Mrs. Oliphant

“ This is what it has come to, after all—what they must all come to, those innocent young people—even Rachel, who is as wild as a child, in her first genuine and unalarmed outburst of youthful jubilation—even Agnes, who through all this joy carries a certain thoughtful remembrance in her dark eyes—possibly even Charlie, who fears no man, but is a little shy of every womankind younger than Miss Anastasia. ”

“ She had been accustomed for a long time now to follow him with interest and sympathy, and to read his thoughts in those wild public self-revelations of his, which no one penetrated but herself; but she felt actually guilty, a plotter, and concerned against him now.
“I am sorry for Lionel,” said Miss Rivers, who had not lost a single fluctuation of colour on Agnes’s cheek, nor tremble of emotion in her hurried hands—“but it would have been more grievous for poor George had he lived. There will be only disappointment—not disgrace—for any other heir.” ”

“ THE NEW HEIR. They had heard from Charlie, who had already set out upon his journey; they had heard from Louis, whom Mr Foggo desired to take into his office in Charlie’s place in the mean time; they had heard again and again from Miss Anastasia’s solicitor, touching their threatened property; and to this whole family of women everything around seemed going on with a singular speed and bustle, while they, unwillingly detained among the waning September trees, were, by themselves, so lonely and so still. The only one among them who was not eager to go home was Agnes. ”

“ It was not, however, a magnificent equipage like that of the fashionable patroness of literature which drew up at the door now. It was an antique job carriage, not a very great deal better to look at than that venerable fly of Islington, which was still regarded with respect by Agnes and Marian. In this vehicle there were two horses, tall brown bony old hacks, worthy the equipage they drew—an old coachman in a very ancient livery, and an active youth, fresh, rural, and ruddy, who sprang down from the creaking coach-box to assault, but in a moderate country fashion, the door of the Athelings. ”

“ Agnes leaned forward towards him, listening eagerly; she could not quite tell what she expected—a confession of faith.
“I am a man of ambition,” said Lionel, turning in a moment from the high and solemn excitement of his former speech, with a sudden smile like a gleam of sunshine. “You remember my projects when I was heir of Winterbourne. You knew them, though I did not tell you; now I have found a cave in a wild mining district among a race of giants. ”

“ It did not yet disturb the habits of the family; but this new life which they began to enter—this life of separated and individual interest—took no small degree of heart and spirit out of those joint family pleasures and occupations into which Marian constantly brought a reference to Louis, which Agnes passed through with a preoccupied and abstracted mind, and from which Charlie was far away. The stream widened, the sky grew broader, yet every one had his or her separate and peculiar firmament. ”

“ Her own mind and imagination had been profoundly impressed, almost in spite of herself, by that last known act of Lionel’s—his hasty journey to London with Doctor Serrano. It was the kind of act beyond all others to win upon a temperament so generous and sensitive, which a more ostentatious generosity might have disgusted and repelled; and perhaps the very uncertainty in which they remained concerning him kept up the lurking “interest” in Agnes Atheling’s heart. ”

“ The Italian glanced lovingly at the couch which invited him—at the slippers and the pipe which waited to make him comfortable—then he glanced up at the dark and resolute countenance of Lionel, who, high in his chivalric honour, was determined rather to sleep at Serrano’s door all night than to let him out of his hands. “Excellent young man! you are not a philosopher!” ”

“ There were a lot of girls, Charlie said; and one of them, called Giulia Remori, was strangely like “Miss Rachel;” “not exactly like,” wrote Charlie,—“not like Agnes and Marian” (who, by the way, had only a very vague resemblance to each other) . “You would not suppose them to be sisters; but I always think of Miss Rachel when I see this Signora Giulia. They say, too, she has a great genius for music, and I heard her sing once myself, like——; well, I cannot say what it was like. The most glorious music, I believe, under the skies.”
“Mamma, that cannot be Charlie!” ”

