8Z3 S*38a V.I ASTON-ROTAL VOL I. ASTON-ROYAL. BY THE AUTHOR OF ST. OLAVE'S," " J ANITA'S CROSS, &c. &c. " Be the day weary, be the day long, At length it ringeth to Evensong." IN THREE VOLUMKS. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS. 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1872. The right of Translation is reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE, BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET ■c. 2? .v.i. ASTON-ROYAL. or CHAPTER I. IT is nightfall, and Tressa Dovercourt sits at ■*- her casement window, looking out through December's gathering blackness, to the red signal lights of Aston-Royal Station, half a mile away. Sits there alone in the cold and in the dark, but she heeds them not, because she watches and waits for the coming of him she loves ; and so watching and so waiting, cold and darkness both may tarry at the door of a young girl's heart, they cannot enter there to lay one touch of gloom upon its guarded joy. Through the stillness of that Christinas Eve sweet throbs of chanted music come pulsing VOL. r. B 2 ASTON-ROYAL. forth from the stony heart of the Abbey, scarce a stone's throw from Tressa's casement win- dow, the mouldering, lichen-stained, weather- beaten Abbey of St. Leodegarius, where, even- song being nearly over, a multitude of young choiring voices tells forth again the angel's message, given centuries and centuries ago to Chaldean shepherds as they watched their flocks by night. But she heeds it not. No charm for her to- night in any chanted music winding its way through the leafless alleys of the Court-house garden to her casement window, though but a year ago she listened and found it passing sweet. No interest now for her, nor spell of half-told tale in the dim figures of saints and martyrs which the choir lights reveal as they smite through the tall lancet windows of the Abbey, though many and many a time on win- ter nights like this, she has sat and traced the quaintly-pictured forms with thoughts going far back to the old, old times of which they ASTON-ROYAL. 3 tell. As she sits alone in the cold and in the dark, she only looks away to the gleaming sta- tion lights, and watches the red signals which now and again flash out upon the gloom ; and when from time to time the railway whistle pierces like a distant bugle-call through the narrow Aston- Vernay cutting, or cleaves with sharp clear wedge of sound the wintry air of the nearer moorlands, that is dearer music to her to-night than any which organ or chorister can give. The Abbey clock tolls out the quarters, and then strikes the hour of five. With a half weary little sigh, soon, however, losing itself in a smile, Tressa turns away from the case- ment, draws over it a somewhat faded crimson curtain, and lights the candles upon the dress- ing-table. Then, leaning her soft rounded chin on the palms of her two hands, she peers once more, with genuine, undisguised maiden in- terest, into the depths of the old-fashioned mirror before her. B 2 4 ASTON-ROYAL. She is a pleasant, gracious-looking girl, this Tressa Dovercourt, with even the promise of beauty in her bright young face, if only life will deal gently with her, and give her an honest share of its good things. But the story which that face tells is not all of peace ; never can be all of peace. Its clear blue eyes, dark- ened by the level, finely-marked brows which overshadow them, have the upward, meditative look of a spirit whose home is with all true and noble thoughts. But the small narrow nostril, and the soft, full rosy lips, and the rich ripe curves of cheek and chin, bespeak that spirit in the hold of an earthly nature, large, free, resistant ; a nature in which all that is human will claim its share, claim it, perhaps, under protest from the loftier spiritual sense, but claim it loudly still, and murmur with unavailing bitterness if life fail to meet the claim. This earthly nature is too ardent for saintliness, this soul too high to dwell con- tentedly amidst the surroundings which that ASTON-ROYAL. <) earthly nature craves. The spirit which looks upward, and the sense which stretches its feelers outwards, will have to clash in many a vexing discord before each learns to blend with each, and in that blending make the low, sweet music of content. Any discord, however, which vexes her soul to-night is neither deep nor terrible. The truth is, Tressa cannot make herself look pretty enough — what maiden can, when preening for a lover's eyes ? What beauty would not be more bright, what fairness would not wish itself more fair, to win a warmer kiss or a sweeter glance from him for whose dear sake alone the fairness is cherished or the beauty prized ? Tressa takes a little scarf of blue, and winds it in and out amongst her dark brown hair. It will not do. She throws it pettishly away, and takes instead a snood of tartan rib- bon. That is a little better, but still leaves much to be desired ; so she throws it after the scarf, and dives into a square box, at the very 6 ASTON-ROYAL. bottom of her dressing-table drawer, from which she takes a single white rose in a cluster of green leaves. Oh ! if she might wear that rose to-night ! She wore it six months ago, at Aston-Vernay, when Martin Thoresby was there, and bravely he said it became her. Perhaps he might say the same to-night, if she might only be allowed to fasten it into the brown braids, which seem asking for it to nestle amongst them. But her uncle does not approve of flowers for the hair, and Mr. Bateson, the Postern Chapel minister, preaches very seriously against them ; and what Mr. Bateson says must needs be right, so Tressa puts her rose away with a little sigh — this time not ending in a smile — and makes one more attempt with the tartan ribbon. She knows as well as can be, even whilst she goes through all these manipulations, that it is very naughty to spend so much time over dress. Mr. Bateson says so, and the good books say so, and the biographical heroines, one and ail, ASTON-ROYAL. 7 enter the same statement from time to time in their diaries. Roses and ribbons may be very- suitable for children of the world, who have their portion in this life, but the adorning of the children of the kingdom should not be after such a sort. Not for them the trappings of the Evil One — the lustrous robe and costly raiment in which he lures unwary souls to their de- struction. Not for them the braiding of hair, or the putting on of gold, or the wearing of apparel. For them only the meek and quiet spirit, the ornament which cannot tarnish, the beauty which never, never fades. And yet — and yet For Martin is coming to-night, and she would fain look her fairest in his sight. Will the Al- mighty, then, be so very angry with her ? Will He, as Mr. Bateson says, visit her with leanness of soul, and shut her out from the sweet con- sciousness of His favour, if she spends a little more time than usual over the adornment of her perishing body — if, since the white rose, 8 ASTON-ROYAL. being of the earth, earthy, is entirely forbidden, she twines that tartan snood with more loving, anxious care above the forehead which Martin's lips have kissed ? Is it only vanity — is it worldliness — is it altogether sinful conformity, if just for once she longs to make herself more beautiful, and admits a few drops of maiden pride to ooze through the gates of that merci- less " lock ■ ■ which, for purposes of safety, use- fulness, and eternal welfare, Mr. Bateson has built across the swift, down-running current of her young life? Tressa answers that question, of course, very improperly, by a few finishing touches given to the tartan snood. Then she enters still fur- ther into temptation by taking up a copy of "The Young Ladies' Magazine," which lies upon her dressing-table. It opens upon the fashion-plate for December, of which her own black silk dress, lately turned, altered, sponged, and " done up," is a far-off imitation. A very far-off imitation, as poor Tressa cannot help ASTON-ROYAL. \) admitting, after a brief comparison of the ori- ginal with the copy, betraying the 'prentice hand and the scanty purse in many an ill-fitting join or surreptitious seam, and adapting itself to her figure with anything but the glove-like accuracy of the fashion-plate model. But then, as Tressa says to herself, by way of apology for the shortcomings of her home- made black silk, these fashion-plate young ladies are not like ordinary mortals. They always have such enviable slope of shoulder, and waists of such provokingly exceptional slimness, and figures round which it would be impossible for the most faultily made garments to "sit" with anything but grace. And more- over, judging from the extravagant length and breadth and fulness of their draperies, they appear to be quite unburdened by the neces- sity under which girls with eighteen pounds a year groan so bitterly, of turning, sponging, altering, and " doing up " their things, so as to make them last a season or two longer if 10 ASTON-ROYAL. possible. Trying upon eighteen pounds a year to emulate the magnificence of a fashion-plate young lady, is something, Tressa thinks, like trying to clothe oneself with the gifts and graces of a biographical heroine, upon the ex- ceedingly moderate spiritual income which is all that a wisely disposing Providence thinks meet to apportion to the generality of work-a-day mortals. That thought of the biographical heroine ap- pears to give a turn to Tressa's meditations, for she lays the " Young Ladies' Magazine " aside, and takes up instead of it the current number of " The Uplifted Voice." " The Uplifted Voice' is one of the minor organs of the denomination to which her aunt and uncle belong ; not always an organ of melodious tone, but still one that ought to be listened to with respect, seeing that, by its own representation, it never fails to give a "certain sound ;" and certainty, in these days of religious speculation, is, according to the editor of "The Uplifted Voice," a great deal more ASTON-ROYAL. 11 valuable than either melody or harmony. The " Voice " contains every month a few short me- morials, chiefly of very young ladies, of prepos- sessing appearance, who have walked over the difficult paths of life so gracefully, and quitted them — when compelled thereto by a longer or shorter period of suffering, borne with exem- plary patience — so triumphantly, that their sor- rowing survivors deem them worthy to be em- balmed in letter-press, and preserved in " The Uplifted Voice, " for imitation by young be- ginners who cannot do their own spiritual dress- making according to the models furnished by conscience, reason, and common sense. So the " Pictures of Silver," as Mr. Bateson, the editor of "The Uplifted Voice," calls his monthly memorials, are simply a series of re- ligious fashion-plates, from which people of scant experience and limited individuality may shape their denominational garments, adding here a grace and there an expression, and some- where else a particular turn of feeling, just as 12 ASTON- ROYAL. the bands and bows and lappets of their material costumes are copied from the more earthly models of " The Young Ladies' Magazine.'' Tressa, who is very anxious to walk worthily in the sight of the congregation, has taken as much pains to copy the newest styles from the " Pic- tures of Silver," to shape her thoughts, her as- pirations, her longings, by theirs, as she took to model her black silk dress, recently turned, sponged &c, according to the design furnished in the monthly fashion-plate of the Magazine ; and with much the same result, too. The imi- tation is very far-off, and decidedly ungraceful. Tressa is not satisfied with either of her attempts, secular or sacred. Perhaps she will find out, by-and-by, that the cause of her failure in both cases is the same. She has been striving after an impossible ideal. The sloping shoulders and the angelical dispositions, the taper waists and the earth-despising aspirations, the rounded figures and the ecstatic experiences, are alike creations of the artistic fancy, beautiful to look ASTON-ROYAL. 13 upon, but quite beyond successful imitation by people with the average amount of material or spiritual income. But as she glances over the pages of "The Up- lifted Voice " a new expression comes into her face, restless, questioning, unsatisfied. If the Voice is right, the Magazine must be wrong. If the next world is everything, the present one cannot be half so important as the fashion-plate makes it out to be. Which shall she believe ? By which shall she rule her life ? After all, what is dress? A device of the enemy of souls. The Voice proves it so. And what is life ? A pilgrimage. The Voice says that too. And what is the world? A vale of tears. The biographical heroines unanimously record that fact in their diaries. And what matters it whether these perishing bodies are clad in sackloth or velvet, so long as the immortal souls which inhabit them win safe to glory ? Clearly of no consequence at all, ac- cording to " The Uplifted Voice." And what is 14 ASTON-ROYAL. the difference, looked at in the light of the tremendous future, between a black silk dress, ever so much turned, sponged, and " done up," adjusting itself to the peculiarities of an aver- age human figure, and one which rolls its mag- nificent folds, new out of a West-end draper's shop, from the rounded waist and sloping shoulders of that imaginary block of perfection in the "Young Ladies' Magazine"? Tressa does not know what the difference may be in the light of the tremendous future, but she knows well enough that, in the light of the actual present, there is very great difference indeed, whatever " The Uplifted Voice," or any other voice, may say to the contrary. And the more attentively she considers her own dress, as compared with that in the fashion-plate, the more manifest the difference seems. But then, why not cultivate lofty thoughts, and let the perishing bodies alone? Why not leave wearing of raiment and putting on of apparel to the enemy of souls, if such frivolities ASTON-ROYAL. 1 5 are in truth his peculiar province, and journey to those Realms of the Blest of which the Sunday-school children sing so prettily, in linsey petticoats that never want sponging or doing up ? Ought there not to be a sort of travelling costume, ugly, useful, and service- able, for the soul which has left Vanity Fair, and is journeying up the Hill Difficulty ; just the same as there are Alpine suits, stout and tough and uncomely, for people whose tastes lead them up the rough pathways of Mount Blanc, or the steep ascent of the Righi % Tressa gives herself an impatient little twitch, and her eyes wander dubiously again over the re-trimmed silk dress, which is neither pretty enough for the fashion-plate, nor plain enough for "The Uplifted Voice." After all, may it not be as well to follow after holiness in a costume which has been made as becoming as circumstances will permit? Was Lucy Thoresby, Martin's bonnie sister, any further from the kingdom of glory when she came to the last 1(3 ASTON-ROYAL. school treat in that blue muslin dress which suited so well her rose and lily face, than if she had invested herself with the brown bombazine usually monopolized by those of the congrega- tion who considered themselves in an excep- tionally advanced stage of spiritual enlighten- ment 1 Does the Creator of all human loveli- ness really look with more complacency upon His children when they profess to despise the charms which He has given ? And is a state of grace so far incompatible with a state of come- liness that, for one to be enjoyed, the other must for ever be forsworn 1 Another impatient twitch, instigated no doubt by the earthly nature. Another earnest, sor- rowful, upward look, in which the uncertain yet reverent spirit seems to ask for light. Tressa sweeps both the Voice and the fashion-book away, gives her hair a hasty toss back, sending it into waves and ripples which Mr. Bateson himself could scarcely help admiring, and turns again to the window ; first, however, extin- ASTON-ROYAL. 17 guishing her candles, for Mrs. Macnorman is a careful housewife — alas ! poor soul, she has little else left now but housewifery to fill the desolate places of her life — and she will insti- tute a vigorous inquiry to-morrow morning if she finds that Tressa's composites have lost an inch more of their height than is needful for customary toilet purposes. Still the sweet strains of chanted music come stealing up the leafless alleys of the Court-house garden. Still the flickering choir lights reveal in the tall Abbey windows many a kneeling saint and martyr, with crowned head and clasped hands. Tressa heeds not, listens not, save when the clock tolls out the quarters one by one, and the red signals flash past in the gloom, and the call of the railway whistle sounds over moorland and meadow and river to her casement. You cannot see her face any more, but the red lips are parted, and the warm breath quickly comes and goes, and the look that was upward a moment ago, to God, has VOL. I. C 18 ASTON-ROYAL. gone outward now, away to the Aston-Vernay moors, from which Martin should be journeying to her. A step on the gravelled path. Has he come, then I No, surely, for Cousin Romilly ought to be with him, and those footsteps are for only one. Or is Romilly alone ? Martin not come at all? The smile goes out of Tressa's face, the light out of her eyes. She hurries away from the casement, across the corridor, and down one flight of the oaken staircase to a landing, from which vantage ground she can, by peering through the banisters, see from end to end of the lighted hall beneath, herself unseen. She gives a great sigh of relief. No, it is not Romilly. It is only Mr. Bardon Limpsie, one of the guests who are to spend Christmas eve with them. He comes in with a dainty step — how could she mistake that step for Martin Thoresby's? — takes oft' first a fur cap which has been carefully tied down over his ASTON-ROYAL. 19 ears, then a pair of goloshes, then a pair of fur gloves, then a very large scarf, then a great-coat, and then a chest-preserver, reducing himself, during this process, from what appeared a moderate-sized man to a small youth, a very small youth indeed ; and, after giving himself a few finishing touches, follows Charret — the office-messenger who acts as house-servant — into the drawing-room, where Mr. Mac- norman meets him with a bland smile. Mr. Macnorman does not often meet anyone in his own house with such a bland smile as that which he gives on this occasion to Mr. Bardon Limpsie. But then young Mr. Bardon Limpsie is the only son of his father, and his father is one of the richest manufacturers in Aston- Royal, besides being senior director of the Insurance Company in whose office Mr. Mac- norman is manager. Bardon would like to marry Tressa, and Mr. Macnorman would like him to marry her too ; indeed the gentle- c2 20 ASTON-ROYAL. men have arranged that little matter between them already, the lady's consent alone being wanting. It is a convenient arrangement, for old Mr. Limpsie is a man worth being friendly with, and his credit at the bank, to say nothing of his influence with the board of directors, may be very useful some day in filling up sundry rifts and chasms which, owing to one or two rather hazardous specu- lations, have lately threatened to spoil the hitherto unbroken greensward of the man- ager's prosperity. Indeed a few ill-natured people go so far as to whisper to each other that they hope Mr. Macnorman has not specu- lated with other money than his own ; but then Mrs. Egremont, of the Postern Chapel congregation, who first put the whisper about, is a person who takes a keen delight in seeing chasms open in the greensward of anybody's prosperity except her own. Tressa is ignorant of that little arrange- ment about the marriage ; happily ignorant ASTON-KOYAL. 21 perhaps, since her opinion of Mr. Bardon Limpsie does not take a lofty flight. She has never expressed that opinion openly, freedom of speech being a liberty much frowned upon at the old Court-house ; but in her heart of hearts she thinks Bardon bears a striking resemblance to the little edgings which his father manu- factures at a penny a yard, or ninepence a dozen ; neat, cheap, saleable, but the less said about their durability the better. What would Mr. Macnorman say if he knew how his niece had exercised her right of private judgment ? Nothing at all, most likely. Mr. Macnorman very seldom does say anything at all in his own house. He does what he likes, and he makes other people do what they do not like, with as few words as may be spent upon the per- formance. Tressa's opinion, even if he knew it, would not make the slightest difference in the plan of action which he has already sketch- ed out and completed in his own mind. She steals back again to her solitary watch 22 ASTON-ROYAL. by the casement window. There is no need for her to appear in the drawing-room yet. Lucy Thoresby and Miss Dolfen, Mrs. Van Brooten's swarthy, magnificent governess, who are the other Christmas Eve guests, have not yet ar- rived, will not arrive for a full hour. Besides, how can she talk to Bardon Limpsie, and listen to his pretty little speeches, when she is won- dering all the time whether Martin will come or not? A quarter to seven. The moon has climbed up over the distant woods of Aston-Vernay. Its yellow light smites upon the Abbey windows, but shows no lifted face of saint or martyr there. Only by the light within, like the quick out- looking of soul from some else passionless, vacant eye, can their beauty be revealed to- night. Tressa starts. Her little hand puts by the ivy leaves round her casement. Her eager face looks out into the moonlight gloom. There are footsteps again, heavy this time and firm and strong. And voices too, sounding at first ASTON-ROYAL. 23 indistinctly amongst the yew trees at the garden gate, but coming nearer and nearer, until the one she has listened for so long is close at hand, with its old, sweet, well remembered tones. Martin and Romilly have come. She need not fear any more. Tressa draws away from the window, though the December night and the clasping ivy leaves are screen enough for the brightest glances that hope fulfilled can shower from those happy eyes. Shivering, trembling, yet so glad, she listens as the heavy iron-clamped door of the old Court house swings back upon its hinges, and Martin and Romilly, throwing down their travelling gear in the hall, go together into the drawing- room, to be met by Mr. Macnorman with a smile, not perhaps quite so bland as that with which Bardon Limpsie has just been favoured, because the new comer this time is not very rich, and not very influential, and has no wealthy, easy-going old father who can sod over with his purse or his patronage those 24 ASTON-ROYAL. afore-mentioned ugly breaks and gaps which are beginning to show themselves where they ought not to be. For a little while it is quite enough for Tressa to know that he is there. To say to herself from time to time, in a soft, happy whisper, " Martin has come," is almost as much as she can bear. Creeping out again into the corridor, to which a warm glow comes from the lighted hall beneath, she sits upon the stairs, her hands tight clasped over her beating heart, on her eager face the smile which cometh after fear. There are Martin's things tumbled together up- on the hall table ; the opossum skin rug — how well she remembered it! — which he had atAston- Vernay six months ago, and a cloak with a seal fur collar, which Tressa was so fond of stroking down when they used to spread it under the old oak trees for a carpet, and a travelling bag with M. T. in white letters outside, a handy, compact, sailor-like looking thing, rather like Martin him- self; not much ornament about it, but everlast- ASTOX-ROYAL. 25 ing for wear, as different as possible from the pretty little penny edgings at ninepence a dozen. Tressa looks at them each, one by one, as she sits on the top step of the long, low flight of stairs — her dress carefully gathered around her, for those black silks do spoil so when once they have been sponged, &c. — and each single, separ- ate thing tells its own pleasant story, each recalls its own dear memory of the days, not so very far back yet, when she and Martin Thoresby first learned to love each other. She could almost sit there all the evening, looking at them, con- tent to feel that whenever she likes she can look at the owner of them too. It is so sweet to toy with her gladness, to gaze upon it in secret and alone, as little children steal away from their playmates to look at some treasured gift, and turn it o'er and o'er, and then fold it up and put it carefully away again. But Charret has just gone across with the urn, and tea will soon be ready, and Romilly will be sure to teaze her if 26 ASTON-ROYAL. she comes in late, quiz her frock most likely, or the tartan ribbon in her hair — she has not worn any ribbons at all lately, on account of Mr. Bateson preaching against them — and ask why she has made herself so unaccountably grand, the most uncomfortable question which could be asked under present circumstances, though that would not prevent Romilly from asking it, as she knows from divers painful little experiences in the past. For so long as his keen-edged cleverness can show its temper, he cares not what that temper is tried upon, nor how deeply it wounds. She steals downstairs, just lays her hand, in passing, with a shy, caressing touch, upon the fur collar of Martin's cloak, and goes into the room, greeting Mr. Bardon Limpsie first, who has put on his most insinuating maimers for the occasion. She has a dim consciousness of his saying something very complimentary as he presses her cold fingers, and of Mrs. Macnorman looking sadder, and quieter even than usual, be- ASTON-ROYAL. 27 hind the tea-urn, and of her uncle standing with his back to the fire, courteous, inflexible, im- penetrable as is his custom, and of Romilly with a world of covert satire flashing behind his keen blue eyes, as he sees the tartan ribbon in her hair ; but all is very misty and indistinct, until Martin's great hand holds fast her own, and Martin's sea-beat face looks down upon her, and Martin's voice, rough, yet so tender and so true, is taking up the old, old story, begun six months ago in the Aston-Vernay Woods, and telling her, in every dear familiar tone, that it is un- forgotten still. Oh ! happy Tressa, your waiting and your watching both gone by. Oh ! sweet sunshine of hope fulfilled, hiding both past and future in its golden brightness. Oh ! blessed Christmas Eve, whose red signal fire shall glow through after gloom and darkness, till all the years be done ! So came and went the first of Tressa's three Christmas Eves. 28 CHAPTER II. /ANCE upon a time, as the old chronicles say — ^ but that time was very long ago — Aston- Royal held an important place in the political history of England, and those who were privi- leged to inscribe their names upon its burgher roll, walked their native place with firm step and uplifted heads, as became the citizens of no mean city. It boasted a splendidly-endowed Abbey church, with whatever an Abbey church may involve of ecclesiastical pomp and circumstance ; a Priory of Benedictine monks, almost any number of religious houses, a fortified castle held by one of England's most powerful dukes, and a college to which the greatest and noblest of the land thought not scorn to commit their youth for in- ASTON-ROYAL. 29 struction, as the charter of the college expressed it, in all good things whatsoever. Moreover, to these advantages it added the yet more honour- able distinction of being chosen as a royal resi- dence ; for Henry VIII., passing through it on one of his northern progresses, was so impressed with the architectural beanty of the old town, and the luxuriance of the richly-wooded country in which it lay, that he straightway issued orders for a palace to be built upon some hither- to unoccupied acres of crown land between the Abbey of St. Leodegarius and the Benedictine Priory, close to the broad, shallow river, to whose reedy, lily-gemmed banks the royal gar- dens were to slope. The palace was built, and a noble palace they made it, too ; but bluff King Hal never dispread his portly form for rest or recreation beneath its shelter, that other king, who asks for no man's leave, and waits for no man's pleasure, having bidden his majesty elsewhither in the very same year that the Court-house of Aston-Royal was 30 ASTON-ROYAL. completed. His daughter Mary tarried in it sometimes, however ; Elizabeth, too, when weary of Government cares, came hither with her train of courtiers, and spent many a long summer day hawking and hunting in the broad forests which then begirt the place. Tradition said that once Aston-Royal had been the temporary resting- place of the ill-fated Scottish Mary, and the municipal authorities of the town still preserved amongst their treasures an embroidered missal- cover said to have been worked by her. But as Mary Stuart must have spent considerably more than the average span of human life in nothing but fancy work, if half the bed-quilts, tapestries, and missal-covers imputed to her were ever hal- lowed by stitch from her royal fingers, that tra- dition might not be worth very much. But whether or not Mary the fair and false beguiled away any of the hours of her change- ful life in the big old Tudor mansion, certain it was that King Charles had frequently resided there, for divers of his papers were given at ASTON-ROYAL. 31 " our palace of Aston-Royal," and the state bed- room of the Court-house, as it was now called, bore upon its panelled ceiling his monogram, twined with that of his royal consort, within a border of English roses. His was the last crowned head which ever found rest or respite from its cares beneath that palace roof. During the Commonwealth the Court-house of Aston-Royal was used as an official residence by the Lords High Commis- sioners. From them it passed into the hands of a nobleman, whose descendants sold it, in the reign of the second George, to the Corporation of the town. Since that time it had been used as a sort of miniature Hampton Court, being appropriated in suites of apartments to elder- ly gentlewomen, except one wing of it close to the Abbey of St. Leodegarius, which, after doing duty for some years as a Guild Hall, was now occupied by the Aston-Royal Insurance Company, under the managership of Mr. Mac- norman, Tressa Dovercourt's uncle. 32 ASTON-ROYAL. But the best days of Aston-Royal lay far back in a dim historic past. Its interest died out with the ill-fated Stuart king, who matured some of his latest, most disastrous plans there. Cromwell besieged and ruined its castle. A company of the Commonwealth soldiers laid its Priory in ruins. No pomp of ecclesiastical dis- play gathered any more round the grand old Abbey, which, spoilt of some of its richest en- dowments, sank to the insignificance of a parish church; and being no longer cared for by those into whose hands its management passed, had gradually crumbled and mouldered away, until now only the choir and part of the south transept remained, to tell, by their wealth of clustered columns and glory of stained win- dows, what the splendour of the place had been. As the interest of the town dwindled away, so did the number of aristocratic families who once kept up its pride and importance. One by one the stately mansions which lined the High ASTON-ROYAL. 33 Street, or uprose in sombre magnificence be- neath the shadow of the Abbey Church, were deserted by their noble owners ; and after pass- ing through a few intermediate stages of dis- honour, were let out in single rooms to hordes of poor people, who found Aston-Royal a con- venient habitat whence to journey to their daily work of chicory-hoeing, harvesting, or hay- making in the country round. The quaint old college, nestled down in the very heart of the town, and at first intended to be one of the most important centres of learning in that part of England, shrivelled to the dimensions of a little church school, taught by a superannuated old man, whose infirmities disabled him from service in any better capacity. A few children gather- ed round him every day to thumb their primers and drone through their multiplication-table, these two departments of knowledge being the residuum to which the " all good things whatso- ever," chartered by Tudor Edward, had sunk. And over all the town there gathered, year by VOL. I. D 34 ASTON-ROYAL. year, a thicker film of ancient, respectable, even picturesque mould. Still, after all, a very decent life was lived in the old place. The grand families who be- longed to the county, and who came to Aston- Royal for a few weeks in the winter, had whist- parties and dinner-parties, and an occasional ball in the musty, damp-stained assembly-rooms. The lawyers, doctors, and clergymen took snuff with each other, and read the newspapers at the gen- tlemen's club, their wives meanwhile amusing themselves by mild muffin soirees and unlimited loo. Nor were the amenities of dress and fash- ion quite disregarded. The leading mercers and haberdashers of the place, shrewd, steady, old men in knee-breeches and shoe-buckles, were wont to go up to London once in two years, on the outside of a stage-coach or waggon, accord- ing to the state of trade, and lay in a supply of goods which lasted their customers until the next biennial visitation. Aston-Royal sent a couple of members to Parliament too, but there was ASTON-ROYAL. 35 never any commotion at election times, the right persons for that office, as well as town- councillors, aldermen, and so forth, being chosen generally by a few weighty, well-charactered men, who met for that purpose in the parlour of some respectable inn, and arranged the whole business without muchpublic ceremony ,theAston- Royal people of that period not caring greatly for electoral rights. Then the country lads and lasses had their annual benefit at the Martinmas fair, where those of them who sought domestic or agricultural service stood in a long row in the market place, and were looked at, handled, felt, like so many head of cattle, and then engaged with a lucky penny to make the bargain fast. After the hiring was accomplished, there were the ginger-bread stalls and the peep-shows and the wax-works and the merry-go-rounds to be enjoyed ; and if, before the rustic swains got safely home again, a few of them indulged rather too freely at the Golden Lion, they were always ashamed of themselves next morning, which D 2 36 ASTON-ROYAL. perhaps is more than can be said of swains, rustic or otherwise, in the present advanced stage of English refinement. Indeed, on the whole, Aston-Royal rather enjoyed its decrepi- tude than mourned over it with any sort of public spirit. Things might have been worse, the steady-going old townsfolk said, when some exceptionally brisk-minded individual suggested that they might have been better ; and with so wise an adjustment of the subject most people were well content. Until about forty years before that Christmas eve when Martin Thoresby came to the oldCourt- house. Then changes came to pass, and a new Aston-Royal arose, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old town, which for well-nigh a century had been quietly smouldering to death. It rose on this wise. Steam-loom weaving had lately been introduced into England. A few adventurous people, finding in the almost deserted neighbourhood of Aston-Royal a cheap and eligible locality for the carrying on of the ASTON-ROYAL. 