Chapter III

“Oh! never say that I was false of heart;
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from myself depart
As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie.
That is my home of love; if I have ranged
Like him that travels, I return again.”

SHAKESPEARE.

Leicester arrived in England in the June following. He came with only two sisters. Three had married during the sojourn in India. Marian had very early attracted the attention of a widower with several small children, and was now presiding over his household instead of her brother’s. Henrietta had been the next to marry. Hers was a love marriage, and her lover was a lawyer friend of Leicester’s. Jessie had remained disconsolate, until another widower, mourning over the loss of a “superior woman,” was attracted by her pretty face and helpless ways. When Leicester, to whom the proposal was made, mentioned it to Jessie, she burst into tears, and said he was so old and so frightful she would rather die than marry him. But before the discouraging message could be conveyed, she changed her mind and said she thought she would try him; and since her marriage she had twice written word to Margaret that she liked her husband very well.

These marriages were all good marriages in point of money arrangements. Leicester, therefore, was satisfied to give small portions to these sisters. Jessie’s portion, indeed, was entirely rejected by the ardent and generous widower, who had laid himself and all he had at the feet of his young wife. When, therefore, they returned to England, the circumstances of the family had changed, and Leicester was able to contemplate a marriage for himself, and a separate establishment for his remaining sisters, without any conscientious fears lest he might be securing his own good at the expense of theirs.

Before he had been a fortnight in England he mentioned one morning at breakfast that he was going out of town for a few days. He spoke indifferently, but a faint glow that stole over his face revealed to Rachel’s eyes the direction his steps would take.

Leicester had returned unchanged; unchanged within and without; in body, in mind, and in heart. A few more grey hairs were perhaps sprinkled on his dark head, but he was not yet thirty-eight, and though at thirty-two he had looked old for his age, at thirty-eight it was no longer so. The rest which India had procured for his wearying domestic cares, the diversion it had given to his sore heart and troubled thoughts, had arrested the premature symptoms of middle age, and he was greeted by many a friend with the agreeable greeting, “Why, you have grown younger!”

But in character also he was unchanged; such renovation and refreshing as his body had received had not penetrated there. The same diffidence, not of his mental powers, but of his powers to win and please, still laid its freezing hand upon his soul; the same shy and sensitive pride made him still shrink from the idea of putting himself forward, and shudder at the thoughts of a rebuff.

Nevertheless, Violet was in his heart and in his hopes, and he did contemplate one more attempt to win her to himself. He had made no efforts to preserve his constancy. He had looked on their separation as one for life; yet, as Mrs. Osborne had said, he was not a man to change, and as years rolled on, he began, unconsciously first, and afterwards with full purpose of his heart and soul, to turn his thoughts to her. She alone could yet build up for him a bright picture in the future.

He determined to seek her, not as a lover, but as a friend; to read for himself, in her speaking countenance, whether or no any thought of him lingered in the chambers of her fancy.

He left London buoyant and hopeful in spirit. In the distance excitement primed and warmed his cowardly soul, and all seemed easy. It seemed an easy and natural thing to be a friend, to say that as a friend he had on his return desired to renew acquaintance with them all. He pictured his calm, sedate entrance into the drawing-room, the tranquil talk over India, and his sisters, and the voyage; pictured it, and all seemed peaceful and serene. Thus he left London, but, like Acres in the “Rivals,” as the time drew near, his courage oozed out at the palms of his hands.

He arrived late at the inn of the little town five miles from Holywell, and there slept. When movement was over, when he found himself five miles from Violet, he wondered how he had ever dared to come; and when at half-past ten he heard the horn of the late coach passing through on its London way, he started up in a sudden impulse to return as he came.

That impulse was checked; but, still as he sat in the dingy room with two inn candles for his light, cowardice so crept over and paralyzed him, that he began to look on himself as a madman for the resolution that had brought him down. He again pictured his entrance to the drawing-room; he saw himself agitated within, but cold and silent without; no thought in his head, no word on his tongue; without a charm to recommend himself to her notice, or lure her heart if still it had to be won; he pictured it till the picture became intolerable, and he felt that his plan of operations must be changed. If he was to meet Violet, it must be by chance. He rang the bell.

“Is there anything like an inn or a respectable public-house near the village of Holywell?”

