Early in January Mr. Howard returned from Spain. Had he been able to follow his own inclinations, he would have gone straight to Cumberland in order to look after his property, and confer with his agent on some matters of importance; but he received such an urgent summons from Lady Osborne that he did not like to disregard it, and went down into Surrey.
As he entered the beautiful drawing-room of the Castle, where everything was so familiar to him, and Lady Osborne, so entirely in keeping with her surroundings, came forward to greet him, with a slight flush upon her face, he could not but feel how good it was to be once more at home.
They sat together by the wide hearth, and it seemed to him that in the soft light of the candles she might well pass for ten years less than her age, but as a matter of fact a stranger might well have taken her for but little older than himself; in her[Pg 185] beauty there was something so soft and fair.
They had been chatting of one thing and another—principally of Lady Edward Sothern, and the wedding—when suddenly it occurred to him that he had not enquired for Lord Osborne, and, to his amazement, learned that he was in Paris.
"Upon my word I do not understand him," he said, rising to his feet, and leaning against the mantelpiece. "When we were in Italy he was for ever playing the rôle of lonely exile, and pining for his native land!"
He looked down at Lady Osborne, and she coloured.
"I was particularly anxious to speak to you about him," she replied. "It is on account of his disappointment with Miss Watson. She has definitely refused him."
"But what could have induced him to ask her when she is the betrothed of another?"
"It was all a mistake—Mr. Musgrave confesses to having been misinformed.[Pg 186] She continues to live with her brother and sister at Croydon—vulgar impossible people!—though Osborne insists that they have a child who is a perfect little lady!—I cannot understand these Watsons!"
On the plea of his disordered dress, Mr. Howard soon after retired, but, as he crossed the room it was as though something of its beauty had faded. It no longer held the same spell for him. Something of disquiet had wakened in him. An instinct, not unakin to a sense of shrinking, had possessed him—almost as though there were a pitfall at his feet.
As he entered his old apartment, he was again conscious of uneasiness. It had been freshly decorated, and re-furnished, and there was an air of luxury which somehow repelled him, giving him a feeling of oppression. He went over to the casement, and throwing it wide open, regardless of frost and snow, looked out into the quiet night, with its myriad of stars.
On the following day he set out to call on some old parishioners, and had not gone[Pg 187] very far on his way when he encountered Tom Musgrave riding along.
"If ever I met such a fellow as you are, Howard! We all thought you'd been eaten by cannibals!"
"Sorry to disappoint you!—but there are no cannibals in Spain!"
"Well, crocodiles!—it's all one!—and here's Osborne gone off to Paris, clean out of his wits over Miss Watson!"
"How came you to make such a mistake with regard to Miss Watson?"
"Faith! I don't know that there was any mistake! Her people are wild with her for not having Osborne—but there seems to be some other fellow in the background—someone she had met at her aunt's—and she seems fully determined to have her own way. She has, absolutely, left them at Croydon, and gone to stay with her younger brother, where there will be nobody to look after her from morning to night!"
This story unfortunately received confirmation during the morning; and on the following day, when he rode over to the[Pg 188] Rectory to see Purvis, it received a still more disquieting aspect. Emma had been seen in the company of a Captain Conway at A——, a man who was said to be highly connected, though of this there was no certain proof—but who, on the other hand, was well known to be a profligate. Heavy at heart he returned to the Castle.
As he sat with Lady Osborne over the fire that night, she told him more of her history than ever he had previously known.
He had always deplored the inferiority of her son and daughter to their mother, but hitherto it had never occurred to him that she had been conscious of it herself.
