The Athelings

“What do you mean, sir, wandering about the country at this hour?” said the stranger—“what conspiracy goes on here, eh?—what are you doing with a parcel of women? Home to your den, you skulking young vagabond—what are you doing here?”

Marian, the least courageous of the three, moved by a sudden impulse, which was not courage but terror, laid her hand quickly upon Louis’s arm. The young man, who had turned his face defiant and furious towards the intruder, turned in an instant, grasping at the little timid hand as a man in danger might grasp at a shield invulnerable, “You perceive, my lord, I am beyond the reach either of your insults or your patronage here,” said the youth, whose blood was dancing in his veins, and who at that moment cared less than the merest stranger, who had never heard his name, for Lord Winterbourne.

“Come, my lad, if you are imposing upon these poor people—I must set you right,” said the man who was called Louis’s father. “Do you know what he is, my good woman, that you harbour this idle young rascal in despite of my known wishes? Home, you young vagabond, home! This boy is–”

“My lord, my lord,” interposed Mrs Atheling, in sudden agitation, “if any disgrace belongs to him, it is yours and not his that you should publish it. Go away, sir, from my door, where you once did harm enough, and don’t try to injure the poor boy—perhaps we know who he is better than you.”

What put this bold and rash speech into the temperate lips of Mamma, no one could ever tell; the effect of it, however, was electric. Lord Winterbourne fell back suddenly, stared at her with his strained eyes in the moonlight, and swore a muttered and inaudible oath. “Home, you hound!” he repeated in a mechanical tone, and then, waving his hand with a threatening and unintelligible gesture, turned to go away. “So long as the door is yours, my friend, I will take care to make no intrusion upon it,” he said significantly before he disappeared; and then the shadow departed out of the moonlight, the stealthy step died on the grass, and they stood alone again with beating hearts. Mamma took Marian’s hand from Louis, but not unkindly, and with an affectionate earnestness bade him go away. He hesitated long, but at length consented, partly for her entreaty, partly for the sake of Rachel. Under other circumstances this provocation would have maddened Louis; but he wrung Agnes’s hand with an excited gaiety as he lingered at the door watching a shadow on the window whither Marian had gone with her mother. “I had best not meet him on the road,” said Louis: “there is the Curate—for once, for your sake, and the sake of what has happened, I will be gracious and take his company; but to tell the truth, I do not care for anything which can befall me to-night.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

A CRISIS

Marian, whom her mother tenderly put to sleep that night, as if she had been a child, yet who lay awake in the long cold hours before the dawn in a vague and indescribable emotion, her heart stirring within her like something which did not belong to her—a new and strange existence—slept late the next morning, exhausted and worn out with all this sudden and stormy influx of unknown feelings. Mamma, who, on the contrary, was very early astir, came into the bed-chamber of her daughters at quite an unusual hour, and, thankfully perceiving Marian’s profound youthful slumber, stood gazing at the beautiful sleeper with tears in her eyes. Paler than usual, with a shadow under her closed eyelids, and still a little dew upon the long lashes—with one hand laid in childish fashion under her cheek, and the other lying, with its pearly rose-tipped fingers, upon the white coverlid, Marian, but for the moved and human agitation which evidently had worn itself into repose, might have looked like the enchanted beauty of the tale—but indeed she was rather more like a child who had wept itself to sleep. Her sister, stealing softly from her side, left her sleeping, and they put the door ajar that they might hear when she stirred before they went, with hushed steps and speaking in a whisper, down stairs.

Mrs Atheling was disturbed more than she would tell; what she did say, as Agnes and she sat over their silent breakfast-table, was an expedient which herself had visibly no faith in. “My dear, we must try to prevent him saying anything,” said Mrs Atheling, with her anxious brow: it was not necessary to name names, for neither of them could forget the scene of last night.

Then by-and-by Mamma spoke again. “I almost fancy we should go home; she might forget it if she were away. Agnes, my love, you must persuade him not to say anything; he pays great attention to what you say.”

“But, mamma—Marian?” said Agnes.

“Oh, Agnes, Agnes, my dear beautiful child,” said Mrs Atheling, with a sudden access of emotion, “it was only friendship, sympathy—her kind heart; she will think no more of it, if nothing occurs to put it into her head.”

