THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES LINNET'S TEIAL. $ %Klt IN TWO VOLUMES. BY THE AUTHOR OF "TWICE LOST." VOL. II. LONDON: VIRTUE BROTHERS & CO., 1, AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW. LONDON : PRINTED BY JAMES S. VIRTVE, CITY KOAD. IK PART III. HOW IT WAS BORNE. CONTENTS. PART III. {continued.) CHAPTER III. Page The Caves 1 CHAPTER IV. Rose's Adventi.ee 10 CHAPTER V. Lady Philippa is Sorry for Her . . -'37 CHAPTER VI. Is this the Worst? 50 CHAPTER VII. Rose's Resolutions 70 CHAPTER VIII. How they wbbe Kept 83 CHAPTER IX. The Tableaux 101 vol. n. VI CONTESTS. CHAPTER X. Pasolutely nothing, compared to the fact of your leaving it under a slur. Do this, and I will never think of my disappoint- ment for another moment." VERE AT HOME. 179 Vere's colour came and went while his father spoke, and he was very pale when he replied, " I can't do that," "You can't! Is it really that you can't? Vcre ! you know what I must conclude." " It would not have the effect that you desire, not in the least. I do assure you that it would only make matters worse." " There are a dozen ways in which you might do it, if that particular way is objection- able," persisted Mr. Forester. " Sir Hugh Deverell" (naming the member for the county) " would say a few words for you in the House directly, if you will furnish him with the means of doing so. He is an old friend, and a soldier of reputation. He would be listened to, and his word would clear you at once. You shake your head. Well, I have done. I have nothing more to say. Go your own way." Vere looked down in painful embarrassment. He felt so thoroughly that his father had a right to expect an answer, that there was nothing unreasonable in Mr. Forester's dis- pleasure, nor excessive in his distress, that it seemed to him that he should only give further n2 180 linnet's trial. provocation by asking for forgiveness. He was therefore silent. Never did a man look less pugnacious or more inexorable. " I see," said Mr. Forester, as he left the room, " that I have not a particle of influence. Selden must talk to you." But Vere made shorter work with Selden. He told him at once that he did not wish to discuss the subject. Vere had not now to encounter the terrible intimacy of near rela- tionship which refuses to be silenced. Beyond a certain point Dr. Selden's delicacy did not allow him to press his friend. But before that point was reached there was quite pressure enough to be painful, when the unyielding nature of the substance upon which it was exerted is taken into consideration. Dr. Selden was armed with the ascendency of age, and the certainty of being in the right ; and his affection for Vere would not allow him to lay aside his weapons till he had made himself sure that be was only prolonging a useless contest. And his defeat was by no means .submission; it was so far from being submis- sion, that it was very near to a quarrel. VERE AT HOME. 181 " My dear Forester, you must listen to me, indeed you must ! " said lie vehemently. " It is not like you to be so headstrong-. You are doing yourself a mischief which you will repent all your life. You are not a man to bear philosophically — will you forgive me if I put before you in plain words what you will have to bear, what you have already brought upon yourself? " " Spare it to me ! " answered Vere, in a tone of entreaty, not of anger. " Do you suppose I have not considered these things ? I know exactly what I have to bear, and I have made up my mind to it." " But when it is unnecessary ? " urged Dr. Selden. "Just reflect what it is! Will you not let yourself be helped ? " " There is only one way in which my friends can help me," said Vere, " and I shall be so grateful if they will take that way ! It is by turning their backs, as I do, upon what has happened, and giving me a little encourage- ment in my new life. I am going to Italy, and I am going to work hard. As far as my career is concerned, I wish to talk and think of 182 linnet's trial. nothing else. Will you try to reconcile my father to this idea ? " " I must reconcile myself to it first," said Dr. Selden. "What!" cried Vere, with forced gaiety; "you a traitor to Art? I thought that those bloodless struggles and tearless triumphs were all in your line. Have you not told me a hundred times that I had mistaken my voca- tion, and that you longed to see me really at work ? I am not going to do this thing by halves ; I am going to stake all upon it, I assure you." Dr. Selden looked at him mournfully. " What have you left to stake ? " asked he, with no sarcasm, but a great deal of sorrow. The words went deep, but Vere did not flinch. "I have myself," said he quietly; " and I think that's something." After a pause, he added, with a fresh effort and another smile, " I'm not going to talk blank verse about it, but 1 really am very much in earnest; and in a day or two I know you will help me. I have asked you a little too soon, that's all. I count upon you in the end." YERE AT HOME. 183 " Of course you may count upon me," answered his friend slowly and reluctantly; " and if " " Stop there!" cried Vere, holding up his hand. "That's all I want. And remember now, if you please, as a favour, this matter is closed between us. I am not a boy, and I have my eyes open. I tell you, upon my honour, nothing but extreme pain to me can come of any further discussion. Have I not a right to stop it ?" " You have the right, undoubtedly," an- swered Dr. Selden coldly. Vere looked at him with great and evident emotion, opened his mouth to speak, but was silent. " It's of no use just now," said he to himself. " This has to be got over. In two or three days he will be like himself again." Leonora remained. She asked no questions, except with her eyes. She was waiting for him to open his heart to her when he had done with the others. He began by talking to her, with a kind of determined brightness and hopefulness, about their future life in Italy. She responded to all that he said, but the 184 linnet's trial. question in her eyes was not silenced. At last she drew close to his side. " Am I to know no more than the rest? " asked she. " Not a word more," said he, pressing her to him. Her look of pain went to his heart. " Yes, you are to know this," he added, " that I am looking to you for comfort, healing, happiness. You are to he my rest and my refuge. When I come to you the cloud is to pass away. You are to help me to forget anything that troubles me. Life is a little hard upon me just now, my Linnet, and I don't quite know how I should bear it if I had not you." "You ask me to trust you?" began she eagerly. " No," he answered, in a low, proud voice, " I don't ask that." " You need not," she said. " I trust you with my whole heart and soul." " You have something to bear, for — with — me," said he, with a heavy sigh ; " I would not have brought it upon you if I could have helped it. But do not let them take you away from VERB AT HOME. 185 me. Do not let them persuade you that you are to oppose me for my own good, that it is your place now to use your influence. You know all that they have been saying to you. Mark, I don't blame them. It was not only natural, it was right. It could not be helped. And if they have moved you, and if you think that you have a duty to perform towards me now, whether I like it or not, I don't blame you, my darling. But let us get it over, if it is to be. I want you for myself, and I cannot have you till this is over." The indescribable depression and tenderness of his manner overcame her, and she could not keep back her tears. " Ah!" said he, with a smile, "I see that I have you already. And now let us talk about Rome." From that time no persuasion, no anxiety, could induce Leonora to touch the forbidden subject. She refused to speak of it to her husband. She begged the family not to speak of it to herself. She tried to put it out of sis:ht. Vere and she talked together of the art-studies at Rome, which they had so often 186 linnet's trial. anticipated, and with such eager delight. The wish of their lives was about to be gratified ; and, like the wishes of naughty children in story-books, the gratification was so contrived that everything pleasurable was abstracted from it. Do we not all remember the little girl who imprudently asked that she might never do any more needlework, and who had to rue that natural and transient aspiration in sackcloth — ragged sackcloth, too ! — and ashes for years? We cannot help doubting whether any real little girl would appreciate the moral misery of her condition under such circumstances, whether she would not be content with her sackcloth, if only she were never to be compelled to mend it. If so, she would be no type of Leonora, who felt keenly and at every moment that her fulfilled wish hud lost all its sweetness. Others might believe that the weight on Vere's spirits, which he bore so quietly and with such a good Bemblance of indifference, was a light one. SIw felt every ounce of it, and knew exactly how much of his life-strength he was spending in the effort to carry it. Others VBRE AT HOME. 187 might believe that lie was really looking for- ward with sanguine impatience to his new career. She saw and measured the struggle of feeling which lay under every expression of hope, and every assumption of interest. But he, the sufferer, had prescribed the mode in which he was to be helped, and in that way only she resolutely helped him. If ever the strong will of a man could succeed in finally shutting and double-locking one door in life and opening another, it must surely succeed now. For the will was strong, and it never wavered, and the face of the man was steadfastly set towards the Future. She longed to get him away. On one point only he showed a kind of weakness — he shrank from visitors. We have said that he did not avoid his father's questions and reproaches, that he even bore with Dr. Selden's up to a certain point. It appeared that he had fore- seen and prepared for the conversations which must be encountered in his home ; and he went steadily past them, as steps in his course from which it was useless to turn aside. He would, perhaps, have suffered less if he had 188 linnet's trial. been more resentful. But he appreciated to the uttermost all that his friends were feeling and thinking. It was not that he tried to view himself from their stand-point: he simply could not help doing so. He, the culprit, was evidently making the fullest allowance for his judges. And the contrast between their irri- tation and his deprecating calmness gave him an apparent superiority, which was somewhat aggravating to them. But he either was not able, or had not cared, to make a similar preparation against chance encounters w r ith acquaintances ; and the manner in which he fled from them, or suffered under them, was the most painful thing in the whole matter to his wife. The first time he left the drawing- room when a rin^ at the door-bell announced an arrival — the first time that she saw him shimmer and blush and lose his self-possession, when an unexpected morning caller caught him in the garden — these were moments of keen anguish never to be forgotten. She went through a secret martyrdom before she could admit the idea that he was ashamed, sufficiently to enable her to help in screening VERE AT HOME. 189 and shielding him. And once or twice when she was alone she grew indignant : she asked herself, " Are we to bear this ?" She resolved that she would begin the subject to him. again, and jjress, urge, supplicate him to take his father's advice and clear himself. But always when he came into the room and looked at her with those trusting eyes, in which he unclosed such an unfathomable depth of grief and weariness with such absolute confidence that it would be filled by her consolations, her resolution gave way, his perfect ascendency was resumed, and she was content simply to follow where he led. She therefore tried only to accelerate their departure, and, m fact, there was little to delay it, except the invin- cible family habit of making immeasurable prefaces and postscripts to every tiny page of actions. And change was so evidently desir- able for Rose, that even Mr. Forester found himself capable of being hurried. 190 linnet's trial. CHAPTER XIV. LADY PHILIPPA'S VICTORY. " You have had some talk with Vere — what do you make of him ? " said Mr. Forester, taking Dr. Selden by the arm a fortnight after Vere's return. " I am sorry to say I can make nothing of him." " His indifference is the most wonderful thing I ever met with in my life. We used to consider him sensitive — touchy. He is as much transformed," continued Mr. Forester, si riking his foot upon the ground, "as if they had taken another man, and sent him hack to me instead of my son." Dr. Selden looked at him with grave sym- pathy. " Whether he is indifferent or not," said he, "he is clearly impracticable. I never LADY PHILIPPA'S VICTORY. 101 saw a man so fixed. You got Sir Hugh Deverell to write to him ? " " Yes ; the kindest, most considerate, most thoroughly friendly letter. He put the case to him strongly on paper, just as I had done by word of mouth. He offered to do any- thing — to speak for him, to endorse his state- ments — in fact, no man could say more. And Vere answered by return of post that he had very fully and deliberately considered the matter, and had definitely made up his mind not to take, sanction, or encourage — those were his words, l not to take, sanction, or en- courage' — any step in it whatever. I doubt whether he even said 'thank you.' But he said plainly enough that it was his own business, and nobody else had anything to do with it. Deverell sent me the letters — evi- dently thought he had been cavalierly treated — washed his hands of the whole affair, and seemed to suppose that it was a case in which the less said the better ; which, in fact, every one must suppose. If Vere would only see it in that light ! " " I think the best, the only thing to be 192 lixnet's trial. done now, is to get him away as soon as possible," said Dr. Selden. " People will forget all about it before he comes back." " They will forget all about it while he is away," returned Mr. Forester, "and remember it again as soon as he comes back. Did you ever in your life know a man on whom a slur once rested, who was able quite to get rid of it? Whenever his name is mentioned some- body tells the story, and somebody else ex- plains it, and some third person explains the explanation, but the end of it is, the story sticks to the man." Dr. Selden would have contradicted this if he could, but he could not. After a pause Mr. Forester began again — " The most preposterous, the most unac- countable, the most fatal step, that selling out ! He must have been possessed. I some- times think — he is such a crotchety fellow — that those Peace notions have got hold of him, that he has taken up some confounded trash about the unlawfulness of war, and that he is afraid of talking to me about it. But he would not be afraid of talking to you. Has LADY PHILIPPA'S VICTORY. 