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CHAPTER XIX.
GOSSIP

“But, mamma, if she was just on the eve of the same, why is she only Miss Rivers now?” asked Marian, very curious on this subject of betrothments and marriages.

“It is a very long story, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling. As a general principle, Mamma was not understood to have any special aversion to long stories, but she certainly showed no inclination whatever to enter into this.

“So much the better if you will tell it, mamma,” said Agnes; and they came close to her, with their pretty bits of needlework, and their looks of interest; it was not in the heart of woman to refuse.

“Well, my dears,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little reluctance, “somehow we seem to be brought into the very midst of it again, though we have scarcely heard their names for twenty years. This lady, though she is almost as old as he is, is niece to Lord Winterbourne. The old lord was only his stepbrother, and a great deal older than he—and Miss Anastasia was the only child of the old lord. You may suppose how disappointed he was, with all his great estates entailed, and the title—and nothing but a daughter; and everybody said, when the old lady died, that he would marry again.”

“Did he marry again?” said Marian, as Mamma came to a sudden and unexpected pause.

“No, my dear; for then trouble came,” said Mrs Atheling. “Miss Anastasia was a beautiful young lady, always very proud, and very wise and sensible, but a great beauty for all that; and she was to be married to a young gentleman, a baronet and a very great man, out of Warwickshire. The present lord was then the Honourable Reginald Rivers, and dreadful wild. Somehow, I cannot tell how it was, he and Sir Frederick quarrelled, and then they fought; and after his wound that fine young gentleman fell into a wasting and a consumption, and died at twenty-five; and that is the reason why Miss Anastasia has never been married, and I am afraid, though it is so very wrong to say so, hates Lord Winterbourne.”

“Oh, mamma! I am sure I should, if I had been like her!” cried Marian, almost moved to tears.

“No, my darling, not to hate him,” said Mrs Atheling, shaking her head, “or you would forget all you have been taught since you were a child.”

“I do not understand him, mamma,” said Agnes: “does everybody hate him—has he done wrong to every one?”

Mrs Atheling sighed. “My dears, if I tell you, you must forget it again, and never mention it to any one. Papa had a pretty young sister, little Bride, as they all called her, the sweetest girl I ever saw. Mr Reginald come courting her a long time, but at last she found out—oh girls! oh, children!—that what he meant was not true love, but something that it would be a shame and a sin so much as to name; and it broke her dear heart, and she died. Her grave is at Winterbourne; that was what papa and I went to see the first day.”

“Mamma,” cried Agnes, starting up in great excitement and agitation, “why did you suffer us to know any one belonging to such a man?”

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling, a little discomposed by this appeal. “I thought it was for the best. Coming here, we were sure to be thrown into their way—and perhaps he may have repented. And then Mrs Edgerley was very kind to you, and I did not think it right, for the father’s sake, to judge harshly of the child.”

Marian, who had covered her face with her hands, looked up now with abashed and glistening eyes. “Is that why papa dislikes him so?” said Marian, very low, and still sheltering with her raised hands her dismayed and blushing face.

Mrs Atheling hesitated a moment. “Yes,” she said doubtfully, after a pause of consideration—“yes; that and other things.”

But the inquiry of the girls could not elicit from Mamma what were the other things which were sufficient to share with this as motives of Mr Atheling’s dislike. They were inexpressibly shocked and troubled by the story, as people are who, contemplating evil at a visionary distance, and having only a visionary belief in it, suddenly find a visible gulf yawning at their own feet; and Agnes could not help thinking, with horror and disgust, of being in the same room with this man of guilt, and of that polluting kiss of his, from which Rachel shrank as from the touch of pestilence. “Such a man ought to be marked and singled out,” cried Agnes, with unreasoning youthful eloquence: “no one should dare to bring him into the same atmosphere with pure-minded people; everybody ought to be warned of who and what he was.”