Agnes did not say anything, though she was extremely doubtful on this subject; but then it was quite evident that Mamma had no faith in her own prognostications, and regarded this first inroad into the family with a mixture of excitement, dread, and agitation which it was not comfortable to see.

After their pretended breakfast, mother and daughter once more stole up-stairs. They had not been in the room a moment, when Marian woke—woke—started with fright and astonishment to see Agnes dressed, and her mother standing beside her; and beginning to recollect, suddenly blushed, and turning away her face, burning with that violent suffusion of colour, exclaimed, “I could not help it—I could not help it; would you stand by and see them drive him mad? Oh mamma, mamma!”

“My darling, no one thinks of blaming you,” said Mrs Atheling, who trembled a good deal, and looked very anxious. “We were all very sorry for him, poor fellow; and you only did what you should have done, like a brave little friend—what I should have done myself, had I been next to him,” said Mamma, with great gravity and earnestness, but decidedly overdoing her part.

This did not seem quite a satisfactory speech to Marian. She turned away again petulantly, dried her eyes, and with a sidelong glance at Agnes, asked, “Why did you not wake me?—it looks quite late. I am not ill, am I? I am sure I do not understand it—why did you let me sleep?”

“Hush, darling! because you were tired and late last night,” said Mamma.

Now this sympathy and tenderness seemed rather alarming than soothing to Marian. Her colour varied rapidly, her breath came quick, tears gathered to her eyes. “Has anything happened while I have been sleeping?” she asked hastily, and in a very low tone.

“No, no, my love, nothing at all,” said Mamma tenderly, “only we thought you must be tired.”

“Both you and Agnes were as late as me,—why were not you tired?” said Marian, still with a little jealous fear. “Please, mamma, go away; I want to get dressed and come down stairs.”

They left her to dress accordingly, but still with some anxiety and apprehension, and Mamma waited for Marian in her own room, while Agnes went down to the parlour—just in time, for as she took her seat, Louis, flushed and impatient, burst in at the door.

Louis made a most hasty salutation, and was a great deal too eager and hurried to be very well bred. He looked round the room with sudden anxiety and disappointment. “Where is she?—I must see Marian,” cried Louis. “What! you do not mean to say she is ill, after last night?”

“Not ill, but in her own room,” said Agnes, somewhat confused by the question.

“I will wait as long as you please, if I must wait,” said Louis impatiently; “but, Agnes! why should you be against me? Of course, I forget myself; do you grudge that I should? I forget everything except last night; let me see Marian. I promise you I will not distress her, and if she bids me, I will go away.”

“No, it is not that,” said Agnes with hesitation; “but, Louis, nothing happened last night—pray do not think of it. Well, then,” she said earnestly, as his hasty gesture denied what she said, “mamma begs you, Louis, not to say anything to-day.”

He turned round upon her with a blank but haughty look. “I understand—my disgrace must not come here,” he said; “but she did not mind it; she, the purest lily upon earth! Ah! so that was a dream, was it? And her mother—her mother says I am to go away?”

“No, indeed—no,” said Agnes, almost crying. “No, Louis, you know better; do not misunderstand us. She is so young, so gentle, and tender. Mamma only asked, for all our sakes, if you would consent not to say anything now.”

To this softened form of entreaty the eager young man paid not the slightest attention. He began to use the most unblushing cajolery to win over poor Agnes. It did not seem to be Louis; so entirely changed was his demeanour. It was only an extremely eager and persevering specimen of the genus “lover,” without any personal individuality at all.

“What! not say anything? Could anybody ask such a sacrifice?” cried this wilful and impetuous youth. “It might, as you say, be nothing at all, though it seems life—existence, to me. Not know whether that hand is mine or another’s—that hand which saved me, perhaps from murder?—for he is an old man, though he is a fiend incarnate, and I might have killed him where he stood.”

“Louis! Louis!” cried Agnes, gazing at him in terror and excitement. He grew suddenly calm as he caught her eye.

“It is quite true,” he said with a grave and solemn calmness. “This man, who has cursed my life, and made it miserable—this man, who dared insult me before her and you—do you think I could have been a man, and still have borne that intolerable crown of wrong?”