193 lie ever said anything of the kind ? " Mr. Forester had such comprehensive notions of Dr. Selden's heterodoxy, that by turning to him for sympathy and information, he showed more clearly than he could have shown in any other manner how deeply he was disturbed and shaken. All divergencies from generally received opinion were, by Mr. Forester, classed together and attributed en masse to the person in whom any one of them had been detected. Believing Dr. Selden to be a sceptic, Mr. Forester would not have been surprised at his exhibiting a dash of Puseyism, and was quite certain that he was also a revolutionary radical, a homoeopath, an upholder of the rights of women, an advocate of the slave- trade, a total abstainer, and a disciple of Mr. Bright. Dr. Selden shook his head with a half- smile. " Not a word ! " said he. " And I should think him the last man living to be tempted by any such a will-o'-the-wisp." " I should have thought him the last man VOL. II. o 194 linnet's trial. living to — to — to." The father fairly broke down, and could not finish his sentence. Lady Philippa was right when she said that he was really to be pitied about his children. His proud aifection was terribly galled and humbled. Vere was grieved and anxious about Rose, but he knew her too little to make an assault upon her confidence. He thought that Leonora might ask her the cpiestion point-blank whether Lionel Brandon had made her an offer or not ; and he said so. "I could not do it," said Leonora ;" it would hurt her so terribly to have to say ' no.' ' " Then you think he did not ? " " I am almost afraid that he did not. He behaved very ill. It was not flirting, Vere. You know Rose could not flirt; she is far too simple and downright, and she has too much real modesty. Any man must have seen — Mr. Brandon, who is used to society, could not help seeing — that if she admitted his attentions, it was because she cared for them. And they were such very decided attentions ! " LADY PHILIPPA'S VICTORY. 195 " I don't know that his being used to society- would help him to understand a girl like Rose. I think it is more likely that he looked upon her as a child, and was in the dark to the last." " I assure you," said Leonora, decidedly, " that it is quite impossible. And so you would say yourself if you had been here." "Well," answered Vere, "you are a far better judge in such matters than I am, and even if I had been here, I should have deferred to you. Poor little Rose ! We must pet her, and make much of her, and she will soon forget all about it when she is in a new place." " You think her a child, too ! " said Linnet, with a little indignation. " You have not the least idea what she really is, and what she has really suffered. Her health is giving way, and I am very unhappy about her." " I see that she is very unwell — that there is real cause for anxiety about her health. But you don't mean to tell me seriously that her disappointment about Brandon has anything to do with her illness. Surely it is much more 02 196 linnet's trial. likely that she has taken his defection so much to heart, because she was beginning to go out of health at the time." Leonora opened her eyes. " It seems im- possible to make you understand ! " said she. It is very often impossible to make a man understand that it is a serious matter to fall in love, in any case save his own, which he somehow looks upon as exceptional. " I suppose it is because you were not here/' said Leonora ; " for really the way in which you talk is so unlike the way in which I think, that it is almost as if you belonged to another world." " That is a strong way of putting it. But, taking your view — and I assure you I don't dispute it — there is nothing to be done, is there?" " No," answered Leonora, slowly, " unless you could Bound Mr. Brandon." "Sound Brandon!" repeated he, hardly believing her to be in earnest. " I only meant that you might possibly be able to find out what he really meant and felt. It is so easy for men to do that sort of thing lady philippa's yictoky. 197 by one another, you know. Because, what I thought was, that if Kose refused him in a hurry, and if he is unhappy too, it seems such a pity that he should not know that if he were to come back it would most probably be dif- ferent. It seems as if they were both being sacrificed to a mistake." "A mistake which nobody but themselves can set right, I am afraid," answered Vere. " I could not possibly begin the subject to Brandon. It would be open to all sorts of misinterpretations. Even if I were with him, I don't see how I could lead up to it in a conversation. But I own I think you might manage to get the truth out of Rose." We have said that Leonora's projects — vague and doubtful as they were — suffered a check before they came into any definite shape. The check — it was checkmate — was administered by Lady Philippa in the course of a morning visit. " I have not had the pleasure of seeing Major Forester since he came home." This was the lady's first arrow launched at Leonora. " He is out this morning," she replied. 198 linnet's trial. "Ah!" (with an intonation which implied that she quite understood his being out) " I regret not seeing him the more, because I wanted to ask him how the poor Martins bore the news of their son's death. I do not lose my interest in my old dependants because they behave badly to me." " It is a heavy trial,'' said Leonora. " They were quite broken down at first." " It must be a consolation to them that he died in the performance of his duty." The sentiment was not novel, and Leonora did not think it necessary to acknowledge it further than by a grave little bow. Lady Philippa resumed : — " The sons who are safe at home are sometimes greater afflic- tions than those who are in danger abroad. And I am afraid this is the case with the poor Martins. That boy of theirs has been getting into trouble again." " Indeed!" cried Leonora, who had by this time a burning spot on each cheek. " I am so sorry. What is it ? " " Caught poaching," said Lady Philippa, briefly. LADY PHILIPPA'S VICTORY. 199 "Oh!" interposed Dr. Selden, leaving his book in the window and coming- to Leonora's help, " I am glad to tell you that the case broke down. Mr. Heathcote dismissed it without even hearing it to a conclusion, and with a sharp reprimand to the gamekeeper." Lady Philippa was taken by surprise, and could not conceal her annoyance for the moment. " The man has no rio-ht to bring- a charge which he can't sustain," said she ; " but I have not the slightest doubt that Martin was really guilty in this instance, as he was before when he contrived to get off. Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Forester ; I forgot that you were his friend on that occasion. I wonder who be- friended him. now." " I hope that he was not guilty/' said Leonora. " You have a great deal of sympathy for offenders who contrive to escape condemna- tion," observed Lady Philippa. "It is most amiable in you. By-the-bye," she added, smiling, " some of your companions on that memorable excursion when Miss Forester was 200 linnet's trial. so nearly lost in the snow have very pleasant reasons for remembering it. I suppose you have heard from Mr. Brandon ? " Leonora started. " No ! " said she. " Have you — is he " " I have heard from Mrs. Darner, which is very nearly the same thing. I see that I have to tell you the news. They are engaged to be married.-" Leonora was dumb. " Is not that rather unexpected?" asked Dr. Selden. " Oh, no. I saw how it was long before they left Kirkham. She writes very happily, poor little thing. Her first marriage was a sad mistake in every way; but I think she has chosen well now. I suppose you know her story?" Leonora was glad to ask for the story to cover her astonishment and agitation ; and Lady Philippa went on — " You must have heard of that strange will under which Mr. Brandon came into his property — the cousin whom lie was to marry, and who would have nothing to say to him. That cousin was little LADY PHILIPPA'S VICTORY. 201 Mrs. Damer. Mr. Brandon knew her from the first, when they met here, but he was determined not to let her guess who he was. I fancy he rather piqued himself upon winning her after she had rejected him without knowing him. He passed himself off for another cousin. It is quite as well that they are going to be married, for rather an awkward question might have arisen. I believe she might claim the property if he refused to marry her now ; for there is nothing in the will that can make her first marriage a disqualification now that the husband is dead." "No woman could do such a thing! " cried Leonora. " Oh, I don't know that ! And my friend Lionel is certainly the least little bit in the world of a flirt ; so it is quite as well that there is a good reason for fixing him. You know that Mr. Brandon was rather given to flirting. I hope you will excuse my saying that I am really anxious to hear that this news does not affect Miss Forester. I am afraid he did make himself a little too agreeable to her — and she is so young ! " 202 linnet's trial. " I think," said Leonora quickly, " Rose took the matter into her own hands. I be- lieve that she is responsible for Mr. Brandon's sudden departure. But he has consoled him- self very easily." " You mean that she refused him? '' " I have no right to say so. But I think it highly probable that she did." " Ah, I thought it was a conjecture ! But it is far the most judicious tone to take. In fact, I ought not to have broached the subject to you at all, and I really beg your pardon." She was gathering herself up for departure while she spoke, and she planted her last stab while she was shaking hands — " I am so glad you have given me something to say in answer to that foolish Miss Carr, who is going about everywhere pitying her 'poor Rose,' and giving a reason for Mr. Brandon's behaviour to her, which is so very offensive to you that I really think you ought to know it. She says that he would have proposed if he had not enter- tained such a very strong opinion about Major Forester's leaving the army. Now really, you know, that sort of thing ought to be stopped, LADY PHILIPPA'S VICTORY. 203 or there is no knowing what mischief it ma} r do. Good morning." Leonora was trembling with nervous irrita- tion, and it was long before she could calm herself. This was the end of it all. She understood Brandon's behaviour now. He saw that he could win Mrs. Darner if he pleased, and the temptation to his vanity had been irre- sistible. She remembered their first meeting, and Hose's indignation at his assuming a false name. She remembered a hundred occasions on which his demeanour had puzzled her. She had the key now. His heart, such as it was — and she was inclined to think that it was a very poor specimen of a heart — had been given to Rose ; but his power over the woman who had formerly rejected him had been so pleasant a thing to him, that he could not help using it whenever an opportunity occurred; and when he was sore and indignant at Rose's refusal, the kind of entanglement into which he had allowed himself to be drawn had become a diversion and a refuge. He was just the kind of man, she thought, to marry out of pique. He had never been worthy of Rose. 204 linnet's trial. Rose received the tidings very quietly. She took everything quietly now. It was one of the great changes in her, and it was a change which made Leonora particularly anxious. She would have given much for one of the old bursts of girlish petulance. Rose seemed now no longer to fear that her confidence would be forced ; she was not perpetually on the defen- sive against possible questions or constructions. The languor of failing health was making her gentle rather than irritable ; and she was awakening out of her self-absorption, and showing herself sympathetic with the cares of others, and grateful for their sympathy with her. There was an accent of self-reproach in her expressions of affection, as if she were taking herself to task for past insensibility. Trouble was at last doing that work upon her which it is the special mission of trouble to do — the work of discipline. There was more truth in Yere's somewhat roughly expressed anticipations than his wife would admit at the time. " Poor little Rose " was pretty sure to recover, though she was not very likely to " forget all about it." This was LADY PHILIFPA'S VICTORY. 