"Superstition!" she repeated in an awed voice that gave him his cue, and he went on-"Oh yes, a lady has been even known to come and shake hands with the other party after he had been hanged to give back her troth, lest he should haunt her."
"Allen isn't hanged," said Elvira, half frightened, half cross. "Why doesn't he come himself?"
"Shall he? " said Jock.
"My dear child, I've been running madly up and down for you!" cried Lady Flora, suddenly descending on them, and carrying off her charge with a cursory nod to the Guardsman, marking the difference between a detrimental and even the third son of a millionaire.
He saw Elvira no more that night, and the next post carried a note to Belforest.
31st May.
DEAR ALLEN-I don't know whether you will thank me, but I tried to get a something definite out of your tricksy Elf, and the chief result, so far as I can understand the elfish tongue, is, that she sought no change, and the final sentence was, 'Why doesn't he come himself?' I believe it is her honest wish to go on, when she is left to her proper senses; but that is seldom. You must take this for what it is worth from the buffoon, J. L. B.
Allen came full of hope, and called the next morning. Miss Menella was out riding. He got a card for a party where she was sure to be present, and watched the door, only to see her going away on the arm of Lord Clanmacnalty to some other entertainment. He went to Mr. Folliott's door, armed with a note, and heard that Lady Flora and Miss Menella were gone out of town for a few days. So it went on, and he turned upon Jock with indignation at having been summoned to be thus deluded. The undignified position added venom to the smart of the disregarded affection and the suspense as to the future, and Jock had much to endure after every disappointment, though Allen clung to him rather than to any one else because of his impression that Elvira's real preference was unchanged (such as it was), and that these failures were rather due to her friend than to herself.
This became more clear through Mrs. Evelyn. Her family had connections in common with the Dowager Lady Clanmacnalty, and the two ladies met at the house of their relation. Listening in the way of duty to the old Scottish Countess's profuse communications, she heard what explained a good deal.
Did she know the Spanish girl who was with Flora-a handsome creature and a great heiress? Oh yes; she had presented her. Strange affair! Flora understood that there was a deep plot for appropriating the young lady and her fortune.
"She had been engaged to Mr. Brownlow long before claims were known," began Mrs. Evelyn.
"Oh yes! It was very ingeniously arranged, only the discovery was made too soon. I have it on the best authority. When the girl came to stay with Flora, her aunt asked for an interview-such a nice sensible woman-so completely understanding her position. She said it was such a distress to her not to be qualified to take her niece into society, yet she could not take her home, living so near, to be harassed by this young man's pursuit."
"I saw Mrs. Gould myself," said Mrs. Evelyn. "I cannot say I was favourably impressed."
"Oh, we all know she is not a lady; never professes it poor thing. She is quite aware that her niece must move in a different sphere, and all she wants is to have her guarded from that young Brownlow. He follows them everywhere. It is quite the business of Flora's life to avoid him."
"Perhaps you don't know that Mrs. Brownlow took that girl out of a farmhouse, and treated her like a daughter, merely because they were second or third cousins. The engagement to Allen Brownlow was made when the fortune was entirely on his side."
"Precaution or conscience, eh?" said the old lady, laughing. "By the by, you were intimate with Mrs. Brownlow abroad. How fortunate for you that nothing took place while they had such expectations! Of no family, I hear, of quite low extraction. A parish doctor he was, wasn't he?"
"A distinguished surgeon."
"And _she_ came out of some asylum or foundling hospital?"
"Only the home for officers' daughters," said Mrs. Evelyn, not able to help laughing. "Her father, Captain Allen, was in the same regiment with Colonel Brownlow, her husband's brother. I assure you the Menellas and Goulds have no reason to boast."
"A noble Spanish family," said the dowager. "One can see it every gesture of the child."