As he spoke, he began to pace the little parlour with impatient steps and a clouded brow. Mrs Atheling, who had heard his voice, but had restrained her anxious curiosity as long as possible, now came down quietly, unable to keep back longer. Louis sprang to her side, took her hand, led her about the room, pleading, reasoning, persuading. Mamma, whose good heart from the first moment had been an entire and perfect traitor, was no match at all for Louis. She gave in to him unresistingly before half his entreaties were over; she did not make even half so good a stand as Agnes, who secretly was in the young lover’s interest too. But when they had just come to the conclusion that he should be permitted to see Marian, Marian herself, whom no one expected, suddenly entered the room. The young beauty’s pretty brow was lowering more than any one before had ever seen it lower; a petulant contraction was about her red lips, and a certain angry dignity, as of an offended child, in her bearing. “Surely something very strange has happened this morning,” said Marian, with a little heat; “even mamma looks as if she knew some wonderful secret. I suppose every one is to hear of it but me.”

At this speech the dismayed conspirators against Marian’s peace fell back and separated. The other impetuous principal in the matter hastened at once to the angry Titania, who only bowed, and did not even look at him. The truth was, that Marian, much abashed at thought of her own sudden impulse, was never in a mood less propitious; she felt as if she herself had not done quite right—as if somehow she had betrayed a secret of her own, and, now found out and detected, was obliged to use the readiest means to cover it up again; and, besides, the hasty little spirit, which had both pride and temper of its own, could not at all endure the idea of having been petted and excused this morning, as if “something had happened” last night. Now that it was perfectly evident nothing had happened—now that Louis stood before her safe, handsome, and eager, Marian concluded that it was time for her to stand upon her defence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CLOUDS

The end of it all was, of course—though Louis had an amount of trouble in the matter which that impetuous young gentleman had not counted upon—that Marian yielded to his protestations, and came forth full of the sweetest agitation, tears, and blushes, to be taken to the kind breast of the mother who was scarcely less agitated, and to be regarded with a certain momentary awe, amusement, and sympathy by Agnes, whose visionary youthful reverence for this unknown magician was just tempered by the equally youthful imp of mischief which plays tricks upon the same. But Mrs Atheling’s brow grew sadder and sadder with anxiety, as she looked at the young man who now claimed to call her mother. What he was to do—how Marian could bear all the chances and changes of the necessarily long probation before them—what influence Lord Winterbourne might have upon the fortunes of his supposed son—what Papa himself would say to this sudden betrothal, and how he could reconcile himself to receive a child, and a disgraced child of his old enemy, into his own honourable house,—these considerations fluttered the heart and disturbed the peace of the anxious mother, who already began to blame herself heavily, yet did not see, after all, what else she could have done. A son of shame, and of Lord Winterbourne!—a young man hitherto dependent, with no training, no profession, no fortune, of no use in the world. And her prettiest Marian!—the sweet face which won homage everywhere, and which every other face involuntarily smiled to see. Darker and darker grew the cloud upon the brow of Mrs Atheling; she went in, out of sight of these two happy young dreamers, with a sick heart. For the first time in her life she was dismayed at the thought of writing to her husband, and sat idly in a chair drawn back from her window, wearying herself out with most vain and unprofitable speculations as to things which might have been done to avert this fate.

No very long time elapsed, however, before Mrs Atheling found something else to occupy her thoughts. Hannah came in to the parlour, solemnly announcing a man at the door who desired to see her. With a natural presentiment, very naturally arising from the excited state of her own mind, Mrs Atheling rose, and hastened to the door. The man was an attorney’s clerk, threadbare and respectable, who gave into her hand an open paper, and after it a letter. The paper, which she glanced over with hasty alarm, was a formal notice to quit, on pain of ejection, from the house called the Old Wood Lodge, the property of Reginald, Lord Winterbourne. “The property of Lord Winterbourne!—it is our—it is my husband’s property. What does this mean?” cried Mrs Atheling.