205 a brave little boat, and she was comins" through the storm gallantly, though she had been nearly upon the rocks, and though she would certainly want some rest and repair before she could try the waters again. The torn sails were trophies from the contest, not signs of decay. It is a feeble nature, either physically or morally, which succumbs permanently to the first blow. That slight taint of inherited delicacy which was making her family so anxious had something to answer for in her present deep dejection ; but the remedy was at hand, and it was more than sufficient for the disease. She was going to lift up her head again before long, and to carry it as erectly, though not as proudly, as heretofore. She had learned much while she lay prostrate. Many a dead hope enriches the soil from which living flowers spring afterwards. PART IV. HOW IT ENDED. CONTENTS. PART IV. CHAPTER I. Pago Beginning Again 209 CHAPTER II In the Sculptuiie-Room 227 CHAPTER HI. Coming on 240 CHAPTER IV. At Last 252 CHAPTER V. After All 270 PART IV. HOW IT ENDED. CHAPTER I. BEGINNING AGAIN. There is little to tell of Vere and Leonora's life at Rome. He worked hard, with the peculiarly quiet persistent force which be- longed to his character, and he worked suc- cessfully. It must be remembered that he was not a mere amateur, in the ordinary sense of the word, when he thus turned his sword into a chisel. He was a man of genius. One small mistake seems to us to lurk in most of those systems of art-teaching and criticism which have lately formed a considerable part of our literature, and which are very pleasant to read. It seems to be forgotten that the system of that rare creature, a man of real VOL. II. p 210 linnet's trial. genius, is generally his own, and that the mode and measure of his progress cannot be pre- scribed to him. He uses the systems of others as helps, but not as guides ; and he goes so rapidly over many of the steps that he seems to over- leap them. Seems only — for the fact is, that his tread is so swift that when he climbs he looks as though he soared. In reality he has touched with his passing foot each one of those stages at which others pause in breath- less fatigue, and the ascent seems as laborious to him as to them, because if he goes faster he also goes much farther. One teacher tells you that you must work for ten years with the pencil point only, before you presume to take the brush in your hand — and lo ! a boy of twenty comes and scares him with splendid colour ! This glorious student will do his pencil-work afterwards, as he finds that he needs it ; taking up dropped stitches wherever he sees them ; going back to the very elements now and then with a child's humility and patience if he suspects that the foundation of his fair palace is anywhere defective ; but he has tried his strength first where he felt him- BEGINNING AGAIN. 211 suit' strongest, and you could no more keep him from painting than you can keep him from seeing. Grant that his work is immature, and that there are faults in it which a decade of dry drawing might prohably have removed. You shall find quite as many faults, and a good many more defects, in the work of meaner men who have toiled systematically for twenty years. Let us look at our English party in Rome, and discover what the three past years have done for them. The time of projected study has extended itself thus far, and there seems no present prospect of a close to it. Neither Vere nor Leonora wish to return to England, nnd no escort perfectly satisfactory to Mr. Forester's feelings has been found for Rose since she recovered her health. Her advance was not rapid at first, and her father would not allow himself to think of recalling her till he was satisfied that the cure was complete. Vere comes out of his studio as the soft spring evening closes, and the three prepare for a moonlight walk in some lovely Roman garden. They have lived very much to them- p 2 212 linnet's trial. selves during these three years. There was a silent compact among them to avoid introduc- tions and decline invitations ; and, except among artists, they have few acquaintances. Vere has by no means fallen into the careless freedom and gaiety of artist social life — he is cold, shy, reserved. Men admire, but do not like him ; gradually it is whispered in English circles that there is some story against him ; that the reasons why he left the army will not exactly bear investigation; and that he, very naturally they say, shrinks from society. And society shrinks from him ; not very deci- dedly, perhaps, merely a bow instead of a shake of the hand, but he knows it. He sees every small reticence of manner, he feels every slight chill in tone, he counts all the minute precautions and delicate gradations (perhaps he fancies some of them) by which intercourse with him is regulated. Not one escapes him — not even the good-natured in- tentions of that rich civilian who ordered a bust of him the other day, and who so care- fully abstained from speaking to him about India. Strange to say, all this — so clearly BEGINNING AGAIN. 213 seen, so keenly felt — has not embittered him. But it lias depressed him very much. There is in him neither surprise, nor complaint, nor resistance, nor retaliation. All has been fore- seen and expected — all is very quietly endured. The same " thus it must be ' : which might be read in his aspect when he first came home, may be read there still. But the writing has not been there so long for nothing. As the lamplight Mis on his face, you can see that it is a good deal paler and thinner than it used to be, that all the lines are deepened, that new lines are forming, expressive hiero- glyphics of inward pain. You scarcely detect this, except during times of absolute repose, when he thinks that no one is looking at him, when he is off his guard. For, during his work he is happily absorbed, and he thinks only of that which grows under his hands; and when he is with his family he is so bright and so gentle, that Eose thinks that he has altogether recovered. Leonora knows better. But she knows that he has never forgotten, no, not for five minutes, that he has the charge of her happiness; and who can know 214 linnet's trial. so well as she what care lie has taken of it ? He has never told her one word more of the history of his misfortune. And she has never asked for it. There is no cloud, not the dimness of a breath, upon her faith in him. But she thinks very sorrowfully now how imperfect, how ill-constructed, seems that fragment of life which a man possesses before he dies ; how seldom that part of his history explains or justifies itself. And she thinks this sad and strange, and she wishes — oh, with what passionate longing ! — that the wand were in her hands for just one moment, that she could touch just once this cluster of dumb and con- fused events, and say to them, " Speak the truth ! " When she first left England she had no such thoughts as these. She was dreaming then of sudden vindications and irresistible triumphs, and wondering why the wheels of their chariot tarried. She watches Vere very closely. She knows when the inward fever frets him so deeply that he must needs go into solitude for a little while to get rid of it. And at such times she never disturbs him. His penetration is some- BEGDSTNING AGAIN. 215 times at fault here ; lie does not guess that lie is found out. Fully as lie appreciates her sympathy, he thinks that she has never yet divined the depths of his secret trouble ; and when he absents himself, and she accepts the pretext, he does not dream that she knows the reason. And she would not have it other- wise, for she knows well that his greatest comfort lies in this belief, that his effort to keep the shadow of his care from falling upon her life has been successful. She sub- mits to his sentence, which she does not understand, that this one trouble she must not share, and she shares it all the more for her submission. Some day, when he looks back, he shall see the fact through a long- vista of circumstantial evidence. Remem- bering how she never failed to forestall both his fears and his wishes, how no chance touch of pain ever came to him from her tender hand, he will perceive that she must needs have known the exact place of the wound which she covered so carefully. All this is sadder in narrative than it was in experience. There were great spaces of 210 linnet's trial. light among the clouds, and the clouds them- selves liad luminous edges as well as silver linings. We might start, perhaps, if we knew how often the goodly edifice of a life is built over some hidden well of bitterness; how many a cheerful family party is engaged in keeping something out of sight, in order that it may be cheerful. Morbid minds think so exclusively of the sad half of this truth, that they come sometimes to look upon all the joy of life as unnatural and heartless — a dance in a churchyard. But the bright half is true also. Many hours of real happiness are given to the troubled spirit which is brave, patient, and unselfish in its trouble. When Vere turned from his work to his wife, there was a little effort in his cheery tone, and there was conscious intention in the smile with which she answered him. But do not suppose that they were not able to remember after- wards many a peaceful and pleasant time which began with those small victories over self. Sometimes as they talked and wandered, so sure of each other, so careless of the world, they forgot what had happened for a little BEGINNING AGAIN. 217 while. That forgetfulness was delicious, but it cannot be denied that afterwards it was hard to remember again. And Rose? — what have the three years done for her ? They have made a woman of her. — They have left her wonderfully childish. — She is so much altered that you would not know her again. — She is just what she always was. All these judgments are true. She must speak for herself, for it is extremely difficult to describe the change and the unchangeableness in her character. One difference, however, since we saw her last, no one could fail to discover at a glance. There is no appearance of fragility about her now. She looks quite strong enough to do a woman's work well, whether active or passive work be required of her — and in either case you may be sure that she needs her strength. Softness and con- sideration seem to have come with the vigour ; there is an air of harmony about her in which she used to be deficient. I dare say she is a little snappish still on occasion, but it is play now where it used to be angry earnest ; in three years more, if she improves at the same 218 linnet's trial. rate, she will probably have achieved the crowning victory over the sensitiveness of vanity which it is not given to many to enjoy — she will be able to appreciate a jest when it is directed against herself. Both the women thought that something had vexed Vere more than usual this evening. He walked silently between them, and they exchanged anxious looks behind his back. They were thoroughly in tune with each other, and whatever note the one struck the other was sure to answer. They made a tacit com- pact now to give him full repose ; not to demand anything of him, but to wait his pleasure. And lest he should be constrained by their silence, they began to talk together. " You said you would show me Dr. Selden's letter," said Rose. "Yes," answered Leonora; "poor Charles had arrived — so shattered— so changed. I fear he has only come home to die. They are at Brighton together, and papa and Henry are with them. I am very glad that Dr. (Selden will accept their companionship." Be it known that Mr. Osborne and Henry BEGINNING AGAIN. 219 had only spent a year with our friends in Italy. Affairs of importance had summoned Mr. Osborne to England, and Henry, who had entirely recovered his health, accompanied him. " Is Charles suffering so much from his Avound?" asked Rose, " or is he ill besides?" " It seems to be a complete break up. I suppose the climate disagreed with him, for I find that he was not at all strong before he was wounded. But that horrible rifle-ball is in his side, and cannot be reached, and even if he lives he will be always an invalid." " Poor Charles ! " murmured Eose, with tearful eyes. Vere cleared his throat once or twice and said with a little emotion, " Charles did his duty thoroughly — he positively distinguished himself — a great comfort to his father, that!" " Oh ! of course," said Linnet, hastily. " Did you hear from him, too ? " " I had a note — nothing of consequence. But, children, I did have a letter of some consequence, and one of which I have been thinking ever since. My father is not very 220 linnet's trial. well — he seems low, and out of sorts ; and he wants us all to go back to England together ; and I think we ought. There — what do you say ? " " You take away my breath ! " cried Leonora. " Not very well ! " repeated Rose. " They have not written to me. What is it ? I ho])e " " Nothing to alarm us," said Vere. " But he seems to feel himself ageing, and there is business to be settled, and he is evidently down-hearted, and thinks it is due to him that I should go ; and if I, then you two of course ; and if at all, at once. This is what I have been turning in my mind all day." " He talks as if we had no wills of our own," observed Leonora. u You haven't," answered Rose. " But I have enough and to spare, only on this occasion it happily coincides with his. Oh, Linnet ! you don't know how homesick I have been getting ! Oh, Vere ! — to see Kirkham again!" She stood still, and there were tears in her voice. Yet the scene before them w r as so exquisite, under the dawn of a glorious Italian BEGINNING AGAIN. 221 moon, that it seemed strange that any one beholding it should long " to see Kirkham." The name, Kirkham, included a group of fami- liar faces for Rose, but I believe that she longed very heartily to see the ugly unin- teresting little village also. And if any one had named, at that moment, the difference between the height of Kirkham hill and yonder purple mountain which shows such a stately front against the deep transparent sky, though she would have admitted the fact, I am sure that she would have thought the mention of it unkind. "At any rate one of my wishes will be gratified," said Leonora. "I shall go in dis- guise to the Royal Academy and hear what London says to your statue." Vere had sent his last work home for exhibi- tion. It was entitled " The Watcher," and it represented a young girl sitting beside the couch of a sleeping old man, and, by her coun- tenance and gesture, evidently warning some new-comer not to disturb him. The contrast between the youthful face and attitude, full of tender animation, and the worn, but placid, 222 linnet's trial. repose of the recumbent figure, was very beau- tiful. It was a sight to dwell upon for daily pleasure. Vere never chose painful subjects for his art — scarcely ever such as had any keen or stirring excitement in them. It was his world of refreshment and repose. Knowing that the stronger side of his nature was not quite happy, he was afraid to let it work there lest it should introduce disturbance. " I hope you won't un-wish your wish as soon as it is gratified," said he, smiling at his wife. " Nobody knows what you may hear." " I know," answered she. " And I," echoed Rose. " Yes, you dispassionate critics, you were created for the comfort of artists — all the sort of you. But whether it is good for a man's conscience to have you always at his elbow, I doubt." " It is not fair to say that to me," said Leonora. " Have I not very often found fault with you? You know that I am outrageously honest, and you sometimes accuse me of being too fastidious." " Faults enough you have found," he replied ; BEGINNING AGAIN. 