Miss Vernon

“ Gradually gently it crept up to the place where Vernon lay; and the little ripples fell over him wonderingly, with the low murmur of their musical laughter, and blurred and dimmed the vivid splashes and crimson streaks upon the white stone on which his head had fallen, and washed away some of the purple bells and green sprigs of heather round which his fingers were closed in the grasp of death, and played softly with his fair hair as it rose, and fell, and floated on their undulations like a leaf of golden-colored weed, until they themselves were faintly discolored by his blood. ”

“ Am I speaking too freely, Miss Vernon, in thus placing the reality of your future before you?"
"No," said Kate, firmly, and holding out her hand to him. "No, I feel the need of such suggestions, and I like to talk of what must be; it is good for me, and there is no use in making grandpapa think of it at all more than necessary; I hope to manage so as often to cheat him into forgetfulness of my occupation; only I do trust Mr. Winter's friend may not engage apartments for us in a wretched, narrow street. ”

“ Lady Desmond seemed to cling more to Miss Vernon since she had made the confession detailed in the last chapter; she had seemed more cheerful, and hopeful too, as if relieved by her confidence in another—her manner with Lord Effingham, had more of frankness and courage, and he, ever keen and quick, was evidently aware of some change in the mind, or heart, he knew so well; and for the moment seemed roused from his habitual indifference to a deeper and more palpable interest. Kate watched all this anxiously. "Is he afraid of losing her," she thought. ”

“ She looked up at me as I stood leaning moodily against the mantel-piece.
"But all men must some time or other go forth amongst strangers, and few seem to regret it as you do."
"Not when they leave behind all they covet on earth—not when they must go in silence and say good bye, with a calm face and a breaking heart?"
"Oh!" cried Miss Vernon, clasping her hands, "that is terrible! God comfort such a sorrow! but at your age there is always hope; you will return, and what are a few years to a true heart?" ”

“ Winter," said Miss Vernon.
[Pg 87]
"Indeed!" he replied, with a sharp keen glance, "what's your style, sir?"
"Oh, I merely sketch; sometimes in water colours, but generally in chalks. Very rude attempts, I assure you."
"It's a glorious gift, any portion of power to transfer living nature to dead canvass or paper. Miss Vernon tells me that she would give worlds to be a painter, and yet she will not even try to draw."
"I do try," she exclaimed, "I feel my eyesight failing fast in the effort; but you cannot force nature, and she did not intend me for a proficient in your noble art." ”

“ After a little more conversation a message from Mr. Winter called the Colonel out of the room, and Kate and I were tête-à-tête.
"Nurse gave rather a melancholy account of you yesterday," said Miss Vernon, "she said you were all alone and 'dissolute' by yourself. Have you no books?"
"I do not feel up to reading, but if I had any one to read out to me—Gilpin has not time."
"I would be delighted, I will come here and read to you and Mrs. Winter every day." ”

“ Just then, to Miss Vernon's great relief and to Prissy's dismay, Dr. Warner entered the garden and demanded what was the matter.
"Claude amissing? What do you mean?" he said. "Who had charge of him?"
"Priscilla," was the answer.
"What was she doing to allow a child like that to go off by himself?"
"She was studying," replied Miss Vernon.
"Studying? Nonsense! What could she be studying?—Bring the book to me, Priscilla," he continued; then lingering a moment to look at the name, and muttering, "Astronomy? Absurd! What can a girl know or care about that?" ”

“ I'd prefer happy ignorance; I conclude the English of all this is, that Miss Vernon's angelic voice and beautiful eyes incline you to matrimony, while common sense warns you off, eh?"
"Pshaw! nonsense! I am not going to declare Miss Vernon is essential to my existence; I dare say I shall have to scramble through life without such companionship; but I do not hesitate to say, I would be a happier man if I thought I had a chance of it; ay, and a better one," I added, after a pause. ”

“ And he puffed, wiped his forehead, and swallowed his cup of tea at a gulp.
"Mr. Winter, I will not allow you to misrepresent yourself," said Miss Vernon, "you love music in your very soul; do not pretend to think it inferior for the sake of argument!"
"It is inferior; painting appertains more to the intellect than music," rejoined Winter stoutly. ”

