He was the earliest in the breakfast-room, and found a batch of letters lying in his accustomed place. They were of all kinds,--foreign letters from men whose acquaintance he had made abroad, and the gist of whose correspondence lay in an endeavour to tempt him to come out to them again; a business letter or two about the investment of some spare cash; a line from Blab Bertram, wondering when L. A. was coming to town, and "what was the use of leaving Egypt if you stuck down in Devon?" and a thick old-fashioned letter, on yellowish gilt-edged paper, sealed with a large seal, and directed in a bold yet tremulous hand--his father's. Alsager's conscience pricked him as he came upon this letter at the bottom of the little pile; he had been two months in England, after two years' absence, and had not yet found time to visit his father. They had been always very good friends; indeed when Laurence was at Eton, the tie between them was of the strongest, and they were more like brothers than father and son. With the young man's life at Oxford their relations were a little less intimate; Laurence was beginning to see life with his coevals, and found Sir Peregrine's society a check and hindrance on his enjoyment. The father perceived this, and weakly allowed himself to be annoyed at it. He was hurt and jealous at his son's preference of younger companions, at his own inability to amuse or interest his son's friends; and from that time forth there was a slight estrangement between them. Laurence had the enjoyment of his mother's fortune on coming of age, so that he was perfectly independent of his father; and his joining the Guards was entirely his own doing, and to a certain extent against his father's wish. Sir Peregrine was of that old-fashioned school which abhorred London and its ways, and thought a country gentleman ought to live entirely on his own estate, in superintending which, and in joining the sports of the field, he would find plenty of amusement and occupation. Their ideas and tastes being thus different, it was tacitly felt by both that they were best apart, and during the last few years they had not met a dozen times. Sir Peregrine's annual visit to London was generally made in the winter, when Laurence was staying with country friends; and Laurence found little attraction in the dozy, prosy county-magistrate society which the old gentleman gathered round him at Knockholt.
But his conscience pricked him when he saw the old gentleman's letter, which had been forwarded to him from his club--pricked him sharply after he had opened it and read as follows:
"Knockholt, Friday.
"My Dear Lance,--If you have not any very particular engagements, I think it would be as well if you were to come down here for a day or two. There are some things I want to talk over with you, and I think the sooner our business is done the better. I had a nasty fall a fortnight ago, when I was out with Lord Hawkshaw's pack; and though Galton says it's nothing, I was a good deal shaken at the time, and feel it has jarred me more than they think; for I have an odd kind of all-overish pain, which I can't explain to them, and can't account for to myself. Not that I am going to die, that I know of; but one does not fall lightly when one weighs fifteen stone, nor get over a cropper quickly when one is sixty-seven years old. So, my dear Lance, put up with the old house and the old man for a few days, and come. I have a surprise for you.--Your affectionate father, P. A.
"P.S.--Captain Freeman saw you looking out of the club-window when he was in London in January. He says you had a beard like a billy-goat. For God's sake, my dear Lance, go to a barber before I see you! I hate all such foreign affectations. P. A."
Laurence looked grave over the letter, but could not help smiling at the postscript, so characteristic of his father. He did not at all like the aspect of affairs at Knockholt; his father was evidently far more hurt than either the doctors imagined or he himself would allow. His ward, Miss Manningtree, and her governess, resided with the old gentleman; but Laurence knew too little of either to feel confidence in their capacity, their care, or their judgment in the matter of medical advice. They might think Galton all-sufficient and infallible; he didn't. He would go down at once, at least as soon as he had learned from Miss Gillespie what really was meant by her mysterious letter. He had been too long dallying at Capri; but now that duty called him away, he would obey cheerfully. By the time he had finished his letter and formed his resolution, Captain Bligh had entered the room, and had plunged deeply into his breakfast, which he took standing, now making a dive at the toast-rack, now impaling a bloater, now walking round and pouring out a cup of tea; for there were no ladies present, and the captain was in a hurry, having much business on hand.
"Morning, Alsager," said the Captain, when Laurence looked up. "Queer start this, isn't it?"
"What? I'm only just down; I've seen nobody and heard nothing."
"Oh, about that girl that sung last night,--Mrs. Hammond's governess. What's her name?"
"Miss Gillespie?"
"Ah, that's she! Wouldn't have thought it of her--would you?"
