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A WANDERING STAR.
A WANDERING STAR
BY
Lady FAIRLIE CUNINGHAME
AUTHOR OF
"THE SLAVE OF HIS WILL," ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
HonDcm
WARD AND DOWNEY
12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1892
LONDON
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
70 TO 76, LONG ACRE, VV.C.
¥£3
F ILw
A WANDERING STAR.
CHAPTER I,
^
" He telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them
all by their names."
" Encore deux billets .... ste-el two
teeckets," shouts the pale-faced croupier of
the petits chevaux table, which to-night is
drawing greater crowds than ever into the
great domed hall of the casino at Dieppe.
The croupier has been shouting himself
hoarse the whole evening ; the Japanese
bowl, with the green or blue tickets stuck
| into its notched rim, has been handed to
every one within the range of his long arm ;
; the little horses, marshalled in a row, seem in
a hurry to be off; the crowd are standing
three deep round the strong iron railings that
VOL. I. B
4
2 A WANDERING STAR.
enclose the croupier and his miniature race-
course ; and five-franc pieces are handed
across people's shoulders, and over the flower-
decked bonnets of a few fat Frenchwomen,
who, in spite of the stifling heat, sit the whole
evening closely wedged together, below the
level of those who stand around.
An altercation takes place from time to
time, about the money that is staked.
If the Republican Eagle does not flap his
wings on these five-franc pieces, and if his
counterfeit is replaced by the arms of Mexico,
then is the cart-wheel politely returned, and
a war of words is the result.
Whizz ! — the horses go round ! — the fat
Frenchwomen feel that their fortunes are at
stake, and with strained eyes follow the
gyrations of the grts, the noir> the alezan,
or whichever horse they have drawn in
the lottery.
Two or three turns round the table, and
then the gallop ends in a walk ; No. i and
No. 5 seem to be making a dead heat of it ;
shrieks come from the holders of those num-
bers ; careful measurements with a string are
A WANDERING STAR. 3
taken by the croupier, and then, without
even a glance at the owner of No. i, who is
appealing to all the gods for aid, he places
eight of the clumsy pieces into the skinny
hand of a terrible old hag, who has got a pile
of similar coins before her on the railing.
The heat is African, the odours unspeak-
able, and seem composed of equal parts of
gas, paraffine, and patcheouli — the company
could not be more mixed ! A band of smart
young men in evening clothes, and light
overcoats, who answer to the proudest and
best known names in France, have come
over from Trouville for the races, and repre-
sent " le sporting" ; in other words, all that is
most chic. Beside them, a party of Dieppe
shopkeepers sit at their ease on one of the
crimson velvet sofas that line the walls.
Respectable country people, from many a
Norman gentilhommerie, have driven in for a
gay evening at the casino, in the one week
in the year that Dieppe is en fete.
Members of la haute cocotterie walk round
the tables, generally two together, and arm-
in-arm ; their clothes strike awe into the
B 2
4 A WANDERING STAR.
stoutest heart, the pearls or diamonds in their
ears are of fabulous size, and the priceless
Valenciennes lace that ed^es their skirts and
petticoats, sweeps the dust and dirt of the
casino floor.
The English colony at Dieppe hang a
good deal together, and form a little society of
their own ; but Russians, Germans, Rouma-
nians, Bulgarians, are more cosmopolitan,
and are all represented here.
Every one talks a different language ; it is
the Tower of Babel over again.
Outside, on the terrace, a light breeze blows,
a thousand stars are shining, small waves
break gently on the shingly beach, and in
the intense stillness one hears the wash of
the waters, that suck back the smooth pebbles
as the tide falls.
But there is no one to mark the beauty of
the night — the world in general prefers the
crowd, noise, and vulgarity inside.
Among the throng we have not yet noticed
a party of good-looking people who stand
somewhat aloof from the table, and from
those who surround it, though one of the
A WANDERING STAR. 5
men of the party now and then joins in the
crowd, and wins or loses many five-franc
pieces.
There is no doubt of their nationality.
English is written in every line of face,
figure, dress, and general appearance.
Truth to say, we do not think they are the
worse for it !
The two good-looking men in blue serge,
and the two pretty women who wear the same
useful material, hold their own here without
much trouble. To be sure, the enormous
erections of ribbons and feathers, and the
hats enwreathed with flowers, that crown
the French female head make the English-
women's sailor hats, whose only adornment is
the Squadron burgee, painted on the white
ribbon, look noticeably plain, but their sim-
plicity is a positive relief to the eye, and
very handsome are the faces that they shade.
The elder of the two, the one with the
dark hair, flashing eyes, and brilliant colour-
ing, is Lady Julia Darner, a very fashionable
lady indeed, and wife of the tall, good-look-
ing man who is staking his five-franc pieces
6 A WANDERING STAR.
at the tables. He is the owner of the
schooner yacht Gitana, R.Y.S., at present
lying inside the basin in Dieppe harbour.
Her companion, without being quite a foil
to her, is decidedly not a rival, for Lady
Julia is an acknowledged beauty, and Cissy
Grahame is only a moderately pretty, very
smart little girl, who looks well everywhere,
never is out of place anywhere, and is the
chosen companion of many pretty fast
married women, without being particularly
fast herself, for she knows when to efface
herself, and when to come to the front, and
reaps a good many advantages from her
different friendships.
Brian Beresford, the fourth of the party, is
the very type of a well-looking, well-mannered,
and well-born young Englishman. He is a
great friend of Colonel Darner's, and a still
greater friend of Lady Julia's ! It is her
Ladyship's habit always to have an adorer,
but as a rule their adoration is rather a one-
sided affair. She is not so indifferent this
time — she never does things by halves ; and
certainly, if exaction and jealousy are signs
A WANDERING STAR. 7
of the master passion, then she is indeed in
love with handsome Brian Beresford. She
is even capable of being jealous of Cissy
Grahame, who is incapable of giving her the
least provocation, and she is annoyed, in spite
of her own sense of the absurdity of it, every
time he looks at the pretty, or noticeable, or
outrageously dressed women, who pass and
repass before them.
" Look at that girl, standing near the
door," says Brian suddenly to Colonel
Darner, as the latter returns from one of his
fruitless expeditions to the tables, where the
little horses gallop round manfully, where the
croupier, and an old Frenchwoman, in a
large red hat, are shrieking against each
other, and where he has left two or three more
of his stock of five-franc pieces. " Tell me,
did you ever see a more beautiful face ? I
don't think she can be anything but English,"
Colonel Darner's eyes followed the direc-
tion in which Brian is looking.
" That girl over there, in the blue frock, do
you mean ? Upon my word, she is worth
looking at," says the Colonel.
8 A WANDERING STAR.
" She and that old man have been stand-
ing there ever since we came here," con-
tinues Brian; "and he has never taken his
eyes off the table, except to write down
something on a piece of paper — some sort
of calculation, I expect, though surely no one
could be lunatic enough to have a system at
petits chevaux. After no end of writing, he
suddenly took five francs out of his pocket,,
and put it into the girl's hand. She seemed
to know exactly what to do, for she dashed
into the crowd, got a ticket from that
scoundrelly-looking croupier, and went back
to her father. I wish you had seen their
faces when the right number was shouted
and she went to claim the stakes ! Joy is
not the word for it, though the old man didn't
look the least surprised. He seemed as if
he had expected it all along. Look at them
now. I believe they're going to do it again.""
As he speaks, the old man hurriedly puts
into the girl's hand two more large pieces ;
she once more mingles with the crowd, and,
either because she is so slim and slight, or
by reason of her firm resolve to reach the
A WANDERING STAR. 9
goal, she makes her way right into the front
rank, and is near enough to drop her pieces
into the Japanese bowl, and to receive in
exchange two blue tickets. The old French-
woman in the red hat is not yet appeased,
and as she sits there, flushed and panting,
her trembling hands are raised to the ceiling
as she calls down maledictions on the pale-
faced, hook-nosed Israelite, who she declares
has cheated her.
The girl is wedged in among the crowd
behind her, and her fair face looks fairer than
ever by reason of the contrast.
It is a face that once seen might haunt a
man for many a long day. The colouring is
so lovely, the golden hair falls in such
pretty curls on the low forehead, the small
head is so wonderfully well set on the
slender neck, and, above all, there is such a
look of "race ' in the girl's face and bearing
that she seems curiously out of place, alone,
in a noisy crowd, in a second-rate casino.
Her eyes are fixed on the little horses as
eagerly as those of the ancient Jezebel who
sits near her, her slim body bends over the
IO A WANDERING STAR.
railings as if she could incite the grey horse
to further exertions, her eyes shine like
stars, and her lovely colour comes and
goes.
On gallop the horses. Now they slow —
slower and slower — and finally the grey
horse is passed — -just passed by the black !
" Numero 2 gagne," shouts the croupier ;
— the girl and the owner of the red hat are
both plunged in the depths of woe, and the
girl, with drooping head and sad eyes, slips
out of the hurly-burly, and goes to rejoin her
father near the door.
"Who, in the name of wonder, is that
man ? ' says Colonel Darner, thoughtfully.
" I have seen him before — I have known
him — of that I am perfectly certain — but
where is the question. Strangely enough,
I seem to know the girl's face too ; but that,
I suppose, is quite impossible. I have it,"
says he at last, in great excitement, turning
to his wife. " Julia, do you know who
those are who are standing there ? That
is Ralph Fitzpatrick, and the girl who is
with him is poor Lady Mary's daughter!
A WANDERING STAR. I I
Can't you see it all ? She's as like all the
Vivians as she can be — that lovely hair, and
all the rest of it, only that little waif and
stray is the best-looking of the whole lot.
Fancy running across them here ! He has
been dead — practically dead — for more than
twenty years. I wouldn't have felt more
surprised if he had really risen from the
grave. Of all the downfalls I ever heard,
Brian, there never was a downfall so sudden
as his. He disappeared in one day. I
daresay you are not old enough to have
heard anything about it, and I forget the
exact particulars. All I remember is that
foul play at cards was proved against him
beyond the shadow of a doubt, and from
that day he was done for. He was one of the
smartest and best-looking men in London —
tolerably popular too. He had married Lady
Mary Vivian, as nice and as pretty a girl as
ever stepped. I knew her well, for the
Vivians are cousins of my own. He had
the ball at his feet, if you like — hard-up now
and then, I dare say, but not more so than
some of the rest of us ; but he was always
12 A WANDERING STAR.
full of plans and schemes, and this last
scheme of his to corriger la fortune by
the Polish trick at ecarte was a fatal one.
Lady Mary stuck to him in spite of the
Vivians ; we saw her death in the papers
not long after he went under, but I had
forgotten there was a child. As for him,
I haven't set eyes on him for twenty years,
and have hardly heard his name mentioned.
One thing, however, I am quite sure of —
that Ralph Fitzpatrick is standing there."
Brian listens with the most intense — the
most eager interest.
" Don't you mean to speak to him,
Darner ? That unfortunate fellow has seen
you, and recognized you. I saw his expres-
sion change a minute ago when he looked
this way. It is an old story now, and if that
girl's mother was a relation of your own, it
seems a shame to take no notice of her
child."
" Shall I?' says Colonel Darner, doubt-
fully. " I mustn't ask her Ladyship's advice
then — she would put her veto on it at once ;
but it would be a shame to see Mary Vivian's
A WANDERING STAR. 1 3
daughter, and to cut her dead. Poor things !
I expect they're in low water too, and I
might be of some use to them — anyhow, it
could do us no harm."
" You're too late this time," says Brian
grimly.
A crowd had surged through the great
swing doors, close to which father and
daughter had stood the whole evening, and
the stream, as it passed, had carried them
away in its tide.
The tall man, with stooping shoulders
and miserable face, and the slim girl, in
her faded cotton, had gone out into the
night.
" Nothing to be done but to get back to
the yacht now," says Colonel Darner, ''and
we must find out Fitzpatrick to-morrow,
Brian. You needn't say anything about it
to my lady, though."
Colonel Darner's worst enemies, if he has
any, never impeached his bravery ! Never-
theless Lady Julia's black eyes have a very
subduing effect on him. It is a curious fact,
and one of which her husband is well aware,
14 A WANDERING STAR.
that she is nearly always right, and always
has her own way.
" I have found out where Fitzpatrick
lives," says Colonel Darner to Brian, as the
two smoke on deck, after luncheon, the next
day.
The awning is up — a necessary precau-
tion — for the sun is burning, and the quay,
alongside which the Gitana is moored, is
lined with blue blouses, and market-women
in high white caps and sabots, who halt on
their journey from Le Pollet to the fish-
market, to discuss the " yack ' and its
owners in broad Norman French.
Brian and the ladies have wandered about
the town all morning. They have stood
under the Gothic aisles and heard the organ
play in St. Jacques — they have stept from
its arched portals to the brightness and
colour of the Place du Ouesne on a market-
day — have bought flowers and fruit from old
women in bonnets blancs, sitting under the
shade of huge red umbrellas — and have
shopped in the Grande Rue, also full of life
and colour, but whose shops, full of ivory, are
A WANDERING STAR. 1 5
somewhat fly-blown and dusty, and whose
last new Paris fashions are not so very new
after all. Then past the fountain of the Rue
de la Barre, and through the cool church
of St. Remi — dark even on the brightest
summer day — till they reach the casino, to
look on the waves that sparkle in the lovely
sunshine, and to see the shingly beach
crowded with bathers and idlers of all sorts.
Lady Julia feels tolerably happy, for
Brian seems more devoted than ever, and
Miss Grahame effaces herself, and reads a
"Tauchnitz" in a shady corner.
A cool, delightful luncheon to go back to
is not the worst part of the morning's work ;
and cigars and coffee on deck, while the
ladies are below reading novels, suits the
two men exactly.
Colonel Darner goes on talking. "I am
glad I have found out about Fitzpatrick,
for I expect he, or, at any rate, that lovely
girl of his, are a good deal in need of
a helping hand. It seems they have lived
here for the last fifteen years or so. If he
had committed murder, I couldn't for the life
1 6 A WANDERING STAR.
of me help feeling for the poor fellow.
Fancy this place in winter, when the hotels
and best houses and shops are shut up, and
a northerly gale is blowing! It seems they
can't even stay here in summer, they are so
frightfully hard-up. They go to a village
called Arques, about four miles from here,
and live there among the peasants — as poorly
as the peasants themselves, I expect. I'll tell
you what I think of doing, Brian. When you
and my Lady go to the casino this afternoon
I shall charter one of those rattletrap pony
carriages and drive there. He can't do me
much harm at this time of day, and I want
to see if I can be of use to poor Mary's
daughter in any way."
" You are a good fellow, Darner," returns
Brian ; " you couldn't do anything better, and
I will look after the ladies while you are
away."
A long, uninteresting, dusty road leads to
Arques. To an artist or student of history,
its old castle, that stands on a height against
the sky-line, is well worth a visit, and the
church, which seems a good many sizes too
A WANDERING STAR. I J
large for the village, is a fine specimen of
Gothic architecture.
But neither castle, nor church, nor the
beauties of the forest close by, have brought
Colonel Darner out here.
He is listening to a man who has not
spoken to an equal for twenty years, and
whose feelings are not very well under his
own control. The two are sitting in the low,
dark-pannelled room of the " Chariot d'or " ;
coffee and liqueurs are on the table between
them, but they are untouched.
" Know you ? ' Ralph Fitzpatrick is say-
ing, — "why, you are hardly changed at all !
Between twenty and forty there must be
always a gulf fixed, but you are practically
the same. What do a few grey hairs matter ?
Your eye, your look, your whole expression,
are just what they were when I left the world.
For I died twenty years ago, Darner ; there
is no blinking that fact. It is strange to look
back on it, is it not ? Think of the Ralph
Fitzpatrick of those days ! without a care in
the world, except that there wasn't enough
money going, and one night — one night — put
vol. i. c
1 8 A WANDERING STAR.
«
an end to it all. I cut my own throat ; but
how suddenly it all happened ! I can feel the
temptation as if it was yesterday. I was
playing for hundreds at the 'Arlington' ; I,
who seldom had a spare ten-pound note — and
losing — I wouldn't stop, and I couldn't pay.
The devil himself reminded me of a trick that
some kind friend had taught me, half in fun,
once, in Paris — the Polish trick, they called
it there — it was imagined to defy detection ;
I tried it — my hand shook — I did it badly,
and I was lost. I wonder what would have
happened had they not found me out ? If I
had been less clumsy, would I have held up
my head among you all till now, or must I
have fallen some other way ? I remember
little of what immediately followed — a death-
blow doesn't really hurt much, and the
power of feeling didn't return for a long
time. We came over here. Mary, poor
Mary ! wouldn't leave me ; but I didn't care
much at the time if she did or not. That
first winter, without a soul to speak to,
nothing to do but to eat, and sleep, and
keep oneself alive, was indescribable. I am
A WANDERING STAR. 1 9
accustomed to it now, but it was different
then. Mary bore that part of it bravely ;
the thing that killed her was when summer
came, and we now and then met people we
had known before. How well I remember
seeing her face change one afternoon as we
were sitting listening to the band at the
casino ! Some people passed us whom she
had known pretty well at her old home-^
passed without a glance in our direction,
though they knew we were there. I saw her
face grow ghastly pale. Poor Mary ! she
had never been cut before, and before she
grew accustomed to it she was dead. For
me, I can hardly now recall the time when
people didn't look the other way. I must
say I don't give them much chance. I
spend the whole winter at Dieppe, and play
picquet for centime points, with grocers and
shopkeepers, at their little club. I play
honestly there, I give you my word, Darner,"
he says, bitterly. "After all, some of my
present associates are as good company as
many an English duke or peer, and perhaps
better bred and better mannered than one
c 2
20 A WANDERING STAR.
or two Royal Highnesses who were rather
partial to my society in old times. There is
only a fictitious difference in people after
all."
" And your child," asks Colonel Darner, —
"that lovely girl we saw with you ? — this life
is hard, indeed, on her. Do none of Mary's
relations take any notice of her ? '
" None of them," says Fitzpatrick, hope-
lessly; "while Mary was alive we had plenty
of money ; the Vivians wouldn't let one of
their own want. But since she died her
child is utterly ignored. A little money was
bound to come to Vega through her mother
— about as much as you pay your French
cook, Darner ! — and on that pittance she and
I just keep body and soul together. But it's
all a matter of comparison, as I said before.
I am happy now-a-days when I can pay for
a gloria after my coffee, or win an unex-
pected franc or two from my grocer friends
at picquet. As for Vega, it is only now and
then that I realize what a life hers is ; I
recollect, sometimes, how the girls of her
class were cared for, and guarded ; she has
A WANDERING STAR. 21
had to drag herself up anyhow — que votdez
vous ? — no money, no friends, no position — ■
one of the enfants perdus of this world ; and
yet, when I look at her, Damer, I believe
she could hold her own anywhere."
" Hold her own!" repeats Colonel Damer,
" she has the most perfectly beautiful face I
ever saw, and I am not apt to be carried
away by enthusiasm. She has Mary's charm-
ing expression, but she is far lovelier.
Where is she, Fitzpatrick? I should like
immensely to see her."
"She is in~the garden, I dare say;" and
her father rises listlessly and leads the way
to the untidy, neglected garden, where vege-
tables, flowers, and kitchen herbs grow in
unpicturesque confusion, and where two or
three dilapidated arbours, covered with
straggling vines, have been built for those
patrons of the " Chariot d'or," who like to
drink their " bocks " and smoke their villan-
ous tobacco in the open air.
In one of these arbours they find Vega.
The surroundings may be poor, but, after
all, the vine-leaves make a perfect back-
2 2 A WANDERING STAR.
ground for the beautiful little head. Colonel
Damer thinks her lovelier far than when she
staked and lost her money at the casino.
He sits down beside her. He is more than
double her age, but even at forty, though
the mind of twenty can hardly grasp the
idea, a man can still have some feelings left !
He finds her not only lovely, but sweet and
charming ; and he stays on and on, double
the time he had at first intended.
His first words to Brian, however, when
he gets back to the yacht, and the two are
once more smoking on deck, are by no
means suggestive of a mind at ease.
" I am in a terrible fix," says the Colonel,
who, it must be acknowledged, is not only
kind-hearted, but utterly weak whenever a
pretty face is concerned. M I don't know
what on earth to do, Brian ; you must see
me through it, somehow. Any man would
have done the same. I was so delighted
with that lovely child to-day that before I
knew where I was I had asked her to come
on board to-morrow ! I told her father we
would take her with us on our cruise, and
A WANDERING STAR. 23
we would bring her back to Dieppe in two
or three weeks. He seemed indifferent, and
agreed as if it was the most natural thing
in the world ; but I wish you had seen her
face ! she looked positively transfigured.
After all she is my cousin ; why shouldn't I
ask her on board if I choose ? But the
question is, who is to break it to Lady Julia ?
Couldn't you mention it in a casual sort of
way at dinner, Brian, like a good fellow ?'
Brian knows the high temper of his liege
lady, and doesn't see it in that light at all.
" My dear Darner," says he, " I cant
interfere about your guests. Lady Julia
would shut me up uncommonly quickly.
No, no ! you have done a good action, and
must take the consequences! — but here
comes your wife on deck ; why not tell
her now, and I will help you as much as I
can:
Lady Julia comes up the companion as he
speaks ; she looks radiant. Brian has never
left her side the whole day, and she has
had the field entirely to herself, for Miss
Grahame is a mere dummy. A crumpled
24 A WANDERING STAR.
roseleaf can upset her Ladyship's equanimity,
but to-day there has not been a drawback.
A charming costume — white serge ; but
white serge glorified with bands of gold em-
broidery, and a waistcoat one mass of gold,
suits her fine figure to perfection ; she is
looking her very best, and she knows it.
" Now or never," whispers Brian to the
Colonel, whom in his heart of hearts he
infinitely prefers to the lady who considers
him her especial property.
Brian is crafty. A lovely spray of Mar-
shal Niels have been arranged for him by
the flower-girl at the casino gates. He has
gone himself to fetch it ; he now begs Lady
Julia to wear it. He puts a good deal of
feeling into his voice, and he insists on
arranging the roses himself on the beauti-
ful shoulder. The attention pleases her, the
contact of her lover's fingers soothe her, and
she has even a smile for her husband !
" My dear Julia," begins the Colonel, " I
have seen Fitzpatrick and his daughter to-
day. Poor little girl, she must have an awful
life of it ! As she is a cousin of my own,
A WANDERING STAR. 25
don't you think you could take a little notice
of her ? "
"In what way ? " says " my dear Julia,"
firmly ; she scents the battle from afar, and
is ready for it.
" Well," answers the Colonel nervously,
<l we can't do anything for her here — besides,
we sail to-morrow. She looks rather delicate
(a pious fiction of the Colonel's), and would
be much the better for a little change.
What do you say to our asking her on board
for a few days ? "
"And be hampered with a bread-and-
butter miss ! a girl who might have dropped
from the clouds, for anything we know about
her. Well, that is asking a little too much ! '
and her insulted Ladyship looks an inch or
two taller, and her eye flashes at the unheard-
of insult.
"Why not, Lady Julia," says Brian in her
ear, "if it would amuse the Colonel? It
would be a capital plan, and I should have £
chance of having you to myself now and
then, which I don't often succeed in doing,
now-a-days."
26 A WANDERING STAR.
Her Ladyship looks at him keenly ; she
has no great belief in man — not even in
Brian — but surely he looks too innocent to
be in collusion with her husband ! How-
ever, she is mollified, in spite of herself.
" I must say you never think of other
people, Reginald," she says, severely. " A
strange girl on board will be a frightful tax
on me ; and if she is a cousin, they are not
relations to be very proud of. Well, all I
bargain for is, that the visit will not last
more than a few days, at the outside. How
Pinman will grumble at having another girl
to wait on ! It was as much as I could do to
get her to look after Cissy."
" You may relieve Pinman's mind at once,"
says Colonel Darner, half sadly ; " she hasn't
had much waiting on all her life so far, poor
little thing, and she is so sweet and charming,
I should think she would mollify even the
ereat Pinman herself."
"So like a man," returns his wife scorn-
fully, " always caught by a pretty face ! Well,
as you have settled that quite to your own
satisfaction, and shown me your usual want
A WANDERING STAR. 2J
of consideration, I suppose we may as well
go below to dinner. What is that you say,
Brian ? "
Whatever Brian whispers in her ear, it
seems to please her, for her Ladyship is
radiant all dinner, does not refer to their new
guest at all, and the Colonel thinks himself
uncommonly lucky to have got off so
cheaply.