37 new manufacture, planted themselves in the place, bought up two or three of the stately old High Street mansions, turned them into a factory and commenced operations. Fortune favoured their speculation. The town soon became a centre for the manufacture of lace and fancy goods. Workmen drew together in large numbers. Warehouse after warehouse, factory after factory, reared its huge front, where once the quaint ga- bled houses of the old aristocracy had clustered in grey, out-worn picturesqueness ; and into these warehouses, and into these factories, hordes of mill-hands and loom-girls swarmed, filling them with the hum of many-voiced labour ; and a great tide of life began to flow through the ere while almost deserted streets, and anxious- faced men and faded women jolted each other to and fro on crowded pavements where once the peaceful townsfolk had strolled so leisurely in long summer afternoons ; and the pulse of toil beat hard and strong, and there was no longer in the old town that dull yet pleasant torpor 38 ASTON-ROYAL. which for many a long year had brooded so silently upon it and sucked out all its life. Then as the reputation of the place in- creased, and trade grew busier, and the stream of men and women which the factories poured out of their great throats, became deeper, wider, stronger, the education of the masses began to be talked about ; and public meetings were held and committees called, and lecturers from London came down to rouse the people, and everyone who had anything to say upon the subject said it, so that a great deal of talking was done, seasoned with not a little quarrelling amongst people who could not see that their pet scheme was not the best or the only scheme for meeting the necessi- ties of the situation. And the result of it all was that the children of Aston-Royal, instead of expatiating in their ancestral gutters, or making dirt-pies in the back streets, and learn- ing their multiplication tables from the ancient ASTON-ROYAL. 39 master in King Tu dor's dingy old lath-and- plaster tenement, were swept np by official functionaries into magnificent day-schools with stupendous red brick fronts, and all the most approved educational appliances, and there taught, in a wholesale mechanical sort of way, by innumerable monitors and pupil-teachers, who gave them little separate dabs of informa- tion, and passed them from stage to stage of the system, until they came out triumphantly at the examination end of it, knowing a little of everything and a great deal of nothing. Indeed the system was somewhat analogous to that of the toy factories, where the raw material comes in in the shape of a rude little bit of wood, which the first hand forms into the similitude of a body, and transfers it to the second, who gives it four legs, and passes it on to the third for a couple of ears and a tail ; thence it is tossed to a fourth, who adorns it with a suit of brown paint, pricks in a couple of eyes, sticks on a shaggy bit of mane, and sends 40 ASTON-ROYAL. it forth to a juvenile public, a complete and fully developed little donkey. Not of course that the system which was carried on behind those stupendous red brick fronts produced anything materially similar to the interesting quadruped whose development in the toy factory has been described, but still the process was very much the same. After the schools, Mechanics' Institutes were established, and working men's clubs, and read- ing-rooms, and other facilities for the sharpening of the lower-class intellect, as it was called; and politics began to be much discussed, and the de- sirability of voting by ballot ; and elections were no longer carried on in the back parlours of re- spectable public-houses by a few steady-going tradesmen who arranged amongst themselves who was the right man in the right place, but were managed in broad daylight, with all the modern appliances of talk and drink and bri- bery. And the quiet little ale-houses, where in the good old times knots of burghers had as- ASTON-ROYAL. 41 sembled to discuss the affairs of the town over their pipes and home-brewed, were pulled up by the roots, to make room for gorgeous gin- palaces, fair without, foul within ; and in the wake of the gin-palaces came dancing saloons and music halls, where for the consideration of sixpence, half of it to be returned in refresh- ments, a selection of the chastest comicalities of song might be enjoyed by the youths and maidens of Aston-Royal, who soon learned not to blush for anything which they heard there. And still ^the place went on improving, and the cry of progress waxed louder and louder, as factory after factory thrust up its tall black finger in the midst of the now throbbing, heav- ing, restless town. And more was said about public spirit, and march of intellect, and the re- quirements of the age, and a progress-fever set in, which seemed likely enough, if it lasted much longer, to reach the stage of delirium, so frantic did the clamour become for electoral 42 ASTON-ROYAL. rights, and manhood suffrage, and the repre- sentation of the working classes. No more rest now for the once peaceful, an- tiquated little town of Aston-Royal — no more gathering in winter nights round the comfort- able ale-house fire, to talk over the budget of news which the king's mail-coach or the jog- trot old mercers and haberdashers had brought from London ; no more tickling of bucolic minds with the inanities of gingerbread stalls and penny peep-shows ; no more shuffling over of elections, municipal or parochial, by a few back- stairs people, who had arranged beforehand what was to be done and who was to do it. A day of reformation, regeneration, had dawned for the place. Aston-Royal had been caught up by the car of progress, and now, dusty, road-stained, weary, panting, was being hurried forward, it knew not how, it knew not whither. Only this it knew, that having begun to go, it must go on to the end. ASTON-ROYAL. 43 To anyone who remembered the place in its former, and as some old-fashioned people would persist in calling them, its better days, the new condition of Aston-Royal bore a curious resem- blance to those dissolving views in which a modern drawing-room interior is struggling into distinctness upon the vanishing remnants of a Flemish cathedral ; or the picture of a me- tropolitan railway-station, with all its rush of human interest, strife, excitement, unrest, is asserting itself amongst the dim residue of an old English farmstead, where patient sheep are nibbling in the fields, and lazy kine standing knee-deep in the reed-fringed ponds, and sleepy labourers lying down for noontide rest under pollard willows. Little bits of the old town hung so oddly upon the skirts of advancing civilization. Fragments of old-world mud and scrapings stuck so tenaciously to the smart new modern equipage in which Aston-Royal was performing the later stages of its journey. 44 ASTON-ROYAL. Here a thatched cottage, lichen-stained, moul- dering, leaned its decrepit roof on the sub- stantial shoulder of an immense newly-built factory, like a palsied old rustic, whose young son, fresh from London, and with all his town- made honours thick upon him, is not quite above lending a helping hand to his poor old sire. There a splendid warehouse, with stone facings and front of Byzantine magnificence, nodded in its vulgar patronising way to a black-timbered house just opposite, three cen- turies ago the home of one of the county fami- lies, and whose lattice casements, with frag- ments of heraldic device still legible upon their stone mullions, were set far back in huge over- hanging eaves, like the withered face of some ancient grand-dame within the shadow of her frilled mob-cap. And the ancient grand-dame, on her part, returned the vulgar nod by a trem- bling shake of her tall pitched gables, as the rude December blasts, which could not stir a ASTON-ROYAL. 45 single brick of her Byzantine neighbour, search- ed her poor old decaying frame to its inmost beams and rafters. And in many a courtyard and alley, quaintly-sculptured doorways, and oriel windows with moss of Commonwealth times clinging to them, peered forth to inquire the meaning of the changes which were going on in the place, or gravely to rebuke some shameless new factory, which, having lately come to the place, and being ignorant of the laws of social etiquette, stared about it with too much effrontery. For a feeble spark of pride lingered yet in that part of the town which modern progress had not spoiled, and it would fain keep its haggard decay sacred from the stare of unconsecrated wealth. There was one place, however, even in Aston- Royal, where the old times obstinately refused to shake hands with the new, or admit them to any sort of participation in its rights and privi- leges. This was the Palace, or Court-house, as 46 ASTON-ROYAL. it had been called since the days of the Lords High Commissioners, which stood on the south- ern boundary of the town, between the ruins of the Priory and the scarcely less ruined Abbey church. Modern progress had never yet suc- cessfully knocked at that mouldering old gate- way, whose armorial bearings, scathed by three centuries of rack and storm, uprose in sombre dignity to tell of the departed glory of the place, March of improvement had tried, but in vain, to reclothe that ancient regal home- stead with the red-brick garments of architec- tural respectability. A very rich mill-owner, Mr. Van Brooten by name, charmed by the Court-house gardens and their proximity to the river, over which their owner had fishing rights, had generously offered to buy the en- tire estate, sweep away the dirty old nest of mud and timber, as he called King Henry's Palace, and erect upon its ruins a commodious family mansion, with all the latest appliances ASTON-ROYAL. 47 and improvements of art. It would so much enhance the value of the property, he said, and raise that end of the town to a level in point of gentility with the London road suburb, where commercial enterprise was already repre- sented by miles of crescents, terraces, and semi- detached villas. But thanks to a lingering spirit of toryism which as yet refused to be entirely driven out of the municipal council, Mr. Van Brooten's splendid offer was declined, and Aston-Royal Court-house, the chosen home of Tudor Mary and good Queen Bess, the rest- ing-place of ill-fated Charles, and the favoured retreat of his unhappy queen, was suffered to remain in its grey, out-worn beauty, as a me- mory of the days that were no more. It was an irregular, many-gabled building, with not much pretension to beauty save that of old association. It formed a quadrangle, in the midst of which was a garden, still kept up in the Elizabethan style, with box-trees 48 ASTON-ROYAL. clipped into fantastic designs, and trim flower- beds, and straight gravel-walks, where the elderly ladies who occupied suites of apart- ments in the Court-house used to take their daily airings. Few alterations had been made in the interior of it, except those which were absolutely necessary for domestic convenience, since the days when Royalist lords and ladies held sweet converse there. Still yon might tread in the footsteps of Queen Henrietta's maidens, through long, low stone passages, with here and there an embrasured window looking out into the grassy quadrangle, or pace up and down oak-balustraded corridors, or loiter in oriels as large as a modern boudoir, or gather for warmth and shelter in winter time to the chimney corner of the great hall, in which — the hall, not the chimney corner — a parliament was said to have been held by one of the Stuart kings. And climbing flight after flight of wind- ing narrow stairs, you might peer into number- ASTON-ROYAL. 40 less owl-and-bat-tenanted nooks and corners, chambers built in the solid wall, closets entered by unsuspected panels, secret doors behind curtains of moth-eaten tapestry, leading into cells which should once have been prisons, if a king's summer palace had need of such, and trap-doors opening into rooms which had no other outlet, or reaching down into what seemed to be almost bottomless wells of dark- ness in the deep foundations of the house. On the top of the south front, above the three splendid old oriels which reached from basement to roof, was a narrow parapet, pro- tected by crumbling, moss-grown battlements, in whose crevices countless colonies of sparrows found a secure and comfortable asylum. From this parapet a splendid prospect could be ob- tained over the quaint, curious, irregular old town of Aston-Royal, with its Abbey and Priory, its ruined castle, its lath and plaster grammar-school, its nests of decaying, tumble- VOL. I. E 50 ASTON-ROYAL. down tenements huddled together in back streets and court-yards, its new red-brick fac- tories and warehouses and stupendous fronted public buildings striking out like wens and ex- crescences on some wizened octogenarian face ; its sleepy, almost stagnant river, oozing now between tall black buildings, from which huge cranes reached down their iron claws to clutch bales of merchandise from the big, unwieldy barges beneath ; now past what were once fair terrace walks belonging to the aristocratic mansions of the long-ago dead magnates of the place ; now through meadows upon whose reed- fringed banks it lapped and plashed with slow monotonous sound, and then drifted away, with here and there a coal-boat dragging slowly over it to the town of Aston-Vernay, ten or twelve miles away, where it brightened up and became quite a picturesque river, with gardens sloping to its banks, and grand old trees stoop- ing down to see their stately heads reflected in ASTON-ROYAL. 51 its waters. The Court-house parapet must once have been a favourite resort of the lords and ladies who came to summer at the palace, for stone seats had been fixed at different points where the finest prospects were to be gained ; and a circular stair led to it up a turret at one corner of the quadrangle. But the seats had long ago mouldered away, and a part of the turret battlement falling in, had choked up the stair, and no one caring to remove the rubbish, the only way of access to the parapet now was through a vast dark chamber in the roof, out of which an air-hole gave egress to a rough land- ing-place over the principal entrance, and thence, behind one or two old gables, to the parapet itself, close to that south corner of the building in one of whose little casement win- dows, half hidden with clasping curtains of ivy, Tressa kept her Christmas-eve watch, whilst Mr. Macnorman, knowing little and caring less for any hopes which might be rising over her young E 2 52 ASTON-ROYAL. life, was entertaining Bardon Limpsie in the oriel-room below. But Mr. Macnorman demands a chapter all to himself, and he shall have it. 53 CHAPTER III. HMITH ANDERSON MACNORMAN, or, as ^- he preferred being designated on bills of public meetings, backs of envelopes, official or otherwise, and committee circulars, S. Ander- son Macnorman, Esq., was the manager of the Aston-Royal Insurance Company, and a highly respectable man. That is to say, he was im- plicitly trusted by the important society whose affairs he conducted ; he was tolerably prosper- ous in money matters, having speculated cautiously, safely, successfully, in one concern after another, until an income, moderate at first, swelled into a more than average com- petency ; he was a very leading man in his own 54 ASTON-ROYAL. denomination, which was one of the numerous offshoots of grand old Methodism ; he was a prominent person in the municipal affairs of the town, had already passed the chair of mayor- alty, and was even beginning to look to the representation of Aston-Royal in Parliament as a not impossible culmination of his respecta- bility. So far godliness, or what society takes for godliness, had not only brought with it the promise of the life that now is, but had fulfilled that promise in a most ample and satisfactory manner. Concerning the life that is to come, Mr. Macnorman was averse to speculation. You might know him for a lover of power by the very look of him. He was rather above the average height, and built with that squareness which gives the impression of both mental and bodily solidity. His face bore out the impres- sion. Something indeed about the lines of the mouth betokened a nature which might, under the influence of sufficient temptation, presented ASTON-ROYAL. 55 with a due certainty of profit arising therefrom, descend to the indulgence of low tastes. But then again that something was contradicted by the upper part of the face, which, after all, has the casting vote in the determination of char- acter. That was firm, decided, with a sort of metallic regularity about it. If Mr. Macnorman ever did go wrong, it would be almost in spite of himself; for his whole bearing, aspect, and carriage told of a will which could hold its own against almost any force from without. And he was a proud man, too. Not proud with the pride which lurks in many fine, sensi- tive natures, and flashes up from time to time its splendid flame of defiance, dazzling you all the more because you never looked to find it there. Mr. Macnorman's was the pride which cannot bear a superior, which will never own itself to be wrong, which knows not how to bend and then rise again, lofty as before ; but which, if it yield at all, breaks once and for ever. His own self-esteem and the world's 56 ASTON-ROYAL. guerdon of success, like sand and seaweed fused together on the ocean shore, had run into a hard, cold, impenetrable mass, which separ- ated between him and his fellows, and held him apart from their love, even whilst he command- ed their respect. He entered the service of the Aston-Royal Insurance Company when its headquarters were removed to the old Court-house, and for some years occupied a quite subordinate position there, serving and obeying where now he ruled with so inflexible a hand. Since that time, by carefulness, by diligence, by punctuality, by a vigorous determination to do his best, he had gradually risen from desk to desk, until, while yet in comparatively middle life, with strength untouched by time, and many years before him in which he might reasonably hope to enjoy the power which he had coveted so earnestly, he found himself the head of the office, master of a numerous staff of clerks, each of whom did ser- vice to him as troops to their general, and one ASTON-ROYAL. 57 of the most respectable men, if not the most respectable man in Aston-Royal. When he had been about ten years in the service of the Company, he married a wife, and brought her to the suite of apartments which he was allowed, as a senior clerk, to occupy in a wing of the Court-house next to the manager's residence. She was a high-spirited, affectionate woman, this young Mrs. Macnorman, firm of purpose, like her husband, strong of will, with a touch of temper which could show itself in pas- sion or reserve, according as accident or inten- tion roused it ; a woman who, beiug loved, could make her home a sanctuary full of the tenderest charities of life ; or, unloved, turn it to a prison- house, into whose desolate cold no ray of sun- shine should ever come. She was unloved, and so the home became the prison-house. At first there were a few outbursts of passionate anger, a few show- ers of burning tears ; and then came that si- lence, sadder than either passion or anger, the 58 ASTON ROYAL. silence which asks for nothing, hopes for no- thing, gives nothing. Only far down in her heart, born from her own love which, though crushed and down-trodden, had once been true, and so could not quite die out, there burned a fierce fire of resentment and disappointment, which slowly hardened all her life, making her, as the years went on, a stern, silent, miserable woman. Soon after their marriage a son was born to them, Romilly, who, developing as he grew up, his father's love of power and his mother's love of love, might one day become a better character than either. He was the only child for ten years, and then a little daughter came, a quiet, fair-haired child, loveable, gentle, whose baby hands, reaching out to father and mother, might have drawn them closer together, and whose baby-voice might have made sweet music in that long-time silent home. But death early took the child away from a household in which to love much was to suffer much, and one drawer full ASTON-ROYAL. 59 of tiny clothes, over which many a bitter mother's tear had been wept, and a little marble cross in the Aston-Royal Cemetery, were all that re- mained of babe Mary. It was to fill this vacant place that Tressa Dovercourt, then an orphan of three years old, penniless, dependent, the only child of a sister of Mrs. Macnorman's, who had married " unfortu- nately," as the phrase is, was brought to the old Court-house, Mr. Macnorman having then risen to be the manager of the Insurance Company, and a person much looked up to in the town. People said it was a good thing for her to be taken into such a home, and talked largely of the kindness of heart which had induced Mr. Macnorman to reach out a helping hand to his indigent baby niece. Few things pleased him more than being credited with kindness of heart, perhaps because it was a quality of which he was so entirely ignorant ; and finding that the little new-comer was helping to establish his reputation in Aston-Royal as a man of sympa- 60 ASTON-ROYAL. thetic benevolence, he determined to adopt the child, feed, clothe, train, educate, tyrannise over it, and make it as useful to him as might be. The old Court-house was not a pleasant home, neither was the life lived there a healthy one for a loving, sensitive, and rather wayward child. Very early Tressa learned to bend herself to the strong will, so quiet, so relentless, which was the ruling power of the establishment. Very early she learned to hush her voice and shrink away into some quiet corner, or flee to the undisturbed security of the garden, when Mr. Macnorman's step was heard in the corridor which led from the ofiice to the family sitting- room, and Mr. Macnorman came into that room, bland, courteous, but so cold, bringing with him an atmosphere of reserve, which seemed to chill the very life out of everyone who came within its influence. Even with her aunt, Tressa scarcely fared much better. Mrs. Macnorman was not one of those full-souled women whose love, forced back from one outlet, must needs ASTON-ROYAL. 61 find another for its generous overflow. Disap- pointment had dried up the sweetness of her nature. Service she could give, but tenderness and affection never more. She did her duty to the child, but a child cannot prize duty as it prizes love. It will rather go ill tended, ill clothed, ill washed, nay, even ill fed, if the dirty little face be warmly kissed, and the ragged pinafore be put on by tender hands, and the scant food be given with a smile, than wear the richest and eat the best that comes through the cold ministering of duty. And such ministry was all that Mr. Macnorman's silent, grave, and uncomplaining wife could give to anyone now. But that Love which feeds the young ravens when they cry, provided food convenient for the equally voracious appetite of Tressa's child- heart in the companionship of Lucy Thoresby, a bright, laughing, blossom-like little creature, who lived with her grandmother in a suite of apartments at the western side of the quad- 62 ASTON-ROYAL. rangle. Lucy's brother Martin and Romilly Macnorman were schoolmates, and Mrs. Thores- by, a pleasant comely old gentlewoman of sixty summers, was a member of the Postern Chapel congregation, which circumstance formed aii additional bond of union between the two fami- lies. So Lucy and Tressa grew up almost like sisters, played together, quarrelled together when there was any quarrelling to be done, went to Stowness together in the holidays sometimes — Stowness was a village on the sea- coast, about twenty miles away, where old Mrs. Thoresby had a little cottage, occupied most of the year by a widow woman, one of her pen- sioners, — learned their lessons, dressed their dolls, and got into mischief together ; and what- ever sunshine came into Tressa's life found its way there chiefly, if not entirely, through the medium of little Lucy Thoresby. Still that was only occasional sunshine, and the spaces between were very long and dreary. There were the terrible days at school, where, ASTON-ROYAL. 63 stretched upon the Procrustes bed of an elabor- ate educational scheme, poor Tressa's powers were pulled out to an unnatural extent in the learning of long pages of geography, and the adding up of frightful sums, which re- visited her in dreams, so difficult were they, and com- posed of such needless liberality of figures. And there were the equally terrible mornings at chapel; the long singing, the longer prayers, the serious faces of the people who sat in the pews immediately around her, especially Mrs. Egre- mont the lawyer's wife, and her aunt and uncle, who looked as if turned into cast-iron for the occasion, and who frowned upon her so awfully if her sleepy head drooped a little on one side, or if she swung her feet to and fro with more energy than was suitable to a place of worship ; or if, whilst an almost endless sermon was drag- ging its slow length along, she got up a little private entertainment on her own account by pulling the elastic out of her gloves and peeping over the pew-top at Lucy Thoresby, whose 64 ASTON-ROYAL. grandmamma allowed her to take a picture-book to chapel with her, and who would occasionally hold up the page so that Tressa might have a peep. The evenings were worst of all, though, for terribleness ; for such a cold, dead silence brooded over everything. Mrs. Macnorman did nothing but knit and read, or seem to read, for the pages were seldom turned, and Mr. Macnorman did nothing but study the stock and sharebrokers' lists ; and Tressa, crouching on her stool by the fire, plodded patiently through the piece of sewing which had been supplied for her amusement, looking wistfully from one stern unloving face to the other, awed by the gloom, afraid to speak or move, or dis- turb by childish gesture of impatience the piti- less hush which must needs last until bedtime. Except when the preacher came. The Postern chapel ministers always paid a great deal of at- tention to Mr. Macnorman, he being one of the pillars of the cause ; and generally once a week, or even oftener, the dreary evening stillness was ASTON-ROYAL. 65 varied by a pastoral visit, concluded with a prayer for the Divine blessing upon the united head of the household. True, the blessing never seemed to come, but it was asked for with great regularity, and always responded to by an Amen of suitable solemnity from Mr. Mac- norman's lips. The first preacher whom Tressa remembered had some children of his own, and knew how to deal with them; and if he happened to be in a good mood he would tell her a story, or get up a game of play, which was a won- derful relief to the monotony of the evening. But he only staid a year ; the Postern Chapel ministers often did not stay longer than that : and his successor was a grave, solemn man, who only seemed to exist for furthering the interests of the denomination, and express- ing pity for all who did not belong to it. He very seldom took any notice of Tressa, ex- cept to ask her if she had given her heart to God, a question of whose import she had nut the slightest idea; only as Mr. Melton always VOL. I. V 66 ASTON-ROYAL. put it with a decidedly severe expression of face, it made her feel uncomfortable. Once, however, she obtained what she considered a light on the subject, whilst listening at school to a lesson on the structure of the human frame ; and accordingly next time Mr. Melton asked her if her heart was properly disposed of, she replied, with great gravity, that it was fast in somewhere amongst her bones, and she could not get to it. Whereupon Mr. Melton shook his head, and Mrs. Macnorman said it was time for her to go to bed. After tea the preacher and her uncle always began to talk about things connected with the Postern Chapel, Mrs. Macnorman sitting apart, cold, reserved, uninterested. Her husband never invited her opinion about anything, and she was too proud to give it unasked. Tressa, crouching patiently on her little stool, used to hear about conferences and delegates, and lay agents, and necessity of increased supplies ; and once a ASTON-ROYAL. 67 quarter there was considerable clinking of money, writing out of receipts, adding up of figures, and balancing of accounts, mingled with remarks about saving of souls and progress of the work of grace, by which means she learned to think of money and souls as in some mysterious way connected. At last came the prayer, which she could never understand at all, except once, when a kind, gentle-looking old man, a stranger, came. He asked God to bless little Tressa, and take care of her, asked it, too, with a voice which seemed to open a door in the child's heart, leading out to light and love far off somewhere, she knew not where. Then he had kissed her, and she had run away and cried herself to sleep. Poor child ! the instinct of love and reverence was strong within her, but she knew not what to reverence. And as for God's love, what little human heart ever learns it, save as it is incar- nated in the father's smile and the mother's f2 68 ASTON-ROYAL. kiss? Which blessed incarnation Tressa Dover- court, orphaned and comfortless, could never know. 6<> CHAPTER IV. npHE child grew up as might have been • expected, amidst the surroundings of that joy-emptied home, a shy, reserved, not very buoyant girl, quaint, observant, subdued, sensitive alike to praise, blame, and love ; of which last she would have won indeed scant portion, if bright-eyed, fair-haired, bonnie-faced Lucy Thoresby had not been unto her as a sister. Lucy was almost the only window through which Tressa looked out into a really happy, wholesome life, her other opportunities of social intercourse being confined to a chance tea- meeting, a monthly diet of sewing, and an oc- casional school-treat connected with the Postern Chapel congregation, none of which were ex- 70 ASTON-ROYAL. ceptionally brilliant or exciting. Therefore, hav- ing but slight outward interest in the coming and going of the years which carried her from girlhood into maidenhood, she made for herself a life within a life, and wove in the empty chambers of her heart a tapestry work of fair device, shot through and through with many a golden thread, glowing with rosy light of hope and promise, broidered over with fancies of a coming time when the prison walls which closed upon her now should break away, and love be given, and joy no longer be only a dream, and the dreary beaten track of duty blossom with flowers, and become all soft and pleasant to feet which trod it now with often- times un-girl-like slowness and restraint. Romilly very early left the home which was but a prison-house to him. Weary of its discipline without tenderness, its authority without love, he resolved to push his own way, and make his own fortunes, independ- ent of his father's patronage. After a year ASTON-ROYAL. 71 or two of covert restlessness, rebellion, and dissatisfaction in the Insurance Office, at a junior desk to which the directors, as a great favour, had appointed him, he found a situation for himself as clerk in one of the great mer- cantile houses of Aston-Royal ; and being bright, active, intelligent, and ready, pushed his way there until he was in the receipt of a handsome salary, with the prospect of more. He had developed at seven-and-twenty into rather a fashionable gentleman. He occupied a snug set of bachelor rooms at the London Road end of the town, amongst the commercial and pro- fessional magnates ; but he was seldom to be found there, for his good position, and hand- some face, and smiling prospects, and a more than ordinary share of conversational readiness, made Romilly Macnorman the idol of dinner- parties, and the bright particular star of any evening assembly upon which he condescended to shed the lustre of his presence. Lately, in well-informed circles, there had been a rumour 72 ASTON-ROYAL. of his being sent out to Melbourne as junior partner, the firm's agent there having become involved in pecuniary difficulties, but at pre- sent that was only rumour. Still, it greatly increased his popularity with the mammas of unmarried daughters ; for of course if he went to Melbourne he would take a wife with him, and everyone knew that the junior partner in Messrs. Moore and Mason's great export con- cern would occupy no mean position in the colonies. However, up to the present time, Romilly appeared in no hurry to choose a wife. Smiles he bestowed upon all, kind words upon a few, compliments upon the fair, and clever raillery upon those who could appreciate it ; but no Aston-Royal belle had brought him prostrate to her feet as yet, and no substantial father had been privately consulted with as to dowry, settlement, or yearly allowance. People said it was his duty to settle, but he did not seem to see it. Mr. Macnorman, rather more than a middle- ASTON-ROYAL. 73 aged man now, went on establishing his position as one of the foremost men of the town. His name was on every subscription list, and amongst the committee of every society, relig- ious, civic, or philanthropic, connected with Aston- Royal. People who wanted their sons putting into good situations, came to him for intro- ductions ; he took the chair at public meetings, presided at young men's improvement clubs, was great on Mechanics' Institutes, had some- thing to say at every Liberal demonstration that took place, and occupied such a prominent situation in political circles, that people whose opinion on such a subject was worth taking, pointed to him confidently as the future Parlia- mentary representative of his native town. Perhaps that hope of pushing his way, not only to a share in the government of Aston- Royal, but of the nation itself, might be the reason why of late years Mr. Macnorman had taken such pains to make himself popular amongst the merchants and better-class trades- 74 ASTON-ROYAL. men of the town. Perhaps that was the reason why, on the books of the Tudor Hotel, so many little dinners and suppers were down to the ac- count of S. Anderson Macnorman, Esq. ; dinners and suppers which took place in its sumptuously appointed private dining-room, and where " the health of our generous host" was drunk in the best of wine by influential men of the Liberal side, who did not hesitate in the course of their speeches to hint at future parliamentary honours as a suitable termination to the career of their respected townsman, and to enlarge with more or less judicious flattery upon his singular fitness for the bearing of those honours. Mr. Macnorman always smiled and bowed with great affability when anything of that kind was said, assured his friends that they did him too much honour by mentioning his humble name in connection with such a responsible position; but nevertheless gave them his solemn promise that, should any requisition of that nature ever be presented to him, he should not feel himself justified in shrink- ASTON-ROYAL. 