look settling in her eyes, which
always visited them when she looked upon grand or beautiful things,
and which alone would have made her face a rare one. ‘I see it!’ she
continued; ‘and I have studied and sketched it often since I came here,
and the result has been despair! I hate myself, and every attempt I
make. I don’t think landscape is my forte.’

‘I don’t agree with you. I think you ought to study landscape. I
believe, from the examination I have given to those two little pictures
of yours, that you might attain high rank as a painter, both of
landscape and _genre_; with hard study, of course.’

‘Oh, Herr Falkenberg, you are flattering! It is impossible. I often
think how presumptuous it is in me to imagine that I shall ever do well
in either. Why should I?’

‘Why should you not?’ he asked, smiling. ‘You are ambitious.’

He had seated himself on the arm of a bench at the end of the terrace,
and Sara was leaning upon the parapet, her arms folded on the ledge of
it; her glorious eyes gazing out upon the feast of colour, of rich calm
beauty which lay below. As he uttered the last words, the deep musing
look left those eyes; another fire flashed like lightning into them.
Her lips parted, the delicate nostril quivered. She raised her head,
and looked full at her companion.

‘Yes, I am. I am as ambitious as a man—the worse for me, I suppose.’

‘I do not say so. How old are you?’

The question was put with a grave, patronising directness which was
free from the faintest trace of curiosity or impertinence. She answered
it in the same spirit:

‘I am twenty-three.’

‘Ah! it will be many years, no doubt, before you do anything that
will live. It is a toilsome ascent to the high peaks and pure snows
of real lasting fame, but it may be accomplished by a single-hearted
perseverance.’

He paused, looking at her. The girl felt herself strangely moved, half
depressed at the calmness with which he adjudged to her years upon
years of future toil, as if from that verdict there could be no appeal,
half with a proud elation at the fact that so great a judge should hold
it possible that she could ever do anything which would live. His eyes
still dwelt upon her face, and hers upon his. He had a good, powerful,
and attractive face; dark, massively cut, with keen, shrewd, sarcastic
eyes under level dark eyebrows. The small moustache and short pointed
brown beard gave great character to this visage, and were two or three
shades lighter than the short-cropped hair. He was a man whose age it
would be difficult to guess. Sara imagined him to be about forty; he
might have been any age from thirty to five-and-forty. She had spoken
to him, and listened to him entirely as a well-known judge and possible
future patron of great power and influence—so she regarded him still.
Of what he was or did, how he was regarded outside this, to her, most
important capacity, she had not the least idea, and formed none to
herself.

‘You have a sketch of that bit,’ he said at last; ‘would you mind
letting me see it?’

‘Oh! well, if you will promise to regard it merely as a rough attempt,
done more because my instinct compelled me to try to reproduce that
scene—not as anything that was ever intended for anyone to see but
myself,’ said Sara, very unwilling to submit so crude an attempt to
such critical eyes, and yet not wishing to appear affected.

‘If you showed it me, I should judge it entirely on its own merits, of
course,’ was the composed reply, and Sara felt suddenly, as many other
persons often felt in exchanging ideas with Herr Falkenberg, that with
him simplicity of nature and conduct reigned supreme, and that to make
excuses and apologies to him was so much trouble lost. Sara wished she
had not made that little speech about her sketch, and Falkenberg went
on:

‘I am staying here a few days, so perhaps to-morrow, before we set off
to Lahnburg——’

‘Are we going to Lahnburg?’

‘I believe so; the countess is, at any rate. I have a little country
house there, which she was so kind as to say she very much wished to
see, and I asked her if she would not make a party and go there with me
to-morrow. She said she wanted you to go too, but I don’t suppose she
will force you there against your will,’ he added, smiling.

‘It would be anything but against my will. It is a place I have often
wished to see.’

‘Then I am glad you are going. There may be time for you to give me
your sketch to-morrow morning, early, if you will be so kind; and,
as I expect to be in Elberthal during the autumn, may I call at your
atelier?’

‘I shall be honoured if you do,’ said Sara, her cheeks flushing with
pleasure at this mark of favour. ‘I only fear that you will leave the
said atelier a sadder and a wiser man.’

‘As how?’

‘As having discovered my attempts to be very poor, commonplace
delusions after all.’

‘That remains to be seen; all I hope is that you will not be offended
if one who, by some misfortune, has got such an inveterate habit
of pointing out what appear to him the merits and demerits of any
composition, should——’

‘That would be of the utmost advantage to me,’ said she, gaily,
wondering how long the interview was to last, and wondering also, in
strict privacy, whether critics—of that eminence—never relaxed into a
laugh; whether a sedate smile were all their lips would condescend to.

How long the interview might have lasted it is impossible to say. At
that moment it was interrupted. Frau von Trockenau, with a number
of the ingenuous girls before alluded to—whose tender years and
inexperience she seemed to find somewhat embarrassing during the ‘off
season,’ before the dancing began—Emily Leigh, Jerome Wellfield, Hans
Lemde, and others, came up.

‘Oh, Herr Falkenberg!’ cried the countess, seeing him, ‘a word with
you.’

She paused, as did also Jerome Wellfield, and the others went on.
Wellfield had not yet spoken to Sara, and while Frau von Trockenau
discoursed with much animation to Falkenberg on some point connected
with the morrow’s excursion, Jerome turned to Miss Ford.

The flush of exultation which her conversation with Falkenberg had
aroused, died from her cheeks. She silently put her hand into that of
Wellfield, while he, an expression of pleasure dawning in his face,
asked her how she did.

After a few minutes, the countess put her hand within Falkenberg’s arm,
and they went up the terrace, in earnest conversation. Jerome and Sara
were left standing alone.

‘Herr Falkenberg is a friend of yours?’ asked Wellfield.

‘I don’t know. I hope he will be. He would be a very valuable friend to
me.’

‘I can suppose so. Does he wish you to paint this scene?’

‘Yes. And it is very beautiful. Do you not think so?’

‘It is—lovely. I wish you could see the place my father will not live
at—Wellfield Abbey and the country round about. As an artist, you
would delight in it.’

‘But it is in Lancashire, isn’t it?’ asked Sara.

‘Yes. What then?’ inquired he.

‘I always fancy it such a black, hideous place. I have only once been
in Lancashire, when I passed through Preston with my father on our way
to Scotland, years ago.’

‘Then you passed not a hundred miles from Wellfield,’ he rejoined with
some animation. ‘But I own, you could not be favourably impressed with
what you saw there. It is not lovely. But Wellfield is.’

‘Perhaps I may see it some day—who knows?’ said Sara, musingly.

‘I am sure I hope you may,’ he answered quickly. ‘There is nothing I
should so much——’

He paused abruptly. Sara felt her face flush, and said quickly:

‘Would not you like to come down this side-walk—this ilex walk? The
countess has spent a great deal of care and attention upon it, in
remembrance of the ilexes of Rome.’

‘Ah, the ilexes at Rome! I remember them,’ he said, as he followed her
into the cool green gloom of the ilex walk, where daylight was dimmed
by the intertwining boughs which formed a roof above.

Three quarters of an hour later they returned to the same spot, and
found that it was almost dark. The windows of the Schloss blazed with
lights, and the music which streamed out on the air said that the
dancing had begun.

‘What a long time we must have been out!’ said Sara, in a dreamy voice.
‘They are dancing.’

‘So they are. Will you give me this waltz?—it is a waltz, I hear.’

‘With pleasure,’ said Sara, as they walked towards the house. ‘There is
to be a cotillon,’ she added; ‘it is the great thing at these German
dances, and Frau von Trockenau has made elaborate arrangements for it.’

‘What a pity I don’t know how to do it!’

‘You should learn,’ said Sara.

‘There is nothing I should like better if you are at liberty to——’
began Jerome, as they entered the room by the long glass-door, just
within which stood Lemde, not dancing.

‘_Mein Fräulein_,’ said the poor youth, humbly coming forward, ‘will
you honour me by dancing the cotillon with me?’

‘How fortunate for me that I secured your promise a moment ago,’ said
Jerome, with imperturbable composure and a slight smile.

Hans’s face fell; that of Sara crimsoned as she said:

‘I am very sorry, Baron Lemde, but I have promised it to Mr. Wellfield.’

In another moment she was waltzing with Jerome Wellfield, and Junker
Hans, after watching them for a few moments, turned aside.

‘She is too proud and too clever, I suppose, to have anything to do
with me,’ he was saying to himself, as he struggled with a degrading
and childish inclination to cry. ‘And those other fellows, Falkenberg,
and that Wellfield, and the others, I’ve no chance against them.
It’s odd,’ the youth continued moodily to reflect, ‘how little a lot
of these English girls care for rank. Falkenberg is _bürgerlich_:
Wellfield—it isn’t his rank she cares for; it’s his way, I suppose, of
behaving as if he had a right to everything he sees—they don’t mind
rank when a man has “go,” or when he pleases them; but then they are so
hard to please.’

To Sara, the evening passed like a dream. This was the first, the
very first and most delicate flavour and aroma of love, which with her
could only be deep and earnest, full and profound, as her own nature.
She knew that she was beautiful, without having ever thought much about
it. She had seen admiration in men’s eyes before now; she had heard
words of love and beseeching addressed to her once or twice, and all
had lightly passed over her spirit, like a breath of air across a fair
garden. But Wellfield’s eyes, with their eloquent homage, thrilled
her; his mere presence aroused in her the feeling, never known before,
of delight, mingled with apprehension; she shrank away from trying to
guess, even in her own mind, how much his look meant—what the end of
this episode would be. She questioned and doubted, for the first time,
her own powers of pleasing, because for the first time she was desirous
above all things to please. Advanced spirits may condemn such anxiety
as servile and degrading. No opinion is offered upon those points, only
the certainty expressed that such feelings of ‘servility’ are very
common amongst women, and men too, who are in love. Instead of feeling
confidence now, she absolutely trembled lest she should have mistaken
the meaning of his glance, and of the few words he had now and then
dropped, and which had seemed to her to have a deeper meaning than mere
phrases of politeness or of compliment.

Such was her deprecatory and tremblingly uncertain state of mind—hers,
who had laughed through life, free from tyrant love or care, undaunted
by reverses, and holding her own against difficulties with a
steadfastness born of innate, inbred courage of soul. Till now every
higher thought and aspiration had been resolutely and singly directed
towards her art, and her own advancement in it. Her heart’s desire had
been faithfully, so far as she could, to act up to Goethe’s words, and—

  ‘Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren
  Resolut zu leben.’

The defeat had been rapid and complete, and, true to her woman’s
nature, she rejoiced in it rather than otherwise. At least, this
night, in Jerome’s presence, and surrounded by the subtle incense of
admiration and flattery which he offered her, she rejoiced in it. There
were other times, when he was absent, in which the rejoicing was not
pure, and the sense of captivity was stronger than the thrill of love.

The evening thus passed on, and every time she met those dark and
eloquent eyes she felt, with a throb of the heart, the half-welcome,
half-dreaded conviction grow stronger—‘This that I see in his eyes is
love!’

There ensued a pause in the dancing, organised by Frau von Trockenau,
in order to have some music; for she was a woman who utilised all her
resources, and never allowed the meanest tool to rust for want of use;
and knowing that there were several admirable musicians, vocal and
instrumental, in the company, she was firmly resolved that they should
display their talents.

A certain young Englishwoman, married to one Count Eugen of Rothenfels,
was the first to sing. The fair soprano was filling the room with a
flood of melody, when the countess came up to the place where Sara Ford
was seated, somewhat apart, with Jerome Wellfield leaning over the back
of her chair, his eyes dreamily fixed on the face of the singer.

‘Mr. Wellfield,’ said his pretty little hostess, ‘I know I am asking a
very great favour, and that you hate it; but _won’t_ you sing to-night,
to please me?’

‘Oh, will you?’ said Sara, involuntarily. She had heard wonderful
rumours of Wellfield’s voice, and the wish to hear him was strong.

He bowed towards the countess.

‘To please you, _gnädige Frau_,’ he said, with a slight smile, ‘is a
privilege, and I shall at once obey your order when I receive it.’

‘That is good! _recht freundlich!_’ exclaimed the lady, radiant with
delight; for Wellfield’s reserve was generally as great as his talent
was said to be, and she had had little hope of his consenting to sing
before that large audience of perfect strangers. She confided her
success to the ear of one of her cousins, Helene von Lehnberg, who
said, with a sneer:

‘Another of your English amateurs, Carla? For my part, I don’t think
much of a talent that is so haughty and reserved as almost to require
one to go on one’s knees to it.’

‘Ah, my dear Helene! I doat upon proud, haughty people, when they are
just the reverse to me, which is the case with Mr. Wellfield,’ rejoined
Frau von Trockenau, not without malice.

‘I am glad you are going to sing,’ said Sara to Jerome, when they were
alone again.

‘I am naturally of an obliging disposition, and could not refuse the
Frau Gräfin.’

‘She is delighted,’ said Sara, with a smile.

‘When I have done,’ said Wellfield, in a low tone, ‘I shall come and
ask if you were delighted—may I?’

‘May you?’ she stammered.

‘I mean, will you answer me if I do come?’

‘Do you expect me to tell you that I am not delighted?’

‘I expect nothing, therefore I am blessed; but I desire very much that
you should tell me the truth.’

‘I will do so if you wish it.’

‘Thank you.... Yes, Frau Gräfin, I see and I obey,’ he added, as the
countess was perceived making her way to him.

There was some little stir and sensation when Wellfield advanced to the
piano. ‘An Englishman, an amateur—_nun, wir werden ’mal sehen!_’ said
one or two sceptics, with a supercilious curl of the lip.

‘What does he sing? English songs—“The Last Rose of Summer”?’ asked
one young lady, sarcastically.

‘No, no!’ whispered a dapper little lieutenant, who was paying her
devoted attention; ‘he will sing a comic song, “What Jolly Dogs we
are!” An Englishman told me last week that they sang nothing else in
England now. He was at a party where nineteen of the company had
brought their music——’

‘_Gott!_ Herr Lieutenant, how horrible!’ tittered the young lady.

‘And sixteen out of the nineteen had brought “What Jolly Dogs we are!”
Fact, I assure you, _parole d’honneur_! But hush! He is playing his own
accompaniment. What! Rubinstein! “Asra!” Impossible!’

If so, the impossible was being performed in a masterly manner.
Would-be sarcastic lieutenants, tittering young ladies, were bewitched
into silence and admiration. Rubinstein’s weird and melodious legend of
the youth whose race ‘die if they love,’ was sung to the end, as few
of the audience had ever before heard it sung. The last notes, _Die
sterben wenn sie lieben_, were followed at first by silence; and then
some murmurs, not loud, but deep, of applause, greeted the singer.

The song that followed was, _Es blinkt der Thau_, and it made Sara’s
heart beat. That finished, as if to give his audience a complete
change, he struck a couple of deep chords, and began to sing that
oft-quoted, hackneyed, but ever-beautiful _Ich grolle nicht_.

Sara felt a slight shiver run through her. Why did he choose that one
weird song of Heine’s, set to Schumann’s equally weird music? She
had heard it once at a concert, sung in a style which hardly rose
above mediocrity, and yet even then it had impressed her; and she had
pondered involuntarily over the gruesome, hinted mystery of the last
lines. Jerome sang the strange song with a depth and a meaning all his
own: her artist-nature thrilled to the strains, which are in very truth
a song of death; it was ghostly—it was as if her spirit was enfeebled
and chilled, and had to trail its drooping wings through a land full of
vague and awful shadows.

    ‘Ich sah die Nacht
    In deines Herzensraume;
    Ich sah die Schlang’
  Die dir am Herzen frisst—
    Ich sah, mein’ Lieb’,
    Wie sehr du elend bist!
      Ich grolle nicht.’

There was a pause as he finished this song. Jerome half-rose from the
piano, but a voice cried from the window:

‘We have not had the test yet, Mr. Wellfield. Give us a love-song. Give
us _Adeläida_.’

Sara saw, even from her place in the background, the expression that
flashed into the young man’s eyes, and over his face.

‘Good!’ was all he said, as he sat down again, and that melodious,
significant single _F_ was struck—that note which is the prelude to
the sea of love and fire and passion which follows.

Sara sat pale and composed in her place, but feeling as if everyone
in the room must see and observe that she was blushing furiously—so
burningly hot were her cheeks. Each time that the notes ‘Adeläida’ rang
out, she felt that she was apostrophised—the company, and the lighted
room oppressed her—yet she looked, to one who was observing her from
the other side of the room, grave, quiet, almost tired.

When the last notes had died away, Wellfield rose very decidedly, nor
could he be prevailed upon to sing another note. The company clustered
round him, thanked him, and congratulated him; asked to be introduced
to him, and dispersed. Dancing began again, and still Sara sat as if
spell-bound, in the place where he had left her.

‘I have come to know if you approved?’ murmured Jerome’s voice beside
her.

She looked up, and met his eyes with an expression in them, before
which her own in vain tried to remain calm and untroubled.

‘If I approved?’ she said, indistinctly. ‘How can you ask?’

Jerome was leaning against the wall, looking down at her—looking, too,
as undisturbed as if he had been asking her whether she would have an
ice. In the same manner, with the same tone, so low that none but she
could hear it, he added:

‘And did you understand?’

‘I—I think so,’ said Sara, faintly.

‘Herr Wellfield, Miss Ford! the cotillon is about to begin. Here is
your favour, Mr. Wellfield. Be good enough to let me pin it on, and
then go and find your partner.’

It was Fräulein von Lehnberg, one of the countess’s Berlin cousins, who
spoke, with some impatience in her voice; for she had twice addressed
Jerome, and he had taken no notice of her. He stepped forward now,
and held the basket of ribbons while she pinned on his favour, with
an imperturbable severity of gravity which irritated the young lady
exceedingly. Then he offered Sara his arm, and they advanced to meet
the rest of the company.

In the discussions next day on the subject, it was universally decided
that Mr. Wellfield might be a musical, Miss Ford an artistic prodigy;
but that in the matter of dancing a cotillon they both displayed to
the full that insular stiffness characteristic of their nation. That
little Emily Leigh had ten times the spirit of her taller and handsomer
country-woman. How gracefully she danced, and contrived to make even
that maypole, Hans Lemde, look almost graceful too.

Beloved and candid discussions of the day after! How much does not
society and the individual owe to you, in the matter of establishment
of the facts, and an exhaustive analysis of the motives actuating the
behaviour of those who come before your tribunal! May nothing ever
occur to make you less vigorous or less rigorous than you are at this
day!




[Illustration]




CHAPTER III.

A LANDPARTEI.


On the following morning, Sara came into the room where Falkenberg was
standing alone, waiting for the rest of the company who were going to
Lahnburg. In her hand she carried a small canvas.

‘Here, Herr Falkenberg, is the sketch you wished to see. I remembered
it, and brought it downstairs with me.’

Falkenberg thanked her, took the sketch, and looked at it in silence,
until Sara said:

‘It is as I expected. You are racking your brains to find out how to
say “Atrocious” so that it shall sound like something else.’

‘If I had to say “Atrocious,” I’m afraid I should say it, much though I
might dislike having to do so,’ he answered, smiling. ‘As it is, I wish
to say nothing of the kind.’

‘Oh, what a relief!’

‘There are the carriages coming round,’ he added composedly, ‘to take
us to the Ems railway station. May I take the sketch to my own room?
There is no time to look at it now.’

‘Certainly, if you care to do so.’

‘Thank you,’ said he, taking it up, and leaving the room with it.

Sara sat down at the piano, and played tunes, until at last Frau von
Trockenau came whirling into the room with a pair of long gloves in her
hand.

‘Are you ready, Sara? Yes—of course. How horrid of you! You never keep
the company waiting. What a rush it is, this life! Oh, how I long to be
alone sometimes!’

‘Complimentary to us and to poor Count Trockenau!’

The countess laughed heartily.

‘My poor Fritz!—of course I spoke exceptionally.’

‘You know you would hate to be alone,’ added Sara. ‘You cannot live out
of a rush. I wonder what you would do if you had to lead my life at
Elberthal.’

‘Ah, but you have a great soul. Mine is such a very little one. Little
in every way. It is so small that it has led me to—what do you think?’

‘I am sure I cannot say. To tell Hans Lemde that I am dying to paint
his portrait, I dare say.’

‘No! But oh, what a lovely idea! I will tell him so, and I will say
that you said it. Poor Hans! I imagine him sitting to you. Oh, I think
I see his face!’

They both laughed in a manner which Baron Lemde would probably think
malignant, and Frau von Trockenau went on.

‘No, but I was so annoyed at the way in which Helene and Maria Lehnberg
behaved last evening—giving themselves such airs, that I have done
something spiteful to them to-day.’

‘Shameful! But what is it?’

‘I have doomed them to drive with me and Lemde in the barouche; Fritz
rides, and I am sending you first in the pony-phaeton with Herr
Falkenberg.’

‘I see nothing so very spiteful in that. Why should your cousins
object?’

‘My dear Sara! I believe you live in a dream. Don’t you know that
Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand if Falk——Oh, here he is.
Good-morning, Herr Falkenberg. I shall not be a moment. How beautifully
you are dressed, Sara! Beside you, I feel like a collection of tags
of coloured ribbon. You are both ready. Well, shall we go? Herr
Falkenberg, I am going to ask you to drive Miss Ford to the station in
the pony-phaeton. Herr von Lemde will go with my cousins and me.’

‘I shall be delighted,’ observed Herr Falkenberg; and Sara followed
the countess out of the room, lost in wonder as to what she meant by
saying that she had done something spiteful to her cousins, and what it
was Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand for.

Very soon she was seated beside Falkenberg, and they were driving down
the hill, along the Nassau Road to Ems, which was reached before long;
past the hotel of the _Vier Jahreszeiten_, to the station.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is a wayside railway station on a German line, which station,
twenty years ago, was a thing of the future, and which I will here call
Lahnburg. It is the scene of the _Leiden des jungen Werther_—it is
the place where Goethe adored, and where the object of his adoration
placidly ‘went on cutting bread and butter.’ It was then Goethe’s,
Lotte’s, Jerusalem’s home; now it is an out-of-the-way country town
which is completely out of the beaten route of the tourist, and which
few persons have heard of, and fewer still care to visit.

Leave the train—it is a slow one—all the trains are slow which deign
to stop at Lahnburg. At Lahnburg they hurry no one—themselves least
of all. Now we are on the asphalted platform of the little station, in
the presence of a Prussian, with a blue coat and a fierce moustache,
who sternly demands our _Gepäckschein_. If we have luggage, we meekly
give it him, thankful to be so well, if so severely taken care of.
If we have none, we mention the fact, and leave him to wonder what
sinister motives could have brought us to that spot, and to look at us
as if he would place us under arrest, were not his powers so shamefully
limited. We leave the station, and take the road leading towards the
town.

Along an uninteresting country-road, till we begin to drive up the hill
around and upon which the town is built. Up the steep, rugged streets,
between the high antique houses, slowly and joltingly lumbering over
the stones, in and out, and round about up the hill, till we arrive
at the Marktplatz, and behold, surrounding the great cobble-stoned
square, all the principal buildings of the town! Pause, Jehu! thou
reckless charioteer—pause, that we may fully take into our minds
the scene about us. Here we are, in the middle of the square. There,
opposite to us, stands the solemn old _Dom_, built of a warmly-hued,
reddish stone. From its midst rises the nucleus of it all—that which
is older than Christianity, the seamed, cracked, scarred, black,
old _Heidenthurm_—the ‘heathen-tower,’ remnant of long-past Roman
rule. Blasted, black and ruined, but grim and defiant, majestic and
undegraded still, in the midst of its wreck, it fronts us, and towers
over the town and landscape beneath; for the _Dom_ is built on the
very summit of the hill; and before it was, was the _Heidenthurm_. It
watches over the fertile hill-slopes and over the level, poplar-fringed
meads at the foot of them, between which the gliding Lahn holds its
course. Since that grim old sentinel first took his stand there, what
changes have not taken place! The very face of the landscape has
altered, while dynasties changed and kings and people rose and fell,
and kingdoms and empires flourished and passed away. Varied have been
the signs of the heavens above him—more varied far the life-stories,
the joys, the sorrows, the raptures, and the agonies of the races which
have grown up, have lived and died, married and brought children into
the world—while he stood there defiant and unchangeably grim.

There on the right hand of the square is a more modern safety-guard,
and one more in consonance with the advanced civilisation which has
arisen since the _Heidenthurm_ was built. This latter guardian is
the _Wachtstube_, _Wache_, _Hauptwache_, as it is indiscriminately
called—the guardhouse, peopled with half a dozen scrubby-looking
soldiers, and a couple of lieutenants, with a white mongrel cur,
alternately their plaything and their victim during the weary hours of
ennui. The _Heidenthurm_ turns its back upon this outcome of a high
civilisation and the Christian religion—what has it in common with the
_Wachtstube_, or the _Wachtstube_ with it? To the left, more houses:
that big clumsy building with the Prussian eagle over the doorway is
the _Rathhaus_; therein the Herr Bürgermeister and his belongings
live and move and have their being. Filling in the gaps more and more
houses, each one a picture, each roof a distracting medley of hills and
dales, ups and downs, dormer windows, turrets, chimney-stacks whose
irregularity would break the heart of a high-minded architect of modern
suburban villas. And here too, last but not least, for those who want
accommodation, with mine host bowing and smiling before the door, is
that lumbering old structure, the inn of the place—the _Gasthof zum
Herzoglichen Hause_, a building bearing some inexplicable, indefinable,
but most indubitable resemblance to Noah’s ark, as pictured to the
popular imagination in the toyshop windows.