28 A WANDERING STAR.
CHAPTER II.
" A fair wind to your ship, and the storms aye ten miles
to leeward o' her ! "
Brilliant sunshine — a flat calm — the
pleasant land of France lying like a blue
cloud along the horizon, and the Gitana,
with idly flapping sails, drifting with the tide,
and rolling just enough to give Lady Julia,
who is an indifferent sailor, some real cause
for complaint.
The good yacht left Dieppe the night
before, but the light breeze that they hoped
might strengthen by the morning, has died
away, and they can neither get backwards nor
forwards.
The air is warm, balmy, almost perfumed,
and for those who wish to rest, or love to do
nothing, what can be pleasanter than to lie
at ease on a white deck, more asleep than
awake ? Colonel Darner is one of these
A WANDERING STAR. 2 9
contented souls ; surely nature has intended
him for a yachtsman !
The easy-going, restful, unexciting life
suits him to a turn. Lady Julia, sulky and
blooming, and never satisfied anywhere, is,
on the contrary, in what our neighbours
would call une humeur massacrante.
She lies on deck on a pile of cushions ; a
book is in her hand, but she seldom looks at
it ; the steward brings her grapes and green
figs, but they lie untouched on the deck ; the
great Pinman is up and down the companion
a dozen times, now with a gauze veil, now
with some lace for my Lady's fair throat, now
to re-arrange pillows, that it seems impossible
to place rightly.
Her husband bears the brunt of her
reproaches, and is held personally account-
able for the want of wind ; but her real
grievance is that Brian has dared to leave
her side, or her feet, or wherever he is wont
to be found, and devotes himself to this new
girl — this "mere waif and stray," as Lady
Julia calls her. " Under my very eyes too ! "
muses her Ladyship, as she watches Vega
30 A WANDERING STAR.
Fitzpatrick flitting about the deck, followed
either by Brians admiring eyes, or by Brian's
delighted person.
The girl is in the seventh heaven of
happiness, and she half fears she must wake
and find it a dream. By what merit of her
own has she been promoted from the dusty
roads round Arques — the dilapidated arbours
of the " Chariot d'or " garden — the company
of a broken-down man, who hardly cares if
she is alive or dead ?
Her feet seem hardly to tread the white
decks. The cabins below look like fairy
land. If the strongest breezes that ever sent
the Gitana eight knots an hour through the
green waters blow their hardest, or if they
are becalmed for a week, it is all one to her.
Is she really Vega Fitzpatrick, who wan-
dered alone in the Arques fields three days
ago ? Is it in heaven, or on earth, that the
" Garden of Sleep' is being strummed on
an indifferently-tuned banjo ? And have
Brian's blue eyes and his merry face their
match on earth ?
11 I never saw anything so disgraceful as
A WANDERING STAR. 3 1
the way that girl runs after Brian," says
Lady Julia to her ante damne'e, as she and
Miss Grahame watch Vega, with Brian in
close attendance.
Lady Julia has flirted steadily, and with
malice prepense, for the last dozen years ;
indeed, from her very cradle the admiration
of man has been to her as the breath of her
nostrils.
" She talks, and laughs, and is as much at
home with him as if he were her grand-
father. He positively can't get away from
her. But what can one expect from a girl
brought up anyhow abroad ? And look at
Reginald, showing her the sky, or the sea,
or I don't know what ! He is quite infat-
uated too. Reginald, of all people ! " and
Lady Julia laughs scornfully.
Cissy Grahame does not say much — she
knows better. Half her success in life is
due to her letting other people talk, and the
other half to never repeating what they say.
She is bavarde, mats cachottiere, with a
vengeance !
" How differently a well-bred English girl
32 A WANDERING STAR.
would behave ! " continues Lady Julia. " I
like a girl with some repose — some natural
dignity. Time enough for her to put herself
forward once she is married. Fancy what
my sister Hermione would say if she saw
her ! Not that Hermione doesn't, perhaps,
err the other way with her two poor little
mice of girls ; ' and here Lady Julia laughs,
and Miss Cissy discreetly joins in the mirth,
for Lady Hermione's system of education is
a bye- word.
She, too, like Lady Julia, had been a
dark-eyed beauty — a fact she could not
forget — and she seemed to bear a personal
grudge to her poor snubbed little girls.
At seventeen and eighteen they were still
" the children," and treated much like state
prisoners. She hoped the world would
ignore them as much as she did herself.
She dressed them in impossible clothes, and
then complained of their clumsy figures and
heavy faces ; she forbade them to join in the
conversation, and found fault with their
gauche7'ie and bad manners !
" Well," adds Lady Julia, still laughing,
A WANDERING STAR. 33
and mollified, as she thinks of the ridicule
attached to her sister, " extremes meet ; and
between Pussy and Dottie on one hand,
and this Miss Vega on the other, there
is a certain amount of margin. I don't
believe Brian can like being so much run
after."
Miss Grahame is silent, being wise in her
generation, and lets Lady Julia have her
own way.
A lovely evening follows the cloudless
afternoon. The Gztana, if anything, loses
ground in drifting, and those on board are
either ill-tempered, or bored, or indolent, or
happy, as is their nature. It is warm —
softly, deliciously warm — the warmth of
sunnier regions than these — and the sky is a
blaze of red.
" The dew is very heavy again to-night,"
says Colonel Darner. " You must put on a
cloak, Vega " — he calls her Vega by right of
relationship, and Lady Julia is annoyed
every time he does so. " You are all right,
Julia, in your big coat ; but what can Miss
Fitzpatrick put on ? n
vol. 1. D
34 A WANDERING STAR.
" Miss Fitzpatrick will put on nothing
more, for the excellent reason that she has
nothing more to put on," says Vega, gaily
and undauntedly ; " but don't mind me,
Colonel Darner ; I am not at all cold."
" But the dews are dangerous, and you
will get your death. My dear Julia, haven't
you a cloak to lend her ? "
" I have a fancy for keeping my own
things," says his wife, unpleasantly ; "and I
am so much taller than Miss Fitzpatrick :
my cloaks would drag about the deck. I
hate draggled clothes ; but there is a boat-
cloak hanging up below — she can have that
if she likes."
The boat-cloak, an ancient Connemara,
makes its appearance, and the girl rolls
herself in it with that quick, intuitive skill in
draping possessed by nine Frenchwomen
out of ten — a trick she has acquired in the
land of her adoption.
It does not hang round her in shapeless
folds, as it might on some English shoulders
— it drapes but does not conceal the lovely-
bust and slender waist.
A WANDERING STAR. 35
" So theatrical, almost indecent," whispers
Lady Julia to Miss Grahame ; " and, do you
see, she is not satisfied with one of them
now. She must have Brian on one side,
and Reginald — that ridiculous Reginald — on
the other."
" Yours is the prettiest name I know,"
that " ridiculous Reginald ' is now saying to
her. u I never heard of a Vega before.
What does it mean ? How do you come by
it?"
11 My mother had a great fancy for it,"
answers Vega. " She died when I was quite
a little thing, and father never mentions her
name, so I can't tell you much about it ; but
I have her Prayer Book, in which she wrote
my name before she died — ' Vega,' and
under it, ' He telleth the number of the
stars, and calleth them all by their names.'
I suppose she was sorry to leave me all
alone, or, at least, only with father, and it
pleased her to think of that text. But I
know nothing for certain, Colonel Darner ;
it is all guesswork. "
" Tell us what you have done with your-
D 2
36 A WANDERING STAR.
self, Vega?" he asks again; "have you
always lived at Dieppe ? "
" I was born there," she answers ; "but I
think there was a time when we went
from place to place. I am not sure, for
I can't clearly remember any place but
Dieppe."
He makes her talk on ; her talk, half
French, or rather French idioms freely
translated, is very quaint and very original.
The two men are delighted with every
word she says, and indeed any one would
have found her charming even if her face
had not been so very fair.
Hours and days succeed each other. To
some on board time flies with lightning
speed, and it seems as if it could not make
enough haste to join the unreturning past.
To Lady Julia, on the contrary, the hours
are leaden. The calm has long ago
been succeeded by a fair breeze — the very
wind they have been praying for to take
them down to the West — but the Gitana
never hurries herself, and Vega's pretty eyes
have plenty of time to gaze their fill on the
A WANDERING STAR. T>7
chalky cliffs of Old England as they run down
the Channel.
They pass the woods of the Isle of Wight
■ — a broad belt of green between the under-
cliff and the sea, and they sight St.
Catherines light and the Needles — those
great, grey rocks hollowed by the tides into
endless caves and arches, and worm-eaten,
as it were, by the force of the waves, which
guard the entrance to the Solent. They see
at a distance the white villas of Bourne-
mouth, and Christ Church standing like a
great cathedral against the skyline — then,
along the shores of Dorset, the bold outline
of St. Alban's Head breaking the low range
of downs, till they reach the lovelier coasts
of Devon. Dawlish and Teignmouth gleam
white and shining among wooded glades ;
Torquay, on its terraced hills, looks like ar.
Italian town, and the trees and woods in full
foliage make a rare contrast to the pinky-
red Devonian soil.
They leave Torbay to the right, and sail
along the cliffs and among the rocky islets
between Torquay and Dartmouth. The
38 A WANDERING STAR.
breeze is, if anything, too fresh, and to
Lady }ulia, who hates the motion and keeps
to her cabin, it is gall and wormwood to
hear Vega's light steps above her head, her
merry voice in her ear.
" Now, Miss Vega, look out!" says Brian,
and how bright and happy his voice sounds
too ; "we are coming to the loveliest entrance
to the loveliest harbour in England."
They are sailing up the narrow passage
that leads to Dartmouth. Even Lady Julia
cannot now complain of the motion, for the
high land on both sides protects them from
every blast. They pass the Castle, enter
the harbour, take up their moorings close
to Kings wear, and Vega sees spread
before her eyes the prettiest sight they have
ever rested on. More than one hundred
yachts are anchored in that land-locked bay
— crowded together, stem and stern ; every
size and rig are to be seen, from the stately
600-ton steamer down to the smallest cockle-
shell that can be called a yacht. All are
dressed with flags — the display of bunting
on some of the larger yachts is wonderful —
A WANDERING STAR. 39
they have awnings on their decks — boats
and steam launches are flying about the
harbour, and some boat-races are going on.
On the shore flags are also flying — the
Dartmouth quay is crowded with figures in
holiday attire — the green seems a mass of
white tents — a sound of fiddling and drum-
ming comes from the land. What more
need be said ? Dartmouth is in the height
of its three days' season — in the eyes of its
inhabitants the best three days in the whole
year.
" Now, Vega," says Colonel Darner, " what
do you think of all this ? I hope you will
have some amusement at last."
" I couldn't be happier than I have been
this last week," says she, looking up in his
face with lovely eyes full of gratitude. " I
never knew what happiness meant before ! '
" Oh ! we'll do better for you still," says
he ; " you deserve anything for the way you
stood last night. The old Gitana tumbled
about a good bit, but you are a born sailor, a
girl after my own heart ! I say, my Lady,"
he calls out to his wife, who makes her
40 A WANDERING STAR.
appearance on deck at last, " let's settle to
go ashore after dinner, and show Vega the
dancing on the green, and all the sights of
the fair ! "
" I don't at all see why I should be dragged
ashore," returns Lady Julia, her head in the
air ; " it wouldn't amuse me in the least.
But pray don't let me keep you from going.
Cissy and I can make ourselves quite happy
on board, and I should think it would be
just the sort of amusement that would suit
Miss Fitzpatrick."
Vega was not very experienced in the
ways of the world, but she could read be-
tween the lines as well as most people. Her
pretty face turns rosy-red, and she makes a
sad mistake by turning to Brian, as if for
protection.
He throws off all allegiance to Lady Julia
on the spot.
" Well ! Miss Vega, Colonel Darner and
I are the best of chaperons. Trust yourself
to us, and we will promise to show you
round, and you shall have a dance on the
green too ! One must be very young to
A WANDERING STAR. 4 1
enjoy dancing on the green, but I think
you are about the right age ! "
" I am glad you think so," she laughs
merrily ; "for I mean to do it whether you
approve or not. It's the only kind of
dancing I have ever had. I used to go to all
the village fairs and fetes when I was a child
in the villages round Dieppe — so I shall be
more at home than you are."
*****
" Here we are at last ! ' says Brian, three
hours later, as they land on the steps that
lead to the green.
The harbour looks as pretty by night as
by day. Some of the yachts are dressed
with Chinese lanterns, and some are sending
up fireworks ; fireworks are going up from
the shore, and the lights of the fair, and the
coloured lamps that hang from the trees add
to the general effect.
They make their way to the dancing
ground — the green is crowded — the band
plays loudly — spectators stand in a circle
three or four deep ; groups climb on the
raised mounds that surround the trees ; the
42 A WANDERING STAR.
dancers are very mixed, but the tout ensemble
is charming. Now a tall man in yachting
clothes and a yachting cap waltzes smoothly
round with the reigning beauty of the last
London season, the uneven ground not seem-
ing to put them out in the least. Now a yacht's
sailor jogs past, with a "girl of the people'
in a bright hat and feather — now high, now
low, but all bent on amusing themselves.
" Let us dance too," says Brian, and in a
moment he has Vega in his arms. " You
are a born dancer," he adds, as the two rest
their backs against a tree after a long — a
very long — turn. " Some people plough
through the gravel, but you skim. I have
had a hundred dances on ball-room floors
that were as smooth as ice, which weren't
half as good as this ; let us go on, Vega — on,
till the very last bar of the music, and then
you must come with me, and I will show
you all the sights. We won't wait for the
Colonel ; he knows plenty of people — he's
all right ; besides, I want to have you to
myself this evening— one may never have
such a chance again. Are you agreeable ?".
A WANDERING STAR. 43.
His eyes look into hers, and he would be
blind indeed did he not read his answer in
them.
The music ends with a flourish — the
dancers scatter. Brian and Vega, arm-in-
arm, like real lovers, wander through the
fair. They are more like children though !
Side by side they sit in a booth, and see a
panorama of the Siege of Sebastopol ; then
the waxworks are visited, and the shoot-
ing galleries, but the fat lady is avoided,
and to the Siamese twins is given a very
wide berth ! They ride on horseback on
the merry-go-round, while the loud, harsh
organ (round which they pivot) grinds
out "White Wings." Some of the riders
are solemn, as if they were the cynosures
of all eyes in the park. Others have
more abandon, and a yacht sailor sits
with his face to his horse's tail ! Pinman
goes round grimly in the company of the
steward of the Gitana ; she would not smile
for the world, but others smile and laugh
too, and here and there a brown hand and
strong arm is wound round a slender waist.
44 A WANDERING STAR.
The bystanders around laugh, the music
is deafening, and after two or three rounds,
Brian and Vega jump down and wander on.
" Let's get out of this crowd," says he,
suddenly. " Anything to be out of reach
of ' White Wings.' They find a corner,
not far off indeed, but deserted and quiet ;
they sit down on the wooden bench and rest.
He does not talk or even try to make
conversation ; instead of that he takes her
hand, and she does not draw it from his
strong, eager clasp.
Lady Julia seems a hundred miles away —
so does the fiddling and dancing at the fair.
His blood runs hotly in his veins, and Vega,
for the first time, knows what it is to love.
The two blond heads are dangerously near
each other ; her lips, sweet as the petals of
a wild rose, are close to his. But whose voice,
full of suppressed anger and emotion, falls
on their ears ? and whose erect and stately
figure stands black and forbidding against
the background of light ?
" Lady Julia ! — you here ? You have
come ashore after all ! " exclaims Brian, in
A WANDERING STAR. 45
a voice which cannot hide his great, his
horrible annoyance. " And Miss Grahame
too ! fancy you wandering about here alone.
Have you not met the Colonel ? "
" We were tired of each other's company
— bored to death on board," answers Lady
Julia, " and we came to see how you were
all getting on. You seem to be getting on
capitally. Pray what have you done with
Reginald, Brian ? and in what part of the
world is it the fashion, Miss Fitzpatrick, to
leave your chaperon entirely in the lurch ? '
"We only danced a little," stammered out
Vega, "and when the dance was over we
didn't see him."
" So I can well believe," says her Lady-
ship, in her most unpleasant voice. " If these
are your Dieppe manners I can't say I
admire them ! "
She sweeps on. Brian knows better than
to let her go alone, and the two girls follow.
Lady Julia goes straight to the point, and
her eyes flash as she turns them to her com-
panion, speaking at the same time with much
heat and violence.
46 A WANDERING STAR.
" You are making a perfect fool of yourself,
Brian ! Remember that that girl and her
father are — outcasts — outlawed, for all I
know. I don't care whether you turn her
silly head or not. I dare say she has had
plenty of affairs with Dieppe young men
already ; but I won't have any folly on your
side going on while you are with us. No
man in his senses could marry a daughter
of Ralph Fitzpatrick. Why his very name
is a byword ! "
Her Ladyship says no more, nor does he
answer. One thing is certain: her words, in
spite of himself, make an impression on him.
# * * # *
Fifteen days have passed since Vega
sailed in the Gitana. For fifteen long sum-
mer days has this forlorn, neglected girl
tasted perfect happiness, and of how many
ordinary, humdrum, long-lived people could
as much be said ?
Lady Julia's sneers scarcely affect her —
Lady Julia's undisguised animosity does not
trouble her.
They sail in halcyon seas ; they wander
A WANDERING STAR. 47
from place to place — the days are too short
for her happiness, and she grudges the hours
that must be spent in sleep.
And now they are in the Solent, and the
Gitana lies at anchor in Cowes Harbour.
Vega must perforce content herself with the
pleasures of hope, for Brian has had to leave
them for a week. He has long since
pledged himself to a voyage half round
the world with a friend the ensuing winter,
and many preparations must be made,
though at the end of that week he is to
return on board without fail. Then, as
Colonel Darner says, "We will run over to
Antwerp, or Ostend, and won't take Vega
back to Dieppe till the very end of our
cruise. In the meantime," he adds, " I
shall take the opportunity of going up to
London for a night to look after some
business in the City, but I shall be down
again without fail to-morrow evening. You
three ladies must take care of yourselves
and the yacht while I am away."
Vega does not like it at all. It is quite a
case of two to one, for Lady Julia and Miss
48 A WANDERING STAR.
Grahame make it very clear that they have
nothing in common with her in any way.
Colonel Darner leaves them, and things go
on as might have been expected — Lady Julia
and Cissy are inseparable, Vega is alone.
The two friends sit on deck all the morning,
and as it is bright and sunshiny, and as
Vega does not wish to make an unwelcome
third, but finds the cabins hot and close, she
takes a book and sits half way up the com-
panion.
The sound of talking reaches her, but not
the words, till Lady Julia's voice, in louder
tones than usual, falls on her ear : — " His
mother is evidently desperately alarmed. I
know what her letter this morning meant
very well. Some kind friend has told her
about her precious Brian's flirtation with this
girl, and now she as good as taxes me with
having shady people on board. I believe
she thinks he will marry her."
" Are you quite sure he means nothing
serious ? " asks Cissy, in her smooth, unin-
terested tones.
" Serious ! Why ? The man's not an
A WANDERING STAR. 49
absolute fool!' says Lady Julia, in a
voice of actual pain. " Fancy a Beres-
ford marrying a daughter of that black
sheep Ralph Fitzpatrick! No, no! he won't
go so far as that ; but in the meantime /
am to be called over the coals, as if it
were my fault — as if I could have pre-
vented Reginald picking up a stray, un-
known girl at Dieppe ! — the daughter of a
man whose reputation is European— people
without a penny, and with as good as no
relations in the world, for not one of the
Vivians will look at them."
Can it indeed be about her and her father
that Lady Julia is speaking ? Is this the
key to the riddle that has so long perplexed
her — the real meaning of the life they have
led?
Vega has no strength, no power to move,
and Lady Julia goes on, —
" I would give anything in the world to
get her out of the yacht. You know I always
hate and detest girls, and have set my face
against any of them coming on board. Her-
mione sometimes wants to put Dottie and
vol. 1. e
5<D A WANDERING STAR.
Pussy on my shoulders, but I always get out
of it. If I refuse to oblige my own sister,
it is hard indeed that I should be held re-
sponsible for a girl of this sort. If Brian
was fool enough to marry her, not one of the
Beresfords would ever speak to me again."
Half an hour later Lady Julia goes below
to write letters ; Vega is in the saloon, and
as her Ladyship sits down at the writing-
table the girl comes and stands beside her.
"Is it true, Lady Julia, that you are
ashamed to have me with you ? Do you
want me to go away ? "
The words sound determined ; but oh !
how beseeching and pitiful is the tone in
which they are spoken. If she was begging
for her life she could not beg harder for
mercy.
Lady Julia is taken aback, and for a
minute she all but leans to mercy's side.
Had the girl looked less beautiful, who
knows but her better feelings would have
won the day ?
" I do not understand you ! ' at last she
says, coldly. " If you have overheard any-
A WANDERING STAR. 51
thing not intended for your ears it was your
own fault, Miss Fitzpatrick."
" I didn't understand it before," goes on
Vega, in an uncertain broken kind of voice.
" At Dieppe it must have been always kept
from me, but I suppose it is all true, and that
we are outcasts, as you say. That is the reason
we have lived away from every one. Shall
I go back there now, Lady Julia ? I sup-
pose it would be better ? "
Lady Julia has a merciful impulse once
more.
" I am very sorry indeed," — and she stops
— her better feelings are quenched, and this
time for good. "Well, if you think it would
be better to go back, and look after your
father — you told me yesterday he wasn't well
— you no doubt feel you have been long
enough away, and could be of use to him, so
perhaps it would be as well. It is quite easy
for you to get away either to-day or to-
morrow. Pinman shall take you as far as
Newhaven. How would that do ? "
Twice over Vega tries to answer, and
twice over the words are choked in her
E 2
*:-.,'V/;fv
52 A WANDERING STAR.
throat. When she at last gets out " to-day,'
she falls to stupidly wondering if it is her
own voice, for it sounds so loud and strange.
*****
" So poor little Vega has been obliged to
leave us, and to go and look after her sick
father," says Colonel Darner the next night
at dinner.
Lady Julia has condescended so far as to
meet him herself in the gig at the Cowes
pier — an act of friendliness which has both
surprised and pleased him. " Poor little
girl ! I suppose she was obliged to do it,
but I know it must have been a terrible dis-
appointment to her. She was so looking for-
ward to our next cruise. Well, we must
have her over to stay with us when the
yachting is over. By the way, my Lady, it
was very kind indeed of you to spare Pin-
man. I am glad you didn't send Vega with
any one else. Of course, if I had been here
I should have taken her myself, but I suppose
as her father was so ill there was no time to
be lost. All the same, I think it was really
good of you to put yourself out, for I know
.A WANDERING STAR. 53
how dependent you are on the great Pin-
man."
Why does the approbation of her husband
annoy Lady Julia so much ? and why, with
so much on her conscience, should she wince
at this unmerited praise ? He will never
know the truth. Cissy Grahame is silent as
the grave. All the same, she answers angrily,
" To hear you talk, Reginald, one would
imagine that I was utterly selfish ! "
" Not at all, Julia," says Colonel Darner,
kindly ; " it was only my stupid way of put-
ting it. All I meant was to thank you for
looking after poor little Vega when she was
in trouble."
54 A WANDERING STAR.
CHAPTER III.
" Not for mortal toiling nor spinning
Will the matters of mortals mend.
As it was so in the beginning
It shall be so in the end.
The web that the weavers weave ill
Shall not be woven aright
Till the good is brought forth from evil
As day is brought forth from night."
* -
The fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
has been plucked with a vengeance, and the
Vega who now wanders about the deserted
streets of Dieppe and faces the northerly
gale on the edge of its chalky cliffs is a very
different Vega from the child who, in spite
of having little to make her happy, was
joyous as if fortune had smiled on her birth
only a few weeks ago.
But she now knows — she knows — and the
knowledge half kills her.
A WANDERING STAR. 55
Lady Julia, to do her justice, told her but
little, but her quick intelligence can piece
together much that had baffled her before.
To be sure, she had taken little heed at
the time, but seeds had sown themselves
unconsciously in her mind, that now spring
to life all of a sudden.
Does she not remember dimly a pale
mother who seemed to be always weeping ?
Does she not realize all at once that every
other girl in the world has some relations
and friends, and that no friendly face or
kinsman's greeting has ever come her way ?
Can she not recall, comparatively lately, a
party of English, who sweep past her father
and herself on the Casino Terrace with
curious, half averted looks, and did she not
wonder at the time at the strange pallor of
her father's face after they had gone past ?