“ And there came upon the spectator, as he went among them in silence, a sudden eagerness to try that talisman which Agnes Atheling had bidden him use. It was vain to try philosophy there, where no one knew what it meant—vain to offer the rites of the Church to those who were fatally beyond its pale. Was it possible, after all, that the one word in the world, which could stir something human—something of heaven—in these degraded breasts, was that one sole unrivalled Name? ”

“ If it ever reached to one who felt himself addressed in it, who knew the words, the allusions, that noble craft of genius, which, addressing all, had still a private voice for one—if there was such a man somewhere, in the desert or among the mountains far away, wandering where he seldom heard the tongue of his country, and never saw a face he recognised, Agnes never knew. ”

“ The great space before and around—the great amphitheatre at her feet—the breeze that came in her face fresh and chill, and touched with rain—the miracles of tiny moss and herbage lying low beneath those fallen leaves—the pale autumn sky, so dark and stormy—the autumn winds, which wailed o’ nights—the picturesque and many-featured change which stole over everything—carried a new and strange delight to the mind of Agnes. She alone cared to wander by herself through the wood, with its crushed ferns, its piled faggots of firewood, its yellow leaves, which every breeze stripped down. ”

“ Both Marian and Agnes heard her. She is a friend, Louis. Oh, I am sure, if she is inquiring anything, it is all for our good!”
The colour rose still higher upon Louis’s cheek. He did not quite comprehend at the moment this strange, sudden side-light which glanced down upon the question which was so important to him. He did not pause to follow, nor see to what it might lead; but it struck him as a clue to something, though he was unable to discover what that something was. Atheling! ”

“ Amazed as they were at this sudden renewal of old friendship, none of them desired to resist it; and before they were well aware, they found themselves engaged, the whole party, to Mrs Edgerley’s next “reception,” when “every one would be so charmed to see them!” “Positively, my love, you are looking quite lovely,” whispered the fine lady into the shrinking ear of Marian. “I always said so. I constantly told every one you were the most perfect little beauty in the world; and then that charming book of Miss Atheling’s, which every one was wild about! ”

“ But though Louis and Marian, and Agnes and Rachel, were all extremely attractive, had more or less share in the romance, and were all more or less handsome, Charlie was without dispute the lion of the night. Mrs Edgerley fluttered about with him, holding his great arm with her pretty hand, and introducing him to every one; and with a smile, rueful, comical, half embarrassed, half ludicrous, Charlie, who continued to be very shy of ladies, suffered himself to be dragged about by the fashionable enchantress. ”

“ Even with love to bear him out, and his beautiful Marian to inspire him, it was hard, out of all the proud possibilities of youth, to plunge into such a lot as this. Now he considered it warily, with the full awakened consciousness of a man. Up to this time his bitter dislike and opposition to Lord Winterbourne had been carried on by fits and starts, as youths do contend with older people under whose sway they have been all their life. ”

“ She cast a quick look from Miss Rivers to her mother, who was pondering over Charlie’s letter, and from Mrs Atheling to Agnes, who had not been startled by the strange words of Miss Anastasia; and suspicion, vague and unexplainable, began to dawn in Marian’s mind.
“The autumn assizes begin to-day,” said Miss Anastasia with a little triumph; “too soon, as Mr Temple managed it, for your case to have a hearing; it must stand over till the spring now—six months—by that time, please God; we shall be ready for them. Agnes Atheling, how long is it since you began to be deaf and blind?” ”

“ Though everybody knew of the little adventure of Mr Endicott, the young people were all too reverential of the romance of youth themselves to laugh very freely at the disappointed lover. Charlie sat by himself in the best room, sedulously making out his case. Charlie had risen into a person of great importance at the office since his return, and, youth as he was, was trusted so far, under Mr Foggo’s superintendence, as to draw up the brief for the counsel who was to conduct this great case; so they had not even his presence to enliven the family circle, which was very dull without Louis. ”

