Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Lionel Verner had remained in Paris six months, when summoned thither by the accident to his brother. The accident need not have detained him half that period of time; but the seductions of the gay French capital had charms for Lionel. From the very hour that he set foot in Verner’s Pride on his return, he found that Mr. Verner’s behaviour had altered to him. He showed bitter, angry estrangement, and Lionel could only conceive one cause for it — his long sojourn abroad. Fifteen or sixteen months had now elapsed since his return, and the estrangement had not lessened. In vain Lionel sought an explanation. Mr. Verner would not enter upon it. In fact, so far as direct words went, Mr. Verner had not expressed much of his displeasure; he left it to his manner. That said enough. He had never dropped the slightest allusion as to its cause. When Lionel asked an explanation, he neither accorded nor denied it, but would put him off evasively; as he might have put off a child who asked a troublesome question. You have now seen him do so once again.

  After the rebuff, Lionel was crossing the hall when he suddenly halted, as if a thought struck him, and he turned back to the study. If ever a man’s attitude bespoke utter grief and prostration, Mr. Verner’s did, as Lionel opened the door. His head and hands had fallen, and his stick had dropped upon the carpet. He started out of his reverie at the appearance of Lionel, and made an effort to recover his stick. Lionel hastened to pick it up for him.

  “I have been thinking, sir, that it might be well for Decima to go in the carriage to the station, to receive Miss Tempest. Shall I order it?”

  “Order anything you like; order all Verner’s Pride — what does it matter? Better for some of us, perhaps, that it had never existed.”

  Hastily, abruptly, carelessly was the answer given. There was no mistaking that Mr. Verner was nearly beside himself with mental pain.

  Lionel went round to the stables, to give the order he had suggested. One great feature in the character of Lionel Verner was its complete absence of assumption. Courteously refined in mind and feelings, he could not have presumed. Others, in his position, might have deemed they were but exercising a right. Though the presumptive heir to Verner’s Pride, living in it, brought up as such, he would not, you see, even send out its master’s unused carriage, without that master’s sanction. In little things as in great, Lionel Verner could but be a thorough gentleman: to be otherwise he must have changed his nature.

  “Wigham, will you take the close carriage to Deerham Court. It is wanted for Miss Verner.”

  “Very well, sir.” But Wigham, who had been coachman in the family nearly as many years as Lionel had been in the world, wondered much, for all his prompt reply. He scarcely ever remembered a Verner’s Pride carriage to have been ordered for Miss Verner.

  Lionel passed into the high road from Verner’s Pride, and, turning to the left, commenced his walk to Deerham. There were no roadside houses for a little way, but they soon began, by ones, by twos, until at last they grew into a consecutive street. These houses were mostly very poor; small shops, beer-houses, labourers’ cottages; but a turning to the right in the midst of the village led to a part where the houses were of a superior character, several gentlemen living there. It was a new road, called Belvedere Road; the first house in it being inhabited by Dr. West.

  Lionel cast a glance across at that house as he passed down the long street. At least, as much as he could see of it, looking obliquely. His glance was not rewarded. Very frequently pretty Sibylla would be at the windows, or her vain sister Amilly. Though, if vanity is to be brought in, I don’t know where it would be found in an equal degree, as it was in Sibylla West. The windows appeared to be untenanted, and Lionel withdrew his eyes and passed straightly on his way. On his left hand was situated the shop of Mrs. Duff; its prints, its silk neckerchiefs, and its ribbons displayed in three parts of its bow-window. The fourth part was devoted to more ignominious articles, huddled indiscriminately into a corner. Children’s Dutch dolls and black-lead, penny tale-books and square pink packets of cocoa, bottles of ink and india-rubber balls, side combs and papers of stationery, scented soap and Circassian cream (home made), tape, needles, pins, starch, bandoline, lavender-water, baking-powder, iron skewers, and a host of other articles too numerous to notice. Nothing came amiss to Mrs. Duff. She patronised everything she thought she could turn a penny by.

  “Your servant, sir,” said she, dropping a curtsy as Lionel came up; for Mrs. Duff was standing at the door.