It was plain that the old lady intended Mr. Barnes's hoards to repair the ravages of dissipation on the never very productive estates of Clanmacnalty, and that while Elvira continued in Lady Flora's custody, there was little chance of a meeting between her and Allen. The girl seemed to be submitting passively, and no doubt her new friends could employ tact and flattery enough to avoid exciting her perverseness. No doubt she had been harassed by Allen's exaction of response to his ardent affection, and wearied of his monopoly of her. Maiden coyness and love of liberty might make her as willing to elude his approach as her friends could wish.
Once only, at a garden party, did he touch the tips of her fingers, but no more. She never met his eye, but threw herself into eager flirtation with the men he most disliked, while the lovely carnation was mounting in her cheek, and betraying unusual excitement. It became known that she was going early in July into the country with some gay people who were going to give a series of fetes on some public occasion, and then that she was to go with Lady Clanmacnalty and her unmarried daughter to Scotland, to help them entertain the grouse-shoot-party.
Allen's stay in London was clearly of no further use, as Jock perceived with a sensation of relief, for all his pity could not hinder him from being bored with Allen's continual dejection, and his sighs over each unsuccessful pursuit. He was heartily tired of the part of confidant, which was the more severe, because, whenever Allen had a fit of shame at his own undignified position, he vented it in reproaches to Jock for having called him up to London; and yet as long as there was a chance of seeing Elvira, he could not tear himself away, was wild to get invitations to meet her, and lived at his club in the old style and expense.
Bobus was brief with Allen, and ironical on Jock's folly in having given the summons. For his own part he was much engrossed with his appointment, going backwards and forwards between Oxford and London, with little time for the concerns of any one else; but the evening after this unfortunate garden party, when Jock had accompanied his eldest brother back to his rooms, and was endeavouring, by the help of a pipe, to endure the reiteration of mournful vituperations of destiny in the shape of Lady Flora and Mrs. Gould, the door suddenly opened and Bobus stood before them with his peculiarly brisk, self- satisfied air, in itself an aggravation to any one out of spirits.
"All right," he said, "I didn't expect to find you in, but I thought I would leave a note for the chance. I've heard of the very identical thing to suit you, Ali, my boy."
"Indeed," said Allen, not prepared with gratitude for his younger brother's patronage.
"I met Bulstrode at Balliol last night, and he asked if I knew of any one (a perfect gentleman he must be, that matters more than scholarship) who would take a tutorship in a Hungarian count's family. Two little boys, who live like princes, tutor the same, salary anything you like to ask. It is somewhere in the mountains, a feudal castle, with capital sport."
"Wolves and bears," cried Jock, starting up with his old boyish animation. "If I wasn't going pig-sticking in India, what wouldn't I give for such a chance. The tutor will teach the young ideas how to shoot, of course."
"Of course," said Bobus. "The Count is a diplomate, and there's not a bad chance of making oneself useful, and getting on in that line. I should have jumped at it, if I hadn't got the Japs on my hands."
"Yes, you," said Allen languidly.
"Well, you can do quite as well for a thing like this," said Bobus, "or better, as far as looking the gentleman goes. In fact, I suspect as much classics as Mother Carey taught us at home would serve their countships' turn. Here's the address. You had better write by the first post to-morrow, for one or two others are rising at it; but Bulstrode said he would wait to hear from you. Here's the letter with all the de
tails."
"Thank you. You seem to take a good deal for granted," said Allen, not moving a finger towards the letter.
"You won't have it?"
"I have neither spirits nor inclination for turning bear-leader, and it is not a position I wish to undertake."
"What position would you like?" cried Jock. "You could take that rifle you got for Algeria, and make the Magyars open their eyes. Seriously, Allen, it is the right thing at the right time. You know Miss Ogilvie always said the position was quite different for an English person among these foreigners."
"Who, like natives, are all the same nation," quietly observed Allen.
"For that matter," said Jock, "wasn't it in Hungarie that the beggar of low degree married the king's daughter? There's precedent for you, Ali!"