“ Mr Louis—his surname, as everybody supposed—was the name by which Louis was known in Bellevue.
Miss Willsie’s brow puckered with a momentary anger. “I would like to know,” said Miss Willsie, “why that monkey could not content herself with a kindly lad at home: but my brother’s in the parlour; you’ll find him there, Agnes. Keep my patience!—Foggie’s there too—the lad from America. If there’s one thing in this world I cannot endure, it’s just a young man like yon!” ”

“ I can prove it myself; it is known to a whole village. If you choose it, confront me with Lord Winterbourne.”
“No; I believe you—you are a gentleman,” said Doctor Serrano, turning over the card in his hand—and the old man added with enthusiasm, “and a hero for a friend!”
“You believe me?” said Lionel, who could not restrain the painful smile which crossed his face at the idea of his heroism in the cause of Louis. “Will you stay, then, another hour within reach of Lord Winterbourne?”
The Italian shrugged his shoulders. “I will break with him; he is ever false,” said the old man. ”

“ Mr Foggo smiled, and took a pinch of snuff. “All quite true,” said Mr Foggo; “he came to me yesterday with a paper in his hand—a long story about next of kin wanted somewhere, and of two children belonging to some poor widow woman, who had been lost sight of a long time ago, one of whom was named Louis. That’s the story; it’s a mare’s nest, Agnes, if you know what that is; but I thought it might divert the boy; so instead of opposing, I furnished him for his journey, and let him go without delay. No reason why the lad should not do his endeavour for his own hand. ”

“ She extended the kindly title, with the most fascinating amiability, to Agnes and Charlie. She overwhelmed the young lawyer with compliments and invitations. He had a much stronger hold upon her fickle fancy than the author of Hope Hazlewood. Mrs Edgerley was delighted to speak to all her acquaintances of Mr Atheling, “who conducted all the case against poor dear papa—did everything himself, I assure you—and such a charming modesty of genius, such a wonderful force and character! Oh, any one may be jealous who pleases; I cannot help it. I quite adore that clever young man.” ”

“ Agnes, a diffident young genius then, full of visionary ideas of fame, had now her own known and acknowledged place, but had gone far beyond it, in the heart which did not palpitate any longer with the glorious young fancies of a visionary ambition; and Charlie, last of all—Charlie, who had tumbled out of the Islington fly to take charge of his sisters—a big boy, clumsy and manful, whom Lord{240} Winterbourne smiled at, as he passed, with his ungenial smile—Charlie, almost single-handed, had thrust the usurper from his seat, and placed the true heir in his room. ”

“ Charlie, in his present development, was not at all the man to hand a lady with a grace to her carriage; nor was this stately gentlewoman, in her brown pelisse, at all the person to be so escorted; but they were a remarkable pair enough, as they stood upon the broad pavement of one of the noblest streets of Christendom. Miss Anastasia held out her hand with a parting command and warning, as she took her seat and the reins.—“Young Atheling, remember! it is life and death!” ”

“ Mrs Atheling, conscious, hurried, and studying deeply not to betray herself—and Agnes, watching every one, stopping questions, and guarding off suspicions with prudence much too visible—were quite enough of themselves to rouse every other member of the little company to lively pursuit after the secret. ”

“ He waited in well-concealed but frightfully-felt excitement for something, watching with a stealthy but perpetual observation the{55} humble house of the Athelings and the Priory at Abingford. He did not say to himself what it was he apprehended, nor indeed that he apprehended anything; but with that strange certainty which criminals always seem to retain, that fate must come some time, waited in the midst of his gay, busy, frivolous guests, sharing all the occupations round him, like a man in a dream,—waited as the world waits in a pause of deadly silence for the thunderclap. ”

“ Shall I have your permission to call on you when we are all there?”
“I am sure we shall all be very much pleased,” said Mrs Atheling, flattered by his tone—“you know what simple people we are, and we do not keep any company; but we shall be very pleased, and honoured too, to see you as we have seen you here.”
Agnes was a little annoyed by her mother’s speech. She looked up with a flash of indignation, and met, not the eyes of Mrs Atheling, but those of Mr Rivers, who was looking at her. ”