Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/279

. 29, 1863.] an hour, Jane,” he said. “I am going to take her away at once for change of air.”

Mr. Monckton went down-stairs to his study, and shutting himself in, wrote a very long letter, the composition of which seemed to give him a great deal of trouble.

He looked at his watch when this letter was finished, folded, and addressed. It was a quarter past two. He went up-stairs once more to Laura’s dressing-room, and found that young lady in the wildest state of confusion, doing all in her power to hinder her maid, under the pretence of assisting her.

“Put on your bonnet and shawl and go down-stairs, Laura,” Mr. Monckton said decisively. “Jane will never succeed in packing those portmanteaus while you are fidgeting her. Go down into the drawing-room, and wait there till the boxes are packed and we’re ready to start.”

“But mustn’t I go and say good-bye to Eleanor?”

“Is she still in her own room?”

“Yes, sir,” the maid answered, looking up from the portmanteau before which she was kneeling. “I peeped into Mrs. Monckton’s room just now, and she was fast asleep. She has had a great deal of fatigue in nursing Miss Mason.”

“Very well, then, she had better not be disturbed.”

“But if I’m going to Nice,” remonstrated Laura, “I can’t go so far away without saying good-bye to Eleanor. She has been very kind to me, you know.”

“I have changed my mind,” Mr. Monckton said; “I’ve been thinking over the matter, and I’ve decided on not taking you to Nice. Torquay will do just as well.”

Miss Mason made a wry face.

“I thought I was to have change of scene,” she said; “Torquay isn’t change of scene, for I went there once when I was a child. I might have forgotten Launcelot in quite a strange place, where people talk bad French and wear wooden shoes, and everything is different; but I shall never forget him at Torquay.”

Gilbert Monckton did not notice his ward’s lamentation.

“Miss Mason will want you with her, Jane,” he said to the girl. “You will get yourself ready, please, as soon as you’ve packed those portmanteaus.”

He went down-stairs again, gave his orders about a carriage to take him to the station, and then walked up and down the drawing-room waiting for his ward.

In half-an-hour both she and her maid were ready. The portmanteaus were put into the carriage—the mail-phaeton which had brought Eleanor to Hazlewood two years before—and Mr. Monckton drove away from Tolldale Priory without having uttered a word of adieu to his wife.

was late in the afternoon when Eleanor awoke, aroused by the clanging of the dinner-bell in the cupola above her head. She had been worn out by her patient attendance upon Laura during the last week, and had slept very heavily, in spite of her anxiety to hear what had happened at the reading of the will. She had seen very little of her husband since the night of Mr. de Crespigny’s death, and, though the coldness and restraint of his manner had much distressed her, she had no idea that he was actually alienated from her, or that he had suffered his mind to become filled with suspicions against her.

She opened the door of her room, went out into the corridor, and listened. But all was very still. She could only hear the faint jingling of glass and silver in the hall below, as the old butler went to and fro putting the finishing touches to the dinner-table.

“Mr. Monckton might have come to me to tell me about the will,” she thought: “he must surely know how anxious I am to hear what has been done.”

She bathed her flushed face, and dressed for dinner as usual. She put on a black silk dress out of respect for her father’s friend, whose funeral had been solemnised during her sleep, and with a black lace shawl upon her shoulders she went down-stairs to look for her husband.

She found all very quiet—unnaturally quiet. It is strange how soon the absence of an accustomed inhabitant makes itself felt in a house, however quiet the habits of that missing person. Eleanor looked into the drawing-room and the study, and found them both empty.

“Where is Mr. Monckton?” she asked of the old butler.

“Gone, ma’am.”

“Gone!”

“Yes, ma’am; two hours ago, a’most. You knew he was going, didn’t you, ma’am?”

The old man’s curiosity was excited by Eleanor’s look of surprise.

“Didn’t you know as master was a-going to take Miss Mason away to the seaside for change of air, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, I knew that he was going to do so, but not immediately. Did Mr. Monckton leave no message for me?”

“He left a letter, ma’am. It’s on the mantelpiece in the study.”

Eleanor went to her husband’s room with her heart beating high, and her cheeks flushed with indignation against him for the slight he had put upon her. Yes; there was the letter, sealed with his signet-ring. He was not generally in the habit of sealing his letters, so he must have looked upon this as one of some importance. Mrs. Monckton tore open the envelope. She turned pale as she read the first few lines of the letter. It was written over two sheets of note paper, and began thus:

“,—

“When I asked you to be my wife, I told you that in my early youth I had been deceived by a woman whom I loved very dearly, though not as dearly as I have since loved you. I told you this, and I implored you to remember my blighted youth, and to have pity upon me. I entreated you to spare me the anguish of a second