They soon began to talk of other things. A reputation fostered by years of caution, outward self-restraint, and conventional observances, had just been slain before their eyes; but those careless spirits made little moan over the dead, and seemed to think the obsequies not worth a funeral oration. Having once accepted his position, Brabazon, to do him justice, made the best of it. He made no attempt at retaliation, as he might easily have done, by removing himself and his belongings abruptly from Dene; indeed, during the remainder of a protracted visit there, he comported himself in a manner void of offence to man or woman. The Squire, who knew him well, remarked the change, and congratulated himself and others thereupon; but they never told him of the somewhat summary process by which the result had been achieved. It was simple enough, after all. Some horses will never run kindly till you take your whip up to them in earnest.
Though Sir Alan Wyverne had no property left worth speaking of, he still had "affairs" of one sort or another to attend to, from time to time, and of late it had become still more necessary that these be kept in order. Before very long, he too was obliged to go up to town on business. He was only to be absent three or four days; but he seemed strangely reluctant to leave Dene. In good truth, there was not the slightest reason for any gloomy presentiment; but Helen remembered in after years, that during the last hours they spent together then, her cousin made none of those gay allusions to their future that he was so fond of indulging in; and that though his words and manner were kind and loving as ever, there was something sad and subdued in their tenderness.
So far as Alan knew, it was a simple case of business which called him away; more than once afterwards he thought it would have been better if he had died that night, with the music of Helen"s whisper in his ears, the print of her ripe scarlet lips on his cheek, the pressure of her lithe twining fingers still lingering round his own.
Many men, before and since, have thought the same. It is, perhaps, the most reasonable of all the repinings that are more futile than the vainest of regrets. Two lifetimes would not unravel some tangles of sorrow and sin, that are cut asunder, quite simply, by one sheer sudden stroke of Azrael"s sword. Be sure, the purpose of G.o.d"s awful messenger is often benevolent, though his aspect is seldom benign. The legend of ancient days bears a sad significance still. His arm is "swift to smite and never to spare;" black as night is the plumage of his vast shadowy wings; his lineaments are somewhat stern in their severe serenity; but in all the hierarchy of Heaven--the Rabbins say--is found no more perfect beauty than in the face of the Angel of Death.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FIRST Sh.e.l.l.
So Wyverne went on his way--not rejoicing; and Helen would have been left "sighing her lane," if she had been at all given to that romantic pastime. But they were not a sentimental pair; and did not even think it necessary to bind themselves under an oath to correspond by every possible post--a compact which is far more agreeably feasible in theory than in practice. However, a long letter from Alan made his cousin very happy on the third day after his departure. It was a perfect epistle in its way--at least, it thoroughly satisfied the fair recipient; to be sure, it was her first experience in that line. Two lines evidently written after the rest--said that his return must be deferred four-and-twenty hours. Helen did not hear again from her cousin; but on the morning of the day on which he was expected, the post brought two strange letters to Dene which changed the aspect of things materially.
One was addressed to Lady Mildred, the other to her daughter. Both were written in the same delicate feminine hand, and the contents of both were essentially the same, though they varied slightly in phrase. "My lady"s" communication may serve as a sample:
"When Alan Wyverne returns, it might be well to ask him three simple questions:--What was the business that detained him in town? Who was his companion for two hours yesterday in the Botanical Gardens (which they had entirely to themselves)? Where he spent the whole of this afternoon?
I would give the answers myself, but I know him well, and I am sure he will not refuse to satisfy your natural curiosity. As my name will never be known, I need not disguise my motive in writing thus. I care not serving you, or saving your daughter; I simply wish to serve my own revenge. I loved him dearly, once, or I should not hate him so heartily now. If Alan Wyverne chooses to betray so soon the girl to whom he has plighted faith, I do not see why _one_ of his old loves should engross _all_ the treachery."
Helen"s letter was to the same purport, but at greater length, and more considerately and gently expressed, as though some compa.s.sion was mingled in the writer"s bitterness.