Our party had proceeded thus far—that is, to the market square—on
their way from the station. The countess and one of her cousins only
had taken seats in the carriage which had met them. The men, Sara Ford,
and the other Fräulein von Lehnberg had walked. The German ladies went
into raptures over the place; it was _reizend_, _entzückend_, and many
other superlative expressions of admiration. Sara asked Falkenberg
aside:

‘Is it impossible to go into the old _Dom_ and explore Lotte Buff’s
house, and these other quaint old places?’

‘It is, on the contrary, very possible, _mein Fräulein_. But,’ he added
in a lower tone, ‘would you care to go with all these people?’

Sara shrugged her shoulders, smiling a little.

‘I see you would not. I will arrange that you have a good view of
whatever you wish to see. Meantime, suppose we go on to my house, where
lunch will be ready for us, I expect.’

‘I wonder,’ thought Sara within herself, ‘whether his wife and
family are away from home, or whether his wife is just a slave and a
_Hausfrau_, as so many of them appear to be.’

The carriage was now driven past the _Hauptwache_, up a street leading
out of a corner of the square, on to a breezy upland road, from which
there was a fine view over the level fields far below to the left,
while on the right there were pleasant-looking fir-clad hills, over
which a bracing breeze blew.

Herr Falkenberg’s ‘summer-house’ was situated not very far up the said
road; it was an old grey grange, standing on a slope at the right hand,
surrounded on three sides by what had been a moat, and it was over the
remains of a drawbridge that the carriage drove into the grounds. Sara
lingered a moment before the grey moss-grown stone archway, trying to
make out a half-defaced inscription above it. Herr Falkenberg lingered
too, and said:

‘You cannot read that, Miss Ford. I own that it was one of the great
attractions of the place to me when I bought it.’

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘I cannot see.’

‘First there are the initials of the builder, R. K., which stand, I
believe, for Rodolf Kammermann; and then, beneath the date, 1560; and
on either side, still easily to be read, _Mein Genügen_. I thought it
was a good omen for happiness.’

‘Yes, indeed. And is that the name of the place?’

‘Yes. It is called to this day _Mein Genügen_.’[A]

‘I like it,’ said Sara, musingly. ‘That old baron, or whatever he was,
must have had poetry in his soul.’

‘Yes; poetry which he succeeded in expressing simply and beautifully,
in this old house with the lovely view,’ said Falkenberg, as they
followed the others, overtaking them at the door.

From the door-steps there certainly was a very fair prospect—an
uninterrupted view to the river in the vale below, and to the hills on
the opposite side of it. To the left could just be seen some of the
roofs of the town, showing that _Mein Genügen_ was not utterly alone in
the world, and the higher red turrets of the _Dom_, and the ragged top
of the _Heidenthurm_.

‘Not the _Wachtstube_, fortunately,’ remarked Sara.

‘Luckily not,’ rejoined Falkenberg.

More bursts of delight from the ladies—rushes into the house, into the
garden, everywhere. A courteous invitation from the host to enter, and
lay aside their outdoor things and rest, until lunch should be ready.
Which invitation was complied with. An entrance into the house, and
more admiration, for the salon was a quaint and charming room, full of
quaint, charming, and costly things.

‘He must be alone, I suppose,’ Sara decided within herself, as no lady
came forward, and Herr Falkenberg continued himself to do the honours
with an ease of manner and an apparent simplicity which exquisitely
concealed the perfect tact he employed.

He contrived—for he had that special gift so rarely found—to make
each separate person there to feel him or herself to be ‘the honoured
guest’ _par excellence_; and he succeeded at least in delighting two of
his visitors, Frau von Trockenau and Sara Ford. The two Fräulein von
Lehnberg were rather more difficult. They were annoyed that there was
only Hans von Lemde to be monopolised.

They stood in the window, talking with him and Graf von Trockenau, who
was trying to recall the particulars of some place in the neighbourhood
‘which everyone ought to see,’ and in this endeavour he was feebly and
ineffectually seconded by Hans von Lemde, whose profound studies in
such literature as the _Almanach de Gotha_ had apparently disqualified
him for more commonplace topics. Sara had seated herself beside a
curious old painted spinet which stood at one side of the room.
Frau von Trockenau was beside her, and Falkenberg was leaning on
the aforesaid spinet talking to them, or rather listening while the
countess talked to him.

‘It is a paradise of a place, Herr Falkenberg. There is nothing I
should like better than to have such a place—only a week of it would
be enough for me, because it is too small to have a large party in.
It would be dull beyond expression after seven days, and you see my
husband is not a financier—the very reverse, poor fellow!—so he
could not afford to indulge me with such a toy for one week in the
year.’

‘I spend a good deal more than one week in the year here, _gnädige
Frau_——’

‘Ah, yes; but you have a great soul, like Miss Ford. I was telling her
so this morning. You can exist without company and distractions.’

‘Perhaps Herr Falkenberg does not care for visitors,’ suggested Sara,
utterly unconscious of committing any solecism. ‘Perhaps the society of
his wife and family is sufficient for him.’

‘Sara!’ ejaculated the countess; and then, as if much entertained,
the pretty little lady tried to stifle a laugh which would not be
altogether repressed. Into Falkenberg’s eyes leaped a strange,
disappointed expression; and at that moment they met those of Sara,
who was looking up at him, surprised at his manner and at that of her
friend. The man’s colour rose, and he laughed too, a little unsteadily,
as he replied:

‘I am not so fortunate as Miss Ford imagines. I have neither wife nor
child.’

‘No wife!’ echoed Sara, in astonishment; and then, laughing too, but
with a heightened colour, she said:

‘I am sure I beg your pardon. I don’t know what made me take it for
granted that you were married. No one ever told me so. It was stupid of
me.’

‘I do not see why you should think so,’ he answered, trying to laugh in
his turn; but there was a tinge of constraint in the laugh, and by some
means his eyes met those of the Countess of Trockenau. She appeared to
be laughing still, a little; her handkerchief before her mouth, but
it was not all a laugh in the glance that met his. Countess Carla had
indeed a most active brain, if one somewhat lacking in consequence, and
failing in the matter of logic. The thought which then darted through
her mind was, ‘Falkenberg is much struck with Sara Ford. He does not
like to find that she has all along thought he was married and done
for; and that, therefore, she can never have bestowed one tender
thought upon him. And it is a shame, too. I believe they are made for
one another, and I do like him so much. Why should it not be? I like
the idea.’

She ceased to laugh entirely. She rose, placed her arm within his, and
asked him to tell her about a picture at the opposite side of the room.

They walked away. Sara was left, with her elbow resting on the top of
the painted spinet, thinking:

‘Not married? how odd! But why should I have supposed he was? I suppose
that was what Carla meant, when she said she had been spiteful to the
Lehnbergs—she said Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand—oh, that
was too bad! He is immensely rich, if not noble. Yes, I see it all now
... and certainly he is far too good for that vain, boastful coquette.’

When lunch was announced they went into the dining-room, and the
repast was in no way calculated to throw discredit on the management
of the occasional summer residence of a rich Frankfort banker, or
upon the presence of mind and mental powers of his housekeeper. Sara
found herself seated at one side of her host, while Countess Carla
was opposite; while Fräulein von Lehnberg, drawing her black brows
together, wondered on what known or unknown principle of etiquette that
Englishwoman was given a higher place than herself. But Herr Falkenberg
was most distinctly not only host but master in his own house, and
when he had placed a chair for Helene and asked her to take a certain
place, she had perforce consented. Sara did not bestow much attention
upon the order of precedence; but her interest had been roused in her
host, and she saw from a certain beaming look on Countess Carla’s face
that she was thoroughly well-pleased with everything, and with herself
in particular. In consequence of this, she seconded all Falkenberg’s
efforts at conversation, and the meal was passing off brightly enough.
Sara observed her host more closely, and the more she observed him
the better she liked him. By the time that lunch was half over, she
had forgotten that he was a great critic, who had got a sketch of hers
upon which he was going to pass judgment: this point disappeared in
her growing appreciation of his qualities as a man and a companion.
His perfect modesty in the midst of his wealth and great surroundings
struck her more than anything else. Sara loved to see power in man or
woman; but assumption she hated with a hatred that was almost ludicrous.

Just at this time the door opened, and a fresh-looking young gentleman
entered, started on seeing so many guests, and was about to back out
again; but Falkenberg sprang up, saying:

‘_Willkommen!_ you thought I was alone, I expect. Come in and join us.’

With which he introduced him as Baron Arthur Eckberg, to the two Berlin
ladies in particular. He was awarded a seat between them. Helene’s
black brows relaxed in their frown. Presently her voice was heard in
dulcet tones. She was appeased; and the countess became more radiant
than ever.

When the party again repaired to the salon, a rather confused
conversation ensued. It was found that three hours remained to be
disposed of, before it would be time to return to the railway station.
Herr Falkenberg, with a courteous patience which was beautiful to
behold, tried to find out what his lady-guests, to use an ancient
phrase, ‘would be at.’ This was rather a difficult task, as the
Lehnberg sisters displayed emphatically ‘a diversity of gifts, but
the same spirit,’—the gifts, namely, of caprice, contrariety, and
perverseness, and the same spirit of cool self-seeking and resolution
that all should give way to them. Some one appealed to Sara.

‘Thank you,’ said she, holding up a little sketching-board, ‘the
present professional opportunity is too good to be missed. I am going
to sketch the _Dom_, if my going out alone will not be thought rude.
I can find my way to the Market Square, and I will come back here in
plenty of time, so I beg that no one will be in any trouble about me.’

‘Don’t go far away from here, as I may join you later, _when_ the
others have made up their minds,’ said the countess, in the blandest of
voices.

‘Very well,’ said Sara, smiling, and, with a slight salute to the rest
of the company, she took her way out of the house. Falkenberg had not
said a word either for or against her resolution to go out alone.

She left the garden, pausing once again to contemplate with a peculiar
pleasure the old grey gateway, and to read over the inscription, which
seemed now to have a new meaning for her.

‘_Mein Genügen_,’ she thought. ‘Yes, I should fancy that that man would
make a “contentment” wherever he goes. There is the harmony of a strong
soul at peace with itself and the world, in all he says and does. But
I wonder he is not married. I could imagine some woman being very much
in love with him; and if he loved her, he would most assuredly make
her happy. Well, Carla says that with the exception of her husband and
herself, the nicest people are not married.’

She smiled as she remembered that saying, and, looking up, found
herself again in the centre of the Marktplatz, which was empty of all
human life.

The afternoon was hot, and the sun shone bakingly upon the round
stones which paved the square. A drowsy calm hung over everything.
Sara, pausing, looked around her, trying to choose some vantage-ground
from which to sketch the _Dom_. She perceived that to the left of it,
immediately under its wall, there were steps leading into a kind of
small retired square, which looked shady and cool. Not a good position
from which to make her sketch, but it was inviting. The ardour for work
had left her. Ever since last night she had been longing intensely
to be alone. She bent her steps towards the spot, ascended the low,
broad flight of stone stairs, and found herself in a square, shady,
gravelled space, in the midst of which rose a heavy, tasteless-looking
stone monument, something between an ambitious tombstone and a
grovelling obelisk. She walked up to it and looked at it. It bore a
long list of names, and an inscription to the effect that the town of
Lahnburg raised this humble _Denkmal_ to the memory of those of her
sons who had died fighting for _Kaiser und Vaterland_, in 1870-71.
There were the regiments to which the deceased had belonged, their
ages, and the names of the engagements in which they had fallen—Sedan,
Metz, Saarbrück, etc. And below all, _Auf Wiedersehen!_ Sara read it
all, strangely moved by its homely simplicity, the confident expression
of belief in a meeting again, and touched by the profound peace of
this quiet _Ruheplatz_—so fitting for those brave hearts. At one side
of the square there was a low wall, and some seats before it, on one
of which she seated herself, and found that it commanded a glorious
view of the low-lying country through which there the Lahn flows. The
great, cool shadow of the cathedral was cast over her, while beneath
her eyes the fertile land lay spread under a quivering veil of golden
sun-pierced mist.

It was a feast for eye and heart. The artist soul of the woman drank
in all the broad, calm, peaceful beauty of it, and her eyes dwelt
lovingly upon every exquisite curve of distant hill, on every silver
link in the windings of the placid river. She put her hand upon her
sketch-book—opened it; even took her pencil in her hand; then laid it
down again, with a restless sigh breaking from her lips. She felt the
need of being alone, and yet, now that she was alone, she dreaded to
acknowledge her own state of mind to herself. Her thoughts were vague
and disconnected. There was a prevailing sensation that the old life
no longer satisfied her. She knew that between her and her rejoicing
fulness of contentment in her art, a barrier had arisen. A third
thought now always intruded between herself and her purpose. She could
handle no pencil, take up no book, behold no beautiful thing, form no
plans for the future, without the influence of Jerome Wellfield making
itself overpoweringly felt. At times—at this moment, even—she almost
resented this new feeling; longed for freedom, and revolted at finding
her soul enslaved. She felt a tremor sometimes—the unspoken question
tormented her, ‘What if this passion be all wrong, instead of all
right? What if it paralyse, instead of expanding, my nature? If it so
absorb me that I can forget others—forget, for one moment, my highest
aims—then it is surely wrong. A love that is pure and true ought to
make one more unselfish, ought to make one love better and more largely
and liberally everything and every person about one. Is it so with me?’

Some such thought as this was agitating her mind this afternoon. She
was striving to be reasonable, to keep her head steady in the midst of
her heart’s wild storm—piteously striving, while the tyrant sentiment
shook her with ruthless hand; while between her and the wholesome
outside nature, came the beautiful face which now haunted her thoughts
so doggedly, and beyond the twitter of the hopping birds about and
above her, sounded that voice to which every fibre had thrilled, every
sense had responded, last night. A lark suddenly rose, fluttering
aloft, pouring out a full-hearted song—such a flood of trilling
ecstasy as must have nearly burst his little throat. She heard it, and
it troubled her; it interrupted the memory of that other song, in such
weird contrast to this one, which Jerome had sung:


  ‘In dreams I saw thy face,
    And saw the night
  Filling thy heart’s drear space,
    And saw the snake
  That gnaws that heart apace.
    I saw, my love,
  Thy great and sore distress;
    I murmur not.’


‘What am I thinking of?’ she almost uttered, starting quickly. ‘I am
nervous. I must be. Why didn’t I go to those Lehnberg girls and be
amiable to them, instead of standing aloof and helping Carla to be
ill-natured, for I know she dislikes them. I should have felt better
now, had I done so. I am degraded by indulging in this folly, and I——’

‘Surely, Miss Ford, you did not think this the best place from which to
sketch the _Dom_?’ said Falkenberg’s voice, just beside her.

Sara turned slowly, too thoroughly absorbed in her own thoughts to be
startled. Her eyes dwelt at first almost unrecognisingly upon his face.
There was trouble in them—a kind of pained, hunted look. Gradually
they cleared, as she came down again into the world of reality, and
saw him stooping towards her. He was alone. Her troubled heart grew
calmer, as she saw his good face, and grave, critical brown eyes, full
of wisdom and full of kindness, fixed upon her.

‘Whatever this man told me, I should believe implicitly,’ she thought
within herself, and she smiled welcome to him. Indeed, she did welcome
him in her heart. He came as a deliverer. Her thraldom had begun to
gall her, when he appeared.

‘Where have you left the countess?’ she asked.

‘At my house. She discovered that she could not walk so far as the
others were going, and that she wished to inspect my house and farm
and gardens; for she was certain that she could find a great deal to
improve in all of them.’

He smiled, and so did Sara, the latter of course being unconscious of
the additional remarks made by the candid countess when alone with her
favourite guest—remarks which it had required all his tact to receive
with an appearance of amused indifference.

‘Ah, she is not fond of walking. You may well ask if I thought this a
good place from which to sketch the _Dom_. I came down here, and then
found that I was not inclined to draw. I hope you do not feel that you
have been beguiled here on false pretences.’

‘By no means. I am glad you don’t wish to draw; perhaps you will be all
the more disposed to converse.’

‘If you will “introduce a subject,” as they did in the old game, I
shall be delighted.’

‘I have a subject quite ready. I hope you will not think me very
impertinent for introducing it; and if you consider my questions
unwarrantable, tell me so, and I will apologise and be silent.’

‘Now I know you are going to ask me questions about myself, which I
give you free leave to do. I know of absolutely nothing in my life
which I care to conceal.’

‘Then, do you live entirely at Elberthal?’

‘I have lived there now for two years, entirely, except when friends
have invited me to visit them.’

‘And alone?’

‘Alone, except for my old servant, Ellen, my second mother, who lives
with me.’

‘And you have neither father nor mother?’ he asked.

‘No! My mother died when I was a baby, almost. My father worshipped
her. He never married a second time. Nearly three years ago he also
died. I have very few relations, and those not congenial. I may
therefore say, I am alone in the world.’

‘And—and—excuse the question,’ he said, flushing violently, so that
she looked at him in surprise. ‘Are you—but really, I have no right to
ask.’

‘What do you mean, Herr Falkenberg?’

‘I wondered whether you were entirely dependent on your art, for——’

‘Oh, I thought you were going to ask, like my aunt in England, what I
did when I was asked out, and had no chaperon to take me,’ said Sara,
laughing. ‘Am I dependent on my art for the means of subsistence? No!
I have just one hundred pounds a year of my own, Herr Falkenberg, safe
and secure.’

‘I am glad of that,’ said he, with a sympathetic smile of relief. ‘It
makes all the difference. With that income certain, you may live to
your art as art.’

‘Yes, I find it a very good thing. My hundred a year is worth a
thousand to me, I assure you. But what a paltry little sum it must
appear to you,’ she added, with a look of humour in her grey eyes.
‘What was it I once read about “spinsters and widows of one or two
hundred a year, and other minute capitalists of the same kind?” I
remember being very much amused with it. Do you not almost feel to
require a magnifying-glass—mental, I mean—to enable you to see my
hundred a year at all—you with your immense transactions, and your
great income?’

‘My dear Miss Ford,’ he expostulated, blushing as if to apologise for
having such a large income when she had such a very small one, ‘pardon
me; I ought never to have alluded——’

Sara laughed with hearty enjoyment.

‘Do not look so distressed,’ she said. ‘When I think how frightened I
was at the countess’s account of you, and how I quaked when I saw her
bringing you up to me yesterday, and then realise your goodness—why
should you not ask how much money I have, and why should I not tell you
that I have a hundred a year? I think there is such an immense amount
of false delicacy wasted upon such matters.’

‘Yet I know that you would not think of asking me what my income is,’
said Falkenberg, composedly.

‘There is a difference between a great financier and a “minute
capitalist” like myself. Have you some plan for turning my hundred a
year into two?’ she added, laughing.

‘No; I was innocent of wishing to speculate with your money. I was
only anxious to know that you were not obliged to speculate with your
brains.’

‘No; I have been most fortunate, I consider, in that respect. When I
first went to Elberthal I was certainly seriously puzzled to arrange my
affairs, from a poverty of means, not an _embarras de richesses_. You
see—I daresay you can bend your comprehension to the fact—it _was_ a
little difficult to make a hundred a year pay for board and lodging for
two, and for my lessons as well.’

‘It must have been impossible,’ exclaimed Falkenberg, looking so
shocked that Sara laughed again gleefully.

‘I am sure I could “harrow you up,” as the Americans say, if I were to
relate some of Ellen’s and my contrivances at that time. We both were
inspired with a Spartan resolution not to get into debt if we had to
starve for it.’

‘I cannot conceive how you lived,’ he said, in a voice which had actual
pain in it. ‘How can you laugh at it? It is shocking. What were your
friends doing to allow——’

‘Oh! my friends were few, and they were all so angry at the course I
had taken, that they would have rejoiced in the idea that I was being
humbled—that perhaps I should be obliged to return home. But I was
going to tell you how we went on—if you want to hear, that is.’

‘Oh, if you will be so good as to tell me!’

‘I had lessons from Wilhelmi; I daresay you know him?’

‘Yes.’

‘He is a splendid fellow, do you know? At first I had great difficulty
in getting him to teach me at all. Then he suddenly became quite kind.
I believe it was as soon as he saw that I meant work, and not nonsense.
He was good enough to say that I had talent, and since then he will
accept absolutely nothing from me for my lessons. He says I can give
him a service of plate, with inscriptions, when I am a popular painter.
Is not that noble generosity?’

‘Very kind,’ assented Falkenberg, almost coldly.

‘And his wife and daughter have been almost as kind as himself. I feel
that they are friends indeed.’

‘But your people at home?’ he began.

‘All my “people at home” consist in an uncle, a brother of my mother’s,
and his family. My father was professor of modern history at ——
College, in London. His opinions, both religious and social, were
advanced. When he was living, his house was a favourite place with
clever, cultivated men and women, of all shades of opinion; most of
them, like himself, not particularly well off. Then he died, suddenly,
and left me, as I said, with one hundred pounds a year. I was just
one-and-twenty, and my small possessions were fortunately absolutely at
my own disposal. I tried living with “my people at home.” My uncle is a
clergyman; rector of a very small village in the south of England. They
exist there; they don’t live. It soon grew intolerable to me. I had
been accustomed to the society of men and women of mind; and the gossip
about the curate, and my cousins’ frantic efforts to imitate the dress
of the county ladies who occasionally came to church, and who most
likely spent as many hundreds on their clothes as Charlotte and Louisa
had sovereigns, drove me almost wild. Then the curate tried to convert
me——’

‘Heavens!’

‘And I spoke disrespectfully of the Church. My aunt and cousins were
speechless, and sent me to Coventry for a long time. I remembered how
well my pictures had sold at some fancy fairs and bazaars in London,
to which I had sometimes contributed, and I resolved that I would use
the powers God had given me. I laid all my plans in silence, only
taking my old Ellen into my confidence. She vowed she would follow me
to the world’s end.’

‘Of course!’

‘Of course? Not at all. She had an excellent situation offered her, as
housekeeper, in an English country house, where she could have done as
she pleased, and where she also would have received a hundred a year.
When incomes dwindle down to hundreds, Herr Falkenberg, one finds
one’s-self on a pecuniary level with strange companions sometimes.’

‘How you harp upon that stupid hundred pounds!’ exclaimed Falkenberg.
‘I believe you wish to defy me with it. Well?’

‘She gave it up, and accompanied me. There was a storm at the rectory
when I unfolded my plans. My uncle forbade me to go, and said it would
have broken my mother’s heart.’ Her lip curled scornfully. ‘My mother,
who always taught me that no kind of work was shameful, and that every
kind of idleness was! Naturally I took no notice of that. My cousins
said I was a Bohemian, and liked adventures, and that it all came of my
having been brought up amongst unbelievers. My aunt was speechless for
a time, and then said, “Go abroad, child, alone! What will you do for a
chaperon, when you are invited anywhere?”’

‘And you?’ he asked, laughing.

‘I said, “I suppose I shall go without one.” And then I came to
Elberthal. I have been there now for two years. One of my cousins
occasionally writes to me, and I to her. The rest ignore me. And
I—have learnt to live alone. With plenty of work it is not so very
difficult, and the depraved nature of the German customs has even
allowed me to go out without a chaperon now and then, without visiting
the sin too severely upon me.’

‘Then how did you meet with the Trockenaus?’

‘Ah!’ said Sara, a smile of pleasure flashing over her face, ‘that was
another pleasant thing. Count Trockenau was once a student in the very
college in which my father was professor of history, and had attended
some of his lectures; and, it seems, had been at his house, and seen
me when I was a mere child. I don’t remember it, but he does. They saw
a picture with my name, at an exhibition in Berlin; and he actually
took the trouble to ascertain whether I had anything to do with the
Professor Ford he had known. That is a year ago; since then, they have
been unvaryingly kind to me. But people are kind, it seems to me. As
for Countess Carla—she is goodness itself.’

‘Yes; there is a wonderful charm about her,’ he said, and then they
were both silent for a time.