It is easy enough to see when a hand holds
high the light, and it is a very fierce light in-
deed that has been thrown on her father's
past and her own.
In the greater sorrow all lesser ones are
swallowed up, and Vega hardly frets at all,
56 A WANDERING STAR.
or longs for the happy days on board the
Gitana to return. Brian Beresford seems
nothing to her now. She realizes clearly
that she is not meant for happiness : it was
more a dream than anything else, and like a
dream it has faded.
The days seem suddenly to have grown a
most interminable length, and all her simple
pleasures have lost their zest ; she feels
utterly depressed in her father's society, and
still more melancholy in her own.
They have made no friends in all the years
they have lived in that dull Norman town.
The natives of such places never make
the slightest effort to know any stranger,
even though those strangers are all but
naturalized by right of long residence ; and
as for the " poor English " whom the fortune
of war has cast on those shores to make the
best fight they can for bare life, their man-
ners, and habits, and ways, have always
grated on Mr. Fitzpatrick. Whatever his
past may have been, he will remain grand
seigneur to the end of his days.
Lady Julia's words seem to have been
A WANDERING STAR. 57
almost prophetic, for he has become very-
delicate and ailing this winter. His tall,
slim figure is now thin to the verge of
emaciation ; he stoops as he walks, and his
face seems to have taken another expres-
sion by reason of the hollow cheeks and the
features that seem all at once to have grown
larger.
If Ralph Fitzpatrick has many faults, he
at least can boast one negative virtue : he
never complained of anything in his life, and
he does not complain now.
Bon sang comes out in this characteristic,
at any rate ; but he hardly eats at all, hardly
speaks, and even his one amusement at the
little club seems to pall on him. Vega
would like to tell him her sorrow at his
changed condition, but he will have none of
her sympathy, and the gloomy figure cower-
ing over the fire, or buried in a large arm-
chair in front of the smouldering logs, tells
on her nerves in the end, and drives her out
of doors for more lonely hours and more
lonely walks than ever.
A few of the shopkeepers look kindly on
58 A WANDERING STAR.
la petite Anglaise, and chat with her when
she comes to them to make her rare pur-
chases, but her only real friend among them
all is la Mere Thibaud, an old woman who
sells chestnuts, and who sits at her stall
under the arches that face the harbour.
Her friendship with Vega had begun
when the latter was a mere child. The old
woman, whose face was as rosy and as
wrinkled as one of her own Normandy
apples, had smiled from under the shadow
of her great bonnet blanc on the pretty little
girl from the first time she ever saw her, and
fruit in summer and roast chestnuts in winter
had cemented the friendship. Most of the
petit sous that came into Vega's childish hands
had been placed on Mere Thibaud's ample lap,
and good measure, full and overflowing, was
always meted out by those brown, wrinkled
fingers to her little customer. She still buys
chestnuts from her friend, but more for the
pleasure of talking to the old woman than for
anything else. Mere Thibaud, however, likes
her chestnuts to be appreciated, and she be-
lieves that hers are larger, more mealy, and
A WANDERING STAR. 59
hotter under their drugget covering than any
chestnuts in the town.
We all like to shine somehow, and Mere
Thibaud has no ambition, and few thoughts,
beyond her chestnuts.
" You have forsaken me lately, ma petite
mademoiselle/' says the old woman to Vega,
one afternoon, as the girl, after a long walk
on the bleak sea-shore, stops at her stall, " and
such a fine lot of chestnuts as I have had in
lately. No, no, mademoiselle ! no petit sous
this time ! Here are five of them all hot —
all hot ! A present from la pauvre Mere
Thibaud. Eat them quick— 9a fait du bien —
9a chauffe l'estomac ? And if their heat puts
a little colour into your pretty cheeks, ah !
tant mieux ! What has come to you lately,
mignonne ? You are no longer gay or
happy."
"And you look always happy, Mere
Thibaud," says the girl, enviously. " Do
you always feel it ? Do you never want
anything more than to sit here and roast
chestnuts ? "
11 Not now," answers the old woman,
6o .A WANDERING STAR.
cheerily, and she certainly looks the picture
of content. " Once upon a time, yes ! when
my son went away to fight the cursed Prus-
sians, and never came back to his old mother.
I was unhappy then — va ! But one forgets,
mademoiselle — at my age one forgets readily,
and I don't often think of my poor Pierre
now-a-days. It is past, and, as you say,
I am quite happy roasting my chestnuts ; "
and Mere Thibaud bursts into song, if her
thin little ghost of a pipe can be called
singing : —
"A quoi pourrais-je pretendre ?
Les petits vivent de peu,
J'ai du vin, et du pain tendre,
Et le soleil du bon Dieu ! "
" I wish I was like you, Mere Thibaud,"
sighs the girl; "but I cannot keep from
thinking."
" Naturally, mademoiselle, when one has
no work to do, like the rich, one has time
for that stupidity. If I was like one of you
others, and had nothing to do but to wander
on the pebbles of the beach, or lose my way
in the forest of Tibermont, I, too, would
A WANDERING STAR. 6 1
fret and be sad. I would think of my man
who died forty years ago, and I would shed
bitter tears for my Pierre, who was shot
through the heart by a German bullet. But
what will you ? When I sit here I have my
hands full looking after my chestnuts, and I
must keep a sharp look-out on the boys too,
the young thieves ! Then I generally am
too cold to think, and when I go home at
night I am too sleepy, and in the morning
I am too busy, for I have all my chestnuts
to notch. It takes one all one's time to cut
them properly — this way, and then that
way, so, ma petite dame. So when have I
time to sit with my hands before me and
sigh? It's as much as I can do to say a
prayer every day for my poor boy's soul ;
but that does some good ; one must find time
for that."
" How tired you must sometimes be, Mere
Thibaud, working so hard, and doing the
same things over and over again."
" I demand nothing better, mademoiselle.
I shall go on till I am too ill, or too old, and
then — why, then I must trust to my neigh-
62 A WANDERING STAR.
bours and le bon Dieu. I have had no time
to make my soul mais le bon Dieu n'est pas
trop dur pour les pauvres. II saura que
j'ai fait mon possible."
Ten days pass before Vega's light figure
is once more seen coming along the Arcade
that leads her past Mere Thibaud's stall.
The stall is there, and so are the withered
apples, the wooden-looking pears, and the
great pot full of syrup, and a variety of
abominations which goes by the name of
H Confiture de menage."
The tripod stands in its usual corner,
sheltered from the wind, and no doubt the
smouldering charcoal is as red hot, and the
chestnuts as well [roasted, as if Mere Thi-
baud kept watch and ward over them. But
"a girl of the people," with a brazen counte-
nance, a bonnet blanc stuck rakishly on the
back of her head, and a figure that boasts
many generous curves, sits on the low chair
formerly so well filled by Mere Thibaud's
ample, if somewhat shapeless, form. She is
surrounded by customers, who are all sailors.
Their long fishing-boots come half-way up
A WANDERING STAR. 63
their legs ; their broad shoulders are clothed
in the thickest of jerseys, and their bold,
blue-eyed Norman faces look out from the
shadow of huge sou'-westers. They are
apparently bound for the fishing, and before
starting are bandying words and cracking
jokes with the girl, who is evidently giving
them as good as she takes !
" Tenez ! voila la petite Anglaise," she
screams, as Vega stops opposite the stall
and looks about her in an uncertain way, as
if she did not know who to ask for news of
Mere Thibaud.
An old woman, with a face brown and
wrinkled as a piece of discoloured parch-
ment, and bent double with rheumatism,
opens the door of the shop opposite, and
proceeds to tell a long story in the vilest
Norman-French. Vega, fortunately, is able
to understand her, and to make out that
poor Mere Thibaud has been very ill for the
last few days, and has sent a message to her
old crony that if la petite Anglaise passed
that way she would tell her, and ask Vega
to go and see her.
64 A WANDERING STAR.
"And if mademoiselle will be so gen-
tille," continues the old woman, " Nanette
shall show her the way to the house of Mere
Thibaud. Nanette, Nannette ! " shouts she,
till at last a little girl in a dirty black stuff
frock down to her heels, and an equally dirty
linen skull-cap tied tightly under her chin,
leaves a distant gutter in which she has been
playing, and at her grandmother's bidding
consents to guide Vega to her old friend's
house.
It is not far off, but a labyrinth of dark,
narrow streets has to be threaded before
they reach the door of a tall, dilapidated
stone house, whose somewhat important en-
trance and the cut stone ornaments above
the windows show that it must once upon a
time have been a better-class home, though
its present inhabitants are now the poorest
of the poor.
" Montez, mademoiselle ! You will find
Mere Thibaud at the top of the house," says
the dirty little girl, taking leave of Vega on
the threshold, and disappearing as quickly as
if the earth had swallowed her up. Vega,
A WANDERING STAR. 65
feeling just a little frightened, climbs the
narrow corkscrew stairs, black with age and
dirt, and so steep that as she mounts higher
she is glad to lay hold of the rope that runs
along the wall as a balustrade.
A knock at the door on the topmost floor
and a feeble voice bids her come in.
The girl enters, but finds a certain amount
of difficulty in reaching the bed where the
poor old chestnut-seller is lying, for the whole
floor is covered with chestnuts. There is a
small fire on the hearth, and they are spread
round it as thickly as they can be made
to go.
They form a golden-brown carpet every-
where.
The table pulled near the fireplace is also
covered with them, and on the bed lie a pile
of the shiny nuts, on which, with a feeble
hand, Mere Thibaud is trying to make those
scores that she believes can only be success-
fully performed by a master in the art.
The knife drops from her hold as she
catches sight of Vega, and with a joyous,
almost triumphant, smile she welcomes her.
vol 1. F
66 A WANDERING STAR.
" I knew you would come, mignonne, though
Marie Amont told me I oughtn't to worry
you, and that you wouldn't care if an old
woman like me was alive or dead. But I
said to her, only tell la petite mademoiselle,
and she will be sure not to fail me. I wanted
to see your pretty face once more, and I
wanted to give you some of my chestnuts.
Look at them there ! All my stock for the
winter came in yesterday, and I can't even
get up to see what they are like. Old Marie
spread them out for me ; they're never dry
enough after a long journey, and it takes a
day or two before the poor things come right.
But I will never watch them over the char-
coal in the tripod again, or give five of them
to la petite mademoiselle as she passes along
under the arches. I am done for now, my
dear. There isn't much to fret about ; all
the same, I said to myself, I should like to
see mademoiselle once more, and wish her
good-bye and good luck ; for you have a
long way to go, and are only just setting out
on the journey that poor old Mere Thibaud
is finishing. You take life hardly too, and
A WANDERING STAR. 6 J
fret about I know not what. But take heart,
if you do your ' possible,' mademoiselle, it
will all come right in the end. I don't quite
know where I am going, but I expect I shall
soon see my Pierre again. Monsieur l'Abbe
says that all good sailors and soldiers who die
for their country go straight to Paradise, and
le bon Dieu couldn't be so angry with me as
to separate me from my boy. J'ai fait mon
possible," and Mere Thibaud raises herself
on her arm, and a gleam of sorrow comes
into her eyes as she looks around on the
floor strewn with chestnuts. " Take some,
mademoiselle," says she, handing Vega a
basket, which hangs beside her capacious
many-pocketed blue apron at the head of her
bed ; " take a whole basketful, I beg of you. I
can't carry my chestnuts away with me. I
suppose one never eats or drinks, or does
any work in Paradise," she adds, half regret-
fully, " and it would make me so happy to
see you take a basketful."
Vega does exactly as Mere Thibaud wishes.
" I am so sorry, Mere Thibaud," she says,
sadly ; " I will miss you so very much."
F 2
.
68 A WANDERING STAR.
A gleam of satisfaction passes over the
old woman's face.
" I think you will, mademoiselle, for a
good while, when you pass the corner of the
Arcade ; I am glad of that. I don't want you
to be sad, but it won't make you very sad
just to say now and then as you pass, ' I
wish the old woman was here again,' and
it pleases me to think of it. Perhaps
I shall know as much as that where I am
6'
going
Vega is as ignorant as herself about the
unknown land to which Mere Thibaud is
hastening, and all she can do is to stoop
down, and kiss the wrinkled old face that is
lying so quietly on the coarse pillow. Mere
Thibaud is pleased, but Death is a regular
Republican, and it does not seem strange
to the old chestnut-seller that la petite
mademoiselle should kiss her.
A little longer they talk, and then Mere
Thibaud says good-bye to her as quietly as
if they were to meet again in a short time.
They shake hands, and it is only Vega who
weeps.
A WANDERING STAR. 69
" It is not even adieu," says the brave old
woman ; " we shall meet again in Paradise ; it
is au revoir, mademoiselle/'
And so the little episode ends, but Vega
Fitzpatrick realizes that she has one friend
the less the next time she passes the
corner where Mere Thibaud once reigned
supreme.
" The girl of the people ' is shouting and
laughing with more sailors, and paying
very little attention either to the chestnuts,
or the charcoal fire, which has nearly gone
out.
" Tiens ! Tiens ! la petite Anglaise qui se
promene toujours," she calls out, as her bold,
roving eyes light on Vega as she passes.
" Oh ! la ! la ! et la pauvre Mere Thibaud
qui est pincee," and then bursting forth
into song, she trolls out the appropriate
ditty : —
" Je r'viens d'interrer ma tante
Voyez que j'ai la larme a l'oeil."
The men laugh — the girl stamps her sabots
to mark the time — and Vega hurries quickly
JO A WANDERING STAR.
past the stall with a heavier heart than she
could have imagined possible.
But greater troubles have now to be faced,
and the poor old chestnut-seller is perforce
forgotten.
A WANDERING STAR. 7T
CHAPTER IV.
" Real life is a race through sore trouble
That gains not an inch on the goal ;
And bliss an untangible bubble,
That cheats an unsatisfied soul.
And the whole
Of the rest an illegible scroll."
There has always been so little sympathy
between Vega and her father, and, in spite of
the smallness of their poor home, they see
so little of each other, that she does not
notice the gradual decay of his strength.
He has always been silent — always gloomy
— always anxious to get away from her, and
every one else, and she does not see that the
silence and gloom is getting deeper, and that
his wish for solitude is growing on him every
day. He spends most of his afternoo'ns
and evenings at the cercle, and she does
not know that he is sometimes so weak that
J2 A WANDERING STAR.
he can hardly manage to walk even that
short distance, that he has before now sunk
down on a friendly doorstep, unable to stand,
or to drag his weary limbs home, and that
the cold night wind seems to cut him in two
like a knife.
But he is not of those who complain or
repine, and he has taken his punishment in
silence too long, not to suffer dumbly to the
end.
" The Grasshopper has become a burden,"
but he will go to his long home without a
murmur.
One night he and his daughter are sitting
in almost total silence over their evening
meal. She is accustomed to his fits of dul-
ness and depression, and she takes little heed
of them.
Custom makes us all sadly callous, and
Vega does not notice that her father draws
his hand constantly across his eyes, or that
he moves his head in a restless uneasy way
from side to side of the high-backed arm-
chair in which he sits.
Her thoughts are far away ; memory is
A WANDERING STAR. J $
busy, and once more she is sailing over
summer seas in the Gitana ; she is building
castles in the air like a mere child, and she
hears Brian Beresford's voice again in her
day-dreams.
A shadow across her plate makes her look
up to see her father's head bent forward
across the narrow table ; he is looking at her
with the expression of a demon — an expres-
sion in which spite, malice, and undying
hatred seem blended. His eyes are starting
out of his head, his lips are drawn back, and
display his sharp white teeth ; his colour is
livid. The blood seems to run back to her
heart all at once, for the sight of that con-
vulsed face might well terrify her.
Is he going to spring at her ? Will he kill
her ? He looks like a wild animal, and she feels
she now knows how much he must always
have hated her. He flings up an arm in the
direction of the light that hangs from the
ceiling above their heads, and then, as it falls,
his hand knocks over the large old-fashioned
glass decanter full of vin ordinaire. The
liquid seems to come in a red wave right
74 A WANDERING STAR.
over to Vega, but she cannot move ; it
rolls nearer, but she feels tied hand and
foot, and tongue-tied too, so that she cannot
scream.
The face that grins at her from the other
side of the table, Medusa-like, has turned
her into stone. Her heart all but stops beat-
ing, and another moment of such agony-
might well kill her.
But the silence is broken at last by a
shriek from her father's lips, that shriek of
one who is struck down by a fit which, once
heard, can never be forgotten, and then his
hands fall at his sides, the nerves that are like
bands of iron relax, and he slips down from
the chair, and falls a limp and inert heap on
the floor.
The old woman who has been in their
service ever since Mr. Fitzpatrick, for his
sins, went into banishment, is upstairs, but
when that shriek falls on her ears she knows
what it means all at once, and in a minute
she is with the distracted girl, and has got the
poor victim in her strong, vigorous, Norman
arms. It is but a skeleton that she carries
A WANDERING STAR. 75
upstairs, and lays down on the bed from
which it will never rise again.
She straightens the poor wasted limbs,
piles pillows under the unconscious head, and
fastens back the curtains of the old-fashioned
French bed to give as much air as possible.
It is one of those beds, so common in
France, that nearly fill a small alcove, and
that with their thick curtains, and high
wooden sides, have rather the effect of an
ark in miniature — a bed that seems better
suited to die in than for peaceful slumbers.
Vega stands by the bedside shaking in every
limb ; her small face looks pinched and
drawn, and the terror that seized her when
she first caught sight of her father changed
out of all knowledge, still masters her.
That face was like the face of a demon,
and that shriek might have burst from the
lips of one of the damned. She sees the
one, she hears the other, and she trembles
with fear and horror as she looks at the
motionless figure stretched on the bed.
Will he open his eyes again ? Will she
once more see in them that look of vindictive
j6 A WANDERING STAR.
hatred ? Is he even now feigning uncon-
sciousness, and will he spring on her as she
stands there ?
It is not the child who helps the father,
it is Victoire who wipes the froth from his
lips ; Victoire who unclasps the clenched
hands, for the nails of the long thin fingers
are all but imbedded in the wasted flesh ; and
Victoire who, after one keen glance at the
poor frightened girl beside her, tells her in a
voice of authority as well as compassion,
to go for the doctor as quickly as she
possibly can.
The old woman knows perfectly well that
that figure lying on the bed will neither move
nor speak for hours, and that nothing could
possibly happen were she to leave Vega in
charge, while she herself went in search
of help. But she is wise, and she knows
that to be left alone in the house with the
unconscious man would be more than the
girl's nerves could stand. Better — a hundred
times better — for her to face the bitter east
wind, and any dangers of the night, than to
be left alone in the house, to hear no sound
A WANDERING STAR. J J
but the laboured breathing of the dying man,
and to see nothing but that rigid form
stretched on the bed.
It is a merciful plan of the quick-witted
old woman.
Vega obeys her, and there is no doubt
that the night air and the necessity of haste
act as a sort of tonic to her nerves.
The doctor, quiet, kindly, and intelligent,
is soon with the sick man. He does not say
or do much, for there is little to be said or
done, and there is no one to buoy up with
false hopes, or to break sad news to in sym
pathizing accents. The patient has neither
mind nor brain to be touched with the tidings
of death ; his trembling child is too young and
ignorant, and the old woman understands the
situation thoroughly.
A prescription written in pencil on a leaf
torn out of his pocket-book, a few words in
Victoire's ear, a recommendation that the
sick man should be closely watched, and
that some one should sit up with him all
night — and the doctor leaves the house,
promising to return early in the morning.
78 A WANDERING STAR.
But both he and Victoire know it is but
the becnnninof of the end.
It is possible that the patient might get
over his present grievous malady if there
were any vitality or strength to come and go
on ; but the last drop of oil is being burned
in the lamp, and soon, very soon, there will
be total darkness. Whether he will rally at
all is a moot point ; if so, he will only suffer
longer, and die by inches. The doctor is a
materialist, and a merciful man ; and he
hopes his patient will have a short shrift.
He had stood at Lady Mary's death-bed
long ago ; and though he has stood at
plenty of death-beds since then, he has
never quite forgotten that one. He knows,
half by instinct, half by help of a quick
intelligence to which it is second nature to
put two and two together, that things had
somehow gone wrong with Ralph Fitz-
patrick, and that he is a man to whom life is
utterly valueless.
" One does not wish one's worst enemy
prolonged torture or suffering, and still less
to be forced to endure a life which is only so
A WANDERING STAR. 79
in name," thinks the doctor, as he hurries
down the Grande Rue in the teeth of the
east wind. " When mind and brain are
both gone, the sooner the heart stops beat-
ing the better. I don't see what would be
gained by the contrary. If suffering puri-
fies, I'll be bound Monsieur Fitzpatrick has
had enough in his day without needing
another turn of the screw ! That poor
fellow has had a living death for the last
twenty years. I expect his purgatory began
a good while ago : whether his sins have
been expiated in the process, or not, I leave
to Monsieur l'Abbe to decide. We others
— we fathers of families — are generally of
some use to our children, if to no one else ;
but I expect that poor little girl of his won't
be much the worse for his death. Anyhow,
it's coming. In a very few days he will be
at rest at last."
Victoire and Vega sit up all night with
the man who lies like a stone in the bed in
the alcove. There is no danger of their
sleeping on their watch, for both are over-
excited, and both feel they are on the eve of
80 A WANDERING STAR.
some great change. The old woman keeps
up the fire, and goes backwards and for-
wards to the bed, and creaks about the
room ; but there is no one to notice the
noise she makes, for the recumbent figure
under the shadow of the heavy curtains
neither hears nor sees, and the girl is buried
in thought.
There comes a change with the dawn.
As the light struggles into the room some
life and feeling seem to return to Mr.
Fitzpatrick. His eyes open once more,
though they look dull and dead, and there
is neither meaning nor understanding in
their expression, but to the poor head comes
some sensation of pain, for it moves
uneasily backwards and forwards on the
pillow, and the hands, which have lain
like a dead man's hands on the counter-
pane, grope about as if trying to find some-
thing.
The two watchers stand beside him, but
either he cannot see them, or he takes no
notice of their presence. The fingers grope
on — eye or brain does not seem to guide
A WANDERING STAR. 8 1
them, but they are untiring, and twitch
about without ceasing.
At last the dim eyes seem to brighten,
and a ray of something like intelligence
dawns. The fingers have found what they
were seeking : they have picked up an imag-
inary pack of cards, and are now dealing
them quickly and eagerly.
The dumb show seems to satisfy him,
though whether he sees or feels those
phantom cards between his fingers must
remain for ever a moot point.
Over and over again the cards are
shuffled, cut, dealt, and the trump card
turned up — he is always the dealer —
and sometimes he seems to play a hand.
Sometimes that is omitted, and the
shuffling, cutting, and dealing goes on
without the intermission of the imaginary
game.
A few words are spoken now and then,
but they always refer to the business on
hand, or to persistent bad luck.
" The devil himself couldn't play with
such cards," he says angrily once : and the
vol. 1. G
82 A WANDERING STAR.
shuffling and re-shuffling goes on harder
than ever.
Later in the day the doctor comes and
looks on, but his patient is too much
occupied with his game to see him, and his
hands wave in the air as he shuffles that
ghostly pack. The doctor stands watching
him for some time, and then he bends over
him, taking one of the poor nervous hands
in his own as he does so ; and then, in a
voice which sounds loud and almost dicta-
torial in the ears of his listeners, he asks
him if he has no friend who could come to
him — no letter to write — no business to
attend to ? He talks thus loudly in a vain
effort to arrest the dying man's attention,
and he stoops close to him as he repeats the
question almost in his ear.
But no answer comes : no light of recog-
nition shines in his dim eyes ; and when the
doctor lets go his hand, the nervous fingers
return to their work once more.
The doctor shrugs his shoulders — -not in
indifference, but from utter hopelessness to
make the dying man understand.
A WANDERING STAR. 83
Were the wealth of all the Indies his to
dispose of, and could one nod indicate his
will or wishes, he would die with those wishes
unexpressed.
He is not dead, but he is gone, and all
that remains of life is to be seen in the
mechanical action of those ringers that con-
tinue the avocation to which they have
been so well trained.
" Don't leave him alone, give him nourish-
ment if he can be made to take it, try and
get mademoiselle to repose herself a little,
and send for me if there is any change."
These are the doctor's last words as he
departs, leaving the dying man in the charge
of a shrinking, frightened child, and of an
old woman, who, good worthy soul as she is,
has never felt anything but a distrustful anti-
pathy to the gloomy distant man whom she
has called " master " for many years.