I should very much like to know the _fiancee_ who would receive such a communication as this with perfect equanimity--supposing, of course, that her heart went with the promise of her hand. Miss Vavasour believed in her cousin to a great extent, and her nature was too frank and generous to foster suspicion; but she was not such a paragon of trustfulness. She was thoroughly miserable during the whole of the day.
There was very little comfort to be got out of her mother (it was decided that the subject should not be mentioned, at present, to the Squire); "my lady" said very little, but evidently thought that matters looked dark. When she said--"Don"t let us make ourselves unhappy till you have spoken to Alan; I am certain he can explain everything"--it was irritatingly apparent that she really took quite an opposite view of the probabilities, and was only trying to pacify Helen"s first excitement, as a nurse might humour the fancies of a fever-patient. Nevertheless, the _demoiselle_ bore up bravely; not one of the party at Dene guessed that anything had occurred to ruffle her; and there were sharp eyes of all colours amongst them.
Mrs. Fernley was there--the most seductive of "gra.s.s-widows"--whose husband had held for years some great post high up in the Himalayas, only giving sign of his existence by the regular transmission of large monies, wherewith to sustain the splendour of his consort"s establishment. There, too, was Agatha Drummond--whose name it is treason to introduce thus episodically, for she deserves a story to herself, and has nothing whatever to do with the present one--a beauty of the grand old Frankish type, with rich fair hair, haughty aquiline features, clear, bold blue eyes, and long elastic limbs--such as one"s fancy a.s.signs to those who shared the bed of Merovingian kings. She pa.s.sed the most of her waking hours in riding, waltzing, or flirting; seldom or ever read anything, and talked, notwithstanding, pa.s.singly well; but for daring, energy, and power of supporting fatigue in her three favourite pursuits, you might have backed her safely against any woman of her age in England. Both were very fond of Helen, and would have sympathized with her sincerely had they seen cause; but their glances were not the less keenly inquisitive; and, under the circ.u.mstances, she deserved some credit for keeping her griefs so entirely to herself.
I have heard grave, reverend men, with consciences probably as clear and correct as their banking books, confess that they never returned home, after a brief absence during which no letters had been forwarded, without a certain vague apprehension, which did not entirely subside till they had met their family and glanced over their correspondence. I will not affirm that some feeling of the sort did not cross Wyverne"s mind as he drove up the long dark avenue to Dene. He arrived so late that almost every one had gone up to dress, so he was not surprised at not finding Helen downstairs; it is possible that he was slightly disappointed at not encountering her somewhere--by chance of course--in gallery or corridor. When they met, just before dinner, Alan did fancy that there was something constrained in his cousin"s welcome, and unusually grave in his aunt"s greeting; but he had no suspicion that anything was seriously amiss, till Helen whispered, as she pa.s.sed him on leaving the dining-room--"Come to the library as soon as you can. I am going there now." You may guess if he kept her waiting long.
Miss Vavasour was sitting in an arm-chair near the fire; her head was bent low, leaning on her hand; even in the uncertain light you might see the slender fingers working and trembling; there was a listless despondency in her whole bearing, so different from its usual proud elasticity, that a sharp conviction of something having gone fearfully wrong, shot through Wyverne"s heart, like the thrust of a dagger. His lips had not touched even her forehead, yet, but he did not now attempt a caress; he only laid his hand gently on her shoulder--so light a touch need not have made her shiver--and whispered--
"What has vexed you, my own?"
For all answer, she gave him the letter, that she held ready.
He read it through by the light of the shaded lamp that stood near.
Helen watched his face all the while with a fearful, feverish anxiety; it betrayed not the faintest shade of confusion or shame, but it grew very grave and sad, and, at last, darkened, almost sternly. When he came to the end he was still silent, and seemed to muse for a few seconds.
But she could bear suspense no longer. Yet there was no anger in the sweet voice, it was only plaintive and pleading--
"Ah, Alan, do speak to me. Won"t you say it is all untrue?"
Wyverne roused himself from his reverie instantly; he drew nearer to his cousin"s side, and took her little trembling hand in his own, looking down into her face--lovelier than ever in its pale, troubled beauty--with an intense love and pity in his eyes.