  He merely nodded to her, and went on. Whether it was the sight of the woman or of some lavender prints hanging in her window, certain it was, that the image of poor Rachel Frost came vividly into the mind of Lionel. Nothing had been heard, nothing found, to clear up the mystery of that past night.

  CHAPTER X.

  LADY VERNER.

  At the extremity of the village, lying a little back from it, was a moderate-sized, red brick house, standing in the midst of lands, and called Deerham Court. It had once been an extensive farm; but the present tenant, Lionel’s mother, rented the house, but only very little of the land. The land was let to a neighbouring farmer. Nearly a mile beyond — you could see its towers and its chimneys from the Court — rose the stately old mansion, called Deerham Hall, Deerham Court, and a great deal of the land and property on that side of the village, belonged to Sir Rufus Hautley, a proud, unsociable man. He lived at the Hall; and his only son, between whom and himself it was conjectured there existed some estrangement, had purchased into an Indian regiment, where he was now serving.

  Lionel Verner passed the village, branched off to the right, and entered the great iron gates which enclosed the courtyard of Deerham Court. A very unpretending entrance admitted him into a spacious hall, the hall being the largest and best part of the house. Those great iron gates and the hall would have done honour to a large mansion; and they gave an appearance of pretension to Deerham Court which it did not deserve.

  Lionel opened a door on the left, and entered a small ante-room. This led him into the only really good room the house contained. It was elegantly furnished and fitted up, and its two large windows looked towards the open country, and to Deerham Hall. Seated by the fire, in a rich violet dress, a costly white lace cap shading her delicate face, that must have been so beautiful, indeed, that was beautiful still, was a lady of middle age. Her seat was low — one of those chairs we are pleased to call, commonly and irreverently, a prie-dieu. Its back was carved in arabesque foliage, and its seat was of rich violet velvet. On a small inlaid table, whose carvings were as beautiful, and its top inlaid with mosaic-work, lay a dainty handkerchief of lace, a bottle of smelling-salts, and a book turned with its face downwards, all close at the lady’s elbow. She was sitting in idleness just then — she always did sit in idleness — her face bent on the fire, her small hands, cased in white gloves, lying motionless on her lap — ay, a beautiful face once, though it had grown habitually peevish and discontented now. She turned her head when the door opened, and a flush of bloom rose to her cheeks when she saw Lionel.

  He went up and kissed her. He loved her much. She loved him, too, better than she loved anything in life; and she drew a chair close to her, and he sat down, bending towards her. There was not much likeness between them, the mother and the son; both were very good-looking, but not alike.

  “You see, mother mine, I am not late, as you prophesied I should be,” said he, with one of his sweetest smiles.

  “You would have been, Lionel, but for my warning. I’m sure I wish — I wish she was not coming! She must remember the old days in India, and will perceive the difference.”

  “She will scarcely remember India, when you were there. She is only a child yet, isn’t she?”

  “You know nothing about it, Lionel,” was the querulous answer. “Whether she remembers or not, will she expect to see me in such a house, in such a position as this? It is at these seasons, when people are coming here, who know what I have been and ought to be, that I feel all the humiliation of my poverty. Lucy Tempest is nineteen.”
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  Lionel Verner knew that it was of no use to argue with his mother, when she began upon that most unsatisfactory topic, her position; which included what she called her “poverty” and her “wrongs.” Though, in truth, not a day passed but she broke out upon it.

  “Lionel,” she suddenly said.

  He had been glancing over the pages of the book — a new work on India. He laid it down as he had found it, and turned to her.

  “What shall you allow me when you come into Verner’s Pride?”

  “Whatever you shall wish, mother. You shall name the sum, not I. And if you name too modest a one,” he added laughingly, “I shall double it. But Verner’s Pride must be your home then, as well as mine.”

  “Never!” was the emphatic answer. “What! to be turned out of it again by the advent of a young wife? No, never, Lionel.”

  Lionel laughed — constrainedly this time.

  “I may not be bringing home a young wife for this many and many a year to come.”