75 ing from its acceptance, and that the electors of Aston-Royal would always find him ready to stand by the interests of the town, and advance them by every means in his power. After which splendid deliverance of public spiritedness there was much clapping and cheer- ing in the dining-room of the Tudor Hotel, and more wine was ordered up, and success to the Liberal interest was drunk, and everybody grew patriotic upon unlimited champagne: and the end of it all was that towards the small morning hours, Mr. Macnorman, the pillar of the Postern Chapel cause, and the regenerator of political liberty, came home again to the old Court-house, expecting to be bowed down to more rever- ently than ever by his wife and niece ; and to have his boots pulled off with increasingly ab- ject submission by Charret, the office mes- senger. Of course people began to talk. Mr. Macnor- man ought to have plenty of money, they said, to give dinners and suppers like those two or 76 ASTON-ROYAL. three times a week, and to run up such wine bills at the Tudor Hotel. Something must be paying wonderfully good interest, or they did not know where the funds came from. Mrs. Egremont, one of the Postern Chapel people, whose husband had not got on in the world quite so well as Mr. Macnorman, and who there- fore enjoyed having a little fling at the manager occasionally, hoped things would turn out right in the end. For her own part she had no opin- ion of men, especially members of Christian churches, who did all their hospitality away from home, and left their wives night after night sitting by solitary firesides, whilst they settled the affairs of the nation over sherry and cham- pagne. That was not the way to support the credit of a denomination. And as for the money, she should like to know where it came from, that was all. That Benares Bank, in which Mr. Macnorman had just bought such a quantity of shares, might be paying a splendid dividend, or it might not ; and it might be paying the divi- ASTON-ROYAL. 77 dend out of its capital, or it might not ; and it might come upon the shareholders with calls they had never expected, or it might not. But her husband knew as much about money matters as most people, though he had never got much of a fortune together for himself, being too honest to speculate ; and he had said over and over again that, if a man wanted to make ducks and drakes of his money, he could not do so to more purpose than by taking shares in the Benares Bank. Of course, if the dividends went on at fifteen and twenty per cent, the Tudor wine parties could go on too ; but if not And Mrs. Egremont looked severe. That latter contingency would evidently find most favour in her sight. Mr. Macnorman remained true to the Postern Chapel interest, preferring to be lord and master there rather than to occupy an inferior position in any of the more fashionable churches con- nected with tjie Establishment. Even if ever called to the proud position of representing his 78 ASTON-ROYAL. native town in Parliament, the manager used to say, on Postern Chapel platforms, and in Pos- tern Chapel committees, even if called to the proud position, he repeated, of representing his native town in the assembled council of the nation, the church of his fathers would still be his own church, its interests would lie nearest to his heart — here Mr. Macnorman made a violent appeal with the outstretched palm of his right hand to the opposite side of his waistcoat — nearer, he might even venture to say, than any other interests, civic, national, or political. In it he had lived, in it he meant to die ; and then, in a series of graceful euphuisms, Mr. Macnor- man conveyed to the tumultuously excited occu- pants of the crimson-cloth pews the fact that he meant to leave the society a good round sum to remember him by ; which fact of course com- pletely brought down the house, and the speaker resumed his seat amidst deafening cheers, Mrs. Macnorman and Tressa alone^not appearing to enter iuto the general enthusiasm. ASTON-ROYAL. 79 A new minister had lately come to supply the spiritual needs of the Postern Chapel congrega- tion. Mr. Bateson's work, especially amongst the young people, was being " abundantly owned," and great numbers of them were passing from unattached amateur service to the regular and armed ranks of membership. Few were able to resist the eloquence and fervour with which he spoke. A light, all sweet and strange and new, appeared suddenly to rest upon that profession of religion which hitherto, in the minds of most of his young hearers, had been connected only with gloom and severity. With a naturally poetic taste, baptised in the font of the Postern Chapel denomination, he drew the picture of the consecrated life, that life in which God is all and the creature nothing, that life whose goal is supreme blessedness, whose pathway lies through the perils, snares, and pitfalls of temp- tation, and contrasted it with that which the youths and maidens before him were living, a life fair without, and adorned with dead-sea 80 ASTON-ROYAL. fruits of splendour and delight, hut unsmiled upon by Him in whose favour alone is safety ; a life which, beginning in pleasant folly, in the lust of the eye and the desire of the unrenewed heart, would end in the blackness of darkness for ever. Tressa listened, trembled, and was convinced. Her restless yet aspiring nature made her pecu- liarly alive to religious impressions which came through emotion rather than judgment. Ardent, somewhat romantic, weary of the monotony and lovelessness of her home, possessing a capacity for adoration and self-sacrifice for which her daily life appeared to offer no outlet, this " con- secration" of which Mr. Bateson spoke with such enthusiasm, gave an object round which her whole nature might gather, and pointed to a rest for which, though as yet young, untried, and untroubled, she had already begun to weary. So Tressa became a member of the society worshipping in Postern Chapel, and strove hence- ASTON-ROYAL. 81 forth to mould her life according to the teach- ing given there by the new minister, Mr. Bate- son. In this striving she was helped by various older members of the society, who, when they found that the young girl was under what they denominated " serious convictions," kindly lent her a selection of memoirs of pious young ladies, Broken Lilies, Faded Rosebuds, Gather- ed Snowdrops, and Withered Violets, lives of girls of morbidly sensitive dispositions — why do not people sometimes write the lives of healthy, wholesome-minded girls, instead of these re- ligious sensitive plants, who are always shrivel- ling up and shrinking into themselves? — and exceptionally vivid spiritual perceptions, whicii led them to be always entering their feelings in diaries, and counting the pulses of progress. And Tressa, being very anxious to do right, and having only vague notions about how a mem- ber of society ought to feel, read these books carefully, searching in them for models by VOL. I. G 82 ASTON-ROYAL. which she might regulate her own inner life ; and as the broken lilies and faded rosebuds and withered violets despised the world, she tried to despise it too ; and as they lived mostly in the meditative part of their natures, she tried to live in the meditative part of hers, the greatest mistake she could have made, seeing that for herself actiou was the salt of life ; and as they dived into their own consciousness, and fished up all their little feminine weaknesses, and set them down to the account of internal corrup- tion, so Tressa dived and brought up every- thing that she could find in her ignorant young heart, and kept continually mounting guard over herself, until scarce a single feeling, mo- tive, or action was allowed to stir of its own free will, but was for ever being rubbed through the sieve of self-examination, and made to stand the test of comparison with some immacu- late letter-press heroine, whose excellences she would fain copy into her own life. ASTON-ROYAL. 83 A new light dawned now upon the question, long ago answered in such a comfortable child- ish way, about giving her heart to God. Tressa had found out, from her religious teachers, that giving it to God meant keeping it jealously away from everyone else, tearing out every- thing in it that had not reference to His glory as the supreme end of life. So she began reso- lutely to drag down the fair tapestry work of hope and fancy which she had woven between herself and the dim faded realities of outside life, and fling it forth as rubbish to be cast out and trodden underfoot; and the golden threads that had flashed through and through it, sweet fair sunbeams of a girl's imaginings, which had made the dark places bright, and helped her to keep a smile upon her face and a somewhat happy light in her eyes, were plucked away, because they were so beautiful that, gazing on them, she had forgotten her need of God. Had not Mr. Bateson said that everything coming G2 84 ASTON-ROYAL. between the heart and God was an idol, how- ever fair, however cherished, however precious it might be, an idol to be torn away, whatever pain and agony that tearing might involve ? And were not these vain dreams, these longings after a life which the All- wise had not appointed her to live, idols which came between herself and Him ; idols which must be cast out, de- stroyed, consumed, before that absolute devot- edness could be obtained which the Creator demands from all His creatures ? Tressa let them go, and mourned, for truly they had been very dear to her. Then she knelt and asked God, who was as yet to her an unknown God, to take her heart, since she could not give it to Him, and keep it all for Himself, suffering no creature love or hope to hide Him from her any more, no human sweet- ness to mar the intercourse between her soul and Him. Prayer which the good God heard with in- finite tenderness and pity, and answered not ; ASTON-ROYAL. 85 knowing that only from our human nature can we win to that which is divine, or rise to worthy thought of Him only through love of those whom He has made for us in His own image. CHAPTER V. SUCH was the point to which Tressa had reached, such the searching out of her heart towards the dim vision of things eternal, such its yearnings towards things seen and temporal, when Lucy Thoresby, a bright young maiden of nineteen now, a member with her grandmother of the Postern Chapel congrega- tion, and a meek little lamb of Mr. Bateson's fold, but not, like Tressa, burdened with any crushing care for her spiritual interests, came running across the quadrangle of Mr. Macnor- man's side of the Court-house, one sunny May morning, bringing with her a letter from Mar- tha, her elder sister, who kept house for their Uncle Bernard at the Grange Farm of Aston- Vernay. ASTON-ROYAL. 87 Lucy was going there for a fortnight. She always went to Aston-Vernay in the summer time, but this year it was to be a month earlier, for Martin, the sailor brother, Romilly's old school-mate, had leave of absence from his ship for a little while, and he was spending part of his holiday with Uncle Bernard at the farm, and Lucy had come to know if Mrs. Macnorman would let Tressa go with her. " Only a fortnight, you know, pet," said the little bright-faced maiden, pulling Tressa out of a corner behind the dining-room curtains, where she had been studying the portrait of a Broken Lily ; and tripping away with her into the quaint old-fashioned Court-house garden, all ablaze with sunshine and spring flowers now, " only a fortnight. I'm sure your aunt will spare you for just two weeks, and you've never been to Aston- Vernay yet, and you don't half know what a good time we can have; and Uncle Bernard has such a pretty garden, and Martha is no end of a good housekeeper, and makes such delici- $8 ASTON-ROYAL. eras cream cakes ; and Martin will take us to the Forest — Aston-Vernay Forest, yon know, where those immense oaks are, so far round as one of the pillars of the Abbey. Oh, Tressa ! do come." "I'll ask aunt," said Tressa, half absently. She had just been reading an extract from the Broken Lily's diary, in which that young lady recorded her conviction that enjoyment was a dangerous thing for the soul's welfare, and that they walked most safely who walked in the wholesome twilight of a path from which the glare of earthly happiness was excluded. And that thought of going to Aston-Vernay with Lucy was so very bright, quite unwholesomely bright, looked at through the Broken Lily's no- tions of wholesomeness. " I should like to go, if aunt would let me. But " " Oh ! don't make any buts. Grandmamma said it would be ever so much nicer if we could both of us go together ; and Mattie is such a dear, excellent, particular old sister, that you ASTON-ROYAL. 89 needn't be a bit afraid about the proprieties, if that is what makes you look so serious. She's as good as half-a-dozen married ladies, is Mat- tie, for being steady, and all that sort of thing. Go this very minute, there's a good little girl, and ask Mrs. Macnorman if she will spare you to us for a fortnight. Say if you go to Aston- Vernay now, you won't want a trip to the sea- side this summer, and perhaps that will make a difference." Tressa went, and returned with her aunt's permission, which had been granted without having recourse to that argument about the sea-side trip. Mrs. Macnorman, with all her failings, was not a selfish woman, and never consciously revenged herself for the want of sunshine in her own life, by quenching it out of others. " Aunt says I may go," said Tressa, a flush of downright irresistible gladness lighting up all her face at the prospect of a whole fortnight amongst those beautiful Aston-Vernay woods, 90 ASTON-ROYAL. of which she had heard so much ; and driving away for the moment any doubts which the diary of the Broken Lily might have left touch- ing the danger of overmuch joy in this wilder- ness state. u It will be so nice, and I am so glad." " And so am 1," and Lucy kissed the young girl's face in every available place, to show the extent of her gladness. " I thought, from the very first, Mrs. Macnorman would be sure to let you go, only I could not help feeling the least bit afraid, because she doesn't know what a good old sister Mattie is, and she does know what a bag of nonsense I am. At least grand- ma says I am, and she is right about everything else, too. Come along into the garden, and let us have a real proper talk about it." And putting their arms round each other's waists, the two girls sauntered away into the garden to a little summer-house, formed out of the ruins of an old tower which had formerly belonged to the Benedictine Priory. It was ASTON-ROYAL. 91 here that they used to keep house together when they were children ; and here, too, that in later years Tressa came to devour in secret those fairy tales and romances whose effects she was now so diligently labouring to subdue. For Mr. Bateson said nothing hindered the work of grace in the human heart so seriously as the idle visions and fancies left there by the reading of works of fiction. " Grandma said I might have a new dress to take with me," said Lucy, when she had perched herself comfortably on a bit of carved stone which looked like an old gurgoyle fallen from the Abbey front just above them. " You know Martin so seldom sees any young ladies at all, that I always like to look as nice as I can when he is coming, and so I have bought the very dearest little darling of a white cambric, with blue forget-me-nots upon it. I've got a tit of it here to let you see," and Lucy fished the pat- tern out of her pocket, as pretty a bait to femi- nine vanity as ever saw daylight in a draper's 92 ASTON-ROYAL. shop window. " Grandma says it won't wash, but I don't care for that, so long as it looks nice. What's the use of wearing colours that don't suit you, just because they happen to wash bet- ter than those that do ? There was a horribly ugly old lilac thing that grandma wanted me to have, because it would stand soap and soda and everything else ; but I hate lilac, and Mar- tin doesn't like it either, and it makes me look yellow, and — and blue is such a pretty colour." " Yes," said Tressa rather absently, for the conversation was taking too worldly a turn. " Romilly says you should never wear anything but blue, it suits you better than any other colour." Lucy flushed and smiled and looked bon- nier than ever, and the tell-tale glistening light which came into her sunny eyes said as plainly as any words could speak what fair tapestry work of hope and promise had begun to weave itself upon the empty chambers of her innocent little life. She knew that Romilly Macnorman ASTON-ROYAL. 93 liked her in blue, tie had told her so once, and that was the reason she had bought the unwash- able cambric, contrary to grandma's more un- biassed judgment. If Romilly had said he liked her in dust colour she would have worn dust colour to the end of her days to please him, and Romilly knew that well enough. But Lucy only tossed her little head, and stuffed the blue pattern back again into her pocket, and went on talking to Tressa as if it was not a bit of con- sequence what Romilly thought about anything, so long as Martin's tastes were satisfied in the matter of morning frocks with forget-me-nots upon them. " What dresses shall you take, Tressa ? I haven't seen you in anything fresh for ever so long." Tressa sighed. For six months past she had been thinking a great deal more about the robe of righteousness, and the fine linen, clean and white, of which Mr. Bateson spoke with such emotion, than about the adornment of her poor 94 ASTON-ROYAL. perishing body. Indeed she had often thought lately what a help it would be to spiritual pro- gress if the children of the kingdom could wear a universal grey pinafore, and attend to the beautifying of their souls without any anxious care for other finery. It might be bad for trade, but it would be very good, she felt, for the soul's eternal interests, if, as Mr. Bateson said, dress really was a device of the great enemy. " I'm sure I don't know," she replied. " I haven't had any of my summer things got up yet." " Then do have them got up, there's a dear good little pet," said Lucy, upon whom Mr. Bateson's teaching had not yet fastened with overwhelming force. " I want you to look as nice as ever you can when you go to Aston- Vernay. You haven't looked a bit nice lately. At least, I mean, you know, you don't seem as if you cared so much about it. You used to be so different a little while ago, there wasn't a girl at the sewing-meeting who could do up her hair ASTON-ROYAL. 95 so nicely as you did, and put those dear little loves of ribbon rosettes into it ; and now you don't have any rosettes at all, and no bows and ends or anything. Where can they all have gone to ?" Tressa coloured painfully. The truth was, she had wrapped them all up and put them away in the corner of her drawer. The Gathered Rosebud had done so when she was converted, and appeared to have derived great spiritual profit therefrom. But she said nothing. She had never spoken " seriously " to Lucy yet, though she often felt that by her silence she was bringing discredit upon her profession. Lucy did not see the deepening colour though, and rattled on as innocently as ever. " Your hair, too. You don't do that a bit properly either — at least, of course it is bright and tidy and all that sort of thing, but it doesn't look as if you gave your mind to it, and you know you can't make your hair look really nice unless you do give your mind to it. Some girls 9() ASTON-ROYAL. would make no end of a show with all that pretty brown hair of yours, and you just go and fasten it up under a net, as if it was so much cotton wool. Oh, I do wish you would let me do it for you some day ! I would make it look ever so grand. I almost feel as if I could begin now." And Lucy did begin by pulling off Tressa's black silk net, whereupon a wealth of rippling brown hair came tumbling down over as grace- ful a pair of shoulders as the most fastidious critic of female comeliness need wish to look upon. Tressa coloured, more deeply than ever, as with trembling hands she stowed the sinfully rippling tresses safely back into their prison house. Now was the time to speak. She must speak. She must bear witness for the truth, however much shame and pain the witness cost. Mr. Bateson said that braided hair was not for the children of light, and on that account she had smoothed hers out as straight as possible, ASTON-ROYAL. 97 and put it out of sight under a thick net, which afforded no facilities for ornament in the shape of bows or rosettes or any such devices of Satan. She felt very plain when she had done it, but greatly blessed in spirit. She must tell Lucy the truth. It would be sinful cowardice any longer to hide her light under a bushel. It would cost her a great deal to break through her natural shyness to do it, but what was a profession of religion worth if people did not take up the cross which was connected with it ? u It doesn't look so pretty, I know, Lucy,"' said the young girl, the hot tears rising to her eyes, her voice trembling with shame at this, her first bold confession of the faith ; " but — but — Mr. Bateson said that people who had joined the church ought to let their light shine, they ought not to be like the children of the world. And he told us that these outward adornments of braiding of hair and putting on apparel were not acceptable in the sight of a heart-searching God. And so — and so " VOL. I. H 98 ASTON-ROYAL. Tressa spoke very hesitatingly, as one who for the first time frames a sentence in some for- eign, unfamiliar tongue ; and then her voice failed her, tears of excitement choked it, and the red flush deepened painfully upon her cheek. Lucy finished the sentence for her — Lucy who " sat under " Mr. Bateson too, but sat under him without any very painful sense of shortcoming as yet, in the discharge of her duties towards either God or man. " So you took all your hair away and put it behind your ears? Oh, you dear, good, consistent little member of society ! I should like you ever so much better now, if I hadn't liked you as much as ever I could before. But I don't won- der at your seeming so troubled about it, be- cause, you know, you don't look half so pretty with it all tucked up in that way. It makes you a sort of fright, and I wouldn't make my- self look like a fright for all the Mr. Batesons in the world." " I know that," replied Tressa meekly, with ASTON-KOYAL. 99 a great sob of relief now that the cross had been taken up. " Romilly has told me ever so many times lately that I'm a fright. You know Rom- illy is very particular about how people look." " Is he 1 " and Lucy's little fingers wandered unconsciously to the long fair curls which, in spite of Mr. Bateson's public exhortations and private admonitions, still floated at their own sweet will, and formed such a dainty setting for the modest loveliness of her face. " Does he think such a very great deal about looks?" " Yes, I'm sure he does. He says he could not be very fond of anyone who was not pretty. If he sees anybody fresh he always tells me ex- actly what she looks like, andhowshe was dressed. I think first of all he is particular about looks, and then about dress. But you can ask him yourself, for he is coming up from the other end of the yew-tree walk. I suppose he can't see us through his cigar-smoke, or he would come a little quicker." h2 100 ASTON-ROYAL. "And I have got this stupid old frock on — what a nuisance ! Don't tell him, Tressa, but let me get out of the way as fast as I can. Good-bye, pet; and mind, when we go to Aston- Vernay I shall take your hair down and do it just as I like, and you must hunt up all your rosettes and throw Mr. Bateson's black net into the fire. I won't have him spoiling my Tressa any more in that way." With a spring and a bound Lucy was down from the battered gurgoyle, and away behind the lilac bushes, to a little iron-studded door which led to the south end of the quadrangle. As she disappeared, Romilly came strolling past. " I saw some curls just now at the bottom of the walk, who did they belong to ? Or to speak more correctly, to whom did they belong ?" "To Lacy; she is just this minute gone away.'* " And why did she go away when she knew I was coming to speak to her ?" ASTON-ROYAL. 101 " Because she had her old frock on," said Tressa innocently, "and she knows you are very particular." Romilly put his cigar into his mouth again and went away, smiling as he went. He liked power too, though he did not exert it after just the same fashion as his father. 102 CHAPTER VI. OO the two girls went to Aston-Vernay, in ^ the sweet May time, when the year is at its freshest, and its beauty that of the fair young maiden whom neither beating sunshine of flattery nor dust of compliment nor rainstorm of envy has spoiled. Since those long-ago chance visits to Stow- ness, it was the first time Tressa had been away from home, except when her uncle and aunt took her *with them for their yearly excursion to some fashionable watering-place, and that was just like being at home still, for the same stifling sense of restraint brooded down upon her. Outwardly, things might be a little different ; but within, the long guested presence of gloom refused to be cast out. ASTON-ROYAL. 103 What a sense of freedom then, of bright, up- springing freshness, in that new country life ! For Uncle Bernard was so good, and Martha so thoughtful, and little Lucy such a living sunbeam, brightening the house from morning to night with her merry smile and her pretty girlish frolics. And surely never May mornings were so fair as those which they spent toge- ther in the grand old Aston-Vernay woods, or any sunshine so bright as that which lay upon the ferny uplands, or evening shadows so peaceful as those which crept up night by night through the long glades of oak and hawthorn, and stole the daylight so gently away that you scarce could know it gone, until the stars came out one by one, peering down through the great, still, moveless arms of the giant oak trees, and silver moonbeams glistened upon the dewy bracken, and the low, sweet, distant song of the nightingales, w T ho loved no cover so well as that of the Aston-Vernay woods, lay dimly upon the breathing silence and made it full of music. 104 ASTON-ROYAL. Tressa's whole life came into blossom now. Keenly alive to every touch of beauty, the more so that she had been shut out so long from it, her whole nature seemed to grow and strength- en and brighten, and she was a new creature. Truly the God of the country and of the leafy summer woods must be a different being from Him of whom Mr. Bateson spoke, jealous of all that was not offered to Himself, grasping for the undivided hearts of His children as a miser for his gold, frowning on every smile that was not upward given, putting some drop of bitter- ness into every cup which human beings lifted to their lips, lest drinking, they should be content and love Him less ; breaking off every purpose, touching into decay every cherished hope, that they who purposed and they who hoped might not forget they were but worms of the earth, frail creatures, intended by their very perishable- ness and decay to bring into brighter contrast His everlastingn ess for whose glory they had been made. ASTON-KOYAL. 1()5 And Tressa's smile, as she looked up through the beautiful Aston-Vernay woods to her new Father-God, was a truer thanksgiving than any she had yet offered in the midst of the Postern Chapel congregation. Then Martin, Lucy's sailor brother, came. Martin, brave, frank, honest, outspoken, straight as a reed, brown as a berry, bright and whole- some as a cloudless September day; with a smile as broad and sunny as the ocean which was his home, with a frank look in his hazel eyes, with such a ring of trusty valour in his voice ; — Mar- tin, so tender with the aged, so merry with the young, so fearless to the lofty, so gentle with the lowly ; rough and strong as a sea-king, yet so loving by-and-by to Tressa, as they two, only they two, loitered at evening time in the hush and stillness of the Aston-Vernay woods. For they had not been staying with Uncle Bernard many days before no companion was so plea- sant to Martin Thoresby as the quaint, quiet, trustful little maiden from the old Court-house, 106 ASTON-KOYAL. and no hours so swift in their happy brightness as those he spent by her side. And to see her look of wonder and delight as he spun his sailor yarns, and to heat* her laugh, true out- come now of the long imprisoned cheerfulness within, was better than anything life had given to him yet. So little by little these two grew together as hearts which are of each other sure, knowing, though no word had told it yet, the sweet secret whose slow unfolding was to make the beauty of their lives. Quietly it arose between them, none knowing, save themselves, how, or where, or when. Uncle Bernard, a dry, prosaic, practi- cal old bachelor, whose own romance had been put away and covered up forty years ago, never dreamed of another which might be weaving itself for his sailor nephew and Tressa Dovercourt. And Martha the housekeeping sister, plodding, methodical, unperceptive, ab- sorbed in her dairy and still-room, never took note of such affairs until they reached the defi- ASTON-ROYAL. 107 niteness of an out-and-out engagement, at which stage her thoughts began to busy themselves with plate, linen, and house-furnishing. And as for Lucy, pretty, playful, rosebud Lucy, she was too much taken up with her new dresses and the preparations for a pic-nic, to which Romilly Macnorman had promised to come before they left Aston-Vernay, to be very in- quisitive about the change which had come over Tressa during their stay at the Grange farm. She only knew that her dear darling pet of a friend looked nicer and brighter and happier than usual, and she attributed the change to the re- storation of the ribbons and rosettes, which had somehow crept back again to their accustomed places since Martin's arrival, and the fresh air of Aston-Vernay, which, as everyone allowed, had an almost miraculous effect in bringing roses to the palest cheeks. Martin only staid a week. Then, after spend- ing a day or two with old Mrs. Thoresby, he went away to Liverpool, from which port his 108 ASTON-ROYAL. ship, the Terrier, was to sail for China at the end of the month. But it was to be quite a short voyage this time, not more than half a year, as he said to Tressa, when, hand in hand, with a lingering look which told the story of both their hearts, and told it sweetly, too, they said good-bye to each other under the snow- blossomed hawthorn trees of the old forest. " Only until Christmas, Tressa. I shall come back at Christmas. I wonder if you will be glad to see me again." For answer Tressa blushed so rosily that Martin could but leave a kiss upon her forehead, and leaving his heart with it, went away to the rough, busy life which had been his portion for many a year on the deck of the good ship Ter- rier. And ever afterwards, quite on to the end of her life, Tressa loved the woods, the beauti- ful woods of Aston Vernay, loved them in their summer splendour, loved them in their autumn glow, loved them when the first soft touch of spring won forth their thousand tints of russet, ASTON-ROYAL. 109 brown, and olive, but loved them most of all in the joyous May time, month of blossom and greenness ; for then she learned how sweet a thing this earthly life may be, how fresh, how fair, how full of sunshine to those who, loving and being loved, have the open vision which maketh all things new. And so home again to the cramped and nar- row life of the old Court-house, which did not vex her now so much, for past and future, mem- ory and hope, spread their wings over the dreary present, and tried to hide its sadness. Only a strange new sense of pity, of yearning, which could never tell itself in words, drew her, as she had never been drawn before, to the silent, cold woman whom as yet she had rather feared than loved, out of whose once warm and love-furnished heart all joy had taken flight. Back again to the long quiet Sundays, and to the Postern Chapel, and to Mr. Bateson's ministrations, and, by-and-by, as the strong hand of his influence was freshly laid upon her, to 110 ASTON-EOYAL. those doubts and questionings which had vexed her so before. For the God who spake to her out of the beautiful summer woods, and through the sweetness of Martin Thoresby's love, was so different from the God whom Mr. Bateson worshipped, stern, lofty, immoveable in a divin- nity out of which all the Fatherhood had been quenched. It was so easy to love Him by Martin's side, with the blue heavens over them, the May sunshine all round and about them. It was so hard to love Him in the Postern Chapel, with Mr. Bateson's grave voice sound- ing in her ears, telling her that self-sacrifice was the noblest form of worship, that God would have no rival in the heart, that its dearest long- ings, its most precious hopes, its costliest pos- sessions, belonging to this life, must be trampled down, cast out, given up, that He might be all in all. For, as Mr. Bateson said, in the first sermon to which Tressa listened after she came home from Aston -Vernay — said it, too, with such ASTON-ROYAL. Ill solemn earnestness and pathos of appeal in his trembling* voice — God must be all in all. He mnst have the undivided heart. Those who would be His followers, who would have the smile of His favour and the seal of His approval on their hearts, must give themselves up, with all their earthly loves, hopes, aspirations, a whole burnt-offering to Him. No regret must mingle with the sacrifice. No idolatrous looking back to the vain things of the world must mark the soul's exodus from the Egypt of its luxuri- ous sinfulness to the stern yet wholesome dis- cipline of the wilderness. God, Mr. Bateson said, was dealing w T ith all His children now, as He dealt in ages gone by with the father of the faithful. From the Canaan of the unrenewed life, with its ease, its plenty, its fulness of bread, He called them to go forth, not knowing whither they went : to pitch their tents in a strange land, and wander from place to place in search of a better country, that is a heavenly. And then, when this sacrifice of temporal comfort had been 112 ASTON-ROYAL. made, when pleasure had been renounced, and the soul had been taught to sit loose to earthly gain, there was still a loftier spiritual height to win. Not only the outward treasures of wealth and luxury, things which perish in the using, must be held with a careless grasp, but the heart's treasures, its dearest, its best beloved, must be given up to the God from whom they came. The Isaacs of our affection must be laid upon the altar of sacrifice, our own hands must lead them thither, bind them there, and stretch forth the knife to slay them, ere God, beholding, could be well pleased, and say to the faithful soul as to Abraham of old — "Now I know that thou fearest me." Mr. Bateson said all this with the enthusiasm of a man who believes what he says, who has climbed to the same height of self-annihilation, who has made the same sacrifice, and would do it again if called thereto. And then he left the pulpit and went back to his comfortable home and his fair matron wife, and the merry little ASTON-ROYAL. 