Then in that time and place I spoke to her.—TENNYSON.
“Office of ‘Lacustrian Intelligencer,’
“Jonesville, Ohio,
“March 20.
“DEAREST CHERIE,
“I told you in my last that the chief boss in the office at New York had written to me that he had been asked to send an intelligent young man to sub-edit the Lacustrian Intelligencer at Jonesville, a rising city on Lake Erie. I thought it would be worth while to look at it, especially as we were booked to give a lecture at Sandusky, and moreover our relations to Gracchus have been growing rather strained, and I do not think this wandering life good for Lida in the long run; nor are my articles paid enough for to be a dependence. So after holding forth at Sandusky, we took our passage in a little steamer which crosses the little bay in the Lake to Jonesville—one of those steamers just like a Noah’s Ark.
“Presently Lida came up and touched me, saying in her little awestruck whisper (which has never been conquered), ‘Brother, I am sure I saw one of mother’s cigarettes.’ I said ‘Bosh!’ thinking it an utter delusion; but she was so decided and so frightened, that I told her to go into the saloon, and went forward. A woman was going about the deck, offering the passengers a basket of candies, lights, cigarettes, and cigars. Saving for Lida’s words, I never should have recognized her; she was thin to the last degree, haggard, yellow, excessively shabby and forlorn-looking, and with a hollow cough; but as her eyes met mine (those eyes that you say are our water-mark) both of us made a sort of leap as if to go overboard, and I went up to her at once, and would have spoken, but she cried out, ‘What have you done with Lida?’ I answered that she was safe, and demanded in my turn where were O’Leary and Jellicoe. ‘Drowned, drowned,’ she said, ‘in the wreck of the Sirius. They’ll never trouble you more. But Lida!’ I thought that it was safe to take her into the saloon to see Lida, when they fell into each other’s arms, and afforded the spectators a romantic spectacle. Don’t think I am making a joke of it, for it was tragic enough in the result of the agitation. Blood was choking the poor woman. We could only lay her down on the couch, and happily there were lemons on board. There was a good-natured Irishman who gave me all the help he could, even to the carrying her to his house, where his wife was equally kind. He fetched the priest, a French Canadian, and the doctor, and Lida has been watching over her most tenderly; poor things—they seem really to have cared for one another, and Lida will be the happier for having done these last duties.
“21st. She is a little better. So far as we have gathered from one who must not talk nor be agitated, the circus had got into difficulties and debt to Bast, the van proprietor. I believe Lida’s voice was their last hope, and they had some ghastly scheme of disposing of her in Belgium. When they lost her, their chances were over, and with the proceeds of their last exhibition, Jellicoe and the O’Leary pair left the elephant, etc., to take care of themselves and make their excuses to Mr. Bast, and started for Liverpool and the U. S. in the Sirius. Storms overtook them, the women were put into the first boat, those which followed were swamped. Poor fellows, I own I can’t sing a pious dirge for them. There were three days of hunger and exposure before the boat was picked up, and she was finally landed at Quebec, where she was laid up with pleurisy in the hospital. And there was a subscription for the wrecked when she came out, which enabled her to set up this reminiscence of her old trade, drifting from one pier or boat to another till she came to this one, but all the time with this awful cough. The doctor thinks it her knell; her lungs are far gone, but she may probably rally in some degree for the summer, though hardly so as to be moved.
“That being the case, I have been to the Lacustrian office, and engaged myself to be its hack, since I must have some fixed pay while she lives. Perhaps I shall be able to do a little extra writing and lecturing, especially if she gets better, enough to spare Lida to help me. Her voice really is a lovely soprano, and draws wonderfully, but I don’t want it to be strained too early. Our good Irishwoman, Mrs. Macbride, is willing to let us have her two rooms, left empty by her sons going west, and her daughter marrying, on fair terms, Lida promising to be a sort of help and to teach the children. We shall eat with them. I shall be at the office all day and half the night, so I don’t need a sitting-room. Don’t be anxious, dear old Cherie. We shall do very well, and it is only for a time. Lida is like a little angel, and as thankful for a smile from her mother as if she had been the reprobate runaway.
“Your ever-loving
“GERALD.”
This was the letter that came to Mrs. Grinstead, and one with similar information went to Dolores Mohun at her college at Cambridge. Dolores, who had found Mysie much more sympathetic than Gillian, could not but write the intelligence to her, and Mysie was so much struck with the beauty of the much-injured brother and sister devoting themselves to their mother, that she could not help telling the family party at breakfast.
“That’s right,” said Lord Rotherwood. “The mother can clear up the doubt if any one can. Is there nothing about it?”