“Oh! law, sir, yes. There’s a famous little place; one can’t call it an hotel, but a neat little place, about half a mile off. The young artists lodge there, and young gentlemen for fishing and hunting, and so on, and invalids now and then. It’s kept by a nice respectable body enough.”

“Tell the Boots to call me at seven,” was Leicester’s reply, and he walked over on the following morning, guided by minute directions from the landlord, to the little inn in question. There, receiving a smiling answer to his request for a private room and breakfast, he sat down to ruminate.

Though shy with all men, rich and poor, there was something in Leicester’s look, in his smile, and in his voice, which won those beneath him on the very first address; and when he courteously roused himself from an abstracted gaze on the landscape, to assist the landlady in extricating her gown from a nail which held her fast, she took him into her good graces, and made much of him accordingly.

“Bless you, sir, don’t trouble yourself. It’s a nasty rusty nail, which didn’t ought to be there. Thank you, sir; no matter for the rent; the gown’s an old gown now, though it’s been a good servant in its day. There, sir, I hope you find yourself comfortable.”

“Very comfortable, thank you.”

“And have everything you want, sir?”

“Everything, thank you.”

“Ah! sir, you’re not like some young gentlemen. No sooner do I get to the door, but they cry, ‘Come back, good woman,’ and, bless you, they ask for some sauce or other that my precious wits never so much as heard of.”

“I am not young enough for that,” he said, smiling. “Perhaps I may have done it in my time.”

“Never, sir. You never done it, that I know. You never like to give trouble to no person whatsoever, that I know; you’d sooner black your own boots than ask a body to do them, unless the proper person offered himself.”

Leicester coloured slightly, and shrinking from this minute and clear-sighted inspection, said,

“You have a fine view from this window.”

“You may say that, sir. Mr. Pope says it’s a paradise on earth; and if it bean’t profane to say so, and I suppose it bean’t, as the rector says it, it’s true, sir.”

Leicester rose from the breakfast-table and walked to the window. He longed for the ready tongue that would draw from his loquacious landlady the name he desired to hear; but questions would not come at his call. She, however, interpreting the movement as expressive of the inquiries which she was well-accustomed to hear, placed herself at his side, and pointed out, as Mr. Pope had done to Mr. Osborne and Violet, the chief features, or rather the human interests of the scene. At every change of person, she looked pitifully round and said,

“_Won’t_ your breakfast be spoiled, sir?” yet went on remorselessly, till she had sketched the varied occupants, past and present, of Boscombe and Ashford Park. When this was done she said--

“Now _do_, sir, go to breakfast, or it _will_ be spoiled,” and remembering other guests to whom she had to attend, left the room.

When she was gone Leicester marvelled at his folly. He might have heard not only the name for six years unpronounced in his presence, but he might have heard details of her life and state of mind; he might have gathered hints for his present guidance, and he would not. Nor even then, in his solitude, could he frame to himself the inquiries which would elicit all that he desired to know.

When breakfast was over he sat down in the window, drew a pamphlet from his pocket, and proceeded to ruminate on the steps which should be taken to secure a sight of Violet, if not an interview with her, during the day.

Some time passed before his landlady returned to remove the breakfast.

“Bless the folks,” she then observed, “they wouldn’t a done with their talk, and I vowed I’d wait on you myself, sir. And what do you think, sir? I never thought o’ telling you that there’s a kind of a feast to-day in my lord’s park. You see, sir, that Mr. Vane, the young gentleman I spoke about, he warn’t at home when he came to his age; and so he said he’d have a kind of a feast now, after the hard times and all; and he’s a good sir to think of it. But he _is_ a good young gentleman; not one of your young sirs, taken up with his sauces and his nonsense! And if you please to see the feast, sir, why you can, for the tables will be spread on the spot of green just beyond the village, and the villagers will all be looking on, I’ll be bound.”

“I think I will try and see it. I am a Londoner, and such a sight will be new to me.”

“You a Londoner, sir! Well, I never _should_ have thought it.”

“What shall I see?” Leicester asked.

“For one thing you’ll see two young ladies, sir, not to be matched for handsomeness, nor goodness neither, neither in these kingdoms nor any other, be they who they may.” Leicester turned slightly towards the window and looked out. He guessed what now would come, and he was afraid even of his landlady’s eyes. “The one is Miss Hamilton, Sir William’s daughter, his only child, as I mentioned, sir; she’s a nice, sweet, comely maid, and as good as she’s comely; and the other is the very dearest young lady that ever trod the earth, be she who she may, and does more good in her blessed life than fifty rectors, be _they_ who they may.”