Her clear grey eyes were fixed upon the fields below them—eyes so
perfectly true, pure, and candid, he thought he had never seen.
Now also, he saw the slight line about the mouth—a line which was
sometimes a little hard, as if struggle and disillusionism had called
it there. Her open gaze, her fearless smile, her unembarrassed manner
of holding her way through the world—what was it all? Innocence, most
assuredly; but ignorance—no. She knew the world, and knew that it
was evil. He thought that in addition to innocence there was perfect
comprehension of her position, great ambition, a great deal of pride,
and, mixed with that, a touch of indifference that was almost cynical.
She did not sneer; there was no sneer on the beautiful frank mouth, but
there was disdain. He had never seen anything quite like her before.
As he sat, looking earnestly at her, he began to reflect that very
soon she would pass from his life. This conversation in the afternoon
sunshine, under the shadow of the _Dom_, was pleasant—as sweet as it
was unexpected, and different from all other conversations he had ever
had. But soon it would be over. After a few days at Trockenau, she
would return to her atelier; he to his business and his—pleasures.
His pleasures, as he looked back upon them now, seen in the light
of _this_ sun, looked grey and dim and poor. Of course he need not
lose sight of her, and the most natural way of keeping her in view,
considering their relative positions, would be to give her a commission
to paint him a picture. He felt himself revolted at the idea—felt the
blood rise to his cheeks at the thought. Surely there must be some
other way of keeping her in sight.

At this moment she turned, and found his eyes so intently fixed on her
face, that her colour too rose a little, as she asked:

‘Have I said something that shocks you too, Herr Falkenberg? I should
be sorry for that.’

‘Miss Ford!’ he exclaimed earnestly, ‘what you have told me makes me
honour and respect you from my very soul. Do not for a moment think
that your confidence has been misplaced, as it must have been if I were
“shocked” at anything you have said. We only met yesterday, and yet I
am bold enough to say that if you would consent to place me on the
list of your friends and servants, I should indeed feel honoured.’

Sara looked at him with eloquent eyes and parted lips.

‘You are very kind,’ she said earnestly, ‘and I accept your kindness.
I—my friends are not many, but they are prized. I should think it a
privilege to count you amongst them, for I believe you have the same
feelings about friendship that I have myself, and my ideas on the
subject are by no means low ones.’

‘Nor mine. And for that reason I am like yourself. My friends are few,’
he said, taking the hand she extended, and raising it to his lips, his
eyes still fixed on her face. Suddenly her own eyes filled with tears.
She turned aside her face, and covered it with her other hand.

‘What have I done to deserve such kindness?’ she said tremulously, and
profoundly moved. And indeed, what is there that should move a human
soul more than such a discovery as this—the discovery of a friend?
Schiller felt it when he sang in that great ode, which never has been
and never can be translated without being ruined:

  ‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,
  _Eines Freundes Freund zu sein_,
  Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
  Mische seinen Jubel ein!
  Ja, wer auch nur _eine_ Seele
  _Sein_ nennt, auf dem Erdenrund.
  Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehle
  Weinend sich aus diesem Bund.’

‘It is not kindness so much as selfishness,’ said he, gently. ‘Do we
not all try to grasp that which seems very desirable to us?’

‘It is a kind of selfishness I like,’ said Sara, recovering, and
flashing a bright glance upon him through the mist which still veiled
her eyes.

‘I should like to take you to one or two places here—Lotte Buff’s
house, and Goethe’s Well, and some others, if you would care to go,’ he
said, as if to put aside her still unspoken thanks.

‘I should, immensely. Shall we have time before the others come back?
Where are they gone, by-the-way?’

‘They are gone to a celebrated restauration on the top of that hill,
the Kalsmund, which you see opposite, with the ruined tower upon it. At
this restauration they are famed for their _Bowle_—pineapple _Bowle_;
and I heard young Lemde, and the count, and Arthur Eckberg arranging
to take the ladies there and have a large bowl of the said _Bowle_, in
the garden of the restauration,’ said Falkenberg, with an imperturbable
gravity which the light in his eyes belied.

Sara laughed.

‘Should we not rather go and find the countess, and ask her to come
with us? I am sure she will be dull.’

Accordingly they went to the house, and found the countess nothing
loath to accept their invitation that she would accompany them. They
had a very delightful tour of discovery; and Sara noticed that wherever
they went, their companion appeared to be known, and that he was
greeted with smiles and a pleasant word.

When it was time they returned to the house, and found the rest of the
party there, all in the highest good-humour, and all pitying them for
having missed the treat they had had—the walk, the view, the ruins,
and the _Bowle_.

It was time to go to the railway station, and after a railway journey
of one hour and a drive of another, they found that their _Landpartei_
was over, and they were again at Schloss Trockenau.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV.

OF THE WELLFIELDS.


At Ems, the morning of the same day, some time after the Trockenau
procession had gone past on its way to the station, two young ladies
seated themselves on a bench in the Kurgarten, beside the broad walk.
They had brought their novels and their fancy-work, and were of one
mind and one spirit in their purpose to idle away the morning, watch
the visitors, and, after the manner of Miss Austen’s sarcastic heroes
and ingenuous heroines, ‘quiz the company.’ They were English; they
were the daughters of an M.P. for one of the great manufacturing
towns. They were staying at the _Vier Jahreszeiten_, and they had
closely observed all the rest of the company staying there. Until a few
days ago, the most perfect sisterly harmony had reigned between them;
but a lamentable discord had lately arisen, and that upon the subject
of a man.

‘Dora, see! There’s your wonderful dark angel coming mooning along with
his sister. Pray don’t miss the chance of looking at them, since you
admire them so much.’

‘You are boiling over with spite, Lucy. I will look at them. I like
looking at them, and so do you, but you won’t own it.’

‘_I!_’ ejaculated Lucy, with supreme contempt. ‘He is very handsome, I
grant you; but I believe him to be a sham.’

‘What do you mean by a sham?’

‘He looks like a hero of romance, and I believe he is a very
commonplace personage after all.’

‘No one with such a voice could be commonplace, Lucy. Sims Reeves is
nothing to him.’

‘I should say you were cracked,’ replied Lucy, witheringly.

‘Should you? What a powerful imagination you must have! He is coming
down this way. I am sure “a dark angel” is an excellent name for him.’

‘I shall conclude next that you write poetry about him—a man who has
never spoken to you, and who doesn’t recognise you when he sees you.
And as for that tall girl, with her streams of yellow hair, she ought
in decency to put it up, in——’

‘In a chignon—do say a chignon at once! It would suit her so
admirably—about as well as it would suit Venus or Hebe.’

‘We shall never agree about them, that is evident.’

‘Well, I know that. Do let me admire them in peace. ’Tis all I ask.’

The causes of this deplorable breach of good understanding between two
generally loving sisters, were now too near for them to exchange any
further remarks about them at present. Lucy indignantly stuck her
parasol between herself and them, and studied her Tauchnitz volume
in moody dignity. Dora, perfectly conscious that the Wellfields were
unaware of her existence, had no scruple in raising her head as they
went past, and looking at them openly and scrutinisingly. They did not
see her, being absorbed in conversation, and looking intently at one
another. Avice was hanging upon her brother’s arm, which she had taken
as they left the hotel, and was gazing with a sort of rapt attention
into his face, as if something in his looks or his voice attracted her
irresistibly. He had been saying something, and had ceased to speak,
and this something seemed to give her matter for thought. Soon after
they had passed the two girls, Avice said:

‘Jerome, since I knew you—how long is it?’

‘It is just a month since I came to you here.’

‘It seems an eternity of pleasure. My life has changed so much since
then that I hardly know myself.’

‘For the better, do you mean?’ he asked, looking down upon the
delicately beautiful, upturned face, and feeling that Sara Ford’s words
had been true: ‘She will some day be remarkably beautiful.’

‘For the better, of course. I used to be very tired of my life
sometimes. Often I have sat in our balcony, when we had one at any
hotel we were staying at, and envied the ragged children playing in the
street.’

‘But why, child? My father seems to dote upon you.’

‘Oh yes! he dotes upon me, I suppose. But when the doting takes the
form of scarcely allowing me to leave the house, and never to go out
alone—in all the places we have been at, I never went to see the
sights like other girls—I am so ignorant—you cannot imagine _how_
ignorant. I know absolutely nothing.’

‘You know French and German, and Italian and English.’

‘What is that, when I am afraid to speak in them for fear of showing
what an ignorant little fool I am!’

‘And you know politics. I sat in silent awe and amazement the other day
when you were telling my father about the ministerial tactics in France
and England.’

‘Oh! because I have read the papers to papa for years. I don’t know any
grammar, nor any arithmetic, nor——’

‘What can you want with them? Grammar is bosh.’

_‘Jerome!’_

‘Of course it is bosh. Never be afraid to call it bosh. And as for
arithmetic, you can add up what you receive and what you spend, I
suppose.’

‘But I don’t mean that kind of arithmetic. I knew an English girl a
little while ago where we were at Florence. She was spending the winter
holidays there, and papa allowed me to go to see her sometimes. She
showed me the work she had to do during the holidays, and it made me
feel, oh, so fearfully ignorant. One of her sums was, “Find the present
value of £760 at four and five-eighths per cent. for eighty days.” That
is what _I_ call arithmetic,’ said Avice, despondently.

‘Do you? Well, suppose we look out for a governess for both of us, for
I know just as much about it as you do.’

Avice laughed and said: ‘It would have to be a very clever governess,
Jerome.’

‘But not old and ugly, or I could not possibly learn from her; and yet,
if she were young and handsome, I might fall in love with her. Upon my
word, I think I should like to have a governess, Avice. Shall we see
about it?’

‘How ridiculous you are! Since I have had you, I don’t care so much
about a governess. How horribly frightened of you I was, before I
saw you. Papa used to pinch my ear sometimes when he wanted to tease
me, and say, “I wonder what Hieronymus will say when he first sees
you—little interloper!” When I asked what you were like, he said I
should have to mind my P’s and Q’s with you. Naturally I trembled at
the very idea of beholding you.’

‘It was too bad to make me out such a bugbear.’

‘Oh, he did not make you out a bugbear, exactly; but he gave me a
fearful idea of you. And one day he told me that you had been sent
for—that was when he was ill, and thought he would not get better.
And he added that when he was gone, you would have all his authority,
and that he advised me to make myself agreeable to you. It was woman’s
mission, he said, to make herself agreeable.’

‘My father has curious ideas upon woman’s mission and place in life, my
dear. If he were to come in contact with the world again, he would find
that they were out of date. Well?’

‘I was in the greatest anxiety. I did not know whether to put on my
oldest, shabbiest frock, and to go and sit up in my bedroom, and not
come down till I was sent for, and not speak till I was spoken to.’

‘What end did you purpose to serve by such a course?’

‘I thought you would think, “At least she is quite insignificant, and
will not be in my way.” Then I thought it might be better to make
myself look as well as I possibly could——’

‘Which you knew to be very well indeed, Miss Vanity, in your bronze
velvet gown with the amber slashings, which makes you look like some
picture of Titian or Veronese, but which would not lead anyone to
suppose that you were an English school-girl.’

‘Oh, don’t call me an English school-girl. I think they are horrid.
They know so much more than I do. But do you like me in that dress?’

‘Very much.’

‘I thought, well, if he sees me in this, he will think, “Ah, after all
she is presentable. She might be worse.”’

‘Preposterous child! Finally, if I remember aright——’

‘Finally, papa was so ill that I forgot all about my dress. I was in a
black frock, sitting beside his bed, I know, when you came.’

‘Yes, I remember. My eyes fell upon you the instant I came in. I
remember being struck, then and there, with the contrast between your
white face and black dress, and great startled eyes, and this flood of
gold, Avice.’ He smiled slightly as he touched a tress of her hair.

‘And I remember that as you came in, I really turned cold with anxiety
and alarm. You were pale too, and your eyes seemed to burn upon me.
I remember how you walked up to my father, and bent over him, and I
thought suddenly, “Oh, I hope he will like me!” Then papa remembered
me, and took my hand, and said, “Here’s Avice—you must learn to know
her, for when I’m gone she will have no one but you; and she is a
hot-house plant, I can tell you.” And you, Jerome, you took my hand—I
could not speak. You smiled at me, and I felt as if a tight string had
been cut loose from my heart; and you said, “One only needs to look at
her to see that.” I must have looked alarmed, for you said, “Do you
think you can spare me a little of your regard, my child?” and you put
your arm round me, and kissed me. I would have _died_ for you, Jerome,
from that moment,’ she concluded, looking into his face with eyes full
of suppressed, passionate devotion.

‘Why, you never told me before anything of this,’ he said, in some
surprise.

‘Because I waited to see if you would change; if you would presently
begin to think me an interloper. But I know you don’t. Oh, I do so love
you!’

He took her chin in his hand, and looked down into the glowing, excited
young face; then stooped and kissed her, saying: ‘I only wish we had
not been strangers so long.’

They turned back, having come to the end of the garden, and Avice went
on:

‘I have a great many things to ask about, Jerome. First, I want to know
if we are rich?’

‘Rich! No. At least, not millionaires. I don’t exactly know what my
father’s income is. Somewhere about two or three thousand a year, I
suppose. He has always allowed me six hundred, since I came of age; and
it has been quite enough.’

‘But you lead such a simple life, compared with that of some young men.’

He looked at her, surprised. ‘What do you know about the lives “some”
young men lead?’

‘I don’t know anything, except that most of papa’s gentlemen friends
spend more than six hundred a year, I am sure. I could not help seeing
things, when we have stayed in so many places. You don’t keep a lot of
horses, nor play cards for large stakes, nor give grand entertainments,
nor spend heaps of money on dress.’

‘In all those matters I am severely virtuous, I confess—at any rate,
in the last. At the same time, my sweet child, I have always, by dint
of unwearying exertions, contrived to live up to my income; and perhaps
had it been larger even, I might have succeeded in spending it.’

‘I daresay; but you know what I mean. You would never be like young
Baron Zeppenheim, for instance, whom we knew at Wiesbaden. I really
believe he had hundreds of suits of clothes.’

Jerome laughed.

‘I think, sister mine, that such things have about the same
significance for us both. You look charming in your bronze velvet, with
the old Venetian clasps; but had you nothing to wear but some old black
serge, you would still be what you are.’

‘I suppose so. I cannot imagine what difference it makes. But next I
want to ask, have you ever been to our home—our real home that belongs
to us—and has the same name as ourselves?’

‘Have I ever been at Wellfield? Of course I have—ages ago, though,
when I was a boy of ten or eleven—nearly sixteen years ago, Avice; and
yet I remember it as well as if it had been yesterday.’

‘Is it nice?’

‘It is a fine old place—yes—in a fine country. I should like well to
see it again.’

‘I want to go there dreadfully, Jerome. Couldn’t you persuade papa to
let us go and stay there for a while when he gets better? He never
will talk to me about it. He says it is a musty old place, and that
I may think I should like it, but that I should be like himself if I
got there—dead in a week, _aus lauter Langeweile_. But I know better.
I should be able to do as I liked, and to go out without a maid, and
without gloves; and could have a room of my own to put my things in,
without the horrid consciousness that in a week or two I should have to
rout them all out again. That’s what I feel here; I feel an outcast.’

‘You have never seen the home of your ancestors, and you are sixteen! I
never in the least realised it. Certainly you shall go. I will work him
up to it.’

‘Oh, Jerome, you are an angel!’ she exclaimed fervently.

They were passing the English sisters again, who had quarrelled about
them; and on hearing this exclamation, and seeing the enraptured face
held up to Jerome, ‘Dora’ gave an exultant glance towards ‘Lucy,’ who
merely shrugged her shoulders.

‘Were you so anxious to see the old place?’ pursued Jerome. ‘Well, I
don’t wonder. It is a place to be proud of.’

‘Why don’t you go and live there? You could.’

‘Ah, that is another thing. Wellfield is a lovely spot, and the Abbey
is a place to be proud of, no doubt; but to live there, after the kind
of life one has been accustomed to here—_c’est autre chose_! It’s a
Roman Catholic neighbourhood. Brentwood is close to, you know—the
great Jesuit seminary, and a lot of those fossilised Roman Catholic
gentry, as proud as Lucifer, and as exclusive as—as only such people
can be.’

‘But surely we are their equals.’

‘Oh dear, yes! We have always been on the best of terms with them all,
chiefly perhaps because we have been so little at Wellfield that there
has been no time or chance for differences to arise. I don’t know how
I should like it to live in, unless——’

‘Unless what?’

‘If something I should like very much took place, I should certainly
ask my father to let me take up my abode at the Abbey. Who knows,
Avice, under what circumstances you may go first to Wellfield Abbey?’

They found themselves opposite the _Vier Jahreszeiten_. Jerome looked
at his watch.

‘I tell you what, young lady, we have consumed no end of time in this
discussion. My father will think himself ill-used. We promised to walk
with him at twelve. Come and let us find him.’

They went into the hall, and an attendant hurried up to them, only to
say that Mr. Wellfield the elder had been taken very ill while reading
his newspapers before rising, that a doctor had been sent for, and that
he lay now between life and death.

Jerome and his sister hastened upstairs, and found their father
in alternate convulsions of pain and intervals of utter, swooning
unconsciousness. The doctor came, and after a very short examination
pronounced the attack to be a most serious one. A Sister of Mercy from
a neighbouring institution was sent for. Hours of suspense and anxiety
passed before the delirious anguish of the patient at all abated. The
dusk of evening had fallen, when the doctor, coming into the salon,
found Jerome and Avice seated together in the window; the girl’s head
pillowed on her brother’s knee, her hand in his.

‘Your father is now composed, and perfectly sensible,’ said the doctor.
‘He is very anxious to speak to you alone,’ he added, to Jerome. ‘The
Sister will wait in the ante-room. Call her if there is the least need
for help. She knows what to do. I will look in again about midnight.’

With a brief good-evening he was gone; and Jerome, rising, went to his
father’s room.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.

FATHER AND SON ARRANGE ACCOUNTS.


A LAMP was brightly burning in the sick-room, with a shade over it,
and so placed as not to dazzle the invalid’s eyes. The Sister had
left the room when Jerome entered; and there was a stillness as of
death over everything. Jerome went up to the bedside, and stooped
over the motionless figure lying back, nerveless and exhausted, after
the agonies of pain which had shaken the already feeble frame. The
face upon which the lamplight shone was, or had been, a fine one, as
regarded features. These bore little resemblance to those of his son,
though they, like Jerome’s, were finely cut, pale, and clear. Now,
they were wasted and waxen in their languid weariness. A high, somewhat
bald forehead, a long, slender, grey moustache gave a thoroughly
un-English appearance to the whole countenance. As Jerome’s hands
pressed the bedclothes, and he stooped without speaking over the
pillow, the large closed eyelids were raised, and a pair of strange
bright blue eyes were discovered, such eyes as are often the token of a
cool, self-seeking disposition—eyes which contained a light and a life
which not even this day of mortal pain had been able utterly to quench.

Face of father and face of son were near together; the one evidently
near death, the other scarcely less pale, quite as still and composed,
yet eloquent of health and strength, and early manhood’s pride and
power.

‘Ah, Jerome, it is you?’ came in a feeble voice from the patient.

‘I am thankful to hear that you are out of pain, sir. My sister and I
have passed some anxious hours.’

‘Yes; I feel easier now.’

He spoke so slowly, so languidly, and so faintly, that the voice was
scarce audible.

‘You sent for me; at least, Dr. Reichhardt said you wished to see me.’

‘Yes; I have something to say to you. Sit down.’

Jerome seated himself on a chair which stood beside the bed, and
waited. Since opening his eyes, and seeing his son stooping over
him, Mr. Wellfield had not closed them again. They looked restlessly
round—at the ceiling, the wall, the window—anywhere, except into his
son’s face. It was some little time before he spoke again; what he had
to say seemed to require a considerable effort of some kind. At last,
in a voice which had suddenly gained strength, he said:

‘You don’t know what caused me to be so suddenly taken ill to-day.’

‘I had not thought of the cause. I was disturbed at the fact.’

‘I had a severe shock, after you went out this morning.’

‘Indeed!’ said Jerome, with some animation; ‘I hope no carelessness——’

‘None at all, except the carelessness of circumstances, which is apt to
be astonishing sometimes, especially to those who suffer from it,’ he
retorted, a sarcastic flavour in his voice. ‘I ought to have spoken to
you long ago—long ago.’

Again he paused, and again Jerome waited. He had not the faintest, most
conjectural idea of the subject upon which his father desired to speak
to him. He was beginning now to wonder vaguely what it could be. They
had no confidences, this father and son. Their tastes, habits, and
dispositions had always been utterly dissimilar. The elder Wellfield
had gone his own way, had led his life of aimless travel from place
to place, generally from one fashionable foreign invalid colony to
another, accompanied by his daughter and her maid, and by his own
manservant. His son had enjoyed the fullest liberty to do the same;
to live exactly as seemed good in his own eyes, only receiving long
ago the curt recommendation to remember who he was, and that there
were some things that a gentleman could never do. ‘No need to tell a
gentleman what these things are,’ he had further been informed. ‘If
he be a gentleman, he will very soon learn them for himself; if not,
scorpions could not whip the knowledge into him.’

Furnished with such a formula, or creed, as the basis of his ethical
system, Jerome Wellfield had been left to his own devices. Three times
since his father’s second marriage, Jerome had met and stayed with that
father. The first time Avice had been a baby, on the other occasions
she had been visiting friends unknown to her brother. Jerome and his
father had always agreed together perfectly well. Each was conscious
that the other had tastes and habits and views of life which to himself
would have been most distasteful. Each had had civilisation and _savoir
vivre_ enough to ignore that altogether during their brief glimpses of
one another. They had never quarrelled—they had never been friends.
Mr. Wellfield had enjoyed his life of idle valetudinarianism—his lazy
days, his evenings at cards, or in reading-rooms, or lighted gardens.
Jerome had enjoyed his life—his pleasant search after the harmonious
and the beautiful in life, in art, in nature. He had gradually shut
himself up in his own reserve; in his over-refined cultivation and
fastidiousness; he had ‘built his soul a lordly pleasure-house,
wherein at ease for aye to dwell,’ till now what was ugly and coarse
made him shudder, and gave him pain that was almost physical. All
this refinement, he often told himself, was not essential to him;
he could do without it; poverty would not be anything to dread, for
one could have simplicity therewith; the real bane of existence was
common, rampant, triumphant philistinism. Wherever he went, he had been
well received, and generally flattered: his beauty, his voice, the
charm of his manner alone, would have made him the despair of prudent
mothers, even as a detrimental; but when to those advantages was added
the primary one, that he was an only son, heir to a fine estate, of
unimpeachably good and ancient name and lineage, an impartial judge
must confess that it was a great thing that Jerome Wellfield had come
out of the ordeal, at least outwardly, unscathed, calm, unperturbed,
unvulgarised.

Open admiration and adulation had revolted his fastidious soul. Till
he met Sara Ford, he had never gone further than a mild flirtation
with any girl, for he was hard to please. But, having met her, all was
changed. Her beauty, her pride, her indifference, calm and smiling,
to what other women so eagerly sought after—the fact that she was no
easy prize, despite her loneliness and her poverty, had fired him.
He had loved with a rapidity and a passion which showed the strange
blending of north and south, of Italy and England, that was in him,
and that made him what he was. And he, as little as anyone, knew what
he was. In him there were two natures; he only knew one, for up to now
his mother’s side alone had grown and flourished; he little knew the
modifications of southern character which he inherited from that man
beside whose bed he sat, waiting for the disclosure which he struggled
to utter.

Born beneath southern skies, brought up in his very early childhood
in Italian cities, these influences engraved themselves deeply,
indelibly upon his nature. The mother’s blood streaked every thought,
every impulse, with a mixture of passion and indolence, fire and
superstition. That mother had been the beautiful daughter of an old,
impoverished Sicilian house—a house which had never before married out
of its own nation and its own sphere. To her son she bequeathed her
own hereditary tendencies—she had had much of the indolence, all the
superstition of that glorious, yet degraded race of Magna Græcia.

In after-days, when Jerome looked up into the murky skies of
Lancashire—those skies which gloomed over the grey walls of his
father’s house—those deep, unspeakably blue heavens whose glory
bathed the marbles of Venice, the quays of Naples, the ruins of Rome,
the pictures of Florence, whose glamour lent itself to the whispering,
rustling grey of the olives on Mediterranean coast terraces, and made
the yellow sand more yellow, the blue sea more deeply violet, the
white sail more dazzling—this remembered heaven used to rush to his
recollection with a light that was almost lurid, and scattered tones
of a speech that was music seemed to ring melodiously in his ears.
Italy had faded, yet her finger-mark remained ineffaceable upon his
innermost heart, as his mother’s beauty remained upon earth, stamped
in the beauty of his own face and the melody of his voice, which, so
long as voice or feature remained, should visibly and audibly attest
the presence upon earth of a land where skies are warmer, where love is
fiercer, where passions run more quickly into white-hot rages than in
this humid isle of ours.

Another influence had been almost as strong as that of Italy—as strong
as any influence which is not already in a man’s natural tendencies
can be—and that influence was Germany. After a brief stay in England,
during which his father’s second marriage had taken place, he had
been sent to the gymnasium of ——, where he had gone through all the
courses, and, besides the regular school-training, had been trained
also in the school of music.