“Nay; God has not done so,” said Mrs Atheling with a sigh. “He has offended God more than he ever could offend man, but God bears with him. I often say so to your father when we speak of the past. Ought we, who are so sinful ourselves, to have less patience than God?”

After this the girls were very silent, saying nothing, and much absorbed with their own thoughts. Marian, who perhaps for the moment found a certain analogy between her father’s pretty sister and herself, was wrapt in breathless horror of the whole catastrophe. Her mind glanced back upon Sir Langham—her fancy started forward into the future; but though the young beauty for the moment was greatly appalled and startled, she could not believe in the possibility of anything at all like this “happening to me!” Agnes, for her part, took quite a different view of the matter. The first suggestion of her eager fancy was, what could be done for Louis and Rachel, to deliver them from the presence and control of such a man? Innocently and instinctively her thoughts turned upon her own gift, and the certain modest amount of power it gave her. Louis might get a situation like Charlie, and be helped until he was able for the full weight of his own life; and Rachel, another sister, could come home to Bellevue. So Agnes, who at this present moment was writing in little bits, much interrupted and broken in upon, her second story, rose into a delightful anticipatory triumph, not of its fame or success, though these things did glance laughingly across her innocent imagination, but of its mere ignoble coined recompense, and of all the great things for these two poor orphans which might be done in Bellevue.

And while the mother and the daughters sat at work in the shady little parlour, where the sunshine did not enter, but where a sidelong reflection of one waving bough of clematis, dusty with blossom, waved across the little sloping mirror, high on the wall, Hannah sat outside the open door, watching with visible delight, and sometimes joining for an instant with awkward kindliness, the sports of Bell and Beau. They rolled about on the soft grass, ran about on the garden paths, tumbled over each other and over everything in their way, but, with the happy immunity of children in the country, “took no harm.” Hannah had some work in her great white apron, but did not so much as look at it. She had no eye for a rare passenger upon the grassy byway, and scarcely heard the salutation of the Rector’s man. All Hannah’s soul and thoughts were wrapt up in the “blessed babies,” who made her old life blossom and rejoice; and it was without any intervention of their generally punctilious attendant that a light and rapid step came gliding over the threshold of the Lodge, and a quiet little knock sounded lightly on the parlour door. “May I come in, please?” said a voice which seemed to Agnes to be speaking out of her dream; and Mrs Atheling had not time to buckle on her armour of objection when the door opened, and the same little light rapid figure came bounding into the arms of her daughters. Once there, it was not very difficult to reach to the good mother’s kindly heart.

CHAPTER XX.
RACHEL

“Yes, I only came to-day,” said Rachel, who kept her eyes wistfully upon Mrs Atheling, though she spoke to Agnes. “They made me go to town after you left, and then kept me so long at the Willows. Next season they say I am to come out, and somebody has offered me an engagement; but indeed, indeed,” cried Rachel, suddenly firing with one of her outbursts of unexpected energy, “I never will!”

The girls scarcely knew what answer to make in presence of their mother. They had not been trained to have independent friendships, and now waited anxiously, turning silent looks of appeal upon Mamma. Mamma all at once had become exceedingly industrious, and neither looked up nor spoke.

“But then you might live in London, perhaps, instead of here; and I should be very glad if you were near us,” said Agnes, with a good deal of timidity. Agnes, indeed, was not thinking what she said—her whole attention wandered to her mother.

“I do not mind for myself,” said Rachel, with a deep sigh. “I do not think I should care if there were a hundred people to hear me sing, instead of a dozen, for I know very well not one of them would care anything for me; but I have to remember Louis. I cannot disgrace Louis. It is bad enough for him as it is, without adding any more.”

Again there was a pause. Rachel’s poor little palpitating heart beat very loud and very high. “I thought I should be welcome when I came here,” she said, freezing half into her unnatural haughtiness, and half with an unconscious and pitiful tone of appeal; “but I never intruded upon any one—never! and if you do not wish me to be here, I can go away.”

