Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/113

18, 1863.] Just like everything else in this world of anomalies and paradoxes.”

“He has taken his friend to Windsor,” Eleanor thought; “had this visit any relation to his last visit? Did he go there to see Mr. Lawford’s clerk?”

She was helpless without Richard, and could not answer this question.

“I’ll write to him to-night,” she thought, “and ask him to come back to me directly.”

But in the next moment she was ashamed of herself for her selfishness. She might sacrifice her own life to her scheme of vengeance. The voice of her father crying to her from his unsanctified grave, seemed for ever urging her to do that; but she had no right to call upon others to make the same sacrifice.

“No,” she thought, “wherever the road I have chosen may lead me, however difficult the path may be to follow, I will henceforward tread it alone. Poor Dick! I have tormented him long enough with my sorrows and my helplessness.”

“You’ve come to dine, of course, Launcelot,” Miss Mason said, while Eleanor stood motionless and silent in the doorway, absorbed in these thoughts, and looking like some pale statue in the dusk; “and you’ve brought your friend, Monsieur—Monsieur Bourdon to dine—”

“Ah, but no, mademoiselle,” exclaimed the Frenchman, in a transport of humility, “I am not one of yours. Monsieur Darrell is so good as to call me his friend, but—”

The Frenchman murmured something of a deprecatory nature, to the effect that he was only a humble commercial traveller in the interests of a patent article that was very much appreciated by all the crowned heads of Europe, and one which would doubtless, by the aid of his exertions and those of his compatriots, become, before long, a cosmopolitan necessity, and the source of a colossal fortune.

Eleanor shuddered and shrank away from the man with a gesture almost expressive of disgust, as he turned to her in his voluble depreciation of himself and glorification of the merchandise which it was his duty to praise.

She remembered that it was this man, this loquacious vulgarian, who had been Launcelot Darrell’s tool on the night of her father’s death. This was the wretch who had stood behind George Vane’s chair, and watched the old man’s play, and telegraphed to his accomplice.

If she could have forgotten Launcelot Darrell’s treachery, this presence would have been enough to remind her of that pitiless baseness, to inspire her with a tenfold disgust for that hideous cruelty. It seemed as if the Frenchman’s coming had been designed by Providence to urge her to new energy, new determination.

“The man who could make this creature his accomplice in a plot against my father shall never inherit Maurice de Crespigny’s fortune,” she thought; “he shall never marry my husband’s ward.”

She linked her arm in Laura’s as she thought this; as if by that simple and involuntary action she would have shielded her from Launcelot Darrell.

In the next moment a footstep—the firm tread of a man—sounded on the crisp gravel of the garden walk behind the two girls, and presently Gilbert Monckton laid his hand lightly upon his wife’s shoulder.

She was startled by his unexpected coming, and turning suddenly round, looked at him with a scared face; which was a new evidence against her in his troubled mind, a new testimony that she was keeping some secret from him.

He had left Tolldale Priory early that morning to give a day’s attention to that business of which he had been lately so neglectful, and had returned a couple of hours before his usual time for coming home.

“What brings you out into the garden this bitter afternoon, Eleanor?” he said, sternly; “you’ll catch cold in that thin shawl; and you, too, Laura; I should have thought a seat by the drawing-room fire far more comfortable than this dreary garden. Good evening, gentlemen; you had better bring your friend into the house, Mr. Darrell.”

The young man muttered something of an apologetic nature, and Monsieur Victor Bourdon acknowledged the lawyer’s cold salutation with an infinite number of bows and smirks.

“You have come home by an earlier train than usual, Gilbert,” Mrs. Monckton said, by way of saying something that might break the silence which had followed her husband’s coming; “we did not expect you until seven.”

“I came to Windsor by the three o’clock express,” answered Mr. Monckton. “I have not come straight home. I stopped at Woodlands to inquire after the invalid.”

Eleanor looked up with a new and eager expression in her face.

“And Mr. de Crespigny—he is better, I hope.”

“No, Eleanor, I fear that you will never see him again. The doctors scarcely hope that he will last out the week.”

The girl set her lips firmly, and raised her head with a resolute gesture—a mute expression of determination and defiance.

“I will see him again,” she thought; “I will not trust my hope of vengeance to a chance. He may have altered his will, perhaps. He may have destroyed it. Come what may, I will stand beside his sick bed. I will tell him who I am, and call upon him, in my dead father’s name, to do an act of justice.”

Launcelot Darrell stood with his head bent and his eyes fixed upon the ground.

As it was the habit of Eleanor to lift her forehead with something of the air of a young war-horse who scents the breath of the battle-field afar, so it was this young man’s manner to look moodily earthward under the influence of any violent agitation.

“So,” he said, slowly, “the old man is dying?”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Monckton; “your great-uncle is dying. You may be master of Woodlands, Launcelot, before many days are past.”

The young man drew a long breath.

“Yes,” he muttered; “I may: I may.”