In that land his voice and his musical powers formed a passport. By
degrees, the Italian ditties, with their oily sweetness, slipped away,
as they have the trick of doing, from his tongue, and the rougher,
deeper songs of the Fatherland grew at home there. Casting himself with
eagerness into the art, he grew more and more devoted to it, and but
for one thing he often felt as if he would never care to leave this
_Deutschland_, this home of mighty harmonies, this adopted country.
That one thing was the remembrance of his home itself—of the weird,
ancient Abbey, with its dark, quaint gardens, its cloisters beside the
river; and the still more ancient church which he dimly remembered.

Since his love for Sara Ford had arisen, he had thought and dreamed
still oftener of this ancient place. Now he knew—he had thought of it
when he spoke to Avice that morning—that with her by his side there
was no place he would so gladly go to, and stay there. What a life they
might lead—she with her art, and he with his—and with their love!
He felt a thrill—felt the blood course quickly on, as he pictured
her—it was the first time he had seen the picture clearly—with him at
Wellfield—his wife.

‘Perhaps, when you know, you may blame me; and yet—where would you
have been all these years if I had acted differently? Did you know that
Wellfield had ever been entailed?’

‘I think I have heard something about it,’ said Jerome, surprised at
the abruptness of the question, and roused from his dream.

‘It was entailed until my father’s time. He and your great-grandfather
agreed to cut it off.’

‘Did they? Why?’

‘Because the estate was thoroughly embarrassed, and deep in debt, and
they wanted to restore it.’

‘Then they succeeded?’ asked Jerome, to whom this was news, but who
concluded that they must have succeeded. Had there been embarrassments,
surely he would have heard of them before now.

‘No; they did not. Neither of them had the faintest notion of
business’—it is to be presumed that Mr. Wellfield was conscious of
himself possessing business talents of a superior order. ‘They got
money, but that wasn’t improving the estate. They did not retrench, and
they spent nothing on improvements. When I came into possession, I was
worse off than any Wellfield had ever been before.’

‘I had no idea of that,’ said Jerome.

‘Of course you had not. How could you have? It is a fact, nevertheless.
I went through some bitter experiences. I had all their pride, and
none of their resources. I saw no way out of it. Your mother once
saw the place, and screamed at the very idea of living there. She
said she would die if she had to live out of Italy. It was therefore
impossible for me to live on my estate, and retrench, as almost any
other man might have done under the circumstances. Knowing this, I
kept you as much away from the place as possible, lest you should get
fond of it. Things got worse and worse. After your sister’s mother
died, my own health failed, and it became impossible for me to live
in England. I saw ruin staring me in the face. I saw you, whom I
wished never to be troubled with sordid cares and anxieties, growing
up utterly unconscious of the kind of lot that was hanging over you.
I seemed to see Avice, your sister, stinted of common comforts, and
perhaps reduced, as she grew up, to earn her living as a governess,
_she_—ordered about by strange people, and breaking her heart with
fretting.’

‘Good God, sir! What must you have gone through! And why did you not
confide in me? Anything in my power——’

‘But there was nothing in your power—that is exactly it. I did the
only thing that could be done. I looked my circumstances full in the
face, and the sight was not inspiriting. Presently came a man with what
I wanted—money—any amount of money. I—I sold Wellfield.’

‘Sold it!’ echoed the young man, in a voice of horror and incredulity
combined, as he started from his chair, and looked into his father’s
face. ‘You are dreaming. You are delirious. Let me call Sister
Ursula—you——’

‘Sit down again!’ said his father, turning upon him eyes so calm and
lucid in their perfect reasonableness and self-possession, that Jerome
felt his very heart give way within him.

This sin had been committed. He had dreamed no ugly dream. He dropped
into his chair again, propped his head upon his hands, and tried to
take in what his father went on to say.

‘I sold it for forty thousand pounds to a man called Bolton, who had
a wild desire to have it. He had some odd crotchet about it. It was a
dream of his to have the old place——’

‘But for you to dream of selling it,’ interrupted the young man, with
suppressed passion.

‘Needs must when the devil drives. Had you been in my position—but
there, I won’t argue. I did it. I sold it. I invested the money,
and——’

‘If the money is there, all is well,’ interrupted Jerome, eagerly. ‘It
can be bought back again. That is what you mean, I suppose. You want
to explain why Avice and I shall be poor and straitened after you have
gone. Never mind, sir; there will be a pittance, I daresay. I am young.
I can work, and I will do so. When Wellfield is ours again, we shall be
content with very little else. Do not reproach yourself.’

‘What are you talking about?’ retorted the other in a voice almost of
anger, and the drops stood on his brow, for it was hard work to brave
it out. ‘Do you suppose I should have made all this circumstance about
it if the money had been there? I tell you the money is gone. It was
invested—half in mortgages, and half in the Mutual Liability Bank of
——. The bank is gone—the newspaper—this morning. It was there I saw
it—made me ill. The bank is limited, but the other half—liable—ah!’

His eyes closed; he sank back, his face very pale. For a moment Jerome
did not move, but sat still, staring at the white face with a blank,
stupid gaze. Then he said, quite audibly, for he had a vague impression
that his father was unconscious:

‘Sold it! I would as soon have thought of selling my wife or my sister.’

‘Would you?’ replied his father, opening his eyes unexpectedly upon
Jerome. ‘When misfortune has resulted from any course, it is the
easiest thing in the world to say you would never have done it. Had I
not done it, you would have been a beggar years ago. For purchasing you
years of enjoyment and prosperity, you reproach me. I have my reward.’

There was a flash in this of the more than dissimilarity of tastes
which had, _au fond_, existed always between father and son—the
absolute antagonism—until now delicately glazed over into a semblance
of indifference, but ready to burst forth the moment that really deep
feelings were touched.

An angry, bitter retort was upon Jerome’s tongue—the retort that
his father, in purchasing those ‘years of prosperity and enjoyment,’
of which he made such a merit, had incidentally purchased with them
years of something else—which years the young man seemed to see now
very clearly unrolling themselves before him—drear and bitter. But
his father was about to leave the world—there could be little doubt
of that—and there certainly was something in his manner of doing it
very strongly suggestive of his having done the best for himself
while he lived—denied himself no luxury, made no sacrifice, not even
that very commonly necessary sacrifice of early avowing an unpleasant
truth because it is right to do so—and of his then quietly slipping
away, and leaving the son whom he had never accustomed to work, and
the daughter whom he had taught to look upon luxury and refinement
as matters of course, to battle as best they might with adverse
circumstances. This view of the case certainly did rush very strongly
over Jerome’s mind. His hot southern blood drove some very bitter,
sarcastic comments to his lips; but suddenly another feeling prevailed
over them—a feeling of cool, calm calculation; a sense that there must
be some way out of all this coil, and a private resolve that this man
who had the Abbey now, should not keep it very long. Mastering his hot
and furious anger, he said coldly:

‘It would be useless to dispute the matter. The damage, it appears, is
done. Wellfield has passed away from us, and the poor money you got
for it has passed away too. But I suppose your affairs are in the hands
of some man of business?’

‘Yes; Netley of Manchester knows all my concerns. No doubt there will
be a letter from him immediately. He will have to give you information,
and settle it all up.’

‘Netley of Manchester!’ said Jerome, deliberately making a note of it.
‘Where does he live?’

‘His offices are at 57, Canongate.’

Another note. Then Jerome said:

‘Have you any idea whether everything will go—whether not even a
pittance will be left?—enough for Avice to live upon, while I try to
find something to do?’

He spoke coldly and hardly, and in a matter-of-fact tone; but as he
uttered the words, a vision rose before him of Sara Ford; of her eyes,
as he had whispered to her, ‘And do you understand?’ He shivered a
little. Mr. Wellfield, too, was moved by his words; by this stern
bringing to reality and commonplace of the whole affair. He gave a
slight groan as he turned his head restlessly, saying:

‘I don’t know. O God! I know nothing about it. But’—his voice grew
almost fierce—‘remember, sir, as long as you have a penny, your sister
remains with you.’

‘I hope I know my duty towards my sister, sir, as well as you appear to
have known yours to your daughter,’ returned Jerome, in a voice of some
astringency; ‘and——’

They had been parting words. The deathly expression upon his father’s
face alarmed him. He rang the bell, and Sister Ursula answered it.
Restoratives were applied, but in vain. The flame did not flicker up
again. In a very short time Jerome knew that the face upon which he
looked was dead—the eternal repose had settled upon the features.
Clouds and tempests were over for him; rocks and shoals of life beset
the path of him who was left. He who was taken had slipped comfortably
away. The pain of want, of narrow circumstances, the smarting for
the sins of his fathers, had never been his, nor the joy begotten
of self-abnegation—the peace that comes to one weary with a burden
gallantly borne.

       *       *       *       *       *

Jerome went into the salon again. The lamp had been lighted. Avice sat
on a couch, her hands folded before her, her eyes anxiously turned
towards the door. She sprang up as he came in.

‘Jerome, is he better? Has he gone to sleep?’

‘He has gone to sleep, my love; but he will never awaken again. He died
just now.’

‘Oh! is he dead?’

She clung to him, looking up into his face, in which she saw nothing
but a pale, fixed calmness.

‘Dead, Avice. And you must brace yourself up, and prepare for a trial,
and that a sore one. You asked me if we were rich, dear, and I told
you we had ample means. It was not true, though I did not know it. We
have now either nothing, or next to nothing. You asked me if we should
go back to Wellfield, and I promised that you should soon go there. I
cannot keep my promise. Wellfield is no longer ours. We have no home.
To-morrow I will explain. To-night I can only tell you the facts. You
said that your life had been happier since you knew me. What do you say
to your brother and his kindness now?’

Her eyes were eloquent as she looked up at him, and said, gravely and
calmly:

‘I love my brother for trusting in me. And he shall never hear a murmur
from my lips if he will continue to trust me and guide me.’

As they stood together, they kissed one another with a kind of
solemnity. Life was changed, but they still remained to sustain one
another.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VI.

AVICE READS A CHAPTER OF A NEW BOOK.


There was no reason for, and no wish to linger at Ems when the
necessary delay was over, and the necessary business accomplished. In
a week from the time of Mr. Wellfield’s death, Jerome and his sister
proposed to leave the place, on their way home. During this week, Avice
lived through more surprise, more wonder, and more emotion, compressed
into seven short days, than had been contained in seven long years of
her former life.

Her brother and his character formed to her a strange new book, which
she was never weary of studying. The outside of that book was of the
most alluring character; and she, of an intensely receptive nature, and
intensely sensitive, too, to beauty, delighted in that fair outside,
in those polished manners, in the smooth, calm, composed demeanour.
She delighted to go out with Jerome, to behold others turning to look
at him; in every proof that she was not alone in her sense of being
fascinated by him. They naturally went out little during those days
of waiting; when they did go, they went alone together, avoiding the
crowded gardens and the more public walks. They had, therefore, ample
opportunity of learning more of one another; and perhaps each modified
the estimate already formed of the other’s character. But the affection
increased. In their long walks to the _Concordia_, or along the white
country roads, Jerome told her about all their circumstances—told
her he did not know whether they would have any secure income, even
the smallest, upon which to live; asked her if she could reconcile
herself to existence with him, perhaps in a back parlour of some dingy
town-lodgings. To all of which questions her ‘yes, oh, yes!’ leaped out
with an eager readiness.

‘Now I begin to see what papa meant when he kept calling me a little
interloper, Jerome,’ she said one day. ‘If it were not for me, how much
easier everything would be for you. I have heard that a man, alone,
need never fear anything, even starvation; but that when he has a woman
with him it clogs him, and paralyses him, and unfits him——’

‘Hush, child!’ he said, putting his finger on her lip, and smiling at
the same time; ‘that is nothing less than blasphemy, and I know where
you learnt it.’

Avice hung her head. Presently she looked up again, remarking:

‘Living with papa first, and then with you, Jerome, is like going to
school first with one schoolmaster, and then with another; and one uses
the cane, and the other doesn’t.’

‘Is it?’

‘Sometimes, with papa, the sensation was just like what I could
imagine a child feeling on being told, “Hold out your hand.” Horrible!’

‘You don’t mean——’ he began sharply.

‘That papa was cruel? Oh no! He never meant to be, at any rate.
I suppose he could not help being cold and sarcastic and severe
in manner. What he hated most was what he called drivelling
sentimentality. I always knew in an instant when I had said something
sentimental. And I think, as long as I live, I shall never forget the
tone of his voice as he used to say, “That is your view of the case, is
it, mademoiselle? Suppose we look at it in the light in which persons
of judgment will see it.” And then, how foolish I was made to feel!
Papa certainly could put people down in a way I never saw anyone else
use.’

She sighed, and Jerome smiled rather bitterly, commiserating the young
creature who had been trained in such a school.

‘She must be naturally gentle, I suppose, or she would have been—good
heavens! who knows what she might have been at one-and-twenty?’

He could not but see, however, that she had much of his own intense
fastidiousness, and that she was proud, and that frequently a flash
of the sarcasm from which she had suffered would appear in her own
remarks. And he was in despair at the prospect of the future which lay
before her. Avice herself did not give much thought to that future. She
was happier in the present than she ever had been before.

The day came at last, the last day of their stay at Ems. In the morning
they were to leave. Jerome strolled into their sitting-room in the
evening, and found Avice there.

‘_Gott sei dank!_’ he remarked. ‘All the dismissals are over.’

He had been discharging his sister’s maid and his father’s valet. For
the future Avice was to learn to mend and perhaps make her own clothes,
dress her own hair, and otherwise become a useful and practical member
of society.

‘Then they are gone, Jerome?’

‘Yes, they are gone.’

‘Toinette came in floods of tears to say adieu. “Ah, mademoiselle!” she
exclaimed, “when I reflect upon your hair, and your desolation, without
me, I am _près à mourir_.”’

‘She will soon console herself. She was flirting atrociously with the
porter when I went downstairs.’

‘And, Jerome, it has suddenly occurred to me to ask you, at what hour
do we start in the morning, and by what route do we travel to England?’

There was a pause, as she looked at him, and saw that her brother’s
eyes were fixed upon a book upon the table, and that there was an
expression in his face which she did not quite understand. At last he
raised his eyes, and said, with, as she thought, some little constraint:

‘We must take the “cheapest and best” route from the Continent, I
suppose: Cologne, Rotterdam, and Harwich. I am sorry for you, my child,
but——’

‘Oh, sorry, nonsense! I am not made of white sugar, Jerome. Then, at
what time must we leave? Shall I have to get up very early?’

‘No earlier than usual, for I propose breaking the journey, and staying
all night at Elberthal.’

‘At Elberthal? Why there? It is not a pretty town, and Cologne is far
more interesting, though I am tired of it.’

‘I know Elberthal is not pretty. But there is some one there whom I
wish to see before I go to England.’

‘Oh, is it anyone I know?’

‘I think you have seen her once or twice. It is Miss Sara Ford.’

‘Miss Ford!’ repeated Avice, not at the first moment comprehending.
‘That beautiful Miss Ford who was with the Countess of Trockenau so
often? Is she a friend——’

Then, as she still continued looking at Jerome, she understood in a
moment, and stopped abruptly. This was a new phase of life, a fresh
complication in her circumstances, towards which her thoughts had
never before turned for a moment. For a few moments she sat quite
still, saying nothing, pondering upon it; then, rising quickly, she
went to Jerome, and put her arm round his neck.

‘Oh, Jerome,’ she murmured, in a half-tearful voice, ‘how much you must
have had to suffer! I never knew till now what “ruin” and having no
money might mean.’

He returned her kiss, saying gently, ‘Never mind, _Liebchen_! Things
may turn out well in the end. And meantime, before we face Manchester
and ruin, there is Elberthal to be passed.’

The following day they departed by the afternoon boat from
Ober-Lahnstein for Cologne, thence to take the train to Elberthal. It
was a gorgeous afternoon, at the very end of July. The sun was hot, the
river was smooth, the scenery was glowing, the boat was full of gay
parties of travellers of all nations, when Wellfield and his sister
went upon it. A little after six they arrived at Elberthal, and went to
an hotel.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VII.

LIFE’S FULLEST STREAM.


The daylight lasts late in July. Though growing dusk in the house,
it was yet broad daylight on the balcony of the room in which Jerome
left his sister, when he set out to find Sara Ford’s house. It was
still broad daylight out of doors, and the streets were thronged with
pleasure-seekers, and with the feet of those on business intent. He
had Sara’s address—Jägerstrasse, No. 42. He inquired the way there,
and was directed to go through a pleasant green Hofgarten, whose cool
avenues and great trees were just now glorified by the yellow rays of
the setting sun. Somewhere, in the direction of that setting sun, he
knew the Rhine wandered by the town. He had heard Sara describe how
broad and strong was its course just there, and what a fascination it
had for her, despite the unpicturesque, low, flat banks on either side.
As he went along, his heart was light, despite the heavy load of cares
and anxiety which hung over him.

Sounds of music or singing greeted him wherever he went, as they do
in those homely continental towns devoted to art and to sentiment.
There was a pleasant, homely bustle going on. The town was small. One
could not easily have lost oneself in it. To find the Jägerstrasse was
no difficult matter, and once there it was easier still to discover
No. 42, which was a great white house of many stories, with an arched
passage running through it from front to back, and heavy iron gates, at
present thrown back. He went into the passage, and to the side door,
which had the names of the different inhabitants put up. ‘Miss S.
Ford, _2te Etage_,’ he read, and pulled the bell twice. His summons
was presently answered by a middle-aged woman with a strong, sensible,
good English face, about whose whole aspect there was a harmony, and
in whose dress there was an appropriateness and suitability which were
nothing short of admirable.

‘Is Miss Ford at home?’ he asked, like one in a dream; for, up to the
moment of pulling the bell, he had been engaged in a puzzling mental
debate as to whether he ought or ought not to come—whether duty did
not clearly indicate the preferableness of bringing his sister with
him, or sending a note to Miss Ford, and not calling at all.

He was not in the habit of having difficult and delicate questions of
this kind to decide, and he had dallied with this one until the second
had arrived in which he must either pull the bell, and go in and see
her, or turn back, and go away without seeing her. At which moment the
latter alternative had appeared so horrible that he had lost not an
instant in availing himself of the former one.

Miss Ford was at home. She had returned yesterday, said the woman, and
asked him to come upstairs, taking the card he offered her, as she
spoke. He accordingly followed her till she threw open a door, and
entered a room where it seemed twilight; for it faced due south, and
there was only a pale reflection to be seen of the westerly glow.

In the window, in a large lounging chair, he saw a woman’s figure, in a
light dress, which figure had a book in its hands, and leaned towards
the light as if to catch ‘the last pale beam of even.’ He saw how she
turned as her servant gave her his card, took it, read it, and rose.
Then—he did not quite know how it was—they were alone, standing hand
in hand, looking at one another, speechless. In the suddenness and
the greatness of the joy of meeting, they could not be conventional.
They failed entirely to use the requisite words of polite surprise and
delight which, if promptly uttered, conceal so many a throb of joy—so
many a spasm of pain. The ‘Really, what a surprise! Where do you come
from?’ The answering, ‘Passing through on my way to England, and could
not resist the pleasure of calling’—none of it all was forthcoming.
The surprise on her side was too real, the joy on both too intense, to
leave room for any of those prettinesses.

Jerome, looking at her in the softened, yet still clear light, thought
he had never seen anything half so beautiful, as she stood with her
hand in his, and her eyes fixed with something like fascination in
their gaze upon his face. At last, he put his other hand upon hers; and
her gaze could no longer meet his deep look, as he said, in a low voice:

‘Then you are not displeased with me for coming? You are glad to see
me?’

‘Very glad,’ she replied, in a lower tone still. But it was as if,
with the actual sound of his voice and her own, her presence of mind
deserted her. She felt herself begin to tremble. Withdrawing her hand
from his, she sank down again upon her chair, and pointed to one
beside her, saying, hesitatingly:

‘You have left Ems suddenly. I—I heard of your father’s death, before
I left Trockenau. I did not like to intrude or—or I would have
written; but——’

‘But you have thought of me?’ he said, looking intently at her
half-averted face.

‘Yes, I thought of you,’ replied Sara.

‘I hoped you would, though I do not deserve that you should. I must
explain why I called. I am on my way home—to England, that is, with my
sister. I have to go to look after my affairs, such as they are. You
said, when you were talking at Trockenau, that you would allow me to
call when I passed through Elberthal. Miss Ford—I——’

‘You—yes?’ she asked, for he had paused.

‘I have fought a desperate battle with myself, to know whether I ought
to do what I most desired to do—whether I ought to call upon you or
not.’

‘Whether you ought. Why not? I do not understand——’

‘Hear me out!’ he exclaimed; and when he had spoken those words, he
knew that he must tell her all. There was now no alternative, in honour
and honesty, and he felt a kind of rejoicing, as if he had won a
battle, nor paused any longer to reflect upon the means by which it had
been gained.

‘And first,’ he added, rising, and standing before her in the window,
looking into her upturned, wondering face, ‘first let me tell you,
a great change has come over my whole life. It will never be what I
had once hoped for. With my father’s death I have had to awaken to
disagreeable facts. I find myself a ruined man.’

‘Ruined?’ echoed Sara, vaguely, hanging on his words, which came
rapidly now, and with a sort of terse, restrained impetuosity. ‘Ruined,
Mr. Wellfield?’

‘Exactly so. I will not trouble you by going into details of the
matter. The simple fact is that I have been living under a delusion.
I have never imagined myself in any other circumstances than those in
which I have always been nurtured. One’s thoughts turn to the future
sometimes, and in youth often and glowingly, I think. So did mine. I
was no exception to the rule. Believe me, I never calculated on my
father’s death. That I can say honestly——’

‘No, I am sure of it.’

‘But I should have been more than human had the thought never crossed
my mind that after his death I should be richer than I had been—should
have more at my disposal, and should be able more freely to follow
the bent of my own tastes and desires. He never gave me the least
hint that there was anything false in such an idea. I have told you
of Wellfield—of my old home, to which I had hoped, more than I knew
myself, to succeed. Lately I had thought of it far more than formerly,
and had imagined myself very happy there. It is no longer mine. My
father, it seems, sold the place years ago, and the estate with it,
in consequence of his own money embarrassments. His speculations
have turned out badly, it seems. No need to relate how. The money he
received for his father’s house, and the estate they had lived upon,
is gone—utterly gone. It was the shock of hearing suddenly of this
which brought on the attack of which he died. He had time to tell me
the worst—that I was houseless, homeless, it may be penniless—this he
told me, advised me to settle things as well as I could, and then he
died.’

There was a concentrated bitterness in his voice; a contempt which
broke through the calm, soft tones in which he spoke, and which
revealed to his listener an entirely new side of his character. He said
no word of blame regarding his father, but none the less was the blame
there—trenchant and biting, if unspoken.

‘Oh, Mr. Wellfield!’ was all she could say, ‘your trials have indeed
been hard. I knew nothing of this.’

‘No. And perhaps you are wondering why I should trouble you with
the tale, and thinking that it could be no possible concern of
yours——Forgive me,’ he added, in the same low but vehement voice, as
he came nearer to her, and bent over her chair, ‘I have no right—I
have told you all this story to show you how destitute I am of all
right to speak to you; but when I first met you—when you roused me
from my selfish self-satisfaction, and I learned to love and worship
you, as I had never imagined that I could worship, then I believed that
I had to offer you, not only my whole heart and my entire devotion, but
other things not utterly unworthy of your just claims; I believed that
I could surround you, as I should have delighted in doing, with every
outward sign of the love I bore you. All that is gone, and in its going
has carried with it my hope; for it would be insult for me to ask your
love when I have just learnt that I am a pauper. But I am not ashamed
that you should know I did love you. Good God! did love you—that I
_do_ love you! That passion masters me yet, and always will master me.
Nay, do not speak, do not rebuke me, and yet—yes, tell me,’ he cried,
taking her hand, ‘tell me if you ever could have returned that love of
mine, if I——’

He paused a moment, for he had seen her face. For one moment he felt as
if the riches of the world were his—as if nothing could matter now; a
triumph, a pride which no adversity could tame. Let what might happen.
Let him be in rags, and begging his bread; be compelled to stand aside
and see other men surround her and court her, he knew now that other
eyes she would meet with a proud indifference, let their power be what
it might; but that his, let his station sink as low as it might, his
could subdue her.

‘Sara!’ All the fire of his mother’s land was in his eyes, and all its
voluptuous music in his voice. ‘You love me. You do not speak, but you
tell me so. Look at me! Let me see it in your eyes once again, Sara, my
love!’

There was exultation in his voice, and the exultation thrilled her.
His passion over-mastered her, and almost terrified her, and yet it was
rapture such as she had never dreamed of. Earth and heaven, with their
deepest secrets, seemed suddenly opened to her—a flood of light over
all.

‘Look at me!’ he exclaimed again, and it was more of a command than an
entreaty.