She turned to go away as she spoke, her little figure rising and swelling with great subdued emotion; but Mrs Atheling immediately rose and stretched out her hand to detain her. “Do not go away, my dear; the girls are very fond of you,” said Mrs Atheling; and it cost this good mother, with her ideas of propriety, a very considerable struggle with herself to say these simple words.

Rachel stood before her a moment irresolute and uncertain, not appearing even to hear what Agnes and Marian, assured by this encouragement, hastened to say. The contest was violent while it lasted between Louis’s sister, who was his representative, and the natural little humble child Rachel, who had no pride, and only wanted the kindly succour of love; but at last nature won the day. She seized upon Mrs Atheling’s hand hastily and kissed it, with a pretty appealing gesture. “They do everything you tell them,” cried Rachel suddenly. “I never had any mother—never even when we were babies. Oh, will you tell me sometimes what I ought to do?”

It was said afterwards in the family that at this appeal Mamma, fairly vanquished and overcome, “almost cried;” and certain it was that Rachel immediately took possession of the stool beside her, and remained there not only during this visit, but on every after occasion when she came. She brightened immediately into all her old anxious communicativeness, concealing nothing, but pouring out her whole heart.

“Louis told me he had seen you in the garden,” said Rachel, with a low laugh of pleasure; “but when I asked which it was, he said he knew nothing of Agnes and Marian, but only he had seen a vision looking over the old gate. I never know what Louis means when he speaks nonsense,” said Rachel, with an unusual brightness; “and I am so glad. I never heard him speak so much nonsense since we came to the Hall.”

“And are you left in the Hall all by yourselves, two young creatures?” asked Mrs Atheling, with curiosity. “It must be very melancholy for you.”

“Not to be alone!” cried Rachel. “But very soon my lord is coming, with a great household of people; and then—I almost faint when I think upon it. What shall I do?”

“But, Rachel, Mrs Edgerley is very kind to you,” said Agnes.

Rachel answered after her usual fashion: “I do not care at all for myself—it is nothing to me; but Louis—oh, Louis!—if he is ever seen, the people stare at him as they would at a horse or a hound; and Lord Winterbourne tries to have an opportunity to speak and order him away, and when he shoots, he says he will put him in prison. And then Louis knows when they send for me, and sometimes stands under the window and hears me singing, and is white with rage to hear; and then he says he cannot bear it, and must go away, and then I go down upon my knees to him. I know how it will happen—everything, everything! It makes him mad to have to bear it. Oh, I wish I knew anything that I could do!”

“Mamma,” said Agnes earnestly, “Rachel used to tell us all this at the Willows. Do you not think he ought to go away?”

Mrs Atheling shook her head in perplexity; and instead of answering, asked a question, “Does he not think it his duty, my dear, to obey your—your father?” said Mamma doubtfully.

“But he is not our father—oh no, no, indeed he is not! I should know he was not, even without Louis,” cried Rachel, unaware what a violent affirmation this was. “Louis says we could not have any father who would not be a disgrace to us, being as we are—and Louis must be right; but even though he might be a bad man, he could not be like Lord Winterbourne. He takes pleasure in humiliating us—he never cared for us all our life.”

There was something very touching in this entire identification of these two solitary existences which still were but one life; and Rachel was not Rachel till she came to the very last words. Before that, with the strange and constantly varying doubleness of her sisterly character, she had been once again the representative of Louis. One thing struck them all as they looked at her small features, fired with this sudden inspiration of Louis’s pride and spirit. About as different as possible—at the extreme antipodes of unresemblance—were their two visitors of this day,—this small little fairy, nervous, timid, and doubtful, fatherless, homeless, and without so much as a name, and that assured and commanding old lady, owning no superior, and as secure of her own position and authority as any reigning monarch. Yes, they were about as dissimilar as two human creatures could be; yet the lookers-on were startled to recognise that subtle link of likeness, seldom a likeness of features, which people call family resemblance. Could it have come through this man, who was so repugnant to them both?