113 children who crowded around him for kisses, and climbed on his knees and laid their soft cheeks to his face as he played with them ; and amused himself with their pretty engaging- ways, apparently forgetful of the fact that they were so many spiritual Isaacs, to be led to the mountain top which God had told him of, and bound upon the altar of his faith, and there slain, in obedience to the divine command. And he looked round upon his elegantly furnished dining-room — for the Postern Chapel people were liberal in their " quarterage" — and drew on his embroidered testimonial slippers, and asked a blessing upon his carefully cooked supper, without any very unpleasant realization of thesu luxuries as the species of Egyptian bondage from which he had just been urging his people to set themselves free, that they might go forth they knew not whither, to seek a city of habit- ation. Nor did any dim shadow of the awful meaning of the words cloud his now tired and sleepy face, as, side by side with his wife and VOL. I. I 114 ASTON-ROYAL. children, he sang at evening worship that verse from Wesley's hymns " Give joy or grief, give ease or pain, Take life, take friends away ; I come to meet them all again In that eternal day." 115 CHAPTER VII. TliTR. BATE SON was an honest man, teaching -"-*- what he thought to be truth, endeavour- ing, with what light he had, to follow the foot- steps of the divine Saviour, whose life is our pattern, even as the death which crowned it is our hope. If asked for a justification of that impossible standard of religious experience which he placed before his congregation, he would have been able to defend himself. He would have said that to obtain entrance for truth into the minds of the great mass of pro- fessing Christians, you must present it in the form of a spiritual life which, for all but the most self-sacrificing amongst them, is unlikely ever to be realised. If you put a commonplace i 2 116 ASTON-ROYAL. standard before commonplace people, they will make no effort to reach it. They have already decided that between what they are and what they ought to be. there is a necessarily wide interval. They do not blame themselves for this interval, they accept it as the inevitable condition of ordinary Christian life. Therefore you must give them something which smites with overwhelming superiority upon the dim and faulty reality of their daily conduct, or they will not rouse themselves to consider it, much less to strive to make it their own. And it is better to behold a distant noble standard, and travel but a few steps towards its attainment, than to look upon a comparatively low one, and because it is a little nearer than the other, make no effort to reach it. Mr. Bateson knew that of the five hundred people who listened to that sermon of his on the Christian duty of self-sacrifice, four hundred and ninety-nine would never dream of putting what he said into practice. They would agree ASTON-ROYAL. 117 with it, they would accept it as truth, and per- haps, contrasting it with what they had been able to achieve in their own daily experience, a wholesome spirit of humility might take posses- sion of them. But as for realizing it as an ac- tual obligation, as for making Abraham's lofty devotion a part of their own religious faith, that was a different thing altogether. The most he could hope for from his teaching was that, listening to it, the people would take shame to themselves for their own half-heartedness, and make one more faint effort after that grand ideal of perfection which they were never likely to touch. He did not know that Tressa Dovercourt, quiet, reserved, subdued Tressa Dovercourt, sitting at his left hand in her uncle's crimson- lined, sumptuously-furnished pew, listening to all that the preacher said with such wistful reverent attention, was the solitary five- hundredth one for whom the consciousness of possibility involved the obligation of attain- 118 ASTON-ROYAL. ment. He did not know that every word burnt itself in letters of fire upon a heart for whom power was duty, and upon a conscience which, once seeing the right, could never rest until it was achieved. He marked the girl's reverent attention, and accepted it as a token for good in one so young; but still he thought she would rest, even as the others rested, in a very far-off imitation of that patriarchal height of devotion, and only be drawn by his glowing picture of self-sacrifice to perhaps one onward step, which, without such attraction, she had not cared to take. But Tressa came home that night with a ter- rible feeling of restlessness at her heart. It had been hard enough to hear that doctrine of re- nunciation preached when it only touched the dreams and visions which as yet had taken no definite shape. But sacrifice when the victim was Martin Thoresby's love, renunciation when the thing to be renounced was the very life of her life — ah ! that was hard. That was what ASTON-ROYAL. 119 she could not understand. And yet she be- longed to the visible church of God, she had bound herself by the most solemn vows to fulfil whatever duty her membership demanded, even were that duty the plucking out of a right eye or the cutting off and casting from her of a right hand. She had put her hand to the Gospel plough ; she must not now turn back, or the awful curse of the divine displeasure wouid for ever rest upon her soul. Tressa wept bitter tears as she sat alone in her casement window that night, thinking over Mr. Bateson's sermon. Was this, then, what the good God had made her so happy for, during that dear week among the Aston-Vernay woods 1 Had He given her so much, only to demand it all again, to tell her that unless she gave back the sweet possession she could never be His child, never feel the safe clasp of His guid- ing hand on hers, or look up into His face and see there the smile of a father's love and ten- derness ? This was very strange. This she 120 ASTON-ROYAL. could not understand. She would not have dealt so with any, even the meanest, whose happiness lay within her keeping. She w^as only human, yet what she gave once she asked never back again ; and was God less generous than His creatures I Had He dowered them with nobleness and love better than His own, that they should give so freely, whilst He, giving, should repent the gift so soon? Tressa, knowing not whither to go, had re- course to her religious fashion plates. Surely in the "Pictures of Silver " she should find help for her soul's needs. Or in the " Broken Lilies," " Gathered Roses," " Faded Violets," and " Withered Snowdrops," she should learn how to order her steps in this, the first great halt- ing-place of her life. But they had little to say on the subject. These flowers of perfection had mostly been transplanted to the garden above, before any Martin Thoresby came to them ; or, if he did come at all, he came in the guise of a curate, or a scripture reader, or earnest student, ASTON-ROYAL. 121 or young minister of that particular sect to which the botanical specimen belonged. And the acquaintance always began at a prayer-meeting, or gathering for religious conversation, and was introduced by questions relative to the specimen" s spiritual condition ; after which the curate, or whatever else he might be, was received into the bosom of the specimen's family, and little by little appropriated her affections in such a per- fectly legitimate and consistent manner that the specimen could regard the appropriation as nothing less than providential, and submitted accordingly. Or in most cases there was no- thing at all said about loving and being loved, the buried exemplifications of early piety not having any such dross of humanity clinging to them, or, if having it, wisely excluding it from their diaries. Tressa could find neither speech nor language suited to her need in the horti- cultural remains of the religious publishers. And for the Book of Books, she had not yet learned to look upon that otherwise than 122 ASTON-ROYAL. through a glass darkly. To her it only spoke the language of the Postern Chapel denomina- tion. It held out its rewards to those who for- sook all, it issued its threats against those who dared to reserve for themselves any possession of interest or enjoyment in the good things of life. Her religious teachers had made it speak to her of the world as a vale of tears, a waste, howling wilderness ; a pilgrimage beset with thorns, briers, fears, dangers, pitfalls, brakes and snares ; a path into which, if brightness came, it only came to lure ; if pleasure, to be- tray ; if rest, to mock the weary traveller whom the clarion call of duty must so soon bid back to his toilsome march. She had been taught that God would be very angry with her if she did not give up everything to Him ; that just so far as she rejoiced in any human love, she was depriving her Maker of something to which He had the first claim, and laying herself open thereby to His severest wrath and indignation. St. Augustine's words had never brought their ASTON-ROYAL. 123 tender message to her heart — " If souls please thee, love them in God, and carry them with thee to Him, and say to them, 'Let us love Him ; He made these things, and He is not far off.' " She knew little as yet of that sweet Father- love which, bending over this great world of human hope and longing, frowns not on any of the brightness there ; which, giving sorrow or giving joy, gives both to bless the souls to whom they come ; which, instead of making life a bur- den, lifts the burden off, or gives new strength to bear it ; which, through faithfulness of human love and warmth of human tenderness, would lead the soul upward and onward to the glory which excelleth even these. Never to her dim eyes as yet had appeared the pitiful Saviour- God, who, still loving His children when their faith fails, chiding them not when the human tears which He has given them do sadly fall, or when their human smiles do seem for a little season to part them from need of His own, will 124 ASTON-ROYAL. lead them on safely through storm and sunshine, through gloom and brightness, through joy, sorrow, duty, doubt, and fear, until, by these things made patient and complete, He opens unto them the gates of everlasting rest, and bids them enter, there to abide for evermore. This light of the true life was but dawning upon her. She would come to it sooner or later, but she must come, as many a one had come before her, through sadness and loss, through much giving up of convictions which had once been true for her, but now were true no longer — feelings, prejudices, opinions, which were for a time useful as guards to the young life within, but which, having done their work, must fall away, like the outer useless leaves of a lily when the plant has reached its growth. It might be for good, or it might be for evil, so far as earthly happiness was concerned; but Tressa's feet were set now in that narrow up- ward path which leads to the royal daylight of truth. And, once having seen that light, and ASTON-ROYAL. 125 once having turned her face to it, she could go back no more, save to take her place, with secret unrest and reproach, amongst the ignoble ranks of those who, seeing their duty, follow it not, and, knowing the glory of action, prefer the lazy, low content of ease. 126 CHAPTER VIII. 4 FTER Martin Thoresby joined his ship, and ■*■-*- the two girls, Lucy and Tressa, came home again to Aston-Royal, things went on with their usual outward monotony in Mr. Macnor man's household. Romilly came perhaps more frequently than usual to the Court-house. That might be because, the question of the Melbourne appointment be- ing decided in his favour, he felt bound to pay rather more attention to his father and mother, so that, when the time of separation came, his ten- der conscience need not be vexed by any scruples of neglected filial duty* Or it might be because Lucy Thoresby was often to be found in the oriel room where Tressa and Mrs. Macnorman spent ASTON-ROYAL. 127 most of their evenings. Since that visit to the Grange farm, the two girls had been more inti- mate than ever, and now scarcely a week passed in which old Mrs. Thoresby's pretty grand- daughter did not two or three times come run- ning across with her fancy-work, to spend an hour with Tressa, whilst the master of the house was away at some municipal dinner, or taking the chair at a public meeting, or having his health drunk with cheers and loud applause in the private dining-room of the Tudor hotel. Of course Romilly said to himself, as he thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled down night after night from his luxurious cham- bers in the London Road to the dim, dingily- furnished sitting-room at the old Court-house, that it was of very little importance to himself, in fact none at all, whether Lucy was there or not. He could be quite happy with or without her. She was certainly a charming little creature, though perhaps a trifle too angelic for a flesh and blood mortal like himself, and 128 ASTON-ROYAL. with just a touch of over-submissiveness to those who had will enough to control her. Still there was something wonderfully fresh and simple and maidenly about her, more pleasing still by contrast with the overblown belles of Aston- Royal mercantile society, belles who had made themselves a by no means enviable reputation for loudness and display. And after he had been for several successive nights forcing his way through crowded drawing-rooms, doing the agreeable to newly rich dowagers and listening to the inane rattle of their grown-up daughters, it was positively refreshing to spend an hour or two in Lucy's company, breathing the at- mosphere of innocence and simplicity which she always seemed to diffuse around her. He was not quite sure that he should like to breathe such an atmosphere always, but still for a change it was very pleasant, like a long coun- try ramble or a trip to the sea-side, when one had been pent up for weeks and months amidst smutty factories and counting-houses. ASTON-ROYAL. 129 Possibly an additional charm might lurk in the consciousness that Lucy seemed by no means disappointed if he chanced to make his appearance at the Court-house, when she had come across for half an hour's chat with Tressa. True, she had none of the coquettish wiles of the Aston-Royal young ladies, never bore down upon him with a whole Armada of smiles and compliments, such as they directed with such splendid effect towards their admiring cavaliers; but still he knew well enough that, whenever he came, Lucy was influenced by his presence. A change passed over her, slight, subtle, indefin- able, but wonderfully flattering to a man who, like Romilly Macnorman, loved to see people, especially women, yielding to and owniDg his power over them. That delicate flush which flitted across Lucy's face, that almost imperceptible constraint, coy, grace- ful, half-frightened, into which her usually buoyant manner passed if he took his seat be- side her and whispered a tender word or two, VOL. I. K 1 30 ASTON-ROYAL. or let his fingers lightly touch her own, was worth ten times more to him than the self-con- fident ease and assurance of the most experi- enced ball-room belle who ever amused herself by quadrille-dancing and heart-breaking. That was just how things were when, to- wards the close of his last summer in England, Romilly Macnorman did Mrs. Van Brooten the honour of accepting an invitation to one of her very grand evening parties. Mrs. Van Brooten was the wife of the rich Aston-Royal merchant who had wanted to buy the Palace estate, pull down the old Court- house, and build a modern red-brick mansion in its place. With regard to her "prelimi- naries," nothing very authentic had been ascer- tained. She did not often mention her father and mother, but that made no difference ; many people who mixed with very good Aston-Royal society, now, did not know much about their fa- thers and mothers. There were vague rumours about a pie-shop in London, with whose interior ASTON-ROYAL. 131 arrangements she had once been familiar before her marriage ; but that, like all the other " pre- liminaries," was veiled in obscurity. Mrs. Van Brooten, as people knew her now, was like one of those magnificent red and purple orchids which grow out of nothing, and do such credit to their origin. She was not a disagreeable woman, rather the reverse ; under-bred, rough- ly-finished, coarse in tone and colouring, but with a certain expansiveness of good-nature about her, to match her rosy face and broad shoulders and general liberality of outline. She was very social, and liked nothing so much as giving great parties, where, if she did not fur- nish her guests with everything that could be wished for in the way of society, she made them welcome to the best of wine and the most ex- pensive confectionary. Romilly arrived late. He always liked to make his appearance at a party when it reached the condition of champagne which has been poured out for half an hour. Then his advent k2 132 ASTON-ROTAL. was hailed like a fresh draught of generous wine, and his wit, sparkling flow of conversation, and power to stir the dullest company into a state of temporary effervescence, made him at once the hero of the evening. After paying his re- spects to Mrs. Van Brooten, who was almost ready to embrace him in her exuberant satis- faction at the kindness which he had done her in coming to partake of her hospitality, he was strolling leisurely through her magnificent yel- low satin drawing-room, dropping a compliment to one bare-shouldered belle, a delicate bon-bon of flattery to another, joking with the gentle- men, playing off little squibs of wit on those who could appreciate them, and in many ways enliv- ening the somewhat flabby and vapid condition of the guests, when he at last came to a stand- still by the side of a heavy dowager, and whilst amusing himself with her attempts to recommend an elaborately dressed daughter to his notice, glanced from time to time to a little inner drawing-room, from which strains of guitar ASTON-ROYAL. 133 music, accompanying a rich contralto voice, were to be heard. He could not distinguish the owner of the voice, until a feminine pyramid of lace and gossamer moved slowly away from the entrance of the inner room. Then he found that the singer was a massive, dark-eyed, olive-faced girl, who with a sort of lazy southern abandon was half sitting, half reclining on a low couch, carelessly receiving the attentions of a cluster of gentlemen, and bestowing upon them now a smile, now a soft indolent look, now a gracious word, as her fancy led. Disentangling himself with ready ingenuity from the toils of the heavy dowager, he made his way to Mrs. Van Brooten, and asking a few questions preparatory to his request for an in- troduction, found that this star which had lately arisen upon the firmament of Aston-Royal society, was governess to her two little boys ; an orphan from Cuba, who, in consequence of some quarrel with her relatives there, had de- 134 ASTON-ROYAL. termined to come to England and earn a living for herslf. " Handsome girl, is she not, Mr. Macnorman ? and so splendidly got up," said the ponderous rich lady, gathering up her flowing draperies to make room for Romilly on the couch beside her. Mrs. Van Brooten had no daughters of her own for whom to bespeak the admiration of the opposite sex, and was therefore able to express herself with more than an average amount of womanly impartiality respecting the charms of the Cuban girl. " Quite a striking effect, but awfully inde- pendent. I assure you I never had a young per- son in my school-room who took her own way so entirely. Can't speak a work to her, in the way of fault finding, without her pride being up directly, and flaring atyou like a log of pitch pine. I heard of her quite by accident, as I may say." " Not in Aston Royal, surely," remarked Romilly, levelling his eyeglass again at the brunette who kept receiving the homage of ASTON-ROYAL. 135 her attendant cavaliers with such imperial in- difference. " I never saw anyone like her in the town before, and it is a . face one could not forget very easily." " Oh ! dear, no, not in Aston-Royal. You know I sent my governess away just before the holidays, on account of a flirtation she had got up with one of the barrack officers ; pretty girl, rather giddy, no parents, and that sort of thing, you know ; and as I never allow followers in my school-room, any more than I do in the kitchen, I gave her notice immediately, though it was a great nuisance having the children on my hands so long. And just then one of Van Brooten's business connections out there in the West Indies heard of this girl, and recommended her to the situation. Did not want much sal- ary, you know, and speaks French like a native. She's quite a new style of person in this part of the world. You're struck with her now, aren't you V 9 Romilly admitted that he was. 136 ASTON-ROYAL. " Yes, I daresay she'll be a good deal in re- quest when the Christmas parties come on, for she shows up well in a drawing-room, and knows how to set herself off. You see that canary- coloured muslin is just the thing a girl of her complexion ought to wear, and she might have hunted over all the shops in Aston-Royal before she found anything to suit her like that red cactus in her hair. I daresay she begged it from our gardener ; she can come round anyone that she chooses to give a smile to. She attracts the gentlemen wonderfully, because her manners are so foreign. Most of the ladies in my set say she gives quite a style to the house, though they wouldn't care to have her with grown-up daugh- ters of their own. on account of her appearance She's a regular floorer, now, isn't she ?" "A perfect Hebe," replied Romilly, looking with a quizzical air at his expansive hostess. Mrs. Van Brooten was puzzled. She had never had the honour of an introduction to Hebe, or Flora, or any of the Grecian or Roman ASTON-ROYAL. 137 divinities. And she had a dim notion that Mr. Macnorman was making sport of her. " I mean, you know," she said, " that she's the sort of woman to knock a man down. There's so much of her, and she has such splen- did manners. Van Brooten says he doesn't care for a dark-eyed girl, though. Fair complexions were always his fancy." And Mrs. Van Brooten looked complacently across the room to a huge mirror, wherein her own reflected amplitude of red and white beauty, shining out conspicuously to-night in raiment of emerald green satin with innumerable gold ornaments, justified the superiority of Mr. Van Brooten's taste. "Do you like a dark girl,now,Mr.Macnorman?" " That depends." " Of course. Property makes all the differ- ence. I daresay she hasn't a penny of her own, though no one would think it, to see how she turns out every day. Clothes, most likely, that she had before she quarrelled with her friends 1 38 ASTON-ROYAL. out there. I always say it's very well to ad- mire portionless girls, but I should be very sorry for a son of mine to go farther than that. I hope Leopold and Reginald, when they grow up, will never marry girls who haven't a good dowry. Poverty is such a nuisance." " I was not thinking about the property just then," said Romilly drily. " Will you do me the favour to introduce me?" Mrs. Van Brooten tossed her head. Although she was a married lady, and had had her day of admiration, she did not feel quite satisfied when a gentleman whose attention was worth so much as young Mr. Macnorman's, appeared indisposed to linger by her side all the evening. " You're in a wonderful hurry, but I can tell you it isn't a bit of use. She won't take any notice of you — she never does. Just look at her with all those gentlemen. She pays no more attention to them than if they were cab- bage-stalks ; indeed, the more people try to please her, the more she snubs them. You'll ASTON-ROYAL. 139 just be nothing but a cabbage-stalk yourself when you come alongside of her." " Shall I indeed?" And Romilly smiled that quiet, self-assured smile of his. " I should like to try the transformation, just for a change. Will you do me the very great honour, Mrs. Van Brooten, of conducting me to the West Indian fairy who is to exert her magic powers upon me to such an extent ?" " I'll do anything you like, Mr. Macnorman, only don't talk in that aggravating way. I de- clare you quite mystify me. Here, come along, or she will be going away. I always tell my governesses they can go away before supper — they only crowd the table." And Mrs. Van Brooten, with Romilly in her wake, bustled away through the groups of belles and beaux who studded her velvet-pile carpet, until she reached the gilded and brocaded couch in the centre of the little inner drawing-room, where the Cuban empress was holding her court with such lazy, leisurely repose. 140 ASTON-ROYAL. " Miss Dolfen, here's another gentleman wants to be introduced. I declare you run away with all the admiration, while there isn't a bit left for any one else. The young ladies won't let me ask you into the drawing-room any more of an evening if you get such a lot of attention. Mr. Macnorman, Miss Dolfen." There was a slight undulatory motion in the billows of the canary-coloured muslin. The snowy heart of the red cactus trembled, and a heavy mass of black hair gleamed under the chandelier as its owner slowly — very slowly — turned her head. Then a pair of great, languid- lidded eyes were raised, and Miss Dolfen's pomegranate lips just parted sufficiently to show the edges of her beautiful white teeth in a smile of indifferent acknowledgment, as Romilly bowed, somewhat more statelily than was his wont, to this swarthy Cleopatra, Mrs. Van Brooten's latest investment in the educa- tional department. Without the slightest consciousness or flush ASTON-ROYAL. 141 of gratified vanity, she met the look or undis- guised admiration which the nearer prospect of her charms drew from him. Then, with an almost imperceptible bend of the head and a lazy droop of the olive eyelids, she turned away and resumed her conversation with Mr. Bardon Limpsie, who was holding her guitar. Romilly felt slightly disconcerted. He was not often treated with such debonnaire indiffer- ence, even by young ladies who had a splendid property to qualify any trifling haughtiness of manner. Most of the ball-room girls to whom he sought an introduction were only too glad to give it, and would exhibit their appreciation of the honour done them by an unlimited sup- ply of bright smiles and winning looks, and an undisguised expression of regret when the con- versation or the quadrille came to a termina- tion. This was quite a new style of reception for a man who was universally allowed to be the most captivating drawing-room companion in A st on-Royal. 142 ASTON-ROYAL. Yet its very novelty pleased him ; pleased him almost as much as the beauty and loftiness of the lady who had given it. Here was some- one at last upon whom the ordinary frivolities of social intercourse would take but little effect. Here was a touch of originality as well as in- difference. Here was an opportunity for those interesting subtleties of conversation, and covert arts of influence, of whose exercise the gene- rality of women were not worthy. Romilly seated himself in the close neighbourhood of the brocaded couch, and whilst apparently survey- ing the kaleidoscopic mass of moving colour and brilliance around him, was really watching his opportunity to re-attack Miss Dolfen, so soon as Mr. Limpsie should have moved away to fresh fields and pastures new. " I hope you find the climate of England agreeable, Miss Dolfen," he remarked, with an assumption of careless indifference, when at last Mr. Limpsie relinquished the care of the guitar ASTON-ROYAL. 143 to another gentleman; "I suppose you have not long been accustomed to it." The young lady faced round upon him in a slightly defiant manner. Romilly knew what that manner meant. It meant to ask him who he was, and why he dared to speak to her with such easy assurance. Evidently she thought he ought to have approached her with the solici- tous deference of one who offers attention, in- stead of exacting it. But it was not Romilly's way to be either solicitous or deferential ; and something in his keen, penetrating glance seem- ed to convince her of that, for she replied with a slight change of expression, which indicated an approximate toleration on her part of the posi- tion he had assumed — " I find the climate suit me very well." " Perhaps better than the people," Ilomilly remarked, boldly entering the door which her marked emphasis of the word " climate " had opened for him. " Is this your first experience of life in an English manufacturing town?" 144 ASTON-ROYAL. " Yes, and I hope it will be my last. The atmosphere of the place oppresses me. I won- der people can endure it so patiently." " People will endure a great deal for the sake of being rich, you know, Miss Dolfen." " Yes. I suppose you English people will do almost anything for it. We West Indians think more of enjoying ourselves than making money." "I don't blame you for it. And then, of course, society is a very different thing, out there." Miss Dolfen's scarlet lips curled into some- thing like a sneer as she looked languidly round upon the parterre of ladies, blue, pink, green, yellow, purple, crimson, who were smiling and fluttering in the faces of their respective admir- ing cavaliers in Mrs. Van Brooten's yellow satin reception-room. " Yes ; society in the West Indies is rather a different thing, but I am not likely to go out much here. I am only the governess." ASTON-ROYAL. 145 She flung this last piece of information to her companion in a manner no longer slightly but manifestly defiant. And her haughty, inde- pendent look said as plainly as possible — " There ! I have told you. You can make what you like of it." Romilly was fairly interested now. Not one girl in a thousand would have taken her right ground at the outset of the conversation, and taken it, too, in that fearless way, as though daring him to go or stay. Perhaps a man of less self-possession would have been a little dis- concerted by information given so frankly and so gratuitously ; given too with such evident intention of checking any little attentions which might have been built on the assumption of a more elevated social standing. And he might possibly have found some difficulty in de- scending gracefully from his former respectful bearing to the exact minimum of deference required under the circumstances. But Ro- milly was competent to adjust himself easily to VOL. 1. L 146 ASTON-ROYAL. any situation in which he might be placed. Without the slightest manifestation of surprise, he answered, " Yes ; I know what you are. As soon as ever I saw you, I asked Mrs. Van Brooten, and she told me all about you." " Mrs. Van Brooten was excessively kind. And now, as you know all about me, you can go away whenever you like. I assure you I shall not be at all offended." Romilly bowed. " Thank you. I don't want to go. I mean to stay." Again she looked at him, this time with neither indifference, nor pride, nor defiance. There was a laugh in the bold brown eyes, which had thrown off all their languor now. She liked his independence as much as he liked hers. " Very well," she said. " You can stay as long as ever you like. I was becoming very tired. I enjoy talking to you a great deal ASTON-ROYAL. 147 more than to these stupid manufacturing people." " I am one of the stupid manufacturing people myself," said Romilly, quietly. " No ; you are not, you are a manufacturing- person without the stupidity. But I should not have supposed you were a manufacturer at all. You don't seem to have the image and super- scription of that mint. And pray may I ask what you manufacture, then 1 Shoe-strings, tapes, penny-edgings, imitation laces, or some- thing of that sort, 1 suppose I " " You suppose quite wrong. I don't deal in imitations at all. 1 manufacture interest in new acquaintances, a large stock on hand now, ready for use at the shortest notice." Bertha Dolfen laughed, a luscious, rippling laugh, and the fire began to burn in her great brown eyes. " How very amusing! Then, after all, we are both in the same line of business, for I have plenty of that article ready for use just now. I'll shake hands with you. No, I won't, though, l2 148 ASTON-ROYAL. for these stupid drawing-room people would wonder what on earth we were doing." " They would think we were finding each other out to be old friends, of course," answered Romilly, "meeting unexpectedly after ever so many years of absence. At least," he added, with an admiring glance at the nectarine glow of the splendid woman-face so close upon him, " I don't mean ever so many years ago." "Of course not. Ladies never know anything about ever so many years ago. But I really do feel as if I had known you a long time. What a nuisance ! Here is that water-melon of a Mr. Limpsie coming back again. He did plague me so to keep on singing, just now, and I told him at last, to be rid of him, that if he would leave me in peace for ten minutes, I would sing him a Spanish ditty to reward his patience. You are very punctual, Mr. Limpsie. Are you quite sure Mrs. Van Brooten's clock is not a little fast?" " On the contrary, Miss Dolfen, I do assure ASTON-ROYAL. 149 you it is awfully slow," lisped the elegant Bar- don. " Never spent such a tedious ten minutes in my life. ' Ah ! who to sober measurement Time's happy swiftness brings ?' Or, rather, I mean that it was not swift at all, quite the reverse," continued the young gentle- man, finding his quotation inappropriate, and covering his confusion by tying Miss Dolfen's guitar ribbon into an inextricable knot. " Excuse me, Mr. Limpsie, but that ribbon will never go round my neck if you behave in that way to it," said Bertha Dolfen, laying her large white hand on his, and causing him to blush more hopelessly than ever. " Is he not a dear little simpleton f she added in a whisper aside to Romilly ; " he deserves a song for being so silly. Don't go away, it will only be one verse long, and I want to talk to you again. Here, will anyone hold my gloves and things'?" A dozen hands were reached forth, not one of them Romilly's though, to take Miss Dolfen's 150 ASTON-ROYAL. gloves, her embroidered handkerchief, her fan, her bouquet ; and then carelessly throwing the blue ribbon over her shoulders, and sweeping her white taper fingers across the strings, she broke into a low, murmuring Spanish love-song, such as many a dark-eyed maiden of Madrid might have trilled forth from her balcony in hush of summer night, to her lover who lingered in the shade beneath. When it was done she gave the guitar back to Mr. Bard on Limpsie, who received it with rapturous expres- sions of gratitude, claimed her gloves, her hand- kerchief, her fan, her bouquet, from the various gentlemen who had charge of them ; and then dismissing the group of admirers with a superb- ly indolent smile, she turned again to Romilly Macnorman, who had been watching her, she knew well enough, with hidden interest all the time, though he gave neither thanks nor com- pliments for the song. " Do you know it ?" she asked, as with easy supple grace she lay back again amongst her ASTON-ROYAL. 