There was no mistaking whom she meant, but Leicester was mute. He could not even ask her name. His landlady was making a clatter with the breakfast things, which she had now piled on a tray; he feared the conversation was at an end, yet could not think how to renew it.

At last as she, occupied for the moment with household cares, was detecting a crack in a favourite plate, he cleared his throat and said--

“Miss Hamilton, I think you said, is Sir William’s only child?”

She laid down the plate and came joyfully for another talk.

“Yes, sir, only daughter and heiress at present, for Sir William is unmarried. Some say he will marry Miss Osborne, the young lady I spoke about just now; but I doubt it.” And she looked knowing and wise, while Leicester startled, put his elbows on the window-sill and gazed fixedly forward. “She is _his_ only child, and Mr. Vane is my lord’s only child, and some say there is to be a marriage between them; but I doubt it. Unless my eyes are blind he has another lady in his thoughts, and, bless you, my eyes are _not_ blind. Why, when they walk along together, walking and talking, I can see who he’s taken up with fast enough. I’m none of your beetles. Why, he just worships the very ground she treads on.”

Not a sound from Leicester. But the words not the less penetrated and paralyzed the life, the very life of love, within him. He rose up from his position--the eyes of the landlady forgotten.

“It’s true, sir, _unless_ I’m blind; and if she be ‘my lady,’ why, she well deserves it, for there’s no sweeter lady in Christendom, that I’ll wager my life upon. But bless you, sir, I’ve been telling out my secret thoughts, which I didn’t ought to do; but there’s something about you, sir, that makes me feel at home, sir, begging your pardon.”

“Your words are safe with me,” he said in a firm but hoarse voice.

“I fear you have a cold, sir, and you _do_ look pale. Rest a bit here, sir. It’s a pleasant room; and I’ll bring you a bit of lunch, and then you can stroll down towards my lord’s park. It’ll be a fine day,” she added looking out, “but showery. There’s a blackish cloud far out there. It’ll be down upon us in the course of the day.”

She left Leicester alone to his meditations. Was this, then, what he had dreaded? As he drew near to her abode, was it the shadow of this disappointment that had come forth to meet him and to withhold him from a vain approach? He was not superstitious, but it seemed to him as if by his last night’s cowardice he had been benignly stayed from a rash venture, whose ill-success would have killed him.

Yet he was not going to yield the point. His eyes, his own eyes, alone should be trusted, and though all thoughts of a visit had vanished, he determined to make an effort to see, and possibly to be seen.

He waited for several hours before he set forth, and with a stubborn resolution, which long habits of self-conquest had taught him, mastered the pamphlet, a stiff legal work, on which his opinion had been asked.

Towards two o’clock he set forth, and guided by the words and gestures of his landlady, found the spot she had mentioned. It was a broad flat piece of green grass situated just within Ashford Park, and enclosed by trees young and old; a kind of natural platform, so fitted for rural sports and pastimes, that it had been given as a half-grant, a grant with reservations that is, to the villagers, by a former Lord Ashford. It was enclosed on three sides by woods, but towards the village the park wall made a sudden dip, and for upwards of twenty yards became a battlement on which the old men of the village could lean their elbows and watch the youthful sports that went on within.

On this spot several long tables were spread out, and two or three tents containing the food and the crockery which was needed for the feast. One of these tents was nearly opposite the dip in the wall just described.

The villagers were congregated without. None had yet been admitted within, and by the side of two or three old men, leaning his arm against the buttress that supported the wall where it suddenly fell, Leicester paused and looked on.

Several figures were busily occupied in covering the tables, but none so active as Violet. He discovered her in a moment, though she was at a distance, and saw with an ache of the heart that a young man was constantly at her side.

He became so fascinated in watching the scene; in wondering, as she drew nearer, whether she would discover him amongst the crowd, that he did not notice the gradual rising of the black cloud his landlady had pointed out as a threatening one. It was equally unperceived by the busy figures within, and the eager crowd without, and all alike were startled when it suddenly burst, and the rain fell as from buckets.