"What's she done?"
"Done! Bolted, that's all!--bolted slick away, no one knows where!"
"What on earth for?"
"No one knows that either. Rummest thing is, that she hasn't taken anything with her--anything of anybody else's, I mean. Now, if she'd walked off with some of that little Hammond woman's swell clothes, or jool'ry, one could understand it; but she's left a lot of her own behind."
"Did she give no hint of this? Has she left no explanation?"
"Well, I don't know about explanation. She's left a note for Mrs. Hammond, which I've got in my pocket. Mrs. Hammond gave it to Mitford, and he sent for me and handed it over, and asked me what I thought of it."
"It's not private, I suppose. May I look at it?"
"By all means--nothing private about it. Can't conceive why Mitford gave it to me. I can do nothing with it." So saying Captain Bligh took out the little scrap of paper from his waistcoat pocket, and handed it to Alsager.
There was no longer the least doubt about Laurence's mysterious correspondent. Both notes were in the same handwriting.
At luncheon that day Miss Gillespie's disappearance was the principal theme of conversation, and many and various were the comments it evoked. Lady Mitford seemed a little scandalized at the circumstance; but Mrs. Hammond, her first astonishment over, treated it very lightly. She had always thought Miss Gillespie a "curious person," she said; there was always something "odd" about her. Very likely, when they got back to town, they would find she would return to them. Perhaps, after all, the reason of her flight was that she was a little bored in the country. And then Mrs. Hammond forgot all about Miss Gillespie in her delight at having Sir Charles Mitford sitting next her again, at finding him paying her little attentions and compliments, talking to her in a dropped voice, and regarding her with deep tender glances, just as he had done in the first days of her visit to Redmoor. She delighted in all this, and her delight was increased when she marked the grave gloom on Laurence Alsager's face, as she shot a glance of saucy triumph across at him. Then he guessed the meaning of Miss Gillespie's note more thoroughly than he had yet done. She had had some hold either on Mrs. Hammond or on Sir Charles; that was gone, and he alone was left to do his best to keep them in check. And what could he do? Any overt act of his would be misconstrued by Mrs. Hammond, and turned to her own purposes, while over Mitford he had not the smallest power. What could he do? Had Lord Dollamore given any sign of intending to persecute Lady Mitford with his attentions, Laurence thought that his staying in the house might be of some use; but Dollamore had hitherto been perfectly respectful. So Alsager determined that he would remain a couple of days longer, and then start off for Knockholt.
After luncheon a proposal was made to go and see some new horses which Captain Bligh had inspected when last in Torquay, and which he thought might be obtained as bargains. So most of the party adjourned to the stable-yard, where these horses had been brought; and the visit ended in a pair of them being put to, and Sir Charles and Mrs. Hammond mounting the phaeton to which they were harnessed. The horses were young and fresh, and plunged a great deal at starting; but Sir Charles had them well in hand, and with his companion by his side and a groom in the back-seat, went flying down the avenue. It was full an hour before they returned, and Sir Charles's verdict on the pair was that they were too hot to hold. He had had all his work, he said, to keep them at all within bounds. Mrs. Hammond looked flushed and elated; but she went straight up to Lady Mitford, and told her how she had enjoyed the drive, and was full of praises of Sir Charles's powers of coachmanship.
That evening Sir Charles took Mrs. Hammond in to the dining-room, and addressed his conversation principally to her. He drank a great deal of wine both with and after dinner, and was in more boisterous spirits than any of his friends had yet seen him. When they went into the drawing-room he made straight for Mrs. Hammond's chair, and there he remained the whole evening, talking to her in a lowered tone, and regarding her with glances the fire of which had by no means been subdued by the quantity of claret he had drunk. Poor Georgie! The events of this day, culminating as they were, had totally upset her, and had reduced her very much to the same condition as when she begged Alsager to be her charioteer to Egremont Priory. There could be no mistake about it now. Surely it was a flagrant case; and the colour flushed in her cheeks as she saw Mrs. Masters's shoulder-shrugs and marked Lord Dollamore's ill-disguised cynical manner. Poor Georgie! She asked Mrs. Charteris to sing, and sat and listened to her as usual, and thanked her at the end of the performance; and she chatted with the Tyrrell girls, and she took the deepest interest in Mrs. Masters's embroidery,--and all the time her heart was sick within her, and she kept stealing glances at the couple seated in the embrasure of the window, with their heads so nearly touching. All present noticed her state of mind; but no one understood it or pitied it like Laurence Alsager, who began to confess to himself that what Dollamore had prophesied at the club was undoubtedly coming true, so far as Mitford was concerned; and did, not the wife's future, even in Lord Dollamore's prophecy, hinge upon the husband's conduct? It was a most horrible shame; but how on earth was he to protest against it? He had no position to enable him to do anything of the kind. There was only one thing that he could do, and that was to speak to Laura Hammond. He could do that; it might not be of much use, but he would do it.
