"No one. But surely, Sir, you will not care to keep an insignificant girl like me?"
He did not answer; I continued.
"It would be a great deal better to go with him, than to make him come back and fetch me."
"I'll tell you what," interrupted Mr. Thornton, knitting his black brows and looking irate: "if that Irishman, who sent the little girl to school, and who gives the young girl such queer looks, attempts to carry you off, he'll rue it as long as he lives. I'll teach him," he added, impressively, "the meaning of the word 'abduction.' See 9th of George IV."
"Abduction. Sir," I said, reddening, "means carrying off by force."
"And the law construes fraud into force," coolly answered Mr. Thornton.
"See 9th of George IV."
I was much perturbed by this threat. Mr. Thornton did not appear to see or notice it, and dismissed me with another hint about "Chaos and Creation."
After dinner--our housekeeping was now much improved and, indeed, quite stylish--Mr. Edward Thornton and Mrs. Langton vanished, and I remained with Mrs. Brand, who entertained me, for some time, with the many virtues of her brother. "A most excellent brother he had ever been to her; and since he had come into the Wyndham property, she could say that Poplar Lodge had been as much her home as his--a fact which proved there was nothing like the ties of blood, for Mr. Brand, she was very sorry to say, had not behaved at all delicately; and, satisfied with leaving her a few paltry hundreds a-year, had actually bequeathed to his daughter that delightful Holywell Lodge--a most exquisite place--to which he well knew that she had a particular fancy, not because it was beautiful--she was essentially a person of simple, unsophisticated tastes--but her heart was bound to Holywell. She had spent her honeymoon there, and she was astonished that had not proved a consideration with Mr. Brand." We sat by the window. The trunks of the trees in the park shone warm and red with the light of the setting sun. I wanted to be off, and said carelessly:
"What a delightful walk Mrs. Langton and Mr. Thornton are now having!"
Mrs. Brand started.
"My dear," she said, quickly, "you do not mean--Edith is in her own room surely."
"I saw her and Mr. Thornton disappearing behind that clamp of trees."
"Imprudent!" exclaimed Mrs. Brand, looking fidgetty. "She takes cold so easy. I must really go after her."
She rose, left the room, and hurried off, at once, in the direction I had pointed out. I waited awhile, then slipped out. My way lay exactly opposite to hers. I kept within the shelter of the trees. In a few minutes, I had reached the well; but, to my dismay, I perceived standing by it, and talking quietly together, the objects of Mrs. Brand's search.
They stood with their backs turned to me. I sank down, at once, in the high ferns, which closed over me. I knelt stooping, and every now and then cautiously raised my head to look. They lingered awhile longer, then left. When they were out of sight, I sat up, shaking from my loosened hair the dried fern and withered leaves with which it had got entangled.
Startled by a low sound near me, I looked round quickly. A few paces from me, the ferns began to move, then a man's arm divided them, and, in the opening appeared the handsome and laughing face of Cornelius. He half sat up, leaning on one elbow, and looked at me, smiling.
"Are they gone?" he whispered.
I gave a hasty glance around. The sun had nearly set. In its warm and mellow glow, the park looked silent and lonely. Over all things already brooded the stillness of evening.
"It's all right," I said, jumping up. "Cornelius, you are tall, and could be seen a good distance, so please to be quiet."
"You don't mean to say that I am to remain here on my back?" he asked, indignantly.
"I mean that, if you get up, I shall take flight."
He fumed and fretted, but I was obdurate. On his back I made him lie, and there I kept him. When he became restless, I threatened to leave him. He submitted, muttering, "Absurd--ridiculous!" and, turning away his flushed and vexed face, he would not speak. I knelt down by him, and, smoothing his hair, asked if he did not feel comfortable, and what more he wanted.
At first, I got no answer, but I stroked him into good humour, for, all at once, he snatched my hand, and pressing it tenderly to his lips, informed me he was a savage, and I an angel. I laughed, and said:
"That explains what Mr. Thornton meant by your queer looks. I have always heard that the eye of a savage has something quite peculiar."
"Queer looks!" echoed Cornelius, reddening; "the queerness is in his eyes, Daisy. But let him have his say. I have taken no vow; but I am determined--"
"Cornelius, if you will toss in that extraordinary fashion, I must go."
He groaned, but became once more quiet.
"Since you are so fidgetty," I said, "why did you not come to see me at Thornton House?"
"Why, Daisy," he replied, rolling a stray lock of my hair round his finger, "because I am a burglar, and not a swindler. I may rob a man of his jewel, but I will not cheat him out of it."
"Abduction and 9th George IV," rushed into my head; but I carelessly said:--
"So I am to be stolen property."
He laughed, and did not contradict it.
"But how will you manage?" I asked.
"It is not settled yet?" he replied evasively; "but you shall know all the next time we meet here."