  “If you never brought one, I would not make my home at Verner’s Pride,” she resumed, in the same impulsive voice. “Live in the house by favour, that ought to have been mine by right? You would not be my true son to ask me, Lionel. Catherine, is that you?” she called out, as the movements of some one were heard in the ante-room.

  A woman-servant put in her head.

  “My lady?”

  “Tell Miss Verner that Mr. Lionel is here?”

  “Miss Verner knows it, my lady,” was the woman’s reply. “She bade me ask you, sir,” addressing Lionel, “if you’d please to step out to her.”

  “Is she getting ready, Catherine?” asked Lady Verner.

  “I think not, my lady.”

  “Go to her, Lionel, and ask her if she knows the time. A pretty thing if you arrive at the station after the train is in!”

  Lionel quitted the room. Outside in the hall stood Catherine, waiting for him.

  “Miss Verner has met with a little accident and hurt her foot, sir,” she whispered. “She can’t walk.”

  “Not walk!” exclaimed Lionel. “Where is she?”

  “She is in the store-room, sir; where it happened.”

  Lionel went to the store-room, a small boarded room at the back of the hall. A young lady sat there; a very pretty white foot in a wash-hand basin of warm water, and a shoe and stocking lying; near, as if hastily thrown off.

  “Why, Decima! what is this?”

  She lifted her face. A face whose features were of the highest order of beauty, regular as if chiselled from marble, and little less colourless. But for the large, earnest, dark-blue eyes, so full of expression, it might have been accused of coldness. In sleep, or in perfect repose, when the eyelids were bent, it looked strangely cold and pure. Her dark hair was braided; and she wore a dress something the same in colour as Lady Verner’s.

  “Lionel, what shall I do? And to-day of all days! I shall be obliged to tell mamma; I cannot walk a step.”

  “What is the injury? How did you meet with it?”

  “I got on a chair. I was looking for some old Indian ornaments that I know are in that high cupboard, wishing to put them in Miss Tempest’s room, and somehow the chair tilted with me, and I fell upon my foot. It is only a sprain; but I cannot walk.”

  “How do you know it is only a sprain, Decima? I shall send West to you.”

  “Thank you all the same, Lionel, but, if you please, I don’t like Dr. West well enough to have him,” was Miss Verner’s answer. “See! I don’t think I can walk.”

  She took her foot out of the basin, and attempted to try. But for Lionel she would have fallen; and her naturally pale face became paler from the pain.

  “And you say you will not have Dr. West!” he cried, gently putting her into the chair again. “You must allow me to judge for you, Decima.”

  “Then, Lionel, I’ll have Jan — if I must have any one. I have more faith in him,” she added, lifting her large blue eyes, “than in Dr. West.”

  “Let it be Jan, then, Decima. Send one of the servants for him at once. What is to be done about Miss Tempest?”

  “You must go alone. Unless you can persuade mamma out. Lionel, you will tell mamma about this. She must be told.”

  As Lionel crossed the hall on his return, the door was being opened; the Verner’s Pride carriage had just driven up. Lady Verner had seen it from the window of the ante-room, and her eyes spoke her displeasure.

  “Lionel, what brings that here?”

  “I told them to bring it for Decima. I thought you would prefer that Miss Tempest should be met with that rather than with a hired one.”

  “Miss Tempest will know soon enough that I am too poor to keep a carriage,” said Lady Verner. “Decima may use it if she pleases. I would not.”

  “My dear mother, Decima will not be able to use it. She cannot go to the station. She has hurt her foot.”

  “How did she do that?”

  “She was on a chair in the store-room, looking in the cupboard. She—”

  “Of course; that’s just like Decima!” crossly responded Lady Verner. “She is everlastingly at something or other, doing half the work of a servant about the house.”

  Lionel made no reply. He knew that, but for Decima, the house would be less comfortable than it was for Lady Verner; and that what Decima did, she did in love.

  “Will you go to the station?” he inquired.

  “I! In this cold wind! How can you ask me, Lionel? I should get my face chapped irretrievably. If Decima cannot go, you must go alone.”

