Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/292

284 wrote to Juliana. Incidentally he expressed a wish to see her. Juliana was under doctor’s interdict: but she was not to be prevented from going when Evan wished her to go. They met in the park, as before, and he talked to her five minutes through the carriage window.

“Was it worth the risk, my poor child?” said Caroline, pityingly.

Juliana cried: “Oh! I would give anything to live!”

A man might have thought that she made no direct answer.

“Don’t you think I am patient? Don’t you think I am very patient?” she asked Caroline, winningly, on their way home.

Caroline could scarcely forbear from smiling at the feverish anxiety she showed for a reply that should confirm her words and hopes.

“So we must all be!” she said, and that common-place remark caused Juliana to exclaim: “Prisoners have lived in a dungeon, on bread and water, for years!”

Whereat Caroline kissed her so very tenderly that Juliana tried to look surprised, and failing, her thin lips quivered; she breathed a soft “hush,” and fell on Caroline’s bosom.

She was transparent enough in one thing; but the flame which burned within her did not light her through. Others, on other matters, were quite as transparent to her. Caroline never knew that she had as much as told her the moral suicide Evan had committed at Beckley; so cunningly had she been probed at intervals with little casual questions; random interjections, that one who loved him could not fail to meet; petty doubts requiring elucidations. And the Countess, kind as her sentiments had grown towards the afflicted creature, was compelled to proclaim her densely stupid in material affairs. For the Countess had an itch of the simplest feminine curiosity to know whether the dear child had any notion of accomplishing a certain holy duty of the perishable on this earth, who might possess worldly goods; and no hints—not even plain speaking, would do. Juliana did not understand her at all.

The Countess exhibited a mourning-ring on her finger, Mrs. Bonner’s bequest to her.

“How fervent is my gratitude to my excellent departed friend for this! A legacy, however trifling, embalms our dear lost ones in the memory!”

It was of no avail. Juliana continued densely stupid. Was she not worse? The Countess could not, “in decency,” as she observed, reveal to her who had prompted Mrs. Bonner so to bequeath the Beckley estates as to “ensure sweet Juliana’s future;” but ought not Juliana to divine it?—Juliana at least had hints sufficient.

Cold spring winds were now blowing. Juliana had resided no less thatthan [sic] two months with the Cogglesbys. She was entreated still to remain, and she did. From Lady Jocelyn she heard not a word of remonstrance; but from Miss Carrington and Mrs. Shorne she received admonishing letters. Finally, Mr. Harry Jocelyn presented himself. In London, and without any of that needful substance which a young gentleman feels the want of in London more than elsewhere, Harry began to have thoughts of his own, without any instigation from his aunts, about devoting himself to business. So he sent his card up to his cousin, and was graciously met in the drawing-room by the Countess, who ruffled him and smoothed him, and would possibly have distracted his soul from business had his circumstances been less straitened. Juliana was declared to be too unwell to see him that day. He called a second time, and enjoyed a similar greeting. His third visit procured him an audience alone with Juliana, when, at once, despite the warnings of his aunts, the frank fellow plunged into medias res. Mrs. Bonner had left him totally dependent on his parents and his chances.

“A desperate state of things, isn’t it, Juley? I think I shall go for a soldier—common, you know.”

Instead of shrieking out against such a debasement of his worth and gentility, as was to be expected, Juliana said:

“That’s what Mr. Harrington thought of doing.”

“He! If he’d had the pluck he would.”

“His duty forbade it, and he did not.”

“Duty! a confounded tailor! What fools we were to have him at Beckley!”

“Has the Countess been unkind to you, Harry?”

“I havn’t seen her to-day, and don’t want to. It’s my little dear old Juley I came for.”

“Dear Harry!” she thanked him with eyes and hands. “Come often, won’t you?”

“Why, ain’t you coming back to us, Juley?”

“Not yet. They are very kind to me here. How is Rose?”

“Oh, quite jolly. She and Ferdinand are thick again. Balls every night. She dances like the deuce. They want me to go; but I ain’t the sort of figure for those places, and besides, I shan’t dance till I can lead you out.”

A spur of laughter at Harry’s generous nod brought on Juliana’s cough. Harry watched her little body shaken and her reddened eyes. Some real emotion—perhaps the fear which healthy young people experience at the sight of deadly disease—made Harry touch her arm with the softness of a child’s touch.”

“Don’t be alarmed, Harry,” she said. “It’s nothing—only winter. I’m determined to get well.”

“That’s right,” quoth he, recovering. “I know you’ve got pluck, or you wouldn’t have stood that operation.”

“Let me see: when was that?” she asked slyly.

Harry coloured, for it related to a time when he had not behaved prettily to her.

“There, Juley, that’s all forgotten. I was a fool—a scoundrel, if you like. I’m sorry for it now.”

“Do you want money, Harry?”

“Oh, money!”

“Have you repaid Mr. Harrington yet?”

“There—no, I haven’t. Bother it! that fellow’s name’s always on your tongue. I’ll tell you what,