She does her duty now as faithfully as if
her service " was all for love, and nothing
for reward." As it is, there is no love, and
all her reward will be the consciousness of
having done her duty, and stood by the
g 2
84 A WANDERING STAR.
child whom she looks on almost as her
own.
" The weary day rins doon, and dees,
The weary night wears through,"
and still Ralph Fitzpatrick is in no hurry to
go. He lies in a state that is neither waking
nor sleeping. It would be semi-unconscious-
ness were it not that his head moves always
from side to side of the pillow, and that
neither head nor hands can rest.
A few words spoken at long intervals
show on what his thoughts are running,
"honours," "tricks," now this card and now
that, and ever and anon he rails at his ill
fortune over some imaginary game.
The night draws on once more, and
Victoire makes up a huge fire ; she piles up
the wood, and builds the charbon de terre
above it with a much more liberal hand than
is her wont ; then she wheels two large arm-
chairs close to the hearth. "Mademoiselle,
you are tired, you did not close your eyes
last night. I beg, I pray of you to rest a
little, even to try and sleep to-night. You
will be worn out, exhausted otherwise, and
A WANDERING STAR. 85
there is much before you. Trust to me, my
dear ! Monsieur shall want for nothing. I
will watch him so carefully while you sleep.
But the tables are turned, for it is Vega
who does not close her eyes, and Victoire,
who once she is comfortably settled in the
large arm-chair in front of the warm fire, feels
her fatigues of the night before and the
weight of her sixty years too much for her,
and after a valiant effort to keep herself
awake, gives up the fight altogether, and
sleeps the sleep of the just !
The firelight plays on the wrinkled old
face that looks curiously dark and worn in
the shadow of the high bonnet blanc that
frames it ; the figure lying on the bed is half
hidden by the curtains ; nothing is to be
seen but the white hands and thin arms that
move on without ceasing ; the silence may
be felt, and the girl's nerves are in such a
state of tension that the slightest thing would
make her scream out.
She has not the heart to disturb Victoire,
but she wishes, oh ! how much she wishes,
that she would only keep awake !
86 A WANDERING STAR.
She mends the fire with more noise than
is necessary, but Victoire sleeps on, and it
does not disturb her father's calculations for
a moment.
The deep tones of the great bell of
St. Jacques ring out hour after hour.
Eleven ! twelve ! one ! two ! and still Vega
is practically alone. And now her father
begins to talk louder and more excitedly,
and his head sways like a pendulum from
side to side. His daughter steals over to
his bedside ; were she older, or had she
more sad experience of illness and death,
she would be struck by the curious change
that has come over his face, and by
the greyish-yellow pallor of his skin. But
all she notices is that his hands move more
and more feebly, though they are never still
for a moment. Words that cannot be made
out come from his parched throat and
blackened lips ; they pour in an incessant
stream, and then all at once, with a con-
vulsive effort, he half sits, half rises in bed.
He looks full at Vega, but it is not her
he sees, but some comrade of his early days.
A WANDERING STAR. 87
" The king of clubs ! Yes ! yes ! Philip,
I did it, but the devil himself tempted me ! "
The dying man makes one supreme effort
as if to rise from bed, but a frightful spasm
seizes him, while blood pours from his mouth.
Once more the red stream seems as if it
was coming towards Vega. She gives a loud,
terrified scream. Victoire awakes, and hurries
across the room, but before she reaches the
bedside all is over.
So died Ralph Fitzpatrick, neither re-
pentant nor contrite. He made no " good
ending " to a bad life, but at least he left the
world with no falsehood on his lips.
He had sinned, sinned beyond the world's
forgiveness, but his punishment had been a
heavy one, and perhaps his evil doings were
more than half expiated before his soul left
his body.
88 A WANDERING STAR.
CHAPTER V.
" We know not whether they slumber
Who waken on earth no more,
As the stars of the height in number,
As sands on the deep sea-shore.
Shall stiffness bind them, and starkness
Enthral them by field and flood ?
Till the sun shall be turned to darkness
And the moon shall be turned to blood."
When the heart of man waxes faint
within him by reason of sore trouble, he has
at least one poor comfort.
The greater swallows up the less, and
much passes unheeded by him which, were
his grief less poignant, would prey on his
mind and nerves, and make his sorrow still
more unendurable.
But his head is bowed in the dust, and his
eyes are blinded because of the desolation
that spreads as a black veil around him.
A WANDERING STAR. 89
All the sad details that jar on the senses,
the miserable routine that must be carried
out, the indifference of those who ought not
to be indifferent, all is lost on those who are
mourners in reality as well as in name.
Not so on those who count it as one of
their chief misfortunes that they cannot
sorrow enough. Not a pang is spared them
of the minor troubles that follow in the wake
of death, for they are alive to them all.
The girl who was now fatherless felt this
all bitterly, and lonely and forlorn as she
was, she suffered a kind of martyrdom.
Her father's sudden death shook her nerves ;
the dismal sights and sounds in the house
before he was carried out of it dismayed
her ; the very absence of mourners, or even
of an expression of sorrow from any one,
hurt her.
There are also many melancholy avoca-
tions that are bound to fall even on the most
broken-hearted after their dead are hid away
from their sight for ever, and which, in spite
of the pain they give, have their own drastic
uses, for they rouse into exertion those
90 A WANDERING STAR.
who feel that all is vanity and vexation of
spirit.
But Vega has no duties at all to distract
her attention ; no well-meant but stereotyped
letters of condolence arrive, requiring long
answers on deeply-bordered paper, and there
is no necessity to talk business with any one,
for there is nothing to discuss.
The pittance on which Mr. Fitzpatrick
dragged out his existence is Vega's now, as
it has always been.
There was none of that terrible setting in
order of the dead man's possessions which
makes those who survive feel like the thieves
alike of property and secrets — there were no
despatch boxes to be opened with a key
which had never for a moment been out of
its late owner's keeping — no business letters
to be carefully examined — no money appro-
priated — no jewel-box rifled — no mine sprung
in the shape of a bundle of letters in a
woman's hand — no reflections made on the
wisdom or the folly of the dead which a know-
ledge of his inner life now renders possible.
No clothes lie in heaps on the floor to be
A WANDERING STAR. 9 1
eyed greedily by paid retainers, and no
souvenirs are despatched in the vain hope
that now and then a thought of the dead
may be evoked by their aid.
Naked we came into the world, and perhaps
it is just as well when we quit it in much the
same condition.
When there is nothing to leave behind
there can be no heartburnings, and at least the
mourners do not quarrel over the will when
there is no document of the kind !
Mr. Fitzpatrick's valuables had long since
disappeared — a few T half worn-out clothes — a
small desk that contained little but two or
three photographs of a young, blooming girl
in the garments of a quarter of a century
ago, with " Mary Vivian ' written across
them — a few unimportant documents — and
a letter ready stamped for the post — are
all that can be found.
The letter is addressed to Colonel Darner,
Conholt Park, Blankshire. There is np
doubt what ought to be done with it,
and Vega takes it herself to the post,
little thinking how much the reception that
92 A WANDERING STAR.
this letter may receive will affect her future
life.
In the meantime the unexpected, as usual,
arrives, and the girl, to her own great sur-
prise, finds herself taken possession of by a
family of whom she has known nothing, and
cared less, but who have lived a careless out-
at-elbows, happy-go-lucky life at Dieppe for
almost as long a time as the Fitzpatricks
themselves. They are Irish, and poor, and
kindhearted ; so Major Bushe forgets Mr.
Fitzpatricks steady avoidance of himself,
and Mrs. Bushe forgets that some advice
she once tendered on the subject of Vega's
health was ill received by him, and the
rough, unrefined, lively boys and girls forget
how little they have always had in common
with Vega, and before her father has been
dead a week she has left for ever the house
in which he lived and suffered for so many
years, and which is all the home she has
ever known.
Victoire is paid off, and with all her
master's possessions to the good, with
the exception of his old desk, she has
A WANDERING STAR. 93
returned to the Pollet and the society of
her equals, while Vega — poor little Vega ! —
has drifted for the time being into the Bushe
family, and forms one of that unthrifty, un-
tidy, but hospitable household.
She never for a moment believes that her
visit to them will last more than a week or
two at the outside, but, at the same time, she
never reflects what is to be the next move in
the game.
"We're delighted to see you, me dear,"
says Major Bushe, while Mrs. Bushe kisses
her effusively ; " stay with us as long as you
like, me poor choild ; the longer you stay
the better we shall be pleased ; ' and if
under the rose, both Major and Mrs. Bushe
thought, and even confided to each other
in the watches of the night, that her poor
pittance would materially help their very
embarrassed budget, no one could blame
them, for that the Bushe shoe pinched most
unpleasantly was an undisputed fact !
In the meantime let us follow the letter
which Mr. Fitzpatrick had destined for
Colonel Darner, and see what comes of it.
94 A WANDERING STAR.
The post at Conholt Park arrives at break-
fast time, and a more ill-timed hour, from
Lady Julia's point of view, cannot be
imagined. In her early married days, when
young men not only loved her, but were
capable of putting pen to paper to tell her
so, she was always haunted by the idea that
Colonel Darner might play the part of a
jealous husband, and might insist on more
than elegant extracts from her corre-
spondence. In later days, when both young
men and love-letters were not so plentiful,
and when she had found out, partly to her
satisfaction, partly to her annoyance, that
her husband was incapable of jealousy, she
has still an instinctive dislike to this public
arrival of letters.
On the morning that Mr. Fitzpatricks
letter reaches Conholt Park both she and
her liege lord are seated opposite each other,
breakfasting at a small round table that is
pushed delightfully near the fire. They are
both arrayed for the chase, and he looks a
model of all that a well-looking, well-turned-
out, and well - conditioned Englishman
A WANDERING STAR. 95
should look in red coat and faultless boots and
breeches. She, however — always a remark-
able-looking woman — is distinctly noticeable
in her hunting things.
She is " more than common tall," and her
splendid figure is literally moulded into the
smartest of red coats. Lady Julia is one
of the few who can afford to be daring in
the matter of clothes ; whatever she wears
looks right, but woe betide those who
attempt to imitate her ! Her handsome,
well-shaped head looks to greater advantage
than ever now that the masses of dark hair
that are its crown of glory are closely plaited
in a neat, workmanlike coil. She can stand
the severity of the man's tie, of the horse-
cloth waistcoat, and the short, the very
short, dark cloth skirt displays the most
perfect foot that could be seen anywhere, and
which now looks its best in the smartest of
riding boots.
The Darners are alone, for a wonder, and
as the meet to-day is not far from Conholt
Park, they can afford to take time over their
breakfast.
96 A WANDERING STAR.
" What on earth are you frowning at,
Reginald ? ' asks her ladyship, as, her own
correspondence run through, she catches
sight of her husband, who, with a face full
of thought and care, is bending over a letter
spread out before him ; his breakfast is
neglected, and Lady Julia's voice is unheard.
" I think you might give me a civil answer
when I speak to you," she goes on. " I
suppose some of your ridiculous speculations
have gone wrong again. You will be hard
hit one of these days, and you will have
only yourself to thank. You know no more
about business than my pug dog here, and
yet you will dabble on at it, and only get
laughed at for your trouble, and fritter away
money that might be better employed some
other way. But it is always the same,
Reginald. You always think you must
know better than any one else."
Colonel Darner looks up ; he has not
listened to Lady Julia's remarks, but instinc-
tively he knows their drift. He looks at his
wife for a moment critically.
" Shall I," he thinks to himself, " throw
A WANDERING STAR. 97
myself on whatever good heart or good
feelings she may possess ? If I could only
manage to make some su^Qrestion of kindness
come from her, we might yet do, for if I have
to carry out any plan with her ladyship in
opposition there will be the devil to pay with
a vengeance. I have no great confidence in
her mercy or goodness, I must say. She has
never thought of any one but herself ever
since I have known her, and I am not very
sanguine that she will begin now. Well !
here goes ! I see no other course open ! "
Aloud he says, " Read this letter, Julia.
I am sure your kind heart will be touched by
it, and I should like to have your advice
about it all. Your quick mind will hit on
some plan, I am sure."
Ralph Fitzpatrick's letter is in Lady Julia's
hands, and she reads it attentively ; it runs
as follows : —
My dear Damer, —
In old days we were very good friends, though
not such close friends as to warrant my turning to you
as I now do. But when a man is between the devil
and the deep sea, he is not apt to be over-scrupulous.
VOL. I. II
98 A WANDERING STAR.
I shall be out of this world altogether before this reaches
you, and my girl will be utterly friendless. I have no
right to ask you to hold out a helping hand to her, and
it is not even fair to put you in such a position. All the
same I ask you to take some care of her. Think of
her as Mary's child, not mine. After all she is of your
own blood. You always were a good fellow, Damer, and
I believe you will do this. So sure do I feel about it,
that I have a certain amount of comfort now I have got
this written. I don't know how you will befriend her,
but you won't lose sight of the poor little thing. I am
safe with you, though I bind on your shoulders a burden
that I have no right to put on them. — Yours, &c,
Ralph Fitzpatrick.
To do her justice, Lady Julia does not
read these words quite unmoved. She is
touched by their hopelessness, and even the
feebleness of the shaky writing is not lost on
her. She is not her hard, worldly, plain-
spoken self for a minute or two.
"A terribly sad letter, is it not ?" says the
Colonel, as he watches with a certain amount
of hopefulness the expression of his wife's
countenance. " How that poor fellow must
have suffered! He was always as proud as
Lucifer, and he must have felt it a bitter pill
to write as much as this even to me. Poor
A WANDERING STAR. 99
Ralph ! I suppose it was about the last
ordeal that he had to face, but it is a mercy
that he was able to bring himself to do it.
What in the world would have become of
that beautiful little girl of his if he had let us
know nothing ?"
Lady Julia's kindlier feelings are fast dis-
appearing ; she will soon be herself again.
" At the same time, Reginald, you must
allow that it puts us in a very awkward
position. This legacy of a girl of seventeen
is very embarrassing, and I don't know in
the least what you are to do. You never
would be so mad as to adopt other people's
children ? "
" I ought to run over for myself and see
how the land lies," says the Colonel ; " for
all I know Vega Fitzpatrick may be utterly
forlorn and alone at Dieppe. It would be
on my conscience for ever if after getting
that letter I did nothing at all. The only way
I can answer it is by going there myself."
There is a long pause ; Lady Julia, for a
wonder, has no answer ready ; she is busy
balancing the different pros and cons. She
h 2
IOO A WANDERING STAR.
is clever enough to see that she cannot
make the Colonel ignore that letter alto-
gether, and she means to reserve her strength,
and show fight only if there should be any
idea of bringing Vega over to England to
make Conholt Park her home.
" She is practically uneducated," she
thinks; "and school could always be sug-
gested for a year or two — but in that case
who would pay ? Reginald has such endless
calls on him, and I think he would be quite
unjustified in accepting such a burden.
There is no doubt that it would be much
cheaper to let her come here for a time.
But Heaven forbid that I, who always con-
gratulate myself on having no children of
my own, should be saddled with a ready-
made daughter ! That would be a little too
much of a good thing ! At my age, and with
my looks, to sink into a chaperone ! No,
indeed ! I wonder how it would do to get
Hermione to take her ? Hermione is so
grasping, and so poor, that a very little
money would tempt her, and it would do
Miss Vega some good to be kept in the
A WANDERING STAR. IOI
background with Pussie and Dottie for a
little ; there's always that plan to be thought
of if the worst comes to the worst."
She once more addresses her husband.
" You must promise me, Reginald, if you do
go over there, to commit yourself to nothing
without consulting me. Men never under-
stand how to manage a girl, and you would
be certain to blunder on some impossible
plan if you attempted to interfere. To begin
with, I think it utterly unnecessary for you
to go to Dieppe at all. The Fitzpatricks
are certain to have made plenty of friends
of their own sort there. Some of them
would be sure to do all that was needful. If
I were you I should wait till I heard more."
" I have made up my mind, Julia," says
the Colonel, in a determined tone, "and I
shall cross to-night ; but I don't see any
reason for losing a day's hunting, as by
driving to Grimthorpe I shall be able to
catch the evening train. I will be in Dieppe
to-morrow morning, and you shall hear what
I am about soon after."
When he has really made up his mind,
102 A WANDERING STAR.
Lady Julia knows that she has no chance of
turning him from his purpose, so she does
not continue the discussion, but with the air
of one who is ill-used, and who feels herself
unjustly treated, she sweeps out of the room
with her handsome head held high in the
air !
We need neither follow the Colonel across
country, especially as he had but a moderate
day's sport, nor cross the Channel with him
in the Newhaven and Dieppe steamer. But
we may rejoin him the next morning when,
after some difficulty, he succeeds in finding
the abode of the Bushe family — a shabby
stuccoed villa, which is neither actually in
the town of Dieppe proper nor in the country,
but which stands by itself in an untidy
garden somewhat in the rear of one of the
Boulevards. A rough-and-ready peasant
woman — a hard-featured Norman — clad in
the indigo blue which is the uniform of her
class in Northern France, is cleaning pots
and pans at an open window close to the
front door as the Colonel walks up the over-
grown weedy footpath ; and as she washes
A WANDERING STAR. IO3
the water slops down the wall of the house
and forms a puddle among the pebbles
below. There is plenty of life about in the
shape of cocks and hens, an old dog or two,
and a huge tortoiseshell cat, who sits on the
doorstep blinking at nothing, and there is
evidently as much life inside the house, to
judge by the babel of voices, the loud
laughter, and the general want of repose
that seems in the air!
The cook stops her cleaning operations as
she catches sight of Colonel Darner, but
does not "derange herself" till she has
thoroughly made him out and ascertained
the cause of his arrival. Then without
haste she leaves her copper pans balanced
on the window-sill, and clatters out of her
kitchen to lead the way upstairs. The house
seems close, ill-ventilated, and stuffy, and a
mingled odour of onions and cabbages from
the kitchen strikes the Colonel as being
uncommonly disagreeable as he follows the
bonne up the narrow, uncarpeted stone
stairs.
The old woman flings open the door of
104 A WANDERING STAR.
the room from which all the noise seems to
come. . . " Un Monsieur qui demande
Mademoiselle," she shouts with stentorian
lungs, and Colonel Darner finds himself
launched into the society of the younger
members of the Bushe family.
The room, which is by no means palatial,
is full of human beings ; a tall, untidy-look-
ing girl, with dishevelled hair, who is no
doubt Miss Bushe par excellence, bends over
the fire with a dirty Tauchnitz novel in her
hand ; another sister, evidently the Penelope
of the family, in a terrible flannel dressing-
gown, is making a hat, or a bonnet, and has
the materials of her trade, in the shape of
some mangy feathers and crumpled ribbon,
spread on a table in front of her — two or
three little Bushes, with headless dolls and
broken toys, play and quarrel on the floor,
while in the window, half buried in a huge arm-
chair, is the girl that he has come so far to find.
Her sweet little face is far paler and
smaller than when Colonel Darner last saw
it radiant with mirth and happiness on board
his yacht, but its beauty strikes him afresh.
A WANDERING STAR. 105
It would seem as if he had half forgotten its
loveliness.
She is thin, sadly thin, and her plain black
frock makes her slim body look still more
fragile and slender. She too has a book in
her hand, but she is by no means immersed
in it, and her expression is both sad and
listless. No sooner, however, does she catch
sight of Colonel Darner than her listlessness,
and even her sadness, disappears as if by
magic. The poor child feels that a friend has
come to her at last, and for a minute or two
she cannot speak by reason of her great joy.
The Colonel has both her small hands in his,
and they form the centre of a curious group.
Miss Bushe closes her Tauchnitz, the
bonnet maker winds up business, and needle
in hand draws near . . the quarrel-
some children are for once united in their
desire to see what is going on, and gaze up
open-mouthed at Colonel Darner and Miss
Fitzpatrick. As for her, poor child, the
arrival of the Colonel seems to mean life and
hope. The Bushe family have not been un-
kind to her ; on the contrary, they have
106 A WANDERING STAR.
petted and made much of her, but fire and
water could as easily mingle as themselves
and the delicate, highly strung, sensitive girl,
brought up as she had been in the almost
exclusive society of a man of fastidious
manners and habits, who, whatever his
faults and failings were, was grand seigneur
by nature and tradition.
11 My little Vega," says Colonel Darner, in
tones of real affection, as soon as the girls
almost hysterical joy over his arrival is some-
what subdued, " I have come over here on
purpose to see you."
" To see me ? From England ? ' asks
Vega. She can hardly believe her ears. Is
it possible that any one could take so much
trouble about her ? Was she worthy of being
thus sought ?
A lovely flush dyes her cheeks — a dewy
light comes into her eyes — perhaps life has
some compensations after all ! perhaps she
will not be utterly forsaken ! For a moment
she looks like the Ve^a who found each long
summer day too short for happiness nearly a
year ago on board his yacht, and then she is
A WANDERING STAR. 10/
recalled to the realities of life by the arrival
of Mrs. Bushe on the scene — Mrs. Bushe,
who has hastily crowned herself with a gor-
geous erection of ribbons and flowers, and
has unearthed from her " jool box ' some
bog-oak ornaments and a large gold locket
the size of a warming-pan, which is fully
displayed on her ample bust ! Her gown
has long since seen its best days, and has
not stood the wear and tear of time well ;
but there is no time to make a change, "and
the Colonel will make allowance for French
ways and habits, and wouldn't look to see
me at this time of the morning in anything
but negligee!"
" Presint the Colonel to me, Vega, me
dear," says Mrs. Bushe as she sweeps up
to the central figures round which her own
family form a kind of fringe.
The good soul believes that she has
acquired a great deal of "French polish'
since she left the County Clare, and has
a secret conviction that Colonel Darner will
recognize in her a great lady who has rather
come down in the world.
108 A WANDERING STAR.
The Colonel, however, only sees before him
one of the most preposterous-looking figures
he has ever set eyes on, and his amazement
is increased when Major Bushe appears on
the scene. No foreign veneer overlays his
Irish individuality. A squireen he was born,
as a squireen he was moulded by nature's
whimsical hand, and a squireen he will re-
main to the end of the chapter, though it is
years since he has seen that green valley in
the County Clare where his " purty little pro-
perty " is situated, and it is likely to be still
longer before his foot is once more on his
native bog, or he puts himself within shoot-
ing distance of his handful of ill-disposed
tenants.
Before Colonel Darner knows what he is
about, Major Bushe and his worthy spouse
have spirited him away with them, and the
three find themselves in the dining-room,
whose only remarkable feature seems to be
the immense disproportion between the size
of the large table and the dimensions of the
small room.
<; Now we can talk sinse, Colonel," says
A WANDERING STAR. IO9
Major Bushe, jauntily, as he places a sound
chair for his visitor, and seats himself in an
airy fashion on the table, on which a very
shady table-cloth covered with the crumbs
of the morning meal has been allowed to
remain ; " when the childer are about one
can't hear oneself speak, and I can assure ye
I am glad to see a friend of poor little
Vega's. We must try and see what the
whole of us can do to help the poor
little thing. Ye're her cousin, Colonel,
ar n t you r
" Yes," answers the Colonel, stiffly, not
much relishing Major Bushe's familiarity,
"and I can only say I am extremely obliged
to you for all your kindness to her."
"It's nothing — nothing at all," returns
Major Bushe, with a wave of his hand in
the direction of his wife. " Mrs. Bushe
feels like a mother to her. Why, Vega's
just like one of our own, and we wish noth-
ing better than to keep her with us always.
If you're agreeable, Colonel, we will keep
her, though I'm thinking some foine young
man will be round one of these days, and
IIO A WANDERING STAR.
then it will be a case of good-bye to the
poor Bushes. "
"At the same time, we are bound, for her
own sake," chimes in Mrs. Bushe, in insinu-
ating accents, "to let you know that we are
poor people. In the old days, when we kept
what might be called ' open house ' at Bally-
massagart, the poor child would have been
welcome to the run of her teeth, and we'd
have quarrelled with any one who'd ever have
talked of money passing between us. ' Mais
nous avong changee tout cela-r ! ' quotes
Mrs. Bushe, in villanous French, " and it is
our duty now to think of our large family
and their prospects."
" I understand perfectly," says the Colonel,
"and you may rest assured that if my cousin
stays on with you there will be no difficulty
about money. But my own plans are not
yet settled, and I have not made up my
mind yet what will be best for her."
Major and Mrs. Bushe exchange glances
with each other.