"I have known but little happiness in my life," she said. "My father, Lord Foulke, was a gambler; and, in view of the increasing difficulty of living, my mother believed it to be her duty to marry off all her daughters as soon as they came out. I was the third of five girls, and married when scarcely sixteen—no more than a child. I could not endure Lord Osborne—my every instinct revolted against him—but though I implored my[Pg 189] father and mother, with tears, to spare me, they would not listen to me. No one may know the misery of my married life. When I was about twenty-three, however, my husband died, leaving me with two young children—the boy so backward that I believed him for a time to be deficient; but as I spared no effort to develop him he gradually improved. Not long afterwards my father died from an accident. The shock brought a stroke on my mother, depriving her of the power of speech, which she never afterwards recovered, though she lingered on for several years. My brother, despite the remonstrances of the doctor, insisted on her removal to the Dower House, and short as was the drive, she never recovered from it; so that I dared not attempt to bring her here. As it was seldom possible to leave her, I could see but little of my children, for as the Dower House was small, and indifferently built, she could not endure their noise. But never had I loved her so well. Qualities, that I had never before discerned in her, now showed themselves, and we were[Pg 190] drawn together as we never had been before. At her death I returned home, to find my daughter almost a stranger to me. Julia was now fourteen, and her pretty manners, which I had believed to be the expression of her affection for me, had merely served as a mask to her serious defects of character. Perhaps unjustly, I dismissed her governess, believing her to be blamed, and endeavoured myself to correct them, but I had come too late, and it only served to estrange her the further. Osborne, on the other hand, has always held for me the simple affection of his childhood, and his faults are rather of a negative than of a positive character, but he cares for little beyond hunting and fishing—we have almost nothing in common. Until you came, Arthur, I had scarcely known what it was to have a companion."
There was a slight falter in her voice as she uttered the last words, and she looked at her visitor wistfully.
His eyes, half veiled by their lashes, were fixed on the glowing embers, and he remained silent. Once again Emma's[Pg 191] soft hand trembled in his own, and he was conscious of the beating of her heart. Why had he not taken her into his arms, then and there, to shelter in his breast for ever?
"Arthur, you are not listening to me!"
There was a note of reproach in the gentle voice at his side.
"I assure you, Lady Osborne, that I am deeply concerned and distressed to hear of all that you have suffered. Perhaps in view of my office it is scarcely orthodox for me to say how very unfair it has all seemed—but from the point of view of a simple human being, it is impossible to think otherwise."
Nothing could have been kinder than the tone in which he pronounced these words; but that she had expected something altogether different was quite evident by the expression of disappointment which overspread her countenance, as she shrank into the shadow.
After a moment's silence he continued:
"The want of sympathy between parents and children is only too common, but[Pg 192] there must have been a total absence of all natural feeling on the part of your brother, with regard to Lady Foulke, when he could act in such a manner towards her. The counterpart of it, however, I witnessed at the bedside of my cousin. His son, as you know, broke his neck in the hunting field, as his father lay dying. I was deputed to tell him, and did so in fear and trembling as to the possible effect it might have on him, but he just looked round at me and said: 'And a good thing, too!' Although I had been aware that the relations between them were very unfortunate, I had not believed it possible that there could be such an estrangement between father and son."
After a pause Mr. Howard then announced that he had written to his agent to expect him on the following Saturday.
"Oh, surely not!" exclaimed his hostess, leaning forward in expostulation. "Cumberland will be quite intolerable in this weather—I have heard that the cold there is beyond everything!"
"I have yet to learn that I am in a [Pg 193]galloping consumption. I assure you there is no country more delightful and wonderful than Cumberland in the grasp of winter!"
"I am well aware a Northman will swear anything with respect to his country!"
"Madam! I protest!"
"Oh, protest away! you are all of you alike! I had hoped that you might have been prevailed upon to remain with us until Easter—in which case Osborne would have come back at once."
"Do not you think he had much better remain where he is? In the gay world of Paris he will have everything to distract him, and may possibly find someone to replace Miss Watson?"
"I do not think so."
"Surely you do not believe that Osborne will remain inconsolable for ever?"
There was a gleam of humour in his dark eyes as he turned them towards her. In all his intimate knowledge of his former pupil, it had certainly never occurred to him that he possessed a heart of untold depths!
"No. What I believe is, that he will revert to his former indifference towards women, and never marry at all."
"That would be very much to be deplored."
"I am not so sure of that. He is scarcely fitted to attract a superior mind, and you could not expect me to welcome an inferior one, or to view, without pain, an unwilling bride forced into his arms."
A day or two later Lady Osborne stood beneath the portico, to wish her guest "God-speed."
"Remember I shall be counting on you for an invitation!" she said, smiling.
He bowed low.
"I shall have to secure a fair chatelaine, madam, in order to receive you worthily!"
How little did he realize that his idle words were as a naked sword in her breast.
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