‘Jerome!’ she said faintly, as he took her hands with gentle violence
from before her face, and knelt on one knee beside her chair to do so.
His ‘Look at me!’ rang in her ears; his eyes, which she felt were fixed
upon her, attracted her irresistibly. Why was she so reluctant, so
fearful of looking up? Perhaps because she knew that when their glances
met her last power of concealment or resistance would be gone.

‘Sara!’ he whispered, and his voice, so near and so impassioned, at
last compelled the look he demanded. Was it rapture, or was it pain—an
agony of pain—that she felt? Was it the anguish of having to confess
that she was mastered, conquered? She did not know. As he clasped her
in his arms, and pressed his lips upon her lips, and kissed her cheek,
her hair, her closed eyes, she felt that it might be heaven indeed, but
that her heart was breaking with the greatness of her joy. Perhaps to
reach heaven—to finally pass through its inner portals—a heartbreak
might be necessary.

‘Do you remember when I was singing at Trockenau, and the countess
thought I did it to oblige her?’ he asked presently.

‘Do I remember, Jerome? Shall I ever forget it? I have listened to no
singing since. I could not, and would not.’

‘I sang _Adeläida_, if you remember?’ he said, but his eyes dwelt upon
her face with an intentness which she felt to be almost tyrannous.

‘Yes, and you sang “_Ich grolle nicht_.” Why did you sing that?’ she
said, with a kind of faint shudder. ‘It is such a terrible song.’

‘Why—I do not know. But tell me, was I right to come to-night?’ he
asked, persuasively. ‘I fought a long battle with myself, as I told
you. I was undecided up to the very moment of entering the house.’

‘Right, yes! I say you were right, at least. What if you had gone to
England without coming? What if I had never known—oh, Jerome, it is
horrible to think of!’

‘For me! I feel that I came to you a beggar, and that I sit here a
king, and with more than a king’s riches. I cannot repent.’

‘Did you think there was something wrong in it?’ she asked, anxiously.

‘Wrong, no! Is it wrong to love the sun, and to go by preference where
he shines? What I felt to be wrong was my coming to monopolise you—if
I could persuade you to be monopolised by me—just when I have the
least right to do so—when I can only say, “I love you, and always
shall love you,” but cannot say, “Come and be my wife at once.”’

‘Knowing that you love me, I can wait,’ she answered. ‘Surely, the
highest and best kind of love is that which sustains us through waiting
and trouble—not that hideous parody of love which must not be spoken
unless the lover can say at one and the same time, “I love you—I have
got a house for you, and enough money to keep you—will you marry me?”’

‘Rampant philistinism!’ said Jerome. ‘I had no idea before, that I had
so much of it in me. You read me a lesson.’

‘I will never believe but that your love is of a different fibre to
that, Jerome. Never reproach yourself with having stolen a march upon
me; but think rather that you have done a good deed in giving me the
right not only to share all your hopes and fears, but to say that I
share them, and to own to you that your joy is my joy, and your sorrow
my sorrow.’

He had not seen the case in that aspect before, but he did not say so.
The incense she burnt before him, of love and a subtle flattery, was
sweet. It intoxicated him. From his education and surroundings, he was
incapable of telling himself that he was ‘taking pity’ on any woman.
No vulgar parade of the love she felt for him was possible; but at the
same time his most intense consciousness at this moment was, not that a
proud, and noble, and good, and beautiful woman had given her happiness
into his keeping, but that he had been right, she had loved him—he
could bend her to his will.

Sara broke the pause which ensued by suddenly asking:

‘Where is your sister? Tell me about her. What is she going to do while
you are settling all your difficulties at home?’

‘I left her at the Breidenbacher Hof. Yes, she is with me—my poor
little Avice! What will become of her in England—in Manchester
perhaps, in the smoke and fog, while I am cooling my heels in a
lawyer’s office?—for there will be no hurry about attending to my
behests, my love. What she will be amusing herself with while I am
agreeably engaged in learning how much we have left to starve upon, I
do not know.’

‘Make me a promise!’ said Sara. ‘Show your devotion and your confidence
by an unconditional promise at this very moment.’

‘I promise, blindly, to do as you command.’

‘Then I command you to leave your sister here with me, while you go
home. When you are perfectly satisfied that you have found a place for
her, such as you would wish her to be in, then you can come over here
and fetch her. Till then, let her remain with me, and try whether she
can learn to be my sister.’

‘Sara, you must be inspired, I believe,’ exclaimed Jerome. ‘I could
have asked no better boon—none as good, for her and for me. I will not
deprecate such generosity. I take you at your word. Teach her only to
be a little like yourself, and I shall find her perfect.’

‘You will bring her to me to-morrow morning, will you not, before you
go away? What a joy it will be to have her! I know I shall love her,
and I think I can make her love me; and it will bind your thoughts the
faster to Elberthal,’ she added, looking at him with a tender smile.

Jerome took one of her hands, and sat with it in his, as Sara closed
her eyes, and leaned back in her chair, wearied with the excess of
emotion she had gone through.

‘God knows, it is a wrench though, to find all this wealth of love
to-night, and to have to leave it in the morning,’ muttered Jerome,
darkly.

‘God knows, it is!’ echoed Sara.

‘I have an undercurrent of feeling,’ he went on, ‘which makes me almost
wish I had never crossed your path, nor linked your lot with mine. The
whole future is so dark and troubled. You were so happy and at peace,
and your art was all in all to you.’

‘And you think now, I suppose, that you will dethrone my art. I think
not, Jerome,’ she answered, smiling rather proudly.

‘Ah, you challenge me!’ said he, smiling also, rather mournfully.
‘Never forsake your art for me, Sara, for I am not worth it.’

‘You are worthy my best and deepest love, and I shall give it to you,’
she said, almost passionately. ‘Jerome, do not trouble this night with
these dark forebodings, and this self-depreciation. It is something new
in you. I never imagined you troubled with doubts or difficulties.’

He made no answer, and they sat on thus in silence for a long time,
until at last he rose.

‘I must go to Avice,’ he said. ‘Good-night, my love.’

Long after he had gone, Sara sat in her low chair, unseeing the
considerate glances cast towards her by Mrs. Nelson. She sat, trying to
analyse her own sensations—trying to discover whether the happiness or
the trouble at her heart was greatest. Once or twice lately, she had
thought that could she but know certainly that he loved her, or did
not love her, she would at least have rest in the knowledge. Now, the
knowledge was hers—his love was hers. But with love, not calm, but the
very reverse, had come.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VIII.

‘CONTENT THEE WITH ONE BITTER WORD, ADIEU!’


The morning came, and with it, according to his promise, Jerome came to
breakfast, bringing Avice with him. ‘Try to persuade her to be pleased
to stay with me,’ Sara had said to him, to which he had naturally
replied by an emphatic wonder as to what else than pleasure his sister
possibly could feel at the prospect.

Sara was restless that morning. She wandered from her studio to her
sitting-room, and back to her studio again. She had told Ellen that the
gentleman who had called last night would come to breakfast with his
sister, and Mrs. Nelson had busied herself in preparing as _recherché_
a repast as possible, placing fresh flowers on the table, and making
everything look bright and festive.

‘The gentleman was English, wasn’t he, Miss Sara?’ she asked.

‘Yes, he was—is, I mean.’

‘Then we’ll show him that we know how to serve an English
breakfast, nice, and bright, and choice; rather different from
their pots of butter, and baskets of cobs, and a table-cloth, and a
coffee-machine—that’s about all they give you for breakfast in these
parts,’ said Mrs. Nelson, resentfully, for she had never got over
the disgust she had experienced in partaking for the first time, and
seeing her young lady partake, of a German breakfast, in the native
boarding-house style.

Accordingly, the breakfast-table, in the shady corner of the room, was
a refreshing spectacle; but Mrs. Nelson’s eyes, despite her seeming
engrossment in her work, kept wandering towards her mistress, whose
restlessness she had not failed to observe.

‘Only the gentleman and his sister, Miss Ford?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Yes. And—Ellen!’

‘Ma’am?’

‘I want you to like Miss Wellfield very much, for she is coming to stay
with me, for several months, at least.’

‘Is she, ma’am? About how old is the young lady?’

‘About sixteen. Ellen, you know how I trust your judgment—what
confidence I have in you?’

‘You have often proved it, Miss Sara, and I hope I shall always deserve
it.’

‘I know you will. Well, you will wait upon us at breakfast, and I wish
you to notice both Mr. Wellfield and his sister well. I want your
opinion about them.’

‘I will do so, Miss Sara,’ said Mrs. Nelson, to whom such proofs of
confidence on her mistress’s part were by no means new. She had been
the girl’s closest attendant, most faithful servant, and most trusty
friend from her earliest infancy. Mrs. Ford had committed her child to
Ellen’s care on her death-bed. She loved her lady with the devotion of
a mother, and with the dog-like fidelity, as well, of an old, trusty,
conservative retainer. Sara was accustomed to consult her upon all
imaginable matters, save only those concerning the toilette, in which,
she told Ellen, her tastes inclined to the sombre, ‘to the good,
old-fashioned dining-room furniture style, Ellen. Your dress always
reminds me of maroon rep curtains.’ Ellen knew as well as a woman can
know, that there must be something between her mistress and this Mr.
Wellfield of the nature of a love-affair. How far it had gone, she did
not know. She shrewdly suspected that, sooner or later, she would hear
more on the subject. It pleased Sara to enlighten her, at the present
moment, on another point.

‘Mr. Wellfield has had a great misfortune lately,’ she said. ‘His
father is dead, and he has lost his whole property and estate. He does
not know what he may have to live upon, or if anything will be left.
He is going to England to settle his affairs, and I have invited Miss
Wellfield to stay with me in the meantime.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Ellen had just replied, when the two rings, following
quickly one upon the other, announced the expected visitors. Ellen went
downstairs to admit them. Sara paced up and down her parlour, thrilling
with the sensation that Jerome was far more formidable now, when he had
her secret in his keeping, than before, when at best he could only have
guessed it.

They stood within the room. Sara felt her heart beating and her eyes
swimming, but she discovered where Avice stood, and holding out her
arms said, in a faltering voice:

‘Has he told you? Will you come to me?’

‘Oh, how good you are!’ sobbed the girl, springing forward, throwing
her arms about her neck, and hiding her face on her shoulder. ‘How
very good you are!’

That was a pleasant meal, despite the cloud which hung over them,
despite the unwelcome nature of Jerome’s errand to Manchester. It was a
pleasant, and almost merry meal; and yet a nervous one, as the minutes
flew relentlessly by, and the time for departure approached more
inevitably.

‘I must see your atelier before I go. I came here on purpose, you
know,’ said Jerome; ‘and we must go now,’ he added, looking at his
watch, ‘for my time is short.’

They were alone in the studio. It was light, but sunless, for it faced
north. It was bare, and yet furnished, like all studios. Two or three
easels stood about—a number of unfinished canvases—some of the
plaster masks and casts known as ‘gyps;’ and on a pedestal, a great jar
of the blue and grey pottery they make about Coblenz, full of roses.

Jerome saw them. ‘I must have one of these,’ said he, turning the jar
round. ‘Here is one—this Gloire de Dijon—more than a bud, but not
yet fully blown. That is when a rose is more beautiful than at any
other time. It is just like you,’ he added, drawing it from the jar,
and shaking the water from it. ‘And now, Sara, what of the future?’ he
added, drawing her to him. ‘Why do you always look at me as if you were
half-afraid of me?’ he added, gazing down into her fascinated eyes.
‘Avice never does. Yours is not “perfect love” if it has not cast out
fear.’

‘Avice—you will never have the same rights over Avice that you have
already over me,’ she replied, tremulously.

Jerome smiled. The sensation he felt was not one of displeasure.
How rapidly his nature had developed during the last six weeks, he
little knew. His former cool indifference to most women had passed
into passionate love for one—he did know that. What he did not know
was that his love was of the masterful kind, not only delighting to
inspire devotion, but loving to subdue. He had said, ‘Why do you look
half-afraid of me?’ in an almost reproachful tone, but in his own
mind he did not reproach her with that shade of fear, or anxiety, or
whatever it might be. He did not understand the weight and the force
of her nature. He measured what was not shown of it by what was—her
utmost capacities by the devotion and humility of her love for him.
He knew from a thousand signs and tokens that she was proud to an
exceeding degree, and sometimes imperious. The knowledge that he had
tamed her, and the deprecating look which told him that here he was
supreme, was sweet—boundlessly sweet. He would have given worlds
for a week to spare here—a week in which to inhale these fumes of
sweet-smelling incense.

‘What claims have I over you, that I have not over my sister?’ he
asked, smiling still, looking down into her troubled grey eyes with the
look which had haunted her ever since the first time she had met it.
‘Legally, I have far fewer claims, for until Avice is of age, she is
as much in my power as if I were her father; whereas you——’

‘I did not mean legally. I meant morally, of course; the rights that
love gives, Jerome—the right to my thoughts and wishes, and life and
hopes.’

‘You have the same rights over me,’ he said.

‘And yet you do not look afraid of me, you mean. It is different,
Jerome. Not that I am really afraid of you,’ she added, looking up more
confidently. ‘And you said something about the future,’ she went on, as
her fingers played with the little locket and ring which hung at his
watchguard.

‘Ah, about the future—yes. Will you trust me, and wait?’

‘Through everything, Jerome, most implicitly,’ she replied, and this
time there was no wavering in the glance which met his, full, open, and
candid.

‘And would you prefer it to be kept quiet, or made known?’ he added;
‘because I wish to do exactly as you please in the matter.’

‘Let us not mention it,’ she replied slowly, and with downcast eyes.
‘My friends are very few, Jerome. Let us have the comfort—you and
Avice and me—of keeping it quite to ourselves. I hate to think of
people speculating about it.’

‘As you will. But suppose—how shall I put it? If it is imagined that
you are free—Sara, you must know it is most improbable that no other
man will ever wish to win you. Some one is sure to fall in love with
you, and then——’

‘It is most unlikely—most improbable,’ she began, with a deep flush.

‘That any other man in existence should have the bad taste to admire
what I have found so perfect and so desirable,’ he said, sarcastically.

‘My life is so quiet. I go out so little. Now, with Avice as my
companion, and you to think of, I shall go still less.’

‘That is sophistry, Sara. Look at me, and tell me you honestly believe
that, if you are supposed to be free, no man will ever care for you
again?’

‘You are cruel to press it so. If such a thing should happen, it
will not be my fault, and I should know how to set him right on the
subject,’ she said, proudly.

‘Well—so be it! And now, my love, it must be good-bye, for my time
is growing very short. Stay!’ he added, and he unfastened from his
watchguard a little ring which hung to it. ‘This was my mother’s
betrothal ring. Take it from me, in token that you are mine, and I am
yours.’

He slipped it upon her finger. It was a hoop of sapphires—the stones
which are emblematic of steadfastness and faith, and it had been given
by his father to his mother. With that he took her in his arms, and
kissed her good-bye in a long, sorrowful kiss; then loosed her and took
her to a chair.

‘Stay there,’ said he. ‘It will only make it worse if you come out. I
will send Avice to you.’

He was gone. She knew nothing more until she felt another pair of arms
about her neck, and heard Avice’s voice choked with tears:

‘He has gone! What shall I do? Oh Jerome, _mein_ Jerome!’

Then her own tears were loosened. The girls wept in one another’s arms,
and were comforted.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER IX.

ELLEN’S OPINION.


It was not until night, after Avice, wearied with sorrow and
excitement, had gone to bed, that Sara, calling Mrs. Nelson to her,
said:

‘Well, Ellen, what do you think of my new arrangement? Are you pleased
to have Miss Wellfield here?’

‘Yes, indeed, ma’am. I never saw a sweeter young lady, nor one that was
more of a real lady. She’s one that it will be a pleasure to serve.’

‘That is well, and I quite agree with you. And—Mr. Wellfield?’

There was a pause before Ellen said: ‘It is much more difficult to
judge of a gentleman, on the spot as it were; and for a woman, too.
And then he is so much older.’

‘I know. But you must have formed some opinion of him, Ellen. We never
see anyone strange without some impression being made on our minds.’

‘He is a noble-looking gentleman,’ said Ellen, slowly. ‘What piercing
dark eyes he has; and such a presence, and such a voice—such an air,
Miss Sara, if I might say so. One does not often see such gentlemen,
and——’

‘Well, Ellen?’ said her mistress, resting her chin upon her hand, and
looking fixedly at her, while her heart throbbed. Was he not all that,
and more?

‘I was thinking—Miss Sara, you must not think me impertinent. You are
like my child, you know.’

‘I know it. Go on.’

‘I was thinking that he has a way and a look with him that must make it
hard for any woman to withstand him, supposing he were making love to
her.’

‘And is that all?’ Sara asked, almost indignantly; her heart falling,
though she was herself at the moment so strongly under the influence of
that ‘way’ and that ‘look’—though he had been making love to her, and
she had found resistance swept away like a straw down a strong current.
‘Is that all? Ellen, you know you are evading my questions. You know
that I want to know whether he looked high-minded and good.’

‘And that is just what I cannot say, my dear. I cannot tell. He
looks splendid—I know that. He looks a gentleman, and a very grand
gentleman. And I saw nothing to make me think he would not be good.
But, since you will know all, Miss Sara, I thought there was a look
about his lips, as if he could be cruel on occasion.’

‘Cruel, Ellen? What do you mean?’

‘Nay, don’t look at me in that way, ma’am! You would make me speak, and
I’m bound to tell the truth, I don’t mean that he looked as if he would
hurt an animal, or wilfully torment anything, but he looked to me as
if, supposing he was hard pressed, for instance, he could be cruel, and
unscrupulous—as if he would gain his end, choose what he had to do to
get to it.’

‘Oh,’ said Sara, with a somewhat nervous laugh, ‘you mean that he has
a very strong will. I hope indeed that he has, Ellen, for he will need
it, I assure you.’

‘Then I am very glad he _is_ determined,’ answered Ellen, briskly, as
if anxious to have the subject disposed of. And Sara did not resume it,
but she was that night in no humour for either work or play. She sat in
her easy-chair beside the table on which stood her lamp, and thought
and pondered until her brain seemed to ache.

Where was he now? How far advanced on his dreary way to England and
Manchester? She knew nothing of the north of England. She only knew
that Wellfield, where his lost home was, was in the north-east corner
of the great manufacturing county, and that (so he had told her) it was
a lovely and fertile spot, surrounded on one side by bleak Yorkshire
moors, and on others by great grimy manufacturing towns. Of course she
had heard of the north of England towns, had met people who came from
them, had passed through some of them years ago, on her way to Scotland
with her father; but all that region was a great unknown land to her,
with, as it seemed, the one exception of Wellfield, which she had found
upon an ordnance map, and had pictured in her heart, until it took up a
great space in her imagination; and for her ‘the north’ as applied to
England, meant Wellfield. A ridiculous mental position no doubt, but
one not entirely without precedent.

Well, she thought, he would soon be there. He had told her he intended
to go to see the old place once again. Mr. Bolton, the new owner, would
not be so churlish as to refuse him that grace. And he had promised to
write and tell her about it.

‘Cruel?’ she thought, reflecting upon Ellen’s words. ‘I suppose that
means resolute. People sometimes have to be almost cruel. It is often
apparent cruelty which is really the greatest kindness. Jerome could
be most determined, I am certain. I have noticed a change myself,
since—since his trouble. I daresay he could even be what Ellen would
imagine cruel; but if so, it would be because he thought it right.’

Meditating upon this thought and variations of it, she sat until far in
the night.

It was several days before the two girls heard anything of Jerome, and
meantime they were able to become better acquainted with one another.
Sara was predisposed to love Avice, first because of her charming
appearance, and next because she was Jerome’s sister. As time went
on, the qualities, mental and moral, of her new sister made her love
her for herself. Avice at first stood in a little awe of Miss Ford,
of her grand manner, and of her indifferent way of speaking of things
which many persons, and most women especially, thought of the first
importance. But very soon Sara’s great heart and large benevolent
woman’s nature fascinated the younger girl. The whole character of
this new friend was so utterly different from the character which
had hitherto overshadowed and stunted hers, that very soon the joy
of the new influence pervaded her whole nature. Here every power was
encouraged to expand to its utmost—here the cold question, ‘What will
persons of judgment say to it?’ was never asked; only the question,
‘Is it right or wrong?’ or, by preference, ‘Is it good and noble,
or bad and base?’ Things were looked at as they were, not as the
world preferred to see them. Here was liberty in the most alluring
guise—that of a beautiful woman who loved all things pure and of good
report. Avice very soon began to worship her new guardian.

When at last the first letter from Jerome arrived, there was little in
it of actual news. He wrote from the house of Mr. Netley, his father’s
solicitor, and said he had only just arrived there.

‘I found one of his clerks waiting for me with an invitation to go to
his house, and stay there until this business is settled and the worst
known. I therefore drove straight up to his place, which is three or
four miles out of town; and I am writing this before dinner, while I
wait for his return from business. But I could not wait when once there
was a chance of writing to you.

‘This Cottonopolis is a dismal hole—but such a rush along the streets.
Such earnest, intent, money-making faces; shrewd, hard and ugly for the
most part. As their owners bustle along the streets, I feel as if I
were a member of an extinct species, suddenly resuscitated and plunged
into the whirl of the working half of the nineteenth century—and I
look the thing every inch, I don’t doubt. I will write to-morrow as
soon as ever I have had a conversation with Mr. Netley, and know my way
a little better.’

He asked her to address everything for the present to Mr. Netley’s
offices, at 57, Canongate. And he added that he had rejoiced every hour
since his arrival in England, to know that Avice was where she was.
‘Not here—I do not know what would have become of her here. I think
of you both, constantly, and the thought is as it were a light unto my
feet and a lamp unto my path. With it, Sara, there may be poverty and
sorrow to contend with, but there will always be something to live for
and something to hope for. And I say again, “God bless you!”’

With the receipt of this letter it was as if one stage of a journey had
come to an end. The door of a former life of luxury and careless ease
had been closed and barred, and before them all lay a rugged path to be
travelled, and moreover the light that shone upon it was so vague and
uncertain that it was difficult to follow in its windings.




[Illustration]




STAGE II.




CHAPTER I.

WHAT MR. NETLEY SAID.


A LONG, dree journey by that very unsavoury route to and from the
Continent—Rotterdam and Harwich—and Jerome Wellfield, on the morning
after his parting from his sister and sweetheart, found himself in
London. He had nothing to do there—no business in the great city—no
means, no right to take any pleasure in the same. He made his way from
the Liverpool Street Station to that at Euston Square, where he found
he had some two hours to wait before the express to Irkford should
start.

Who does not know the dreariness of such hours of waiting, weary,
travel-worn and alone, in some great wilderness of a city station? They
were the two most dismal hours he had ever passed.

At last, at eleven in the forenoon, the train to Manchester started.
Jerome cast himself into a second-class compartment, and with weary
eyes saw, when he was not half-dozing, ‘the happy autumn fields’
through which the express rushed smoothly and swiftly, and with
slackened speed at last rolled into that cheering and inspiriting
terminus, the London Road Station, Manchester.

From Ems—even from Elberthal—to Manchester! The contrast just flashed
across his mind as he alighted.

A clerk presently accosted him inquiringly, ‘Mr. Wellfield?’ and then
gave him a note which he carried. The note was a kindly, pleasant
one from Mr. Netley, begging him to go to his house, and make it his
headquarters until his business in Manchester was settled. Business
prevented him from coming to the station himself and taking his guest
home, but he would be in to dinner at seven. The address was given, and
he hoped his clerk would bring word that Mr. Wellfield was on his way
to ‘Birch Lodge.’

With the sensation that this was true friendliness, Jerome bade the
youth tell Mr. Netley that he accepted his invitation with many thanks,
and, getting into a cab, gave the address, and was driven to Mr.
Netley’s house—his ‘box,’ as he called it in his note.

For a bachelor’s box it was remarkably roomy and comfortable. The
housekeeper had evidently expected the guest, and led him upstairs to
the room prepared for him. Declining her offer of refreshments, he was
left alone, with exactly two hours on his hands before dinner-time.
Part of the time he employed in writing that letter to Sara which has
already been spoken of—the rest in meditations, not particularly
agreeable, on his ‘present condition and future prospects.’ During
the few hours he had been in England he had felt a distinctly stronger
chagrin and disappointment at the idea of the utter loss of home than
he had yet experienced. He could not understand nor account for this
feeling, but it was there, and it was strong. He felt a sudden rush
of indignation at the manner in which he had been all these years
cheated and hoodwinked—and that by his father. This Mr. Bolton, who
now reigned at the Abbey—who and what was he? The desire to visit
the place once more grew stronger. Wild schemes for becoming rich,
and having the place back again, ran riot in his mind—chimerical
schemes, for, as each one rose and fell, he had to tell himself again
and again that each was vanity. In England—in this part of England
especially—the way in which men made fortunes was that of trade and
successful speculation. He knew absolutely nothing of trade, and had
not the remotest idea in what ‘speculation’ consisted. He saw no way at
all of becoming rich. He saw the most probable and the best fate he
could expect rise up and stand very clearly before his mental eyes—a
secretaryship, clerkship, or something of that kind—neither of them
avocations in which, as a rule, money is very rapidly accumulated.