“They are all coming down on Monday next week,” said Rachel, “so we have just three days all to ourselves; and I thought, perhaps—perhaps, if you please to let me, I might bring Louis to-night?”

“Surely, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling.

“Oh, thank you!—thank you very much!” cried Rachel, once more bestowing an eager yet shy caress upon that motherly hand. “Louis is not like me at all,” added the anxious sister, afraid lest he should suffer by any preconceived notion of resemblance. “He is a man; and old Miss Bridget used to call him a noble brave boy, like what you read of in books. I do not know,” said Rachel, “I never read of any one, even in a book, like Louis. I think he ought to be a king.”

“But, indeed, Rachel,” said Agnes, “I am quite sure you are wrong. Ask mamma. You ought to let him go away.”

“Do you think so?” said Rachel wistfully, looking up in Mrs Atheling’s face.

But Mrs Atheling, though under any other circumstances she would of course have insisted upon the absolute propriety of a young man “making his own way,” paused, much perplexed, and answered nothing for the moment. “My dears,” she said at last, very doubtfully, “I do not know at all what to say. You should have some one who could advise you better; and it depends on the young gentleman’s inclinations, and a great many things beside that I am not able to judge of; for, indeed, though it may only be my old-fashioned notions, I do not like to hear of young people going against the advice of their friends.”

CHAPTER XXI.
THE YOUNG PRINCE

It may be supposed that, after all they had heard of him, the Athelings prepared themselves with a little excitement for the visit of Louis. Even Mrs Atheling, who disapproved of him, could not prevent herself from wandering astray in long speculations about the old lord—and it seemed less improper to wonder and inquire concerning a boy, whom the Honourable Anastasia herself inquired after and wondered at. As for the girls, Louis had come to be an ideal hero to both of them. The adored and wonderful brother of Rachel—though Rachel was only a girl, and scarcely so wise as themselves—the admiration of Miss Bridget, and the anxiety of Miss Anastasia, though these were only a couple of old ladies, united in a half deification of the lordly young stranger, whose own appearance and manner were enough to have awakened a certain romantic interest in their simple young hearts. They were extremely concerned to-night about their homely tea-table—that everything should look its best and brightest; and even contrived, unknown to Hannah, to filch and convert into a temporary cake-basket that small rich old silver salver, which had been wont to stand upon one of Miss Bridget’s little tables for cards. Then they robbed the garden for a sufficient bouquet of flowers; and then Agnes, half against her sister’s will, wove in one of those pale roses to Marian’s beautiful hair. Marian, though she made a laughing protest against this, and pretended to be totally indifferent to the important question, which dress she should wear? clearly recognised herself as the heroine of the evening. She knew very well, if no one else did, what was the vision which Louis had seen at the old gate, and came down to Miss Bridget’s prim old parlour in her pretty light muslin dress with the rose in her hair, looking, in her little flutter and palpitation, as sweet a “vision of delight” as ever appeared to the eyes of man.