151 cushions, and bade him to her side. " Do you understand Spanish f" " No, not even when it conies from the lips of beauty. But you might tell me what the song means." Bertha smiled again, a smile more luscious than before. " Sometime, perhaps, not now. I knew you wouldn't know what it meant, or I would never have sung it. But I must go now. The clock has struck eleven. Mrs. Van Brooten always expects me to retire to my schoolroom at eleven. I am not wanted for supper, you know. Rather a case of Cinderella, only that the metamor- phosis takes place an hour later. I hope I shall meet you again sometime. I wanted you to stay until I had finished the song, because I knew I must go away after." Romilly had never felt so much inclined to call Mrs. Van Brooten a nuisance as he did just then. He could willingly have staid until mid- night, and long after, listening to that low rich 152 ASTON-ROYAL. voice, and looking into the face of the splendid creature to whom it belonged. But he was too polite to express his regret, except by a few light words of banter. Ten minutes' conversa- tion with Bertha Dolfen had been enough to con- vince him that those who would win her regard must win it by apparent indifference. With play- ful raillery, as she was bidding him good night, he said, " I am quite willing that you should be Cin- derella, if I may be allowed to assume the char- racter of the prince. I shall see you again some day, most likely, for I often come to Mrs. Van Brooten's, and I suppose she does not always keep you amongst the dusters. Good-bye ; leave a smile behind you instead of the slipper, and I will take care of it until you come again." She bent her head slightly towards him, look- ed him full in the face, made a movement as if about to raise her hand to her lips, checked her- self, and then glided away with slow, undulat- ASTON-ROYAL. 153 ating grace, leaving Romilly in a hazy condition of mind most unusual to him. He sprang up to open the door for her, but a dozen gentlemen already were on their feet to secure that honour. Before she quite disappear- ed into the brilliantly lighted corridor, she turn- ed towards him once more, again half moved her hand to her lips, checked herself, and looked him farewell with a glorious smile, which linger- ed in his thoughts all the rest of the evening. 154 CHAPTER IX. /\F course, after that propitious commence- ^ merit of their acquaintance, Bertha Dolfen and Romilly Macnorman " got along " together very well. No need for any second introduc- tion when, only a w T eek later, they met at a croquet party on Mrs. Van Brooten's lawn. No lack of merry jest and repartee, mingled with sometimes laughing, sometimes conscious, sometimes tender looks, during the idle in- tervals of an unusually long game, in which Romilly had taken care that the dark-eyed Cuban girl should be his partner. No outward pauses either, none of those vexatious gaps in which, though thoughts come fast enough, words will never speak them, when, after the ASTON-ROYAL. 155 game was over, they sauntered leisurely through Mrs. Van Brooten's conservatories, and then went over to the other side of the grounds to admire some new species of water-fowl, and afterwards spent a full half hour in the fern- house, discussing the merits of an Osmunda Regalis, which Romilly persisted in saying was more magnificent than anything the West Indies had ever produced. Of course he knew well enough all the time that he was wrong, that the diminutive cluster of fronds over which they were standing, quarrelling so delightfully, was nothing more than a wayside weed compared with the floating tresses of verdure which clothed the damp, warm valleys of that Western island from which Bertha Dolfen came. But he just argued for the sake of contradiction. It was so good to see her fire up, and defend her native place in that way. She looked so magnificent when she was pushed almost to the verge of anger. And he would gladly have gone on telling 156 ASTON- ROYAL. fibs about the Osmunda Regalis until midnight, if he could only have kept Bertha Dolfen there, listening to them, and getting up such splen- did bursts of indignation, because she could not bring him to say that she was right. He liked her very much. His acquaintance with her soon began to give piquancy and in- terest to his life. She was so different from the commonplace Aston-Royal girls, good enough in their way, but with such a wearisome same- ness in their style and manner and dress and bearing. So different also from Lucy Thoresby, who, though a dear, bright, bewitching little creature, as he always had thought, and al- ways meant to think, had rather too much amiability about her, never flashed out upon him with the endless variety of Bertha Dolfen, never contradicted him, never fought for her own way, or clung to her own notions about anything, with that fascinating feminine petu- lance, which was all the more amusing be- cause one word of his masculine logic could ASTON-ROYAL. 157 so easily have scattered it to the winds ; in short, never made him feel his superiority as Miss Dolfen made him feel it sometimes, by having to struggle for it. Bertha had that charm for him which a clever, unscrupulous, yet large-hearted and pas- sionate woman has for a man of the world possessing her own qualities of cleverness and brightness, but exceeding her in perseverance and power. She could meet him on his own ground, and push the contest almost to vic- tory. Indeed, her great attraction, apart from that massive, indolent Southern beauty, which only appealed to the lower part of his nature, was the desperate self-will with which, when others would have yielded, she fought on, giving him room not only to exercise his favourite occupation of sparring, but to ex- ercise it with one who was skilful enough to make him not always sure of victory. Then there was such a charming uncertainty about her. If he happened to drop in at the 158 ASTON-ROYAL. Van Brootens' as he was going to his rooms from Moore and Mason's warehouse — and he very soon got into the habit of dropping in there for a cigar, or a rubber at whist, or a turn at croquet, after that first meeting in the inner drawing-room — there was no telling in what mood he might find Miss Dolfen. Mrs. Van Brooten was always largely patronizing, her husband pompous and cordial ; but Bertha was as uncertain as the wind. Sometimes she was superbly indolent, sometimes haughty and defiant, sometimes almost over-bold in her ac- ceptance of his attentions, sometimes indifferent and unconcerned. Sometimes she would con- quer, sometimes she would let herself be con- quered ; but there was an everlasting fresh- ness and variety about her which, for Romilly Macnorman, was often more irresistible than even her dark, luring beauty. What would Lucy think of her, and how would the two girls get on together? Romilly asked himself this question about six weeks ASTON-ROYAL. 159 after his introduction to Miss Dolfen, as he put on his slippers and lighted his cigar, and pre- pared for a cosy night in his bachelor apart- ments, as a finale to a more than usually plea- sant visit to Mr. Van Brooten. And he decided that it would be both interesting and amusing to arrange a meeting between the two, having first prepared the way for such a meeting by introducing Miss Dolfen at the Court-house, and then getting Lucy to come in to tea. He knew well enough that Bertha, indolent, passionate, imperious, and little Lucy Thoresby, fresh, innocent, simple as a child, would have no more affinity than fire and water ; and he knew too that their happiness would not be increased by the acquaintance ; but still he thought it would be pleasant to measure his influence over each of them by the temper with which either would watch a preference showed to the other. Romilly was quite sure that he had a great deal of power over Lucy, and he thought he was beginning to have more than a little over the 160 ASTON-ROYAL. fitful, fascinating Cuban brunette ; and now he determined to bring them together, partly that his artistic taste might be gratified by the con- trast of two such opposite styles of beauty ; partly that he might rouse Miss Dolfen into something like jealousy — a feeling she had never had occasion to manifest yet, but which, if manifested, would indicate his power over her — by letting her see that she was not the only girl in Aston-Royal to whom he was dis- posed to make himself agreeable; partly that he might watch the effect upon gentle-hearted little Lucy of a possible rival in his preference, hitherto extended chiefly to herself ; and partly that he might amuse himself — his own heart not yet being very deeply touched through either — by marking how the two would act upon each other, and how the characteristics of each would develop themselves under new and slightly aggravating circumstances. Four " partlies," none of them exceptionally noble or heroic, somewhat like those which the ASTON-ROYAL. 161 honest old diarian, Samuel Pepys, so ingenu- ously confessed, when chronicling his rejection of a proffered bribe, and giving an entirely dif- ferent colouring to an action which bore upon its front nothing but the most honourable inten- tions. But Romilly Macnorman was neither exceptionally noble nor exceptionally heroic ; neither did he always take the trouble to put a bit of the litmus paper of truth into his dealings with other people, to ascertain if the apparently translucent motive could bear the test without losing any of its clearness. He was just a plea- sant, average man of the world, and, as such, took out of that world as much enjoyment as it would give him, without asking whether enjoy- ment of his might not prove bitter pain to some whose hearts were at once more loving and pas- sionate than his own. So, at the first convenient opportunity, Romilly sauntered down to the old Court-house, and in the course of conversation suggested to his father and mother that it was high time VOL, I. M 162 ASTON-ROYAL. Tressa saw a little more of general society than she was ever likely to meet with amongst the Postern Chapel people, and that he should like her to make the acquaintance of a certain Miss Dolfen, a very clever, accomplished, and lady- like girl who had lately come over from the West Indies, and was now occupying the posi- tion of governess to Mrs. Van Brooten's two little boys. He suggested that an introduction to Mrs. Van Brooten's circle would not be at all a bad thing for Tressa, as giving her a little in- sight into life; and then he appealed to his father's well-known love of patronizing, by representing what an advantage it would be to Miss Dolfen, who was quite without friends in Aston-Royal, to be taken a little notice of, and received as a guest in such a family as Mr. Mac- norman's. Moreover, he added, such an act of courtesy might be useful in securing Mrs. Van Brooten's interest by-and-by, if, as people said, old Sir Tempest Hoggard's health really had begun to break up, and there was likely to be a ASTON-ROYAL. 163 vacancy in the representation of the town. Mr. Macnorman took the bait. Romilly knew he would — patronage and a seat in Parliament being his two weak points ; and Tressa received orders forthwith to call upon Miss Dolfen, in- vite her to take a country walk, in which Romil- ly suggested that Lucy should join them, or she might feel herself neglected, and arrange for her to spend an evening at the old Court-house as early as possible. 80 far, so good. Bertha Dolfen was by no means unwilling to meet the advances of friendship which Tressa, in obedience to her uncle's wishes, preferred. She was fond of attention, fond of fresh faces, fond of society, fond of gathering round her those who could minister to her vanity by ad- miring glances, or still more admiring words. And though there was nothing in the elder Macnormans themselves to make their acquaint- ance worth accepting, still an introduction to the old Court-house was valuable, as it gave her the opportunity of meeting Romilly and M 2 164 ASTON-ROYAL. cementing an intimacy which might be worth a great deal to her, looked at in a social point of view. For Bertha was a shrewd, far-seeing girl, ca- pable, where her passionate nature was not deeply interested, of making her way in the world as successfully as even Romilly himself. Only there was this difference between them, that beneath her worldliness there lay a restless turbulent spirit which, when fully roused — as yet it never had been roused — might one day heave, volcano-like, and pour its tide of scorching lava over the hitherto respectable exterior of her life ; while Romilly had a firm foundation of common-sense and selfishness under the gay brilliance of his social qualities, which would most effectually prevent him from ever, as the common saying is, " making a fool of himself." This young merchant, whom Bertha had met, for the first time, six weeks ago, in Mrs. Van Brooten's drawing-room, was rich and prosper- ous, and sure of a good position either at home ASTON-ROYAL, It) 5 or abroad. He was worth attracting then, worth conquering, worth marrying. Moreover, he was skilled in all pleasant social arts, and strong enough to be her master ; a statement which could with no certainty be made in re- spect of the scores of elegant young men who, since her arrival in Aston-Royal, had nattered and fawned upon her at every available oppor- tunity. Bertha felt his masterhood from the very first. She felt it in the cool assurance and self-possession with which he received her haughty indifference when Mrs. Van Brooten introduced them to each other. She felt it still more in the quiet pertinacity with which he kept his hold upon her when she flung that piece of defiance at him about the governess- ship. She felt it most of all in the increasing ease and confidence of his manner, ease and confidence fast becoming superior to her own, though her own had seldom failed her in society yet. She began to feel, after a few of those quiet unceremonious evenings when young Mr. Mac- 166 ASTON-ROYAL. norman came in for chess, or whist, or bagatelle, that he was almost more master of her than she was of herself ; and there was a perilous pleasure in daring him to the utmost, even though the victory might be his own. She knew that Romilly Macnorman loved to conquer, but she knew, too, that he liked the conquest to be preceded by a struggle, evenly enough balanced to make him proud of his victory when he had gained it. He cared little for supremacy which was yielded to him with- out a desperate effort to retain it. He despised the submission which never tried to free itself; he scorned the simple lowly temper which never chafed against the strong hand of restraint. Bertha Dolfen, on her part, loved to be conquer- ed, but only by one who was worthy to be her master. She would despise a man who allowed her to rule him, just as Romilly despised a wo- man who allowed herself to be ruled without a vigorous struggle beforehand to find out who was the stronger. Both of them were ready to ASTON-ROYAL. 167 do battle to the utmost, and both were ready to accept the issue, whatever it might be. So the call was made, and the long country walk taken, Lucy being bidden to join it, lest she should feel herself neglected. And then the invitation was given and accepted; and, by Romilly's request, Martin Thoresby's innocent, unsuspecting little sister was asked to meet her magnificent rival, and spend a very quiet evening in her company at the old Court-house, where many and many a sweet evening had already been spent with Romilly by her side, his presence sunshine enough for her now. 168 CHAPTER X. TUST a quiet little evening, nothing more ^ than that; only Miss Dolfen to tea, and Romilly to come in during the evening, as un- conscious Tressa told the equally unconscious Lucy. Mr. and Mrs. Macnorman were to be away at a Postern Chapel tea-meeting, so they should be left quite to themselves, she added. Lucy knew nothing about the momentous introduction which had taken place a few weeks before in Mrs. Van Brooten's yellow-satin draw- ing room. She knew nothing of the bold bright glances and the soft hand-clasps and the plea- sant tete-a-tttes over chess and bagatelle boards, which lingered so sweetly in two people's thoughts. She only knew that she was bidden ASTON-ROYAL. 1(39 to spend a quiet little evening with Romilly at the old Court-house, and that he wanted her very much to come. For when Tressa gave the invitation, she concluded it with a message which Romilly had told her to be sure and not forget. " My cousin said he hoped you would be able to come. He wants you to come very much, for he says it is such a long time since he has seen you." Lucy's fair face flushed then into a rosier co- lour, and the hopes which always gathered round an evening to be spent with Romilly Macnorman were perhaps brighter and happier than usual. He had never sent her a message like that be- fore. Indeed he had never seemed to know any thing about her visits to the old Court-house ; and if he did chance to come in when she was there, he always made it appear to be by the merest accident. He was passing and had ten minutes to spare, or he wanted Tressa to do something for him, mend a glove, or hem a 170 ASTON-ROYAL. pocket-handkerchief — sometimes he asked her to do it instead, and oh ! how gladly her little fingers hurried through the work ! — or he had heard a bit of town news which might be in- teresting to his father; or, at any rate, he always had some way of making his visits appear quite unconnected with Lucy, though he never seemed disappointed if she were there. But this was the first message he had ever sent her; this was the first time he had ever condescended to say he should be glad to meet her, still less press her coming, as if it could be a matter of importance to him. And so it chanced that these three girls, Bertha, Tressa, and Lucy, quite ignorant of the four " partlies " which had brought them there, met in the old-fashioned, some- what faded, oak-wainscoted sitting-room of the Court-house, one bright September even- ing. Lucy looked her best. The thought that Romilly would be pleased to see her, when he came in some time during the evening, gave ASTON-ROYAL. 171 a happy brightness to her face, and a buoy- ant ease to her manner, which made her per- fectly charming, to say nothing of the pretty dress, which had been put on with so much care, and the soft flowing curls, which had been so lovingly arranged, and the dainty little spray of maiden-hair, which some fairy's hand might have woven amongst them, so deftly did each make the other seem more fair. And she prattled away to the massive, indolent Cuban girl — for that long country walk a few days before had broken down the barriers of shyness between them — with the easy, playful carelessness of a fluffy little white rabbit who gambols at the feet of a young leo- pard, pleased with its warm colour, and the soft brightness of its half-shut eyes, knowing not at all what cruel strength, what power of hungry savageness, may be concealed there. For Bertha had watched her rival keenly, in- tently. She had seen the warm flush creep into Lucy's cheek if Romilly's name was but 172 ASTON-ROYAL. spoken in her presence. She had listened well to the slight, subtle change of tone with which the girl mentioned him. She had marked the innocent eyes turn wistfully again and again to the opened door that evening, and then turn unsatisfied away when the one she waited for came not. And with the quick instinct of a half-wild creature, she divined Lucy's secret, and began to hate her. But of course that was not a feeling to be manifested on the present occasion. Bertha Dolfen was a girl of society, and knew how to conduct herself with propriety in it. With these simple, guileless English children, who knew little of the world or fashionable life, she was generally very pleasant, playful, con- descending, after the fashion of the leopard and the rabbit, when the leopard does not happen to want its dinner immediately. She could enter for the time into their trifling in- terests, look patiently at their new patterns for fancy work; hear about their kittens, poodles, ASTON-ROYAL. 173 and canaries ; not even betray much irritability if the conversation turned upon servants and cookery, or listen with large, good-tempered indolence whilst they chattered with pretty ani- mation about their new bonnets and the latest patterns for sleeves. But nothing more than that. Indolent toleration was all she ever pro- fessed for female society. It was only with men that she flashed into animation, became brilliant, witty, fascinating. To a shy, thoughtful girl like Tressa Dovercourt, and an unmeaning little ball of beauty like Lucy Thoresby, it was not worth her while to give even a hint of the splen- did abilities which, under different circumstan- ces, made her the queen of the drawing-room or the belle of the conversazione. So the evening passed on quietly enough, un- til at eight o'clock, just as twilight was beginning to fall, the junior partner in Messrs. Moore and Mason's great shipping firm sauntered in with his usual careless indifference and pleasantness, to give quite a different turn to affairs. 174 ASTON-ROYAL. As we have said before, Romilly Macnorman did not often take the trouble to drop a bit of spiritual litmus paper into his own motives, for purposes of wholesome analysis; but he enjoyed very much putting a scrap into those of other people, and then watching how surely film and thickness appeared in what before had been so clear and colourless. And to-night was a rare opportunity for doing this. He could not help smiling to himself as he paused for a moment or two, unobserved, behind the half-open door, watching the quiet little group at the other end of the room, thinking how easily he could change the quietness of two at least, into jealousy or grief. The conversation had quite worn itself away when he stood there. Bertha, already tired of the feminine trivialities which were all that could be discussed between girls who knew each other so slightly, lounged idly amongst her cush- ions, without keeping up even the semblance of interest in her companions. Lucy, curled upon ASTON-ROYAL. 175 the couch, listlessly fingering a mass of coloured wools which she was sorting out for some fancy work, seemed weary too; but hers was the weari- ness of waiting, not of working, for she had looked so many times towards that open door, and had listened so patiently for the footsteps that would not come ; and now her slender little store of brightness was dying out for want of a loving look or a gracious smile to keep it alive. Tressa sat apart from them both, silent too, in the curtained window, looking away to the heavy shadow-like towers of the Abbey church, thoughts of Martin Thoresby brooding in her heart — Mar- tin who was to spend his next Christmas tide at Aston-Royal, "if it please God to bring me home safely," as he had said with such simple reverence when she had bid him good-bye un- der the blossoming hawthorn trees. Thoughts brooding there, too, of that other love with which this, earthly, and yet so fair, clashed oftentimes, and made sad discord in her soul. Discord be- ginning to write its story on her face in an ex- 176 ASTON-ROYAL. pression of wistful, questioning uncertainty, which clouded it like the first touch of evening on a summer landscape ; first touch of evening which must needs deepen and darken until night comes, bringing with it the holy stars which daylight never sees. " Well, young ladies, I wonder what in the world makes you so unspeakably happy this even- ing. I thought I should have dropped into the midst of a very Babel of sweet feminine discords, and here you are, sitting as silent as sphynxes ; each in her separate sphere of couch or chair, your hermit spirits dwell and range apart. Tressa, I am afraid you are not doing your best to amuse the company." " We talked until we could not think of any- thing else to say," replied Tressa, rather wearily ; " and we kept wishing you would come. Haven't we said, ever so many times, Miss Dolfen, that we wished Cousin Romilly would come?" Bertha just turned for a moment upon him, ASTON-ROYAL. 177 as he came with his usual gay, careless bearing into the room, the languid magnificence of her brown eyes ; and then relapsed into indifference, scarcely condescending an answer to Tressa's remarks. It was her whim to-night to be courted, deferred to ; to be sought, rather than to seek. What a luxurious charm of southern beauty there was about her as she leaned back in her low easy-chair, and let the coiling masses of her black hair rest upon its crimson background ! Her dreamy, heavy-lidded eyes, half-closed under their arched brows, and her full red lips and her Cleopatra-like redolence of form and colour, seemed asking for some Antony to ad- mire them. Here was the Antony, at last, then ; let him take his part, let him kneel, do homage, and be led captive. Romilly read all this in the lazy abandon- ment of her attitude, and smiled to himself, knowing how soon he could change it to some- thing so different. With a greeting which VOL. I. N 178 ASTON-ROYAL. matched her own in its easy indifference, he passed the empty chair which she had pur- posely all the evening reserved at her side, took his place on the couch by Lucy, gave her a look and smile of bright tenderness, and then began, as though quite accustomed to such little familiarities, to toy with the skeins of wool which she was trying to arrange. Lucy's face glowed with innocent pleasure as she moved to make room for him ; and he, bending over her with that appearance of interest which he knew so well how to assume, chatted away with the ease of an old friend, leaving Miss Dolfen to her dignity and indifference on the other side of the room. " Always at work, Lucy," he said. " What an industrious little creature it is, to be sure ! Let me help you. I know you girls generally have a lot of worsted to wind, or something of that sort. Do take me into your service, now, and make me useful, or somebody that I ought ASTON-ROYAL. 179 not to mention will find some mischief for my idle hands to do." "He has found that already," said Lucy, springing forward to rescue her wools from Romilly's clutches. " You have gone and mixed all my colours up again, and I had taken ever so much pains to set them right. You are very naughty." " No, I'm not, little quicksilver ; but you are, because you ought not to have known what I meant. Little girls like you are not supposed to know anything about the person who makes mischief for idle hands. Ought they, Miss Dolfen?" Miss Dolfen did not seem to hear. " But I have learned Watts' Hymns," per- sisted Lucy ; " and you are very naughty, and I won't have my wools spoiled. I have been all the evening picking out the shades, and putting them into their proper places, and now you have gone and mixed up everything." And Lucy, happy little Lucy, pouted with N 2 180 ASTON-ROYAL. such a pretty affectation of impatience. Ro- milly could not help going on for his own pleasure, as well as for Miss Dolfen's benefit. " I haven't mixed them up. I've sorted them a great deal better than they were before. I know exactly what you are going to do. You are going to work a portrait of yourself for the next Postern Chapel bazaar, and I have been putting the colours in their right order for you. Now, look, this matches your lips exactly — does it not, Miss Dolfen ? You might almost take the trouble to come across the room to see how little difference there is be- tween the two crimsons ; only I daresay you are very comfortable all by yourself in that easy-chair. And this blue is a shade less pretty than your eyes, Miss Lucy; and this pink — I suppose you meant this pink for your cheeks, but it isn't ' half bright enough. I am quite sure you did not ask the man, or woman, or whatever it was at the shop, for a skein of wool to match your cheeks, or he would never ASTOX-ROYAL. 181 have given you such a dull bit of colour. You must go back and tell him he has made a mistake. I think this bit of golden brown will do for your hair. No, it won't either — it hasn't sunshine enough in it, and doesn't make you want to curl it round your fingers. I'm very much afraid, Miss Lucy, it will not be a good portrait, after all." And Romilly took the skeins up one after another, holding them to Lucy's eyes, to her lips, her cheeks, and the curls which fell in such wilful luxuriance over her neck and shoulders. A merry, musical laugh was Lucy's reply. She had been waiting so long, and it was so pleasant to have him by her side now. And then he had said that he wanted her very much to come. That seemed to give her a little confidence — just enough to bring into play those pretty, unconscious airs and graces which made her as charming in her simplicity as Bertha was superb in her massive indolence. 182 ASTON-ROYAL. Praise and attention from those she loved could always bring the summer to Lucy's face, and the sunshine to her eyes. " Let my wools alone," she said, with play- ful petulance — "you don't know a bit what you are doing. I want to make a slipper, not a portrait." Lucy swept her wools back again, and looked archly at him. "Do you mean to go away, and let me alone f " No, I don't," was Romilly's reply, and doubt- less he knew well enough it was the pleasant- est Lucy could have received just then. " This is my place, and I mean to keep it. And so you are making a slipper, little Miss Cinderella, are you? for some prince to pick up and wear next his breast, I suppose," and Romilly glanced across to Miss Dolfen, whose eyes were begin- ning to flash ominously under their thick black fringes. " Well, give me the wools back again, and I'll choose the colours for you, and be the prince ASTON-ROYAL. 183 too, if you like. What ! no, you won't ? Oh, what a little rebel we are to-night !" And with playful force Romilly seized Lucy's hands, holding them both in one of his, whilst with the other he took possession of her many- coloured treasures again, still glancing from time to time to the easy-chair where Bertha Dolfen sat, apparently careless as ever, but watching with covert wrath every movement in the little drama. So this brave young An- tony of hers, who had spoken so many fair words, and looked so many admiring glances, and given himself the trouble alternately to conquer and be conquered, was beginning to play fast-and-loose with her. So other eyes than hers, the blue eyes of this meek English girl, could win tender looks from him, and other lips ask smile for smile. Ah ! well, he should see what he should see, and so should the milk- and-water little maiden who seemed so happy in his favour now. Let him go on, the game would change by-and-by. 184 ASTON-ROYAL. " There, then, they are all right — I mean all wrong. I won't tease yon any more," and Romilly tossed the wools back again into Lucy's lap, touching as he did so the tips of the soft fingers which were extended to catch them. " I have a little bit of good news to tell you now. There is a grand fete at the Aston-Royal gardens next week, and I have brought tickets for you and Tressa. I suppose you will be able to go — girls are generally ready for any- thing of that sort. I shall expect to see you come out like a shepherdess on a bit of French china, all blue and silver and apple blossom, and Tressa like a demure young Quaker by your side. I don't know what has become of all Tressa's pretty frocks ; she must have sold them second-hand, to go to the colonies." Lucy's face lighted up again. Of course she would be able to go. Where would she not go when Romilly asked her. And her innocent little brains began to busy themselves, there and then, about what dress she should wear ; and ASTON-ROYAL. 185 whether the pink-lined parasol, which Martin had given her last June, would do to come out again on the occasion. " And perhaps you would like to see the flowers, too, Miss Dolfen," he added, turning the conversation, for the first time, to Bertha, whom nevertheless he had observed with keen scrutiny, during the whole of his badinage with Lucy. Miss Dolfen brightened up directly, and her red lips parted in a brilliant smile. " Oh, yes ! I shall be very pleased to go. Are the Aston-Royal flower-shows very fine, Miss Thoresby?" Romilly was disappointed. He had expect- ed that she would be sullen, or haughty, or indifferent, or at any rate give some manifes- tation of the displeasure which she ought to have felt at beholding his attentions to Lucy. To spend a quarter of an hour in trying to rouse the jealousy of a handsome woman, and then to find her smiles as bright, her tones as 186 ASTON-ROYAL. bland, her maimer as pleasant as before, was, to say the least, trying, if not positively humi- liating to a man of Rorailly's temperament. But Bertha was as clever as he was, and pride had as yet the upper hand of passion in her warm, luxurious nature, and worldly wis- dom was stronger than either. Impatiently enough had she been charing beneath Romilly's assumed fickleness. Angry, scorching, bitter thoughts had chased each other through her heart, as with seeming unconcern she sat there and watched the bright smile coming and going on Lucy's face ; and with the keen quick glance of jealousy she had seen their fingers touch, touch and linger over the touch, too, as Romilly threw back the wool with those light careless words. But she was too shrewd to own her- self wounded; she was too adroit to let her conqueror see, either by word, tone, or look, that she marked his failing loyalty, or could be affected by it. He might play fast-and-loose with her if he liked, but he should not gain the ASTON-ROYAL. 187 advantage which makes the charm of that dangerous game, namely, power to catch and let go at his own pleasure. "Are these Aston-Royal flower-shows very fine, Miss Thoresby i" And as she asked the question she looked straight past Romilly into the young girl's face. Lucy, not expecting to be called upon for her opinion, and being also a little afraid of ventur- ing it in Romilly 's presence, hesitated. " Yes — yes, I think they are very nice. At least, I like them very much. But, you know, I don't go to them very often. Mr. Macnorman knows all about them." And then she looked towards Romilly, expect- ing him to enlighten Miss Dolfen more fully on the subject. But it was Romilly's turn to hesitate now. It is always humiliating to be asked a question through the medium of a third person. It is still more humiliating to be placed in circum- 188 ASTON-ROYAL. stances which compel you to answer it to the individual who has not thought you of sufficient importance to address the question to yourself. This was just the position in which Romilly found himself placed. And perhaps there was not a man in Aston-Royal who would have felt it more keenly than he did, or winced more angrily under the slight. He could have taken unconscious little Lucy up and flung her out of the window for having made such a fool of him. That bit of litmus paper had not produced quite the right effect. It had been dipped into his own motives, instead of into the motives of other people, and the result was decidedly un- pleasant. Apparently this Cuban piece of wo- manhood was not to be tamed as English maidens were, by a little wholesome indifference, or brought back to his side by a sugar -plum of flattery. He tried to hide his discomfiture by saying something brilliant about the flower- show, making a gallant comparison between ASTON-ROYAL. 