Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/111

18, 1863.] stray dog, if the wandering cur were in any way attached to me.”

“Yes, Mr. Darrell, you have reason to value your mother’s affection,” answered the lawyer, gravely. “But we must not forget that we’ve a good deal of business to transact to-night. Will you come with me into my study, as soon as you’ve finished that cup of tea?”

Launcelot Darrell bowed, and set down his teacup on the nearest table. Eleanor and Richard had both watched him closely since his coming into the drawing-room. It was easy to see that he had by no means recovered from the unpleasant surprise caused him by the Frenchman’s visit. His careless manner was only assumed, and it was with evident difficulty that he responded to each new demand made upon his attention.

He followed Gilbert Monckton slowly and silently from the room, without having lingered to speak so much as a word to Laura, without having even made her happy by so much as a look.

“He might have spoken to me,” the young lady murmured, disconsolately, as she watched her lover’s retreating figure.

Two hours elapsed before the gentlemen returned to the drawing-room; two dreary hours for Laura, who sat yawning over a book, or playing with one of her dogs, which, by virtue of their high-breeding and good conduct, were constant occupants of the drawing-room at Tolldale. Richard Thornton and Mrs. Monckton played a game of chess, the strangest game, perhaps, that ever was played, for the moving backwards and forwards of the ivory pieces was a mere pretence, by means of which Eleanor contrived to take counsel with her faithful ally.

“Do you think this man’s coming will help us, Dick?” she asked, when she had told the story of her recognition of the Frenchman.

Richard shook his head, not negatively, but reflectively.

“How can I tell?” he said; “the man may or may not be inclined to betray his friend. In any case it will be very difficult for us to get at him.him.” [sic]

“Not for you, Richard,” murmured Eleanor, persuasively.

“Not for me,” echoed the young man. “Syren, mermaiden, witch of the sea, avaunt! It was you and the blue bonnet that settled for the shipbroker and his clerks. Have you the blue bonnet still, Nell; or have you any other influence in the millinery line that you can bring to bear upon this traveller in mustard?”

“But if he should remember me?”

“That’s scarcely likely. His face was impressed upon your mind by the awful circumstance that followed your meeting with him. You have changed very much since you were fifteen years of age, Mrs. Monckton. You were a feminine hobbledehoy then. Now you are—never mind what. A superb Nemesis in crinoline, bent on deeds of darkness and horror. No, I do not see any reason to fear this man’s recognition of you.”

The expression of Launcelot Darrell’s face had subsided into a settled gloom when he reappeared in the drawing-room with Mr. Monckton.

The lawyer seated himself at a reading-table, and began to open the evening papers which were sent from Windsor to Tolldale. Launcelot strolled over to Laura Mason, and, sitting down beside her, amused himself by pulling the silky ears of the Skye terrier.

“Do tell me everything, Launcelot,” said Miss Mason. “You don’t know how much I’ve suffered all this evening. I hope the interview was a pleasant one?”

“Oh, yes, remarkably pleasant,” answered the young man, with a sneer. “I shall not be exposed to the reproach of having made a mercenary marriage, Laura, at any rate.”

“What do you mean, Launcelot?” cried the young lady, staring aghast at her lover. “You don’t mean that my guardian’s been deceiving me all this time, and that I’m a poor penniless creature after all, and that I ought to have been a companion, or a nursery governess, or something of that kind, as Eleanor was before her marriage. You don’t mean that, Launcelot?”

“Not precisely,” answered Mr. Darrell; “but I mean that the noble allowance of which your guardian has talked so much is to be two hundred a-year; which, as we are so unfortunate as to possess the habits of a gentleman and a lady, will not go very far.”

“But ain’t I rich,—ain’t I an heiress?” cried Miss Mason. “Haven’t I what-you-may-call-’ems—expectations?”

“Oh, yes. I believe there is some vague promise of future wealth held out as a compensation for all present deprivations. But really, although your guardian took great pains to explain the dry business details to me, I was almost too tired to listen to him; and certainly too stupid to understand very clearly what he meant. I believe there is some money which you are to have by-and-by, upon the death of somebody. But as it seems that the somebody is a person in the prime of life, who has the power of altering his will at any moment that he may take it into his head to do so, I look upon that expectation as rather a remote contingency. No, Laura, we must look our position straight in the face. A life of hard work lies before me; a life of poverty before you.”

Miss Mason made a wry face. Her mind had little power to realise anything but extremes. Her idea of poverty was something very horrible. An existence of beggary, with the chance of being called upon to do plain needlework for her daily bread, and with the workhouse at the end of the prospect.

“But I shall love you all the same, Launcelot,” she whispered, “however poor we may be, and I’ll wear dresses without any trimming, and imitation lace. I suppose you wouldn’t know imitation lace from real Valenciennes, Launcelot, and it’s so cheap. And I’ll try and make pies and puddings, and I’ll learn to be economical, and I’ve lots of jewellery that my guardian has given me, and we can sell that if you like. I’ll work as hard as that poor woman in the poem, Launcelot, for your sake. ‘Stitch, stitch, stitch, band and gusset, and seam.’ I don’t mind the seams, dear; they’d be easy if one didn’t prick one’s fingers and make knots in one’s thread; but I’m