223 " but you always speak of them as removable blemishes " " Because that is just what they are." " You always have faith in the work in spite of its faults " " Because that is what it deserves." " Well, if you are right, Linnet, it is the only sort of criticism which helps an artist. I grant you that. We must be very strong-, indeed, if we can profit by a criticism which has no sym- pathy. In fact, we must be strong enough to despise it while we use it. But if you are wrong, you know it is a terrible mistake." a But you know that I am not wrong," she replied. " I think so," he said. " If I did not think so, of course I should give it all up at once." "Give it up!" exclaimed Rose, "I don't like to hear you put such a thought into words for a moment. Nothing surprises me like giving up. I never understand the possibility of it." " Not if you were to discover that you had made a mistake?" " But people don't make mistakes that are 224 linnet's trial. all mistake," persisted she. " There is always something right in them that you may keep fast hold of when the wrong part is breaking up. It seems such waste to throw away either a thought, or a hope, or a work, altogether." " It is waste," he answered ; " but I am afraid there is a good deal of such waste in the world. If it is done on a large scale, it is simply a vie manquee; and there are such things even as that, Eose !" "No," said she firmly; "there is no such thing. You can always begin again." " You are right," answered he, his face re- flecting for a moment the glow of hers. But as he turned away he sighed, and perhaps he thought that " beginning again " was hard work when you are forbidden to use so much as a fragment of the old foundation. " Did you notice Rose's strong asseverations that nothing in life could be wholly abandoned or forgotten? " said he afterwards to his wife. " I wonder, now, whether her mind dwells at all upon that affair with Brandon." " I am sure it does not," answered Leonora rather indignantly. She had never forgiven BEGINNING AGAIN. 225 Brandon, and she could not bear that he should not be forgotten. "lam not so sure." " But really, Vere, that is inconsistent. At the time you would not believe that the wound was deep enough to affect her seriously ; and now you think she has not got over it yet." " My dear Linnet ! you thought she was going into a consumption about it ; and now you believe that she has no recollection of it at all." "No recollection but an angry one. She must feel that he deliberately trifled with her ; and if we suppose that she was deceived at the time, that can only strengthen her resolution now." " "When women are strengthening their re- solutions — " began Vere. " Now, don't say it ! you know it is not true ! " interrupted Leonora. " I will say whatever you like me to say. I will say that a woman always strengthens her strongest points, and that when she strengthens them it is a sign that she knows there is not the slightest chance of then- giving way." VOL. II. Q 22G linnet's trial. " I shall be very sorry if we meet liim in England," said Leonora ; " especially since we do not know that he is married." " Why should you be sorry to meet him, if you are sure that Rose is safe ? " " Oh, because it would be disagreeable. Besides, one never can be quite sure. I would much rather have poor Charles Selden recover, and come forward again." " Charles Selden has been ten times in love since Rose refused him," said Vere. " And you know, you deceitful woman, that the plain English of all you are saying now is that you want Rose for Henry." " Yes, I know it is," she replied. " I own myself greatly disappointed about that. And I think — do you know, Vere ? I really do think — that it was just beginning, or would have begun, when jmpa was obliged to go to England. I wish we knew that Mr. Brandon was married." IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. 227 CHAPTER II. IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. Two ladies, very quietly dressed, and wearing thick veils, took up their position in the sculp- ture den of the Royal Academy at an early hour on a certain morning in May. For some time their tete-a-tete was unwitnessed, except by the eyeless marbles ; for the public only goes to look at the sculpture if it has a spare quarter of an hour after it has done with the canvases. And in this the public does wisely ; for sculpture, to be appreciated, requires space ; and the space which the art-rulers of England have allotted to the product of a year's genius and labour is such as might barely suffice for the due exhibition of a single group. The public goes to see, and not to guess, and natu- rally enough concludes that it would not be Q 2 228 linnet's trial. left to guess if there were anything worth seeing. Presently a few stragglers began to drop in, and by degrees the general circulation had penetrated even to this remote corner, and quickened it with a certain amount of life and talk. The ladies listened anxiously, and heard — what they heard. "Oh, mamma, this is pretty — come and look!" Mamma {consulting her catalogue). " ' The Watcher — by Vere Forester.' What a sweet, expressive, anxious face ! I wonder if it is for a monument. The old man is not dead, I think." Child. " Grandpapa looks just so when he is asleep." Eldest son {unfortunately suj^osed to be clever). " Great want of force. You should see Storey's statues." Papa. " I shouldn't like an exhibition of force when I wanted to go to sleep." This was a party from the country, and they were doing their sight-seeing thoroughly, and iinishing it just when Londoners begin. The IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. 229 next comers were a triad of } r oung men, who lounged into the sculpture room for a few minutes before they went up stairs. The first said — " Where's the thing which they say is so good?" "Who say?" " Oh, call the swells. H and G and M , and the whole lot of them." " What's its name ? " No. 3 {who is habitually comic). " Smith." No. 1. " Nonsense. It's something about a sick-bed. Where is it? Just give me the catalogue, will vou ?" No. 3 {reading from the catalogue). " ' Study of a Marseilles Quilt, from life.' Is that it?" No. 2. "I say — look here ! What's num- ber 815?" No. 1. "'The Watcher — Vere Forester.' Why, that's it!" No. 2. "The best thing here." No. 3. " The best thing anywhere." No. 1. " Isn't it awfully jolly, now?" [Exeunt. By this time our two ladies, each keeping fast hold on the other's hand, and relieving 230 linnet's tkial. her feelings by an occasional pressure, had come close up to the marble group, that they might not lose a word of the criticisms which it occasioned. As they approached on one side, two connoisseurs came up on the other, in animated conversation. " I am heartily glad," said one", " that one element of the pre-Raffaellitism which is rege- nerating our pictures has not yet penetrated so far as our sculpture — I mean the love of ugliness." " I don't admit the existence of any such element. They are simply true men, who paint everything." "A great man paints everything because it's there; but he says, by his mode of painting, you are to look more and more loviDgly at some things than at others, and these points which he selects are, or should be, more beau- tiful and expressive than the rest. Your pre- Itaffaellites say that they will make you look at all things with equal intensity, and sometimes they say you shall look most at that which is least beautiful." " Till you have found the beauty in it. After IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. 231 that wholesome labour you will be more capable of enjoying the bolder beauty which displays itself without any reserve." " Pooh ! you might just as well say that a man is not capable of falling in love satisfac- torily till he has had one disagreeable wife. Now this" — pausing before the group — " is as realistic as any man could wish. I have seen twenty girls every whit as graceful. Why not choose your model among them instead of picking out one of the awkward multitude ?" " Oh, I admit that this is a work of genius; and I call it intensely pre-Raffaellite." A short interval of silent contemplation. Then they begin again. " Every one talks about the two hands on the couch. They are perfect, certainly. There never was a finer contrast. The soft young- clasp upon those old worn fingers." "It's not a clasp— that's the beauty of it. You see that as his hold relaxed in sleep, she has gradually loosened hers, lest he should feel the pressure, but she does not venture to drop it lest she should waken him." " And she says ' hush ! ' with every particle 232 linnets trial. of her. She is l hush ' from head to foot ; but she does not stick out her lips and make her- self hideous in order to say it." " She would have done just exactly that, if she were savins; hush with all her force in reality." " She would have done it for just one instant; but the artist (for which I am very much obliged to him) has chosen just the instant before or the instant afterwards — equally ex- pressive and less grotesque. " " Isn't that uplifted arm a little out, though ? Yes ; I am sure it is ! " The tone was trium- phant. " Ah ! a blemish certainly. Just stand here, and you lose it. It's all right from this point." " No, it isn't. Now that I know where the fault lies, I can see it everywhere. The ama- teur crops out, you see, cover him as you will." And they moved on. " We ought not to mind their finding fault with a little trifle like that," whispered Leo- nora. " You have heard the tone in whicli they discussed the group." But she did mind it very much. " I couldn't bear that second one," answered IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. 233 Rose, in the same tone. " I am sure lie has tried to be an artist and failed. Don't you think we have heard enough now, Linnet?" A difference in Rose's manner — undefinable, but somehow plainly perceptible — made Leo- nora turn and look at her ; but she could discern nothing through the veil. "Oh, let us stay a little longer, if you are not tired," said she ; and when she turned back to look at the group, Lionel Brandon and an unknown gentleman were standing before it. " Here it is ! " said Brandon. " Give it time. Don't speak till you have made up your mind." The person addressed stood a long while in mute, satisfactory contemplation, Brandon watching him with an eager interest which caused Leonora's wrath to melt away gradually, minute by minute. At last the stranger spoke with a half-sigh — " Yes; I must have it. I must see it by itself, not in this mob." " Did I say too much ? " Another long, deep, examining look, and 234 linnet's trial. the answer came — " Not half enough. I can look at nothing else after it. Tell me the address, and I'll try to find him at once." Brandon read Vere's address from the list, and then said, with a little hesitation, " I know him — that is to say, I knew him some time ago. I think I'll go with you." This speech brought Linnet and Rose to a halt. They had just begun to creep away, and were intending to go home ; but now they thought that they should be safer where they were. The two gentlemen moved also, but only in search of another point of view ; and it so happened that Brandon found himself face to face with Leonora, and in such close proximity that he could not help recognising her. With the first moment of surprise, he held out his hand, and she took it — both blushing deeply. " I did not expect to see you," said he, uttering his little platitude in a voice of most disproportionate emotion. " I did not know you were here," replied Leonora, in the same spirit. Then Lionel, recovering himself in a moment, IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. 235 and resuming all his old ease of manner, intro- duced his friend, and paid his cordial compli- ments to Vere's great work, and asked whether they might venture to invade the artist's studio, and hoped that Leonora was going to make a long stay in London. " "We only came last night," said Leonora. " Mr. Forester, my husband's father " " I know," interrupted Brandon, with a slight smile, which seemed to imply that he at least did not intend to ignore his past intimacy. " I was sorry to hear that he had been ill." " He is in London for medical advice, and we have joined him. He is not so ill as we expected to find him, thank you." " I hope I may come and see you," said Lionel, with a little increase of empressement in his manner. At this speech Rose pressed Leonora's foot strongly ; and, as Leonora did not know whether the pressure meant " Say yes," or " Say no," she was very much embarrassed, and her reply melted away into a gentle, inarticulate murmur, which was, of course, accepted as assent. 236 linnet's trial. All this time no mark of recognition had passed between Brandon and Rose. Two shy persons will sometimes confront each other for an incredibly long time as members of a con- versing group ; and when the inevitable bow comes at last, they will preface it with a small start of false surprise, as if they had only just become conscious of each other's presence. Why it is easier to get through this little piece of acting than to shake hands courageously at once, like reasonable beings, who know that they must undergo the operation sooner or later, and that it is useless to defer it, they must themselves determine. But we suppose that during the preliminary interval, which is assuredly one of no slight secret discomfort, they are accustoming themselves to the idea of what must follow. There was a good deal more than mere shyness to account for the present delay; and Rose was tormented by doubts whether she was known, and whether she ought or ought not to reveal herself. A slight irresolute movement of her hand, while she was suffering under this inward uncertainty, was at once perceived, fixed, and answered. IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. 