“I know nothing of the business, but Mr Lewis’s letter will explain it,” said the messenger, who was civil but not respectful; and the anxious mistress of the house hastened in with great apprehension and perplexity to open the letter and see what this explanation was. It was not a very satisfactory one. With a friendly spirit, yet with a most cautious and lawyer-like regard to the interest of his immediate client, Mr Lewis, the same person who had been intrusted with the will of old Miss Bridget, and who was Lord Winterbourne’s solicitor, announced the intention of his principal to “resume possession” of Miss Bridget’s little house. “You will remember,” wrote the lawyer, “that I did not fail to point out to you at the time the insecure nature of the tenure by which this little property was held. Granted, as I believe it was, as a gift simply for the lifetime of Miss Bridget Atheling, she had, in fact, no right to bequeath it to any one, and so much of her will as relates to this is null and void. I am informed that there are documents in existence proving this fact beyond the possibility of dispute, and that any resistance would be entirely vain. As a friend, I should advise you not to attempt it; the property is actually of very small value, and though I speak against the interest of my profession, I think it right to warn you against entering upon an expensive lawsuit with a man like Lord Winterbourne, to whom money is no consideration. For the sake of your family, I appeal to you whether it would not be better, though at a sacrifice of feeling, to give up without resistance the old house, which is of very little value to any one, if it were not for my lord’s whim of having no small proprietors in his neighbourhood. I should be sorry that he was made acquainted with this communication. I write to you merely from private feelings, as an old friend.”

Mrs Atheling rose from her seat hastily, holding the papers in her hand. “Resist him!” she exclaimed—“yes, certainly, to the very last;” but at that moment there came in at the half-open door a sound of childish riot, exuberant and unrestrained, which arrested the mother’s words, and subdued her like a spell. Bell and Beau, rather neglected and thrown into the shade for the first time in their lives, were indemnifying themselves in the kitchen, where they reigned over Hannah with the most absolute and unhesitating mastery. Mamma fell back again into her seat, silent, pale, and with pain and terror in her face. Was this the first beginning of the blight of the Evil Eye?

And then she remained thinking over it sadly and in silence; sometimes, disposed to blame herself for her rashness—sometimes with a natural rising of indignation, disposed to repeat again her first outcry, and resist this piece of oppression—sometimes starting with the sudden fright of an anxious and timid mother, and almost persuaded at once, without further parley, to flee to her own safe home, and give up, without a word, the new inheritance. But she was not learned in the ways of the world, in law, or necessary ceremonial. Resist was a mere vague word to her, meaning she knew not what, and no step occurred to her in the matter but the general necessity for “consulting a lawyer,” which was of itself an uncomfortable peril. As she argued with herself, indeed, Mrs Atheling grew quite hopeless, and gave up the whole matter. She had known, through many changes, the success of this bad man, and in her simple mind had no confidence in the abstract power of the law to maintain the cause, however just, of William Atheling, who would have hard ado to pay a lawyer’s fees, against Lord Winterbourne.

Then she called in her daughters, whom Louis then only, and with much reluctance, consented to leave, and held a long and agitated counsel with them. The girls were completely dismayed by the news, and mightily impressed by that new and extraordinary “experience” of a real enemy, which captivated Agnes’s wandering imagination almost as much as it oppressed her heart. As for Marian, she sat looking at them blankly, turning from Mamma to Agnes, and from Agnes to Mamma, with a vague perception that this was somehow because of Louis, and a very heavy heartbreaking depression in her agitated thoughts. Marian, though she was not very imaginative, had caught a tinge of the universal romance at this crisis of her young life, and, cast down with the instant omen of misfortune, saw clouds and storms immediately rising through that golden future, of which Louis’s prophecies had been so pleasant to hear.

And there could be no doubt that this suddenly formed engagement, hasty, imprudent, and ill-advised as it was, added a painful complication to the whole business. If it was known—and who could conceal from the gossip of the village the constant visits of Louis, or his undisguised devotion?—then it would set forth evidently in public opposition the supposed father and son. “But Lord Winterbourne is not his father!” cried Marian suddenly, with tears and vehemence. Mrs Atheling shook her head, and said that people supposed so at least, and this would be a visible sign of war.