In the midst of these agreeable meditations the dinner-bell rang, and
he went downstairs and found his host standing in the hall, looking out
for him—a grey-haired, round-faced, pink-cheeked, elderly man, with a
bland smile and an amiable expression.

His appearance for some reason caused Jerome a kind of shock, he
had unconsciously expected something so different. The climax of
disillusion and commonplace appeared to have been reached when Mr.
Netley, shaking hands with him and smiling benevolently, said he was
sure Mr. Wellfield wanted his dinner. With his usual _sang froid_,
Jerome, after a momentary pause, smiled slightly, and said ‘Yes,’ he
was very hungry. They went into the dining-room, and here Mr. Netley
volunteered the remark that he thought business had better wait until
after dinner, to which Jerome again yielded a cordial assent, and they
took their places—Jerome with an ever-deeper suspicion that somehow
Mr. Netley was not—the only word he could think of was, ‘sharp’—that,
for a solicitor of his standing, he was decidedly not very sharp.

‘Have you ever been in Manchester before?’ asked Mr. Netley.

‘As a child, I may. Never since I grew up; nor, indeed, in any place
like it.’

‘Ah! it’s an odd kind of place. Very thorough-going—strong political
views, you know.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Not that I know anything about politics; I never
took the slightest interest in them.’

‘No? Not been thrown in the way of that kind of thing, I suppose?’

‘Not at all. All my friends have been musical, or literary, or artistic
people—or, nothing in particular, like myself.’

‘I see. Well, there is a section in Manchester that goes in for
art, and music, and that kind of thing. We’ve very fine music
here—concerts, you know—a great many concerts, in the season.’

‘Yes, I suppose everyone has heard that Manchester is a music-loving
town.’

‘Exactly so,’ said Mr. Netley, looking cheered at this admission. ‘And
then there are literary people too, you know, and scientific—oh, many
scientific people, whom I don’t know much about. And there are some
artists, too. There’s a School of Art—there are a great many pupils at
the School of Art, and an exhibition every year of their paintings.’

‘Only _their_ paintings?’ inquired Jerome, politely.

‘Oh, and other people’s paintings, of course. Yes; and a Black and
White Exhibition. Do you care for black and white pictures? Have you
been much thrown amongst black and white artists—I mean artists who do
black and white pictures?’

‘Not more than amongst artists who do red, and green, and blue, and
other coloured pictures in general,’ replied Jerome, beginning to feel
a little amused, and to realise that probably Mr. Netley was one of
those persons who have one manner and set of expressions for business
hours, and quite another for those of leisure.

So it proved. When they went into the library, and Mr. Netley began to
talk on business, it must have been a very clever man indeed who could
have caught him tripping, or who could have discovered any want of
perspicacity or acumen in his utterances.

They sat together in the study, with cigars and coffee-cups before
them, and Mr. Netley had pulled out some papers, and begun to turn them
over, when Jerome, whose impatience had been none the less keen in that
he had so strenuously concealed it, said:

‘Before you go into details, I wish you could give me one piece of
information. Will there be anything left? Will there be enough just to
give my sister a home? That is what I am most anxious to know.’

‘There will be Monk’s Gate, and I think from a hundred to a hundred and
twenty pounds’ income. Curate’s pay, Mr. Wellfield, and a curate might
make it do.’

‘You are thinking I am not one. That’s true. But this is a great
relief. And Monk’s Gate—what is Monk’s Gate?’

‘Your father only sold the Abbey, not Monk’s Gate.’

‘Monk’s Gate, I conclude, is a house. I don’t seem to have any
remembrance of it.’

‘It is the little dower-house belonging to the Abbey. It is close to
the large outer gate—Monk’s Gate they always called it.’

‘I think I remember.’

‘The old fellows used to use that gate. They went out through it into
the fields to fish in the river. They knew what they were about, those
old grey-frocks. Show me an abbey that was not built on a site at once
fertile, rich, and beautiful. I defy you, sir.’

‘There was Whitby—it’s the only one I can remember; but it always
struck me as being rather bleak,’ observed Jerome.

‘Well, Whitby, I grant you. But that was a nunnery. Women like to make
themselves uncomfortable for the sake of religion, or what they think
religion. But that’s neither here nor there, and if you are ready, I’ll
go a little into detail.’

Jerome absently assented, and Mr. Netley was privately thinking, with
some contempt:

‘He’s the old Wellfields all over again. Let him only be secure of
what will keep him from absolute beggary, and he’ll sit down with it,
rather than stir a finger. The only time at which you could arouse that
race to a transient activity, was when they were absolutely hard-up.
When there wasn’t a coin in the house, they would suddenly drop their
pride, and descend to any expedient to stave off personal inconvenience
and discomfort. And the most unscrupulous of the whole lot was this
lad’s father. This fellow, it strikes me, has all the pride and all
the laziness of the breed, but not their dishonesty, I should say.
Mother’s blood, perhaps.’

Jerome must have been gratified indeed, could he have known his host’s
opinion of him.

There was not very much to be explained. It seemed that Mr. Wellfield
had sold the Abbey about seven years ago, when Jerome was nineteen and
Avice nine years of age. Mr. Netley explained about the ways in which
the purchase-money had been invested, and how the bank failure had come
about, which had brought the crash. He was a little surprised, and his
theory as to Jerome’s want of character was shaken, when the young man
said:

‘It seems to me that in any case, on my father’s death, I should have
been reduced to poverty, for, had the money been remaining, I should
have made it my first object to regain the Abbey—if I had had to spend
every farthing to do so.’

‘You would have found it no easy task, Mr. Wellfield. Mr. Bolton is
greatly attached to the place, and I don’t think any price would tempt
him.’

Jerome winced—it was galling in the extreme to have to hear of this
man in possession with so firm a grasp upon what he had always regarded
as his. He hated the thought, and once again, stronger than ever,
the desire rushed over him to oust the usurper from his place. And
once again succeeded the recoil, the miserable sense of poverty and
helplessness, of impotency, which made his temples throb and his blood
boil. He sat, with knitted brows, in moody silence, till at last he
asked abruptly:

‘And this Monk’s Gate—is it habitable?’

‘Oh, I should say so. I believe there is even some antiquated furniture
in it.’

‘I shall go over and see it, at any rate, before I decide upon anything
else.’

‘Very well. The key is in my keeping at my office. You shall have it.
You shall judge for yourself. Meantime, don’t be in any hurry to leave
me. Turn things well over in your mind before you decide to live at
Monk’s Gate, or anywhere else. I will do all I can to help you forward.’

‘You are very kind,’ said Jerome, still absently, his mind still
vaguely reaching out after some path from his difficulties.

Before going to sleep, he added a postscript to his letter to Sara.

‘Netley tells me he thinks there will be a pittance left, which makes
my mind easier with respect to my sister. Ah, my love, I never realised
till this night, the _power_ of money. The want of it makes me feel
unscrupulous.’




[Illustration]




CHAPTER II.

MONK’S GATE.


It was a glorious afternoon in the beginning of August, on which
Wellfield left Manchester for his two hours’ journey to Wellfield,
to arrive at which spot he had to pass through some of the roughest,
dirtiest, richest and most prosperous of the numerous manufacturing
towns of Lancashire.

Burnham was the last of these towns—a place of great size, great
riches, and of an absolutely stupendous ugliness—a great collection
of ugly, grimy buildings, paved streets, and ghastly-looking tall
chimneys, the whole planted at the bottom of a hollow which had once
been as fair as valley could be, in the rough, stony moorland style
of sparkling stream and rugged rock. Even now, when the veil of smoke
permitted one to see them, high and beautiful hills might be perceived,
blue, calm and eternal. The prospect of them gave one a longing to
ascend them, and from their summits to breathe an air which should be
free and pure.

After Burnham came one or two little wayside stations, and then
Wellfield. The railway here ran over a high viaduct, much raised above
the village. Jerome felt his heart throb as he looked out, and saw
below him on the right, slumbering amid orchard trees and some fine
old elms, some ancient brown walls, two vast and massive gateways—a
broken line which showed where the cloisters had formerly run beside
the river. That was the Abbey, which, with its grounds, took up pretty
nearly as much space as all the rest of the village put together. He
saw the calm river gliding by; then raised his eyes to where in sturdy
pride old Penhull stretched his great carcase, shutting all in to the
east. It was a fair land—it was a goodly heritage, and his heart was
bitter within him.

The train stopped, and he got out and stood on the platform. He was a
stranger there. No one took the least notice of him. He found himself
at the farther end of the little platform, and before walking forward
to leave the station, he paused and looked round him. From the place
where he now stood, the Abbey was not visible. He was looking in
another direction, towards the north-west. Behind him rose the great
wall of Penhull, over which his ancestors in the good old days had
helped King Jamie to hunt witches with vigour and malignity. Before him
he saw a more level country, spreading towards an ancient town called
Clyderhow, with its quaint old castle. Farther to the west came some
other long-backed fells, on the other side of which was St. George’s
Channel: and nearer, on the brow of one of the said fells, some three
miles away, he saw faintly the grey tower of an ancient church, and
just above that, where the ground began to rise towards the western
fells, a long, large, imposing building of whitish stone, exquisitely
situated, and from its commanding position, a landmark for miles
around. This was the great Jesuit college of Brentwood, which had once
belonged to a branch of the Wellfield family, in the days when they
were great men and devout Catholics.

Jerome’s eyes fell upon it, and with the sight of it came the
remembrance of his having, years ago, met a certain priest belonging to
that establishment.

‘That was more than seven years ago,’ he reflected, ‘before the Abbey
had been sold to this _roturier_. I must have been a mere lad then,
but how well I remember him! What was his name? Somerville, surely.
Yes. Pablo Somerville. I remember. He was half Spanish—there was some
mystery about his father, I recollect. What a musician he was—and a
gentleman, if ever there was one. Will it be my luck, I wonder, to
renew the acquaintance? One might meet with a worse fate than some of
those fellows at Brentwood have, after all, for——’

‘Ticket, sir, please,’ said a curt voice at his elbow. Jerome roused
himself, took his eyes off Brentwood, and went along the platform, down
a little slanting path, which brought him into a road. Here he met a
man, and asked him if he knew where Monk’s Gate was.

‘Dun yo mean th’ heawse, or th’ yate itsel’?’ inquired the man.

‘I mean the house.’

‘Well, yo’ mun go through th’ yate for to get to th’ heawse. Yon’s t’
shortest road,’ he pointed down a grassy lane with trees on either
side. ‘Keep down thur, and then turn to th’ left, and yo’ conna miss
th’ Monk’s Gate, ’cause it straddles o’ across th’ road, and yo’ mun
go under it, and turn in at th’ first gate to your left. Yon’s t’
Monk’s Gate House. But it’s empty, and locked oop,’ he added, looking
inquiringly at the person who had an errand to Monk’s Gate.

‘I know. I have the key.’

‘M’ appen you belong to ’t?’

‘It belongs to me,’ responded Jerome. ‘Good-day, and thank you.’ With
which he walked on, leaving his interlocutor to stare after him,
scratch his head, and remark to himself:

‘Well, I’m dom’d! It mun be John Wellfield’s lad. Eh, but I mun go and
tell ’em about this ’ere down at th’ Black Bull.’

Jerome, meantime followed the directions he had received, and soon
found the cavernous-looking remains of Monk’s Gate, ‘straddling,’ as
his guide had said, ‘o’ across t’ road,’ a huge, grim, ivy-covered
portal, showing, by its distance from the rest of what were now the
Abbey grounds, what a great and glorious possession this said Abbey had
once been.

A little way on the other side of the archway to the left, was a gate,
leading into a garden; there was a gravel drive going up to a low
quaint-looking grey stone house. This, then, must be Monk’s Gate.

It was a wilderness of a garden, with a large, irregularly shaped lawn,
of a velvety softness and greenness, which neglect had not yet ruined.
In the very centre of this lawn rose a high, thin old pear-tree.
Scattered about were other kinds of fruit-trees. Broad borders of all
sweet and old-fashioned flowers were filled with a rank luxuriance of
plants, some blooming, some not yet in bloom; others almost choked to
death by their more flourishing neighbours. On the left of the broad
walk was a high wall, and behind the wall fine beech-trees which cast
the shade of their ample boughs far into the garden of Monk’s Gate.
The house itself stood back; it looked a small house for such a large,
luxuriant garden. It was very low, Jerome saw, with odd-looking windows
half-hidden by roses and clematis, while all over the left side of the
house, a flourishing ivy revelled healthily. He approached nearer.
Just before the house was a great bush of the Gloire de Dijon rose—the
fragrance of its second crop that year filled the air for yards around.

Drawing forth the key which Mr. Netley had given him, he applied
it to the door, and its rattle in the lock was the first sound to
break the almost oppressive hush and stillness, and deadly calm of
everything around and about. The lock turned somewhat rustily and
unwillingly. It required him to exert the strength of both his hands
to induce it entirely to yield. Then he pushed the door open, stepped
in, and stood beneath all that he could now call his own roof-tree. A
narrow passage—a door to the left, which he passed; the passage was
only a few feet long; one stepped out of it, without door or other
intervening ceremony, into a large, low, raftered room, with a high
old wooden chimney-piece, deep oaken cupboards sunk in the walls, a
long, very low window, with a deep, roomy seat in it—a heavy oaken
table in the centre of the room, and, at one side, an ancient, shabby,
comfortable-looking settee. In a remote corner there was a pile of old
furniture, which in its dirt and shabbiness looked remarkably like
lumber.

Jerome gazed round the room. Despite the age and decrepitude of
all in it, it had a certain attraction for him, from its quaint,
unconventional shape and arrangements. The stairs, with old oaken
rails and balustrade, led straight out of it. A door which he opened,
showed him a roomy kitchen, with a back-kitchen beyond. Turning back,
he opened the door to the left of the passage, which he had not yet
explored, and found a second sitting-room, smaller than the first, but
just as quaint, low and irregular. This room, too, had the agreeable
peculiarity of a corner fireplace, and it contained more furniture
than the other; very old drawing-room furniture—thin-legged chairs
and tables, and a strange-looking thing which was at once cupboard,
cabinet, and press, to match the rest of the furniture, which was
mahogany. The aforesaid thin-legged chairs were upholstered in a
sickly, faded drab damask—relic of a bygone day. The whole place
looked like some grave, and yet a grave about which lingered gentle
memories, like a soft perfume; recollections of old-fashioned
ladies who must have spent countless hours at their tambour-frames,
embroidering those elaborate and now pale and faded semblances of
pink-cheeked shepherds and blue-eyed shepherdesses which adorned some
spindly-looking stools and spider-legged ‘occasional’ chairs. Whose
slender fingers had accomplished that triumph of worsted-work which
covered a large settee beneath one of the two little deep square
windows—a piece of worsted-work with a whole picture upon it, of an
elaborate landscape; figures, fountains, sheep, and marble vases?

Jerome passed his hand across his eyes, feeling as if he had lost his
identity. Was it—could it be he, Jerome Wellfield, who was standing
in this chill, pale, silent place, inhaling the faint, musty, dusty
smell, which carries one back full a hundred years; and was this dim
old place his home—all the home he now had? He tried to picture Avice
there, and succeeded. It would be no inappropriate place for her, he
felt, when fires should have dried up all the damp, and when all this
faded furniture should have been pulled forth, cleaned, and polished,
and arranged. And Sara? Try as he would, he failed to see her there.
And yet, he knew that should he ask her to come, she would do so.

He climbed the stairs, and found several bedrooms, corresponding
with the rooms below—all with the same raftered roofs, and odd
little square windows, made almost dark, too, by the overhanging
trailing-plants which covered the side of the house.

He lingered long, unaccountably attracted and fascinated. In such
a quiet nook a man might drone out his life, and soon be utterly
forgotten—might live on from year to year, and watch the seasons come
and go, the flowers bloom and fade, and spring again; might observe
the sunlight and the storm-shadows sweep across the broad sides of
Penhull, and might at last die and be carried to the graveyard which
spread around the old church—might there be laid to his rest, and none
be the wiser.

He shivered slightly, as he vividly pictured all this; then, slowly
descending the stairs, went out—how hot and balmy the outside air
felt, after the dampness of the house!—locked the door behind him, and
bent his steps towards the Abbey.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER III.

THE NEW MAN AND THE OLD ACRES.


Wellfield had only a very short distance to walk before he came to
another great cavernous archway, the ‘Abbot’s Gate,’ and the second
principal entrance to the Abbey. Great beech-trees clustered around it.
It was quite dark and cool and gloomy, but a little door in the great
wooden gates stood open, and gave him a curious little oblong glimpse
into a sunny courtyard, where everything stood still and hot and quiet,
and in which, as he stepped into it, there was not a sign of life. One
side of the Abbey building, what was left of it, faced him; the windows
looked into this paved court, and appeared to be windows of offices,
kitchens, etc. Green tubs, filled with a blaze of scarlet geraniums,
made brilliant spots of colour here and there. To the left was a high
wall, and a fine old stone archway. He knew the way well. Through that
archway he must pass to go round to the front entrance of the house,
which was chiefly composed of what had once been the private apartments
of the abbots of Wellfield. He glanced up at the top of the archway
and saw, on the oblong slab which was let into it, the legend, ‘J. W.,
15—.’ It stood for John Wellfield, as he knew; the said John having
been the first Wellfield who had taken up his abode in the Abbey, after
its demolishment under the glorious dispensation of Henry VIII.

‘My initials!’ murmured Jerome. ‘I wonder this man has not rent out the
stone, and inscribed his own instead.’

This was rather a bitter thought, and, with his mind full of it, he
passed under the archway, and found himself in a grand old garden
—such a garden as those ancient monks knew how to make; and a garden
which, since their time, had been lovingly kept up. It was formal—all
laid out in oblongs and squares, but it had an indescribable beauty and
grace. Great trees took away from the stiffness; brilliant flowers and
intensely green grass made it gay. Under the trees to the right were
some clumps of tall, fiery-looking gladioli. Straight before the house
the ground sloped to the river, beside which was a long grassy walk
and avenue, and a little farther to the right, still beside the river,
the hoary cloisters. Jerome’s heart was exceeding bitter within him,
as he saw and realised all the beauty of the place, which came back to
him, after sixteen years, with a familiarity which was startling. The
sixteen years were but ‘as yesterday.’ As he stood there, he felt it
his—his own; the effort to conceive of it as belonging to some one
else was a painful one—one which did not altogether succeed.

‘He _sold_ it!’ he was thinking to himself. ‘Sold it in cold blood.
Why, if he had told us the truth, and kept it, he should have been
happy; we would have made him happy here, let our poverty have been
what it might.’

He walked up the round space of smoothly-rolled gravel before the deep
entrance-door, and rang the bell.

Mr. Bolton, he was told, was at home. Jerome sent in his card, and was
shown into a room which he well remembered. It had formerly been the
library, and appeared to be still used for the same purpose, though
greatly changed from its old condition. It was not very vulgar, indeed
one might almost have pronounced it not at all vulgar; but all the
things were comparatively new, and evidently ‘of the very best.’ But
the furniture was well chosen and appropriate; had Mr. Bolton or had
his upholsterer chosen it? Jerome wondered, in a parenthesis as he
looked around, and felt that the appearance of the room displayed a
desire at least, if not a perfectly accomplished one, on the part of
those who owned it, to be tasteful—a desire which he felt had resulted
in being proper and philistine. He glanced at some books on the table,
and at one or two in the book-shelves, and was struck at finding them
to be nearly all confined to two classes—voyages and travels, and
Italian books, the latter almost all bearing some reference to Dante,
or to Dante’s great poem.

‘Odd!’ thought Jerome, and as he thought it, the door was opened, and
Mr. Bolton entered.

A man of medium height, and of moderate proportions, with a round,
obstinate-looking head, dark complexion, brown eyes, a mouth with a
protruding under-lip, and an all-pervading expression of shrewdness,
and strong, powerful common-sense. A prejudiced, one-sided man, one
would suppose, but a man who required a considerable mental space in
which to display his onesidedness and prejudice—a man with great
faults, and great virtues, possibly; with a bull-dog expression,
betokening tenacity of mind—what this man once grasped, he would not
easily let loose again.

Jerome felt the last fact strongly, if he did not understand, as indeed
he could not possibly do, the other characteristics. There was nothing
handsome about Mr. Bolton; very little to be praised in his manner,
no grace in his gestures; but there was a certain rough dignity about
him, which was even imposing. He was a commanding spirit, if not an
enlightened one.

‘Mr. Wellfield, I think?’ he said, fixing his deep-set, dark eyes upon
Wellfield’s face, but not betraying, by either look or expression, that
he was particularly struck in any way by his visitor.

‘Yes,’ said Jerome, bowing; ‘I presume you are Mr. Bolton?’

‘The same. Will you not be seated?’

Jerome had been standing in one of the windows. At Mr. Bolton’s
suggestion he took a chair, and a feeling curiously akin to
mortification began to steal over him. Mr. Bolton was so very evidently
the master-spirit here. Wellfield felt himself so entirely reduced to
the level of a stranger—a mere casual caller, in his old home, that
at first he could hardly speak.

How was he to introduce himself? How account for his presence there,
for he had come in his usual half-dreaming manner: with no set aim or
purpose—no clear and tangible excuse; driven only by a longing to see
the place, and by a half-acknowledged feeling of defiant unwillingness
to be deterred by this stranger from stepping into the house which
he persistently looked upon as ‘his by right.’ It has been said that
when the elder Wellfield sent his son into the world, he had not
overburdened him with moral maxims for his guidance. Jerome had been
left to decide upon his own ethical code—a plan which has its snares
and pitfalls as well as its advantages. Mr. Bolton’s calm presence of
mind, and his evident ease and pleasure in his surroundings, caused a
strange pang to Wellfield, and roused a feeling of resentment at once
unreasonable and ridiculous. And yet, he felt, he must be courtesy
itself, or all his own feelings and ideas as to what was his due would
not prevent the usurper from somewhat unceremoniously casting him
forth.

‘You may think this a strange intrusion on my part,’ he began, on the
spur of the moment. ‘Indeed, I begin to think myself that it is.’

‘As to that, I can say nothing, Mr. Wellfield, until I hear your
errand. In the meantime, I do not think it strange at all that you
should call at the Abbey if you were in this neighbourhood.’

‘You have no doubt heard of my father’s death?’

‘I have, and indirectly, of his losses—which, I suppose, will be your
losses. I was sorry to learn about them.’

Jerome bowed slightly. ‘It is in consequence of those losses that I
am here. I learnt from Mr. Netley, my solicitor, that the Monk’s Gate
house still belongs to me, and I came over here to see if it could be
made habitable. I could not resist coming on to see the old place of
all—trusting to your kindness to allow me to stroll round once or
twice.’

‘One can hardly call such a visit a strange intrusion,’ observed Mr.
Bolton, and Jerome had remarked that though his voice was curt, and his
accent provincial, yet that his language was proper, and even pedantic
sometimes, and his grammar unimpeachable.

‘You are at liberty to “stroll round,” as you call it, as much as you
please. I don’t pretend not to know that such an excursion must be
painful to you—if you ever cared for the place—and from your making
this visit, I conclude you did.’

‘I did, and do,’ answered Wellfield.

‘Then, though it may not be agreeable to you to know it in the
possession of other people, you will not be sorry to find that it is as
well-cared for as if it were your own.’

Jerome was not sorry, but he felt galled, deeply galled, to have to
realise so completely how impotent he was in the matter—how this man
had the power, not only to keep everything trim, but to alter and
change, and upset everything, if it so pleased him.

‘I am glad to know that,’ he said, and Mr. Bolton went on.

‘May I ask if you intend to settle at Wellfield? Do you mean to live at
Monk’s Gate?’

‘So far as I can see at present, I do,’ said Jerome, who, as a matter
of fact, had only begun to think such a thing advisable, since he had
seen Monk’s Gate. ‘But I do not know. Mr. Netley gives me to understand
that my sister and I will have something to live upon. I shall,
however, seek employment, which it is not always an easy matter to
find. Until I do find it, I shall probably live at Monk’s Gate.’

Mr. Bolton bowed his head. ‘Do you think of staying here long, now?’ he
asked.

‘I came without any definite intention, for I did not know what sort
of a place Monk’s Gate was. Now I think I shall go to the inn here,
if there is one, and stay perhaps a day or two, until I get things in
order. And—they tell me Burnham is a very large town, and that trade
there is now very good. Perhaps——’

‘Ah, you are thinking you might happen to find some employment there.
It is possible. But pray do not think of putting up at the inn while
there is room at the Abbey. We shall be glad if you will stay with us,
as long as you find it convenient.’

