"I have not got them," Elsie answered quietly. "I saw Bertha wearing them just before my father died. Don"t be vexed, dearest Mrs. Lennard."
But the old lady was vexed; a flush mounted to the roots of her silver hair, and her foot beat upon the carpet.
"Then I suppose some of Robert"s creditors have got them now," she said angrily. "Bertha deserves all that she has had to bear. It is just chastis.e.m.e.nt. I wonder that you can take your wrongs so patiently!"
Elsie turned to her gently, with a wonderfully sweet look in her brown eyes.
"I was not patient at first," she answered. "There was a battle to fight. Afterwards, Meta helped me."
"Meta?" repeated Mrs. Lennard in a puzzled tone. "Ah, you mean the lady who was engaged to Harold Waring. How did she help you, my dear?"
"I think it was the touch of her vanished hand that calmed me," Elsie said in a hushed tone. "Like Hamlet, "I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious;" I was glad at first when I heard of Bertha"s humiliation.
And then I read Meta"s story in her ma.n.u.script, and knew that she had suffered more than I, and had forgiven."
She stood quite still a moment, a graceful figure enfolded in golden light, with an exalted look on her face.
"Elsie," Mrs. Lennard said suddenly, "you are a beautiful woman. You are like some one in a poem, child! There is a certain kind of beauty that only comes through pain."
Elsie smiled at her, and began to fasten the flowers in her bodice. They gave the finishing touch to her dress, and suited her, as she had said, better than jewels.
There was an ancient bridge across the moat which divided the Court from the highway. The water lay still and shining under the broad lily leaves, and the grey walls of the old house stood bathed in the enchanted light. It was an evening that made you think of legend and song, of knights riding home across the bridge when the fight was over, of ladies watching from those windows high for the first glimpse of streaming pennon and waving plume.
The old house stood fair and stately in the sunset, with all its oriel windows and pointed gables and gilded vanes. As Elsie went up the grey stone steps of the terrace she had that curious feeling which Rossetti has called "sudden light"--
"I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell."
Nothing seemed unfamiliar; the dense walls of box and yew showing dark against a saffron sky, the half-defaced knightly figure above the great portico, the tiled floor of the hall, where a few white rose-petals were scattered.
A little later, when she sat down with the other guests to dine in a long room, dark with much black carved oak, she still had the dreamy sensation of returning to a life forgotten. The guests, however, were strangers. Mrs. Verdon, in a white silk gown embroidered with bunches of poppies, had never seemed less known. The grey-headed man with the rosy face was Mr. Danforth, and the two auburn-haired young ladies were his daughters, Mary and Lily.
Before that evening was over it occurred to Elsie that one or two persons were made slightly uncomfortable by her presence at the Court; and one of them, Lily Danforth, showed her uneasiness rather plainly.
She was a pretty girl, who owed her prettiness chiefly to her bright colouring and the freshness of youth. Her white dress, relieved only by touches of the palest green, became her very well. But she was restless, and Elsie saw that her eyes often glanced quickly and furtively in the direction of Francis Ryan.
All the Danforths treated Elsie rather distantly, but they were devoted to Mrs. Verdon. As there was no mistress of Wayne"s Court, it fell to Mary"s part to play hostess, and when she gave the signal to rise from the table Elsie felt that she was going into a chilly atmosphere.
In a hundred little ways did Miss Danforth contrive to slight Miss Kilner. Mary had never been as pretty as Lily, and was ten or twelve years older. It was not unknown to family friends that, after hoping vainly to win Arnold Wayne for herself, she was now trying hard to provide him with a wife of her own choosing.
But there was one person who was more than a match for Miss Danforth, and that was Mrs. Lennard. The old lady was not ignorant of her devices; her own knowledge of the world was far greater than Mary could ever hope to attain. The rector"s wife had been a society belle in her youth, and had not forgotten the use of her weapons. Mary was discomfited, and Mrs.
Verdon and Mrs. Tell were immensely amused when Mrs. Lennard proved herself mistress of the situation.
The drawing-room had the look of a room that is seldom inhabited; the keys of the piano were stiff through lack of use. It was so warm that the windows (which were modern in this part of the house) had been widely opened, and the scent of flowers drifted in from the terrace.
Arnold, entering with the other men, detected Elsie sitting in the shade of a lace curtain and looking out into the golden moonlight.
He was at her side in a moment. Francis Ryan, who had searched for her in a wrong direction, saw that he had lost his chance, and went over to talk to Mrs. Verdon.
"Come out and see how the streams glisten in the moonlight," said Arnold in a quiet voice. And Elsie consented willingly; she was tired of the formal room and the uninteresting talk, and the breath of the night was sweet.
The ground sloped gently down from the terrace, and beyond the Court gardens were the low-lying meadows and shining watercourses. The glamour of the moonshine was over all; it was like a landscape seen in a dream.
"I must see more of you next week," said Arnold, looking down at the delicate face which was spiritualised by the mysterious light. "You will come to church to-morrow. There will be a walk of three-quarters of a mile; the footpath runs through the fields."
"It will be delightful to go to a country church again," Elsie answered.
"I"m glad to return to the old rural scenes myself," Arnold confessed.
"By the way, don"t turn poor Ryan"s head, Miss Kilner, unless you want to break some one"s heart."
"Whose heart?"
Elsie looked up at him with grave, questioning eyes.
"My cousin Lily"s. It"s quite an old affair."
"Oh, yes, we"ll all go out on the terrace. No, Mrs. Tell, we shan"t take cold. It can"t be done to-night."
Mary Danforth was speaking; her high-pitched voice grated unpleasantly on Elsie"s ears. She stepped out over the low window-sill, followed by Mrs. Verdon, Lily, and Mr. Ryan.
Arnold muttered something under his breath. Mary came towards the pair at once, with a little affected exclamation of surprise.
"You here, Arnold! Isn"t it lovely, Miss Kilner? The view from the terrace is always so pretty by moonlight. How very warm it is! But don"t you think you ought to have a shawl?"
They were all mixed up now; there were no more quiet words. Everybody seemed to talk and laugh at once.
A stable-clock struck ten, and Mrs. Lennard told Elsie that it was time to go.
Francis Ryan and his two ladies went back across the old bridge. Miss Kilner, wrapt in a soft buff shawl, paused a second to look down into the dark moat. Only a few moonbeams touched the still water; the rushes stood up like tall black spears; one could fancy armed men crouched in ambush there in the shadow of the arch. She walked on again by Mrs.
Lennard"s side.
"We were rather dull at the Court to-night," said Francis. "Wayne has grown accustomed to living in tents, and that sort of thing, you see.
The old place needs a lady"s rule. Mrs. Verdon will make a good _chatelaine_."
"Has she been telling you her secrets?" Mrs. Lennard asked.
"No; but the Danforths were talking."
"The Danforths generally are talking," the old lady replied.
"Well, but I think they are right. It"s time for Wayne to settle. A man should look after his own place and know his own people. And if he has a big house he wants a wife."
"When he wants her he can find her without the a.s.sistance of other people. The worst matches I"ve ever known were those made up by sisters and cousins and aunts," said Mrs. Lennard in her decided way. "Elsie, my dear, what are you looking at? That was only a cat that ran across the road. You are getting nervous. I shall send you off to bed."
CHAPTER XVI
_GOING TO CHURCH_
"But having entered in, we shall find there Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer, And faces of crowned angels all about."