"The blow was cruelly meant, and craftily dealt," he said, "but they shall not part us yet, if you are brave enough to believe me thoroughly and implicitly, this once. I will never ask you to do so again. Yes, the facts are true--don"t draw your hand back--I would not hold it another second if I could not say the inferences are as false as the Father of lies could make them. A dozen words answer all the questions. I was with Nina Lenox, in the Gardens; and yesterday afternoon I staid in town on _her_ business, not on my own. There is the truth. The lie is--the insinuation that I had any other interest at stake than serving a rash unhappy woman in her hard need. That unfortunate is doomed to be fatal, it seems, even to her friends--she has right few left now to ruin.
Darling, try to believe that neither she nor the world have ever had the right to call _me_ by any other name."
Mrs. Rawson Lenox was one of the celebrities of that time. Her face and figure carried all before them, when she first came out; and even in the first season they set her up as a sort of standard of beauty with which others could only be compared in degrees of inferiority. She married early and very unhappily. Her husband was a coa.r.s.e, rough-tempered man, and tried from the first to tyrannize over his wayward impetuous wife--who had been spoilt from childhood upwards--just as he was wont to do over the tenants of his broad acres, and his countless dependents. Of course it did not answer. Years had pa.s.sed since then, each one giving more excuse to Nina Lenox for her wild ways and reckless disregard of the proprieties; but--not excuse enough. Men fell in love with her perpetually; but they did not come scathless out of the fire, like the admirers of Maud Brabazon. The taint and smirch of the furnace-blast remained; well if there were not angry scars, too, rankling and refusing to be healed. Mothers and mothers-in-law shook their heads ominously at the mention of Nina"s name; the first, tracing the ruin of their son--moral or financial--the last, the domestic discomfort of her daughter, to those fatal lansquenet-parties and still more perilous morning _tete-a-tetes_.
Was it not hard to believe that a man, still short of his prime, and notoriously epicurean in his philosophy, could be in the secret of the sorceress without having drunk of her cup? That he could serve her as a friend, in sincerity and innocence, without ever having descended to be her accomplice? Yet this amount of faith or credulity--call it which you will--Wyverne did not scruple to ask from Helen, then.
It may not be denied that her heart seemed to contract, for an instant, painfully, when her lover"s lips p.r.o.nounced so familiarly that terrible name. But it shook off distrust before it could fasten there. She rose up, with her hand in Alan"s, and nestled close to his breast, and looked up earnestly and lovingly into his eyes.
"My own--my own still," she murmured, "I do believe you thoroughly, now, even if you tell me not another word. But do be kind and prudent, and don"t try me again soon, it is so very hard to bear."
"If I had only guessed--"
That sentence was never finished, for reasons good and sufficient; such delicious impediments to speech are unfortunately rather rare. The kiss of forgiveness was sweeter in its lingering fondness, than that which sealed the affiancement under the oak-trees of the Home Wood.
"Sit here, child," Wyverne said, at last. "You shall hear all now."
He sank down on a cushion at her feet, and so made his confession. Not a disagreeable penance, either, when absolution is secured beforehand, and a delicate hand wanders at times, with caressing encouragement, over the penitent"s brow and hair.
It is quite unnecessary to give the explanation at length. Mrs.
Lenox had involved herself in all sorts of sc.r.a.pes, of which money-embarra.s.sments were the least serious. Things had come to a dangerous crisis. She had been foolish enough to borrow money of a man whose character ought to have deterred her, and then to offend him mortally. The creditor was base enough to threaten to use the weapons he possessed, in the shape of letters and other doc.u.ments, compromising Nina fearfully. She heard that Wyverne was in town, and wrote to him to help her in her great distress. She preferred trusting him, to others on whom she had a real claim, because she knew him thoroughly; and if there was no love-link between them, neither was there any remorse or reproach. She was heart-sick of intrigue, for the moment, and would try what a kind honest friend could do. It was true. Their intimacy had been always innocent. These things are not to be accounted for; perhaps Alan never cared to offer sacrifice at an altar on which incense from all kingdoms of the earth was burned. Mr. Lenox"s temper had become of late so brutally savage, that Nina felt actual physical fear at the idea of his hearing of her embarra.s.sments. This was the reason why she had met Wyverne clandestinely in the Botanical Gardens. Her husband was absent the whole of the next day; so that she had received him at home. It was a difficult and delicate business; but Alan carried it through. He got the money first--not a very large sum--found out the creditor with some trouble, and satisfied him, gaining possession of every dangerous doc.u.ment. It was a stormy interview at first; but Wyverne was not easily withstood when thoroughly in earnest; and his quiet, contemptuous firmness fairly broke the other down. You may fancy Nina"s grat.i.tude: indeed, up to a certain point, Alan had congratulated himself on having wrought a work of mercy and charity without damage to any one. You have seen how he was undeceived. He did not dissemble from Helen his self-reproach at having been foolish enough to meddle in the matter at all.