‘Who may we be?’ wondered Jerome, as he hesitated. There was not much
cordiality in the invitation, but a sedate sincerity, as if Mr. Bolton
performed a duty which might have been pleasanter, and might also have
been more unpleasant. One thing was quite certain. Whether he would
be glad or not to have Wellfield at his own home, he would be very
sorry to see him at the inn. He saw the hesitation, and repeated his
invitation, this time more cordially.

‘You are very kind,’ said Wellfield. ‘It looks so very much as if I had
come on purpose——’

‘I do not know why you came, I am sure, but I trust you will stay with
us. Since you are so near Burnham, it would be foolish to go back to
Manchester without at least making an effort to seek some employment
there. And there is no one in the world who knows so much about Burnham
as I do.’

Jerome thanked him, and accepted the invitation. Mr. Bolton rose.

‘That is settled,’ he remarked. ‘Come into the garden, and we’ll find
Nita there.’

‘Who is Nita?’ again speculated Wellfield, and he followed his host
without a word.

Mr. Bolton took his way through the garden towards the avenue by the
river, which was called ‘the river walk.’ As they entered this walk,
Jerome perceived in the distance an arrangement of chairs and a table,
some light shawls, books, parasols, and two female figures, seated in
low cane chairs, under the trees. Both these ladies were reading, and
apparently engrossed in their books. The footsteps of the men along the
soft grass made no sound, and neither lady looked up until Mr. Bolton,
in a voice from which all hardness and abruptness appeared to have
melted suddenly, said:

‘Nita!’

Then both the parasols were lowered, and Jerome saw that a very young
lady, and a decidedly elderly one, sat side by side beneath the trees.
The young lady looked first at both of them, then at Wellfield in
particular, and as she slowly rose, with a faint, half-smile, her face
seemed all large brown eyes. As he came nearer, he saw that she had,
too, a beautiful forehead, broad, and rather low; red lips which looked
as if they would readily smile, and pale cheeks. He saw that she only
just attained medium height; that she was slight, yet not thin in
figure, and graceful, in a certain quaint, picturesque, unconventional
style—a great contrast to the stiff, upright, elderly figure beside
her, with a grey keen face, compressed lips, and piercing, cold grey
eyes. The second lady made no attempt at rising. She sat perfectly
still, and bolt upright, folded her mittened hands one over the other
upon her book, and looked at Jerome Wellfield in a manner which he felt
to be pointed.

‘Nita,’ repeated Mr. Bolton, ‘I’ve brought you a visitor; Mr. Jerome
Wellfield, who will stay with us a short time. My daughter, Mr.
Wellfield, and my cousin, Miss Margaret Shuttleworth.’

Nita Bolton smiled, shook hands with the guest, and said, ‘How do you
do?’

Miss Shuttleworth stiffly inclined her head, but did not make any
overtures towards shaking hands.

‘Will you not sit down, Mr. Wellfield?’ said Nita, pointing to a chair,
which he took, and she went on:

‘Have you just arrived in Wellfield?’

‘I arrived about an hour and a half ago. I have been looking at my
house—Monk’s Gate.’

‘Oh, have you? It is a pretty little house.’

‘Very. So humble and unobtrusive-looking,’ said Jerome.

‘And damp,’ observed Miss Shuttleworth; and though she did not speak
loudly, she spoke in a manner which made it impossible to ignore
her remarks. Indeed, whenever Miss Shuttleworth spoke, an impartial
observer must have said that she put a portentous amount of expression
into her utterances.

‘You think it is damp?’ said Jerome, politely turning to her, while
Nita’s colour rose, and her fingers trifled nervously with her
watch-chain.

‘I know it to be damp,’ responded Miss Shuttleworth, in a manner which
Jerome, unaccustomed to her as he was, felt imperatively called for a
reply, or another question of some kind.

‘So damp as to make it unadvisable to live there?’ he inquired.

‘I should say it was a most unhealthy house to live in. If you _wish_
to become rheumatic at once, and to grow old before your years, by all
means live at Monk’s Gate.’

‘As it is all the home I now possess,’ responded Jerome, ‘it is
probable that I shall live there, despite the disadvantages you
mention.’

‘All the home you possess?’ repeated Nita, and Jerome turned to her
with a sense of pleasure in the contrast between her and her relative.

Miss Shuttleworth absolutely revolted him with her plainness, her hard
features, her metallic voice, and her unengaging manner. In comparison,
Nita, though not a beauty, looked charming. He met her soft brown eyes
with pleasure, and saw the slight shyness, the little air of timidity
and shrinking, with feelings of complacency. At this juncture Mr.
Bolton rose, remarking:

‘Well, I’ll leave Mr. Wellfield to you to entertain. I have some
writing to do. I suppose I shall see you at supper, Margaret?’

‘Not to-night, thank you. I have my Bible class, and shall have to go
in about an hour.’

‘Oh, well, come to-morrow, or as often as you can, at any rate,’ he
answered; and with a general inclination of the head to the company, he
departed.

Jerome looked after him, as he went down the river walk, and realised
that the whole figure, though plebeian, was powerful, not without a
certain air, too, of dignity and command. He turned to Nita again.

‘Mr. Bolton has very kindly asked me to stay a few days at the Abbey,
until I have decided what to do with Monk’s Gate, or rather until I
see whether I can find some employment, which will allow me to live at
Monk’s Gate, as I hope to do.’

‘Yes,’ said Nita, with a look of embarrassment; ‘but—but—I suppose I
ought not to say it——’

‘If it is a personal question, Nita, to a total stranger, you ought
certainly _not_ to say it,’ here chimed in Miss Shuttleworth’s voice.

Nita blushed furiously, and Jerome said, more in the hope of annoying
Miss Shuttleworth than from any other reason:

‘I am sure it is no question that is not perfectly justifiable, Miss
Bolton, and therefore I promise in advance to answer it.’

‘It was not exactly a question. You speak of Monk’s Gate as your only
home, and of seeking employment; but I thought you were rich, Mr.
Wellfield.’

‘So did I, until a short time ago. I am just now in the process of
learning completely to realise my mistake. I am a poor man, and am not
quite certain that the wreck of my fortunes will leave me enough to
enable me to bring my sister to Monk’s Gate, and make her a home there.’

‘Have you a sister?’ asked Nita, who kept giving him very rapid,
momentary glances, her eyes leaving his face almost before they had
had time to find it, which glances he met with a calm, prolonged gaze,
which did not escape the steely eyes of Miss Shuttleworth.

‘I have a sister—yes.’

‘Is she with you?’

‘No; she is at Elberthal, in Germany, with a friend.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Is she pretty?’

‘She is considered beautiful, I believe.’

‘Like you at all?’ inquired Miss Shuttleworth, with a treacherous
suavity in her tones.

Jerome burst out laughing, and Nita blushed fiercely.

‘Oh, aunt, how uncomfortable you make me!’ she exclaimed vehemently.

Miss Shuttleworth made no reply, then Nita went on:

‘I hope it is not rude of me, but are you and your sister alone in the
world?’

‘We are, quite.’

‘And very fond of one another?’

‘Y—yes.’

‘That is, your sister is very fond of you,’ remarked Miss Shuttleworth.

‘I hope she is, and that she may never have cause to be otherwise,’ he
replied politely.

‘It is very interesting!’ said Nita, with a little sigh, while Jerome
thought, repressing a smile, what an amusing story it would make for
Sara and Avice.

‘What is your sister’s name?’ next asked Nita.

‘Avice.’

‘Avice? What a peculiar name.’

‘It means “refuge,”’ observed Miss Shuttleworth.

‘Oh, does it?’ said Jerome, ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Do you think you will like living in England?’ pursued Nita.

‘No, I don’t, under the circumstances.’

She shook her head, and maintained silence. Miss Shuttleworth rose from
her chair.

‘I must go,’ she remarked. ‘And do you go in too, Nita, soon. The damp
rises from the river in the evening, and you have a thin dress on.’

‘I shall not be long.’

‘I am going to take this book with me. It is a very clever story. Where
did you get it?’

‘John brought it me from London. I haven’t read it. I saw a review of
it in the ——, which made me think it was stupid.’

Miss Shuttleworth’s lips relaxed into a smile which was sardonic. This
was a topic on which she evidently felt strongly.

‘Why do you and John and your father persist in reading reviews?’ she
asked, with asperity. ‘The book stupid?—as likely as not it was the
reviewer who was stupid. _I_ know them. It is a very clever book, but
of course if you read that review of it, it would spoil it for you. I
do wish I could cure you of reading reviews. It spoils one’s pleasure
so, and does not the least good.’

‘I’ll try to give it up,’ said Nita, meekly. ‘Shall we go with you to
the great gate? Mr. Wellfield, would you like to come?’

Jerome accompanied the two ladies to the great gate. Then Nita thought
she would walk on with Miss Shuttleworth to her house, and Jerome
thought he would stroll round the grounds. Nita told him that they
supped at half-past eight, and she disappeared with Miss Shuttleworth
through the gate. Jerome wandered back along the river walk, and
through the old gardens, and strolled and loitered amongst the trees.
Presently the sun declined, and gorgeous hues of purple and gold and
crimson set the western sky ablaze, and coloured the water of the
river with changing tints. The trees waved softly overhead—the water
murmured placidly as it rolled by. All was still and quiet, and he
tried to realise that he was here—a stranger. It was all so familiar
as to be almost weirdly so. These strange faces, strange owners,
jarred upon him. He could not understand how they came to be so at
home there—so at ease in _his_ home. As for him—when he should have
supplied Monk’s Gate with a little furniture, just enough to make it
habitable, and established Avice here, his ready-cash would be almost
exhausted, and then what was to become of him? The pittance—not
certain, but probable—of which Mr. Netley had spoken, remained. He
could not live upon that—he might die upon it, starve upon it, go mad
upon it; he could not live upon it—as a man with his ideas, his hopes,
his inborn, inbred habits and feelings, understands life, even in its
narrowest sense.

After a long time spent in such meditations—meditations which dimmed
the beauty of the sunset, and marred the evening’s glory, he looked
up, and found that the pomp of the _Sonnenuntergang_ was over; the
purple and gold had disappeared; the sky was grey again. It must be
supper-time. He bent his steps towards the house.

Entering the hall he saw Nita going across it, with a large crystal
bowl of flowers in her hand. She had on a black flowing dress of
something soft and gauzy, with knots of brightly-hued ribbons here and
there. Whether by design or by accident, she had greatly improved her
appearance, and looked as nearly pretty as it was possible for her
to be; but the air of delicacy and a slight languor, speaking of a
constitution not of the strongest kind, prevented her from being really
beautiful. But she was agreeable, even attractive to look at, and had
quaint original little ways which gave a charm to her. If she did not
move with the air of a great lady, nor shine with the noble beauty of
Sara Ford, she was yet not without her charm, as Jerome felt, when she
paused, balancing the vase in her hands, looking up at him and smiling.

‘You have had a long stroll, Mr. Wellfield, and I am sure you will be
tired. William,’ she added, to a page-boy who then appeared upon the
scene, ‘show Mr. Wellfield to the blue-room, and send Mary to see that
he has all he wants.’

When Jerome came down again, the same boy appeared, and invited him
into the drawing-room. How well he remembered it as he had last seen
it, and how great was the contrast between the dim old room of sixteen
years ago and the luxurious one of to-day, furnished in the richest and
most approved style, with gorgeously decorated ceiling, and every kind
of ‘upholsterer’s darling’ in the shape of easy-chairs, couches and
lounges, scattered about!

Nita was there with her work, and Mr. Bolton with the newspapers, and a
third person, a young man whose face, as Jerome looked at him, brought
back the past with a vividness, with a rush, as it were, which more
than ever carried him backwards, and made the immediate past seem like
a dream in the light of sixteen years ago.

‘John Leyburn, if I am in my right mind!’ he exclaimed, for him almost
eagerly.

‘I think you may safely assume that your judgment does not misguide
you.’

‘Though you _do_ say that the evidence of your own senses is the last
thing you would believe, John,’ observed Nita, with asperity.

John laughed, as he shook hands with Wellfield.

‘Not the last thing I would believe, but the first thing I would
distrust, if I had grounds for doubting about anything,’ he answered.

‘And how have you been going on?’ asked Jerome, after the usual fashion
of one man to another. To which Leyburn replied modestly:

‘Oh, fairly well.’

‘Fairly well, indeed!’ retorted Nita. ‘You have got on very well
indeed, John. My cousin has got a big house and a big mill, and a huge
business, all to himself, Mr. Wellfield. And he calls that getting on
“fairly well.”’

‘And you?’ asked Leyburn.

‘I—very ill, as no doubt you have heard. But that doesn’t matter. I
am glad to see you again. Do you live at Abbot’s Knoll yet? Do you
remember coming down here to do Latin with my tutor, Phillips? What an
age it seems since then!’

‘I remember,’ said John, deliberately.

He was a young man who could not be called handsome; beside Wellfield
he looked exceedingly plain, with his square-cut, rather heavy face,
and decidedly clumsy figure. Yet about this young manufacturer,
with his want of grace and polish, there was the charm of a candid,
benevolent, truth-loving nature, which charm showed in the clear,
pleasant light-brown eyes, which redeemed him from insignificance,
and made him an agreeable companion. He was quiet, decidedly. Jerome
remembered that in the old days when they had both been children
together, he had been, not shy, but a silent, reserved, observant boy,
with decided likes and dislikes. By-and-by, Leyburn went and sat down
beside Nita on the sofa. They appeared to be on squabbling terms, which
naturally implies intimacy. Mr. Bolton looked benevolently at them over
his newspaper, and Jerome, with a sudden sense which was not altogether
a pleasurable one, began to wonder if this were ‘a case.’ No, he did
not like the idea—why, he hardly knew, since it could not possibly
matter anything to him; but it seemed to shut him more entirely than
ever out from all that should have been his. With rapid, unreasonable
foresight, he pictured Nita and her cousin man and wife, in safe and
secure possession of the Abbey and its lands, with perhaps children to
inherit them, and money in abundance to keep it all up. The idea galled
and hurt him excessively, and he sat silently, and somewhat moodily
pondering upon it until supper was announced.

It appeared that early hours were the rule at the Abbey. After supper,
Mr. Bolton retired to one end of the huge drawing-room to a table on
which stood a reading-lamp, and he was soon lost in a book of travels
in the South Seas. Nita and the two young men were left to entertain
one another as they chose. Jerome was somewhat taciturn, observing the
incessant conversation, friendly squabbles and unmistakable real liking
between Nita Bolton and John Leyburn. About ten o’clock Leyburn said
good-night. By half-past ten all the household were in their rooms.
Jerome opened his window and looked out. The same moon, only fuller,
as that which had lighted his meditations in Manchester, shone here,
and silvered the old Abbey gardens, and the ancient walks, and the
motionless trees. His heart was sore as heart could be. These people
were not what he had expected, and perhaps that added to the sting of
his vexation. They were not purse-proud, vulgar upstarts. They were
plain and homely, but gentle and gracious. It was not some vulgar man
who held and who would inherit his patrimony; it was a man whose whole
character and aspect compelled respect and even admiration, and a girl
in whose eyes dwelt gentleness and goodness, and whose ways were all
kind and womanly and girlish. He pondered over it all, and looked again
upon the beauty of it, and muttered to himself:

‘Mine by right—mine before God! and it shall be mine again, too.’




[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV.

NITA’S DIARY.


In her room at the same hour sat Nita Bolton: the door locked, the lamp
lighted. She was attired in a flowing dressing-gown, her hair falling
in two long, thick plaits over her shoulders. Nita had beautiful
hair—beautiful, that is, in quality, if not remarkable in colour. It
was of a dull, soft brown, without the suspicion of a tawny hue in
it, or of a glint of gold, but it was slightly wavy, fine, soft, and
abundant, and she had a harmless pride and pleasure in it.

She was seated just now at a very elegant-looking writing-table, an
article of furniture which had so far been also distinctly an article
of luxury, for Nita’s letters were very, very few. It was not a letter
with which she was this night engaged. No! Open before her was a
substantially-bound volume, with a Chubb’s lock, and a little key to
open and close the same—a precaution which lost some of its value
when one considers how easy it would have been for an evil-disposed
person to carry off the book, lock and all, if he wished to pry into
the sacred contents thereof. In this precious volume Miss Bolton was in
the habit of inscribing her day’s adventures, or no-adventures, and her
own valuable comments and reflections thereupon, together with dark and
gloomy musings upon the sorrows and misfortunes of this present life;
the strange and inexplicable arrangements of Destiny (with a capital
D), and a chronicle of her mental experiences in general. Many pages of
such lucubrations filled the earlier portion of the volume.

To-night Anita’s pen had not run with its accustomed rapidity over
the page. She had recorded how ‘John returned from London yesterday
morning, and came in in the evening and brought me some novels, because
he said he knew I cared for nothing else, which was mean of the dear
old fellow.’ How ‘Aunt Margery came to dinner, and sat with me all
afternoon, and was very amusing. What a clever old thing she is!’ How,
‘about six o’clock, I heard papa’s voice, and looked up, wondering what
had dragged him away from his beloved Dante, at that hour, and I saw
him coming along with a gentleman, a stranger, the very handsomest man
I ever saw.’ Then followed a minute description of the introduction, of
every word that Jerome had said, that Aunt Margery and papa had said,
that ‘I’ had said, and in addition, what ‘I’ thought on the subject: To
her diary Nita might betray, and did betray what she would conceal from
all others, the fact that from the moment in which she had looked up
and met Jerome’s eyes, she had been fascinated, spell-bound, possessed
with the thought of him.

Much unpublished as well as published rubbish is written every year,
and Nita Bolton’s journal was not an exception to the rule that most
young ladies’ journals are not worth the time that is spent upon them.
Her cousin John having discovered once by accident that Nita kept a
journal, had ever since oppressed her at intervals with cruel remarks
upon it, questions as to what she had written about, insinuating
inquiries, ‘Did you mention how agreeable I made myself the other
night?’ and so on.

Mr. Bolton had laughed a little when he heard about it, and had said:

‘She’s dull. Girls must have some outlet for their feelings. It’s
better to sentimentalise in a diary than with a curate. I’d rather she
sat up late scribbling, than rose at cockcrow to get cold at “early
celebrations,” and all that rubbish—eh, Jack?’

To which ‘Jack’ always and devoutly yielded his assent.

Nita, on this particular occasion, had more and darker reflections to
make than usual, upon the dark and tortuous ways of ‘Destiny.’ Such
effusions might be the result of a mere surface feeling, or they might
be the indications of some deeper, more tragic emotion. Who was to say?
Nita herself less than anyone.

‘I never,’ she wrote, ‘_never_ before saw, or imagined anyone in the
least like him. It was like seeing a new kind of creature.’

Then there was a long pause, as she laid her pen down, folded her
hands, and pondered. Then she took up her pen again and wrote:

‘He may well look sad and melancholy, and gaze sorrowfully on the scene
around him. He may well look long and gravely at _me_ when he speaks
to me. Only quite a short time ago, he supposed himself the heir to
all this place, and now he is dispossessed, and it is _I_ who shall
sometime have it! What romances there are in the world, far wilder
romances than one reads of in books. How will it all end? What hand has
brought us together in this strange manner—I and he, of all persons
in the world? This is indeed one of those dark mazes of life through
which one must wander on trust—one can _know_ nothing.’

Having written thus far, Nita carefully read over the chronicle,
closed and locked the book, and put it away. Then, starting with a
sudden movement, she ran to the window, opened it and leaned out,
looking forth upon the moonlight. To a romantic mind and one given
to sentimental musings, Wellfield Abbey must have been provocative
of much moon-gazing and many reveries. Nita Bolton was romantic, was
sentimental, in no small degree, though these qualities had been well
kept in check by the healthy and natural though quiet life which she
had lived, and by the perpetual shafts of satire directed against all
sentiment by her three associates—her father, her Aunt Margery, and
her cousin, John Leyburn. But the tendency to weaving romance out of
her surroundings, if they would by any means allow it, was there,
powerful, though dormant. The fire smouldered. It needed but a spark
to kindle it. The sudden appearance of Jerome Wellfield supplied that
spark. Nita’s innate love of sentiment and romance was aroused. It
appeared as if life suddenly contained a new, fresh interest. It was
long before the girl undressed, and then it was long before she slept.
At last slumber came, and dreams in which Wellfield had no part.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER V.

WITH THE STREAM.


Morning again—a hazy, glorious August morning. When Wellfield threw
open his window, a draught of air scented with everything that is
sweetest and most exquisite was borne into the room. The heavy trees
outside stood motionless; the dazzling spikes of gladiolus, and the
parterres of geraniums looked dim in the morning mist which still hung
white and palpable over the course of the river. Each day that Jerome
passed here was fairer than the last; each morning and each evening
made more palpable to him what a goodly heritage had departed from
him, and fallen to the lot of others. This may have influenced his
course: who shall say what and where is the first upspringing of that
current which, slight at first, presently grows so strong as to sway
our actions and decide our ‘will’ to some particular course?

On going downstairs, he found the breakfast-table spread, and Mr.
Bolton seated at it. Nita was standing in the window, the newspaper in
one hand, while the other caressed the head of her great dun-coloured
mastiff, Speedwell—another dear friend who, like nature, ‘never would
betray the heart that loved’ him. Mr. Bolton made a measured apology
for beginning his breakfast, adding that he had to go to Burnham by the
nine o’clock train, but would be in to dinner in the middle of the day,
and he hoped Mr. Wellfield would do just what was agreeable to him, and
Nita would do her best to entertain him.

With which Nita also advanced, looking rather pale, but also almost
pretty. She laid down the paper, remarking:

‘There’s nothing in it, papa. The market is up, and there is a leading
article absolutely annihilating the Opposition, so let that content you
until this evening.’

‘I suppose it must,’ said he, rising; and wishing them good-morning, he
departed.

Nita, when breakfast was over, proposed a tour round the garden, she
had some orders to give the gardener, and must go to the farm, or
perhaps he would prefer to stay indoors.

‘I should prefer to go with you if I may,’ he said; and they strolled
out together.

Nita appeared quite at home outside the house. During their progress
round the garden Jerome grew more interested in her, and with him,
to be interested in a woman was to do his utmost to make himself
interesting to her. Nita was not aware of this idiosyncrasy; and a
man cannot say to a woman, ‘Do not make yourself interesting to me,
or I shall try in turn to captivate you.’ The rules of etiquette do
not allow such a statement, but when a man’s heart is given in one
direction, he may intimate that fact, and make it quite palpable to
another woman, without absolutely saying in so many words, ‘I am
engaged; do not fall in love with me,’ and he may do this without
hurting her feelings or her self-respect. Jerome Wellfield did not do
this.

‘There is a farm belonging to the Abbey,’ observed Nita, ‘and papa
leaves all the management of it to me: he only cares for his books
when he leaves business, so I have the farm and the gardens and the
house—indeed, everything connected with our life here—to look after.’

‘Quite alone?’ asked Jerome.

‘Yes; because I have no brothers or sisters, and very few friends. I am
the only one, and I am glad of it.’

‘Are you? Is it not rather lonely?’

‘I never feel lonely. I don’t know what it is to feel lonely. And
sometimes I think it is only the heroines of novels who ever do feel
so; but when I once said so to Aunt Margaret, she said who was I to
talk? and desired me to wait until I had had a little more experience
of life.’

‘Let us hope you may never have any experience in that line,’ said
Jerome, smiling.

‘Why, do you know what it is to be lonely?’

‘No; I have never felt particularly oppressed by that sensation. But,
talking about brothers and sisters, I should have thought you would
have been—we won’t say less lonely, since you take exception to the
term—but would have enjoyed life more if you had had some of them.’

‘I don’t see it,’ persisted Nita. ‘I am very happy as I am. I like my
own way. I don’t care to be interfered with. A brother would take the
first place in papa’s heart, and have the first say in everything; and
a sister—no, I would rather not.’

‘You are exclusive, and contented. Some day you will have power
more undivided than now, even,’ said Jerome, dwelling with a morbid
persistency on the idea which at present haunted him. ‘I suppose you
like thinking of that too?’

‘Yes,’ said Nita, frankly and unthinkingly, ‘I do; I love to think that
I am not going to leave this dear old place, ever. And I love to think
that some day, though I hope not for a very long time, it will be my
very own.’

She looked up at him with a smile, as she finished; met his eyes, read
the expression in them, stopped abruptly, and said, in a voice of
consternation:

‘Oh dear, oh dear!’

Her face was covered with a flood of colour. For a moment she put her
hand before it, as if to cover it, then dropped it again.

‘What must you think of me?’ she exclaimed, in a voice full of tears.
‘Pray forgive me, if you can!’

‘Pray do not distress yourself,’ he rejoined, a curious flavour, half
bitterness, half amusement, in his voice—‘I led up to it; I wanted to
hear you confess it. I felt sure you were too natural not to feel so.
You are quite right; you and yours have not stolen the place. You came
by it honestly, and have a right to rejoice in it if you like.’