" No difficulty about money ! ' The words
sound almost incredibly delightful in their
A WANDERING STAR. T 1 1
ears, and make them more anxious than ever
either for Vega's society or for the material
help that will accompany it.
" If I might venture to make a sugges-
tion," says Major Bushe, in the smoothest of
tones, and his eye is positively watery as he
speaks, " I would remark that Vega would
be much happier here with us all than the
poor choild could be anywhere else. She
has known us for years ; ivery one of my
boys and girls are like brothers and sisters
to her; Mrs. Bushe would be her second
mother, and as Vega has lived always in
France, and is a French girl, so to speak, she
would miss all the fun and the ' sang gene '
of life abroad if she went back to England.
England is all very well for the rich and
great, Colonel, but for the lowly and the
poor, even though their ancistry may take
them back to the kings of Oireland, give me
the gaiety and the cheap amusements of all
sorts that we can get here. Leave Ve^a to
us, Colonel, and she will be a happy
y-url."
If Lady Julia had accompanied the
C
112 A WANDERING STAR.
Colonel, little time, indeed, would have been
lost in closing with this offer. The more,
however, that Major and Mrs. Bushe urged
the advantages of life at " Mong Plaisir," as
they call their villa, and the great affection
that they bear to Vega, the more does the
plan of leaving Vega there seem a distaste-
ful one to Colonel Darner.
"Would you ask Vega to put on her hat,
and I will take her for a walk," says the
Colonel, at last, to Mrs. Bushe ; " I should
like to have a little talk with her before
settling anything. It is impossible for me
to make up my mind all at once."
Half an hour later and Colonel Darner
and his little cousin are walking on the edge
of the close-cropped down, above the chalky
cliffs that fall so sheer into the sea that rolls
at their base.
It is a lovely winter day ; sea and sky are
both beautifully blue,and the sails of the differ-
ent fishing boats — the cliffs that cut so boldly
the horizon line — even the sheep that are
scattered over the down, all seem dazzlingly
white, while the air is clear and keen. It is
A WANDERING STAR. 1 I 3
long since there has been so much spring in
Vega's light foot, or so much joy in her lovely
eyes. She seems suddenly to have awoke
from a long sleep. The sun once more warms
her ; the breeze blows fair ; she sees the
well-known picture of steep cliffs and open
sea, and it gives her joy again.
Every gull that skims the blue waters,
every ship that sails up the Channel, seems
to add to her happiness. She no longer
walks in a day-dream, thinking either of the
short but glorious past, or fretting over her
present troubles. Hope has sprung to life
once more. She is child enough to put
her hand in Colonel Darner's, and hand
in hand the two walk along the narrow
path at the edge of the cliff. He is
pleased that she should do this willingly
and of her own accord, and the touch
of that small hand confirms him in his
resolution.
" She shall have her choice," he says to
himself. " Life at Conholt will be no bed of
roses for the poor child. Lady Julia will
take care of that ; but, at any rate, it
vol. 1. 1
114 A WANDERING STAR.
wouldn't be the same thing as life with these
Bushes here. The alternative is a poor one,
and, upon my word, if I were in her shoes,
I don't know which I should choose.
Personally, I should say anything to get
away from Lady Julia! but then, on the
other hand, this Bushe family is very terrible.
For any one gifted with a thick skin there
need not be a moment's hesitation. Lady
Julia's words, and Lady Julia's looks, would
make no impression at all on some people,
for there are plenty of women as well as men
who really feel that hard words break no
bones ; but Vega is not one of that sort.
She is sensitive, and highly strung to a fault.
An unkind word would hurt her like a blow.
Still, could she endure for an indefinite time
the vulgarity, noise, and confusion of this
underbred family ? Well ! well ! I am incap-
able of judging for her — she shall have her
choice.
But the girl finds it as hard, or harder,
to make a decision than even Colonel
Darner.
She knows, and he does not, that Lady
A WANDERING STAR. 115
Julia is her declared enemy, et pour
cause.
She remembers every word that Lady
Julia uttered, and the dark things that came
to light, when Vega heard her fathers
story for the first time, from her envenomed
lips.
Ought she to find a home under the roof
of the woman who hunted her from the
yacht, who disliked her from the beginning,
and who was madly jealous of her at the
end ? On the other hand, Conholt Park —
all England — seems full of Brian Beresford.
Let her but once cross the blue streak, and
she believes she must see him again. And
then the alternative. Life with the Bushe
family would no doubt have no storms, no
scenes, no emotions, but flat, hideous
monotony ! Better, better far, the vicissi-
tudes of life, than to rot on such a mud-
bank.
" But Lady Julia," she says in a faltering
voice, — " Lady Julia would not wish me to
come."
11 Lady Julia is very sorry for you," says
1 2
I 1 6 A WANDERING STAR.
her husband stoutly ; " I wish you could have
heard her speaking about you the morning
before I came away. She was all that was
kind. You know she sometimes says more
than she means, and I hope, my dear child,
that you will always remember that, and
stand a hard word or two as well as you can,
if you elect to come to us, which I hope,
most sincerely, that you will."
" Did Lady Julia really talk about me
kindly ? ' asks Vega, eagerly ; let her but
assure herself that such is the case, and she
will be undecided no longer.
" Of course she did, Vega," he answers,
and if he strays somewhat from the narrow
path of truth, surely it will be counted to
him as but a venial sin ; " but you must
always remember, if you do come to us, that
whatever happens, you will have a firm friend
in me." This is perfectly the case, only,
unfortunately, when husband and wife differ
seriously, it is not always the best man who
wins. " You can't possibly stay with these
Bushes always, kind people as I suppose
they are," he goes on. " I think I must
A WANDERING STAR. 11/
settle for you, Vega. You had better come
home with me."
So the die is cast, much to the disap-
pointment of Major and Mrs. Bushe, who
had in imagination already made good
use of the small but assured pittance
that would come to them through Vega
Fitzpatrick.
" One month more would have made no
difference at all, at all," laments Mrs. Bushe,
" and, with all her rich relations, they
couldn't have offered us less than two
hundred a year for looking after Vega for
them."
" Well, Jemima, me dear, we're no worse
off than we were," says Major Bushe, who is
not a lieht-heartcd Irishman from the County
Clare for nothing; " and you can't say the
Colonel didn't behave handsome to us. His
cold, distant ways don't suit me, but all the
same, I admired him, Jemima, I positively ad-
mired him when he said to you, ( I hardly dare
to make so bold, Mrs. Bushe' (or something
like that), ' but if you would be so kind as
to buy a suitable present for each of your
I I 8 A WANDERING STAR.
family with the contents of this envelope, or
lay it out in any other way that pleases
yourself, I should feel much obliged.' I
couldn't have done it meself with greater
delicacy, me dear, and faix, we've lost
Vega, but we're so much to the good at
any rate.
" And you, Vega, me darlint," says Major
Bushe to the girl, as they walk down together
to the steamer by which Colonel Darner and
Miss Fitzpatrick are to cross the Channel
the same evening, " remimber that whativer
happens, you have always a friend in
Domenic Bushe, and a home ready and
waiting for you at ' Mong Plaisir.' You've
chosen luxury, and wealth, and all the
honours and glories of this world, and you've
turned your back on loving hearts, and a
continted family, and a happy, though
humble home. The divil fly away wid me,
but I'd have done the same if I were in your
shoes," adds the Major, relapsing into the
squireen for a moment, and with a twinkle
in his eyes as he thinks of the contrast he
himself had conjured up. " I only mean to
A WANDERING STAR. I i 9
tell you that if you're not happy over there,
and ve find that all that glitters is not £old,
ye'll remember there are always the poor
Bushes to fall back on. Well, good-bye
again, me dear, and joy go with you."
120 A WANDERING STAR.
CHAPTER VI.
" Ave Faustina Imperatrix."
" I wish this meeting was well over,"
thinks Colonel Darner to himself as he
and Vega sit side by side in the luxurious
brougham that is bringing them almost too
quickly, to suit his present frame of mind,
from the Grimthorpe Railway Station to
Conholt Park. "We shall be home in no
time at this rate, and I haven't yet settled
what I am to say to Lady Julia. What Lady
Julia will say to me is a good deal more to
the point. Something disagreeable, I expect,
and lucky if I get off without a regular
scene. I have one or two chances in my
favour. One is that she is generally so
inf — rn — lly busy, has her hands full with
the Primrose League, or a public meeting,,
or some entertainment, or getting up a ball
A WANDERING STAR. 121
at Grimthorpe, in such a way as to spite all
her equals and mortify all the small fry of
the county, or putting people to rights, or
setting others by the ears, or in a bustle of
some kind, so that my misdemeanours may
pass unnoticed. I won't escape altogether.
Her ladyship never forgets, but the evil day
may be put off, and in my present frame of
mind that will be something gained. There
is always a chance too of getting off in
quite another way. It would be even
better than finding her too busy to pitch
into me. There may be some young
fool about," and the Colonel smiles a grim
smile, for no jealous pangs assail him, " and
he may be such a devoted slave, and satisfy
even her mania for admiration so thoroughly
that she may be in quite an angelic mood. I
have seen such a state of things before now,
and have blessed the young idiot who
worshipped at miladi's shrine. Well, here
we are ! now for it," and the brougham
pulls up under the great arched porch that
forms part of the beautiful facade of Conholt
Park. The massive oaken doors fly open as
122 A WANDERING STAR.
the carriage stops, and Vega, as if in a
dream, enters the first English home she has
ever known.
The entrance-hall is crossed, she has a
vision of oak panels, shining armour, stags'
heads and huge antlers, while the floor on
which she walks is now smooth as ice, and
now covered with thick rugs and heavy
skins in which her feet sink. They enter a
long gallery, and here lights gleam, for there
is a great fireplace at the further end, and a
large party is grouped about it. The tea-
table is spread, some of the guests are round
it, others are sitting near the cheerful blaze,
while on a low couch on one side sits the
great, the dreaded Lady Julia.
This couch stands on a platform which,
though raised but one low step above the rest
of the room, gains importance in con-
sequence.
It seems to dominate the rest of the sur-
roundings ; and when Lady Julia, who has
for long affected one particular corner of it,
sits there, it seems a regal chair, well suited
for such a queenly form.
A WANDERING STAR. I 23
The grand outlines of her magnificent
figure become more remarkable, and her
dress takes the folds of royal robes as it falls
on the step and sweeps hence to the ground.
The tawny hues and the yellow gleams in
that splendid garment that she wears to-
night recall the colouring of tiger or leopard
skin. It is imagined to be a tea-gown, but,
if so, it is a glorified one, for both in the
skilful blending of the rich warm brown and
gold, and in the inimitable grace of its every
line, the hand of an artist may be seen.
The long loose drapery that does duty for
sleeves falls from the arms which it does
not attempt to hide — the beautiful bare arms
in which Lady Julia takes inordinate pride,
and which indeed are rarely white and
rarely shaped.
A young man — and a remarkably hand-
some one to boot — sits on the low step close
to her. She likes her lovers to sit thus at
her feet.
Everything is going well with her, and the
" Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour ' !
124 A WANDERING STAR.
give her face almost a soft expression, while
" The cruel
Red mouth, like a venomous flower,"
smiles down brightly on her slave.
" Here we are, my dear Julia," says the
Colonel, advancing lite a courtier to her
throne, and rejoicing greatly in his sover-
eign's gracious looks, even though those
looks are not meant for him. "We have
had a desperately long journey, and a very
tiresome day to-day. These cross-country
lines are terrible. Here is little Vega, you
see.
The slim girl, in her sombre weeds, forms
a contrast not only to Lady Julia, but to the
rest of that brilliant-looking band ; and Lady
Julia, radiant as she is at the present
moment, feels that any idea of rivalry be-
tween herself and that slip of a girl is pure
foolishness. .
Struck with this thought, she not only
receives her husband with sufficient cor-
diality, but half rises from her couch to greet
Vega Fitzpatrick.
A WANDERING STAR. I 25
She bends down to her, and a chilly kiss is
her reward for looking so pale, worn out,
and travel-stained.
" I suppose you are very tired, Vega,"
says the great lady. " Please some one give
Miss Fitzpatrick tea and something to eat.
I am so thoroughly worn out myself I am
not capable of further exertion. We've had
a splendid day to-day, Reginald. A pity
you missed it — never had such sport."
As a matter of fact the sport had been
rather moderate, but Lady Julia, like most
hunting women, considers the chase from a
purely personal point of view. She had un-
doubtedly gone noticeably well herself in
two fair gallops ; had cut down the other
hard-riding ladies who were out ; had gone
out of her way to take some regular "gal-
lery ' jumps ; had followed Gray Diddleton,
the hardest rider in Blankshire, over a
break-neck place, and had lived to tell the
tale.
No wonder she is satisfied with herself,
and even triumphant.
" Pussie, my dear, are you taking care of
126 A WANDERING STAR.
Miss Fitzpatrick ? " calls out her ladyship, in
gracious tones.
"Yes, Bijou," obediently answers a pale
little girl, who, clad in useful brown serge,
is sitting behind the tea-urn. She might
call Lady Julia "aunt," if she only dared, for
she is her sister's child.
Lady Julia, however, will not face the
idea of a grown-up niece, and " Ju," as she
long ago decreed that Pussie and her sister
Dottie should call her, has been corrupted
into " Bijou," with her full consent.
"Then I think the sooner Miss Fitz-
patrick is allowed to go upstairs the better
pleased she will be," says Lady Julia. " My
dear Pussie, I am not equal to showing the
way. You have been doing nothing all day
long, so I don't mind asking you to take
Miss Fitzpatrick up to her room, and be sure
and see she has everything she wants."
" This is too good to last," thinks Colonel
Darner, as he opens the door for the two
girls, and repeats in still kinder words his
wife's injunctions to Pussie Langton.
u You want to know who she is?' he
A WANDERING STAR. 1 27
hears Lady Julia now saying to the Chaste-
lard who is sitting at her feet. " Oh, she's
a far-away cousin of the Colonel's, a waif
and stray with some Vivian blood in her
veins. She is an orphan, and he has taken
it into his head to bring her over here — I
suppose I shall have to be kind to her,
but I am no good at looking after girls,
they bore me too much. However, I sup-
pose she won't be here long. Pussie and
Dottie are always coming over, and I know
that my sister Hermione doesn't care for
them to associate with girls that she knows
nothing about." And here Lady Julia
laughs. " Hermione has grown so very
particular now-a-days, and this girl has been
knocking about abroad all her life, and we
really know very little about her."
" What a perfect angel you are ! You are
kind and good to every one," says Chas-
telard admiringly. " I am sure, all the
same, it must be an awful nuisance to you
to have a girl always about — but you are
simply wonderful."
''After that I may depart with a mind at
128 A WANDERING STAR.
peace !" thinks the Colonel to himself; " I
shall have no scolding from her ladyship to-
night ! "
In the meantime the two girls have
crossed the round hall, and have mounted
the principal staircase of the house, whose
panelled walls, hung with the pictures of
many a dead-and-gone Darner, and low
broad oaken steps, covered with carpets so
thick and velvety that no step that treads on
them can be heard, form a contrast to the
next flight of stairs up which they climb.
These steep stone stairs, with their plain
whitewashed walls, evidently lead, if not to
the servants' quarters, at any rate to an in-
ferior part of the house ; but after they are
ascended there is yet another short flight
which winds corkscrew-fashion before they
reach the bare and scantily-furnished room
at the top of the turret which is destined
for Miss Fitzpatrick. It is not an uncom-
fortable room, but neither is it a room chosen
for an honoured guest. It is but meanly
garnished, and seems to offer no hospitable
welcome to the new-comer. The fire has
A WANDERING STAR. I 29
just been lighted, the sticks splutter damply,
and the smoke seems disinclined to go up
the chimney. To those who go delicately
all their days, and to whom comfort and
luxury are as second nature, these poor
quarters, and the evident want of either
attention or preparation, would seem a kind
of insult, while the sensitive and timid would
feel hurt by the coldness of the welcome that
is indicated.
Everything is relative, however, and as
Vega has never known either comfort or
luxury, and as she has never been welcomed
anywhere, she does not miss what has never
been hers. After all, this room is no barer
than was her room in the only house that
she ever called home, and if the noisy
welcome that the Bushes had given
her to " Mong Plaisir ' had distracted her
attention just at first from the dirt and
dilapidation of that shabby abode, they had
been thrust on her notice very soon after-
wards.
Miss Langton does not take much trouble
to do the honours to the new arrival. She
vol. 1. K
J3O A WANDERING STAR.
looks round the room in an apathetic kind
of way.
" Aunt Julia said I was to be sure and
see you had everything you wanted."
She repeats her aunt's words in parrot-like
fashion, and, as if to follow out her instruc-
tions to the letter, she peeps first into the
soap-dish and then into an ink-stained
blotting-book ; she seems relieved to find
that neither soap, nor two sheets of writing-
paper, and the blackened stump of a pen, are
wanting, and then she sinks supinely into an
old-fashioned arm-chair that guards the in-
hospitable hearth.
The two girls have hardly spoken at all,
and have certainly made no noise ; but as
the vultures of the desert are said to ap-
pear on the scene, no one knows from
whence, whenever there is anything to be
picked up, or even to be investigated, so
the youngest Miss Langton seems to have
got wind of their arrival, and drops unin-
vited into Vega's room to see what is
going on.
She is by no means a counterpart of her
A WANDERING STAR. I 3 I
sister Pussie, although she is hardly more
prepossessing ; but the dulness and apathy
that distinguishes the one are replaced in the
other by a sulky, defiant, and somewhat ill-
tempered expression. Both are short, but
Pussie is small, flat, and meagre, while
Nature's original intention seems to have
been to have made a fine woman of Miss
Dottie. She has broad shoulders and fine
arms, and is built on rather a large scale ;
but her legs have not grown with her
growth, and she has remained squat, and too
broad for her height. Her head, though not
small, is well-shaped ; and the dark hair, fine
eyes, and beetle brows of her mother's
family have been inherited by her, but in
her case have lost all their effect by reason of
the lowliness of her stature and the stumpi-
ness of her figure. Her eyes can flash fire
and fury on occasion, and her straight black
brows give her a good deal of Lady Julia's
expression ; but whereas the latter, to do
her justice, even in her worst moods, looks
like an indignant, or an insulted empress,
her niece never rises to such a height, for
K 2
I32 A WANDERING STAR.
she is cast in a coarser and more Jewish-
looking- mould.
All the same, Lady Julia shudders when
she traces the likeness between herself and
her niece, and if she feels a passive sort of
dislike to Pussie, she has an active aversion
to Dottie, which displays itself by doing her
best to keep her out of sight, and out of the
way.
With all her faults, a certain amount of
strength of mind and body must be conceded
to Dottie, of which her elder sister is not
possessed, and she neither looks indifferent
nor stupid as she enters Vega's room and
takes stock of her possessions.
" Far too good-looking to suit Aunt Julia,"
she thinks to herself, as she stares at Vega,
and looks her over from head to foot ; "she
won't stay long here, that's certain, and she
will spend most of her time in the school-
room with us, while she remains ; " but she
welcomes the new-comer not unkindly, and
at least makes a slight effort, with the aid of
the poker and a chink of open window, to
help the smoke up the chimney.
A WANDERING STAR. I 33
" What is going to happen to her ? ' she
asks her sister, ignoring Vega as if she was
not present. " Is she to dine downstairs to-
night, or to tea with us in the schoolroom ? '
11 She is to tea with us in the schoolroom,"
answers Pussie, indifferently, and with the
air of one who is in utter subjection to the
powers that be, of whom indeed she is the
mouthpiece.
"Well, does Jane know ? " demands Dottie ;
11 I suppose that at least they will give us
another Ggg, and an extra roll or two." They
do not seem to mind the presence of a
stranger, but discuss the commissariat to-
gether in the most unrestrained manner.
4< I suppose tea will be ready in half an hour,"
says Pussie, and she gets up, and without
more ado walks out of Miss Fitzpatrick's
bedroom. Dottie pauses to give Vega the
route, for the schoolroom is a long way off.
Vega, however, is quick, and Dottie's ex-
planations are lucid, so it is not much- more
than half an hour before she finds herself in
the schoolroom, a shabbily-furnished but not
uncomfortable room, in which a large fire burns
134 A WANDERING STAR.
behind the strong bars of a high nursery
fender. Everything is old in the room, but,
in spite of old carpet, old bookcases filled
with old books, old chairs, and a disreputable
old sofa, which is draped in the oldest and
dirtiest of chintz, it has a certain air of old-
fashioned snugness. In fact, whole genera-
tions of young Darners have lived and
learned lessons in it, and everything seems
to bear a homely but rather venerable stamp
in consequence.
The two Misses Langtonhave not thought
it necessary to wait for their guest, but are
hard at work at tea. Pussie, who fills the
post of honour behind an old copper tea-urn,
is reading a tattered novel, which she has
propped up with the sugar-basin, and she
turns over a page, and takes a large mouth-
ful of bread-and-butter, turn and turn about.
Dottie is very busy with buttered toast, the
fruits of her own industry, and the result of
many journeys to and from the blazing fire.
" What will you eat, Miss Fitzpatrick ? '
inquires Dottie, shoving a boiled egg in her
direction. Pussie, with her eyes still fixed on
A WANDERING STAR. 1 35
her book, dribbles out some tea with neither
care nor attention, and pushes it over to Vega.
The two girls have been so entirely kept in
the background, and so much neglected,
that their manners would hardly pass muster
in the servants' hall. Lady Julia is actually
glad that such is the case, as it gives
her an excuse, and a good one, not to
bring them forward, or to let them mingle
in the company of herself and her fellows.
Their ways strike Vega Fitzpatrick as very
singular.
" I suppose you would much rather be
dining downstairs," says Dottie, who has in-
herited the vice — or virtue — of almost brutal
frankness ; " but you see there are eighteen
people at dinner to-night, and Aunt Julia
very seldom lets us dine unless they are
quite alone. I can't say I think it a great
treat then : Aunt Julia is always cross, Uncle
Regie never opens his mouth, and as for
Mums, she finds fault with everything we
say or do, and Aunt Julia joins in. But of
course I like the food, and the ice-pudding,
and all that. It's very different from our
I36 A WANDERING STAR.
teas up here ; we sometimes really don't get
enough to eat, for no one has time to look
after us, and everybody thinks us a nuisance.
I don't believe, though, you'll ever dine
downstairs at all. You are far too pretty to
suit Aunt Julia."
" Dottie, what nonsense you do talk ! " says
Pussie, as she awakens to the realities of life
and her sister's unfeeling plain speaking ;
she has come to the end of the second volume
of a cheap translation of one of Gaboriau's
novels, and looks up at the speaker with
dazed eyes. " You ought not to say such
things before strangers.''
<4 Miss Fitzpatrick will find it all out fast
enough for herself," says Dottie, defiantly.
" Besides, she won't be a stranger long if she
joins our mess, as Uncle Regie calls it, up
here. You like Uncle Regie, don't you ?
He is the only person in the house who is
ever kind to us, or who ever says a nice word
to us."
" Like him! Like Colonel Darner!" an-
swers Vega, eagerly, and her lovely face
lights up with gratitude and affection ; " I
A WANDERING STAR. I 37
should rather think I did ! Oh ! what
could I ever have done without him ?
He has always been so very, very good to
me."
" You're right," says Dottie, with a plea-
santer expression on her sulky face than it has
yet worn ; " there's no doubt at all about his
kindness. The only pity is that we never
see him at all ; he is always hunting, or
shooting, or driving into Grimthorpe to
attend some meeting, or to do some business,
or people come over here to talk to him, or
he is writing letters, or playing billiards, or
something or other. We sometimes don't
set eyes on him for days at a time. But it
can't be helped, I suppose ; and on Sunday
afternoons he insists that we should go
out with them all, and then he generally
walks behind with us ; he takes us to the
stables or the farm, or we do something
amusing. He always brings us presents
from London when he goes up, as he some-
times does for the night, and we get a
sovereign from him on birthdays and on
Christmas day, and he never forgets us,
I38 A WANDERING STAR.
which is saying a good deal in this
house."