So, accordingly, the next morning after breakfast Colonel Alsager sent to Mrs. Hammond a polite little note, in which he presented his compliments, and requested the pleasure of a few minutes' conversation; and to which a verbal answer was returned to the effect that Mrs. Hammond would be delighted to see Colonel Alsager, if he could come up at once. He followed the lady's-maid, and found Mrs. Hammond in the boudoir, dressed in her habit and hat. She received him with great cordiality.
"I am so sorry to have sent what may have seemed a peremptory message, Colonel Alsager," she said; "but the fact is, Sir Charles has been round here just now, and we have arranged a little riding-party,--he and I, and Emily Tyrrell, and Captain Bligh, and Mr. Somers, and one or two more; and I promised to be ready by eleven."
"Make no excuses, pray," said Laurence, in a hard dry tone. "I won't detain you, as your time's valuable, by any preamble. I will simply ask, are you determined to persist in your present course?"
"In what course, my dear Colonel Alsager?"
"In bringing destruction on a household, Laura Hammond! In blighting the happiness of a young wife, and spreading snares for a foolish husband! In rendering yourself conspicuous, and your host contemptible! Do I speak plainly enough?"
"Scarcely," said she with a little smile; "for though you insult me, and give way to your own rage, you do not condescend to--or you dare not--explain your motives. Don't think that I am weak enough to imagine that you are jealous of me, Laurence. I know you too well for that. I know that whatever command I may have had over you is past and gone. But perhaps the passion, the caprice that I had for you--call it what you will--continues. Suppose it does? Suppose the sight of you, the meeting with you after so long a separation, has renewed the dormant flame? You scorn me, and I see you prostrate at the feet of a sweetly pretty piece of propriety and innocence--don't interrupt me, please--who then becomes my rival? Revenge is sweet, especially to women, you know. This child of the fields makes herself my rival,--I make myself hers! I show to you and others, that if you care for me no longer, there are others who will. I show to her and others, that if she is preferred to me by one I--yes, I love,--I am preferred to her by one she loves. As yet I have never run second for anything for which I've entered, Colonel Alsager, and I don't intend to do so now."
"You are arguing on utterly false premises,--you are talking worse than nonsense. Between me and the lady to whom you allude there is nothing. You need not smile in that way. I swear it! She is as pure as--"
"Oh, pray spare me! Don't fall into raptures about her purity,--there's a good creature. Dear me, dear me! this must be a very bad case, when a man like Colonel Alsager takes a poetical view of his lady-love, and talks about her purity."
"I came to ask you to abandon this shameless flirtation, Laura Hammond, for the sake of our old friendship,--as an act of kindness to me. Your reply is mockery and ridicule. I may use other means to bring about what I want."
"Ah, you threaten! Then I shall certainly get Mr. Hammond to fight you! He was out once at Nusserabad, or Hylunjee, or some such place, I believe. And we can prop him up on his crutches, and get his man to hold him, and I've no doubt he'd be strong enough to fire a pistol.--No," she added, suddenly changing her tone, "don't threaten, and don't thwart me; else let our innocent young friend look to herself. I'll break her heart, and then I'll spoil her name,--that's all. And now, I really must run away. Sir Charles will have been waiting for me full ten minutes." She touched the brim of her hat, in salute, with the handle of her riding-whip, gathered up her habit with her other hand, and left the room.