189 the ladies and the blossoms, after the fashion of a groomsman's speech at a wedding-breakfast. But he felt that on the whole he had not done himself justice. The simile did not go off well at all. It was like launching a vessel which will not take kindly to the water, but sticks fast, and obstinately refuses to stir a single inch, just when the people are waiting to clap their hands and wave their hats, and give it good speed into its native element. Miss Dolfen smiled with satirical graciousness as Romilly stumbled through a very feeble joke at the end of his speech. " Thank you for taking so much trouble to explain everything to me. If the flower-shows answer to your description I am afraid they will not be very interesting. Miss Dover- court " And Bertha turned to Tressa, who was still sitting near the window, meditating upon the statue of St. Leodegarius over the Abbey doorway. 190 ASTON -ROYAL. " You were asking me, just now, if I would sing, and I did not feel in the mood for it ; but if we might have lights, I think I could remem- ber some of those little Spanish ditties that the people here are so fond of. I brought my music with me, for I knew you would want some." Bertha said this to bring Romilly away from Lucy's side. She knew that common courtesy would not allow him to stay there on the sofa, saying pretty things to his fair companion, whilst she found her own songs and turned over her own leaves at the piano ; and, besides, she had not the slightest intention of allowing her devoted cavalier to spend the remainder of his evening in that way. Her diversion had the desired effect. Romilly followed her to the piano, not unwillingly after all, if the truth must be confessed, for her indifference irritated his self-esteem ; and he was also anxious to re- trieve his reputation for brilliancy, a reputation which he felt had been somewhat damaged by ASTON-ROYAL. 191 that unsuccessful speech about the flower-show. So he staid by her whilst she sang song after song, amongst them the luring love-ballad whose meaning had gone through her passion- ate eyes to his when she murmured it to him for the first time amidst the glare and glitter of Mrs. Van Brooten's evening party. And she sang them sweetly, too, with a glow of enthu- siasm and emotion, Romilly felt, which little Lucy, trilling through her simple English bal- lads, could never reach. When the music was over, she still contrived to keep him by her side, talking to him with animation all the brighter because she felt it was winning him back to his old allegiance. And not only winning him to herself, but win- ning him from another who fain would have had the devotion which she now compelled. And sometimes she kindled into fervour, and sometimes she flashed into saucy defiance, and sometimes she relapsed into that lazy, luxurious indolence which, now that she was all right 192 ASTON-ROYAL. again, Romilly thought suited her better than anything else, because it left room for the play of his own brilliance, and the sparkle of his own wit. She could appreciate that wit so readily, too, and now and then repay it with such keen cuts of raillery, which only served to sharpen his own, so that by-and-by Romilly felt that the unlucky flower-show speech was entirely atoned for. Only there was a half-reserve of manner about her now, a consciousness of something held back, a reining-in of that careless abandon with which she had before given herself up to his influence. It was as though a slight veil of womanly propriety were being drawn over the once almost too bold freedom of her behaviour, and a faint haze of self-consciousness toning down the overbright glow of her preference. Romilly noticed it, and was pleased by it. It indicated an acknowledgment of his influence. Though foiled, as he imagined, in his at- ASTON-ROYAL. 193 tempt to rouse her jealousy, she had yet owned his power over her by attempting to bring him back to her side. And this little touch of reserve was valuable, for it showed that she felt his temporary defalcation, and would thus re- mind him of his fault by an almost impercep- tible change of manner. Her reserve was like the delicate hoar-frost of an early winter morn- ing, and her animation like the sunshine, which, sparkling on that frost, turns every crystal of it into dazzling beauty. Perhaps his pride might have been more flattered if she had re- mained indifferent, or if she had assumed, in- stead of that fascinating mixture of reserve and animation, an aspect of haughty defiance. In that case he would have won the victory which he looked for, instead of having an unexpected one given to him. Still it was of little conse- quence whether she exerted herself to be agree- able or disagreeable — the exertion had been made, and for Bertha Dolfen to make an exer- VOL. I. 194 ASTON-ROYAL. tion of any kind, betrayed no small amount of power exercised over her by whoever had roused her to it. 195 CHAPTER XL YTTHILST Romilly and Bertha were still mea- ' ' snring lances by the piano, Mr. and Mrs. Macnorman returned from the Postern Chapel meeting. Their appearance was the signal for a general disbanding of forces. Mr. Macnor- man began to patronize Miss Dolfen blandly and courteously, with the view of securing through her Mr. Van Brooten's political interest. Mrs. Macnorman, cold, uninterested, inaccess- ible, seemed to put a wet blanket over every- thing and everybody. Even Romilly's conver- sational sallies turned out a sputtering failure, like fireworks sent up in a Scotch mist ; and as for little Lucy, she was completely extinguished. It was an immense relief when Charret brought o2 196 ASTON-ROYAL. in wine and biscuits, as a hint that the guests were at liberty to depart. Miss Dolfen gathered up her music. Lucy packed her wools, more precious for touch of fingers which had played with them to-night, into a dainty Swiss basket, and intimated her intention of going home. Romilly went with her, having first asked Miss Dolfen to remain until he returned. He always went home with Lucy when, coming to the old Court-house on his way from business, he chanced to find her spending the evening there. And sometimes he would go in and sit for half an hour or more with old Mrs. Thoresby, in her comfortable black oak parlour at the south end of the quadrangle. That black-oak parlour was generally bright enough for him if Lucy's smile lighted it up. Though of course he never owned to himself, or to any one else, that the smile had anything to do with the brightness. Mrs. Thoresby was Mar- tin's grandmother, and Martin was his earliest ASTOX-ROYAL. 197 school -playmate, his best beloved, most trusted friend ; and it was natural enough that he should like to go in and hear about him some- times, perhaps have one of his letters read aloud, or receive a message from him. No need to apologise, either to himself or Mrs. Thoresby, for a half-hour spent now and then in thus keeping fresh the memory of the old days, and links of later friendship. But to-night he stayed under the grey portals leading into that long corridor, at the end of which were Mrs. Ann Thoresby 's apartments. " I mustn't go in, Lucy," he said, looking at his watch. He often called her by her name when they were alone together, and sweetly it sounded then. " You see, the time is getting on, and I shall most likely have to go home with Miss Dolfen. I don't suppose the Van Brootens will think about sending the carriage for her, and she wouldn't like to ask them." " Of course not," said Lucy, with the faintest little touch of disappointment in her voice. 198 ASTON-ROYAL. " Mrs, Van Brooten wouldn't be likely to think of that at all. Thank you very much for com- ing with me." " Oh ! no, nothing of the sort. You know I always like to come with you. I daresay I shall be seeing you at the Court-house again very soon — perhaps to-morrow evening. You will be sure to find out, when you empty that queer little basket of yours, that you have left something behind you, and I shall expect to meet you to-morrow night looking for it. Do you think you shall come to-morrow night?" Romilly said this more gently than was his wont, for he felt he had not been quite gener- ous to Lucy in playing upon her, as it were — making her a convenience for ascertaining the amount of his power over Miss Dolfen. And that Lucy, innocent, unsuspecting, straightfor- ward, had been ignorant of his motives, had taken everything at its apparent worth, and enjoyed his playfulness as if it had been exer- cised for her special benefit, did not make him ASTON-ROYAL. 199 feel less reproachfully a certain sense of mean- ness in thus availing himself of her simplicity. But he would set it all right another time — to- morrow night, perhaps, when they met again — play with her, make fun of her for her own sake, and not to draw out somebody else. He had certainly neglected* her very much, too, after Miss Dolfen began to sing — had scarcely spoken another word to her, or taken the slight- est notice of her in any way. But she did not seem to feel spiteful about it at all. She never felt spiteful about anything. He almost wished that she would sometimes, and so let them have a real stand-up quarrel once in a while. It would be refreshing for a change, if for no- thing else. But that was the worst of Lucy. He had never been able to have a proper quar- rel with her yet. He had been actually rude and unkind to her just on purpose to make her assert her own rights, but she never did. She always gave in directly, just as if she thought that was what he wanted, whereas the very 200 ASTON-ROYAL. thing he wanted was that she should not give in, but stand out boldly for herself. If she had even done it once, he was sure he should have liked her a great deal better. If she had done it ever so many times, he almost thought he should have loved her. ** Well, I shall come to the Court-house to- morrow. Good night, Lucy ; take care of your- self." And he held her hand with a slow, regretful clasp. He almost wished he could go and sit for half an hour with her in that black-oak par- lour. Somehow he felt a better man with Lucy Thoresby than he did with Bertha Dolfen — less worldly, less selfish, nearer to that life which, though he never meant to live it entirely, he nevertheless knew to be best, truest, noblest. " Good night, Lucy." And so they parted. When he came back, Miss Dolfen had just gone. Tressa said she seemed anxious to be ASTON-ROYAL. 201 away, and would not accept the company of Mr. Macnorman, or the attendance of any of the servants. However, she could but just have reached the garden gate, and if Romilly started at once he would soon overtake her. He hurried away, and reached the object of his pursuit as she was turning into the quiet road which led from the Court-house gates to Aston Lodge, Mr. Van Brooten's imposing Tudor villa. " Miss Dolfen, why did you go away without me, when I had asked you to wait, and vou knew I was going in your direction ? Are you so very anxious to avoid my company !" She did not even turn to look at him, but replied, still walking steadily on — " I was not particularly anxious to avoid it, but I never care to avail myself of services which may be more acceptable elsewhere." Here was the jealousy cropping up at last, then ; just what Romilly had been waiting for so long. He quickened his pace until he brought 202 ASTON-ROYAL. himself alongside the offended young lady. " Do you mean that I should have given my services more readily elsewhere? Because, if so, I must take the liberty of telling you that you are quite mistaken." Bertha drew herself up. "I never repeat what I mean when people cannot understand it without explanation, Mr. Macnorman." "Then I hope you do not often speak in enig- mas, especially to those whose interest renders them sensitive," returned Romilly, taking her hand, and laying it within his arm. " Weak-minded people are never sensitive," she answered, as coldly as before, and then re- lapsed into silence. However, she did not re- move her hand from his arm, and that, under the circumstances, was a condescension. " Will you allow me ?" he asked, when, after walking for a couple of hundred yards without the interchange of a single word, he thought a cigar would enliven the proceedings. ASTON-ROYAL. 203 "Certainly," replied the haughty beauty. " We shall then be relieved from the necessity of talking to each other." "A sweet beginning," thought Romilly to himself. But he felt more like Miss Dolfens master than he had ever done before. " If you take my other arm, the smoke will not affect you so much." Without a word Miss Dolfen changed sides, and the puffing continued as before. " You are quite sure I don't annoy you ?" " I am quite sure your cigar does not annoy me." " That is what I meant, Miss Dolfen. Still, I am glad that you guarded your answer so carefully." She said nothing. Romilly watched the smoke curling out in the lamplight, and listened to the rattling of the heavy jet chain which hung from Miss Dolfen's girdle. There was nothing else to listen to, for she seemed determined to speak not a word, unless compelled to it. This 204 ASTON-ROYAL was quite a new turn of affairs, yet when Ro- milly had thought over it for a few moments, it pleased him even more than the sparkling ani- mation which she had put on for his benefit half an hour ago. It showed that she could be touched by neglect; and, further, it showed that her pride was giving way sufficiently for her to acknowledge the slight. To be able to interest this haughty, untamed girl at all, was something. To be able to wound her was more. To bring out the pride which endeavoured, by extra ani- mation, to hide that wound, was better still. To crush that pride, and make her own herself wounded, was best of all. Romilly felt, at last, that the victory was his. The consciousness of it was enough to brighten the whole of that long walk to Aston-Royal Lodge, during which, after the little arrange- ment about the cigar, Miss Dolfen spoke not a single word. Her imperious silence was better a thousand times than the forced animation which had preceded it, for the animation told ASTON-ROYAL. 205 of a resolve to hold out a little longer, but the silence told of absolute defeat. She was chafing now like a wild creature under restraint. He could tell that by the hard, rigid way in which her hand touched his arm — no warmth, no cling- ing in its pressure any more ; by the whole pose of her figure, her mechanical, determinate step, so different from the lithe, swaying care- lessness of her usual bearing. Certainly Miss Dolfen was not enjoying that walk half so much as some others which she had had with the same companion through the long shrubbery which skirted Mr. Van Brooten's croquet lawn. " I am afraid you have found me rather un- interesting to-night," said Romilly, taking his cigar from his lips, and his arm from the lady's hand, as they reached the Lodge gates. " You have been quite equal to my require- ments," replied Bertha, haughtily. " Then I must say, Miss Dolfen, that your re- quirements are not sublime." " In the present instance, certainly not, Mr. 206 ASTON-ROYAL. Macnorman. I always adapt them to my company." And with this more conclusive than compli- mentary settlement of the case, Miss Dolfen swept, with the majesty of an empress, into the house, leaving Romilly, who had intended to go in and have a game of chess with Mr. Van Brooten, standing outside, in the position of an abandoned escort. Yet as he lighted a fresh cigar and shrugged his shoulders and thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled leisurely on to his chambers in the London Road, he felt like a man who has the best of it. And he knew, too, that Miss Dolfen knew that he had the best of it, which know- ledge gave tenfold strength to his position. On the whole, that bit of litmus paper had done its work tolerably well. An hour later, when the Abbey clock was upon the stroke of twelve, Bertha Dolfen was pacing up and down her shabby school-room in Aston-Royal Lodge, biting her scarlet lips, ASTON-ROYAL. 207 bending her black brows into rugged lines over the dark eyes which flashed so angrily beneath them, pausing now and then to shake back the loosened hair from her low forehead, or mutter with bated breath some half-intelligible whisper, in which the names of Lucy Thoresby and Romilly Macnorman might be heard. Lucy was sitting in Mrs. Thoresby's black-oak room, alone, watchful, sad at heart, she knew not why, unless it were for the loneliness and darkness, and the wind which sighed so drearily round the quadrangle of the old palace. Tressa knelt at her casement- window, praying, as at mid- night the angels often watched her pray, that the earthly love and the love divine might clash no more so painfully in her heart. Romilly lounged in careless ease before his bachelor fire, smiling over his triumphs, planning fresh ones; seeing now the fair face of the English maid- en, now the swarthy features of the foreign girl, in the wreaths of fragrant smoke which curled around him. Yet the face which lingered 208 ASTON-ROYAL. longest was the English face, and the eyes which told the sweetest story were the eyes of blue. Meanwhile, Messrs. Moore and Mason, who had received letters from Melbourne by the early mail, were sitting together in grave con- sultation, talking over plans which might con- siderably influence the future of their junior partner. 209 CHAPTER XII. TT was about a month after that eventful ■*- meeting of Bertha Dolf en and Lucy Thores- by at the old Court-house. During the interval, Romilly had divided his time with tolerable impartiality between the blonde and the brunette. That is to say, when he was not engaged in his own business matters, when he was not going to a ball or a dinner or a cricket-match or a whist party or a chess tourna- ment, he used to drop in at Aston Lodge and talk over the news with Mr. Van Brooten in his comfortable dining-room, where, if Miss Dolfen was present and in a good mood, he would stay for a couple of hours or more. If VOL. I. P 210 ASTON-ROYAL. she was not present, or if, being present, she was not in a good mood, he would go on to the old Court-house and spend the remainder of his evening in the wainscoted sitting-room, or the black-oak parlour at the south end of the quad- rangle, as Lucy chanced to be in one place or the other. And if people rallied him on his attentions in either of these quarters, he was always prepared with some bright, careless little speech, which notched the edge of their curiosity and left them as much in the dark as ever. For Romilly had tact enough to take care of his own inter- ests in matters of this sort ; though, of course, being an unappropriated man, with good looks, good prospects, and good abilities, people per- haps had a right to express their opinions as to the motives which could induce him to drift on year after year in a state of single blessedness, when scores of young ladies, not to be minute and mention individuals amongst them, would be only too glad to share his prosperity and ASTON-ROYAL. 211 double his happiness by taking both into their own keeping. Besides, he had not really made up his mind, and perhaps would not make it up for some time, unless that affair about the Melbourne partnership came to a more speedy issue than was at present expected. Of the hundreds of girls whom he met in Aston-Royal, only two had ever awakened more than a passing thought in his heart, and of these two it was hard to de- cide which had the advantage. Sometimes he liked one, and sometimes he liked the other, according as the mood which was in the ascend- ant just then required ruffling or soothing. Lucy Thoresby opened for him a window which looked over a fair, pleasant landscape, not at all grand or magnificent, and with no special variety in it, but peaceful, like the pictures which Gainsborough or Creswick loved to paint, full of tender, subdued colouring, and artistic, if not startling, effects of light and shade. A lovely picture, but he was not quite sure yet p2 212 ASTON-ROYAL. whether he would like to spend, all his life look- ing at it. The window which Bertha Dolfen opened for him gave an entirely different prospect. That was like a gorgeous evening scene, with great glowing fringes of orange and purple, from which, as from beneath some heavy eyebrow, the sun looked out with fiery splendour over lake and river and mountain ; looked out, too, over leaden thunderclouds, which came slowly rolling up against the wind, burdened with their mighty message of storm and tempest, to be delivered passionately enough when the fiery eye had closed, and the purple splendour had died out. That was a fine picture — finer than the other, perhaps; but still Romilly thought he might tire of it, too. As he could not take both into his possession, and as he was uncertain which of the two would suit him best for a continu- ance, he resolved to wait until the providence which he misnamed chance should decide the ASTOX-ROYAL. 213 question for him. Pending the decision, how- ever, there could be no harm in availing him- self of the variety placed at his disposal, looking first out of one window and then out of the other, with the comfortable consciousness that he could draw the blinds down upon either, or both, when the prospect became wearisome. One pleasant morning, towards the end of October, Lucy came running across the quad- rangle, her face glowing with eager, happy interest, two open letters, one of them on thin foreign paper, fluttering in her little hands. " Tressa, you say sometimes I never tell you anything worth remembering, and I daresay I don't, now that you are so wonderfully serious, and the blue ribbon bows are gone nobody knows where. I mean them to come out again, though ; and you must look as nice as you did at Aston-Vernay last spring. Now, you need not go all over red again, just because I have said something about the ribbons. I don't want 214 ASTON-ROYAL. you to talk Mr. Bateson to me. I don't like him a bit. I have had a letter from Martin." "I thought it was a foreign letter," said Tressa, glad to have the conscious roses ac- counted for so satisfactorily. " Have they got safely to Hong-Kong?" " Yes; and before this time I hope they are safe- ly on the road back again, if one ought to call the sea a road. I wonder if you ought. But let us go into the garden, Tressa. I want a long talk with you about everything ; and you know I always feel that I have to be so proper when Mrs. Macnorman is there. Let us go to our seat in the wall, and then we shall be all to ourselves." When Lucy proposed that they should be all to themselves anywhere, the conversation gene- rally drifted away to Romilly Macnorman, the young girl's thoughts hovering over him like a bird over its nest. It was not so this morning, however — at least, not at first, for when she had perched on the bit of old gurgoyle, and ASTON-ROYAL. 215 gone through a little preliminary eruption of kisses and caresses, she began to expatiate upon the contents of Martin's letter. "He writes in very good spirits now, but he says he never had such an awfully long three months in his life as after they sailed from Liverpool last May. I'm sure I don't know why it should be worse for him than ever it had been before, for they had the same captain and the same men, and the winds were favourable, and all that sort of thing. But you must read the letter yourself, for he keeps saying be sure you tell this to Tressa, and don't forget to give my message to Tressa, so you had better read it all, right through, and then you won't miss anything." Perhaps, since the rosy dawn had peeped into Lucy's life, some wise thought might have crossed her mind relative to Martin and Tressa. But if so, there was a high-bred refinement about the little maiden, which made her scorn to ask any questions, or seem to guess what 216 ASTON-ROYAL. had not first been offered to her knowledge. Tressa took the letter, and a sometimes sweet, sometimes doubtful smile passed over her face as she read it. The sweetness was for Mar- tin's thought of her, so tender and so true ; the doubt for that awful doctrine of "conse- cration " which heaved up like a giant shadow between her and all thought of human hap- piness. It was a bright, pleasant letter, containing a very simple account of their voyage, the dif- ferent places they had touched at, and a few incidents of sea-life. Then Martin went on to say that he thought, after coming home in December, he should not go out with the ves- sel again, but look for some settled occupation at home. He had been turning it over in his own mind ever since the Terrier set sail from Liverpool, and he had about made up his mind to take the farm at Aston-Vernay. His uncle had been talking to him about it in the spring, and saying that he felt himself almost too old ASTON-ROYAL. 217 now for the entire management of it ; and if Martin liked to take it off his hands at Christ- mas, he would go and live in the cottage upon the five-acre lot, so that he would still be at hand to give advice about the management of the crops, and so forth. Martin said he thought he could not do bet- ter than accept his uncle's proposal. He had always been fond of farming. It was almost as independent as a sea-faring life, and he knew a good deal about it too, from having lived so much with Uncle Bernard when he was a little boy, before his other uncle got him that berth on board the Terrier. Uncle Bernard always said that a capital farmer had been spoiled when Uncle Ralph made him a sailor ; and though he wouldn't for anything have missed those years on board the Terrier, still he thought it would be very pleasant, after serving such a long apprenticeship to old King Neptune, to cast anchor and set up for a landsman again. Tressa read all this and the messages for 218 ASTON-ROYAL. herself, whilst Lucy amused herself with the spines of a fir-cone, counting thetn after the fashion of the German maidens with the flowers, and whispering to herself, " He loves me, he loves me not." She threw it away with an im- patient gesture as Tressa folded up the letter. The last spine had told the story wrong. "Have you read it? Isn't it a long one? Only two months, Tressa ! You see he says be- fore Christmas, and then he will never go away again. You might keep it and let Mr. Romilly read it ; or no, perhaps you had better tell him that grandmamma has it, and then he can come and hear it read. Grandmamma might not like me to give it to any one else. Won't it be glorious, Tressa, when he goes to live at Aston-Yernay f Of course we shall go and stay with him, and have no end of pic-nics and all sorts of nice things." " And Martha will keep house for him," sug- gested Tressa prudently. " No, she won't ; and that reminds me about ASTON-ROYAL. 219 the other letter. It's from Mattie ; and what do you think? She is going to be married. Mattie, my quiet, demure, steady-going sister Mattie. Grandma made me read the letter three times before she would believe it at all. You know Mattie was always so very matter- of-fact, not a bit like being married. And she writes about it as quietly as if she were telling us of a new set of table-cloths, or some pens for the poultry. I don't think I could have written about it so quietly. But then I can't write about anything to make sense of it." " Perhaps it isn't going to be for a long time," said Tressa, " and so she doesn't need to begin to be romantic just yet." " I don't know. She doesn't say when it is to be. Grandma says she believes, now that that sort of thing has begun in the family, it will go on to the rest of us. She says it re- minds her of a story she once heard of three bonnet-boxes which used to stand on the top shelf of a milliner's shop, and no one ever want- 220 ASTON-ROYAL. ed them, and they were never taken down, and they got all faded and dusty, and the milliner thought she should be obliged to light the fires with them. But one day an old gentleman came in and asked for one of them, so it was taken down, and dusted, and rubbed up, and sent away ; and within a week after that, they had all of them gone, though they had been standing up there by themselves for I don't know how many years." " Oh ! and so an old gentleman has come for Martha, and she is to be taken down and dusted, and rubbed up, and sent away, is she ?" " Yes ; and grandma says she shouldn't be a bit surprised if Martin and I are sent for next. We shall have to be taken down some time, most likely. You know, if Martin comes to the Grange Farm, and Matty is married, and Uncle Bernard goes to live at the cottage on the five- acre lot, Martin must have some one to take care of him. Grandma says perhaps he will want me to go and keep his house ; but I ASTON-ROYAL. 221 don't think I should like that very much." And Lucy gave a little sigh as she looked at the fir cone which had rolled out upon the grass. Tressa said nothing. There was still silence between them, each thinking her own thoughts, when a footfall was heard at the other end of the long walk among the dry, rustling October leaves, and Bertha Dolfen came in sight. She might have been an Eastern queen, some Semiramis or Zenobia, with a train of servant princes behind her, so stately was her bearing, so haughty and defiant her air this morning. But she had gone half a mile out of her way in coming from Aston- Royal Lodge to the old Court-house, hoping to meet Mr. Romilly Macnorman on the London Road, and as fate or fortune had it, Mr. Romil- ly Macnorman did not happen to be visible on the London Road, and that had put Miss Dol- fen out of temper. ;4 Good morning, Tressa," she said. Since her first visit to the Court-house, she had al- 222 ASTON-ROYAL. ways addressed Mr. Macnorman's niece by her Christian name, and sometimes assumed an air of patronising familiarity towards her, which Tressa, who had more dignity than came to the surface, could not quite appreciate. " I came to ask you if you were disposed to take a walk this morning, but I see you are otherwise engaged, so 1 will not intrude upon you. I hope you find yourself quite well, Miss Thores- by-" This last remark was made in a careless, in- different manner, and the smile which accom- panied it almost became a sneer as it left the large, full, scarlet lips. Lucy's face changed, as flowers do when an east wind passes over them. This stronger- natured, more fiery-hearted Bertha had an in- fluence over her now akin to magnetism. They had only met once since that quiet little even- ing in the oriel-room, but Bertha hated her, and Lucy knew it, and Bertha meant her to know it ; and they looked at each other this ASTON-ROYAL. 223 time, not as a tolerably good-natured leopard and a harmless kitten, when the leopard's appe- tite has been satisfied by a plentiful dinner, but as a boa-constrictor and a rabbit may do when feeding-time is very near. Only just now the bars of conventional propriety were between them, so that the little rabbit was safe for a time, except from the spiteful glances of its natural enemy. And if, by any stretch of ima- gination, the boa-constrictor could be supposed to put a polite question to the little rabbit which it is expecting by and by to eat up, bright eyes, soft fur, and everything, that question would probably be asked in the tones which Bertha used as she said to poor little Lucy Thoresby — " I hope you find yourself quite well." " Yes, thank you," said Lucy, very timidly, as though she did not feel quite sure how strong the bars were between her and the boa- constrictor ; " but you must not let me prevent Tressa from going out with you. I was just ready to go away when we saw you' com- 224 ASTON-ROYAL. ing. You know I can come again any time." " Of course," said Miss Dolfen, with another magnificent scarlet smile. " And I have no doubt you will avail yourself of the privilege very soon. I daresay you find Miss Dover- court's friendship very pleasant under present circumstances." Lucy tried to fire up a little, but it was no use. She only looked very uncomfortable as she said, in reply to Miss Dolfen's insinuation, " I — I did not come just for nothing. I came to read Tressa a letter which we have had from Martin." "Martin? Oh! that is your sailor brother, I suppose? I fancy I have heard Mr. Macnor- man mention him ; old schoolfellows, or some- thing of that sort. Sailor brothers are such charming people, are they not, my pretty Tressa f " And she fastened her great bright eyes upon Romilly's cousin, with the assurance of a woman who feels that her beauty and her popularity ASTON-ROYAL. 225 give her the right to say what she likes. Tressa, taken by surprise, had not self-possession enough to defend herself with the only weapons which can be used against such attacks, raillery or dignity. She coloured deeply, and could find no other way to reply. " Oh ! you little tell-tale !" And Miss Dolfen lightly touched the crimson cheek with her gloved fingers. " I know all about it now. Of course I only said it on speculation. I had not the least idea you would plead guilty in that charming way. I won't tell anyone about it, though, if you will promise to make me your confidante for the future. Now, is not that fair, Miss Thoresby ? When we find out these pretty little secrets, and promise to keep them, ought Ave not to know everything afterwards I Come, now, I am sure you can speak from experience." And though the words were playful, the changed tones, which were for Lucy's ear alone, said plainly enough — " If it were not for those bars, T would eat VOL. I. Q 226 ASTON-ROYAL. you up directly, that I would ! But wait awhile. The dinner-bell will ring soon, and then let us see." Lucy did not know what to say. She never did know what to say to Miss Dolfen. Both she and Tressa always felt like little children, helpless, useless, and defenceless, in the pre- sence of Mrs. Van Brooten's West Indian gover- ness, with her flashing eyes, and her swarthy face, and her haughty, defiant, foreign ways. " I'm sure I don't know anything about it. But it really is time I was going home. Grandma will wonder whatever has become of me. Will you tell Mr. Romilly, then, please, Tressa, that we have had a letter from Martin, and that he can come and hear it if he likes V* " Oh ! yes," said Miss Dolfen, maliciously, "pray tell him. He will be delighted to go and spend an evening in the black-oak parlour, listening to a letter from his old schoolmate. I assure you, Miss Thoresby, I have heard of the black-oak parlour over and over again. Mr. ASTON-ROYAL. 