Bold loses patience at last, and pokes his cold, wet nose into my hand.
Yes, Bold, it is no use to sit brooding here. "Hie, boy! fetch me my hat." The dog is delighted with his task: away he scampers across the hall--he knows well which hat to choose--and springing at the crape-covered one, brings it to me in his mouth, his fine honest countenance beaming with pride, and his tail waving with delight. We emerge through a glass door into the garden, and insensibly, for the first time since my father's death, we take the direction of Beverley Manor.
This is a dark and sadly-shaded picture; let us turn to one of brighter lights and more variegated colouring. The sun is streaming into a beautiful little breakfast-room opening on a conservatory, with flowers, and a fountain of gold-fish, and all that a conservatory should have.
The room itself is richly papered and ornamented, perhaps a little too profusely, with ivory and gilding. Two or three exquisite landscapes in water-colours adorn the walls; and rose-coloured hangings shed a soft, warm light over the furniture and the inmates. The former is of a light and tasteful description--low, soft-cushioned _fauteuils_, thin cane chairs, bright-coloured ottomans and footstools, Bohemian glass vases filled with flowers--everything gay, vivid, and luxurious; a good fire burning cheerfully on the hearth, and a breakfast-table, with its snowy cloth and bright silver belongings, give an air of homely comfort to the scene. The latter consists of four persons, who have met together at the morning meal every day now for several weeks. Constance Beverley sits at the head of the table making tea; Ropsley and Sir Harry, dressed in wondrous shooting apparel, are busily engaged with their breakfast; and Miss Minim is relating to the world in general her sufferings from rheumatism and neuralgia, to which touching narrative nobody seems to think it necessary to pay much attention. Ropsley breaks in abruptly by asking Miss Beverley for another cup of tea. He treats her with studied politeness, but never takes his cold grey eye off her countenance. The girl feels that he is watching her, and it makes her shy and uncomfortable.
"Any news, Ropsley?" says Sir Harry, observing the pile of letters at his friend's elbow; "no _officials_, I hope, to send you back to London."
"None as yet, thank Heaven, Sir Harry," replies his friend; "and not much in the papers. We shall have war, I think."
"Oh, don't say so, Mr. Ropsley," observes Constance, with an anxious look. "I trust we shall never see anything so horrid again."
Miss Minim remarks that "occasional wars are beneficial, nay, necessary for the welfare of the human race," illustrating her position by the familiar metaphor of thunderstorms, etc.; but Ropsley, who has quite the upper hand of Miss Minim, breaks in upon her ruthlessly, as he observes, "The funds gone down a fraction, Sir Harry, I see. I think one ought to sell. By-the-bye, I've a capital letter from De Rohan, at Paris. You would like to hear what he is about, Miss Beverley, I am sure."
Constance winced and coloured. It was Ropsley's game to assert a sort of matter-of-course _tendresse_ on her part for my Hungarian friend, which he insisted on so gradually, but yet so successfully, as to give him the power of making her uneasy at the mention of "De Rohan's" name.
He wished to establish an influence over her, and this was the only manner in which he could do so; but Ropsley was a man who only asked to insert the point of the wedge, he could trust himself to do the rest.
Yet, with all his knowledge of human nature, he made this one great mistake, he judged of women by the other half of mankind; so he looked pointedly at Constance as he added, "I'll read you what he says, or, perhaps, Miss Beverley, you would like to see his letter?"
He had now driven her a little too far, and she turned round upon him.
"Really, Mr. Ropsley, I don't wish to interfere with your correspondence. I hate to read other people's letters; and Count de Rohan has become such a stranger now that I have almost forgotten him."
She was angry with herself immediately she had spoken. It seemed so like the remark of a person who was piqued. Ropsley would be more than ever convinced now that she cared for him. Sir Harry, too, looked up from his plate, apparently at his daughter's unusual vehemence. The girl bit her lips, and wished she had held her tongue. Ropsley saw he had marked up another point in the game.