237 The hesitating fingers were cordially grasped, and Brandon rather disconcerted her by saying at the same time, in a slightly reproachful voice — " I was afraid you did not mean to say ' How do you do ? ' to me ! " After this he took possession of them. Leonora, who believed herself to be deeply and permanently offended, and who had patiently cherished her wrath for three years, now found that she was practically on the most friendly terms with him, and was quite annoyed with herself for feeling so glad to see him again. What could she do ? His ways were so very pleasant and affectionate ! If she could only guess what Hose wished, what Eose was think- ing ! She would not hesitate to dismiss him, as coldly as possible, in a moment, if she could think that Eose wished her to do so. But Eose gave no sign. There was nothing to censure in her behaviour. Externally she was perfectly quiet and dignified. Unusual silence — a little tremor of manner — these were the only signs of emotion. Brandon gave no sign of emotion at all, unless it were of a fervent desire 33S linnet's trial. to be comfortable himself, and to make both the ladies so. He caught eagerly at every small speech on which Rose ventured, and seemed to double its force and meaning by his mode of responding to it. Leonora was surprised that he was not more out of countenance. She was not sure that she quite liked it. He had no kind of hesitation about looking them in the face; indeed, his bright, kindly, urgent eyes looked so persistently into Leonora's, that she was not always able to meet them; and his efforts to see as much as he could of Rose under her veil were perfectly without disguise. He walked home with them, and took his leave at the door, having ascertained that Vere was not at home. The future possessor of " The Watcher " — a rich lover of art, Damerell by name — was of the party ; and with him Brandon went off to seek Vere at his studio, and confer upon the terms of the purchase. Brandon's last words were addressed to Rose, in an accent of entreaty — " May I call upon Mr. Forester to-morrow?" " Papa will be glad to see you," was her hurried answer. IN THE SCULPTURE-ROOM. 239 " She had a chance of escape there," thought Linnet, " She might have said that papa was not well enough to receive visits. I think this shows that she wishes to renew the acquaint- ance." As they went up stairs, Linnet whis- pered, " Rose, this does not vex you, does it?" Rose, answered more placidly than she would have done three years ago, but still with a slight snap in her voice, " Oh, no. There is no reason in the world why we should cut an old acquaintance." " He seems so very glad to see us," sug- gested Linnet. "And has borne not to see us for three years so very quietly," returned Rose. " We do not know " began Linnet. " Why should we want to know ? " asked Rose. " I'm sure /don't. Do, please, let us treat it all just as if nothing had haj^pened." The last words were uttered in a great hurry, as the speaker ran off to her room. 240 linnet's trial. CHAPTER III. COMING ON. Lionel Brandon was more embarrassed in meeting Vere than lie had shown himself to be during his encounter with the ladies. This was as much on Vere's account as on his own. They had not met since Vere returned from India; and Brandon, who had been in the habit of looking upon his friend with respect, as well as with real affection, felt keenly the difference in his position, and had an imagi- nary picture of Vere's state of mind very oppressively present to his thoughts. There was nothing in Vere's behaviour to justify such a picture. What he had felt or was feeling was known only to himself; he had, according to his custom, looked carefully be- forehand at what he must do if he should COMING ON. 241 come back to England, and now that he had come back, he was doing it very quietly. He had seen that the kind of seclusion which he had been enjoying for three years would be no longer practicable ; that the attempt to pro- long it, under any sort of modification, would be productive of great discomfort to his family, and could bring very little relief to himself. A rule with a great number of compulsory exceptions is rather a fetter than a help. He determined to give up the rule ; and having so determined, he did not wait for the course of events, but went to meet it. He was not conscious himself that this line of action was the most politic which he could possibly have adopted. He was not aware how difficult it was for the most careless or the most hostile observer to converse with him for half an hour, and to go away believing that he had done anything of which he had reason to be ashamed. Nevertheless there was great constraint in the interview between the two friends, and each rejoiced in the presence of a third person, and the necessity for discussing art rather VOL. II. R 242 linnet's trial. than fact. "While Lionel was feeling pain on Vere's behalf and uneasiness on his own, Vere was secretly thinking that he should get into disgrace with Leonora if he allowed him- self to be too cordial. He was very much surprised when a casual remark showed that an interview with Leonora had already taken place. He felt extremely curious as to its nature, and began to fish for a little further information. " Have you seen my father ? " asked he. " No — but I hope to call upon him to- morrow. " I am afraid," said Vere, hesitating, " that he will hardly be well enough to see you. He is quite an invalid now. But I," he added in a warmer tone, " am always to be found here if you like to look in upon me during working hours." Brandon did not immediately answer. He was studying a little group of Beatrice and Benedick, in which the original of the lady was not to be mistaken for a moment. He studied it with a smile expressive of intense satisfaction, and then turning to the artist, COMING ON. 243 said, " How good that is ! How I should like to buy it ! I suppose, Forester, you know that I am not able to indulge my taste for luxuries now. A footstool and a coffee-pot are my only relics of a bygone civilisation, and even they are degenerating into a fossil state, and are chiefly valuable as evidence of what has been and is, alas ! no longer." " Why what has happened?" cried Forester in surprise. " I have heard nothing." " Haven't you? Well, I own I should have expected the news to reach as far as Rome. I'll tell you the story some day." " Tell it now," said Vere, detaining him after Mr. Damerell had taken leave ; " can't you spare me half-an-hour ? Sit down and give an account of yourself. You have made me too curious to be content to wait." Brandon allowed himself to be detained, but he did not sit down. On the contrary, he walked up to a table and began to examine a portfolio of designs, with a strange confusion of manner. " It's a long story," said he, " and an odd r 2 244 linnet's trial. one. Ah — that's a nice sketch ! Do you mean to work from it ? " "I mean to work from all my sketches when I make them," answered Vere, " but I don't always carry out my intentions. Don't waste your time over that portfolio. There's nothing in it worth the trouble of looking at." Lionel continued to turn over the drawings in spite of this exhortation. " Here's a por- trait/' exclaimed he ; " Ellen, I see, and very like her. Pretty creature ! It reminds me of such a pleasant time. Do be good-natured and let me steal it — you'll never miss it." He stooped over the drawing as he spoke and began to roll it up, but Vere drew it very decidedly out of his hand. "No, no," said he, "you shall steal nothing. You shall have whatever you like to ask for openly." He replaced the portrait among the other sketches, and as he did so, discovered that it represented Rose, not Ellen. He looked at Brandon with an expression which said quite as plainly as words, " What are you about?" Brandon laughed slightly. He stooped COMING ON. 245 down again over the table so as to conceal his face. " Have you any other memorials of Kirkham ? " asked he. " Have you got a por- trait of my particular friend, Mrs. Darner?" "May I come in?" inquired Rose's well- known voice, as at this inopportune moment she opened the door of the studio and stood still on the threshold, looking lovely in her first dismay. Her father had sent her with a message, over which she lingered till she felt certain that Forester's visitors must have long taken their departure ; and now she opened the door to see the face of Brandon and hear the name of Mrs. Darner. "Come in," cried Vere, welcoming her with a little malice. He was sure that she had long ago recovered from that which he persisted in estimating as a slight graze on the surface of her heart, and he had no fear that this chance encounter would give her pain. If it caused her any sort of confusion he was there to cover it. So he told her to enter with empressement, and assured her that she was just in time to hear a history. She paused, and turned a little pale. 246 linnet's trial. " I came from papa," said she. " There is a worse account of poor Charles, I am sorry to say. Henry Osborne is to arrive in London this evening, and papa wants you to go to the station to meet him before you come home to dinner." She gave her message very gravely, and ac- knowledged Brandon's presence by the merest soupqon of a bow. He fastened his eyes upon her face. He had been longing and trying to see what these three years had done to it during the whole time that he was in company with her before, but her veil had impeded his observations. She had put it aside now, and he was taking full advantage of his oppor- tunity, and saying to himself at every moment, " What a beautiful woman she is ! " " Bad news! " said Vere sorrowfully. " I will just see you home, and then go round to the station at once." Lionel produced his watch. " You have barely time," said he. " Pray let me take Miss Forester home," in a tone of the humblest entreaty, evidently addressed to Rose. " It was only the length of a street, and COMING ON. 247 she had come by herself," and she said so with the very air and intonation of Gretchen's " Kann ungeleitet nach Hanse gehn." Brandon stood still, ready and imploring ; and Vere, occupied with what he had just heard and in a hurry to go, so decidedly took for granted that the offered escort was ac- cepted that there was nothing else to be done. He found a moment, however, to whisper a word of brotherly counsel in Rose's ear as they left the room. " Don't be too distant," said he; " you will be misinterpreted." And Rose took the caution in good part, and ac- cepted it with a smile. "I am very sorry for poor Selden," said Brandon, as they walked away together. " Is it a bad case ? " "I am afraid it is quite hopeless. We are so grieved for his father. We want Vere to go to him ; but he seems to have some unconquerable objection. It is not like Vere to shrink from pain to himself if he could give comfort to a friend, and we can't under- stand it." A little agitation of manner, and a good 248 linnet's trial. deal more communicativeness than the speaker intended, occasioned doubtless by that agita- tion ! A hundred more steps will take us to the house door, and it is absolutely necessary to keep talking during those hundred steps. "It is so unlike him that there must be some good reason for it. Dr. Selden is a peculiar man, and Forester knows him well. I am very glad to see Forester himself so little altered." " Oh ! but he has suffered a great deal," answered Rose with emotion. But the marks of suffering are not always to be read by those who run, and nothing is commoner than the kindly exclamation, " How well you are look- ing ! " when if you were to answer honestly, you could only say, " Then my face tells no tales ! " " Are you not longing to see Kirkham again?" asked Brandon rather inconsequently. " Dear little Kirkham ! you will find scarcely any alteration in it. Are you going down to the wedding ? " " What wedding ? We have not heard ; we have hardly had time yet to ask papa any questions." COMING ON. 249 " Such a o-rand event ! It ought to have been announced in round text at the head of Mr. Forester's letter. Mr. De Bragge is to be married." " Indeed !" said Rose. Only fifteen steps more. And she looked hard at the knocker of the door as she approached it. " Who is the lady ? " " Mrs. Darner." There was a good deal of consciousness in his voice, but her irrepressible start threw him off his guard. She actually stood still for a moment to recover herself, just as they were beginning to cross the street, and he put her out of the way of a coming carriage with a quick gentle grasp and a half laugh. " Take care," said he. " That little woman has done mischief enough already. Don't let her be the cause of your getting run over." She did not recover her voice till they were at the door, when she held out her hand and said " good-bye," in as steady and common- place a manner as she could. He detained her hand for a moment, disconcerting her policy as he used so often to do in old times by 250 linnet's trial. unexpectedly facing and acknowledging it. "You will let me come as a friend? " said lie entreatingly ; "you won't remember old offences? I want to have you make friends with me." Rose never knew what she answered — in- deed, she did not know whether she answered anything at all — but she somehow satisfied him, for he thanked her very warmly as he took his departure. Her heart was beating so fast that she was obliged to sit down and rest for awhile before she could go up stairs. There was no pleasure for her in this renewal of intercourse, this proposed beginning of friendship. It stirred, and troubled, and wrung her. She was at peace before — she wanted no change — why could he not let her rest? Well, it would only last a little while. They would soon be at Kirkham again. Perhaps she could go there at once ; she was sure the children were longing for her. At any rate, she need not encourage this distasteful in- timacy, this unreal, unwelcome friendship ; she might keep aloof and be quiet, and think only of Vere and Leonora as she did at Rome. COMING ON. 251 She was happy then, and well and strong. Was she to be shaken out of her victory by a look and a touch ? Oh, if she could only be sure that she should never see his face again ! Mr. Forester met her in the lobby as she was going to dress, and stopping her for a moment, said to her very earnestly, " Rose, my love, I find that Mr. Brandon wishes to visit here again. Just say if it is disagreeable to you that lie should do so, and I will under- take to stop it without a word of explanation. Have no scruples — just say if you wish the thing stopped, and I