227 Romilly appears to find it quite a castle of en- chantment, and not without a fairy princess either, who always takes care to be at home when the prince makes his appearance. But, talking about your cousin, Tressa," — and here Miss Dolfen's voice took on that touch of con- sciousness which not one woman in a hundred can entirely gloss over — "what is this rumour which I have heard about him lately ? Some- thing about that Melbourne partnership being likely to be settled before many months. He told me only the other day that it would be two or three years before he went out, and now I hear that it is to be next spring." "Next spring!" said Lucy, almost sharply. "Is Mr. .Romilly going away next spring? Oh ! Tressa, and you never told me about it." " Yes, next spring, Miss Thoresby." And the boa-constrictor looked at the little rabbit, as much as to say, "There goes the dinner-bell, now let us ask a blessing, and set to work." " Next spring, Miss Thoresby, and this is quite Q2 228 ASTON-ROYAL. the end of October. The black-oak parlour will have to make very good use of its time for the next four months, will it not? I believe I am right, Tressa, next spring is the time appointed — at least, according to popular report. But you know report is very uncertain, dear Miss Thoresby, so you need not look so very much distressed about it. Dear me, what a thousand pities I left my vinaigrette at home ! I am sure you want a restorative. Now, if I could only tell you, Tressa, darling, that the Terrier had been shipwrecked in a gale off the English coast, and all hands lost, I should have the pleasure of assisting two fainting damsels in- stead of one. Miss Thoresby, do not, I beg of you, be afraid of leaning your whole weight upon me. I delight in supporting feebleness of whatever kind. Next spring, Tressa t" " I don't think it is quite settled yet," said Tressa, heartily wishing that Miss Dolfen would go away, and yet not knowing how to tell her so politely. " But I daresay he will go then, ASTON-ROYAL. 229 unless something that he does not know about happens before." " Things are always happening that people don't know anything about," said Bertha mean- ingly. "Yes," said Tressa; "but I hope nothing will happen this time. I think he would like to go. He says sometimes that there is nothing to keep him in Aston-Royal." "Nothing to keep him in Aston-Royal?" said Bertha to herself, and her black brows tight- ened. Perhaps Lucy, standing out on the gar- den-walk now, toying with the spines of her fir cone, said the same thing to herself, for a keen blast of east wind came over her pretty blossom face again. Tressa went on. " I don't think he likes the place very much, and I daresay he will not be sorry for a good opportunity of leaving it." " Very wise of him," said Miss Dolfen, sarcas- tically. " I despise a man who lives up to the Catechism, by trying in whatever state he is 2o0 ASTON-ROYAL. therewith to be content. It is a height of Christian perfection which I never aspired to myself, and I don't believe people who pretend that they have reached it. I ought not to say such wicked things to you, though, as I under- stand you are one of the elect of Postern Chapel. But Mr. Romilly does not swear by the Postern pulpit, does he V* " My cousin never swears at all," answered Tressa simply. " At least I have never heard him." Lucy looked very much shocked. Bertha laughed. " Oh ! what a pair of little white pigeons you are. I did not mean anything naughty, but you have been so beautifully brought up that you make me feel quite like an Ishmaelite among you. I like goodness, though. It's exceedingly pretty, and I only don't bow down at the Pos- tern Chapel shrine myself, because I think my peculiar style of piety would not be appre- ciated there. You know my principle is to ASTON-ROYAL. 231 take as much good out of the world as it will give me, and you Postern people think it wrong to take any at all, so that our creeds don't ex- actly agree. And so you don't think your cou- sin will be sorry to go away?" Bertha spoke in differently, but there was an almost savage gleam in her eyes as she asked the question. " I don't know. Romilly never tells us very much about what he thinks. Very likely when it comes to the last he will feel it more. Things look so different when you come close up to them." " Yes, if you happen to be short-sighted. But there is nothing like change, even for a woman, and ten times more so for a man. I hate staying in a place until there's nothing left for you to breathe ; and I should think a man has the same sort of feeling, if he is worth anything. I lived in Cuba until I was almost suffocated, and then I got up a thunderstorm with my guardians, and said I would earn my 232 ASTON-ROYAL. own living in England. There was no other way but a thunderstorm for getting out of the place, for I did not know any one I could have mar- ried or eloped with. I'm tired of England now. I don't mean to stay in it much longer. Your cousin is like me. He uses all the fresh air in a place very quickly. Miss Thoresby " And Bertha turned haughtily round towards little Lucy, who was waiting patiently for an opportunity of saying good morning. " I have heard you go to the chemistry classes at the Ladies' Institute, though you don't look much like a female who is interested in the pur- suit of science. Perhaps you can tell why Mr. Romilly Macnorman and I consume more oxy- gen than most other people. I know it is some- thing about the carbon uniting with something else, and both blazing away a deal faster than is convenient, but I can't remember the exact com- mon-sense of it. Of course you can enlighten my ignorance. I do so love to sit at the feet of superior wisdom ; it is almost as good as hav- ASTON-ROYAL. 233 ing inferior feebleness under one's protec- tion." "I don't go to the Institute classes," said Lucy, innocently ; " and I don't know what the air is made of at all. I always thought there was nothing in it." Bertha laughed, and the laugh did end in a sneer now, as she turned contemptuously away. "That is because you are so very aerial yourself. People who have nothing in them, never do know it. But I must go home now. I am afraid I am corrupting your morals." "I thought you came for a walk," said Tressa. " So I did ; but I've changed my mind. Those two stupid little boys of Mrs. Van Brooten's dine at one, and I am expected to mount guard over them, and see that they hold their knives and forks properly, and don't fill their mouths too full. Tressa, whatever else you do, don't take a situation as governess to 234 ASTOX-ROYAL. an ignorant rich woman's children, for it is a weariness to the flesh. Good morning, both of yon. My compliments to the black-oak parlour, Miss Thoresby, and the Institute classes." And she w r ent aw r ay. " Oh ! Tressa, I am so glad she is gone ! She is snch an awful creature ! Don't you think your- self she is a very awful creature ? I wonder if all the women in the West Indies are like her. Mar- tin was there once, but he didn't say anything about them. And for her to talk so about Mr. Romilly's going away ! Oh ! Tressa, I wish I didn't know about that ! I thought he would have stopped ever so much longer." And Lucy, who had been bravely swallowing back her tears for the last quarter of an hour, let them come splashing down now in right earnest as she stood picking off the spines of the fir-cone which had told her little love-storv wrong. Tressa kissed her with a grave, sweet sister- liness, and the two went back, hand in hand, to ASTOX-ROYAL. 235 the house ; whilst Miss Dolfen, having reached her school-room at Aston Lodge, conducted Master Reginald and Master Leopold through the solemnities of dinner, muttering to herself sometimes in hissing undertones, " Romilly love that simple chit of a girl ! riomilly marry her ! Never !" 236 CHAPTER XIII. HPHE news of young Mr. Macnorman's almost *• immediate departure to Melbourne, as junior partner in the great firm of Moore, Mason, and Co., was soon public property in his native town. Of course Aston-Royal had a great deal to say on the subject. First of all it wondered why he was going so much sooner than was at first expected; and then what share iu the profits he was likely to have ; and then whether he would take a wife with him ; and lastly, who that wife would be. Aston-Royal was sure he would take a wife, because young ladies were so much more plenti- ful in England than in Australia ; and, besides, ASTON-ROYAL. 237 a selectioD from those whom he had known from his boyhood would be, if not more easy, at any rate more safe. Aston-Royal thought it knew who the lady would be. Miss Dolfen, or Miss Thoresby. And a very good match for either of them. But it could not quite make up its mind whether Mrs. Van Brooten's magnifi- cent governess, or the pretty fair-haired maiden who came with her grandmother to the Postern Chapel, would be most advantaged by young Mr. Macnorman's choice. For though Miss Dol- fen would no doubt gladly relinquish the super- vision of Masters Reginald and Leopold for the dignities and immunities of married life, still her personal appearance and the foreign charm of her manner would at any time com- mand a good settlement, so that she need not be in a hurry to change her position. And then Miss Thoresby, though possessing by no means so imposing an exterior as her brunette rival, had that pretty, graceful way about her which was sure to do well for itself, sooner or later, in 238 ASTOX-ROYAL. a matrimonial point of view. And besides the graceful way, she had a nice little fortune, too — not much,* certainly, but still enough to make her quite worth looking after, if that old bachelor uncle at Aston-Vernay did, as every- body was sure he would do, leave the bulk of his property to be equally divided between his nephew and his two nieces. On the whole, the balance was very evenly adjusted, though perhaps, if in addition to her superb appear- ance, Miss Dolfen had been possessed of Miss Lucy's temporal advantages, &c, &c. Then followed the news of Martin Thoresby's home-coming and probable settlement at Aston- Vernay. And Aston-Royal thought it knew what that meant. It meant that young Mr. Thoresby was going to be married. For young men never gave up a good berth in a respecta- ble ship, and settled down to such a hum-drum employment as farming in an obscure country neighbourhood, unless something in the shape of a tender attachment moved them thereto. ASTON-ROYAL. 239 So the next thing was to find a suitable wife for the sailor laddie. Aston-Royal had no difficulty in doing that, too. After giving a due amount of attention to the matter, and going through such evidence as could be collected on both sides, it decided that no one would be more adapted to the posi- tion than Mr. Macnorman's orphaned and de- pendent niece, Miss Dovercourt. True, they had never heard of any intimacy which could be construed into an engagement, nor had the young people ever been seen in public together, but then Romilly Macnorman and Martin Thoresby were old schoolfellows, and Miss Thoresby and Miss Dovercourt were just like sisters, running in and out of each other's houses, and taking walks together and that sort of thing; and they had both been stay- ing at Aston-Vernay when report said that Martin Thoresby was staying there too, on leave of absence from his ship, which looked very much as if the affair was settled. And 240 ASTON-ROYAL. doubtless Mr. Macnorman would be very glad to have his wife's niece comfortably provided for ; for she had no claim upon him for a penny, and nothing of her own to depend upon, unless he chose to allow his wife to leave her a little independent annuity. It would be a very convenient arrangement for all parties if she did marry Martin Thoresby, and so secure a comfortable home of her own before anything happened to her aunt. Then Aston-Royal, or at any rate that por- tion of it which attended to its religious duties at the Postern Chapel, had something to say on the subject of Mr. Macnorman. Mrs. Egremont was generally the mouthpiece of Postern Chapel opinion when the character of any of its members had to be put through the sieve of inquiry. And Mrs. Egremont hoped that worldly prosperity was not becom- ing a snare to the manager of the Aston-Royal Insurance office. Prosperity was a dangerous thing, especially when it involved much devo- ASTON-ROYAL. 241 tion to corporation banquets, civic entertain- ments, Tudor hotel suppers and the like. And though no one had the boldness to say that Mr. Macnorman had ever been the worse for any- thing he had taken at a corporation dinner, or that, coming home late at night from one of those Tudor suppers, his face had been more flushed or his hand less steady than usual, still everyone knew that municipal gatherings were dangerous things, and that a place in the town- council had been the first downward step in the course of many a once respected townsman ; and that men could be mentioned, a disgrace to their Christian profession and a grief of mind to their wives and families, who had walked safely enough over the dangerous road of life until vague hints from electors, or rumours of possible parliamentary seats, gave them their taste for dissipation and display. Of course, after that hint, people began to open their eyes a little wider ; and when peo- ple's eyes are once fairly open, it is astonishing VOL. I. R 242 ASTON-ROYAL. how much meaning they can find out in things which formerly appeared of no importance at all. Mr. Macnorman's conspicuous absence from the Postern Chapel week-evening service began to be noticed and commented upon as a sign that he was making shipwreck of faith. And then Mrs. Egremont fancied — it might be only fancy ; she sincerely hoped it was only fancy, but still she did fancy, and if she was not very much mistaken, she had heard Miss Arbiton, another of the members, allude to the same thing — that Mr. Macnorman's colour was a little deeper than formerly, and his eyes not quite so clear ; and that his hand, as he held his massive gold-rimmed glass to find the places in his hymn-book, was not so steady as it used to be, say ten or twelve years ago — she would not go further back than that. Of course, as she said, it might be only fancy. She would not for the world be understood as meaning anything seri- ous by it. Mr. Macnorman was a member for whom she had always had the highest respect, ASTON-ROYAL. 243 and if there was one thing more than another which she set her face against, it was a spirit of censoriousness in professing Christians. But still it was the duty of one member to watch for the souls of others as those who must give account, and she wondered if anyone had men- tioned the subject to Mr. Bateson. If the man- ager was in danger of religious declension, he ought to be spoken to about it; because, though he did contribute handsomely to the quarterage of the minister, that was no reason why his soul should not be watched over with just as much diligence as if he had been one of the poorer members. Mrs. Bateson ■ had not been at all behindhand in administering reproof to herself, who was, as she might say, only a poor, insig- nificant worm of the congregation, when she allowed Mary Ann and Matilda to have feathers in their hats for a fancy fair ; and she did not see why Mr. Macnorman should be deprived of the benefit of an equally faithful pastoral super- r2 244 ASTOX-ROYAL. vision, if, as people were beginning to say, his conduct required it. And then she hoped everything was quite right at the Insurance Office. Everyone knew how easy it was to take the first wrong step ; and speculations were such dangerous things. As she had mentioned once before, her husband, who knew as much about money as most men, though he had never been able to get much of it into his own pocket, had a very poor opinion of that Benares concern. It might be all right, or it might be quite the reverse ; and if it proved quite the reverse, Mrs. Egremont sin- cerely trusted that the manager of the Insur- ance Office would be able to resist temptation. She would not on any account have it repeated as coming from her, but one or two people had made the remark that Mr. Macnorman did not seem quite comfortable in his mind of late. He appeared like a man who was beginning to have anxieties, though what anxieties he could have, when his only child was doing so well in ASTON-ROYAL. 245 the world, she was not prepared to say, unless they were anxieties connected with money mat- ters. She did not take upon herself, however, to decide whether there was any truth in the observations. She only repeated what people had said to her. Still, when things of that kind once began to be talked about, there was generally something amiss. And Mrs. Egremont drew herself up, and looked mysterious, as much as to intimate that she was in possession of facts not known to the congregation at large, and that any hints which might drop from her lips were to be considered as fragments of driftwood cast upon the shore from some far-off, and as yet undiscovered wreck — indications, nothing more, of a disaster whose full extent was for a time enveloped in uncertainty. But whatever kindly anxiety good Mrs. Egre- mont might feel regarding the state of affairs at the Insurance Office, she need not have vexed her righteous soul with any fears about Mr. 246 ASTON-ROYAL. Macnortnan's spiritual declension ; nor was there the slightest need for that most excellent minister, Mr. Bateson, to speak a word in sea- son to his prosperous member about the danger of making shipwreck of faith. What declen- sion could there be for one whose spiritual life had never risen high enough to fall ? What shipwreck of faith could there be to him who believed in no good but that which cash-book and ledger can balance — to him whose soul had never ventured forth from its port of selfish security upon that wide ocean of Truth across whose waters, wild and stormy though they be, one must needs journey, with much chance of loss and pain, to the fair haven of eternal rest? No. Mr. Macnorman could make shipwreck of nothing but his earthly interests, and decline from no loftier height than that which the opinion of his fellow-men gave him. Perpetual untruth to that which, nevertheless, he outwardly confessed to be true had eaten all possible nobility out of his life. Holding high ASTON-ROYAL. 247 office in the denomination to which he belonged, associated with a church which inculcated upon its members an exceptionally high standard of religious life, which demanded from them an absolute renunciation of the world, a holy con- tempt for its pleasures, honours, emoluments, he had yet lived a life which was essentially selfish, a life whereinto no aspiration, no sacri- fice, no self-denial ever came. Professing to despise the world, he made it his idol. Pro- fessing to be a pilgrim, a wayfarer, a dweller in tents in the wilderness, having no abiding city, but seeking a city out of sight, he had made his wilderness to overflow with carnal milk and honey, and gathered up in his pilgrim tent riches compared with which those of the city out of sight were to him unreal and worth- less. Sunday after Sunday, in his pew at the Postern Chapel — not often at the week-night service now, though — he sang his confession of faith in the words of that noble man whose name he was not worthy to bear : — 248 ASTON-ROYAL. " A stranger in the world below, I calmly sojourn here ; Nor can its happiness or woe Provoke my hope or fear. Its evils in a moment end, Its joys as soon are past ; But, oh ! the bliss to which I tend Eternally shall last." Yet he made an idol of the joys upon which, in words, he poured contempt, and never made room in his heart for even a passing thought of the bliss whose only existence for him was be- tween the gilded backs of his splendidly-bound hymn-book. There was more real religion in that sigh of poor Tressa's, wherewith she let go the girlish fancies upon which Mr. Bateson had set the ban of his disapproval, than the record- ing angels would find, when they came to search for it, in all Mr. Macnor man's twenty years of membership amongst the Postern Chapel so- ciety. 249 CHAPTER XIV. BUT Mrs. Egremont was quite right in one thing. Those bills at the Tudor Hotel were very heavy, very heavy indeed. And as the health of old Sir Tempest Hoggard, M.P. kept declining, and as the health of " our gener- ous host" was drunk with greater frequency by the supporters of the Liberal interest, and as they referred with increasing confidence to the time, not very far distant, most probably, when Mr. Macnorman, as the new member for Aston- Royal, should receive their congratulations, and respond to the drinking of success to his Parlia- mentary career, the bills became more heavy, and the wings wherewith riches flew out of the manager's coffers were decidedly swifter and 250 ASTON-ROYAL. stronger of pinion than those wherewith they flew in. For that Benares bank did not pay well at all. The last dividend but one had been very small, the last a mere acknowledgment. If things went on at that rate, next half year would bring no dividend at all, but something rather the reverse, perhaps a call upon the shares, which were none of them paid up. And then the chapel expenses were very heavy, too. Be- cause, although the Postern society electors, who were almost to a man on the Liberal side, could not be made sure of by such unconsecrated means as wine suppers and champagne dinners at the " Tudor," still they had to be secured by subscriptions to every fund, and their name was legion, which had its existence in the denomina- tion, to say nothing of taking the chair at school-meetings, chapel-meetings, missionary- meetings, Jews' meetings, sailors' meetings, and all other meetings whatsoever which that much worn and frequently stamped upon Postern plat- ASTOX-ROYAL. 251 form had to support. And really when he came to add up his outgoings at the end of one year after another, "our honoured and respected fellow-townsman," as the speakers always called the chairman on such occasions, found that that sort of bribery was quite as expensive as the other. But fortune stepped in and favoured Mr. Macnorman at this juncture, after a fashion which he had never looked for. One evening shortly before Christmas, as he was seated by his own fireside, apparently scanning some estimates relative to a new pulpit which he was about to present to the Postern Chapel, but in reality meditating with secret unrest and anxiety on the unsatisfactory state of the Benares concern, a note was brought to him from Mr. Bardon Limpsie, in which that young gentleman requested permission to be- come an occasional visitor at the old Court-house, for the purpose of securing the affections of Miss Tressa Dovercourt, as a preliminary step 252 ASTON-ROYAL. towards making her an offer of marriage. Bardon had lately returned from Saxony, where he had been acquainting himself with some branches of his father's business; an dnow being permanently settled under the paternal roof, with handsome prospects and a first-rate reputation for docility, was a mark for half the scheming dowagers and husband-hunting young ladies of Aston-Royal. Shortly after his first appearance in society, he became a worshipper at the shrine of Miss Dolfen; but having received an abrupt dismissal from the presence of that fiery divinity, who was just then casting her smiles in the direction of Romilly Macnorman, he soothed his wounded sensibilities by a diligent attendance upon the Postern Chapel services, where he met Tressa, was attracted by her quiet pretty face, and having asked his father whether he thought she would be a suitable wife for him, and having received an answer in the affirma- tive, made known his request as above to the young lady's uncle. ASTON-ROYAL. 253 Mr. Macnorman read the note and put it in his pocket without saying anything to Mrs. Macnorman and Tressa, who sat at their work in the same room. Nothing could have happen- ed more opportunely ; Tressa r s consent, when- ever young Mr. Bardon chose to apply for it, being of course taken for granted. Mr. Limpsie, Bardon's father, was one of the oldest, most in- fluential directors of the Ast on-Royal Insurance Company. It was through his patronage that Mr. Macnorman had been taken into the office, and, after a shorter period of probation than is usual in such cases, promoted to the manager- ship. He was a gentleman of the old school, rather too easy, perhaps, and good-natured, but kindly, genial, unsuspicious, giving everybody else credit for the candour which he himself possessed ; averse to change, very unwilling to go out of the beaten track, or give in to the sharp eager ways of the modern mercantile world. One or two of the young directors, who thought that things were left a little too much 254 ASTON-EIOYAL. to themselves in the manager's office, had agi- tated for a more vigorous system of supervision at the half-yearly meetings; but old Mr.Limpsie, who was in some sort the father of the concern, and had very extensive holdings in it, always said that the management of the company's af- fairs was quite satisfactory ; and as he would be much more seriously injured than any of the other directors, if, in consequence of carelessness, things did go wrong, his opinion up to the pre- sent time had been allowed to rule. Nothing, then, under existing circumstances could be more welcome to Mr. Macnorman than a marriage which would bind him in family re- lationship to a man whose favour and influence were so important, and whose wealth might, in the present somewhat critical state of the money market, be so very useful. Moreover, whilst old Mr. Limpsie was his friend, the office books were not likely to be subjected to a very rigorous in- spection, and that was a great convenience. Of course when the Benares Bank began to pay ASTON-ROYAL. 255 its full dividends, any little deficiency there would be set straight ; but until then, whole- some neglect on the part of the board of direct- orswas desirable, andauything which might tend to prolong that neglect must be taken advantage of. Mr. Macnorman reasoned thus with himself as his gold-rimmed eyeglass was bent upon the plans of the new Postern Chapel pulpit. Then he drew his chair to the writing-table, and pen- ned an exceedingly polite note to Mr. Bardon Limpsie, assuring him of his 'cordial good-will and co-operation, and begging him to join the family circle at the old Court-house on Christ- mas eve, when every facility should be afforded him for successfully prosecuting the object of his visit. Meanwhile Tressa was sitting in her accus- tomed corner by the oriel window, busily en- gaged in doing up that black silk dress of which mention has already been made ; a plea- sant happy smile flitting to and fro upon her 256 ASTON-ROYAL. face as she bent over the work, altering a fold here, adjusting a bit of trimming there, then holding it at a little distance to see the general effect, and comparing it from time to time with the elaborate fashion-plate costume, of which it was to be, Tressa hoped, a successful imitation. For Martin Thoresby was coming to spend Christmas at the old Court-house. That had been arranged ever since Romilly's departure for Melbourne in the following spring became a settled plan. Romilly was to stay with them, too. Mrs. Macnorman, whose health seemed to be somewhat failing lately, had begged him, during the few remaining weeks of his stay in England, to give up his rooms in the London Road, and be at home again with his father and mother. There was going to be a little Christmas-eve gathering in his honour — a very little one it is true, but still unusually large for the old Court-house, where for many a year past these trysting seasons had come ASTON-ROYAL. 257 and gone with but scant show of interest or enjoyment. There would be Martin and Romilly, and young Mr. Limpsie, whom Tressa had only met a few times at school-treats and chapel tea-meetings, — Mr. Macnorman had just turned round to inform the women-folk, with his usual cast-iron courtesy, that he had invited the son of his old friend to join them early in the evening, — and Lucy would come of course, and Romilly had said that he should like Miss Dolfen to be asked. She was spending her holidays with Mrs. Van Brooten, because she had no other home ; and he suggested that it would only be an act of kindness to herself, and an act of politeness to Mr. and Mrs. Van Brooten, if she were bidden to join them on this occasion. He always liked having those two girls together, he said ; it was as good as a picture to study and admire their different styles of beauty, and mark how one seemed to brighten and set off the other. From which it will be gathered that Romilly, VOL. I. S 258 ASTON-ROYAL. averse to binding himself down to the sober monotony which a final choice must involve, was still taking his amusement in a perfectly pleasant and legitimate manner, by looking first out of one window and then out of another, thus varying the prospect as fancy led. Per- haps, in his better moods — and, in common with most petted and popular idols of society, he had such moods, — he loitered longest over the picture which Lucy's window presented. When, wiling away an occasional solitary evening, though such were very rare in his luxurious bachelor apartments, he amused himself with speculations concerning some future fireside of his own, a pretty little figure, like that of Mar- tin's fair-haired sister, generally sat by it, its queen and keeper. And when he looked far away into years to come, and beheld himself a middle-aged man, with sons and daughters growing up around him, the matron who smiled amongst them was sweet of countenance, gen- tle of mien, as Lucy might be when all those ASTON-ROYAL. 259 years had passed over her. But still there were moods when Bertha Dolfen's massive, superb indolence, rent from time to time with such splendid lightning flashes of defiance, was more fascinating to him than anything else ; and he could not make up his mind to draw the blind down over that window entirely, or deprive himself, by an appropriation of the sunny prospect, of any further outlook over that mingled picture of gloom and glow which the swarthy West Indian girl had revealed to him. It was to be a quiet little gathering. They never had anything but quiet little gatherings at the old Court-house, Bertha Dolfen said to herself with a sneer, when Tressa left the in- vitation. The invitation was accepted, never- theless, because she knew that it involved a meeting with Romilly ; and she would have dressed herself for the dreariest little muffin worry in Aston-Royal, nor thought the evening wasted, if only he had come in for five minutes s 2 260 ASTON-ROYAL. to redeem it from its insipidity. Besides, the weeks were passing quickly — too quickly for Bertha, whose victory was as yet so uncertain. Her passionate, fiery nature had passed into the control of this keen, quick-witted man of the world ; but he had not given himself up to her, to be alternately her tyrant and her slave, as power or beauty carried the day. What if Ro- milly should go to Melbourne, leaving no heart of his in her keeping ; what if the battle, which, begun at first for mere amusement and excite- ment, had gathered such a fateful interest round it now, should end in terrible defeat and mor- tification, as indeed it would for her if Messrs. Moore and Mason's colonial representative went away heart free and unconquered by the spells which she had been working for him, or, worse still, went away with little Lucy for his bride. "Nay, never," she said again to herself; and Master Reginald and Master Leopold looked up in amazement from their spelling-books. What ASTON-ROYAL. 2(51 had they done that Miss Dolfen should scowl upon them in that furious manner, and clench her white hands upon the ruler, as if she meant to use it with cruel force upon their unoffending knuckles ? And they said to each other, in the security of their little white-curtained cribs that night, that it would be a jolly good thing when Christmas holidays came, governess looked so awfully black at them now. 262 CHAPTER XV. SO Christmas eve came — that Christmas eve throughout whose twilight, deepening slow- ly into night, Tressa Dovercourt had sat at her casement window, alone in the cold and in the dark, heeding them not at all, because the thought of Martin Thoresby lay so warm and fresh within her love-guarded heart, to keep it safe from all that cold or dark could bring. Now the waiting and the watching both were past, and the happy meeting-time had come, and all was so pleasant and so fair — not one touch of bitterness to mar the sweet, not one shadow to tell by its gloom how clear the brightness was, save that the dim memory of Mr. Bateson's words kept haunting her like a ASTON-ROYAL. 263 half-remembered dream ; and that Mr. Macnor- man, looking at her so blandly, so courteously, seemed to hide behind the blandness and the courtesy a reserve of unexpected displeasure, for which she could find no cause. Only it was there, and it chilled her, whenever, looking up from Martin's side, she chanced to find her uncle's gaze upon her. And, indeed, had Mr. Bardon Limpsie's letter come a little earlier, Romilly should never have made such an arrangement with his old school- mate as that of spending Christmas with him at the Court-house. There was no knowing what mischief might spring up between young people who had been thrown together as Martin Thoresby and Tressa had been thrown at Aston-Vernay, only six months ago. The invitation once accepted, though — and accepted so frankly, too — could not be cancelled; all that could be done was to lay the stern hand of repression on any foolish attachment which might result from it. Besides, Mrs. Thoresby 264 ASTON-ROYAL. had influence, too. Her brother was one of the directors of the Insurance Company, and had interest amongst the electors. Mr. Mac- norman must play his cards carefully. If Mar- tin meant anything, it must be stopped, but so stopped as neither to interfere with the man- ager's accounts nor the future member's suc- cessful canvass. The December moon was at its full, shining down into the uncurtained oriel recess, where, a little apart from the guests, Martin Thoresby and Tressa stood side by side, taking no note in their gladness, just then, of Mr. Macnorman's severe and yet so unconscious mien. By that moonlight the black mouldering towers of the Abbey Church could be clearly seen, and the hearse-like plumes of the cedars in front of them ; and like some tall ghost, clad in raiment of sable, a solitary column of the ruined Priory, wrapped round with ivy, looked down into the Court-house garden, its long sharp distinct shadow lying clearly upon the gravelled path ASTON-ROYAL. 265 and reaching almost np to the little casement window, where an hour ago Tressa had sat listening for her lover's footsteps. Bertha Dolfen watched those two, half-curi- ously, half-disdainfully. Their simple, trustful love, unacknowledged yet, but so heartfelt and so true, seemed tame to her. She despised the content which stopped short of triumph. Tressa had won her lover from no weeping discom- forted rival. The happiness which shone out upon her quiet face to-night was brightened by no splendour of conscious victory over some less favoured girl, who was even now chafing in secret over her defeat, or trying to cover it by a forced show of merriment. And Martin, plain, straightforward, honest Martin, what was there in him to be proud of? Who need envy anyone the winning of such a prize in the lottery of life ? What a vapid, meaningless, hum-drum thing their existence would become by-and-by, even if things went fairly and pleasantly with them — which she knew well enough would 266 ASTON-ROYAL. never be the case — in that old Grange Farm of Aston-Vernay, where Martin was to settle down as a tiller of the ground, a rearer of fat sheep and fatter bullocks ; while Tressa spent her days in feeding poultry, counting eggs, and weighing out pounds of butter for the nearest market. They were welcome enough to such happiness ; she did not care to take it from them. Bertha was displaying herself on the crimson cushions of a- couch, at the other end of which sat Romilly Macnorman, whom she kept there by an occasional remark, addressed to him in that undertone of confidence whose use by the acknowledged belle of even a very small party is so flattering to the man singled out for such distinction. Bertha looked very well indeed to-night. She wore a dress of blood-red cashmere, with heavy old-fashioned lace falling over her magnificently rounded arms and bosom ; and massive coils of jet gleamed amongst her hair, which was gathered into a great ASTON-ROYAL. 