" Do you always live here ? ' asks
Vega ; " and why are you obliged to stay
in the schoolroom when there is no
governess ? "
" One question at a time, please," says
Dottie, quite delighted to have an audience
to whom to air her grievances ; " no, we
don't always live here ; we have a house in
London, but you see we are very, very hard-
up, and it is the aim and object of Mums'
life to let it, and then when she has found
some one who will take it, she likes really to
save, and to live on her relations. But not
many of our relations will let us live on them ;
they won't keep us for more than ten days or
so at the outside, and, as Mums says that there
is nothing so expensive as moving about, she
gets Aunt Julia to let us stay on here for the
two or three months that the house is off our
hands. I suppose Aunt Julia must really be
rather fond of Mums, for we are here like
this nearly every winter. They are always
fighting, but I expect they really suit each
A WANDERING STAR. I 39
other ; and then Uncle Regie is so rich, and
Conholt is such a big house, that it doesn't
matter to her. Aunt Julia wouldn't stand it
for a day if she had to take Pussie and I
about, or even if we were much downstairs.
She hates girls — she always says so, but so
long as we are kept up here, she doesn't
bother her head about us. She and the
Mums are both delighted to get rid of us.
Now for your other question. No, we have
got no governess. We haven't had one for
years ; but this has always been called the
schoolroom, and the schoolroom it will
remain, I expect, to the end of the
chapter. It suits Aunt Julia to be able to
tell people that her ' little nieces ' are up in
the schoolroom. It makes them think that
we are much younger than we are. Oh !
there goes the gong ! They will be going
in to dinner in a minute now. Come on !
come on ! "
Acting on her own words, Dottie jumps
up, and with her mouth still full of buttered
toast, she tears out of the room ; Pussie
follows her in equal haste, but in a more dig-
I40 A WANDERING STAR.
nified manner, and Vega, caught as it were
in the tide, seems to have no option but to
run also.
They clatter downstairs, and find them-
selves standing in the gallery that runs round
the hall, from which they have a capital view
of the procession of smartly-dressed people
as they file in to dinner.
Dottie bends right over the oaken railing,
devouring them with her black eyes ; Pussie,
more discreetly, keeps a little in the back-
ground ; while Vega's golden head against
the dark panels makes a lovely picture for no
eye to see.
" Look at them all ! ' whispers Dottie.
" Here comes Uncle Regie first of all, looking
so handsome in his red coat ; he always has
that grand bored look when he takes some
fat important old dowager in to dinner ; he
seems as if he hadn't a word to sav for him-
m
self, but he makes up for it by looking nice !
I don't know who the next man is with Lady
Winton ; that's Lady Winton, that very tall,
fair, handsome woman in mauve. She
doesn't look like a grandmother, does she ?
A WANDERING STAR. 141
She is one, all the same, but nobody seems to
look like a grandmother now-a-days. Per-
haps a great-grandmother may, but I don't
know any. Now here come all the nice
young men ; the nice ones always go near
the end. Don't they look handsome, and all
exactly alike as one looks down on them ?
There's my mother in plain black silk. She
says she lives in it because she's so very,
very poor, but we know better. She wears
it because she looks handsomer in it than
anything else, better even than Bijou in all
her finery. The Mums is going in with Mr.
Vansittart. He's Aunt Julia's fancy man,
you know ; but he is a nobody — I mean he
has no rank at all of any kind, so, as she can't
take him in herself, Aunt Julia gives him to
Mums, and woe betide her if she doesn't put
him next Aunt Julia! He is good-looking,
isn't he, Miss Fitzpatrick ? but he's not my
style at all ; the sort of looks I like are quite
different to his. I like curly fair men with
blue eyes, like Brian Beresford. Have you
ever seen Brian Beresford, Miss Fitz-
patrick ? "
142 A WANDERING STAR.
Vega gives a little gasp. Has she not
already sought for his face in that procession
— vainly sought for it — and is not her heart
heavy as lead in consequence ?
As the different men file across the hall,
fair or dark, tall or short, she eagerly gazes
down on each of them in succession, but her
eyes are not gladdened by the sight of the
man who has filled her thoughts, waking or
sleeping, for the last six months. To hear
his name spoken gives her a kind of shock,
for it seems strange to her that he should be
spoken about at all.
" Did you ever meet him ? ' and Dottie
Langton repeats her question, fixing, at
the same time, her bold, black eyes full on
Vega.
She has heard her sigh, and she is one of
those whom nothing escapes. But she can
gather no information from Vela's manner.
The girl is white indeed, but hardly paler than
she was before, and she has been forced
to rely on herself alone all her life, so
her present questioner does not take her
aback.
A WANDERING STAR. 1 43
" Yes," she answers, steadily, and even
Dottie's sharp ears catch no tremor in her
voice; "he was on board the yacht when I
was there last autumn. Is he staying here
now ? "
" Staying here now ? ' and Dottie laughs
as if the bare idea was an exquisite joke.
" Why, my dear, he is at the other end of the
world at this moment. He started last
autumn for America, and Japan, and I don't
know where else. Uncle Re^ie calls him a
regular globe-trotter ; oh, dear ! how I
wish he wasn't so far away," sighs Dottie,
and she does not notice that Vega sighs
also. " He is nice, if you like ! He's one
of the people who thinks we're human beings,
and who tries as much as he can to give us a
little pleasure. He has been up to the
schoolroom often and often, and never comes
here without bringing us chocolates, or bon-
bons, or something to amuse us. No
wonder Aunt Julia is so much in love with
Brian Beresford ! I'm in love with him also,
and so would Pussie be, if she could be in
love with anyone."
144 A WANDERING STAR.
" I think," says Pussie, primly, "it would
be just as well if we went upstairs again.
There's nothing more to be seen now, and it
can't be very amusing to Miss Fitzpatrick to
hear you talking nonsense ! "
A WANDERING STAR. 1 45
CHAPTER VII.
u The weary day rins doon, and dees,
The weary night wears through,
And never an hour is fair wi' flower,
And never a flower wi' dew."
It is not unhappiness so much as utter
stagnation that make these first days and
weeks at Conholt Park seem almost unbear-
able to Yega Fitzpatrick. She knows now
for the first time what it is to taste "the
weariness of life ! ' The child has had a sad
time of it so far ; little love or affection has
fallen to her lot, and little joy has brightened
her existence. It would almost seem as if
any change must be for the better, and that
she at least would have no past to regret.
Her father's society had given her no com-
fort, his affection had been meted out to her
in a grudging, indifferent kind of way ; his
vol. 1. L
146 A WANDERING STAR.
death had caused her horror rather than
grief, and in the poor pinched life they had
led, there had been no mirth or happiness,
or even comfort. There had been few-
illusions possible about the out-at-elbows, all
but squalid home to which the Bushe family
had welcomed her with noisy hospitality,
though it was not their fault that the boys
and girls, not to mention their parents, were
made of coarser clay than their guest, and
that there could be no sympathy or real
friendship between them.
But for all that, the dire monotony of the
life at Conholt is more crushing still to her
spirit. There had been freedom, at any
rate, in the life that had gone before. She
could breathe the air of heaven, could
wander in the leafy woods of Tibermont,
and the great forest of Arques, could brave
the sea-breezes on the edge of the chalky
cliffs without let or hindrance. People came
and went in the picturesque streets of the
old Norman town ; music was played on the
Casino Terrace ; there were the churches of
St. Jacques and St. Remi to pray in. Here
A WANDERING STAR. 1 47
no freedom is allowed her ; prohibitions
hedge her and her two companions in on
every side ; forbidden fruit seems to hang
on every bough. She sometimes wonders
bitterly why they are permitted to be alive
at all !
They may not wander alone among the
woods ; they may not walk on the ter-
races and in the gardens reserved for the
owners of Conholt and their guests ; they
may not join the merry parties who drive
and ride and live a life of amusement and
pleasure ; and they receive but a grudging
and niggardly welcome when they appear
in any of the public rooms downstairs.
The schoolroom is their kingdom, and
to the schoolroom they are practically
banished.
Vega has hitherto lived only with men
and women, and is utterly unaccustomed to
the ways of other girls. She finds Pussie
Langton uninteresting and wearisome in the
extreme ; and as for Dottie — her cynical
sharpness, her bitterness, and the vulgarity
of her manners annoy her terribly.
l 2
I48 A WANDERING STAR.
The two sisters spar, snarl, and quarrel
from morning to night. They agree on no
possible subject, except when they make
common cause to repine over the dulness
of their lives, and to talk bitterly about the
eagerness of their mother to suppress her
daughters, and about the intense selfishness
of their aunt.
But they are no companions to the
refined, charming girl who finds herself
entirely thrown on them for society. They
are so much engrossed also with their
own concerns that they are utterly indif-
ferent to hers ; and Dottie, though the
feeling, as yet, smoulders in her breast,
has it in her to be madly jealous of Vega
Fitzpatrick.
She is quick enough to see that were they
ever matched against each other, she and
Pussie might renounce at once and for ever
all idea of rivalry to Vega ; that in her society
nobody would ever look at them a second
time ; and that, beside the tall, slim girl, she
looks more stumpy, and her sister more flat
and meagre than ever ; while Vega's lovely
A WANDERING STAR. 1 49
face puts her own completely in the shade,
in spite of black flashing eyes and beetle
brows.
It is not Colonel Darner's fault that Vega
runs a very good chance of being forgotten
altogether ; but he is never at home at all.
To be sure, he generally sleeps under his
own roof-tree ; but the season is drawing to
its end, and he hunts every day of the
week ; or if by chance he misses a day, he is
simply overwhelmed with business, and has
no time to think about the girl he has so
stoutly determined to befriend.
He forgets her, and Lady Julia ignores
her ; not so Lady Hermione ! She has
looked at her, talked to her, stared at her ;
and she knows that she cannot afford to be
ignored. She knows that Vega Fitzpatrick
has only to be seen, and that all men will go
mad about her !
She is the last person in the world to
undervalue the power of supreme good
looks, for she has not been an acknowledged
beauty ever since she was a dark-eyed girl
in her father's house for nothing.
1 50 A WANDERING STAR.
She knows that, in the best of her beaux
join's, she was never lovely as Vega is
lovely ; and that now, let that " bright,
particular star" but once appear on the
horizon, and not only would those farthing
rushlights, her own daughters, be utterly
eclipsed, but her own handsome face and
still graceful figure would be completely put
in the shade ; while, as for her sister,
though men would still worship at her
shrine, even her magnificent beauty would
pale before the angel-face of the young
girl.
" I can't imagine what you were thinking
of, Julia," says Lady Hermione Langton to
her sister, about ten days after Vega s arrival
at Conholt Park, " when you so weakly gave
in to Reginald about that Fitzpatrick girl.
It's not like you" (she is right there !), " and
I don't understand what you meant by it.
In the first place, What have you got to do
with her at all ? She's nothing to you — or
to Reginald either, for that matter ; for, if
people began to think it necessary to adopt
all their hundredth cousins, I don't know
A WANDERING STAR. I S I
where it would end. There would have to
be community of goods in the long run, and
communistic principles, and free love, and all
the rest of it ! Of course, it resolves itself
into the old story — a man's admiration for a
pretty face ! If Vega Fitzpatrick had been
a plain girl, do you think for a moment that
Reginald would have torn over to Dieppe
to look after her ? Do you think that
she would have been sitting at Conholt Park
at this moment ? But, mind you, Julia, I
give you this word of warning : hers is no
ordinary beauty ; she has not merely a
pretty face — I don't believe you could find a
much lovelier one anywhere. You ought to
look matters steadily in the face. A stray
girl is always a horrible bore. It is bad
enough to have children of one's own : they
are a never-ending worry and bother and
disappointment. But willingly to put one's
head in a noose — to adopt a girl who has the
additional drawback of such good looks-that
every man who sets eyes on her will fall in
love with her — is quite beyond me."
" How you run on, Hermione ! ' says Lady
J 52 A WANDERING STAR.
Julia, fretfully. " Who ever talked about
adoption ? That's quite a word and an idea
of your own. I have no more idea of
adopting Vega Fitzpatrick than I have of
adopting Pussie or Dottie ; and that's say-
ing a good deal."
The two sisters are sitting in Lady Julia's
boudoir — a wonderful room, whose amber
panels and tawny draperies are well fitted to
set off the handsome brunette beauty of its
owner. Conholt is nearly deserted this
morning, for Colonel Darner and most of the
guests have gone out hunting ; but the meet
is a long way off, and Lady Julia is lazy, so
she stays at home, and lets Lady Hermione
give her advice.
" Oh, you may laugh as much as you
like," says the latter ; "but you will be the
last person in the world to laugh when she
has set the whole house by the ears, and
perhaps interfered with some flirtation of
your own. Believe me, her arrival here has
been a great mistake. It is worse than a
crime ; it's a blunder ! "
" You let your imagination run away with
A WANDERING STAR. 153
you, Hermione, and your tongue too," in-
terrupts Lady Julia. " I thought Reginald
was a fool for bringing her over here to
us, and I told him so. We don't want stray
girls to take root for an indefinite time ; but,
all the same, you may keep your mind at
ease : she won't be here long. She will
stay with us for a few weeks, I expect, and
then she must return whence she came.
Even Reginald himself couldn't expect me
to take out a girl who hasn't the faintest
claim on me, and who, into the bargain, I
positively dislike."
" No, Julia ; I can't imagine you looking
after any girl. You are not the stuff of
which chaperones are made."
Lady Julia reads between the lines, and
draws the exact inference that her sister
intends to convey. She knows that she is
selfish, but she does not like Lady Her-
mione to hint it so very plainly.
"Well, I may return the compliment,
Hermione," she says angrily, ' { and go still
further ! You're not quite the stuff of which
model mothers are made. I don't think
154 A WANDERING STAR.
Pussie and Dottie have had a particularly
good time of it so far. How you used to
knock them about when they were small !
You cowed Pussie thoroughly ; she always
was a poor thing ! a regular Langton, and
she's no good at all now. As for Dottie,
she's as sulky as a bear, and so ill-
conditioned and violent tempered ; but I
expect she wouldn't have been quite so bad
if you had treated her more kindly. There
was a time when you rather took her up,
when she was quite a little thing, and her
face seemed nothing but black eyes and
straight eyebrows. She really looked as if
she might turn out something like us! She
was too short and too fat even then, but that
was rather a point in her favour than other-
wise, for you could delude people into think-
ing she was two or three years younger than
she was ! In those days you dressed her
smartly, and curled her black hair, and took
her about with you everywhere. People
used to call her the best chaperone in
London ! But that phase didn't last long ;
she got too old for that sort of thing, and
A WANDERING STAR. I
00
lost the certain amount of good looks that
she possessed as a child. She got stumpy
and coarse-looking, and since then you have
not troubled yourself much about either her
or poor Pussie."
"You are plain-spoken, Julia, as you
always are ! ' says Lady Hermione, bit-
terly ; "but I don't see in what way abuse
of Pussie and Dottie has to do with the
question in point. They are not in your
way, poor things ! and never will be,
whereas this Miss Vega is a very different
thing."
" Long before she has a chance of being in
my way she will have departed from here,
you may rest assured of that. She is no
favourite of mine ! We took her with us
when we went that cruise in the Gitana
last autumn that I told you about, but I
neither cared for her nor her ways. She
struck me as being rather bold and forward,
and Cissy Grahame entirely agreed with
me.
Lady Hermione feels she has sufficiently
annoyed her sister and hostess, so refrains
I56 A WANDERING STAR.
from giving vent to the thought that is
uppermost in her mind, which is that she
cannot imagine Cissy Grahame disagreeing
on any mortal subject with the powers that
be. She knows that that far-seeing little
lady realizes thoroughly that she owes
her success in life to being able to turn
her coat at a moment's notice to suit the
views of any one in authority, and also to
the prudence with which she bridles her
tongue.
" No ! I suppose Cissy Grahame didn't
particularly care for Miss Fitzpatrick,"
answers Lady Hermione ; " she never said
so in as many words, and it is very hard
to find out anything about Cissy's likes or
dislikes ; but even Cissy now and then shows
her feeling by her manner, and I saw plainly
enough that Miss Fitzpatrick was no
favourite of hers. I expect she cut her
out in some way, for I suppose there were
some men or other on board. Oh ! by the
way, didn't you have Brian Beresford with
you r
The Japanese fan in Lady Julia's hand
A WANDERING STAR. 1 57
shakes ever so slightly, but the tremor is not
lost on her sister, and there is just a percep-
tible pause before Lady Julia answers in an
off-hand manner, " Brian Beresford ! Oh !
yes, he was there ; he was with us nearly the
whole autumn."
1 " And Miss Vega ? " asks Lady Hermione.
" Did she try to take her away from ?
Did he admire her very much ? I never saw
a man yet who didn't like change, and I
expect Brian isn't more constant than his
neighbours ! I suppose he fell in love with
her ? "
Lady Julia makes no answer; she leaves
her luxurious corner by the fire with the air
of one who is very much bored, and walks
across the room to one of the long windows
that look out on the park. She stands there
apparently idly looking out, but she forgets
that a mirror that hangs on one side enables
her sister to see an angry flash in her
dark eyes, and a heightened colour in -her
cheek.
Thus she stands, looking out on the leaf-
less trees, the pinched shrubs, and the grey
I58 A WANDERING STAR.
grass. The country is looking its very
worst, and the cold, hard light of a March
sun dispels any illusion of beauty that might
be imagined to belong to the scene ; the
brown, bare branches look like withered
sticks ; the evergreens belie their name, and
have the appearance of foliage cut out of
metal, and there is not even a touch of
tender green on the turf of the park. In
more genial seasons, and under a less fierce
light, there is something that pleases the eye
in the wide extent of park, flat though it be ;
but to-day it looks only a barren, uninterest-
ing waste.
Lady Julia shivers as she looks out ; the
beauty of any country scene would always be
thrown away on her if devoid of human
interest in the form of the male element ;
still, she continues standing there, for her
sister's words rankle in her mind, and she
does not wish to face her till she is once more
herself. At last the monotony of the landscape
is broken by three figures, and Lady Julia is
glad of it, for they divert her attention, and
give her something to look at, criticize, and
A WANDERING STAR. 1 59
condemn. It is Vega Fitzpatrick and the
two Langtons who are crossing the park in
the direction of the house. Vega is the
centre figure, and Pussie and Dottie are
talking across her, apparently in no friendly
spirit. The sisters are dressed exactly alike,
in a uniform of Lady Hermiones own con-
triving, which it would certainly take greater
good looks than her daughters possess to
stand successfully. Their plain grey duffle
frocks are short, which is a mistake, as both
boots and feet are not much to boast of, and
jackets and hats are of the same unbecoming
dingy drab as the rest of their attire.
Pussie looks poor, and thin, and mes-
qtiine, and seems chilly, in spite of the
pace at which they are getting over the
ground ; while Dottie has a cut-short and
stumpy appearance, and has, moreover, a bad
carriage.
No wonder Vega shines in such company !
Her clothes are plain enough also, and -the
sombre black is unrelieved by the faintest
touch of white. It must be owned, however,
that not only does she wear them " with a
l6o A WANDERING STAR.
difference," but that a French hand, though
but a provincial one, has hung those folds,
and followed with the eye of an uncon-
scious artist every line of the slender, lovely
figure.
Her step is elastic, she is full of life and
youth, and the harsh east wind has no power
to blight or wither her. It only brings some
colour into her small face, and a brighter
light to her eye. The joy of living is strong
in her, in spite of all her troubles, and is
quenched neither by the bitter blast, by the
death of all that is beautiful in nature, nor
by the depressing or irritating society of
her two companions. She swings along,
taller by a head at least than either of them,
and looking like a being of another race.
The sisters talk, and wrangle, and quarrel,
but she takes no part in their dissensions ; it
is to her as if they were silent, for she hears
nothing of their words, sees nothing of her
dull surroundings, knows nothing for the
moment, except that she once upon a time
was happy — once had sailed over enchanted
seas in the good yacht Git ana — once had
A WANDERING STAR. I 6 I
loved, and oh ! had she been loved again —
by Brian Beresford ?
The remembrance of her good days brings
a tender light into her eyes, and a shadowy
beauty flits across her face. Vega is now
near enough the window at which Lady
Julia stands for her keen eye to note every-
thing. She is a woman who is brutally
frank, even to herself, and she does not
attempt to undervalue the wonderful attrac-
tion that this girl possesses.
She may hate her for it, but she is not
petty or foolish enough to deny or ignore it.
She wheels round as soon as Vega passes
out of sight.
" You are right, Hermione — right, for
once," she says. :< The Colonel had no busi-
ness to bring that girl over here at all. It
isn't likely that I am going to trouble myself
about her, and he ought to have known that
for himself. If I were some years older,
and were plagued with grown-up daughters
of my own' (Lady Hermione feels the stab,
but does not wince), " it might be another
thing altogether ; but as matters now stand,
VOL. I. M
1 62 A WANDERING STAR.
it would be too ridiculous to expect me to
take up a strange girl that I know nothing
about — a girl who hasn't the faintest claim
on us, and who comes of a very queer stock
too ; the daughter of a broken-down gambler,
who was hunted out of society — outlawed
from England, for all I know. It isn't
likely / should be mixed up with such
people ! I shall speak to Reginald very
plainly on the subject, and tell him she can't
take root here."
Lady Hermione rejoices exceedingly.
She has gained her point. If her sister
could ever be persuaded to do a good turn
to any one, there would be more chance of
her benefits falling to the lot of Pussie and
Dottie if Vega were safely out of the way,
and not on the spot for Colonel Darner to
urge her claims. She has also another
reason for wishing Vega's speedy departure.
There is always a possibility that the stream
of money and its equivalents, which flows
steadily, if sluggishly, in her direction from
the Darner coffers, might be diverted from
what she has grown to consider its legiti-
A WANDERING STAR. 1 63
mate course, in the direction of the friendless
girl.
Lady Hermione is poor, needy, and
grasping. There are many comforts and
luxuries which she feels she Must have, and
which the pittance she possesses does not
permit her to attain to. Luckily for her
schemes and requirements, the Darners
are very rich. Colonel Darner is gene-
rous and kind-hearted to a fault, and if
her best friend cannot credit Lady Julia
with those virtues, she has at least a
clannish sort of feeling towards her own
family, which disposes her to grudge
things less to them than to the rest of the
world.
Fortunately for Lady Hermione, in spite
of many rubs and jars, there has always
been a sort of sympathy between herself and
her sister. They have had many feelings
in common and many hatreds.
Lady Hermione had stood by Lady Julia
once or twice when her sisters fair name
had been lightly spoken of, and she had
helped her out of two or three scrapes and
m 2
164 A WANDERING STAR.
an escapade or two, all of which it was
absolutely necessary that Mrs. Grundy
should know nothing about.
Not the least of her merits in Lady Julia's
eyes now, is the fact that, while Lady Her-
mione is tall, handsome, dark-eyed, and
splendid-looking, like herself, her seniority
by three or four years, and the constant
worry that a life of poverty entails on its
victims, have told on her looks.
She is worn, and just a little haggard,
and Lady Julia, in the pride of her full-
blown beauty, is constantly reminded of
her own superiority.
All these considerations tell in favour of
Lady Hermione, who, on her side, means to
defend her position, and keep what she has
attained to.
She does not think it wise to continue
any further the discussion about Vega ;
Lady Julia has practically given in to her,
but would not be likely to stand more ad-
vice on the subject ; so the conversation
takes a pleasanter turn, the spoilt beauty
recovering her serenity as her sister talks
A WANDERING STAR. 165
to her about the devotion of her latest victim
— Bertie Vansittart — and her assurance that
when Brian Beresford returns once more to
his native land, Lady Julia will not find it
hard to whistle back the wanderer.
1 66 A WANDERING STAR.
CHAPTER VIII.
A manly step on the uncarpeted corridor
that leads to the schoolroom, and a friendly
knock on the strong panel of the door.
The occupants looked up surprised and
curious, for visitors are few and far between,
and a man's step and the jingle of a spur
are seldom heard in that out-of-the way part
of the house.
Pussie Langton is sitting as close to the
fire as the strongly-barred nursery fender will
permit, stitching, or rather cobbling, in a
spiritless sort of way at some of her old
clothes. Her apathetic little face bends
over her work, and her yawns have alone
broken the silence of the room for the last
ten minutes. Vega has neither looked up
nor responded ; she is mounted on the arm
of the high old-fashioned sofa, for the gas-
A WANDERING STAR. 1 67
burner is placed awkwardly high, and the
print of the Shelley that she holds in her
hand is unpleasantly small ; but she sits on
her perch, and neither flaring gas nor small
print have power to annoy her. She has
followed the poet to his own world, and he
has caught her up to the seventh heaven.
The footsteps outside and the knock at
the door make her look up ; but her eyes
are dazed and full of poetry, and it is Pussie
who is on the alert, and who says, "Come
in ! " as the knock is repeated for the second
time.