“No,” replied Mysie; “I should think the poor woman was too ill to be asked.”
“They must not let her slip through their fingers without telling,” added Ivinghoe.
“I have a mind to run over to Rocca Marina and see what more they have heard there,” said Lord Rotherwood. “I suppose your letter is from one of the girls there?”
“Oh no, it is from Dolores.”
“Dolores! She is at Cambridge. Then this news must have been round by Clipstone! They must have known it for days past at Rocca!” exclaimed Lord Rotherwood.
“No,” said Mysie, “this came direct to Dolores from Gerald Underwood himself.—Oh, didn’t you know? I forgot, nobody was to know till Uncle Maurice gave his consent.”
“Consent to what?” exclaimed Ivinghoe.
“To Dolores and Gerald! Oh dear, mamma said so much to me about not telling, but I did think Cousin Rotherwood knew everything. Please—”
Whatever she was going to ask was cut short by Ivinghoe’s suddenly striking on the table so as to make all the cups and saucers ring as he exclaimed—
“If ever there lived a treacherous Greek minx!” Then, “I beg your pardon, mother.”
He was off: they saw him dash out of the house. There was a train due nearly at this time, as all recollected.
“Papa, had not you better go with him?” said Lady Rotherwood.
“He will get on much better by himself, my dear,” and Lord Rotherwood threw himself back in his chair and laughed heartily and merrily, to the amazement and mystification of the two girls. “You will have a beauty on your hands, my lady.”
“Well, as long as it is not that horrid White girl—” said her ladyship, breaking off there.
“A very sorry Rebecca,” said her lord, laughing the more.
But the Marchioness rose up, and the two cousins had to accept the signal.
The train, after the leisurely fashion of continental railways, kept Ivinghoe fuming at the station, and rattled along so as to give travellers a full view of the coast, more delightful to them than to the youth, who had rushed off with intentions, he scarce knew what, of setting right the consequences of Maura’s—was it deception, or only a thought, of which the wish was father?
He reached the station that led to the works at Rocca Marina. The sun was high, the heat of the day coming on, and as he strode along, the workmen were leaving off to take their siesta at noontide. On he went, across the private walks in the terraced garden, not up the broad stone steps that led to the house, but to a little group of olive trees which cut off the chaplain’s house from the castle gardens, and where stood a great cork tree, to whose branches a hammock had been fastened, and seats placed under it. As he opened the gate a little dog’s bark was heard, and he was aware of a broad hat under the tree. Simultaneously a small Maltese dog sprang forward, and Francie’s head rose from leaning over the little table with a start, her cheeks deeper rose than usual, having evidently gone to sleep over the thin book and big dictionary that lay before her.
“Oh!” she said, “it is you. Was I dreaming?”
“I am afraid I startled you.”
“No—only”—she still seemed only half awake—“it seemed to come out of my dream.”
“Then you were dreaming of me?”
“Oh no. At, least I don’t know,” she said, the colour flushing into her face, as she sat upright, now quite awake and alive to the question, between truthfulness and maidenly modesty.
“You were—you were; you don’t deny it!” And as she hung her head and grew more distressfully redder and redder, “You know what that means.”
“Indeed—indeed—I couldn’t help—I never meant! Oh—”
It was an exclamation indeed, for Uncle Clement’s head appeared above the hammock, where he too had been dozing over his book, with the words—
“Halloo, young people, I’m here!”
Franceska would have fled, but Ivinghoe held her hand so tight that she could not wrench it away. He held it, while Clement struggled to the ground, and then said—
“Sir, there is no reason you or all the world should not know how I love this dearest, loveliest one. I came here this morning hoping that she may grant me leave to try to win her to be my own.”
He looked at Francie. Her head drooped, but she had not taken her hand away, and the look on her face was not all embarrassment, but there was a rosy sunrise dawning on it.
All Clement could say was something of “Your father.”
“He knows, he understands; I saw it in his eyes,” said Ivinghoe.
To Clement the surprise was far greater than it would have been to his sister, and the experience was almost new to him, but he could read Francie’s face well enough to say—
“My dear, I think we had better let you run in and compose yourself, or go to your aunt, while I talk to Lord Ivinghoe.”
Trembling, frightened, Francie was really glad to be released, as her lover with one pressure said—
“I shall see you again, sweetest.”
She darted away, and Clement signed to Ivinghoe to sit down with him on the bench under the tree.
“I should like this better if you had brought your father’s full assent,” he said.
“There was no time. I only read his face; he will come to-morrow.”
“No time?”