"Very true," said he, with his quiet, well-bred smile: "old playfellows and old school-days cannot be expected to last all one's life. However, Victor does not forget us. He seems to be very gay, though, and rather dissipated, at Paris; knows all the world and goes everywhere; ran a horse last week at Chantilly. You know Chantilly, Sir Harry."
The Baronet's face brightened. He had won a cup, given by Louis Philippe, from all the foreigners there on one occasion, and he liked to be reminded of it.
"Know it," said he, "I should think I do. Why, I trained Flibbertigibbet in the park here myself--I and the old coachman. We never sent him to my own trainer at Newmarket, but took him over ourselves, and beat them all. That was the cup you saw in the centre of the dinner-table yesterday. The two-year-old we tried at Lansdowne was his grandson. Ah! Ropsley, I wish I had taken your advice about him."
Ropsley was, step by step, obtaining great influence over Sir Harry. He returned to the subject of old friendships.
"By-the-bye, Miss Beverley, have you heard anything of poor Egerton? I fear his father's death will be a sad blow to him. I tremble for the consequences."
And here he touched his forehead, with a significant look at Sir Harry.
Constance was a true woman. She was always ready too vigorously to defend an absent friend, but she was no match for her antagonist; she could not keep cool.
"What do you mean?" said she, angrily. "Why should you tremble, as you call it, for Vere?"
Ropsley put on his most provoking air, as he answered, with a sort of playful mock deference--
"I beg your pardon, Miss Beverley, I am continually affronting you, this unlucky morning. First, I bore you about De Rohan, thinking you _do_ care for your old friends; then I make you angry with me about Egerton, believing you _don't_. After all, I said no harm about him; nothing more than we all know perfectly well. He always was eccentric as a boy--he is more so than ever, I think, now; and I only meant that I feared any sudden shock or violent affliction might upset his nervous system, and, in short--may I ask you for a little more cream?--end in total derangement. The fact is," he added, _sotto voce_, to Sir Harry, "he is as mad as Bedlam now."
He saw the girl's lip quiver, and her hand shake as she gave him his cup; but he kept his cold grey eye fastened on her. He seemed to read her most secret thoughts, and she feared him now--actually feared him.
Well, it was always something gained. He proceeded good-humouredly--
"Do we shoot on the island to-day, Sir Harry?" he asked of his host.
"Perhaps Miss Beverley will come over to our luncheon in her boat. How pretty you have made that island, Sir Harry; and what a place for ducks about sundown!"
The island was a pet toy of Sir Harry's; he was pleased, as usual, with his friend's good taste.
"Yes, come over to luncheon, Constance," said he. "You can manage the boat quite well that short way."
"No, thank you, papa," answered Constance, with a glance at Ropsley; "the boat is out of repair, and I had rather not run the risk of an upset."
"You used to be so fond of boating, Miss Beverley," observed Ropsley, with his scarcely perceptible sneer. "You and Egerton used to be always on the water. Perhaps you don't like it without a companion; pray don't think of coming on our account. I quite agree with you, it makes all the difference in a water-party."
Constance began to talk very fast to her father.
"I'll come, papa, after all, I think," said she; "it is such a beautiful day! and the boat will do very well, I dare say--and I'm so fond of the water, papa; and--and I'll go and put my bonnet on now. I've got two or three things to do in the garden before I start."
So she hurried from the room, but not till Ropsley had presented her with a sprig of geranium he had gathered in the conservatory, and thanked her in a sort of mock-heroic speech for her kindness in so readily acceding to his wishes.
Would he have been pleased or not, could he have seen her in the privacy of her own apartment, which she had no sooner reached than she dashed his gift upon the floor, stamping on it with her little foot as though she would crush it into atoms, while her bosom heaved, and her dark eyes filled with tears, shed she scarce knew why? She had a vague consciousness of humiliation, and an undefined feeling of alarm that she could not have accounted for even to herself, but which was very uncomfortable notwithstanding.
The gentlemen put on their belts and shooting apparatus; and Ropsley, with the sneer deepening on his well-cut features, whispered to himself, "_Pour le coup, papillon, je te tiens_."