give you my word that there shall be nothing to annoy you." He paused for her answer. " Oh no, papa," she cried, in a great terror lest he should do as he proposed. " I assure you I have not a feeling of the kind. Pray do not ! " " Very well, my dear. That is enough." It mas enough to show Rose, if she had been willing to see it, that great as was her desire never to see Brandon's face again, it was exceeded by her fear that, after all, he might possibly not call to-morrow. .52 linnet's tetal. CHAPTER IV. AT LAST. The account which Henry Osborne brought from Brighton was very sad. The invalid, who for some time past had been sinking so slowly, that those about him were able to persuade themselves that he remained on the same level, had now entered upon a more rapid descent. There was no possibility of self- deception now, either for father or friends ; and the compassionate doctor, who had left them to their hopes while the end was still far off, now thought it kindest to leave them to their fears. The time had arrived when the largest service, which the most devoted love can render, amounts to no more than smoothing the pillow and pressing the hand. A bitter time for the watcher who has not been ac- AT LAST. 253 customed to look into the heart of life. But if he bewail his impotence, let him fancy for a moment that it is himself who lies feeble and gasping upon that bed of pain — let him imagine (and if he has ever experienced sick- ness or sorrow in his own person, it will be easy for him to imagine) the sweetness and the sunshine which would fall upon him there, from the mere aspect of a beloved face, the refreshment and the comfort which he would draw out of every little kindness or look of pity, and he will be consoled. Henry spoke with feeling of the scene which he had just quitted. His own recent escape from severe illness made him sympathetic. Hose, who was in a somewhat similar position, was very much moved, and she could not help asking Vere whether he meant to go down to his friend. Vere looked up from a little note of Dr. Selden's, which he seemed to be reading over and over again during the conversation. " I think not," said he. "If I am wanted there will be no scruple about sending for me." " I'm sure Dr. Selden wants you," cried 2.54 linnet's tkial. Henry, who was as of old a headlong talker. " He has said so several times, but I can't make Charles out about it; he always turns the subject off, and tells his father not to write for you just at present. It's almost as if he thought there was some " Here Henry stopped short, as inconsiderate people do when they find that they are making a blunder. Tli is is very much as if you should inadver- tently lead your friend over the edge of a pre- cipice, and, as soon as you find that he is Killing, let go his hand. Everybody in the room thought that Charles Selden and Vere shrank from meeting on account of the cir- cumstances under which Vere had left the army, and Vere's silence and his rising colour confirmed the idea. " It's very sad to see Dr. Selden," began Henry again, " he seems so completely to feel that he is losing all he cares for in the world; and, do you know, it seems a strange thing to say, but I was glad to come away, for I think it was hard for him to see my father and me together. I've so lately been ill, and any- body would have thought I was quite as far AT LAST. 255 gone as Charles, and here I am all right again, and my father so glad about it — you know the contrast is hard." He spoke as if he were almost inclined to apologise for his own recovery. Leonora thought that the whole subject was painful to Vere, and she therefore tried to change it. " Has Dr. Selden quite given up the Grange ? " asked she. " Yes ; I think so. He was talking about having some woman from the Grange down to Brighton, because they say she's a capital nurse ; but Charles had some fancy against it. Dr. Selden was in a fuss about this woman, I don't exactly know why." " It is about the Martins," said Vere, with an effort. " He has written to me on the subject. He does not mean to give them up, but he says he shall never return to the Grange. I find, Rose, that your pet, the boy whom you helped to steal Sir Joseph's gravel " " What a shame ! " cried Rose. " It was Linnet who helped him to prove an alibi." " Respectable feminine occupations for you 256 linnet's trial. both, upon my word ! " observed Henry. " I should not have supposed that you either of you knew what an alibi was." " That is so like a man ! " said Rose. " I'm glad to hear it," retorted Henry. " I should be very much ashamed to be like any- thing else." " But what is it about young Martin ? " asked Leonora. " We have not heard yet." "Why, he has kept the promise of his youth," said Yere. "It was impossible to steady him, and he has gone to sea with Hugh Blackmore." "Ah," said Mr. Forester, " Blackmore has been doing pretty well, I fancy — better than he deserved. He wrote for his wife to join him some time ago, and she went off at once. She would not say where he was. But the boy Martin went with her, and I should say it was a good riddance." " You have told us very little Kirkham news, sir," said Linnet. " How is the mighty house of De Bragge ? " " The mighty house of De Bragge is pre- paring for wedding festivities," replied Mr. AT LAST. 2- J 7 Forester. " You have heard, of course, that the son and heir is going to be married to pretty, pleasant Mrs. Darner ? " Rose was so very anxious to learn the truth on this subject, and so very much afraid that delicacy towards her would make the others drop it, that she struck boldly into the con- versation, and said at once, " Do tell us about it, papa ; for we all thought she was engaged to Mr. Brandon/' u I don't know the history of that engage- ment," he replied ; " but it seems to have been broken as soon as it was made, if it was ever made at all. I fancy there was some question of a manage de convenanee, because Brandon and Mrs. Darner were claimants upon the same property. However this may have been, the upshot has been favourable to Mrs. Darner ; for I understand that her claim is so indisputably the best, that it has not been worth Mr. Brandon's while to contest it, and he has resigned the estates to her." Leonora and Rose sat in silent amazement. " That accounts for what he was saying to me about his poverty," said Vere. VOL. II. s 25S linnet's trial. It may be observed that a public family conversation upon any subject of general interest is frequently succeeded by a series of short tete-d-tetes in which the persons who took part in the larger discussion set each other right or wrong, as the case may be, with regard to the various topics brought forward, and the line which each speaker adopted in treating of them. In these confidential inter- views you tell your special ally what you would have said if certain considerations, not always quite self-evident, had not prevented you; and you also explain to him what all the others meant, more or less than they said. Their confidences to their special allies would sometimes present a curious commentary upon your explanations ; and a record of conversa- tions would be exceedingly interesting if we were permitted to add to that which men actually said all that they might have said if they liked, that they would have said if they dared, and that they ought to have said if they could. The first supplementary tete-a-tete which AT LAST. 259 followed the conversation just recorded took place between Leonora and Vere. " What is it," asked Vere, " that has made you — I must not sav so reasonable — but so lenient about Mr. Brandon's offences on a sudden ? I thought it was as much as my life was worth to be civil to him ; and lo ! I find that you have been cordial." Leonora had not very much to say for her- self; so she tried turning the tables. "I never could understand," said she, " why you were so much inclined to take his part, Vere." "Well," returned he, "I did think you were a little hard upon him, I own." " Hard ! " cried Leonora. " But, Vere, I should have expected you to feel quite as much on Rose's account as I could feel myself." "So I did. I felt quite as much, I only didn't feel quite as angry. It was all a mist to me, and I never succeeded in clearly under- standing either what he had done, or what Rose had felt ; and, you know, without under- standing, 1 could not be expected to get my righteous indignation up to the proper point." " I don't understand it now," said Leonora, s2 2G0 linnet's trial. " but I am very much inclined to think that, after all, Rose likes him." " I thought the doubt was whether he liked Rose seriously." " Pray don't put it in that way. It sounds as if you thought that he could take her or leave her, just as he pleased, and I cannot bear the idea." " Humph ! " said Vere, " I must think the matter over quietly by myself, but I am rather inclined to imagine myself ill-used. I have not been looking upon Brandon as a great criminal during these three years, but I think that his behaviour was quite doubtful enough to prevent us from receiving him with open arms as soon as he shows his face. And I think that we ought to take a little care of Rose's dignity now." Leonora laughed. " Rose is so very well able to take care of her own dignity," said she. " Not if she betrays herself by losing her temper ; or if you betray what you think about her by being too affectionate to Mr. Brandon, my dear Linnet." AT LAST. 261 " "Well, I will take the greatest care. I think you are quite right. But, you know, it is so very hard to be angry with an old friend, when you are face to face with him, and he seems really glad to see you." " Oh ! I understand you perfectly. There is no mist about you in the matter. You can keep a man at a distance very well as long as he is content to remain there ; and as soon as he begins to approach, you hold out your hand to him. You are thrown away upon me, Linnet. I really ought to make some use of the depths of your placability." " Don't," said she. "I should find it very hard to forgive you.'''' Shortly after this, Rose stole up to Leonora and made a little hurried confidence to her. " I have often wanted to tell you," said she in a whisper, " only you know I hate talking about it, but still I think I ought to tell you, that Mr. Brandon did propose to me before we went to Rome." " I was sure of it ! " exclaimed Leonora triumphantly. " I never should have told anybody," con- 2 02 linnet's trial. tinued Rose, in the same slightly incoherent style ; " in fact, I should not be telling you now, because I think it is very mean and wrong to tell of such things, but I thought I ought, because I fancy you all blame him very much for having been so — so — and you know this proves that he wasn't, or, at least, that he didn't intend to be ; and — oh, Leonora ! " (rather reproachfully) "why don't you say any- thing when I am sure you know what I mean." Leonora had recourse to the true woman's way of getting out of such difficulties as this. She took Rose in her arms, kissed her, as- sured her that she understood perfectly, that it was not necessary to say another word about it, that Rose was quite right to be silent before, and quite right to speak now that Mr. Brandon stood acquitted of any serious fault, and that it was probable that they should all be very comfortable now. Was not Leonora a wise woman to abstain from saying that she thought Rose's refusal had been hasty, and that she was sure Mr. Brandon was still very much in love ? If she had any doubts upon this latter point, AT LAST. 2G3 Brandon himself was eager to remove them. He wanted nothing so much as a private con- ference with Leonora, and before long he suc- ceeded in obtaining it. She intended to be what she called " a little cool to him ; " but she found him so certain of the warmth of her friendship, that she really could not help herself. He wanted to set himself right in her opinion. He wanted to bespeak her as an advocate. He told her that he had never cared for any one but Rose, that he had been disgusted and disappointed at her refusal, had tried to reconcile himself to it and to forget her, had failed signally, had fallen in love again with her at first sight in the sculpture- room, and had made up his mind to win her, though he might have to fight his way through fifty refusals, if only he could be assured that the ground was not pre-occupied. " Are you quite sure," asked Leonora, with judicial severity, " that you — forgive me for the question? — know your own mind? Rose is far too good to be " " Far too good for me under any circum- stances," interrupted he. " Nobody knows 264 len^et's trial. that better than I do. But I do assure you that I was a little misjudged by you all in that business about Mrs. Darner. I never for a moment thought her to compare to Rose." " But why then — " began Leonora again. Her companion was very eager, and scarcely allowed her to finish a single sentence. " I know what you mean," he cried, " and I con- fess myself to blame ; but if I had had the slightest suspicion that I was supposed to be serious, I would have stopped long before. The fact was — I know I am safe with you — my cousin's early determination to have nothing to say to me affronted me a good deal, and it was rather a triumph to show her that I wasn't quite so bad as she thought me. And then, you know, it was so very difficult to get away from her ! " " I should like to ask if you were ever really " " Engaged to her ? No, not precisely. Rose's letter made me mad, and I was very nearly committing myself just then. But, thank Heaven, I got out of it." AT LAST. 2G5 " With the loss of your fortune," said Leo- nora smiling. " That certainly may be accepted as a proof of sincerity." Brandon blushed like a girl, and never suc- ceeded in telling the exact truth upon this point to anybody but his wife. The exact truth was, that after he had, as he said, "nearly committed" himself, and after Mrs. Darner had quite committed herself, he saw no way out of the scrape in which his own folly had entangled him, except by making an honest confession to the lady, of his love for Eose. Mrs. Darner did not intend to lose him, and she intimated to him very delicately in reply that she was, on her part, quite ready still to comply with the terms of the will under which he inherited his property. She spoke of his passion