But no one in the family counsel could advise anything in this troubled moment. Charlie was coming—that was a great relief and comfort. “If Charlie knows anything, it should be the law,” said Mrs Atheling, with a sudden joy in the thought that Charlie had been full six months at it, and ought to be very well informed indeed upon the subject. And then Agnes brought her blotting-book, and the good mother sat down to write the most uncomfortable letter she had ever written to her husband in all these two-and-twenty years. There was Marian’s betrothal, first of all, which was so very unlike to please him—he who did not even know Louis, and could form no idea of his personal gifts and compensations—and then there was the news of this summons, and of the active and powerful enemy suddenly started up against them. Mrs Atheling took a very long time composing the letter, but sighed heavily to think how soon Papa would read it, to the destruction of all his pleasant fancies about his little home in the country, and his happy children. Charlie was coming—they had all a certain faith in Charlie, boy though he was; it was the only comfort in the whole prospect to the anxious eyes of Mamma.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE REV. LIONEL RIVERS

The next day, somewhat to the consternation of this disturbed and troubled family, they were honoured by a most unlooked-for and solemn visit from the Rector. The Rector, in stature, form, and features, considerably resembled Miss Anastasia, and was, as she herself confessed, an undeniable Rivers, bearing all the family features and not a little of the family temper. He seemed rather puzzled himself to give a satisfactory reason for his call—saying solemnly that he thought it right for the priest of the parish to be acquainted with all his parishioners—words which did not come with half so much unction or natural propriety from his curved and disdainful lip, as they would have done from the bland voice of Mr Mead. Then he asked some ordinary questions how they liked the neighbourhood, addressing himself to Mamma, though his very grave and somewhat haughty looks were principally directed to Agnes. Mrs Atheling, in spite of her dislike of the supreme altitude of his churchmanship, had a natural respect for the clergyman, who seemed the natural referee and adviser of people in trouble; and though he was a Rivers, and the next heir after Lord Winterbourne’s only son, it by no means followed on that account that the Rector entertained any affectionate leaning towards Lord Winterbourne.

“I knew your old relative very well,” said the Rector; “she was a woman of resolute will and decided opinions, though her firmness, I am afraid, was in the cause of error rather than of truth. I believe she always entertained a certain regard for me, connected as she was with the family, though I felt it my duty to warn her against her pernicious principles before her death.”

“Her pernicious principles! Was poor Aunt Bridget an unbeliever?” cried Agnes, with an involuntary interest, and yet an equally involuntary and natural spirit of opposition to this stately young man.

“The word is a wide one. No—not an unbeliever, nor even a disbeliever, so far as I am aware,” said the churchman, “but, even more dangerous than a positive error of doctrine, holding these fatal delusions concerning private opinion, which have been the bane of the Church.”

There was a little pause after this, the unaccustomed audience being somewhat startled, yet quite unprepared for controversy, and standing beside in a little natural awe of the Rector, who ought to know so much better than they did. Agnes alone felt a stirring of unusual pugnacity—for once in her life she almost forgot her natural diffidence, and would have liked nothing better than to throw down her woman’s glove to the rampant churchman, and make a rash and vehement onslaught upon him, after the use and wont of feminine controversy.

“My own conviction is,” said the Rector with a little solemnity, yet with a dissatisfied and fiery gleam in his eager dark eyes, “that there is no medium between the infallible authority of the Church and the wildest turmoil of heresy. This one rock a man may plant his foot upon—all beyond is a boundless and infinite chaos. Therefore I count it less perilous to be ill-informed or indifferent concerning some portions of the creed, than to be shaken in the vital point of the Church’s authority—the only flood-gate that can be closed against the boiling tide of error, which, but for this safeguard, would overpower us all.”

Having made this statement, which somehow he enunciated as if it were a solemn duty, Mr Rivers left the subject abruptly, and returned to common things.

“You are acquainted, I understand,” he said, with haste and a little emotion, “with my unfortunate young relatives at the Hall?”

The question was so abrupt and unlooked for, that all the three, even Mamma, who was not very much given to blushing, coloured violently. “Louis and Rachel? Yes; we know them very well,” said Mrs Atheling, with as much composure as she could summon to meet the emergency—which certainly was not enough to prevent the young clergyman from discovering a rather unusual degree of interest in the good mother’s answer. He looked surprised, and turned a hurried glance upon the girls, who were equally confused under his scrutiny. It was impossible to say which was the culprit, if culprit there was. Mr Rivers, who was tall enough at first, visibly grew a little taller, and became still more stately in his demeanour than before.