Bold and I strolled leisurely along: the dog indulging in his usual vagaries on the way; his master brooding and thoughtful, reflecting on the many happy times he had trod the same pathway when he was yet in ignorance of the fatal secret, and how it was all over now. My life was henceforth to be a blank. I began to speculate, as I had never speculated before, on the objects and aims of existence. What had I done, I thought, that I should be doomed to be _so_ miserable?--that I should have neither home nor relatives nor friends?--that, like the poor man whose rich neighbour had flocks and herds and vineyards, I should have but my one pet lamb, and even that should be taken away from me?
Then I thought of my father's career--how I had been used to look up to him as the impersonation of all that was admirable and enviable in man.
With his personal beauty and his princely air and his popularity and talent, I used to think my father must be perfectly happy. And now to find that he too had been living with a worm at his heart! But then he had done wrong, and he suffered rightly, as he himself confessed, for the sins of his youth. And I tried to think myself unjustly treated; for of what crimes had I been guilty, that I should suffer too? My short life had been blameless, orderly, and dutiful. Little evil had I done; but even then my conscience whispered--Much good had I left undone. I had lived for myself and my own affections; I had not trained my mind for a career of usefulness to my fellow-men. It is not enough that a human being should abstain from gross, palpable evil; he must follow actual good. It is better to go down into the market, and run your chance of the dirt that shall soil it, and the hands it shall pass through, in making your one talent ten talents, than to hide it up in a napkin, and stand aloof from your fellow-creatures, even though it should give you cause, like the Pharisee, to "thank God that you are not as other men are."
"Steady, Bold! Heel, good dog, heel! You hear them shooting, I know, and you would like well to join the sport. Bang! bang! there they go again. It is Sir Harry and his guest at their favourite amusement. We will stay here, old dog, and perhaps we may see her once more, if only at a distance, and we shall not have had our walk for nothing." So Bold and I crouched quietly down amongst the tall fern, on a knoll in the park from whence we could see the Manor House and the mere, and Constance's favourite walk in the shrubbery which I had paced with her so often and so happily in days that seemed now to have belonged to another life.
They were having capital sport in the island; it was a favourite preserve of Sir Harry; and although artificially stocked with pheasants--as indeed what coverts are not, for that most artificial of all field-sports which we call a _battue_?--it had this advantage, that the game could not possibly stray from its own feeding-place and home.
Moreover, as the fine-plumaged old cocks went whirring up out of the copse, there was a great art in knocking them over before they were fairly on the wing, so that the dead birds might not fall into the water, but be picked up on _terra firma_, dry, and in good order to be put into the bag. Many a time had I stood in the middle ride, and brought them down right and left, to the admiration of my old acquaintance, Mr. Barrells, and the applause of Sir Harry. Many a happy day had I spent there, in the enjoyment of scenery, air, exercise, and sport (not that I cared much for the latter); but, above all, with the prospect of Constance Beverley bringing us our luncheon, or, at the worst, the certainty of seeing her on our return to the Manor House.
How my heart ached to think it was all gone and past now!
I watched the smoke from the sportsmen's guns as it curled up into the peaceful autumn sky. I heard the cheery voices of the beaters, and the tap of their sticks in the copse; but I could not see a soul, and was myself completely unseen. I felt I was looking on what had so long been my paradise for the last time, and I lost the consciousness of my own identity in the dreamy abstraction with which I regarded all around. It seemed to me as if another had gone through the experiences of my past life, or rather as if I was no longer Vere Egerton, but one who had known him and pitied him, and would take some little interest in him for the future, but would probably see very little of him again. I know not whether other men experience such strange fancies, or whether it is but the natural effect of continued sorrow, which stuns the mental sense, even as continued pain numbs that of the body; but I have often felt myself retracing my own past or speculating on my own future, almost with the indifference of an uninterested spectator. Something soon recalled me to myself. Bold had the eye of a hawk, but I saw her before Bold did; long ere my dog erected his silken ears and stopped his panting breath, my beating heart and throbbing pulses made me feel too keenly that I was Vere Egerton again.