He made a step onwards, inwardly wondering a little why he _had_ led up
to this topic. Nita’s face was downcast, as she said, in a deep tone of
annoyance and vexation:

‘It does not matter. I am a little fool, I believe. After all my
resolutions that I would not drop a syllable that could wound you while
you were here—_idiot_ that I am!’

‘Did you make such resolutions?’ asked Wellfield, suddenly stopping
again, and bending his eyes beneath their frowning brows upon her.

‘Yes. Oh, don’t look so severe, Mr. Wellfield, or I shall have to go
in. Indeed it was an oversight, my saying such a thing.’

‘I wish you would not take it so to heart,’ he said, with a short
laugh. ‘It is well that I should learn to grow accustomed to my
position. You have given me the first lesson, that is all. Shall we go
on?’

Nita answered nothing, but paced on beside him. Jerome was fully aware
in his secret heart that his last speech was claptrap; but if it had
the same effect upon Nita as if it had been fresh from the real well
of pathos, what did it matter? There was a vague feeling present in
his mind, that Nita seemed to take a good deal of interest in him—a
feeling which gave him suddenly great interest in her.

‘You are very fond of the Abbey, then?’ he asked.

‘Yes—very.’

‘Why so? What makes you like it so much? Stop! I am sure you need not
give orders to the gardener this very moment. Take one other turn with
me on the river walk. Why are you so devoted to the Abbey?’

‘I can hardly tell,’ she answered, a little shyly. (Evidently she
was dreadfully afraid of hurting him by any second remark like that
one which had already, as it were, exploded like a conversational
bombshell. To her he was still the lord of the soil, despite her love
for the place, and her keen sense of joy in the possession of it. He
saw the feeling in a moment, and it gratified him.) ‘I hardly know,’
repeated Nita; ‘it seems to have grown part of my life—it is so
different from other places. It suits me. I was so glad when we came
here.’

‘And you knew when you came that you were the only child of your
father, and you liked the idea of sometime reigning at the old place?’
pursued Jerome, tranquilly.

‘Yes. Oh, do please excuse me. I did like it very much. But if I had
known about you, I should not have liked it; and I shall not like it
now.’

‘Known about me!—you mean that you were unaware of the existence of
such a person?’

‘No; I had heard of you. But Aunt Margaret—is a little prejudiced, I
think. She knows all the traditions of the place, and all the histories
of all the old families in it, and she used to say that—that your
father——’

‘What about my father, Miss Bolton?’

‘It was not your father in particular. It was the Wellfield family.
She had a dislike to—no, not a dislike. Aunt Margaret never has such
strong feelings as likes and dislikes. She said your family were proud
and unscrupulous, that they had never worked for others, or cared for
any but themselves; that they were—but I have no business to say such
things,’ said Nita, who had by this time become so nervous and so
confused as not really to know what she was saying, and who rambled
on, fascinated by the calm, pale face and intent dark eyes of her
companion. She spoke of the old Wellfields as if they had been a dream,
and did not realise that this man beside her was actually one of the
race.

‘Go on, please,’ he said; and Nita continued, as if it had been a
lesson she was repeating by heart.

‘That they were selfish and luxurious——’

‘The last fault will not be laid to their charge in this generation, at
least,’ observed Jerome. ‘Well, what else?’

‘I am only saying all this because you _make_ me!’ said Nita, with
almost passionate protest in her voice, ‘not because I wish to. She
says—but I will tell you no more. I will not be so odious. If you
really desire to hear such things, ask Aunt Margaret. She will tell
you, and will not spare anything on account of your name and your race.’

‘Thank you. I shall have a little conversation with her some day. I can
quite imagine that she thought it was an unmitigated benefit when the
Abbey passed from the hands of our dissolute race into the honest and
untainted ones of your father.’

‘I knew you would never forgive me, and yet you would make me go on,’
said Nita, in a tone of despairing resignation. ‘I can’t help it. I
wash my hands of it.’

‘You at least may “wash your hands in innocency,”’ he replied. ‘Since
my old home is never to be mine, I would as soon you had it as anyone;
and since you wish for it more than for anything in the world——’

‘There is one thing now which I feel that I wish for more,’ said Nita,
in a vibrating voice.

‘Is there? What is that?’

‘That you—that those whose home it really is, should own it once
again. I would gladly leave it now to let you come into it.’

‘That is generously said, and I thank you for it,’ said Jerome, in a
voice not altogether unmoved. His eyes looked gratefully into hers. He
took her hand, and carried it to his lips. Nita thrilled from head to
foot. Was this the same world as the world of twenty-four hours ago?

‘To know that goes as near as anything can to reconciling me to my
inevitable loss,’ he said, still in a low tone, as they resumed their
way.

They left the solitary, silent river walk, dangerous in its beauty and
its associations, for the more prosaic regions of the kitchen-garden.
While they waited for the gardener to come, Nita said:

‘Don’t let me keep you here. I shall be ever so long; and then I have
to go to the farm. You will want to go down to Monk’s Gate, I daresay.’

‘I do; but I am emboldened to ask a favour of you, first.’

‘What is that?’

‘When you have quite finished your business here, will it be too much
to ask you to come down to Monk’s Gate, and give me a little advice?
There is some furniture in it, but I don’t know whether it can be used.
I am a man, you see, and naturally helpless in such a case. If you did
not mind very much——’

‘I shall be delighted. I will come down as soon as ever I have
finished. Shall I find you there?’

‘You will find me there. If not in the house, in the garden; and if not
in the garden, in the house. Thank you, very much.’

Lifting his hat he left her, and went down the river walk.

Adamson, the gardener, found his young mistress strangely distraite
and forgetful—a phenomenon which puzzled him, for he was wont to
bear admiring testimony to her clearness of head, and readiness of
comprehension, saying: ‘Eh, but hoo’s a rare sharp un, is Miss Bolton.
Hoo’s a chip of the ’owd block in more ways nor one, _hoo_ is.’

       *       *       *       *       *

Wellfield, meanwhile, had taken his way down the river walk, the
entrance to which was in the village street, close beside the ancient
stone bridge. On the other side of this bridge, a stony, steep,
wood-shaded walk led invitingly up a hill, then bent round to the left,
leaving the rest of that enticing way to conjecture. This path, as
Jerome remembered, took one to the top of a hill called Wellfield Nab
or Neb, or simply ‘the Nab.’ He remembered climbing it sixteen years
ago, with his tutor and John Leyburn; and the glorious view of the
surrounding country which it commanded, he remembered too.

At the foot of the Nab, almost out of sight from the bridge, he could
just catch a glimpse of a couple of gables, belonging to the Abbot’s
Knoll house—Leyburn’s dwelling. John rode every morning to his mill,
which was some two miles distant, on the road to Burnham.

Down the quaint paved street Jerome walked towards the church, that
ancient ‘white church under the hill,’ which had weathered so many
storms and troubles. A sleepy place, Wellfield—a place which seemed
forgotten of all men save the few who lived in it.

Monk’s Gate was only a very few minutes’ walk from the church, the
clock of which struck eleven as Jerome opened the gate of the garden.

He unlocked the door, and went into the house again, but did not remain
there long. He felt that he really did require Nita’s assistance, and
must wait until she arrived.

The quiet and sunshine of the old-fashioned, untidy garden were
congenial to him. He wandered about it, inhaling the scent of roses
and carnations, and the rich, spicy odours of picotees and the
old-fashioned white pink. The sun shone pleasantly upon everything,
doing his best towards ripening the young pears and apples on the
trees, and bringing the flowers into more ample bloom. Where is the
charm that can compete with that which pervades an old-fashioned
English garden?—the flavour of grace and quaintness, and the
suggestions of a ‘gentle life’ which hang about such a garden are to be
found nowhere else.

Wellfield had turned his back to the gate, and was looking at the
great, blunt, boulder-shaped head of Penhull, and observing the purple
mist of heather which clothed its mighty sides, when a voice behind him
said:

‘Mr. Wellfield!’

He turned, a curious thrill shooting through him. The speaker must,
he thought, have almost stolen up to him, so noiseless had been
his approach. He confronted a tall, spare man, in the dress of an
ecclesiastic. The voice in which he had spoken was soft and musical; he
took off his hat with a smile, as Jerome’s eyes met his, and the smile
was a singularly fascinating one, giving an expression of exceeding
graciousness and sweetness to a pale, finely cut, ascetic-looking
countenance. There was a courtly grace in the man’s appearance, in his
bow and manner.

For a moment Wellfield paused, then, bowing in his turn, said:

‘Surely I cannot be mistaken—you are the Father Pablo Somerville whom
I met years ago?’

‘The same,’ he replied. ‘I am glad to find you remember me. For me, I
saw you as I passed the garden, and concluded it was you; but had I met
you anywhere else, I should have known you instantly.’

‘Am I so little changed, then?’

‘Not much. And,’ with a slight smile, ‘even had you changed a good
deal, yours is not a face one soon forgets.’

Wellfield held out his hand, saying cordially, ‘I am glad to see you.’
He felt glad. In Somerville’s presence he felt at ease—felt as though
he were with one of his own kind; a sensation he had never experienced
since before his father’s death, and which was pleasant to him, as it
is pleasant to return to European civilisation, with its beloved and
elaborate shams, after wandering amidst the primitive and repulsive
honesty of savages; as it is pleasant to return to stove-heated rooms
and a perfumed atmosphere, to rich meats and dainty wines, after a
forced sojourn amongst bare boards, hard pallets, and a diet of bread
and water. Such exactly was the sensation experienced now by Wellfield,
as he clasped hands with this high-bred, polished-looking priest and
man of the world.

‘I would ask you into my house, but I doubt whether there is a chair in
it fit to sit upon. I only arrived here yesterday, and am surveying now
all the home that I have.’

‘The Abbey has passed away from you, as I heard,’ observed Somerville.
‘That is a pity, for many reasons. We at Brentwood at least regret
it. In the old days, when your forefathers belonged to us, Wellfield
Abbey was noted far and wide for the munificence of its gifts, and the
splendour of its hospitality. Even in the days when your people were
Protestants, they have always been gentlemen—Wellfields, despite the
Protestantism, and they have never treated us churlishly. Down to the
last visit of your late father to the Abbey, we were always received
with hospitality and kindness—then, especially, for Mrs. Wellfield was
there——’

‘My mother!’ exclaimed Jerome, eagerly, ‘Did you ever see her? Were you
at the Abbey then?’

‘It is a long time ago. Twenty-four years ago. I was a lad of thirteen;
and I was even then destined for the priesthood. I have been at
Brentwood all my life. I was taken by one of the professors, to call
at Wellfield Abbey, and I remember it well to this day. It was winter
weather, and there were roaring fires all over the old house. Mr.
Wellfield complained of everything being heated to furnace-heat. Your
beautiful young mother—and she _was_ beautiful—sat crouching over a
huge fire, with you—a little infant—swathed in warm shawls, in her
arms. I think all the beauty of her beautiful land was concentrated in
her. What wonder that I sat and gazed at her, and thought her like the
Madonna, and wondered how Father Leigh presumed to talk, and even laugh
with her?’

‘You remember all this!’ exclaimed Jerome, earnestly. ‘Since I
came here, almost every hour has brought back some incident, some
recollection, some remembered face, which have made the reverse more
cruel, and more terrible to bear, than I had imagined anything could
be.’

‘I can well believe it. _Autres temps, autres mœurs._ Things are
changed now, from that time of gracious hospitality and high-bred
courtesy. The present owner of Wellfield Abbey’ (a slight sneer played
about the finely-cut lips) ‘detests “Papists” with a truly Protestant
candour and liberality. I must say, even if it appear like boasting,
that his bigotry is his misfortune, since the “Papists” he objects to
are the only society worthy of the name in the neighbourhood.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Jerome, whose face had grown dark during this
discourse. He was pacing with Somerville up and down the gravel walk.

‘Yes. The Lathebys of Latheby—do you remember them?’

‘The name I know well enough. What of them?’

‘They were formerly on the best of terms with the Abbey. You must
come and see the exquisite chapel which Mrs. Latheby has offered to
Brentwood. And the Ormes of Brownhill, and some others—these are the
only gentry, and the only cultivated people for miles around. But Mr.
Bolton does not care to associate with such popish _canaille_.’

He smiled again, more sneeringly than before, and Jerome felt his heart
warm towards him. This classification of Mr. Bolton with one world, and
of himself with quite another, was not unpleasant to him.

‘Many things have happened which go sorely against the grain with me,’
he rejoined. ‘The mischief of it is, my hands are tied. I am powerless,
because I am moneyless.’

‘I have heard of your losses,’ said Father Somerville, ‘and regret
them. You will believe me, Mr. Wellfield, when I say that we at
Brentwood would have welcomed you back in any case, rich or poor, with
the Abbey or without it, as a gentleman and a civilised being. We shall
welcome you as it is, if you decide to settle amongst us—welcome you
heartily. And you will think no wrong when I say that had you been
coming amongst us to take that position which in the sight of heaven
you ought to have, we should have welcomed you, not more sincerely, but
perhaps more openly and ceremoniously.’

‘You flatter me,’ said Jerome, a flush of something like pleasure on
his cheek. ‘Such a welcome can by no means be indifferent to me. As to
settling here myself, it seems the only thing for me to do at present.
At any rate, even if I should have to leave, I shall bring my sister
here, and she will live here.’

‘Your sister! How old is Miss Wellfield, if I may ask?’

‘Sixteen. She is at present in Germany with—a friend.’

‘I see. When you have settled things, you will bring her here. And
yourself—pardon these inquiries, and do not answer them if you think
them not allowable, but——’

‘They are more than allowable. They are very kind; and I feel it
a privilege to be able to speak to you of my affairs,’ returned
Wellfield, with some animation. ‘Myself, I consider destitute until I
have found some employment. What little remains of my fortune, I shall
devote entirely to my sister’s use. With strict economy, and in this
quiet place, I may make it suffice for her wants. They say trade is
good. I may succeed in finding a clerk’s place in some office, in which
a “thorough knowledge of several foreign languages” is a desideratum,
though, to tell the truth, I should first have to learn the entire
technique of any business I entered. I should be a bad bargain at first
for any employer, whatever glories I might attain to later in the
matter of book-keeping or correspondence. Still, I may earn enough to
keep me—what do I know?’

He threw up his head, and laughed a little, plunging his hands into
his pockets. Father Somerville watched him narrowly and unobserved.
The study pleased him, interested him, made him curious to pursue it
further.

There was a pause till the priest said:

‘If I remember aright, you are a good musician, Mr. Wellfield.’

‘Yes. It is the only thing I have—the only talent my God has given me.
Of much use it appears it will be to me!’

‘Hush, hush, sir! As you say, your God has given it to you, and He
doubtless had some purpose in so endowing you.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ muttered Jerome. ‘It is not my habit to speak
in that manner; but I have been harassed almost to madness by the
embarrassments and difficulties of my position. Sometimes I have
wondered whether the last Wellfield was sent into the world to make a
name and a fortune on the stage.’

‘I can well understand your feelings. Where are you staying?’ he added,
suddenly. ‘At an inn? Will you not come and take shelter with us at
Brentwood. They would be——’

‘I thank you. I am staying at the Abbey.’

‘Ah, at the Abbey? Then you simply came down here for a stroll. Will
they turn you out of the Abbey as a polluted thing if you enter
Brentwood to take a meal there?’

‘I don’t suppose they would; but at this moment I am waiting, and must
continue to wait until she comes, for Miss Bolton, who has been kind
enough to promise me her assistance in deciding what part of the lumber
inside here is fit to keep and which is good only to be cast into the
fire.’

‘You know Miss Bolton, then?’

‘I made her acquaintance, and that of her father, yesterday; and they
asked me to stay with them until my business here was done.’

‘Her father is enormously rich.’

‘Is he? I knew he must be rich from the sum he paid my father for the
Abbey. I did not know his wealth was “enormous.”’

‘But it is, without any exaggeration. He has been one of the most
successful manufacturers in Burnham, and does an immense foreign trade:
perhaps your knowledge of foreign languages might be useful to him.
Knowledge _is_ power, you know, let fools say what they may against
it,’ observed Father Somerville, who had a way of throwing out hints
which suggested the largest possibilities, in a casual careless way
which was quite peculiar to him.

‘It is no small thing to be one of the wealthiest manufacturers of
Burnham,’ he went on. ‘In plain English, it means an income like that
of a nobleman—an income which in this case is not one quarter spent,
but which goes on accumulating in excellent investments.... And Miss
Bolton is sole heiress?’

‘Yes—so I understand,’ said Jerome, absently, his mind occupied with
the priest’s suggestion that perhaps his knowledge of languages might
prove useful to Mr. Bolton. Why not? It would be well for him if it
should turn out to be so. The natural indolence of his half-southern
temperament made the idea of strenuous exertion in search of
employment, which hardly could in the nature of things be remunerative,
utterly abhorrent to him; and he grasped with the more eagerness at the
idea suggested by Somerville’s words.

The latter was tempted to smile at what at first appeared the
obtuseness of the young man. But he was a man of the world. Wellfield’s
absence of mind, and his unconsciousness of the hint which lay behind
that remark about the sole heiress, might be an innocence which would
certainly be refreshing in one who must have been the object of so much
matrimonial angling as Jerome Wellfield, in the days when he had been
the supposed heir to the Abbey and a fortune; but it also might not
be innocence at all. It might be that some deeper reason caused that
obtuseness. Probably young Wellfield was in love already. With his
disposition, and with the life he had led, it was most unlikely that he
should have travelled so far in life without ever having had his heart
touched.

Pablo Somerville knew when to be reserved and when to be open, even
cynically open and candid. He judged this a fitting occasion on which
to display the latter qualities.

‘She knows it, I should imagine?’ he said.

‘Yes—of course, yes. She told me this morning how pleased she often
felt at the idea of one day owning the Abbey,’ said Jerome, still not
awake to the palpable bearings of the case.

(‘_Quelle bêtise!_—how like a _roturier_!’ flashed rapidly through
Somerville’s mind; ‘if she likes the Abbey, no doubt she would like the
owner—the once owner!’)

Aloud, he said, striking at once me, and sharply:

‘Has a _mariage de convenance_ never occurred to you as a way out
of your difficulties?’ he inquired, in a thoroughly matter-of-fact,
composed tone.

Jerome abruptly came to a dead stop. His eyes leaped to the other’s
face. The priest looked at him with a slight cool smile, half rallying,
half surprised.

‘Never,’ at last replied Wellfield, almost frigidly. But his heart was
beating fast and suddenly.

‘I am surprised at that. I should fancy it would be very easily
arranged. And then, if you really wish for employment, nothing would be
easier than to find it. It is always to be bought, if you will pay dear
enough for it. Were you but a Catholic, I know of one—two marriages of
that kind, which might soon be negotiated through our influence. As it
is, I am not Jesuit enough to pretend that I would connive at marrying
a Catholic heiress to a heretic, even where the heretic is Jerome
Wellfield.’

Jerome laughed a little. ‘It would certainly be a good deal to expect,’
said he.

‘It would, since you would probably not only marry the heiress, but
convert her, if you wished to. But why should you not think of Miss
Bolton? You would soon win her, and, with her, regain your patrimony
and your home.’

He did not expatiate upon the subject. Jerome, engrossed by his real
love, had absolutely not once thought of Miss Bolton in the light in
which she was now held up to him. She was very rich. Some time she
would be the mistress of Wellfield Abbey. He rather liked her, in
a superior, patronising kind of way, but otherwise she was utterly
indifferent to him; whereas every fibre of his heart was powerfully
drawn in another direction.

‘Impossible, Father! The circumstances make it out of the question,’
said he, coldly and decisively.

‘The course is clear,’ said the priest, calmly. ‘Miss Bolton is not
engaged. She is anything but disagreeable or stupid. Considering her
training, she is a marvel of refinement; and if you married her you
could make her into what you pleased. You have no rivals, and if you
had, none here who could for a moment compete with yourself.’

‘Pardon me; I know nothing of Miss Bolton’s feelings, of course, but
unless I am much mistaken I have—should have, I mean—a rival in her
cousin, John Leyburn, as good a fellow as ever breathed.’

Father Somerville laughed—laughed as a man laughs who has heard a jest
full of a quaint conceit which delights him. He had a musical laugh,
and there was nothing offensive in his manner.

‘A good fellow enough, and liberal minded. I have encountered him once
or twice on local business. But a girl like Miss Bolton wants something
more than a good fellow for a husband—something different, at least.
She lives alone, reads novels and poetry, has known Mr. Leyburn all her
life, while you—bah! my dear sir, the idea of a rivalry is absurd.’

‘Your imagination is vivid. I say again, it is out of the question. No.
Wellfield is gone from me, and I must abide without it as best I may.’

(‘A woman in the case, assuredly,’ thought the priest, ‘or he would
never hesitate. No Wellfield ever did hesitate at so easy a means of
making himself at ease again. It was honest work that always made that
race kick and plunge.’)

Before he could speak aloud the gate had been opened, and Nita,
accompanied by Speedwell, her mastiff, entered the garden.

‘We must drop that topic,’ murmured Somerville with a slight smile, as
he bowed low to the girl, who returned the salutation very slightly,
saying with marked coolness of manner to Jerome:

‘You are engaged, Mr. Wellfield. I am intruding, and will come another
time.’

‘By no means,’ said Somerville, quickly. ‘I must go—I was on the point
of taking leave.’

‘But I shall see you again,’ said Jerome.

‘Certainly, and often, if I consult my own inclination,’ said
Somerville, with his strange, sweet smile. ‘Call at Brentwood, and
ask for me at any hour after vespers, and I shall receive you with
pleasure.’

Nita, followed by her dog, had walked into the house while these
farewell amenities were taking place.

‘Will you not come to-morrow?’ added Father Somerville.

‘Thank you. I shall be glad to do so.’

‘That is well. Then, _auf Wiedersehen_!’

He lifted his hat, and was gone. Jerome entered the house, and found
Nita standing at the window of the larger parlour, motionless, her
eyes fixed upon the retreating figure of the priest in his long black
soutane. Speedwell, his forepaws upon the window-ledge, looked too.
Nita did not hear Jerome. She was too absorbed in her watch, but as he
entered, he saw her pat her dog’s head and heard a low ‘Ss-s!’ from her
lips.

‘Miss Bolton!’ he exclaimed, in astonishment, while Speedwell’s low,
thunderous growl was exchanged for two deep, angry barks.

Nita started, turned, and laughed.

‘Are you shocked?’ she said. ‘I do so hate that man. I call him the
“Polished Panther.” I should not wish to be rude to him if he is a
friend of yours, but for myself, I cannot stand him, and that is all
about it.’

‘I can hardly call him a friend, though he is an old acquaintance. Do
you know what post he has at Brentwood?’

‘Oh, you know they go through a course. They don’t keep on teaching the
same thing. I heard the other day that he was teaching history—Jesuit
history, of course, which proves beyond dispute that the Jesuits always
have been right, ever since the first one first founded the order, and
that everyone else always has been and will be wrong. That is what
Father Somerville is teaching at present, I believe.’

‘You speak with heat, and surely with a little prejudice,’ said he,
smiling, but—insensibly it seemed—his manner towards her had changed,
had taken a shade more of interest, of familiarity; there was a subtle
difference both in his feelings towards her, and the behaviour which
expressed those feelings. ‘Father Somerville is an accomplished——’

‘Deceiver! Oh yes; I know he is. He would deceive anyone less clever
than himself. I dislike him exceedingly, and so does Speedwell. Well,
shall we look at your furniture, Mr. Wellfield?’

‘Thank you,’ said Jerome, accepting the hint, if hint it were—‘if you
don’t mind.’

They began with the room in which they were standing, and Nita soon
displayed capacities for arranging and settling and turning things
to the best advantage, which perfectly astonished Jerome. Numbers of
things which he was about to cast aside as being utterly useless,
she quickly reclaimed, remarking that they only wanted such and such
repairs to make them serviceable and even good.

‘And it would be sinful to throw away a scrap of this old furniture,’
she added. ‘You can’t buy any like it except for fabulous prices, and
then you are never sure that you are not being cheated. I am convinced
that for fifty pounds or so, you may make the house very nice—at
least if you will let me dispose of the fifty pounds for you,’ she
added, colouring a little; ‘for I am sure you would be like a child—so
helpless—if you went alone to a furniture shop.’

‘I do not doubt it, and would accept your offer gratefully if I did not
think it was imposing on your kindness.’

‘Not at all. We will drive into Burnham to-morrow, and see about it,’
replied Nita. ‘Meantime, it is nearly dinner-time, and papa will be
waiting. Shall we go back to the Abbey?’

Jerome accompanied her to her home, with new agitation in his breast,
and a vague wonder whether, for the future, Monk’s Gate were to be his
home.


                           END OF VOL. I.


BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, GUILDFORD.

                                         _J. S. & Sons._

Footnote.

[Footnote A: _Mein Genügen_—‘my content,’ or ‘my delight.’]




 Transcriber’s Notes.

 1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
    errors.
 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69428 ***