"And that is the woman," said Laurence, looking after her, "for whom I nearly broke my heart; whose rejection of my suit caused me to leave England,--intending, hoping, never to return. Great Heavens! once in that state, what idiots we become! Think of this fool flinging away a pearl of price, reputation, decency,--and all for that! Think of that poor child his wife having pinned her faith and her affections on to such a shallow oaf! There can be no doubt about Miss Gillespie's meaning now; no doubt that, partly from innate devilry, partly from pique, Laura Hammond will pursue her scheme to the very end. And I am powerless to interfere."
He went down to the library with the intention of writing a letter to his father announcing his immediate arrival; but as he entered the room, he saw through the deep bay-window fronting him, which looked down upon the terrace, the cavalcade departing down the avenue. At some considerable distance behind the others rode Sir Charles Mitford and Mrs. Hammond; and he was bending towards her, and talking in an apparently impressive manner.
Laurence shrugged his shoulders and turned away in disgust; but he had not reached the writing-table before he heard a deep sigh, succeeded by a passionate sobbing, and turning quickly round, saw Lady Mitford leaning against the window and half-hidden by the heavy curtains,--her face buried in her hands, her whole frame convulsed with the violence of her grief. Laurence would have retreated from the room, but his footsteps had attracted her attention; and as she looked their eyes met. He at once approached her, saying, "You will believe me when I say that it was quite by chance I entered the room, Lady Mitford,--without the least idea that you were here; but I am glad now that I came, for you are, I fear, very unwell; and--"
"It is nothing," she said, with a strong but ineffectual effort to resume her usual calmness; "it is nothing, indeed, Colonel Alsager; a little silly woman's weakness--nothing more. I am over-tired, I think; we have been up later the last few nights, you know, and I am so totally unused to dissipation even of the mildest kind."
"You will be better when you return to London, perhaps," said Laurence; "I have a strong notion that the marsh on this great Redmoor is anything but a sanitary adjunct to the property. I should really advise your getting back to town as soon as possible, now Parliament has met; and soon everybody will be there."
In London, Laurence thought, Mrs. Hammond will at all events be out of the house, and in other gaiety there might be a chance of Mitford's getting rid of his infatuation.
"Oh, I'm frightened at the very thought of returning to town; and yet, down here, there are--I mean--it's--how very silly of me!--you must excuse me, Colonel Alsager, I am anything but strong;" and poor Georgie's tears began to flow again.
"So I see," said Laurence, in a very gentle tone. She had seated herself in one corner of a low brown morocco-leather couch that stood across the window. Hitherto he had been standing, but he now placed himself at the other end of the sofa.
"I think," said he, bending forward, and speaking in the same low earnest voice,--"I think, dear Lady Mitford, that you will be disposed to give me credit for taking a deep and friendly interest in you."
She looked at him through the tears that still stood in her splendid eyes--a frank, trusting, honest glance; and as he hesitated, she said, "I know it--I have proved it."
"Then, though your sex is taught to believe that mine is thoroughly selfish and heartless,--never moving without some end for its own benefit in view,--you still believe that what I am about to say to you is dictated simply by the hope to serve you, the desire to see you happy?"
She bowed her head, but did not speak this time. Her tears were gone, but there was a painful look of anxiety in her eyes, and the spasmodic motion of the muscles of the mouth betrayed her agitation.
"You are very young," he continued, "and wholly unacquainted with the world. I am certainly past the freshness of youth, and I should think there are not many of my age more thoroughly versed in the world's ways. And one of its ways, dear Lady Mitford, one of its never-failing and most repulsive ways, is to rob life of the glamour with which youth invests it; to lift up a corner of the silken curtain of the fairy temple and show the rough bare boards and wooden trestles behind it; to throw stumbling-blocks in the paths of happiness, and to drag down those now falling to a lower depth; to poison truth's well, to blacken innocence, and to sow distrust and misery broadcast,--these are among the world's ways. To be pure, noble, and beloved, is at once to provoke the world's hatred. Is it any wonder then that some of its emissaries are plotting against you?"
A faint blush overspread her cheeks as she said, "I have done nothing to provoke them."
"Pardon me," said Laurence, "you have offended in the three ways I have just pointed out: there are few who offer such a combination of offences. And the world will have revenge for all. To besmirch your purity, to lower the nobleness of your nature, are tasks which as yet it dare not attempt. But to prevent your being beloved,--by those whose love you have a right to claim,--is apparently, not really, far more easily done."