for Rose as a temporary faithlessness to herself which she was prepared to forgive. And Brandon, a good deal ashamed both of himself and of her, had the manliness at last to stand firm and to act straightforwardly. He expressed his regrets in a very complimentary letter, took all the blame upon himself, gave up the property to her, and wished her good- 266 linnet's trial. bye. She accepted her riches meekly and reluctantly, with a good many sighs and pro- testations. It was not for herself, but she had no business to give up her rights, since they really were her rights. She had to con- sider her child. For his sake she did this o;entle violence to her feelings. To her inti- mates she always spoke as if she had been really engaged to Mr. Brandon, but admitted that she had released him at his own request. " But you know," she added, " I could not deny, under the circumstances, that I had a right to the property — could I?" And her intimates always replied that she could not. It was generally thought that Brandon had used her very ill, but that he redeemed his character by his last act of disinterestedness. He himself invariably confessed that he suffered no more than he deserved, which was true. And he always spoke tenderly, if not very respectfully, of Mrs. Damer, and would not allow her to be harshly criticised. " Poor little woman," lie used to say ; "she was three years making up her mind to marry De Bragge ! I do hope she's happy." The De AT LAST. 2G7 Bragges stood by her throughout, and told everybody that she had behaved beautifully. Vere was of opinion that Brandon did not "come very well out of the business alto- gether. It was to be hoped that he had got a lesson ; but he was afraid that there was a little want of stability." To which Leonora answered that she was sure it had done him a great deal of good, and that he was so thoroughly in love with Rose that she had no fears. " And then, you know, he gave up the money," she concluded, " I always think so much of that." The money thus given up had certainly purchased a step for Brandon in the estimation of all his friends ; there could be no doubt that it was the best finish to his follies that he could possibly have devised ; and he was so pleasant that nobody ever thought hardly of him in his presence. Leonora was very sensible of the force of that argument which resided in his mere pleasantness. He surrounded her with the most affectionate attentions ; he looked at her as if he doated upon her, and cared for nothing in the world so much as for her regard and good 268 linnet's trial. opinion; lie pleaded his cause earnestly, volubly, eloquently ; he confessed everything with which she charged him before she had uttered three words of her accusation, and then sorrow- fully and humbly explained it away, so that by the time that he had finished his explana- tory confession he appeared to her in the light of a suffering angel ; he begged, and prayed, and protested, and appealed, and avowed, and reproached, and coaxed, till there was no escaping from him except by agreeing to everything that he suggested, and promising everything that he asked. And so he and Leonora settled together an elaborate plan for blockading Rose. It was to be a very gradual approach. Leonora was to prepare the way by a series of conversations, in which she was to open Rose's eyes and clear her mind of all erroneous impressions. When she thought that the moment for a direct assault had arrived she was to announce it to Brandon, and he was immediately to make the direct assault and to triumph. But there was to be no hurry. He knew that he began at a disadvantage, and that he might lose all by precipitation. Again AT LAST. 2G9 and again the scheme of operations was drawn out and discussed, till Leonora began to be a little tired of it and to wish that he would let her alone. And the end of it all was that Leonora came back into the drawing-room in the dusk of the evening, about half-an-hour after the close of this important conversation, and found Bran- don and Rose hand-in-hand. Rose instantly rushed away without a word, but Brandon came up to Leonora, and, to her infinite sur- prise and confusion (and to his own, for he did not in the least intend to do it) kissed her ; told her that he was happy at last, and overwhelmed her with thanks and praises as if it was all her doing. No doubt his expla- nations had been satisfactory to Rose, and it appeared that they had produced a salutary impression upon her character, for from that day forward she always spoke charitably of Mrs. Darner. 270 linnet's trial. CHAPTER V. AFTER ALL. A nicely arranged breakfast-table, with a pile of letters and newspapers upon it, is not exactly a subject for a picture, or a scene for a drama ; yet to those who are fond of suggestiveness in Art it might be either. There are the neat, pleasant, comfortable-looking arrangements for the domestic life of the day, and there also among them, dumb and powerless-looking, lie the hidden words which may shake the house- hold to its very heart, fixing upon it for many a long day to come the scar of a deep grief or the crown of a sudden joy. It is characteristic of the age in which we live that the outward aspect should be prosaic and unpicturesque, though all the romance and passion of the middle ages may be beating beneath it. The AFTER ALL. 271 Post Office — which circulates, by means of its accurate machinery and commonplace carriers, not too particular in the pronunciation of their h's, invitations to a ball, pages of lively gossip, messages of love or hate, promises of life and sentences of death, all enclosed in the same square decorous envelopes, absolutely undistinguishable from each other by any out- ward sign — is no bad emblem of this mono- tonous, polished, frivolous, chilly, powerful, passionate, glorious nineteenth century of ours. The letters and newspapers which lay on Mr. Forester's breakfast-table on the 17th of June, 18 — , looked as nearly as possible like those which had lain there on the 16th, and Leonora, who came down- stairs first on that morning, turned them over with languid ringers, ascertained that there was no Brighton post-mark among them, and then strolled to the window to caress some sickly London flowers which she was trying to coax into beauty. From the window she could see Vere coming back from his studio, and, seeing that he looked a little out of spirits, she could get a pleasant word and a loving smile ready to 272 linnet's trial. cheer him. He and Rose came in together, having met in the hall, and the radiant bloom upon Rose's cheeks showed that he had said some word to her in meeting, which she was not very well able to answer except by her looks. Henry seldom appeared till the rest of the party had finished breakfast. He said that he knew he was " terrifically lazy," and, having thus nobly stigmatised himself, he made no effort to improve. So, on this particular morning, he was as usual absent from the little family assemblage when it was completed by the arrival of Mr. Forester, moving rather more feebly than of old, but telling his children that he had slept better, and that he was con- fident of the success of his new medicine. He opened his letters, chatted a little about their contents, which involved no topic of special interest, and then settled himself quietly to his cup of cocoa and his newspaper. But not quietly for long. He made an exclamation wdiich was almost an outcry, followed by " God bless me ! Vere ! " in a voice of great hurry and agitation. And then, white, breathless, and unable for the moment AFTER ALL. 273 to articulate, he looked at his son over the newspaper, which shook in his hand, while the others gathered about his chair in anxiety and fear, and felt certain that he had been struck by sudden illness. His finger was upon a paragraph headed with the name of " Major Forester " in large type. " Have you seen— did you know — this ? " asked he tremulously. Silently and eagerly they read with him words that brought tears to their eyes and filled their hearts with astonishment and joy. The paragraph thus headed was a letter from Dr. Selden, and it began with the following sentence : — " Sir, — I have to perform an act of tardy justice, through your instrumentality. It would be folly to deny that the act is painful to me ; but the pain is greatly softened by the reflection that my son, at whose request I write to you, and who is now dying of wounds received while he was bravely leading his troop in a charge which won him a medal and a cross, has thus cleansed his own name before he clears the name of the friend who has VOL. II. t 274 linnet's trial. suffered for his fault. I am sure that he will be forgiven ; and having said this, I have only to tell his story as briefly as possible." Vere read no farther, but sat down, and covered his face with his hands, while the others finished the letter. It contained a full explanation of the circumstances which had caused Vere to leave the army. It appeared that Charles Selden, owing to the illness of his immediate superiors in rank, had the com- mand of the party which failed to intercept Tantia Topee (if that was the name of the Indian hero in question) on the day which proved so unfortunate for Vere. Charles was, as we have seen, no soldier by nature. In fact, he was a lad of very weak, excitable nerves, and most imperfect temper. Vere, suspecting his deficiencies, but not fully aware of them, had attached Martin to the party, a man on whose judgment and firmness he could fully rely, and by whom he thought that the inexperienced commander would be virtually guided and controlled. But the event proved his mistake. Martin, who knew that he was AFTER ALL. 275 the better man of the two, and that he pos- sessed his leader's confidence, was testy and exigeant. Charles was headstrong and blunder- ing. Instead of co-operation, there was dispute between them from the moment in which Vere's eye was withdrawn ; and when the crisis arrived, the result was miserable. Charles, utterly un- nerved, mistook his own position and that of the enemy, and forgot, misunderstood, or ignored the orders which he had received. He main- tained that his party was wrongly stationed ; that a side-path, which had for good and sufficient reasons been guarded at a point a mile farther up, had been totally overlooked ; and he asserted his determination to change his ground, so as to command that path also. Martin remonstrated and implored in vain, and at last, when they were actually in full retreat, laid his hand on the bridle of his officer's horse, and endeavoured to check and turn the animal by force, exclaiming at the same time, " For heaven's sake look, sir ! Here they are ! " There they were indeed ; and if the party stationed to intercept them had been in its t 2 276 linnet's trial. place, the day would have been won. Charles never turned his head. Angry and incredulous, he struck Martin's hand from the rein of his horse, and spurred on. A kind of scuffie ensued, in the course of which, as we know, a pistol went off — it is believed that it was Martin's own ; the poor fellow was shot through the heart, and never breathed once after he fell. Vere came up at the sound of what he supposed to be the preconcerted signal, to find his men in utter confusion, the enemy safe out of their grasp, and Charles sobbing like a child over Martin's body. At this j^oint in the narrative Mr. Forester stopped, and asked Vere almost indignantly — " But why was not this explained before? AVhy have you suffered it to go on? " " What could I do, my dear father?" an- swered Vere, lifting his head. " I knew that Charles was ruined for life if I spoke. I had taken charge of him for his father's sake, and promised to do the best I could for him. I had no choice." " No choice ? " cried Rose. " Oh, Vere ! It was noble and generous; but I don't think AFTER ALL. 277 it was right You were sacrificing us as well as yourself." " Yes," said Vere apologetically, " I see that now, but I did not see it at the time. The fact — the truth — is, that I made one great mistake ; I fancied that my back was strong enough for the burthen, and it wasn't." " Not strong enough ? " asked Leonora, who, holding fast her husband's hand, had as yet spoken no word. " Why, you never once failed for a moment." " What I mean is this," answered Vere, colouring deeply — " I thought — I fancied — that my character was so well known, my name so firmly fixed, that I might screen Charles without such utter sacrifice of myself. I had no idea that the shame would fasten upon me so instantly and so deeply. When I said to Charles, in that first hard moment, ' I will take the blame,' I honestly confess that I thought — it was folly in me, but I did think — that no man would suspect me of cowardice.-" " And you have borne it all these years ! " murmured Leonora, winding her arms about him, and hiding her face on his heart. 