  “But how shall I know Miss Tempest?”

  “You must find her out,” said Lady Verner. “Her mother was as tall as a giantess; perhaps she is the same. Is Decima much hurt?”

  “She thinks it is only a sprain. We have sent for Jan.”

  “For Jan! Much good he will do!” returned Lady Verner, in so contemptuous a tone as to prove she had no very exalted opinion of Mr. “Jan’s” abilities.

  Lionel went out to the carriage, and stepped in. The footman did not shut the door. “And Miss Verner, sir?”

  “Miss Verner is not coming. The railway station. Tell Wigham to drive fast, or I shall be late.”

  “My lady wouldn’t let Miss Decima come out in it,” thought Wigham to himself, as he drove on.

  CHAPTER XI.

  LUCY TEMPEST.

  The words of my lady, “as tall as a giantess,” unconsciously influenced the imagination of Lionel Verner. The train was steaming into the station at one end as his carriage stopped at the other. Lionel leaped from it, and mingled with the bustle of the platform.

  Not very much bustle, either; and it would have been less, but that Deerham Station was the nearest approach, as yet, by rail, to Heartburg, a town of some note about four miles distant. Not a single tall lady got out of the train. Not a lady at all that Lionel could see. There were two fat women, tearing about after their luggage, both habited in men’s drab greatcoats, or what looked like them; and there was one very young lady, who stood back in apparent perplexity, gazing at the scene of confusion around her.

  “She cannot be Miss Tempest,” deliberated Lionel. “If she is, my mother must have mistaken her age; she looks but a child. No harm in asking her, at any rate.”

  He went up to the young lady. A very pleasant-looking girl, fair, with a peach bloom upon her cheeks, dark brown hair and eyes, soft and brown and luminous. Those eyes were wandering to all parts of the platform, some anxiety in their expression.

  Lionel raised his hat.

  “I beg your pardon. Have I the honour of addressing Miss Tempest?”

  “Oh, yes, that is my name,” she answered, looking up at him, the peach bloom deepening to a glow of satisfaction, and the soft eyes lighting with a glad smile. “Have you come to meet me?”

  “I have. I come from my mother, Lady Verner.”

  “I am so glad,” she rejoined, with a frank sincerity of manner perfectly refreshing in these modern days of artificial young ladyism. �
��I was beginning to think nobody had come; and then what could I have done?”

  “My sister would have come with me to receive you, but for an accident which occurred to her just before it was time to start. Have you any luggage?”

  “There’s the great box I brought from India, and a hair-trunk, and my school-box. It is all in the van.”

  “Allow me to take you out of this crowd, and it shall be seen to,” said Lionel, bending to offer his arm.

  She took it, and turned with him; but stopped ere more than a step or two had been taken.

  “We are going wrong. The luggage is up that way.”

  “I am taking you to the carriage. The luggage will be all right.”

  He was placing her in it, when she suddenly drew back and surveyed it.

  “What a pretty carriage!” she exclaimed.

  Many said the same of the Verner’s Pride equipages. The colour of the panels was of that rich shade of blue called ultra-marine, with white linings and hammer-cloths, while a good deal of silver shone on the harness of the horses. The servants’ livery was white and silver, their small-clothes blue.

  Lionel handed her in.

  “Have we far to go?” she asked.

  “Not five minutes’ drive.”

  He closed the door, gave the footman directions about the luggage, took his own seat by the coachman, and the carriage started. Lady Verner came to the door of the Court to receive Miss Tempest.

  In the old Indian days of Lady Verner, she and Sir Lionel had been close and intimate friends of Colonel and Mrs. Tempest. Subsequently Mrs. Tempest had died, and their only daughter had been sent to a clergyman’s family in England for her education — a very superior place, where six pupils only were taken. But she was of an age to leave it now, and Colonel Tempest, who contemplated soon being home, had craved of Lady Verner to receive her in the interim.

  “Lionel,” said his mother to him, “you must stop here for the rest of the day, and help to entertain her.”