"It is, indeed," cried poor Georgie, mournfully; "it is, indeed."
"I said apparently, not really," continued Laurence. "To defeat such an attempt as this is the easiest thing in the world, if you only have the savoir faire, and will use the weapons in your armoury. Even in the most purely pastoral times, love in marriage was not all that was requisite for happiness. If Phyllis had done nothing but sit at Corydon's feet and worship him--if she had not been his companion and friend as well as his wife,--now talking to him about the crop in the forty-acre pasture, now telling him of the pigs eating the beech-nuts under that wide-spreading tree where that lazy Tityrus used to lie in the summer; moreover, if Corydon had not had his farm and flock to attend to,--he would at a very early period of their married life have left her solitary, while he sported with Amaryllis in the shade, or played with the tangle of Neaera's hair."
He stopped as he marked her half-puzzled, half-frightened look. "Dear, dear Lady Mitford," he continued, "let me drop parable and mystery, and speak plainly to you. I am going away to-morrow or the next day, and should probably have left with this unsaid; but the accidental sight of your sorrow has emboldened me to speak, and--and you know I would say nothing which you should not hear."
At the last words she seemed reassured, and with a little effort she said, "Speak on, pray, Colonel Alsager; I know I can trust you entirely."
"Thank you," he said, with a very sweet smile; "I am very proud of that belief. Now listen: you married when you were a child, and you have not yet put away childish things. Your notion of married life is a childish romance, and you are childishly beginning to be frightened because a cloud has come over it. In his wife a man wants a companion as well as a plaything, and some one who will amuse as well as worship him. Your husband is essentially a man of this kind; his resources within himself are of the very smallest kind; he cares very little for field-sports, and he conjugates the verb s'ennuyer throughout the entire day. Consequently, and not unnaturally, he becomes readily charmed when any one amuses him and takes him out of himself,--more especially if that some one be pretty and otherwise agreeable. Why should not you be that some one? Why should not you, dropping--pardon me for saying it--a little of the visible worship with which you now regard him,--why should not you be his constant companion, riding with him, making him drive you out, planning schemes for his amusement? If you once do this, and get him to look upon you as his companion as well as his wife, there will be no more cause for tears, Lady Mitford, depend upon it."
"Do you think so?--do you really think so? Oh, I would give anything for that!"
"And get him to London quickly, above all things. You are to have your opera-box, I heard you say; and there is the Park; and in this your first season you will never be allowed to be quiet for an instant."
"Yes; I think you're right. I will ask Charley to go back to town at once. There will be no difficulty, I think. The Charterises are gone; Mrs. Masters and the Tyrrells go to-morrow; and Captain Bligh is going to Scotland to look at some shooting-quarters for Charley in the autumn. There are only--only the Hammonds."
"I really do not think it necessary to take them into account in making your arrangements," said Laurence. "Besides, unless I'm very much mistaken, when Mrs. Hammond finds the house emptying, Mr. Hammond's bronchitis will either be so much better that there will be no harm in his going to town, or so much worse that there will be imperative necessity for his consulting a London physician."
"And now, Colonel Alsager, how can I sufficiently thank you for all this kind advice?" said Georgie hesitatingly.
"By acting up to it, dear Lady Mitford. I hope to hear the best account of your health and spirits."
"To hear! Will you not be in London?"
"Not just at present. I am at last really going to my father's, and shall remain there a few weeks. But I shall hear about you from Bertram, and when I return I shall come and see you."
"There will be no one more welcome," said she, frankly putting out her hand.
Just at that moment the door opened, and Mr. Banks advanced and handed a closed envelope to Alsager, saying, "From the railway, Colonel."
It was a telegraphic message; and as such things were rare in those days, Laurence's heart sunk within him before he broke the envelope. It was from Dr. Galton at Knockholt, and said,
"Lose no time in coming. Sir Peregrine has had a paralytic stroke."
Half an hour afterwards Laurence was in a phaeton spinning to the railway. His thoughts were full of self-reproach at his having hitherto neglected to go to his father; but ever across them came a vision of Georgie Mitford in the passion of her grief. "Ah, poor child," he said to himself, "how lovely she looked, and what a life she has in prospect! I am glad I have left her, for it was beginning to grow desperate--and yet how I long, oh how I long to be at her side again!"