She seemed to walk more slowly than she used; the step was not so light; the head no longer carried so erect, so naughtily; she had lost the deer-like motion I admired so fondly; but oh! how much better I loved to see her like this. I watched as a man watches all he loves for the _last_ time. I strove, so to speak, to print her image on my brain, there to be carried a life-long photograph. She walked slowly down towards the mere, her head drooping, her hands clasped before her, apparently deep, deep in her own thoughts. I would have given all I had in the world could I but have known what those thoughts were. She stopped at the very place where once before she had caressed Bold; she gathered a morsel of fern and placed it in her bosom; then she walked on faster, like one who wakes from a train of profound and not altogether happy reflections.
Meanwhile I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my dog. Good, faithful Bold was all anxiety to scour off at first sight of her, and greet his old friend. He whined piteously when I forbade him. I thought she must have heard him; but no, she walked quietly on towards the water, loosed her little skiff from its moorings, got into it, and pushed off on the smooth surface of the mere.
She spread the tiny sail, and the boat rippled its way slowly through the water. The little skiff was a favourite toy of Constance, and I had taught her to manage it very dexterously. At the most it would hold but two people; and many an hour of ecstasy had I passed on the mere in "The Queen Mab," as we sportively named it, drinking in every look and tone of my idolised companion: poison was in the draught, I knew it well, and yet I drank it to the dregs. Now I watched till my eyes watered, for I should never steer "The Queen Mab" again.
A shout from the shore of the island diverted my attention. Sir Harry had evidently espied her, and was welcoming his daughter. I made out his figure, and that of Barrells, at the water's edge; whilst the report of a gun, and a thin column of white smoke curling upwards from the copse, betokened the presence of Ropsley among the beaters in the covert. When I glanced again at "The Queen Mab," it struck me she had made but little way, though her gossamer-looking sail was filled by the light breeze. She could not now be more than a hundred and fifty yards from her moorings, whilst I was myself perhaps twice that distance from the brink of the mere. Constance rises from her seat, and waves her hand above her head. Is that her voice? Bold hears it too, and starts up to listen. The white sail leans over. God in heaven! it is down! Vivid like lightning the ghastly truth flashes through my brain; the boat is waterlogged--she is sinking--my heart's darling will be drowned in my very sight; it is ecstasy to think I can die with her, if I cannot save her!
"Bold! Bold! Hie, boy; go fetch her; hie, boy; hie!"
The dog is already at the water-side; with his glorious, God-given instinct he has understood it all. I hear the splash as he dashes in; I see the circles thrown behind him as he swims; whilst I am straining every nerve to reach the water's edge. What a long three hundred yards it is! A lifetime passes before me as I speed along. I have even leisure to think of poor Ophelia and her glorious Dane. As I run I fling away coat, waistcoat, watch, and handkerchief. I see a white dress by the side of the white sail. My gallant dog is nearing it even now. The next instant I am overhead in the mere; and as I rise to the surface, shaking the water from my lips and hair, I feel, through all my fear and all my suspense, something akin to triumph in the long, vigorous strokes that are shooting me onwards to my goal. Mute and earnest I thank God for my personal strength, never appreciated till this day; for my hardy education, and my father's swimming lessons in the sluggish, far-away Theiss; for my gallant, faithful dog, who has reached her even now.
"Hold on, Bold! her dress is floating her still. Hold on, good dog.
Another ten seconds, and she is saved!"
Once I thought we were gone. My strength was exhausted. I had reached the bank with my rescued love. Her pale face was close to mine; her long, wet hair across my mouth; she was conscious still, she never lost her senses or her courage. Once she whispered, "Bless you, my brave Vere." But the bank was steep, and the water out of our depth to the very edge. A root I caught at gave way. My overtaxed muscles refused to second me. It was hard to fail at the last. I could have saved myself had I abandoned my hold. It was delicious to know this, and then to wind my arm tighter round her waist, and to think we should sleep together for ever down there; but honest Bold grasped her once more in those vigorous jaws--she bore the marks of his teeth on her white neck for many a day. The relief thus afforded enabled me to make one desperate effort, and we were saved.