Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/422

412[April 3, 1869] wealth, position-giving, and commanding all comforts, if not luxuries. The thought of this, and the knowledge that she would be able to take her mother with her to share her new home, would give Marian the greatest pleasure. He pictured her in that new home, bright, sunny, and cheerful; the look of care and anxiety, the two deep brow-lines which her face had worn during the last year of their residence at Helmingham, quite obliterated; the old, cheerful, ringing tone restored to her voice, and the earnest, steadfast, loving gaze in her quiet eyes, and the thought almost unmanned him. He pulled out his watch-chain, took from it the locket containing Marian's portrait (but a very poor specimen of photography, taken by an "arteeste" who had visited Helmingham in a green van on wheels, and who both orally and in his printed bills laid immense stress on the fact that not merely the portrait, but a frame and hook to hang it up by, were in certain cases "given in"), and kissed it tenderly. "In a very little time now, my darling!" he murmured—"in a very little time we shall be happy."

Pondering on his coming meeting with Marian actively suggested the thought of the severance of existing ties, and the parting with the people with whom he was then domesticated. He had been very happy, he thought, all things considered. He was in a bright pleasant mood, and thus indisposed to think harshly of anything, even of Lady Hetherington's occasional fits of temper or insolence. Certainly Lady Hetherington had always treated him with perfect courtesy, and since the great day of the ice-accident had evinced towards him a marked partiality. As for Lady Caroline—he did not know why his cheek should flush as he thought of her, he felt it flush, but he did not know why—as for Lady Caroline, she had been a true friend, nothing could exceed the kindness which she had shown him from the day of his arrival among the family, and he should always think of her with interest and regard. It was clearly his duty to tell Lord Hetherington of the offer he had received, and of the chance of his leaving his secretaryship. Or, as Lord Hetherington was scarcely a man of business, and as Lady Hetherington cared but little about such matters and might not be pleased at having them thrust under her notice, it would be better to mention it to Lady Caroline. She would be most interested, and, he thought, with the flush again rising in his face, most annoyed at the news; though he felt sure that it was plainly a rise in life for him, and his proper course to pursue, and would eventually give her pleasure. He would not wait for the receipt of Marian's reply, there was no need for that, his bounding heart told him, but he would take the first opportunity that offered of telling Lady Caroline how matters stood, and asking her advice as to how he should mention the fact to her brother. That opportunity came speedily; as Joyce was sitting in the library, his desk an island in a sea of deeds and papers and pedigrees, memorials of bygone Wests, his pen idly resting in his hand, his eyes looking steadfastly at nothing, and his brains busy with the future, the door opened, and Lady Caroline entered. Joyce looked up and for the third time within an hour the flush mounted to his face.

"I'm very sorry to disturb you, Mr. Joyce," said her ladyship, "but I have two or three notes for to-night's post, and the house is so upset with this coming departure for London, that there's not a quiet place where one can write a line but here, I'll sit down at West's writing-table, and be as mute as a mouse."

"There's no occasion for silence, Lady Caroline," replied Joyce. "I am not specially busy just now, and indeed I was going to ask the favour of a little conversation with you."

"Conversation with me?" And Lady Caroline's voice, unconsciously, perhaps, became a little harder, her manner a little less familiar as she spoke.

"With you, if you please. I have some news to tell, and some advice to ask."

"I'm sure I shall be delighted to hear the first and to give the second—that is, if advice from me would be of any use to you, which I very much doubt." Neither voice nor manner were in the least relaxed, and Lady Caroline's face was very pale and rather hard and stern. "However," she added, after a moment's pause, finding he did not speak, and in a different tone, "under present circumstances I ought to feel very little compunction in disturbing you, for you go to town on Wednesday, and you know you prophesied for yourself the strictest seclusion when once you arrived at Hetherington House."

"That is the very matter on which I wanted to speak to you, Lady Caroline!"

"Indeed!" said Lady Caroline, with a rather disappointed air.

"I don't suppose that I shall ever set foot inside Hetherington House."