278 linnet's tkial. " I had nothing to do but to bear it," said he, half smiling. " I don't think I'm much of a hero. When I found that I was coldly looked upon and hardly censured, I did not stay to face it. I ran away then. Perhaps, if I had staved, I might have lived it down." " I can't understand how Charles Selden could be so — " mean, Rose was going to say, but her brother's quick gesture and look of pain stopped her. " Ah, spare him now, poor fellow ! " cried he. " He has done well at the last. He was only weak, and quite unfit for his position. If he had spoken sooner, it would have killed his father : I believe it will kill him now. And, you know, I sold out — in fact that was one of my motives for selling out. Charles felt very warmly. He was as sorry as a man could be. More than once he was going to confess it all ; but I always checked him with ' "Where is the use, when I am going to leave the army, and you remain in it ? ' " " Leonora," said Mr. Forester, who had been silently studying Dr. Selden's letter during this conversation, "you seem less sur- AFTER ALL. 279 prised than anybody. Had Vere told you the truth ? " Leonora looked up, but did not loose her clasp upon her husband. " No," she said ; " he never told me a word ; but I always knew he was not to blame. We are none of us worthy to look at him, and here he is, almost begging our pardon for being — for being so much better than all the rest of the world ! " The last words came with a sob, and the sound was infectious, for Rose began to cry also, and Mr. Forester wiped his eyes. Vere took the newspaper, and began looking it over in an embarrassed manner. He told his wife afterwards that he could stand anything except being admired. He saw, and noted with secret satisfaction, how complete his justi- fication was. A short leading article, written in a warm and generous spirit, drew attention to Dr. Selden's letter, referred briefly to the circumstances under which the former attack had been made, and paid high tribute to Vere's character and conduct throughout. Vere read aloud the sentence which referred specially to 280 linnet's trial. poor Charles. " No man will allow himself to think for a moment otherwise than kindly and respectfully of the young soldier who has so nobly repaired his fault, and whose life has more than purchased back his honour. Over this grave " Vere faltered a little. " "Why," cried he, interrupting himself, " this is written as if all was over!" He turned hastily to the register, and there found the record which he feared to find — " At Brighton, on the 13th, of wounds received while leading his troop into action, Charles Selden, aged 22, Lieutenant in her Majesty's regiment, only surviving child of Francis Selden, Esq., M.D." " On the 13th ! " exclaimed Vere. < ; The letter has been kept back ! I shall go down to Brighton directly." To Brighton accordingly he went. Leonora accompanied him. On their way they dis- cussed the event of the morning more freely and more calmly than they had been able to do directly after it happened, and while they were still in the midst of the family. Leonora heard something of what Vere had felt — some- AFTER ALL. 281 thing, but not a great deal even now. She had to fill in the details of the picture herself, and she was well able to do so out of her remenil trance of three years. Something, too, she heard of the comfort which he had drawn during that hard time out of her inexhaustible trust, tenderness, and sympathy. " I wonder that you never told me," said she, with the faintest possible tint of reproach in her voice. " I was often sorely tempted," he answered ; " but I had considered it very carefully, and made up my mind. It would have been very much harder for you to bear, Linnet, if you had known not merely that a word would remove the load, but if you had known also what that word was. And I did not think you would be hard upon me, even without knowing the truth. There, at least, I was not disappointed." She smiled. " Was it harder to vou at first or at last ?" asked she. " It was hard enough all through the time. But I think the worst moment was when I began to see clearly what I was doing. When 282 linnet's trial. friend after friend urged me to clear myself, talked to me, reasoned with me, began so warmly and cordially, then, as the conversa- tion went on, showed doubt, irritation, suspi- cion ; then, perhaps, met me a day or two afterwards with an indescribable difference in look, tone, and manner, which I perceived and understood in an instant. One example did not convince me, nor two, nor three. I con- tinued obstinately to set them down as excep- tions. But at last I could not shut my eyes to the fact that there was not a man of them all who fairly believed in me for myself. How- ever strong I had thought my good name, circumstances were stronger." "Not a man of them all?" said she, in- credulously repeating his words. " Not one, Leonora. But I was a fool to expect it. Their confidence in me was built up of certain facts concerning me, and when the facts changed, the confidence slipped down. It's only a wife who trusts you in spite of facts." " It's only a woman," cried she, " who is sure of the fact which she does not see. AFTER ALL. 283 Remember, I was right and they were wrong. You are not going to tell me that I ought to have doubted you." " No," said he in a low voice ; " I am not going to tell you that." " I cannot imagine how you bore it." " The alternative was worse. Whenever I felt — and I did sometimes feel at the beginning — that the sacrifice was beyond my strength, and that I must needs speak out and clear myself, I had but to think of what was in- volved in my ' speaking out,' in order to abandon the idea. How was I to stand for- ward and deliberately crush that poor boy in order to save myself? How coidd I have faced his father ? Poor Selden ! " added Vere, with a hasty touch of strong emotion, " how sorry I am for him ! " " I find it as difficult to understand Charles Selden as Rose did," said Leonora. " Was he really — one does not like to say it now — but, Vere," dropping her voice, "was he really — a coward ? " " No, no, no ! " cried Vere. " He was utterly unfit to be a soldier, poor fellow ; he had not a 284 linnet's trial. particle of physical nerve, and he had at that time less self-control than any man I ever knew in my life. But think how well he has done since ! I can't express to you how much I respect him. I assure you, remembering him as I do, the self-conquest seems to me little less than miraculous." " That was a terrible time when you first came home," said Leonora, shutting her eyes as she went on with her reminiscences. " Terrible for you, too," answered he. " How well you bore it! But I began to blame myself then. I began to think that I had no right, as Rose says, to sacrifice you all as well as myself. Only then it was too late to change. It would have been the lowest depth of meanness if I had consented to justify my- self at Charles's expense then, after I had left the army. Just imagine the news going- out to him ! You must feel that I could only act as I did." " I feel that you were right, from first to last," was her reply. Vere looked at her tenderly, but half laughed as he answered, " I wonder whether you would AFTEK ALL. 285 feel just the same if I had done exactly the reverse ! " They had left the train, and were walking towards the house now occupied by Dr. Selden. " I am not tired," said Leonora. " Why do you walk so slowly ? " He answered the question by standing still. " 1 hardly know what to do," said he in a troubled voice. "lam afraid to go into the house. I doubt if I was right to come. It was an impulse, but perhaps I should have done better to resist it." " Oh ! " cried Leonora, " after the first shock of meeting, he will surely be comforted by your sympathy. He is so fond of you. Let me go in first, and tell him that you are here/' Vere consented at once. This was just one of the cases in which a woman has more courage than a man. He knocked at the door, and then drew Leonora aside, lest by any chance they should be seen and recognised from the window. The door was opened to them by Esther Martin, who burst into tears as soon as she saw them. It is a strange fact, 286 linnet's trial. directly in the teeth of common theories, that those to whom life has been hard, are gene- rally less able to command their emotions as life advances, than those to whom it has been soft. Leonora took the woman's hand, said a few kind and soothing words, and then asked where Dr. Selden was, and whether she might go to him at once. " The Doctor, ma'am ? " replied Esther, be- ginning to recover herself. "Oh, that's the worst of it ! He's gone." " Gone ! " exclaimed Vere. " When ? Where?" " That's what nobody knows, sir. Went in the morning, before anybody was up. Mr. Osborne knows no more than we do. Poor gentleman ! it's my belief he's not long for this world ; he seemed to be taking leave of everything for days past — and so quiet too, as if he hadn't heart enough in him to give way. He's not been like a living man since the day before Master Charles died; then it was that lie changed. He and his son had a long talk together all alone ; and it's then I suppose he quite made up his mind there was no hope. AFTER ALL. 287 I believe there's a letter for you, sir, but Mr. Osborne will tell you. The last thing the doctor did, sir, was to secure thirty pounds a year to me and my man for life ; but, God knows, we'd give it up if we could get him back again ! " Mr. Osborne came into the passage as she finished speaking, and welcomed his visitors very warmly. He seemed a good deal de- pressed, and much shaken by the trying scenes through whicli he had passed. He was thankful for the sight of new faces, and it was a relief to him to tell all that he could. All, however, was but little. He brought them into the sitting-room, j)ressed refreshments upon them, wanted them to rest and be comfortable, with a touch of his naturally light, cheery, hos- pitable manner, breaking strangely through the gloom that was upon him, and seeming- much more suitable to him than the gloom through which it broke. It was hardly pos- sible for a man to be less adapted than he was to the circumstances which had been lately forced upon him. His intense dislike to the sight of pain had really caused him to suffer 288 linnet's trial. in health, and it had also played the part of a braver and deeper sympathy while he was in the presence of the pain endured, and while he felt that he could not escape from it. In fact, however, it was so very little that the deepest sympathy could have done for Dr. Selden, that he scarcely missed it, and the company of a good-natured acquaintance gave him as much, or as little, comfort as he could have derived from the companionship of the dearest friend he had upon earth. " It has been a miserable business," said Mr. Osborne. " I scarcely understand it now. Till I read poor Selden's letter in the paper, I was altogether in the dark. Charles must have told him all the day before he died — so I guess now. They were a long time alone to- gel her, and at last I ventured to go in to them. The physician said Charles was to be kept as quiet as possible ; and I heard so much talking that I was sure it was wrong. When I went in, I could not make them out in the least. Selden was standing in the window, far away from the bed, with his hands over his face. He gave a great start when I opened the door, AFTEK ALL. 289 went up to the bed-side, stooped over poor Charles and kissed him, and then actually ran out of the room, without saying a word. Charles was flushed and feverish, and seemed as if he wanted to speak to me, but I would not let him. He just said, ' Ah, my poor father! I was always a plague to him.' I gave him a sedative, and made him keep quiet. I did not see Selden again that day ; he was in his room, writing. He sat up all night with Charles ; and just as the day broke the poor boy died." " And the father?" asked Vere, in breathless interest. Leonora was by this time too tearful to speak. " You will think it strange, but I have never seen him since. He went away and shut himself up immediately. Whether he ate or drank at all that day, I don't know ; but when Martin knocked at his door, he only thanked her, and asked her to go away. The next morning he was gone. He left a letter for you, and a number of bank notes in an envelope directed to me, with just a sentence written — oh, here it is ! " VOL. II. u 290 linnet's trial. Mr. Osborne handed the papers to Vere, who looked first at the few words hurriedly written on the flap of the open envelope. They were these — " Please see to the funeral, and do not write to London, or send to the newspapers. Thank you for great kindness. — F. Seidell." " It was a painful business," said poor Mr. Osborne, as Vere looked up inquiringly. "The whole of it has been excessively painful to me, and I confess I thought it rather hard that I should be left to go through with it by myself. But I could do nothing else. I could not go against his request. The funeral took place this morning. There was no reason for delay ; and I wanted to get everything over, and come up to London as soon as possible. Selden, you see, sent the notice of poor Charles's death to the papers with his own letter ; and I con- clude his object was that you should not see the one before the other. But why he ab- sented himself, and why he wished to prevent you from showing a last kindness to Charles's memory, I cannot conceive. It was very strange. It was hardly decent." AFTER ALL. 291 " It hurts me much," said Vere sadly, as he opened his letter. It was very short, and not much more satisfactory than Mr. Osborne's one sentence. " My dear Vere, " You will know all when you read this, and you will have forgiven me and my poor boy long ago. I know you will come down. I do not wish you to hear till all is over. You would be ready enough to honour the dead and console the living ; but the first is unfit, and the second impossible. Good-bye. I love you and your wife dearly ; I wish you all happiness, and I beg your pardon. I ask you not to seek me or write to me — let me get rid of my troubles in my own way. The pertinacious hostility of life has brought me down at last, and I can't face any of my friends. " Your affectionate "Francis Seldex." There was nothing to give to this sufferer except pity and silence. Alas ! what more can you give to the man in whose eyes sorrow has 292 linnet's tkial. the face of an enemy? The long' battle, the sure defeat, the wounds, the weariness, the death, are indeed terrible to such a man. Let us hope that love, human or Divine, or both, sought and found him at last. Save for this one blot, the happiness of Vere and Leonora was now perfect. And it must not be supposed that it came too late, or when they were in any degree reconciled to the grief to which they had so bravely submitted. The pain which Vere suffered, the shame which he felt, but did not deserve, were as keen to him the moment before they were taken away as they had been at the moment when they were first inflicted, perhaps keener; and having said what they were to him, we need say nothing of what they were to Leonora. And their hunger after honour and joy was keen also, and though they had fasted so patiently, they welcomed the feast with eager thankfulness. Rose was very happy too, and Brandon improved very much, without ceasing to be pleasant, which was a great credit to him. END OF VOL. II. Iii 1 Vol., crown 8vo. cloth, Is. Qd. TWICE LOST. A NOVEL. By S. M., Author of " Use of Sunshine," " Storj' of a Family," " Queen Isabel," &c. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. " Another first-rate Xovel by a Woman ! 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