"Some one must be sacrificed at such times," he said; "but, my darling, it were better that all the _intrigantes_ in London should go to the wall, than that you should have an hour"s disquiet. Trust me, I"ll see to this for the future. I am sure Mrs. Lenox would not be a nice friend for you; and it is better to cut off the connexion before you can be brought in contact. One can afford to be frank when one has done a person a real service. I"ll write her a few lines--you can correct them, if you like--to say that this affair has been made the subject of anonymous letters; and that I cannot, for _your_ sake, risk more misconstruction; so that our acquaintance must be of the slightest henceforward."
So peace was happily restored. We need not go into a minute description of the "rejoicings" that ensued. One thought only puzzled and troubled Alan exceedingly.
"I can"t conceive who can have written that letter," he said, "or got it written. The hand of course proves nothing, nor the motive implied, which is simply not worth noticing. It is just as likely the work of a man"s malevolence as of a woman"s. Helen, I own frankly I would rather it were the first than the last. But I thought I had not made an enemy persevering enough to watch all my movements, or cruel enough to deal that blow in the dark."
It was evident that the shock to his genial system of belief in the world in general affected him far more than the foiled intent of personal injury.
When Lady Mildred saw her daughter"s face, as the latter re-entered the drawing-room alone, she guessed at once the issue of the conference, and knew that it would be useless now to cavil at an explanation which must have been absolutely satisfactory. She was not in the least disappointed; indeed, the most she had expected from this first shock to Helen"s confidence was a slight loosening of the foundations. From the first moment of reading the anonymous letter, she detected fraud and misrepresentation; and argued that the Truth would this time prevail.
So, when Alan had audience of her in her boudoir late that evening, he found no difficulty in making his cause good. "My lady" did just refer to something she had said on a former occasion, and quite coincided in Wyverne"s idea, that this was one of the dangerous acquaintances that it was imperative for him to give up: indeed, she was very explicit and decided on this point. Otherwise, she was everything that was kind and conciliatory; and really said less about the imprudence in meddling with such an affair at all, than could have been expected from the most indulgent of aunts or mothers. Just before he left the boudoir, Alan read the letter through that "my lady" had given him--he had scarcely glanced at it before. When he gave it back his face had perceptibly lightened, though his lip was curling scornfully.
"I"m so glad you showed me that pleasant letter, Aunt Mildred," he said.
"My mind is quite easy now as to the s.e.x of the informer. No woman, I dare swear, to whom I ever spoke words of more than common courtesy could have written such words as those. Perhaps I may find out his name some day, and thank him for the trouble he has taken."
Lady Mildred did not feel exactly comfortable just then. She would have preferred the whole transaction being now left in as much obscurity as possible. She knew how determined and obstinate the speaker could be when he had real cause to be unforgiving. She knew that he was capable of exacting the reckoning to the uttermost farthing, though the settlement was ever so long delayed. On the whole, however, she was satisfied with the aspect of affairs as they remained. She had good reason to be so. Doubt and distrust may scorn to vanish; but they generally leave behind them a slow, subtle, poisonous influence, that the purest and strongest faith may not defy. Of all diseases, those are the most dangerous, which linger in the system when the cure is p.r.o.nounced to be perfect.