“ I started as it met my sight; it was Kate Vernon, sitting as was her custom, at the open window of the cottage, her cheek resting on her left hand, showing the graceful contour of her throat, and her right playing as she was wont to do, when lost in thought, with Cormac's ear; while the old hound sat gazing at her as though he would fain ask what vision engrossed her fancy. It was a most lovely picture; the lovelier for its admirable likeness to the original. How well I knew that pensive and abstracted air; the large eyes gazing dreamily into some imaginary world ”

“ I can hardly breathe," said Kate, laying down the book which she found could not engage her cousin's attention, and walking towards the window.
"Yes," said Lady Desmond, languidly, "draw up the blinds, Kate, to the top; let us have all the light and air we can."
"If Lord Effingham is not here very soon he will get a wetting; I am sure we are on the edge of a thunder storm," observed Miss Vernon, after a pause. ”

“ He waved his straw hat, and making a speaking trumpet of a roll of paper, shouted "Dinner!" very audibly.
"In a minute," said Miss Vernon, forgetting he could not hear her, "just finish that bit of shading, Captain Egerton; Mr. Gilpin and I will put up all your things."
"Are you coming?" shouted Winter once more.
I put my portfolio under my arm, shouldered my camp stool, and we soon joined the impatient and hungry artist, who led the way to a well-chosen site for dinner. ”

“ Winter; it was succeeded by another peep at the studio, a walk with the Colonel, and then [Pg 145] came the pleasant friendly dinner, the frank cheerful interchange of thought, the after-dinner cup of coffee and stroll in the pleasure ground to look at the moon reflected in the river; while Miss Vernon, courteously anxious to give me what she prized herself, gathered a bouquet of her choicest autumnal flowers, "to make me forget that horrid Carrington, at least in my own room," she said; her grandfather laughing at the idea of her expecting I should care for such things. ”

“ If Conrad could have loved, as Byron describes, his sense of wrong would have led him to feel a noble pity for his injurers; revenge would have been merged in an effort to teach them truth by forgiveness; and which is the grandest creature, the man who, freed from the petty dominion of self, can look down on his own passions from a real eminence, or he who is their willing slave; before whose frown
'Hope withering fled, and mercy sighed farewell!'"
"Bravo, Miss Vernon, you have converted me," cried the Colonel.
"Yes," said Lady Desmond, "I believe you are right, Kate." ”

“ I hardly heard him as I stood; my eyes fixed on the face I was so soon to lose, as if I would stamp its lineaments indelibly on my memory; he went on—"What business would you have with Miss Vernon's likeness?"
"True, true, oh! hard of heart; yet with me it would be a sacred thing. No, do not put it away yet. Oh! skill in portrait painting is the only talent really worth cultivating. I wish to Heaven I had it! Winter, in the whole category of human ills, is there one can surpass the wretchedness of saying good bye?" ”

“ I see it is from Georgina."
"Dearest Kate," began Miss Vernon, in obedience to his commands, "your last letter is now so ancient, I am ashamed to mention it—your first I did not answer because I was [6] too much vexed at your absurd opposition to all my plans for your benefit. Time has cooled my resentment, and accident has revived my affection for my pretty, loveable god-child, while it has, I hope, awakened in your mind proper regret for the folly of preferring a life of seclusion in a dull country town to the brilliant lot you might have secured. ”

“ Kate would have faced the most deadly peril with far less tremor than her really much-loved cousin; she felt, however, that the message sounded friendly, little imagining that "Miladi's love" was an addition of Louise's, who never could conceive one to Miss Vernon unprefaced by some such sugary prefix. Kate found Lady Desmond lying on the sofa, looking deadly pale and exhausted; she held the note in her hand.
"You are right," she exclaimed abruptly, as Kate shut the door and stood before her; "we have much to arrange, for inaction is torture." ”

