"I am quite sure of that--in fact, I know it," said mamma.
And there followed a silence.
"I sometimes think, Mabel--I was thinking so all this evening," said Lady Lorrimer, "it might have been happier for us if we had never left this lonely place. We might have been happier if we had been born under harder conditions; the power of doing what pleases us best leads us so often into sorrow."
Another silence followed. Mamma was looking over her shoulder, sadly, through the window at the familiar view of lake and mountain, indolently listening.
"I regret it, and I don"t regret it," continued Lady Lorrimer. "If I could go back again into my early self--I wish I could--but the artificial life so perverts and enervates one, I hardly know, honestly, what I wish. I only know there is regret enough to make me discontented, and I think I should have been a great deal happier if I had been compelled to stay at Golden Friars, and had never pa.s.sed beyond the mountains that surround us here. I have not so long as you to live, Mabel, and I"m glad of it. I am not quite so much of a Sadducee as you used to think me, and I hope there may be a happier world for us all.
And, now that I have ended my homminy, as they call such long speeches in this country, will you, dear Ethel, give me a cup of tea?"
Lady Lorrimer and I talked. I was curious about some of the places and ruins I had seen, and asked questions, which it seemed to delight her to answer. It is a region abounding in stories strange and marvellous, family traditions, and legends of every kind.
"I think," said mamma, _a propos des bottes_, "if he has returned they are sure to know in the town before ten to-night. Would you mind asking again by-and-by?"
"You mean about Harry Rokestone?"
"Yes."
"I will. I"ll make out all about him. We saw his castle to-day," she continued, turning to me. "Our not knowing whether he was there or not made it a very interesting contemplation. You remember the short speech Sheridan wrote to introduce Kelly"s song at Drury Lane--"There stands my Matilda"s cottage! She must be in it, or else out of it?""
Again mamma dropped out, and the conversation was maintained by Lady Lorrimer and myself. In a little while mamma took her leave, complaining of a headache; and our kinswoman begged that I would remain for an hour or so, to keep her company. When mamma had bid her good night, and was gone, the door being shut, Lady Lorrimer laughed, and said:
"Now, tell me truly, don"t you think if your papa had been with us to-day in the boat, and seen the change that took place in your mamma"s looks and spirits from the moment she saw Dorracleugh, and the tall man who stood on the rock, down to the hour of her headache and early good night, he would have been a little jealous?"
I did not quite know whether she was joking or serious, and I fancy there was some puzzle in my face as I answered:
"But it can"t be that she liked Sir Harry Rokestone; she is awfully afraid of him--that is the reason, I"m sure, she was so put out. She never liked him."
"Don"t be too sure of that, little woman," she answered, gaily.
"Do you really think mamma liked him? Why, she was in love with papa."
"No, it was nothing so deep," said Lady Lorrimer; "she did not love your papa. It was a violent whim, and if she had been left just five weeks to think, she would have returned to Rokestone."
"But there can be no sentiment remaining still," I remarked. "Sir Harry Rokestone is an old man!"
"Yes, he is an old man; he is--let me see--he"s fifty-six. And she did choose to marry your papa. But I"m sure she thinks she made a great mistake. I am very sure she thinks that, with all his faults, Rokestone was the more loveable man, the better man, the truer. He would have taken good care of her. I don"t know of any one point in which he was your papa"s inferior, and there are fifty in which he was immeasurably his superior. He was a handsomer man, if that is worth anything. I think I never saw so handsome a man, in his peculiar style. You think me a very odd old woman to tell you my opinion of your father so frankly; but I am speaking as your mamma"s friend and kinswoman, and I say your papa has not used her well. He is good-humoured, and has good spirits, and he has some good-nature, quite subordinated to his selfishness. And those qualities, so far as I know, complete the muster-roll of his virtues.
But he has made her, in no respect, a good husband. In some a very bad one. And he employs half-a-dozen attorneys, to whom he commits his business at random; and he is too indolent to look after anything. Of course he"s robbed, and everything at sixes and sevens; and he has got your mamma to take legal steps to make away with her money for his own purposes; and the foolish child, the merest simpleton in money matters, does everything he bids her; and I really believe she has left herself without a guinea. I don"t like him--no one could who likes _her_. Poor, dear Mabel, she wants energy; I never knew a woman with so little will.
She never showed any but once, and that was when she did a foolish thing, and married your father."
"And did Sir Harry Rokestone like mamma very much?" I asked.
"He was madly in love with her, and when she married your papa, he wanted to shoot him. I think he was, without any metaphor, very nearly out of his mind. He has been a sort of anchorite ever since. His money is of no use to him. He is a bitter and eccentric old man."
"And he can injure papa now?"