I knew a man well who pa.s.sed through the Crimean war untouched by steel or shot, though he was ever in the front of the battle. Even the terrible trench-work did not seem to affect him. He would come in, wet but not weary, sleep in his damp tent contentedly, and rise up in his might rejoicing. When, quite at the end of the war, he was attacked by the fever, no one felt any serious alarm. We supposed that Kenneth McAlpine could shake off any ordinary sickness as easily as Sampson did the Philistine"s gyves. In truth, he did appear to recover very speedily; and, when he returned to England, seemed in his usual health again. But soon he began to waste and pine away without any symptoms of active disease. None of the doctors could reach the seat of the evil, or even define its cause. It took some time to sap that colossal strength fairly away; but month by month the doom came out more plainly on his face, and the end has come at last. Poor Kenneth"s grave will be as green as the rest of them, next spring, when the gra.s.s begins to grow.
Standing by the sepulchre of Faith, or Love, or Hope--if we dared look back--we might find it hard to remember when and where the first seeds of decay were sown, though we do not forget one pang of the last miserable days that preceded the sharp death-agony.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LETTERS OF BELLEROPHON.
Wyverne"s valedictory note to Mrs. Lenox, though kindly and courteous, was brief and decisive enough to satisfy Helen perfectly. The answer came in due course; there was no anger or even vexation in its tone, but rather a sad humility--not at all what might have been expected from the proud, pa.s.sionate, reckless _lionne_, who kept her sauciest smile for her bitterest foe, and scarcely ever indulged the dearest of her friends with a sigh. A perpetual warfare was waged between that beautiful Free Companion and all regular powers; though often worsted and forced, for the moment, to give ground, she had never yet lost heart or shown sign of submission; the poor little Amazonian target was sorely dinted, and its gay blazonry nearly effaced, but the dauntless motto was still legible as ever--_L"Empire c"est la guerre_.
So for awhile there was peace at Dene, and yet, not perfect peace. Miss Vavasour"s state of mind was by no means satisfactory; though it seemed, at the time, to recover perfectly from the sharp shock, it really never regained its healthy elastic tone. Miserable misgivings, that could hardly be called suspicions, would haunt her, though she tried hard not to listen to their irritating whispers, and always hated herself bitterly afterwards for her weakness. She thought how unwise it would be to show herself jealous or exacting, yet she could hardly bear Alan to be out of her sight, and when he was away, had no rest, even in her dreams. Her unknown correspondent, in a nice cynical letter, congratulated Helen on her good-nature and long-suffering, and hinted that Mrs. Lenox had been heard to express her entire approval of Alan"s choice--"it would be very inconvenient, if there were bounds to the future Lady Wyverne"s credulity." She did not dare to confess to her cousin that she had read such a letter through, and so only took her mother into the secret. Lady Mildred testified a proper indignation at the spitefulness and baseness of the writer, but showed plainly enough that her own mind was by no means easy on the subject. All that day, and all that week, Miss Vavasour"s temper was more than uncertain, and though no actual tempest broke, there was electricity enough in the atmosphere to have furnished a dozen storms. "My Lady" had always indulged her daughter, but she took to humouring and petting her now, almost ostentatiously; the compa.s.sionate motive was so very evident, that instead of soothing the high-spirited demoiselle, it chafed her, at times, inexpressibly.
The change did not escape Alan Wyverne. He felt a desolate conviction that things were going wrong every way, but he was perfectly helpless, simply because there was nothing tangible to grapple with; he did not wish to call up evil spirits, merely to have the satisfaction of laying them. Helen"s penitence after any display of waywardness or wickedness of temper was so charming, and the amends she contrived to make so very delicious, that her cousin found it the easiest thing imaginable to forgive; indeed, he would not have disliked that occasional petulance, if he had not guessed at the hidden cause. The only one of the party who failed to realize that anything had gone amiss, was the Squire; and perhaps even his gay genial nature would scarcely have enabled him to close his eyes to the altered state of things, if he had watched them narrowly; but, having once given his adhesion frankly and freely, he troubled himself little more about the course of the love-affair, relying upon Alan"s falling back on him as a reserve, if there occurred serious difficulty or obstacle. The troubles threatening his house, were quite enough to engross poor Hubert"s attention just then.