"Then why this meeting of to-day, Cornelius?--why this useless danger?"
"Danger!--there is none for me; and if there were, I would meet and brave it willingly for this sight of your face. Now do not look so like a shy fawn, though it becomes you charmingly. It was quite pretty to watch you hidden in the ferns. Every now and then you raised your fair head like a young Nereid, then dipped it again into that green sea, where I now lie flat like a dead fish; and yet, Daisy, how pleasant it is to be here with you!"
"How do you know this place?"
"I sketched it years ago on one of my visits to your father; little thinking then that the sulky little girl, who would not kiss me, would one day break every tie for my sake."
All doubt that I might not enter into his plans, or that I could refuse to accompany him when the moment came, seemed as if by magic to have left Cornelius. No longer did he, or perhaps could he, anticipate the chance of a refusal. Yet, now, that I saw more clearly to what consequences his scheme might lead, I felt I loved him far too much to consent. But he spoke with so much confidence and hope, that I dreaded undeceiving him. I could rule him in little things; but when his passions were roused--I had tested it in the case of William Murray--he was my master. His vehement feelings swayed me, as a strong wind bows weak reeds before its breath.
If, in the burst of anger and grief that would assuredly follow the announcement of my resolve not to agree to his plans, Cornelius insisted on making me accompany him at once, I knew my own weakness well enough to guess that I could not remain behind. So kneeling by him, and looking down somewhat sadly at his triumphant face, I said nothing, but indulged him in his flights of fancy.
The warm glow of day had not yet left earth; the moon had risen, but her light was pale and indistinct, as it is in the first hours of evening; it shone with a mild and grey radiance over that quiet spot, fell softly on the trees that sheltered it, and just touched the stone arch of the well, whose waters flowed with a low ripple, then spread away vaguely over the wide park, dotted with dark clumps of trees. The evening was unusually mild and balmy. I felt it both soothing and delightful to be alone with Cornelius at this lonely hour, and in this solitary spot; but most saddening to think we no longer owned the shelter of the same roof, and were no longer to live within the holy circle of the same home.
At length, I spoke of going. He detained me as long as he could, and released me with a promise of meeting him there again two days hence. If I could not come, a letter hidden under a stone that lay half buried in the grass, was to tell him so. As we parted, he said, fondly:--
"A few days more, Daisy, and there shall be no more meetings, nor partings either."
I did not dare to reply, but turning abruptly from him, I ran away through the high grass, without once looking behind.
I had not to read or transcribe on the following day, the best part of which I spent with Mrs. Brand. She spoke a good deal of Mr. Thornton, and dropped mysterious hints, wholly lost on my ignorance; but she assured me she was not at all offended with my reserve, which was quite _de bon go?t_, and decidedly English.
I was amused at the idea that I should be accused of reserve for not understanding her sphinx-like mode of speech; I also thought that, for a lady who seemed fond of everything English, a less frequent use of French words, to which her own language offered equivalents, would have been more consistent. But this was one of the little contradictions in which, as I afterwards found, Mrs. Brand indulged. She was very national, but an English dressmaker would have thrown her into fits; English manufactures were irritating to her nerves, and English cooking would have been the death of her. She also once informed me, that but for her dear Edward, her health would compel her to reside on the Continent, in which case, England would, I fear, have been deprived of Mrs. Brand altogether, and the intercourse between them would have been limited to the transmission and receipt of the English "paltry hundreds" which Mr. Brand had bequeathed to his affectionate spouse.
That Mrs. Brand was quite a martyr to sisterly affection, was indeed an indubitable fact, for in the course of the morning, she observed to me: "My dear, people may talk about plantations and negro slavery, and factory girls; but I assure you, that the fashionable world is a wide plantation, and that we, the slaves who work it, are worked to death. I came here for a little peace, and behold, I received I know not how many invitations yesterday, and I must pay I know not how many visits to-day.
Oh! my dear; if it were not for Edward, I would break my chains and fly."
Borne up, however, by the thought of Edward, the slave of the world managed to drag her chain pretty well, and that same afternoon was even equal to the exertion of stepping into her carriage for the purpose of going to work her plantation. Mrs. Langton accompanied her; Edward Thornton remained at home. He had stretched his elegant person in an old- fashioned arm-chair, where he read the newspaper, and looked as politely _ennuy?_ as possible. I sat by the window, looking at the Italian drawings of Cornelius. I had brought them down on the express wish of Mrs. Brand, who, giving them a careless look, had said "how pretty," and thought no more about them. When she left, however, she envied me with a sigh my privilege of being able to stay at home, and congratulated me on my indifference to worldly pleasures. As the door closed on her, Mr.
Edward Thornton laid down his newspaper, to say negligently:
"And so, Miss Burns, you really don't care for the world! What a little hermitess!"
"Do you care about it, Sir?"