"So I"m told. Your papa thinks so; and he seldom takes the trouble to be alarmed about danger three or four months distant."
Then, to my disappointment and, also, my relief, that subject dropped.
It had interested and pained me; and sometimes I felt that it was scarcely right that I should hear all she was saying, without taking up the cudgels for papa. Now, with great animation, she told me her recollections of her girlish days here at Golden Friars, when the old gentry were such bores and humorists as are no longer to be met with anywhere. And as she made me laugh at these recitals, her maid, whom she had sent down to "the bar" to make an inquiry, returned, and told her something in an undertone. As soon as she was gone, Lady Lorrimer said:
"Yes, it is quite true. Tell your mamma that Harry Rokestone is at Dorracleugh."
She became thoughtful. Perhaps she was rehearsing mentally the mediatory conference she had undertaken.
We had not much more conversation that night; and we soon parted with a very affectionate good-night. My room adjoined mamma"s, and finding that she was not yet asleep, I went in and gave her Lady Lorrimer"s message.
Mamma changed colour, and raised herself suddenly on her elbow, looking in my face.
"Very well, dear," said she, a little flurried. "We must leave this to-morrow morning."
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
SIR HARRY"S ANSWER.
About eleven o"clock next morning our chaise was at the door of the "George and Dragon." We had been waiting with our bonnets on to say good-bye to Lady Lorrimer. I have seen two or three places in my life to which my affections were drawn at first sight, and this was one of them.
I was standing at the window, looking my last at this beautiful scene.
Mamma was restless and impatient. I knew she was uneasy lest some accident should bring Sir Harry Rokestone to the door before we had set out upon our journey.
At length Lady Lorrimer"s foreign maid came to tell us that milady wished to see us now. Accordingly we followed the maid, who softly announced us.
The room was darkened; only one gleam, through a little opening in the far shutter, touched the curtains of her bed, showing the old-fashioned chintz pattern, like a transparency, through the faded lining. She was no longer the gay Lady Lorrimer of the evening before. She was sitting up among her pillows, nearly in the dark, and the most melancholy, whimpering voice you can imagine came through the gloom from among the curtains.
"Is my sweet Ethel there, also?" she asked when she had kissed mamma.
"Oh, that"s right; I should not have been happy if I had not bid you good-bye. Give me your hand, darling. And so you are going, Mabel? I"m sorry you go so soon, but perhaps you are right--I think you are. It would not do, perhaps, to meet. I"ll do what I can, and write to tell you how I succeed."
Mamma thanked and kissed her again.
"I"m not so well as people think, dear, nor as I wish to think myself.
We may not meet for a long time, and I wish to tell you, Mabel--I wish to tell you both--that I won"t leave you dependent on that reckless creature, Francis Ware. I want you two to be safe. I have none but you left me to love on earth." Here poor Lady Lorrimer began to cry.
"Whenever I write to you, you must come to me; don"t let anything prevent you. I am so weak. I want to leave you both very well, and I intend to put it out of my power to change it--who"s that at the door?
Just open it, Ethel, dear child, and see if any one is there--my maid, I mean--you can say you dropped your handkerchief--hush!"
There was no one in the lobby.
"Shut it quietly, dear; I"ll do what I say--don"t thank me--don"t say a word about it to any one, and if you mention it to Francis Ware, charge him to tell no one else. There, dears, both, don"t stay longer. G.o.d bless you! Go, go; G.o.d bless you!"
And with these words, having kissed us both very fondly, she dismissed us.
Mamma ran down, and out to the carriage very quickly, and sat back as far as she could at the far side. I followed, and all being ready, in a minute more we were driving swiftly from the "George and Dragon," and soon town, lake, forest, and distant fells were hidden from view by the precipitous sides of the savage gorge, through which the road winds its upward way.
Our drive into Golden Friars had been a silent one, and so was our drive from it, though from different causes. I was thinking over our odd interview with poor Lady Lorrimer. In what a low, nervous state she seemed, and how affectionately she spoke! I had no inquisitive tendencies, and I was just at the age when people take the future for granted. No sordid speculations therefore, I can honestly say, were busy with my brain.
We were to have stayed at least ten days at Golden Friars, and here we were flying from it before two days were spent. All our plans were upset by the blight of Sir Harry Rokestone"s arrival at least a fortnight before the date of his usual visit, just as Napoleon"s Russian calculations were spoilt by the famous early winter of 1812. I was vexed in my way. I should not have been sorry to hear that he had been well ducked in the lake. Mamma was vexed in her own way, also, when, about an hour after, she escaped from the thoughts that agitated her at first, and descended to her ordinary level. A gap of more than a week was made in her series of visits. What was to be done with it?