Allen had taken up the letter, and after glancing it slightly over, said-
"Thanks, Vice-principal, but I won't stand in the light of your other aspirants."
"What can you want better than this?" cried Jock. "By the time the law business is over, one may look in vain for such a chance. It is a new country too, and you always said you wanted to know how those fellows with long-tailed names lived in private life."
Both brothers talked for an hour, till they hoped they had persuaded him that even for the most miserable and disappointed being on earth the Hungarian castle might prove an interesting variety, and they left him at last with the letter before him, undertaking to write and make further inquiries.
The next day, however, just as Jock was about to set forth, intending, as far as might be, to keep him up to the point, Bobus made his appearance, and scornfully held out an envelope. There was the letter, and therewith these words:-
"On consideration, I recur to my first conclusion, that this situation is out of the question. To say nothing of the injury to my health and nerves from agitation and suspense, rendering me totally unfit for drudgery and annoyance, I cannot feel it right to place myself in a situation equivalent to the abandonment of all hope. It is absurd to act as if we were reduced to abject poverty, and I will never place myself in the condition of a dependent. This season has so entirely knocked me up that I must at once have sea air, and by the time you receive this I shall be on my way to Ryde for a cruise in the Petrel."
"_His_ health!" cried Bobus, his tone implying three notes, scarcely of admiration.
"Well, poor old Turk, he is rather seedy, " said Jock. "Can't sleep, and has headaches! But 'tis a regular case of having put him to flight!"
"Well, I've done with him," said Bobus, "since there's a popular prejudice against flogging, especially one's elder brother. This is a delicate form of intimation that he intends doing the dolce at mother's expense."
"The poor old chap has been an ornamental appendage so long that he can't make up his mind to anything else," said Jock.
"He is no worse off than the rest of us," said Bobus.
"In age, if in nothing else. "
"The more reason against throwing away a chance. The yacht, too! I thought there was a Quixotic notion of not dipping into that Elf's money. I'm sure poor mother is pinching herself enough."
"I don't think Ali knows when he spends money more than when he spends air," returned Jock. "The Petrel can hardly cost as much in a month as I have seen him get through in a week, protesting all the while that he was living on absolutely nothing. "
"I know. You may be proud to get him down Oxford Street under thirty shillings, and he never goes out in the evening much under half that."
"Yes, he told me selling my horses was shocking bad economy."
"Well, it was your own doing, having him up here," said Bobus.
"I wonder how he will go on when the money is really not there."
"Precisely the same," said Bobus; "there's no cure for that sort of complaint. The only satisfaction is that we shall be out of sight of it."
"And a very poor one," sighed Jock, "when mother is left to bear the brunt."
"Mother can manage him much better than we can," said Bobus; "besides, she is still a youngish woman, neither helpless nor destitute; and as I always tell you, the greatest kindness we can do her is to look out for ourselves."
Bobus himself had done so effectually, for he was secure of a handsome salary, and his travelling expenses were to be paid, when, early in the next year, he was to go out with his Principal to confer on the Japanese the highest possible culture in science and literature without any bias in favour of Christianity, Buddhism, or any other sublime religion.
Meantime he was going home to make his preparations, and pack such portions of his museum as he thought would be unexampled in Japan. He had fulfilled his intention of only informing his mother after his application had been accepted; and as it had been done by letter, he had avoided the sight of the pain it gave her and the hearing of her remonstrances, all of which he had referred to her maternal dislike of his absence, rather than to his association with the Principal, a writer whose articles she kept out of reach of Armine and Barbara.
The matter had become irrevocable and beyond discussion, as he intended, before his return to Belforest, which he only notified by the post of the morning before he walked into luncheon. By that time it was a fait accompli, and there was nothing to be done but to enter on a lively discussion on the polite manners and customs of the two- sworded nation and the wonderful volcanoes he hoped to explore.