And in comes Colonel Darner. Colonel
Darner is in his red coat and muddy boots,
looking gay, good-natured, and jovial, as it is
natural for a man to look who has had a long,
happy day in the open air, whose approving
conscience tells him that, without vanity, he
may lay claim to having gone brilliantly
over a big country, and who now has the
kindly thought of coming up here to fook
after a little girl, of whom he is very fond, but
whom he never sees by any chance. He is
sure of his welcome here at any rate, and
1 68 A WANDERING STAR.
looks beaming as he enters the door. Vega
and Pussie are both taken aback for a
moment, for a visitor to their quarters is
rare indeed ; but it is Shelley who suffers
most, for the book is tossed on one side, and
indeed breaks its back in the violence of its
fall to the floor, while Vega, springing from
her lofty position, dashes across the room,
and half flings herself into Colonel Darner's
arms. She is so delighted — so overjoyed to
see him, and the golden head is on his
shoulder, and the sweet lips are kissing the
sleeve of his scarlet coat while he still stands
at the door. Her delight pleases him be-
yond measure, and he makes much of her,
pets her, and stroking her pretty hair as if
she really were the child of his own that he
had always longed for.
Side by side they sit on the sofa, with his
arm round her shoulder, and both her hands
holding his strong brown one, as if she were
afraid he would escape her. She feels as if
she could not be grateful enough to him
for coming to see her, and her lovely dewy
eyes express what she means far better than
A WANDERING STAR. 1 69
any words. Her affection seems to warm
his heart. He is so little accustomed to be
made much of, and he suffers so much at the
hands of his wife, that he welcomes the
blessed change. Pussie has come over for-
mally to shake hands with him. She is
pleased also to see her uncle, but she has
not the power of showing it, and she soon
retires into her shell again and cobbles on,
though she pays less attention than ever to
the business on hand.
" Well, my darling, you seem blooming,"
says the Colonel, looking at her with atten-
tion and interest. He scans her small face
with a critical eye, and is pleased to note
that it is not quite so white and thin, and
that her whole expression is less sad than
when he found her at Dieppe.
" Conholt seems to agree with you, my
child, I am happy to see, though you don't
look exactly robust yet. You must go on
improving, and then I shall be quite pleased.
Are you tolerably happy here ? I hope
Pussie and Dottie are very good to you."
4< Indeed they are, Colonel Darner, "
1 70 A WANDERING STAR.
answers Vega heartily. Were they exactly
the contrary, she would not find it in her
heart to annoy Colonel Darner by saying so,
nor would she like to give him the slightest
hint of the many dull hours and the poor
time in general they have in that room.
She knows how much the Colonel has to
stand from Lady Julia, and she would not
have the heart to add to his burden. " We
are all right up here," she goes on, " a little
dull sometimes, and tired of our own com-
pany, but if you would only come and see
us now and then we would be all right.
I know how busy you always are, but do
try and fit us in now and then. It makes
such a difference to us when some one nice
comes up here to us."
" All right, Vega," says the Colonel, "you
shall be fitted in somehow. Of course, you
understand why Lady Julia thinks it best
that you should be kept rather in the back-
ground just now. She thinks, as you are
in such deep mourning, and as Pussie and
Dottie, although they are as old as you are,
are not out yet, that you had better, all three
A WANDERING STAR. I *]\
of you, be up here together, and then you
can amuse each other. But I expect you
bore each other now and then, and that her
Ladyship is wrong in overdoing the thing
quite so much. Perhaps it's just as well for
you not to appear just yet, when there are a
lot of people in the house ; but surely, when
there are only two or three, as there so often
are, it might be done. Hullo ! Dottie, you
little wretch ! what are you up to now ? !
Dottie has now arrived upon the scene, and
her black eyes are full of surprise, mingled
with admiration, as she gazes on her uncle.
She would dearly like to make some demon-
stration of joy over his unexpected appear-
ance, for Colonel Darner is one of the few
people who has ever got at her hard little
heart, and she has adored him from the
earliest days of her neglected childhood, but
her hands, if not literally tied, are very full ;
the youngest Miss Langton is armed with
a saucepan, and carries a tray, on which
butter, treacle, coarse sugar, and wooden
spoons are heaped pell-mell. They are the
result of a raid into the kitchen department,
172 A WANDERING STAR.
and she means to beguile a dull evening by
toffee-making. As she catches sight of her
uncle, down goes the tray, the saucepan is
thumped on the tea-table, and Dottie ap-
proaches her uncle, full of affection, and is
allowed to kiss him, and be talked to, and
receive kind looks in return.
" I expect you're the larky one of the
three, Dottie," he says, smiling, as she now
proceeds to arrange her stock-in-trade on
the tray. " I'll be bound you often have
some game or other on hand, and are up to
all sorts of mischief ; while poor Pussie here
is stitching away for dear life, you have
nothing to do but amuse yourself! What
are you about, Pussie, my dear ?" says the
kind-hearted Colonel, coming over to the
fireplace where poor Penelope is sitting,
" what is your work ? "
" Only mending, Uncle Regie, mending
an old jacket," and a sleeve is held up, on
whose elbow a patch is being placed.
" Not a very interesting work, I should
think, my dear. I expect the toffee-maker
has the best of it ; but surely you are taking
A WANDERING STAR. I 73
a great deal of trouble for nothing. That
jacket seems to be on its last legs. Look
here, Pussie ! give it away, or get it properly
sorted up by some one else, and here's a
sovereign to help you to another. I suppose
you too, Dottie, you little baggage, you will
want one also. Well ! here you are ! Now
# don't go and spend it all on sugar-plums."
Dottie leaps up to his neck in her grati-
tude, like a young puppy who tries how high
he can jump to reach his master's hands or
face ! Pussie, more self-contained and colder,
puts down her needle and thread, and, with
more heart and less formality than usual in
her manner, thanks him as sincerely, if not
as effusively, as Dottie. Colonel Darner looks
at Vega for one undecided moment ; but he
does not feel as if he would like to hand her
a sovereign as a tip, and she is thankful he
does not.
" Now, Vega," he says, '• we must think
about what can be done to cheer you up a
little. Let me see, let me see, there's no one
in particular staying in the house just now.
The Drummonds go to-morrow, and there
174 A WANDERING STAR.
will be only young Vansittart left. Oh ! and
Mossop comes over for a few days. I forgot
Mossop, but he's nobody at all. Well ! I
shall tell her Ladyship that you are all three
going to dine downstairs to-morrow night.
It won't be very lively for you, but it's better
than eternally sticking up here. I shall make
it all right with her."
" But, Uncle Regie," begins Dottie, " I
am going to dine to-morrow night any-
how. Mums told me so to-day. She said
that she had settled about it with Aunt
Julia."
" Oh ! and you meant to shine alone,
Dottie, did you ? " says her Uncle. " Well !
they won't be in your way if I ask for Pussie
and Vega also. There is no one at all to
captivate, so you need not be afraid of any
competition. Vansittart is not available,"
adds the Colonel, with a queer look in his
eyes, as if he has some private joke of his
own which he does not mean to divulge, " so
there's no one left but Mossop ! He isn't
very fascinating, and I don't expect you will
quarrel about him. But you may all have a
A WANDERING STAR. I 75
try, and you must all of you be down. Now
good-bye, good-bye, I have to be off. I
have any amount of things to do before
dinner. Good-bye, children." And the kind,
good-hearted Colonel clanks out of the
room, followed by Vega's sweet looks and
Dottie's adoring glances, and even Pussie's
dull eyes look after him with a good deal
of affection.
" I must say, Reginald," says Lady Julia
to him, when her husband tells her of the
guests he has bidden to the morrow's dinner,
" I really must say I wish you wouldn't
interfere with what doesn't concern you.
Surely Hermione can manage her girls with-
out your help ; and if I had wanted Miss
Fitzpatrick to dine downstairs, I was capable
of asking her myself. But it is always the
way. A man can never read 'au dessous des
cartes,' and thinks everything is plain sailing.
As a matter of fact you have upset all Her-
mione's plans, and she will be furious when
she hears about it."
" Furious ! my dear Julia, what on earth
are you talking about ? What consequence
I 76 A WANDERING STAR.
can it be to Hermione, or any one else, if one
<rirl or three come down to dinner ? We're
very nearly alone, or I wouldn't have dared
to ask the poor things. At the same time I
must tell you that I consider it a positive
shame to keep them mewed up there
always. They are like prisoners of State,
and I can't see what possible harm I have
done by "
" I will tell you the harm you have done,"
says Lady Julia, interrupting him rudely :
" Hermione had a particular reason for wish-
ing Dottie to dine downstairs without the
others."
" I am very sorry to have to put a spoke
in her wheel then," returns the Colonel,
"but what particular reason can she posi-
tively have ? Why ! we are practically
alone. Bertie Vansittart will, I suppose,
be here, but he's your especial property,
and Mossop may turn up, but he's of no
account."
" There's where you and Hermione differ,"
says Lady Julia ; " she thinks he is of great
account, and ever since the time he stayed
A WANDERING STAR. I 77
here in the beginning of winter, she has
looked on him as a possible son-in-law ! She
declares that he paid Dottie a good deal of
attention. I couldn't see it for my own
part ; however, he certainly talked to her
a little, and played ' Halma' with her in the
evenings, and sent her a large box of cho-
colate when he went away. I expect, though,
that ' the wish is father to the thought/
in Hermione J s case ; all the same, on the
strength of these attentions, she has made
me ask him back, and there is no doubt
Dottie would have a better chance of capti-
vating him if she was seen alone and did
not make one of a crowd."
" Well ! of all the insane ideas, this is the
most absurd," returns the Colonel contemp-
tuously. " The idea of Dottie. a mere child,
marrying at all, or rather being married to
that stupid, awkward chap, old enough to be
her father, a man who has risen from the
ranks, and who doesn't know who his own
grandfather was ! "
" Pardon me, Reginald," says Lady Julia ;
"we know everything about his grandfather.
vol. 1. N
I78 A WANDERING STAR.
His grandfather was a potboy in early life,
who made a large fortune in beer, and left
his sons and daughters rolling in riches.
Their sons and daughters, again, though not
exactly millionaires, are better off than half
the people in Blankshire. Beer money is as
good as any other money, and the happy
possessors of it are a power in the land. If
our friend here, Mr. Mossop, had been an only
child, instead of one of eight, he would have
been made a peer by this time. It's merely
a question of having a large enough fortune
to be qualified to enter the ranks of the
* noblesse de finance.' His brothers and sisters
have stood in his way as far as that is con-
cerned, but even his eighth share of the beer
money is quite enough to make him a 'parti' ;
and though I don't believe it will ever come off,
Dottie would be fortunate beyond her deserts
to marry a man with a clear eight thousand
pounds a year, free from all drawbacks in the
shape of annuitants, or hangers-on (people
who have risen from the ranks never seem
burdened in that way), and who has bought
one of the nicest places in the county."
A WANDERING STAR. I 79
" And, from your point of view, the owner
of all this need never be taken into con-
sideration at all ! Upon my word ! women
are twice as heartless as men. I can't
imagine anything more melancholy than that
a girl of seventeen should be sold to a man
who is nearer fifty than forty, who is good-
natured enough, if you like, but who is
common, dull, and the most awkward lout I
ever set eyes on."
" Keep your mind at ease, Reginald," says
her ladyship, mockingly ; " Dottie will never
have the luck to have such a chance, or I'm
much mistaken. But if you think the alter-
native — a life of shabby-genteel poverty, of
constant humiliations, and disappointments ;
hanging on to rich people who don't care
twopence for their poor relations ; with
Hermione for ever saving, and scraping, and
finding fault, — if you think all this would be
pleasanter for her, or for any one else, than
life with plenty of money, a pretty home, and
a harmless kind of husband, well ! all I can
say is, I don't agree with you."
"Which is not very wonderful, Julia,"
N 2
l8o A WANDERING STAR.
returns her husband. " We never agree on
any earthly subject, so it's not curious that
we should fall out now." And he leaves
Lady Julia to her own reflections, which are
the reverse of complimentary to himself, and
departs to dress for dinner.
A WANDERING STAR. l8l
CHAPTER IX.
" Let me go over your good gifts
That crown you queen,
A queen whose empire ebbs and shifts
Each week, Faustine ! "
" Since when has flaming yellow been
considered deep mourning, Miss Fitzpatrick?
It may be correct in China, or in Japan too,
for all I know to the contrary ; but I was not
aware it had become the fashion in this
country."
Lady Julia speaks in a tone of con-
tempt, as she surveys the opposite camp
from her coign of 'vantage in the long
gallery.
It is a few minutes before the hour of the
dinner, over which Colonel Darner and his
wife have had words ; but he has carried his
point, and his invited guests are sitting side
I 82 A WANDERING STAR.
by side, nearly opposite the sofa on which
his imperious wife lounges.
No queen, clad in purple and fine linen,
could look more regal than does Lady Julia
to-night ; indeed, queens in real life, and in
the nineteenth century, have a way of not
looking the character so thoroughly, and
some of them have as simple an air as many
of their subjects.
Lady Julia is more like the queen in a
story-book, or an old-fashioned romance.
Perhaps she owes her imperial looks to her
commanding height and magnificent pro-
portions, or it may be that the haughty
expression of those dark eyes, and the toss
of that beautiful head, realizes the popular
idea of what a queen should be.
The shimmer of satin — the grand folds that
fall in such perfect lines and sweep from the
platform on which the couch is placed, down
to the floor ; the gleam of jewels on the
bodice where no drapery hides, or no folds
of lace mar, the perfect lines of the splendid
figure ; the string of glittering stones clasped
round the firm white throat ; the stars of
A WANDERING STAR. 1 83
light that gleam in the piled masses of hair,
" heavily bound up " ; all these add to her
imposing appearance, while they seem merely
an appropriate setting for a wonderful picture.
Can such a woman, gifted with such
supreme good looks, be capable of envy ?
Can she grudge to another a face which
could never clash with, or enter into com-
petition with her own ? Must she possess
everything, or, failing such a possibility, must
she be devoured with jealousy ? On one
side is a great lady, in the full zenith of her
beauty, a beauty armed at all points, and
possessed of everything that can possibly
enhance her charms. On the other hand is
a young girl, who can never in her wildest
dreams be her rival. No imperial bearing is
hers, no queenly air —
11 By the dawn, and the dewfall anointed,
She is queen by the gold on her head."
That much, and no more, can she claim, for
her kingdom is not of Lady Julia's world.
On her slight, slim body are no royal
robes, and the glory of colour is also want-
184 A WANDERING STAR.
ing. Through the plain black frock that
mounts up to the slender throat, there is just
a glimmer of white shoulders and arms to
break the severity of her mourning robes.
And stay ! there is yet another point of colour
in the posy of daffodils and the few ivy leaves
that the girl has arranged with the deft grace
that she has learned in the country of her
adoption, and that she has fastened in the
front of her dress.
Who could think that a few yellow flowers
and some poor leaves would look so pretty ?
but they seem the one thing needed to break
the sombreness of the funereal black, and to
give a finishing touch to Vega's simple
gown.
Lady Julia's quick eye marks and notes
their effect. She then and there resolves
that her new drawing-room dress shall be
trimmed with bunches of daffodils and
wreaths of ivy ! But gratitude for the idea
does not make her stay her hand. She is
even angry that the thought of that pretty
combination should have first entered Vega's
head, though she grudgingly acknowledges
A WANDERING STAR. 185
to herself that the simplicity of her dress
seems to make the girl look all the fairer.
Beside anything so sweet and young, she
half believes that she must appear battered,
artificial, over-blown. She, too, would like
to be able to look half divine in a plain, black
frock, with a bunch of daffodils for sole
adornment.
Lady Julia grudges the girl her youth, her
innocence, her golden hair, her childish
contour of figure, and her sweet expression
of face. She even grudges her the bunch of
daffodils ; but here at least she can score, and
score she will !
If she hurts Vega's feelings, and cruelly
reminds her at an inopportune moment of
her father's death — vcz victis, that is all !
The blood rushes to her victim's face, as
the finger of scorn is pointed to her flowers,
and she looks round helplessly for sympathy,
but finds none.
Pussie and Dottie, formal and uncomfort-
able-looking, are seated stiffly side by side
on a huge divan in which they seem lost,
and they would not dare by word or look
1 86 A WANDERING STAR.
to rebel against the powers that be. Aunt
Julia seems to have the power of life and
limb over them all, and no consideration on
earth would tempt Pussie to defy her. Dottie
is made of sterner stuff, and would be capable
of attempting, at any rate, to hold her own
against her aunt ; but she, too, has noticed
how pretty the nodding heads of the daffodils
look on Vega's black frock, and has wished
them away.
As for Lady Hermione, her face is set
like a flint ; she is glad of anything that
embroils Vega with her sister, and though
she is wise enough to know that with the
flowers or without them Vega will still be
supremely lovely, she grudges her anything
that adds to her beauty, be it in ever so small
a degree.
Colonel Darner has not yet come down-
stairs, so poor Vega has no friends ; for she
does not even give a thought to a dull,
heavy-looking man who is standing with his
back to the huge fire.
" I didn't know, Lady Julia — I didn't
think," stammers Vega. " I picked the
A WANDERING STAR. 1 87
daffodils this afternoon in the wood at the
end of the Deer Park. I forgot that I
ought not to wear them."
Her trembling fingers unpin the " bonny
breast-knot," and she crosses the room and
flings it into the fireplace. It falls on the
broad hearthstone, from which the stupid-
lookinQ: man, who is no other than Mr.
Mossop, picks it up with the tongs, and
solemnly, as if he were about to offer up a
burnt sacrifice, places it right in the heart of
the flames.
Perhaps Lady Julia had forgotten his
presence when she rebuked Vega for wear-
ing the flowers ; he is a man who is
accustomed to be overlooked, and it is
hard to gather from his manner whether he
notices more than he is imagined to see,
or not.
But Lady Julia is always pretty cavalier
in the treatment of her guests, when they
happen to be neither interesting, amus-
ing, highly placed, nor her own particular
friends.
They come to Conholt — * Heaven only
1 88 A WANDERING STAR.
knows how or why they come," — by Colonel
Darner's invitation, probably — and she does
not feel it " necessary " to put herself out for
them in the slightest degree. They must look
out for themselves, or Reginald is bound to
dance attendance on them. No one could
expect her to bother her head about
them.
She has shaken hands with Mr. Mossop
when he came into the room, spoken two
sentences to him on the subject of the
weather, and thinks she has played the
hostess sufficiently.
No doubt he has been properly looked
after, and been given a nice enough room in
the bachelors' wing ; the housekeeper would
see that his fire was good, and that there
was writing paper and envelopes in his blot-
ting-book ; while on Reginald's head must be
the blame if he bores himself or is too much
neglected.
Here comes Bertie Vansittart, a man after
her own heart, inasmuch as he does not do
things by halves, for his adoration verges
on idiocy, and his admiration for her beauty
A WANDERING STAR. 1 89
is quite unbounded. Neither of these senti-
ments will last, but, while they do, even
Lady Julia is satisfied.
He makes for her at once to-night, look-
ing neither to right nor left, stands silent
before her for a minute, as if struck dumb
at the sight of so much loveliness, and then
flings himself down at her feet, and worships
her in looks and words.
He is tall, lithe and handsome ; the lust of
the eye is satisfied, the frown leaves her
haughty brow as he talks to her, and she
forgets for the moment her crumpled rose-
leaf, which is the presence of Vega Fitz-
patrick.
Lady Hermione effaces herself ; Pussie is
like a poor little white mouse ; Dottie's
looks are lowering, and her beetle brows
meet across her forehead, but whether she
is ill-tempered or the reverse, happy or dis-
contented, it is all one to her aunt ; while, as
for Mr. Mossop, he is to his hostess as if Re
does not exist.
Colonel Darner's arrival on the scene com-
pletes the party, and the procession, shorter
I9O A WANDERING STAR.
this time than usual, crosses the round hall
and enters the dining-room.
" Who is that remarkably pretty girl ? '
asks Mr. Mossop, of Lady Hermione, in a
discreet whisper.
The table is a long one, and Vega, who is
sitting next the master of the house, cannot
hear it.
" What remarkably pretty girl are you
talking about ? ; whispers back Lady
Hermione, affecting not to know who is
meant.
But as his eyes are fixed in an unblinking
stare on Miss Fitzpatrick, she cannot pre-
tend to misunderstand for long.
" Oh ! I see! you are looking at Miss
Fitzpatrick. Well — yes — I suppose she
would be called a pretty girl. I can't say I
admire her much, myself. She is so dread-
fully pale and thin, and there is so little of
her. There is a certain amount of the beauty
of youth, of course, but it won't last. That
kind of prettiness never does stand any
wear and tear. For my own part, I never
can help looking ahead a little, and settling
A WANDERING STAR. I9I
in my own mind the people who will lose
their looks, and the people who will keep
them to the end, and I can prophesy Miss
Fitzpatrick's future in one word — nutcrack-
ers, my dear Mr. Mossop, nutc7'ackers ! '
Mr. Mossop always loses his head when
he enters into conversation w r ith his betters ;
he is humble enough, and considers as such
any one who is born in the purple. He is
positively frightened when he talks to a peer,
and even a near relation to one has the same
subduing influence on him !
He is ready to believe now that Lady
Hermione must know better than himself,
and he would hardly trust the evidence of
his own eyes against hers. That kind of
woman, who really moves in the best society,
and who knows all the great people in
London, must surely be a good judge.
A man is so apt, as she says, to be taken
in by mere prettiness ; and no doubt, now
that it has been pointed out to him, he can
see for himself that the pretty chin may per-
haps be a shade too long, and that it is
possible that Vega's looks, when she is a
I92 A WANDERING STAR.
toothless old woman, may leave much to
be desired.
But such a power of looking into the
future is not granted to most people, and all
the ordinary observer can see at this moment
is a blonde head, jolie a croquer, which, in
the language of a French art critic, "de-
taches itself admirably " from the dark
velvet curtain which is drawn across one of
the tall dining-room windows behind Miss
Fitzpatrick.
Vega is talking to the Colonel, and her
charming face is sweet, and smiling, and
animated. Only Lady Hermiones eagle
eye could detect a flaw in the picture.
" I suppose you must be right," assents
Mr. Mossop, though rather doubtfully ; it
takes all his belief in the aristocracy to
accept Lady Hermione's word as law this
time. " It mayn't be the very highest type
of beauty, but I'm glad that you consider
her pretty, at any rate."
" Pretty ! oh, yes, of course she's pretty,"
says Lady Hermione, lightly; "it's difficult
not to be pretty at eighteen. Youth is a
A WANDERING STAR. 1 93
beauty of itself" (her ladyship has evidently
forgotten, as usual, the existence of her own
by no means attractive children), " but one
wants something more than that. One likes
to see a woman with some class about her —
a woman who will wear well, and who will
look as handsome at the head of a table at
five-and-thirty as she did at eighteen."
Clever Lady Hermione ! Mais on peut-
Ure plus fin que le monde, mats pas plus fin
que toztt le monde !
Mr. Mossop receives meekly the impres-
sion she intends to convey, and the ideas she
wishes to stamp on his brain ; but Dottie,
who is sitting exactly opposite, and who is
listening to their conversation with all her
ears, reads between the lines of the last
sentence, and perfectly takes in the situation.
She has caught a few stray words that have
passed between her mother and aunt, and
she guesses that the former had just a faint
hope that Mr. Mossop had been attracted
by herself.
She sees that Lady Hermione is nettled
by his evident admiration of Vega Fitzpat-
vol. 1. o
194 A WANDERING STAR.
rick, and a feeling of jealous antipathy to her
unconscious rival takes root in her own mind.
She goes on listening now, for the subject is
a very interesting one.
" May I ask you who she is, Lady Her-
mione ? " says Mr. Mossop, humbly ; " I only
venture to do so as I have never seen her
here before, and I don't remember to have
heard her name."
" Which isn't very wonderful," answers
Lady Hermione, who now adopts a some-
what impressive stage whisper. " She is some
sort of relation to the Darners, but I think it
is extremely kind of my sister, and the
Colonel, to have her over here. The Fitz-
patricks are not relations of whom they feel
particularly proud ; in fact, like the rest of the
family, they had broken with them altogether,
and it was a mere chance that they ran across
this girl somewhere or other abroad. I don't
mind telling you in the strictest confidence
who she is," and the whisper becomes more
fraught with meaning than ever. " She is
the daughter of the notorious Ralph Fitz-
patrick. "
A WANDERING STAR. 1 95
Mr. Mossop makes an effort, but an un-
successful one, to remember. He cannot
bear to be ignorant of the name of any one
who has been notorious among the Upper
Ten ; he would like to be as well posted up
in every scandal as Lady Hermione herself,
but this time his mind is a blank. He can-
not look wise, or interested, or knowing, for
he is entirely at sea !