And Louis came—came—condescended to take tea—stayed some two hours or so, and then took his departure, hurriedly promising to come back for his sister. This much-anticipated hero—could it be possible that his going away was the greatest relief to them all, and that no one of the little party felt at all comfortable or at ease till he was gone? It was most strange and deplorable, yet it was most true beyond the possibility of question; for Louis, with all a young man’s sensitive pride stung into bitterness by his position, haughtily repelled the interest and kindness of all these women. He was angry at Rachel—poor little anxious timid Rachel, who almost looked happy when they crossed this kindly threshold—for supposing these friends of hers, who were all women, could be companions for him; he was angry at himself for his anger; he was in the haughtiest and darkest frame of his naturally impetuous temper, rather disposed to receive as an insult any overture of friendship, and fiercely to plume himself upon his separated and orphaned state. They were all entirely discomfited and taken aback by their stately visitor, whom they had been disposed to receive with the warmest cordiality, and treat as one whom it was in their power to be kind to. Though his sister did so much violence to her natural feelings that she might hold her ground as his representative, Louis did not by any means acknowledge her deputyship. In entire opposition to her earnest and anxious frankness, Louis closed himself up with a jealous and repellant reserve; said nothing he could help saying, and speaking, when he did speak, with a cold and indifferent dignity; did not so much as refer to the Hall or Lord Winterbourne, and checked Rachel, when she was about to do so, with an almost imperceptible gesture, peremptory and full of displeasure. Poor Rachel, constantly referring to him with her eyes, and feeling the ground entirely taken from beneath her feet, sat pale and anxious, full of apprehension and dismay. Marian, who was not accustomed to see her own pretty self treated with such absolute unconcern, took down Fatherless Fanny from the bookshelf, and played with it, half reading, half “pretending,” at one of the little tables. Agnes, after many vain attempts to draw Rachel’s unmanageable brother into conversation, gave it up at last, and sat still by Rachel’s side in embarrassed silence. Mamma betook herself steadily to her work-basket. The conversation fell away into mere questions addressed to Louis, and answers in monosyllables, so that it was an extreme relief to every member of the little party when this impracticable visitor rose at last, bowed to them all, and hastened away.

Rachel sat perfectly silent till the sound of his steps had died upon the road; then she burst out in a vehement apologetic outcry. “Oh, don’t be angry with him—don’t, please,” said Rachel; “he thinks I have been trying to persuade you to be kind to him, and he cannot bear that even from me; and indeed, indeed you may believe me, it is quite true! I never saw him, except once or twice, in such a humour before.”

“My dear,” said Mrs Atheling, with that dignified tone which Mamma could assume when it was necessary, to the utter discomfiture of her opponent—“my dear, we are very glad to see your brother, but of course it can be nothing whatever to us the kind of humour he is in; that is quite his own concern.”

Poor Rachel now, having no other resource, cried. She was only herself in this uncomfortable moment. She could no longer remember Louis’s pride or Louis’s dignity; for a moment the poor little subject heart felt a pang of resentment against the object of its idolatry, such as little Rachel had sometimes felt when Louis was “naughty,” and she, his unfortunate little shadow, innocently shared in his punishment; but now, as at every former time, the personal trouble of the patient little sister yielded to the dread that Louis “was not understood.” “You will know him better some time,” she said, drying her sorrowful appealing eyes. So far as appearances went at this moment, it did not seem quite desirable to know him better, and nobody said a word in return.

After this the three girls went out together to the garden, still lying sweet in the calm of the long summer twilight, under a young moon and some early stars. They did not speak a great deal. They were all considerably absorbed with thoughts of this same hero, who, after all, had not taken an effective method of keeping their interest alive.

And Marian did not know how or whence it was that this doubtful and uncertain paladin came to her side in the pleasant darkness, but was startled by his voice in her ear as she leaned once more over the low garden-gate. “It was here I saw you first,” said Louis, and Marian’s heart leaped in her breast, half with the suddenness of the words, half with—something else. Louis, who had been so haughty and ungracious all the evening—Louis, Rachel’s idol, everybody’s superior—yet he spoke low in the startled ear of Marian, as if that first seeing had been an era in his life.

“Come with us,” said Louis, as Rachel at sight of him hastened to get her bonnet—“come along this enchanted road a dozen steps into fairyland, and back again. I forget everything, even myself, on such a night.”

And they went, scarcely answering, yet more satisfied with this brief reference to their knowledge of him, than if the king had forsaken his nature, and become as confidential as Rachel. They went their dozen steps on what was merely the terraced pathway, soft, dark, and grassy, to Agnes and Rachel, who went first in anxious conversation, but which the other two, coming silently behind, had probably a different idea of. Marian at least could not help cogitating these same adjectives, with a faint inquiry within herself, what it was which could make this an enchanted road or fairyland.