Perhaps one reason that his notice was so short was that there might be the less time for Kencroft to be put on its guard. Thus, when, by accident of course, he strolled towards the lodge, he found his cousin Esther in the wood, with no guardians but the three youngest children, who had coaxed her, in spite of the heat, to bring them to the slopes of wood strawberries on their weekly half-holiday.
He had seen nothing, but had only been guided by the sound of voices to the top of the sloping wooded bank, where, under the shade of the oak-trees, looking over the tall spreading brackens, he beheld Essie in her pretty gipsy hat and holland dress, with all her bird-like daintiness, kneeling on the moss far below him, threading the scarlet beads on bents of grass, with the little ones round her.
"I heard a chattering," he said, as, descending through the fern, he met her dark eyes looking up like those of a startled fawn; "so I came to see whether the rabbits had found tongues. How many more are there? No, thank you," as Edmund and Lina answered his greeting with an offer of very moist-looking fruit, and an ungrammatical "Only us."
"Then _us_ run away. They grow thick up that bank, and I've got a prize here for whoever keeps away longest. No, you shan't see what it is. Any one who comes asking questions will lose it. Run away, Lina, you'll miss your chance. No, no, Essie, you are not a competitor."
"I must, Robert; indeed I must."
"Can't you spare me a moment when I am come down for my last farewell visit?"
"But you are not going for a good while yet."
"So you call it, but it will seem short enough. Did you ever hear of minutes seeming like diamond drops meted out, Essie?"
"But, you know, it is your own doing," said Essie.
"Yes, and why, Essie? Because misfortune has made such an exile as this the readiest mode of ceasing to be a burden to my mother."
"Papa said he was glad of it," said Esther, "and that you were quite right. But it is a terrible way off!"
"True! but there is one consideration that will make up to me for everything."
"That it is for Aunt Caroline!"
"Partly, but do you not know the hope which makes all work sweet to me?" And the look of his eyes, and his hand seeking hers, made her say,
"Oh don't, Robert, I mustn't."
"Nay, my queen, you were too duteous to hearken to me when I was rich and prosperous. I would not torment you then, I meant to be patient; but now I am poor and going into banishment, you will be generous and compassionate, and let me hear the one word that will make my exile sweet."
"I don't think I ought," said the poor child under h
er breath. "0, Robert, don't you know I ought not."
"Would you if that ugly cypher of an ought did not stand in the way?"
"Oh don't ask me, Robert; I don't know."
"But I do know, my queen," said he. "I know my little Essie better than she knows herself. I know her true heart is mine, only she dares not avow it to herself; and when hearts have so met, Esther, they owe one another a higher duty than the filial tie can impose."
"I never heard that before," she said, puzzled, but not angered.
"No, it is not a doctrine taught in schoolrooms, but it is true and universal for all that, and our fathers and mothers acted on it in their day, and will give way to it now."
Esther had never been told all her father's objections to her cousin. Simple prohibition had seemed to her parents sufficient for the gentle, dutiful child. Bobus had always been very kind to her, and her heart went out enough to him in his trouble to make coldness impossible to her. Tears welled into her eyes with perplexity at the new theory, and she could only falter out-
"That doesn't seem right for me."
"Say one word and trust to me, and it shall be right. Yes, Esther, say the word, and in it I shall be strong to overcome everything, and win the consent you desire. Say only that, with it, you would love me."
"If?" said Esther.
It was an interrogative _if,_ and she did not mean it for "the one word," but Bobus caught at it as all he wanted. He meant it for the fulcrum on which to rest the strong lever of his will, and before Esther could add any qualification, he was overwhelming her with thanks and assurances so fervent that she could interpose no more doubts, and yielded to the sweetness of being able to make any one so happy, above all the cousin whom most people thought so formidably clever.
Edmund interrupted them by rushing up, thus losing the prize, which was won by the last comer, and proved to be a splendid bonbon; but there was consolation for the others, since Bobus had laid in a supply as a means of securing peace.
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