Lady Hermione perceives his dilemma,
and makes things easy for him.
"To be sure, I forgot," she says, " it must
have been before your day."
As a matter of fact, Mr. Mossop is a good
deal older than herself, but at the period
when the London world was scandalized over
Ralph Fitzpatrick's sins, and horrified at the
public disgrace that fell on him, and merciless
in the punishment it meted out to him, at
that time Albert Mossop was a clerk in his
grandfather's brewery, and a great deal more
interested in the manufacture of Double XX
than in London society !
" Well, there isn't much to tell you about
it," she goes on, "though I have always
o 2
I96 A WANDERING STAR.
heard that it made a tremendous stir at the
time. He was a very well-known man, good-
looking and plausible, and all that ; but I
believe, all the same, the very best people
never fancied him much, — at least so I have
heard my father say, for I was but a child in
the schoolroom when it all happened. He
was detected cheating at cards in the most
bare-faced fashion. I believe he had been
at it for years, but he was caught in the
end. After that, what more is there to
be said ? Naturally he was cut by every-
body ; and when England became im-
possible for him, he went the way of other
black sheep, and crossed the Channel. Where
they knocked about, or how they lived, I
can't tell you. He had a wife, you know,
and one child, but one never heard his name
mentioned, or knew if he was alive or dead,
till one day last autumn when my brother-
in-law ran against him at Dieppe. The
father and daughter fastened themselves on
to him, and Colonel Darner is so good-
natured he hadn't strength of mind to shake
them off, though, as you may imagine, the
A WANDERING STAR. 1 97
whole thing was a great annoyance to my
sister. Fitzpatrick died the other day, and
I believe there was a letter of some sort
found, asking Colonel Darner to look after
his daughter. Rather a cool request, I must
say ; but what could you expect from such a
man ? So the long and short of it is,
we have got her over here ; and how
long she means her visit to last, one can't
tell."
Mr. Mossop's beady eyes are fixed on
Lady Hermione as she glibly gives him her
version of Mr. Fitzpatrick's fall, and of Vega's
history, and he sits open-mouthed, listening
intently.
He likes being confided in by her ladyship,
and a society scandal from her lips, especially
about any one connected in the faintest de-
gree with her own family, fills him with
breathless interest.
Does Vega's beauty seem to him to wane
as Lady Hermione speaks ? Does he now
notice the simplicity, almost poverty of her
dress, which had not struck him before ?
Does he imagine that he perceives in her the
198 A WANDERING STAR.
absence of that "grand air " that distinguishes
his hostess and her sister? It is quite
possible, for some eyes can only see through
other peoples spectacles !
Mr. Mossop is not a bad-hearted man ; on
the contrary he is good-natured, and ready-
to do any one a good turn if possible. Many
needy members of the peerage have had
reason to bless his name, some for sub-
stantial help, and others for the trouble he
has taken in indirect ways to advance their
interests. He has pitch-forked one or two
particularly hard-up scions of good families
straight into the Brewery, where under his
fostering care they have advanced by leaps
and bounds, and he has been all but publicly
thanked for his kindness by their relations.
But, good-natured as he is, he is undoubtedly
far readier to exert himself for his titled
friends than for the rest of the world. His
foible is " big people/' and there is no denying
that Mr. Mossop is a bit of a snob ! It is
written in pretty legible characters on his
outer man, for his appearance is by no means
distinguished. He is thick-set and heavily
A WANDERING STAR. 1 99
built, and there is too much colour on his
fat face ; his eyes are mean and insignificant,
and the " feather beds " that surround them
give him a dull expression.
But, for all this, it is his clothes that damn
him in the eyes of those who know ! It is
not possible for any one to spend more money,
thought, or time over them than he does, but
in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of, his
laboured efforts, he is not a success. Every-
thing about him is exaggerated, and is either
too tight or too loose, the patterns too
noticeable, the checks too large ; even his
cuffs and collars are too shiny, and his coats
and hats too new ! His studs are larger than
studs ought to be, and the three coloured
pearls that decorate his shirt-front to-night
are pinker, blacker, and whiter than have
ever been seen before !
His bouquet, straight from Covent Garden,
is a triumph of the florist's skill, but it is
three times too big, and the mingled odours
of gardenias and heliotrope are overpower-
ing. The scent on his handkerchief does not
match, and at least half a bottle of " chypre "
200 A WANDERING STAR.
must have been poured on it before he came
downstairs !
Altogether he is a man who, in spite of
the aforesaid kindliness of disposition, sets
Colonel Darner's teeth on edge ; and even his
friend, Lady Hermione, as she sweeps across
the Round Hall when dinner is over, whis-
pers but one word in her sister's ear, and that
word is Canaille !
The three men whom they leave behind
them have not much in common, and the
conversation languishes somewhat. Bertie
Vansittart hardly opens his lips ; he keeps
silent, as much from the feeling that he does
not care to smile in the husband's face, after
having made love to his wife, as from the
state of sentimental idiocy to which Lady
Julia has reduced him. Mr. Mossop harps
on about Vega Fitzpatrick. In spite of
Lady Hermione, his mind is still running on
her.
" Yes, yes," answers the Colonel, shortly,
in answer to his inquiries, " she is a very
pretty girl, and she is a cousin of my own.
Her mother was a Vivian."
A WANDERING STAR. 20 T
" Really ! indeed ! Colonel Darner," says
Mr. Mossop, feeling much interested ; " I
was aware that Lord Hautaine was con-
nected by marriage with your family, but I
never had the pleasure of meeting any of
them. Was Miss Fitzpatrick's mother one
of his family ? '
(i She was his daughter. Lady Mary
Vivian married Fitzpatrick. For any further
information I must refer you to the Peerage."
" Then Miss Fitzpatrick is a near relation
of the Hautaine family ?' asks Mr. Mossop,
with bated breath. The Hautaine family is
one of the oldest and most distinguished in
England, and the name alone strikes awe
into his heart.
" Yes, yes ! she's a near relation to the
whole lot of them," returns the Colonel,
" but the relationship has been of little use
to her so far, poor little thing ! Her father
fell out with the Vivians many years ago,
and the quarrel was never made up," he
adds, with the mercy which one man rarely
fails to show his fellow-man who has gone
under and who is now dead.
202 A WANDERING STAR.
He does not feel inclined to drag to light
the old scandal, for a man like Mr. Mossop
to discuss or dissect.
Colonel Darner had never been a friend of
Mr. Fitzpatrick in the days when they were
both young, and his sin had been one for
which he could feel little mercy ; nevertheless
he does not care to disinter a family skeleton,
or gossip over a disgraceful story in the
present company.
He changes the subject abruptly, but not
before his guest thoroughly takes in, and
gloats over, the information that Vega Fitz-
patrick is nearly connected with the Peer-
age !
When they join the ladies in the long
Gallery, the three men fall into their plans,
and each seems to do exactly what is ex-
pected of him. Colonel Darner is soon
immersed in the newspaper ; Bertie Van-
sittart sits at the feet of his liege lady, and
they whisper and smile and flirt the rest of
the evening, while Dottie Langton, who has
got out the H alma-board, and set up the
little men, challenges Mr. Mossop to a game.
A WANDERING STAR. 203
He falls, but very unwillingly, into the trap.
In vain has the net been set by the fowler
in the sight of the bird ! Mr. Mossop,
though he plays the game mechanically,
refuses to be in the least degree interested
in it — does not make himself agreeable to
his opponent — allows her unheard-of licence
in the way of ladders— and while her red
men are unmolested as they slant knowingly
across the board, and advance as they like
to their goal, his black ones plod steadily
and hopelessly on, and he neither knows nor
cares anything about them !
For he sees at some little distance from
him a lovely face, and he looks at it across
Miss Dottie's square shoulders a great deal
more than he looks at the Halma-board.
Dottie waxes cross and sulky, and when
she has won the set without a struggle on
Mr. Mossop's part, she angrily rattles the
men into their box, shuts up the board with
a bang, and walks off in a temper.
The next day, "the blessed Sabbath," is
as a rule not a particularly peaceful one at
Conholt. Lady Julia, bored, and unem-
204 A WANDERING STAR.
ployed, is generally in the worst of tempers.
Colonel Darner, who hates pen and ink, and
business in general, is overwhelmed by the
accumulations of the past week, which have
been put aside from one hunting day to
another, and which now demand his atten-
tion. It is the day that Lady Hermione
generally chooses on which to add up her
unpaid bills, and study the miserable balance
that figures in her bankers book, and she
rails at her ill-fortune, and bemoans her hard
lot, till a battle royal ensues between her-
self and her sister, Lady Julia loudly de-
claring that " Hermione" has brought her
troubles on herself, and Lady Hermione
protesting that she is the victim of circum-
stances.
This particular Sunday, on the contrary,
everything seems to go on wheels ; though
full early in the day to say how it may end,
the Church-going party from Conholt, as
they walk through the leafless woods, have
an air of pious cheerfulness about them
which at least promises well.
Lady Julia, brave in velvet and furs, has
A WANDERING STAR. 205
Bertie Vansittart for her companion and
prayer-book bearer. It would be curious to
count the number of young men who have
carried her prayer-book to the pretty little
church at the edge of the park, in the last
dozen years that she has "lived and loved'
at Conholt ! She has changed lovers often
in that time, but she clings to old ways and
traditions, and likes them all to conduct
themselves on much the same lines.
She has walked to church with so many ;
they have said their prayers side by side,
have sung out of the same hymn-book, and
Lady Julia, under the combined influence of
love and religion, has felt calm, exalted, and
a good deal better than her neighbours for
half an hour at least !
Lady Hermione, in plain, almost rough
clothes, looks young, lithe and active, in a
gown and jacket of puritanical simplicity,
which, however, sets off her fine figure in a
way which anything more rich and less
clinging would not do so thoroughly. She
has Mr. Mossop in tow ; she knows that he
would never of his own accord seek the
206 A WANDERING STAR.
company of her youngest daughter, and she
tells herself that he must be educated up to
Dottie if anything satisfactory is to come of
it ; so, rather than that he should fall to the
lot of Vega Fitzpatrick, she draws him to
herself, and he hangs on her words as she
takes him to the charmed inner circle of the
highest world, and tells him strange stories,
in which none of the actors are under the
rank of a Viscount !
The three girls cluster round Colonel
Darner, and make locomotion difficult for
him in the narrow path that is only meant
for two ; but he likes their company, is
amused by Dottie's cynical remarks, and
holds Vega's pretty hand in his, as they
stroll along to church, judiciously keeping
a good deal in the rear of the more im-
portant members of the party.
The March sun has no heat, but it shines
brightly, and glints down on them through
the leafless branches of beech and elm. It
turns a bed of daffodils into a sea of gold,
and makes the swelling buds of larch and
lime look like points of emeralds. The
A WANDERING STAR. 207
ribes, brown and leafless, has already put
forth a few pink tassels ; the catkin's silvery
feathers and velvety clusters hang on bare
boughs, and among luxuriant cushions of
primrose leaves may be found already a few
pale flowers.
It seems like the very beginning of every-
thing. The world is to be created once
more ! Winter is over and done. Spring,
blessed Spring ! is in sight, and " the sing-
ing of birds M is again heard in the land.
Everything that lives seems to feel new
life, and wakes from the sleep of winter ;
while the blood runs more merrily in the
veins of the young and strong. It mantles
on Vegas cheek, her eyes shine brightly,
and the boisterous breeze takes sad liberties
with her fair hair.
And now they hear the tinkle of the
church-bell, and they leave their woodland
path and enter the churchyard by a wooden
door, of which the Colonel has the key.
One by one they file along the narrow path
that leads between the swelling mounds on
either side ; there are some crosses here and
208 A WANDERING STAR.
there, but few more ambitious monuments,
for the " rude forefathers of the hamlet '
seem to have been satisfied with but little ;
" a low grave studded with daisies " is all they
aspired to, and even in these days of crema-
tion it is, after all, the ideal resting-place.
The sons and grandsons of those who
sleep under these mounds are standing
about in the churchyard, and gather round
the porch ; for though the tolling of what
sounds like an exaggerated sheep-bell has
ceased, single strokes ring out, and till the
last has been struck the men do not deem it
incumbent on them to enter the holy edifice !
It is not considered womanly for their wives
and daughters to loiter with them ; they pass
into church decorously, and are by this time
sitting discreetly in their accustomed places ;
but it is not essential, from their point of
view, for their mankind to join them till the
last moment. Most of these take off their
hats, and all have their fill of staring, as the
Conholt party pass along. Two or three
very old men in smock frocks stand with
bare heads, as in the presence of royalty ;
A WANDERING STAR 209
for have they not seen " the Colonel's father
— ay, and his father again afore him ! '
and were they not taught in the good old
days to order themselves " lowly and rever-
ently to all their betters," in the most literal
sense of that injunction ?
" None of your new-fangled notions for
me," is the favourite saying of old Gaffer
Drew, the eldest of these patriarchs. " We
was never brought up to think one man was
as good as another — ay ! and a heap sight
better too ! We didn't set ourselves up agin
our spiritual pastors and masters, no more
nor we thought we know'd better than them
as had lived longer in the world nor our-
selves. But there, there, that's how it is
now-a-days ; 'taint the young as makes way
for the old, but the old as has to make way
for the young." " She do be a fine figger of
a woman," is his present criticism, as Lady
Julia sweeps into church; " she's as proud
as the Queen on her throne, and holds up
her head as high too ! But I calls that
right and proper, and befitting of her high
station, that I do. If the likes o' them as
VOL. I. p
2IO A WANDERING STAR.
lives at the Park don't feel better than their
neighbours, who would, I should like to
know ? "
"She treats us all like dirt," returns a
more Republican spirit, on whose head the
snows of eighty-five winters had fallen ;
"but it's deeds, and not words, that we poor
folks want. Bless you ! what good do soft
words do us ? We gets enough o' them
from t' Parson's lady. 'How do you do,
Gaffer Mursell ? ' says she, quite soft like ;
' I 'opes as 'ow your rheumatics is better.'
But nothing comes of it, not even the where-
withal to buy a pint o' yell, or a screw o'
baccy — a pair o' mittens, perhaps, ivery
other Christmas, but what's mittens ? Now
my Lady, she comes along the other day, a-
driving of her black ponies, and I up and
hobbles to the gate, as well as I can, to set
it open for her. ' How do you do, Mursell,
for ye are Mursell, ain't yer? ' says her Lady-
ship, quite smart like, and afore I has time
to answer she outs with her purse. ' 'Ere's
'arf-a-suvereign,' says she, 'to drink my
health in,' and then she's off like the wind.
A WANDERING STAR. 2 I I
That's what / call bein' a lady, and behavin'
as sich — that I do."
" We've no more time for your talk,
Gaffer," says old Drew crossly, for he feels
annoyed that Lady Julia's half-sovereign
" should have gone to the likes of old Mur-
sell." " T' parson's in the pulpit, we must
be a-goin' in."
The church has a mouldy smell, the ser-
vice is simple to the verge of carelessness,
and, with the exception of the Conholt party,
who have the whole gallery, in a recess on
one side, to themselves, the congregation is
a poor one.
Lady Julia looks down on her fellow-
worshippers from her corner of the great
family pew with the air of a spectator at
some function in which she takes no part ;
she has the languidlv indifferent air of a
mere looker-on. Bertie Vansittart sits close
to her, and gazes at her even when she
bends the knee as a mere formality — a sort
of travesty of prayer.
Lady Hermione continues her schemes,
and the great finance question fills her mind
p 2
2 12 A WANDERING STAR.
to the exclusion of more pious thoughts.
Colonel Darner jumps imaginary fences, and
remembers " big places ' that he got over in
some of last week's runs, instead of attend-
ing to the sermon ; while the rest of the
party make themselves as comfortable as
possible, and survey their poorer brethren
with amusement, curiosity, or contempt, as
their inclination prompts them.
Their poorer brethren and sisters, for
their part, cast many upward looks in their
direction. Gaffers Mursell and Drew blink
up at " the quality " quite impartially. One
or two of the younger men nudge each other
as they spy Vega's pretty face. " She be a
beauty, she be," they whisper to each other.
The women take stock of the clothes ; and
the doctor's daughter has her eyes fixed on
Lady Julia's hat, and resolves to copy that
masterpiece of Virot in some materials that
she has at home. The small feathers that
adorn it have a sheen on them the like of
which she has never seen before. They
take the colour of the heart of a ruby or an
emerald, and have a deep metallic lustre as
A WANDERING STAR. 217,
the light falls on them ; but, no doubt, the
same effect could be obtained by a cock's-
tail plume, or a magpies wing, and she
knows how to procure both — anyhow, she
means to try !
The service has been said and sung, the
wooden plate has been passed from hand to
hand, and has reaped a comparatively rich
harvest ; the sermon has been droned
through — and now the Darners and their
friends are on their homeward journey.
Vega feels disappointed ; for, in spite of her
attempt to get to Colonel Darner's side
again, she is checkmated by Mr. Mossop,
who joins her, and will not be shaken off.
She has no particular dislike to him — she
knows him too little for that — but she feels a
vague distaste for his society ; and if she
cannot walk with the Colonel, she would
much prefer to loiter through the woods
alone.
The daffodils that nod their hardy heads
in the brisk breeze — the silver birch, whose
every branch seems traced with an etching-
pen against the cloudless sky — the birds
2 14 A WANDERING STAR.
that sing on the bare branches — the squirrel
that nestles in the leafless arms of the great
oak — even the rabbits that scuttle across the
path, or dot the grass of the park — all these
sights and sounds would fill her with plea-
sure were she free and alone ; but she finds
none in listening to Mr. Mossop's laboured
sentences, and no interest in hearing of the
grandeur of strangers who, he tells her, are
her near relations.
" Lord Hautaine ? ' she repeats, in
answer to one of his many questions.
" Yes ; I suppose he is my uncle, but I can
tell you nothing about him. I have never
set eyes on him, and I never heard my — I
have hardly ever heard his name men-
tioned."
Mr. Mossop feels quite overcome. That
the goods with which the gods have pro-
vided this girl, in the shape of great rela-
tions, should be thus ignored, fills him with
actual sorrow.
He remembers an old proverb often
quoted by his grandfather, " Heaven sends
almonds to those who have not teeth to
A WANDERING STAR. 2 15
crack them " ; and he pictures to himself
how he would have valued such an uncle !
A peer of the realm has a distinct value in
Mr. Mossop's eyes. He would joyfully give
a handsome sum down to have one — and even
the least among them — for a near relation !
" My dear young lady," he says impres-
sively, " it is the worst policy in the world to
drop your relations — and such relations !
You should cultivate them, Miss Fitzpatrick
— you should cultivate them."
Vega's laugh rings out free and joyous, as
much at the earnest expression of his heavy
countenance, as at the words themselves.
" And how are they to be cultivated ? '
she asks mirthfully. " How am I to set
about the business ?"
She pauses all of a sudden. It does not
seem quite so much of a joke to her when
she thinks about it. It becomes, all at once,
extraordinary, now that the idea is forced
upon her, that she should not be acknow-
ledged by those to whom she is bound by
ties of blood, and that she should be a
stranger to her mother's people.
2l6 A WANDERING STAR.
If "the fathers have eaten sour grapes," it
seems hard that " the children's teeth should
be ' set on edge ' ' ; and a bitter feeling
towards those who have deserted her
springs up in her heart.
It is not likely that she would confide in
Mr. Mossop. Nevertheless, the sudden
vein of thought that his words have struck
puts pathos into her large eyes as she turns
them on him, and he straightway forgets her
great relations and her grievous sin in
allowing herself to be dropped by them, and,
for the first time in his life, he falls in love !
really, genuinely in love ! — in love without
any idea of prudence or precedence, without
reference to the peerage, and with no infor-
formation gleaned from the pages of that
venerated book to guide him.
And who shall limit the force of the
tender passion, or own its sway over those
alone who are young and well-favoured ?
The power of love is not so circum-
scribed, for the mature heart of forty-
five can, no doubt, beat wildly and pas-
sionately, and old pulses, before now,
A WANDERING STAR. 21 7
have been known to go irregularly and
unevenly.
Youth, hot youth, may hold its sides and
point the finger of scorn when the mature
and middle-aged fall victims to that which,
in their arrogance, they would reserve for
themselves alone ; but their mockery is
unavailing. The disease is common to all,
and is, indeed, most deadly when taken late
in life !
What matters it that Mr. Mossop has not
been cast in the mould of manly beauty — that
he is not of the stuff of which heroes of romance
and troubadours have been fashioned from
time immemorial — that he has never in his
youngest days been the beloved of women,
and, indeed, on the contrary, has, up to now,
been waging a successful war against the
female sex, and has looked on them all as
the sworn foes of a rich, eligible, and single
man.
So far from loving any of them, his hand
has been against every woman — against the
astute and w r ary Dowagers who had told
him so many pleasant things about himself,
2l8 A WANDERING STAR.
who had been abnormally hospitable and
kind to him, and so very confiding whenever
they could throw one of their daughters into
his society — against the handsome women,
widowed or single, of a certain age, who had
done their best to turn his pudding-head, and
to bring the Lord of the Brewery to their feet
— against the pretty blondes, brunettes, or
auburn-locked, who had been urged on by
their respective families to make up to him,
and who had, in two or three instances, been
all but successful. But the prey had escaped
them all at the critical moment. He knew
his own value, and had enough of the mer-
cantile spirit of his late grandfather to have
no intention of letting himself go under his
price! If a Dowager Duchess had passed
by, and had entered for the race, the prize
might have been hers, for Mr. Mossop
could not have resisted her advances ; but
as there was none available, and as for the
most part the aspirants to his hand had
been needy and distant scions of good
families, he had stood steadfast and
guarded his liberty. The Towers was
A WANDERING STAR. 2IQ,
still without a mistress, and Mr. Mossop
without a mate.
It cannot be gainsaid, however, that he
now falls in love genuinely and frankly.
Vega's beauty has begun, and her sweetness
has completed, what the plots and schemes
directed against him for twenty-five years
failed to accomplish, while there is no doubt
that the great name of Hautaine — a name to
conjure with — has counted for something
with him too.
" I am going away to-morrow," he says to
his companion, ruefully ; " but it doesn't
really matter whether I am here or not,
for, as far as I can see, it is nearly impossible
to set eyes on you. Your cousins seem to be
quite invisible, and I have been backwards
and forwards constantly to Conholt lately,
after hunting and that sort of thing, and I
have never even caught sight of you before
this time. What on earth do you do -with
yourselves, and where are you to be
found ? "
" We're kept a good deal in the back-
ground, certainly," says Vega, merrily, as
2 20 A WANDERING STAR.
she turns her lovely, laughing eyes on his
dull, inexpressive countenance — all uncon-
scious of the flame she is fanning ; " but
those who seek us can find us. We're not
imagined to be seen at all, but we haven't
yet been given invisible jackets ! Seriously
speaking, we have the schoolroom to our-
selves ; but I don't think the visitors at
Conholt are expected to come there. I am
sure Lady Julia wouldn't approve of their
doing so."
Mr. Mossop is quite sure of that also, but
love makes him bold.
" Perhaps not, Miss Fitzpatrick, but — but
— are you fond of chocolate ? ' he asks,
abruptly. The unexpected question makes
her merrier than ever.
" Of course I am," she says ; " and as for
Dottie, I never saw any one who could eat
so many chocolate creams in so short a
time."
" That will do," he answers, as triumph-
antly as if he had gained a decided ad-
vantage ; " I will bring you and Miss Dottie
the biggest box I can find the next time I
A WANDERING STAR. 22 1
come to Conholt. Surely, that will be a
kind of excuse for coming up to the school-
room to pay you a visit. Shall I be a wel-
come visitor there, Miss Fitzpatrick ? "
His eyes are too small and too sunk in
fat even to leer. She sees no more ex-
pression in his face than was there before.
" Welcome ! and with a big box of choco-
late ! If you have any doubt on the subject,
ask Dottie. Dottie — Dottie," she calls out
to the girl, who is lagging behind them
sulky and alone, and to Mr. Mossop's dis-
appointment and annoyance, his tete-a-tete
with Vega is at an end, for the two girls
chatter beside him till they reach the house,
which was not at all what he intended when
he offered his dole of sweetstuffs.
END OF VOL. I,
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