At one of the windows stood, in her haughty beauty, Eliza Monk. Not, surely, of the lovely scene before her was she thinking, or her face might have worn a more pleasing expression. Rather did she seem to gaze, and with displeasure, at two or three people who were walking in the distance: Lucy Carradyne side by side with the clergyman, and Miss Kate Danc.o.x pulling at his coat-tails.
"Shameful flirt!"
The acidity of the tone was so p.r.o.nounced that Mrs. Carradyne, seated near and busy at her netting, lifted her head in surprise. "Why, Eliza, what"s the matter? Who is a flirt?"
"Lucy," curtly replied Eliza, pointing with her finger.
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Carradyne, after glancing outwards.
"Why does she persistently lay herself out to attract that man?" was the pa.s.sionate rejoinder.
"Be silent, Eliza. How can you conjure up so unjust a charge? Lucy is not capable of _laying herself out_ to attract anyone. It lies but in your imagination."
"Day after day, when she is out with Kate, you may see him join her--allured to her side."
"The "allurer" is Kate, then. I am surprised at you, Eliza: you might be talking of a servant-maid. Kate has taken a liking for Mr. Grame, and she runs after him at all times and seasons."
"She ought to be stopped, then."
"Stopped! Will you undertake to do it? Could her mother be stopped in anything she pleased to do? And the child has the same rebellious will."
"I say that Robert Grame"s attraction is Lucy."
"It may be so," acknowledged Mrs. Carradyne. "But the attraction must lie in Lucy herself; not in anything she does. Some suspicion of the sort has, at times, crossed me."
She looked at them again as she spoke. They were sauntering onwards slowly; Mr. Grame bending towards Lucy, and talking earnestly. Kate, dancing about, pulling at his arm or his coat, appeared to get but little attention. Mrs. Carradyne quietly went on with her work.
And that composed manner, combined with her last sentence, brought gall and wormwood to Eliza Monk.
Throwing a summer scarf upon her shoulders, Eliza pa.s.sed out at the French window, crossed the terrace, and set out to confront the conspirators. But she was not in time. Seeing her coming, or not seeing her--who knew?--Mr. Grame turned off with a fleet foot towards his home.
So n.o.body remained for Miss Monk to waste her angry breath upon but Lucy. The breath was keenly sharp, and Lucy fell to weeping.
"I am here, Grame. Don"t go in."
The words fell on the clergyman"s ears as he closed the Vicarage gate behind him, and was pa.s.sing up the path to his door. Turning his head, he saw Hubert Monk seated on the bench under the may tree, pink and lovely yet. "How long have you been here?" he asked, sitting down beside him.
"Ever so long; waiting for you," replied Hubert.
"I was only strolling about."
"I saw you: with Lucy and the child."
They had become fast and firm friends, these two young men; and the minister was insensibly exercising a wonderful influence over Hubert for good. Believing--as he did believe--that Hubert"s days were numbered, that any sharp extra exertion might entail fatal consequences, he gently strove, as opportunity offered, to lead his thoughts to the Better Land.
"What an evening it is!" rapturously exclaimed Hubert.
"Ay: so calm and peaceful."
The rays of the setting sun touched Hubert"s face, lighting up its extreme delicacy; the scent of the closing flowers filled the still air with sweetness; the birds were chanting their evening song of praise.
Hubert, his elbow on the arm of the bench, his hand supporting his chin, looked out with dreamy eyes.
"What book have you there?" asked Mr. Grame, noticing one in his other hand.
"Herbert," answered the young man, showing it. "I filched it from your table through the open window, Grame."
The clergyman took it. It chanced to open at a pa.s.sage he was very fond of. Or perhaps he knew the place, and opened it purposely.
"Do you know these verses, Hubert? They are appropriate enough just now, while those birds are carolling."
"I can"t tell. What verses? Read them."
"Hark, how the birds do sing, And woods do ring!
All creatures have their joy, and man hath his, Yet, if we rightly measure, Man"s joy and pleasure Rather hereafter than in present is.
Not that we may not here Taste of the cheer; But as birds drink and straight lift up the head, So must he sip and think Of better drink He may attain to after he is dead."
"Ay," said Hubert, breaking the silence after a time, "it"s very true, I suppose. But this world--oh, it"s worth living for. Will anything in the next, Grame, be more beautiful than _that_?"
He was pointing to the sunset, marvellously and unusually beautiful.
Lovely pink and crimson clouds flecked the west; in their midst shone a dazzling golden light too glorious to look upon.
"One might fancy it the portals of heaven," said the clergyman; "the golden gate of entrance, leading to the pearly gates within, and to the glittering walls of precious stones."
"Ay! And it seems to take the form of an entrance-gate!" exclaimed Hubert; for it really did so. "Look at it! Oh, Grame, surely the very gate of Heaven cannot be more wonderful than that!"
"And if the gate of entrance is so unspeakably beautiful, what will the City itself be?" murmured Mr. Grame. "The Heavenly City! the New Jerusalem!"
"It is beginning to fade," said Hubert presently, as they sat watching; "the brightness is going. What a pity!"
"All that"s bright must fade in this world, you know; and fade very quickly. Hubert! it will not in the next."
Church Leet, watching its neighbours" doings sharply, began to whisper that the new clergyman, Mr. Grame, was likely to cause unpleasantness to the Monk family, just as some of his predecessors had caused it. For no man having eyes in his head (still less any woman) could fail to see that the Captain"s imperious daughter had fallen desperately in love with him. Would there be a second elopement, as in the days of Tom Danc.o.x? Would Eliza Monk set her father at defiance as Katherine did?
One of the last to see signs and tokens, though they took place under her open eyes, was Mrs. Carradyne. But she saw at last. The clergyman could not walk across a new-mown field, or down a shady lane, or be hastening along the dusty turnpike road, but by some inexplicable coincidence he would be met by Miss Monk; and when he came to the Hall to pa.s.s an hour with Hubert, she generally made a third at the interview. It had pleased her latterly to take to practising on the old church organ; and if Mr. Grame was not wiled into the church with her and her attendant, the ancient clerk, who blew the bellows, she was sure to alight upon him in going or returning.
One fine evening, dinner over, when the last beams of the sun were slanting into the drawing-room, Eliza Monk was sitting back on a sofa, reading; Kate romped about the room, and Mrs. Carradyne had just rung the bell for tea. Lucy had been spending the afternoon with Mrs. Speck, and Hubert had now gone to fetch her home.
"Good gracious, Kate, can"t you be quiet!" exclaimed Miss Monk, as the child in her gambols sprang upon the sofa, upsetting the book and its reader"s temper. "Go away: you are treading on my flounces. Aunt Emma, why do you persist in having this tiresome little reptile with us after dinner?"
"Because your father will not let her be sent to the nursery," said Mrs.
Carradyne.
"Did you ever know a child like her?"