“Yes, to catch the train. I hurried away the moment I learnt that—that her affections were not otherwise engaged. I never saw any one like her. She has haunted me ever since those days at Rockquay; but—but I was told that she cared for your nephew, and I could not take advantage of him in his absence. And now I have but three days more.”
“Whoever told you was under a great error,” said Clement gravely, “and you have shown very generous self-command; but the advantages of this affair are so much the greatest on one side, that you cannot wonder if there is hesitation on our part, till we explicitly know that our poor little girl would not be unwelcome to your parents.”
“I know that no one can compare with her for—for everything and anything,” stammered Ivinghoe, breaking from his mother’s language into his father’s, “and my father admires her as much as I do—almost.”
“But what will he and your mother say to her being absolutely penniless?”
“Pish!”
“And worse—child to a spendthrift, a man of no connection, except on his mother’s side.”
“She is your niece, your family have bred her up, made her so much more than exquisitely lovely.”
“She is a good little girl,” said Clement, “but what are we? No, Ivinghoe, I do not blame you for speaking out, and she will be the happier for the knowledge of your affection, but it will not be right of us to give free consent, without being fully assured of that of Lord and Lady Rotherwood.”
Ivinghoe could only protest, but Clement rose to walk to the house, where his sister was sitting under the pergola in the agitation of answering Gerald’s letter, and had only seen Francie flit by, calling to her sister in a voice that now struck her as having been strange and suppressed.
Clement trusted a good deal to his sister’s quicker perceptions and habit of observation to guide his opinion in the affair that had burst on him, and was relieved that when Ivinghoe, like the well-bred young man that he was, went up to her, and taking her hand said, “I have been venturing to put my fate into the hands of your niece,” she did not seem astonished or overwhelmed, but said—
“She is a dear good girl; I do hope it will be for her happiness—for both.”
“Thank you,” he said fervently. “It will be the most earnest desire of my life.”
Geraldine thought it best to go in quest of Francie, whom she found with Anna, incoherent and happy in the glory of the certainty that she was loved, after the long trial of suppressed, unacknowledged suspense. No fears of parents, no thought of inequalities had occurred to trouble her—everything was absorbed in the one thought—“he really did love her.” How should she thank God enough, or pray enough to be worthy of such joy? There was no room for vexation or wonder at the delay, nor the attentions paid to Maura. She hushed Anna, who was inclined to be indignant, and who was obliged afterwards to pour out to her aunt all her wonder, though she allowed that on his side there was nothing to be really called flirtation, it was all Maura—“she was sure Maura was at the bottom of it.”
“My dear, don’t let us be uncharitable; there is no need to think about it. Let us try to be like Francie, and swallow all up in gladness. Your mother—”
“Oh, I can’t think what she will do for joy. It will almost make her well again.”
“But remember, we don’t know what his parents will say.”
And with that sobering thought they had to go down to luncheon, where Francie sat blushing and entranced, too happy to speak, and Ivinghoe apparently contented to look at her. Afterwards he was allowed to take possession of her for the afternoon, so as to be able to tease her about what she was dreaming about him. After all it had probably been evoked by the dog’s bark and his step; for she had thought a wolf was pursuing her, and that he had come to save her. It was quite enough to be food for a lover.
Clement would have wished to keep all to themselves, at least till the paternal visit was over, but Ivinghoe’s days were few, and he made sure of bringing his parents on the morrow. An expedition had been arranged to the valley where some of the Benista family were reported to live, since the snows had departed enough for safety; but this must needs be deferred, and there was no doubt that the “reason why” would be sought out.
Indeed, so close was the great house, and so minute a watch was kept, that the fact of Lord Ivinghoe’s spending the whole day at the parsonage was known, and conclusions were arrived at. Maura stole down in the late evening among the olive trees, ostensibly to ask Anna and Francie to come and listen to the nightingales.
But thereby she was witness to a scene that showed that there was another nightingale for Franceska than the one who was singing with such energy among the olive boughs. In fact, she saw the evening farewell, and had not the discretion, like Anna, to withdraw herself and her eyes, but beheld, what had ever been sacred to both those young things, the first kiss.
Poor Maura, she had none of the reticent pride and shame of an English gentlewoman. She believed herself cruelly treated, and rushing away, fell on Anna, who was hovering near, watching to prevent any arrival such as was always probable.
It would not be well to relate the angry, foolish words that Anna had to hear, nor how Maura betrayed herself and her own manoeuvre. It is enough to say that she went home, weeping demonstratively, perhaps uncontrollably; and that Anna, after her trying scene, was able to exalt more than ever Ivinghoe’s generosity towards the absent Gerald, and forbearance towards Franceska. If he had ever passed the line, it was more Maura’s doing than his own.
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