At this moment Violet was at the table nearest to the dip in the wall. The food was still in the tents, but she was putting down the last plates from a huge pile, when the storm burst. She stood for a moment, as if determined to finish her operations, but the force of the shower was beyond her power to brave, and following the general example, she flew to the nearest shelter. It was to the tent opposite where Leicester stood, full in his view, though some hundred feet removed from the road.

Thither Lionel, who had been at the other end of the same table, followed her.

Leicester put up his umbrella, and with natural courtesy held it over an old man in a smock frock, who was leaning on the wall beneath him. One or two children crept in to share the benefit. A few other old umbrellas appeared, and a good many women flew away to the nearest trees. For a few seconds Leicester was engaged in offering his advice to the crowd; when he looked back again, Violet had seated herself by a table, and Lionel was bending beside her.

The conversation was eager, and seemed to become more and more so. For three or four minutes Leicester watched it in the same fascinated manner, and then suddenly remembered that he was answered. For what should he wait more? Was it honourable to stand thus and spy upon her actions.

With the first rising of this thought, he, forgetful of rain and his neighbours, moved from the spot; but had not taken many steps before he remembered the old man he had been protecting from the storm. He came back.

“I beg your pardon, my good man; I took my umbrella away too soon.”

“Thank ye, sir, and welcome. I’m not afeard of a few doo drops.”

He laughed loud and hoarsely at his jest; and once again Leicester cast his eyes on Violet, anticipating that the shout of laughing would draw her attention to the spot. But the conversation was too interesting, or seemed so, to be interrupted; nay, he fancied that her cheek was flushed; but at the distance at which he was placed this was probably a fancy.

He stood like a martyr to his old friend during the remaining minutes of the storm; his eyes, no longer turned to the spectacle that made him mad, were steadfastly averted in a contrary direction; and the moment the rain began to abate, he walked with rapid steps away.

“Now, sir, you’re not going off in this way without a glass of wine,” was the reception of the landlady when he returned to pay his bill and take his leave. “Now do sit down and rest yourself till the heat of the day is passed.”

“Thank you, the walk will refresh me,” he said wearily. Then immediately conscious of the dejected tone, and as if blushing at the weakness, added, “The rain has refreshed the air.”

“That’s true; and the dust won’t creep into your eyes as it did this morning. Well, sir, if you must go, ‘God be with you,’ as the old folks say. And if you come this way again you’ll have a warm welcome.”

“I am not likely to come, I am afraid. I am a Londoner. If I do I shall not forget your words.”

Wishing her ‘good-bye,’ he returned to the town, and took his place by the night coach, whose horn had tempted him the previous day.

He did not appear at home till his sisters were going to dress for dinner. He then walked into the drawing-room as usual.

“John! come back so soon,” Margaret cried, springing up as she flew to greet him.

Rachel looked, and saw why so soon.

“Yes, come back,” he replied. “And now what have you been doing with yourselves? Has anything happened?”

“A letter from Henrietta,” Rachel said. And eagerly anxious not to seem to have observed his countenance, instantly produced it.

“Rachel,” Margaret said, when he left the room, “where has John been?”

“I do not know; but I guess.”

“Not there! Surely not there already.”

“I guess it, but I do not know.”

“And you think without success?” and her cheek crimsoned with indignation, and she clenched her fist.

“You know as much as I do, Margaret. I do not think he looked successful.”

“It is impossible!” she cried. “I shall ask Mr. Ellis.”

“Margaret!” Rachel said in a tone of keen reproach.

Margaret blushed.

“It was only a moment’s thoughtlessness,” she said penitently. “I would not really talk over John’s feelings for the world.”

And but little more was said between them.

Leicester had not known how strong his hope had been till it was flown; how the picture of Violet had brightened his future, till it was effaced. But though he had his weakness and his cowardice, he had also his strength, and he combated the dejection that stole over him, with the full bent of a sound mind and a strong will.

To work he thankfully turned, and found, as before, relief in it. Some papers he had written while in India had preceded him, and made him a reputation, and even Albert allowed that the poor fellow was beginning to be appreciated. His opinion was asked and followed by some high in office, and before many weeks passed he was offered a permanent appointment at the moment vacant. It was accepted, and with thankfulness, for the work’s sake; but the independence it gave him, which once would have been a boon, was at the moment an object of indifference to him.