267 coronet round her head, giving her an aspect of even unusual pride and loftiness. It was a simple costume, no blaze of jewelry or flutter of trimmings about it, yet it made Lucy Thoresby's white muslin look milk and watery, and even little Lucy herself rather washed- out, as Romilly could not help thinking, when Miss Dolfen sauntered leisurely into the room, and took her place, purposely for effect, by old Mrs. Thoresby's grand-daughter, like a gorgeous cactus side by side with a modest, pink-tipped mountain daisy. Romilly liked mountain daisies well enough in their place, but that place was not too near the crimson flower of the tropics, with its lavish wealth of colouring and gorgeous sunset-cloud like beauty. With its hard, cruel lancet leaves too, Romilly might have thought, if he had noticed Bertha's glance as she passed the young girl with a few careless, almost scornful words of greeting. Lucy was playing chess with young Mr. Bardon Limpsie. Whatever Mr. Macnorman 268 ASTON-ROYAL. might think, that was quite as Bertha would have it. But that Romilly Macnorman, placed as he was between herself and Lucy's side of the chess table, should turn so often to watch the progress of the game, and give his fair neighbour so many hints on the best way of escaping, from the difficulties into which her in- experience brought her, was not at all as she would have it. Nor yet that Lucy should appeal to his superior wisdom from time to time, and lift her bonnie innocent eyes to him with such simple yet confident appropriation of his skill to her ignorance, or say in that pretty appealing manner, " Oh ! Mr. Romilly, I am all astray again. Do tell me what to do. Mr. Limpsie is check- mating me as fast as ever he can." That was what Bertha did not like at all, and she determined it should be put a stop to at the earliest convenient opportunity ; for she feared Lucy as the strong fear the weak, whose weakness may win what their strength fails to ASTON-ROYAL. 269 conquer. And the battle was to be fought to- night between art and nature, between contriv- ance and simplicity, between the fascination which beguiles and the innocence which charms ; between beauty, backed by cleverness, intrigue, and experience, and that which has nothing but its own unconscious influence to depend up- on. Bertha determined that the battle should be her own. With a gesture of weariness and a little hall' muttered exclamation of impatience, she shook her head back, making the jet coils gleam amongst the massive wealth of her hair. Romilly turned. His bold keen look, not without a touch of tenderness in it, asked a question — asked it, perhaps, more sweetly than words, because it took for granted an under- standing established between them, which had no need of the dull medium of language. " 1 cannot help it," she said, " I know it is very rude. But this is such a stupid evening, L am so tired.'' 270 ASTON-ROYAL. That was all, was it? Romilly smiled a quite contented smile. For full ten minutes he had been watching the progress of the game between Lucy and young Mr. Bardon, without paying any attention to the lady at the other end of the couch. Bertha Dolfen's temper was an instrument upon which he could bring out almost any tones that he pleased, now, just by taking notice of her or letting her alone. " Ah !" he replied, " I see how it is ; we un- fortunate Court-house people are too slow for you. That waltz the other night at Mrs. Van Brooten's was fifty times better, was it notr Bertha's eyes flashed, and her supple figure began involuntarily to sway, as though to the time of some imaginary music. " Did you like it, then?" she said, eagerly ; " I know I did, only you English people don't know how to waltz properly, or perhaps I should say, according to your notions, improperly ; you are so dull and stupid over it. How delightful ASTON-ROYAL. 271 it was out there when we began to dance. Oh ! your Aston-Royal waltzes are like flat champagne." " I should like to dance with you, out there, then." And Roinilly's eyes, with a warm light shining in them now, looked straight into hers, so bold, and brown, and bright. " There is no- thing in the world I should enjoy just now so much as a waltz." " With Miss Thoresby for a partner, I sup- pose," replied Bertha, her quick passionate tones crystallizing into scorn ; for, even as Romilly spoke, he had turned and bent over Lucy, and guided her fingers to the piece which she ought to move. It was only for a moment, though, that he turned. " No, not with Miss Thoresby for a partner. I never danced with Miss Thoresby in my life. I don't suppose she knows anything about it." "The dear, innocent, stupid little creature! But she attends the Chemistry classes, and that 272 ASTON-ROYAL. is a thousand times better than knowing how to dance. Science is so important in the educa- tion of women, is it not, Mr. Macnorman ? It is so much better to know about carbonic acid and natural affinities, than Varsoviana, or the valse a deux temps." Romilly laughed. He liked to put Bertha into these defiant little moods of hers. " Perhaps it is possible to have a little expe- rience of affinities and repulsions without any knowledge of chemistry, Miss Dolfen," he said. " Or to apply that sort of chemistry," she added," without much acquaintance with carbonic acid gas." " We understand each other," Romilly said. And then there was exchanged between the two that subtle glance which can only be given and returned by those whose hearts have touched in more than the mere pleasantness of friend- ship. When Bertha's eyes shone in that way, Romilly felt as if he could have looked into ASTON-ROYAL. 273 them for ever, as if he could have given up any- thing and everything for her. " Check, Miss Thoresby." "Oh! Mr. Limpsie, how very ill-natured of you, and I thought I was going on as nicely as possible. Who gives check ?" " My queen." " Oh ! I see. I had really quite forgotten her. Mr. Romilly, do tell me how to take care of my- self." Romilly gave his attention to Lucy's pieces, as in duty bound ; but his glance towards Miss Dolfen first, said — " Wait for me. I will be yours again directly." u Miss Lucy, you will be checkmated if you do not take care." " Shall I really ? I know I am not a good player. But do tell me how to take care." " Move your king out of the dark queen's way. She is dangerous to you." VOL. I. T 274 ASTON-ROYAL. Was it only by chance, or did both of them mean it, that he and Bertha Dolfen smiled into each other's faces just then ? " But my king can't move out of her way," said Lucy. " The queen has been following him about on the board for the last ten minutes. She is determined to fasten him up so that he cannot escape her." *' Then I must say, Miss Lucy, that it is very unladylike of her. I do not approve of women, even if they are queens, making such persistent advances. Let me see what I can do for you. Put that little white pawn close to him — I mean to your king — and keep it there all the time. I hope Mr. Limpsie will excuse me for offering my advice." " Certainly. And I always yield victory to the ladies, if possible," said Mr. Limpsie, with one of his sweetest smiles. " Thank you. So do I, unless they are dark queens, and then they take it without waiting for it to be yielded to them. Keep the white ASTON-ROYAL. 275 pawn, Miss Lucy, between your king and the enemy's queen, and he is safe for the present. I won't answer for him, though, if you move it away." " Oh, but I will not move it away," said Lucy ; " I will keep it quite close to him. What a little piece it is to make such a difference to the game ! There, now, you audacious queen, you are not going to run away with my king, after all. Thank you, Mr. Romilly, for telling me how to take care of him." Bertha's eyes were gleaming almost savagely on the board now, and her black brows tight- ening into rugged, uneven lines ; but as Romilly turned to her again she leaned indolently back upon the couch, and recalled to her pome- granate lips their full, luxurious smile. u The king will be lost, after all," she said. " The dark queen will be sure to take him." " Perhaps," answered Romilly ; " only the game may as well be kept up a little longer. T 2 27fi ASTON-ROYAL. Poor Miss Lucy is no player. She cannot see far enough before her." " And what is a king worth when he has to be taken care of by a little white pawn?" And Bertha laughed that low, scornful laugh of hers, which seldom came out except for Lucy's benefit. Lucy did not hear it now though, for just at this juncture the elder Mr. Macnorman returned. He had been called away an hour before, and coming back found his guests placed just as he had left them — Romilly and Miss Dolfen flirting on the couch ; Lucy and Tressa's husband-elect lingering over a needlessly long game ; Martin Thoresby and Mr. Limpsie's chosen one still holding pleasant speech together in the oriel, where, the moon- light streaming in upon them through the lat- tice-work, seemed to be netting them together with silver threads. That would not do at all. Lucy Thoresby was a great deal too pretty to be given over to Mr. Limpsie for an unlimited game at chess ; ASTON-ROYAL. 277 and Martin was in anything but his right place by Tressa's side in the oriel recess. The social kaleidoscope must have a shake and its figures be re-arranged. " Mr. Limpsie, I am afraid you are tiring Miss Lucy's patience, or else she is tiring yours, in that tedious game. Suppose you try a change of skill. Here, Tressa, come and see if you can finish the game, or at any rate help Miss Lucy to finish it." " Oh ! no, please not," said Lucy, quite un- conscious of the adroit move she was spoiling, and equally content to receive whatever help she needed from Romilly. " I do want to finish it myself, or else we shall have wasted all the time. Are you very tired, Mr. Limpsie V 9 "Just as you please, Miss Thoresby." " Then let us go on." But Tressa heard the call, and came forward, obeying not so much her uncle's voice as a certain severe politeness in his manner, which made her afraid, she knew not why. Martin 278 ASTON-ROTAL. came forward, too. Mr. Macnorman engaged him in a coldly courteous conversation, and placed Tressa by Mr. Limpsie's side, to watch the progress of the game. The kaleidoscope had not been shaken so very much after all ; but the figure was better arranged now. " What a splendid moonlight night it is, Miss Dovercourt ! Would not a stroll amongst the Priory ruins be delightful?" suggested Mr. Limpsie, turning a tender glance towards the lady of his choice. " Yes, very," replied Tressa, referring only to the moonlight, not the stroll at all. "Mr. Thoresby and I were just saying what a fine prospect there would be from the top of the parapet to-night, if only we could find our way up ." "And why can't we find our way up?" said Bertha Dolfen, eagerly. "Do you mean that battlemented place at the top of the roof? It would be magnificent ! Which is the way to it?" ASTON-ROYAL. 279 " Oh ! the proper way used to be up that turret in the corner of the quadrangle — there is a winding stair ; but something fell in at the top, ever so long ago, and choked it up, and now we have to go through a long chamber in the roof, full of dust and cobwebs and owls and bats, and all sorts of things, and then through a round hole out upon the leads. Of course people can't go when they are nicely dressed ; but it is a very fine prospect. We put on our old things, and scramble out there when there are fireworks in the park gardens." " I should like to go. I must go. Mr. Ro- milly," and Bertha turned with quite a fresh style of animation in her face to Lucy's com- mander-in-chief, who was still marshalling her forces for her, " Tressa has been telling me about this wonderful prospect from the Court- house roof, and I am determined to see it. Will you be my guide? You know I have been wanting to do something desperate all the evening. You don't dance, so that I am not 280 ASTON-ROYAL. able to work off my spare energy in that way ; but I think a tour of inspection amongst those queer old gables would be almost as enliven- ing." "I am quite at your service, Miss Dolfen. Does any other lady wish to join us in a pro- menade amongst the moles and the bats 1 Miss Lucy, what do you say "?" Romilly made that suggestion on purpose to see what effect it would have upon Bertha. Her face darkened directly, and she looked scornfully at the tiny figure which was bending over the chess-board. " The way is too difficult for her. Miss Thoresby cannot climb. And, besides, she will spoil her pretty white frock.'" " So she will," said Romilly ; " and that would be a pity, for it suits her so nicely. You had better stay, after all, Miss Lucy, and finish your game." Lucy looked up. There was a touch of some- thing more than disappointment on her face. ASTON-ROYAL. 281 It had been so pleasant to have Romilly be- side her all the evening ; and now for him to be taken away, and by that awful Miss Dolfen, too. " Oh ! Mr. Romilly, I'm so sorry ! I shall be done for directly if you go." " I am not sure about it, Lucy. Take care, and you may give checkmate even yet." With that he offered his arm to Miss Dolfen, and they went away. 282 CHAPTER XVI. | TE was not sorry to be alone with her. "■ Something in Bertha's manner charmed him to-night more than he had ever been charmed before. It was not so much her ac- knowledgment of his power over her as a subtle fascination which her bold, bright beauty, touched now for the first time with a certain passion and tenderness, was exerting over him- self. He had never so yielded to her influence before. He had never felt so ready to lapse from his usual ready quickness and self-pos- session into the languid abandonment of plea- sure, without any thought of conquest or effect. She was his queen to-night, his dark, danger- ous queen, and all other outlook was fast being ASTON-ROYAL. 283 closed, save that which she opened to him. Bertha saw her advantage, gloried in it, and determined to push it to the utmost. As they passed through the warmed and lighted hall, where Martin Thoresby's opossum rug and Mr. Limpsie's paraphernalia were lying about, Romilly stayed a moment. " You will be cold. Have you no cloak, no wrap to put on ? You were complaining of the closeness of the room just now, and it is fright- fully windy in those long passages. I must take care of you, you know, and this is your first English winter." Bertha looked round. A black lace shawl of Lucy's lay near her. She snatched this up, threw it carelessly round her, forming one corner of it into a hood, after the fashion of the Spanish women. Romilly gazed upon her with undisguised admiration. Another time he might have noticed the self-consciousness which often spoiled her beauty, but now he only noticed that beauty's artistic, picturesque effect. Light- 284 ASTON-ROYAL. ing a little portable lamp, which stood on the hall table, he led the way through a long stone passage to an unused part of the house at its eastern side, then up a narrow stone stair into the roof-chamber, an immense room, stretching over the whole length of what had once been the state bedroom. It was spanned by great beams of oak, and unlighted, save by a small opening at one end, which served to admit air. Out of this opening one or two very crumbling- steps led to a narrow footway between two of the gables, and thence to the parapet over the oriel window. Bertha followed, no indolence now, no list- lessness in her manner, until at last, after an occasional pause to rest under some dusty old doorway, or to disentangle her dress from the mouldering fragments of oak carving which caught it from time to time, she stood, panting and weary, but splendidly triumphant, by Ro- milly's side, in the dim, shadow-haunted roof- chamber, out of whose vast recesses, unreached ASTON-ROYAL. 285 by a single ray from bis lamp, the ghosts of the old kings and queens might be peering out to ask these nineteenth century intruders their errand in the place. " You are tired," said Romilly, " you must rest upon me. You did not think it was such a hard climb, did you?" "Not quite." And Bertha leaned heavily upon him. That long steep stair had made her breath come and go quickly, and he could feel the beating of her heart as he held her to him in the darkness. " I am afraid it has been almost too much for you. I should have told you what a difficult way you had to come. Shall we turn back when you have rested? You know the worst is to come yet." 11 Turn back," said Bertha, " turn back when what I mean to do is half done ? Nay, never ! Unless," — and she drew herself proudly away from Romilly's side — " unless you wish to go." " I do not wish to go. I would rather take 286 ASTON-ROYAL. you on to the end, if you are able to bear it." " Then let us go. I am rested now. And the best is to come, not the worst, as you say." He took hold of her hand, for the way was both dark and dangerous now, and they groped carefully forward over the worm-eaten rafters of the roof-chamber. Their lamp scarcely served to show a track through the gloom, much less to indicate the huge beams which spanned the roof from side to side, and often brought them to a- sudden halt. . But Bertha showed herself strong of nerve. She neither started nor shrieked, when, one after another, the owls swooped down from their dusty hiding-places, and swept their downy wings across her face ; nor did she utter a sound when a false step shook the lamp from Komilly's hand, and left them standing there alone together in the silent dark. " Never mind," he said, " I won't stay to grope about for it. I know the road well enough, for ASTON-ROYAL. 287 I have often been here before. We shall turn a corner by-and-by, and have a little light from the opening which leads to the gables. You can see it shining over there, even now. Don't be afraid." " I am not afraid anywhere with you." Bertha's tones were rich and low ; and her hand just tightened for a moment upon Romilly's as she said the words. Only for a moment, yet it strengthened her hold upon him. And though Rornilly could but hear the tones and feel the touch, yet he knew how the red lips were smiling then, and the great passionate eyes flashing upon him through the gloom. And he thought no more of the oriel room and the little white figure sitting by the chess table. Bertha's larger, subtler, more sensual beauty had him under its spell now. A few steps more brought them into the streak of moonlight which poured through the opening at the end of the chamber. Rornilly dropped her hand, jumped on to the little ledge below, 288 ASTON-ROYAL. then bade her, standing on the stone framework of the window, put both her hands in his, and spring down to him, " It is quite safe. I am here to take care of you," he said, as for a moment she hesitated, looking down to assure herself of the depth. " I tell you you need not be afraid, but only come." Yet he almost wished she would linger there still. For she made such a splendid picture, bending forward from the darkness behind her into the clear white moonlight, her crimson dress gleaming upon the grey crumbling wall, her dark eyes shining with excitement, her full lips parted in a smile, half of triumph half of fear, the heavy coils of black hair lying low upon her forehead, and bringing out into rich contrast the scarlet bloom of her cheeks. What a glorious piece of earthliness she looked, set there in her warm conscious beauty upon the dim background of the ruined, ivy-bound, moon-lighted gable of the old Court house ! ASTON-ROYAL. 289 " Are you quite sure it is not dangerous ?" she said. " No," he replied passionately ; " come down to me. It is only you, you dark queen, who are dangerous. Come." She sprang down to his side. "I was almost afraid. It looked so deep. Keep hold of my hand, I do not want you to let me go." " I do not mean to let you go." He led her across the little narrow footway upon the inner side of the building, above the quadrangle, whose tall quaintly-clipped box trees showed like sentinels keeping watch and ward over the old palace ; and then round the east corner to the parapet, whence could be dis- tinctly seen in the clear cold moonlight the ruined Priory, with its solitary spectre-like column, and beyond, the black towers of Saint Leodegarius, with here and there a touch of silver upon their battlements ; and then the peaked, many-gabled, irregular masses of the old town ; and further VOL. I. U 290 ASTON-ROYAL. away still a dim, cloud-like film, which was the outline of the Aston-Vernay woods. " This is what I came for," Bertha said to her- self in murmuring undertones. " I knew that I could do it. It is very beautiful." " It is," said Romilly, thinking she meant the quaint, many century old picture upon which, from their mossy, mouldering foothold among the gables of the old palace they were looking down. But Bertha's thoughts were far enough away from that. She leaned her round white arms upon the parapet, and laid her flushed cheek upon them, her brown eyes gleaming boldly up into Romilly's face as he showed her one after another the curious buildings which still remained in the old town. But she did not even follow the finger which pointed out the direction of each; she only bent upon him that flashing, magnetic gaze, which was bringing him more and more under her influence. Ah ! little Lucy might wait down there in the oriel room, Bertha thought to her- ASTON-ROYAL. 291 self, but she might wait long enough now before Romilly returned to take care of her king for her, or to see whether that little white pawn had faithfully kept its trust. Romilly did not know how long they stood there. He only knew that it was very pleasant to have Bertha by his side. And he never ask- ed himself whether he was conquering or being conquered. So much of his nature as could be ruled by the swarthy, half savage West Indian girl, was lying quietly enough under the spell of her beauty now. " I should like to stay here always," she whispered at last. "Iara very happy." Romilly scarcely thought what he was doing, but as they stood there, so close together, he let his hand rest upon her shoulder. She took no notice of the caress at first ; then, after awhile, turned her head slightly, and just touched his fingers with her warm red lips. " You queen !" he said ; " you beautiful dark queen !" u2 292 ASTON-ROYAL. She smiled — such a smile- as Cleopatra might have given to Antony, when he gave up power, pride, manhood, everything for her splendid sake. " But you said just now that dark queens were dangerous." " And so they are." "To whom?" " To the kings." "Even when the kings have little white pawns to take care of them," said Bertha, softly. Romilly made no reply to that. Only his hand still rested on Bertha's shoulder, and still her lips turned to it with warm, velvet-like touch. His spirit had conquered her spirit, and she defied him no longer. But her gor- geous beauty, the touch of her cheek upon his hand, the dreamy lustre of the passionate eyes which were searching his face in the clear moonlight, gave her a power over him to which he had never yielded before. She was his queen now, and she knew it as she drew ASTON-ROYAL. Z\)6 nearer and nearer to him — they two alone there in the hush and stillness of that December night ; and the clasp of her fingers, which had never let go his own, grew warmer, faster, closer. Neither of them spoke. Seldom in all his life had Romilly Macnorman respected himself so little as he did just then, yet never had the passing moments seemed so rich, so beautiful ; never had he so wished to stay their going, to hold back the joy which they were taking from him. Never had it seemed so easy to forget everything, to be false to every one, save this haughty, indolent, defiant, yet so luring and fascinating creature, whose slave it were better to be than lord and ruler of himself. Better % \ Was it indeed better % Just below where they stood hand in hand, her face almost resting on his shoulder, was the oriel window of the room which an hour ago they had left. It was uncurtained still, as when Martin and Tressa lingered within it, 294 ASTON-ROYAL. listening to the Christmas eve chimes from the belfry tower. But Martin and Tressa were not there now — only Lucy Thoresby, her slight figure distinctly seen in the glow of lamplight which poured out from the room. White-robed, her hands listlessly folded, her fair hair flowing over her shoulders, she looked like one of the saints in the Abbey windows. As quiet and motionless, too, for she seemed to be in a reverie as she stood there, with her forehead pressed against the framework of the lattice, and a wistful, weary look upon her face. Lucy, gentle, bright, and patient, so far off from him in her goodness, so near him in the love which touched, though it could not rule, his stronger, more worldly nature. Lucy, who crept into his thoughts sometimes, and lay there, pure, still, silent, as now the moonbeams lay upon those mouldering, weather-worn Priory ruins, turning their very decay into beauty ; whose love, so simple, and yet so true, seemed oftentimes the only fair and gracious ASTON-ROYAL. 295 thing in his life ; who, though she could never content him, never fulfil the measure of his requirements, or be queen over all of him that owned a woman's power, did yet stir within him those dim, half-sleeping desires after a better life, which Bertha, in her superb earthli- ness, could but lull into securer rest. To this quiet little girl who claimed nothing from him, he now for the first time, sadly, almost sorrow- fully, felt that he could give much. She, and not this splendid woman at his side, gave him the key to his better self. Bertha would lead him into a paradise whose beauty was of the earth, earthy. With Lucy at his side, he might rise to something worthier than that, if not so bright. Beneath Lucy's pretty, playful, un- conscious ways, there lay a true woman's heart, pure, faithful, stedfast. Something in the gleam of Bertha's eyes, something in the warm quivering clasp of her soft hands, some- thing in the bold luring brightness of her smile, told him that her splendour was that of 29() ASTON-ROYAL. the jungle flower, whose roots go down into moist, marshy rottenness, beneath whose gor- geous coronal of bloom the slimy, noisome ser- pent creeps. And as a man breaking open some luscious fruit, and finding a worm within, casts it from him with more disgust for that its outward seeming is so fair, Romilly, knowing Bertha Dolfen now for what she was, turned from her with a repulsion which the very warmth of her siren beauty heightened. The sight of that little white-robed figure in the oriel window, turned the pivot of resolve ; her gentle purity made him master of himself. Once more the seldom touched door in his heart which led towards truth and goodness was opened, and the hand which opened it was the hand of Lucy Thoresby. " Miss Dolfen, I think you ought not to stay out here in the cold any longer." It seemed to Romilly as if he had been stand- ing at her side for hours, almost for a whole ASTON-ROYAL. 297 night; and yet it was scarce ten minutes, since, bending over the parapet, he had first caught sight of that stream of lamp-light pouring out from the oriel window below, and Lucy standing in its track. Bertha, as if wakening out of a dream, drew herself slowly from him. " I did not know we had been here so very long. Must we go ? I told you I could stay here always. I forgot, though, you must go and take care of Miss Thoresby's king for her." " Oh, no !" said Romilly carelessly. " The king can take care of himself, now. But the game is either lost or Avon long before this. We must have been here nearly an hour." " Must have been ! Has the time seemed so long to you, then, that you say must have been ?" " No, I did not mean that. The last part of it was very beautiful." Romilly, as he said so, thought of the little white figure in the oriel window. Bertha thought only of the moments in which she had lingered so near him, and felt him all her own. 298 ASTON-ROYAL. He led her back again to the low stone arch- way, by which they were to gain access to the roof chamber. He went through first. " Stay," he said, as Bertha was preparing to follow hira. " You will find it more diificnlt to come out of the moonlight into the gloom than you did a little while ago to spring from the gloom into the moonlight." " Do you mean," she replied, with a touch of the old raillery in her voice, " that to come where you are is corning into the gloom?" " Perhaps I do. At any rate, you must be careful. The lamp dropped out of my hand somewhere about here, as we were coming, and we had nothing but your eyes for a light all the rest of the way. If you wait a moment I will strike a fusee and look for it.'' " Are not my eyes as bright as ever ?" said Bertha; " but do not hurry. I can wait. Those people down below can do without us, I sup- pose." After groping about for a few minutes, Rom- ASTON-ROYAL. 299 illy found the lamp, lighted it, and then came back, holding it up that Bertha might see where to place her foot on the stone coping and spring closer to him. With the easy, supple grace of a wild animal, and with perhaps a little more confident daring, because he had cautioned her to be careful, she poised herself upon the crumb- ling ledge and prepared to spring. Romilly, pre-occupied with his own thoughts, which took him far away from Bertha now, did not notice that she was waiting for him to help her. " I cannot come down by myself," she said petulantly. "You must come to me." Her voice roused him. Having once broken away from that siren-like bondage in which her looks and her touch and her beauty had for a little while bound him, Romilly was himself again, assured, confident, self-possessed, ready to give back jest for jest, ready to meet her on the old ground of badinage and repartee ; ready to sharpen his wit upon hers, and amuse him- self with her fitful, restless ways ; but never 300 ASTON-ROYAL. again ready to own her power, or stoop his man- hood to its yoke. " Take my hand," said Bertha, bending slight- ly to reach it to him, that he might help her. "That," he replied, with cool, easy nonchal- ance, "is not an offer which comes gracefully from the lips of a lady." Bertha did not at once detect the change in his tone. Dreaming on still herself, she failed to perceive that for him the dream was broken. She only knew that he had found a meaning in her words deeper than she had intended, though not deeper than her passionate heart would give. With deep music in her voice, and scarlet-ripe sweetness in her smile, she murmured, her hand still reached out to him, her eyes still searching his with lustrous brightness, " Yet if I am willing to give it ?" Romilly flashed the lamp up between their two faces. There was no gleam of passion now, nor tenderness, in his own, nor even the ASTON-ROYAL. 301 playful ring of satire in his tones, as he made reply— " I should say, even then, that such a gift is worthless, being unasked." For a single moment she stood there, very, very still. For one moment more a fierce light- ning storm of fury blazed across her face, and died out, leaving the scarlet lips drawn back in hard unlovely lines from the clenched white teeth. Then the light all went away from her eyes, and the soft warm glow from her cheeks. Slowly her lithe form strained itself into the rigidity, almost the coldness, of marble. It was no longer a living, breathing, passionate woman, but a figure carved in stone, that stood crimson-robed and gleaming in the moon- light. " Go on, Mr. Macnorman," she said, after a little pause, during which they had looked into each other's faces, and read what was there to read. " Go on. I will follow you." He led the way with head not very proudly 302 ASTON-ROYAL. raised now. And lie held the lamp so that as much of its light as possible might fall on her, not on himself. " Will you allow me to help you over these rafters V he said, almost humbly. " You can go on," she replied, without an- swering his question, or raising her eyes to him. " I will follow." So they went on in silence. Romilly could not know — no man could — the maddening storm of anger and hatred in her heart. He only knew that he had been very much to blame, and that in consequence he had been obliged to speak to this proud, imperious woman words which no man, with a spark of chivalry in him, could speak without feeling a sting almost as bitter as that which he gave. Without ever a word, they passed through the long dark chamber, and down stair after stair, and corridor after corridor, until they came to the hall again. " Have the goodness, Mr. Macnorman, to tell ASTON-ROYAL. 303 Miss Dovercourt that I wait to speak with her in her room." " I will do so." And with that they parted. Words so cold, so ceremonious, had never passed between them since, as strangers, half a year ago, they met for the first time in Mrs. Van Brooten's drawing- room. Tressa came, in obedience to her cousin's mes- sage. Miss Dolfen excused herself from re- appearing, in consequence of the dust which her dress had gathered in passing along the seldom- used stone passages. She desired that a cab might be sent for, and then, apologizing for de- taining Miss Dovercourt so long from her other guests, bade her good night, and drove away, somewhat earlier, perhaps, than she would have done had that downward journey from the parapet been accomplished in a pleasanter fashion. She ordered the man to draw up his cab at a back entrance to Aston Lodge, close to the 304 ASTON-ROYAL. servants' part of the house. The Van Brootens were having a large party — carriages were driving to and fro. No one took any notice of her, or even saw her come in. After waiting there for about half an hour, the cabman drove away again. Next morning Master Reginald and Master Leopold waited rather longer than usual for Miss Dolfen to ask a blessing on their bread and milk. They always had bread and milk for breakfast, and Mrs. Van Brooten, who was a strict church-woman, expected that Miss Dolfen should perform the ceremony of blessing it. When the little lads were tired of meditating upon their unconsecrated breakfast, they ap- pealed to their mamma, who sent a messenger to Miss Dolfen's room to inquire into the cause of her non-appearance. The room was unoccupied, and in disorder, some of the drawers half open, the furniture disarranged. On the dressing-table lay a note, addressed to Mrs. Van Brooten, informing that ASTON-ROYAL. 305 lady that Miss Dolfen had given up her situa- tion, and was now on her way to London, from which place she should take the next vessel to Cuba, and rejoin her friends there. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. LONDON : PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOl'SK. ;/