“ Miss Vernon, too, had the good taste to wear a great deal of soft lace, which set off her round white throat, making it look fairer still; and yet I have known some women turn from lace to linen, but these usually presided at Dorcas committees.
"Yes," said Miss Vernon, as her grandfather paused, "You must be tired. Do you know Captain Egerton; you seem to have infused new life into grandpapa, he has not walked so much [Pg 77] for months, and yet he is quite fresh. I hope nurse will let us have dinner soon." ”

“ Storey's needle. They were all assembled in a small, plainly furnished parlour, used as a common sitting-room.
"Go and look out of the window, like good children, and let Miss Vernon write in peace," said mama, at last, and Kate continued to write for some moments uninterrupted.
"What a beautiful horse," cried Willie, after looking over the blinds for a while in silence.
"How he holds up his head," said his sister; "and the boy in the pretty little boots is look-at all the houses." ”

“ Miss Vernon, threw aside her bonnet and shawl, and seated herself at the piano; but her memory seemed suddenly clouded, by the very [163] necessity for clearness, nay, her physical vision, by the intense anxiety to acquit herself well, and while the room swam before her, the only distinct image she could perceive, was Hermann, standing opposite, with a look of severe criticism on his countenance; but this moment of suffering did not last—Kate was making rapid strides in the acquirement of that self-command, without which, the empire of the world is but a wider range for the sceptred slave. ”

“ Vernon’s grounds. When he saw them searching for it among the hawthorns, he reached across the hedge and presented it to their attendant. He raised his hat and bowed, as he did so; and she blushed as she took it from his hand. After this accidental introduction, he never passed her without a similar salutation; and she always coloured at a mark of courtesy so unusual from a gentleman to a person in her humble condition. The degree of interest she had excited in his mind rendered it somewhat painful to hear his mother’s careless prophecy of her future destiny. ”

“ Burton was there, he had not been a frequent guest, having been generally quartered with another detachment. "I regret to find that you are going to leave this place, Miss Vernon, just as I am about to take up my abode in it," said Burton during [194] the loudest notes of a bravura sung by Miss Meredyth, "I have heard so much, yet I seem doomed to see so little of you."
"I did not know I was so famous," replied Kate, absently.
"Nor am I the only one, 'left lamenting,' by this sudden flight; look at Dashwood! then we all fear that Miss Vernon will not return from Ireland," said Burton. ”

“ Heart within, and God o'er head!'"
"A word in season, how good it is!" returned Miss Vernon, smiling pensively.
"Well, here we are, I wonder what Mrs. [271] Winter will say to your powers of persuasion?"
"She will be delighted—she dreads the journey."
"Pooh, not she; as long as I am with her, she thinks all must go well."
"A pattern wife!" sighed Kate.
"Yes; no wife can be happy if she does not feel this. Ah, Kate, Kate, I wish you had a good husband!"
"Like yourself! eh, Mr. Winter! but alas!" ”

“ The morning's study—the afternoon walk with her grandfather—often to visit the sick and needy—the interchange of contrasting thought with Winter and the organist, kept Miss Vernon too wholesomely active both in mind and body to permit the pleasant monotony of her life to degenerate into stagnation. ”

“ I appear to be most unsuccessful as a journalist. I have the will to record my doings but not the execution. Tonight I am in an oddly pleasant state of mind over the day’s events. The Vernons, of Vernon Lodge, gave an archery meet this afternoon. They held the meet in honor of a cousin, Miss Angela Vernon, who has come to make her home with them. Miss Vernon is an orphan with a pleasing girlish face and soft chestnut curls. Her voice is low and sweet and she has a merry fashion 150of showing her small white teeth in laughing which is captivating. ”

“ But do you not think Conrad justified by the injuries hinted at, in bidding defiance to a world to which he felt himself superior?"
"Yes, I admire Conrad, I confess," replied Lady Desmond.
"I do not think hatred is ever grand," said Kate, rather timidly.
"But it is very natural, sometimes, Miss Vernon," observed Dashwood.
"Miss Vernon would have us turn first one [155] cheek and then the other to be smitten," said Lord Effingham. ”

“ Was not his chief objection to Vernon based on the latter's reputation as a man of intrigue? It was Phyllida's attraction to Vernon that made him indignant. Had she chosen to bestow herself on a middle-aged squire with acres and a gaunt square hall and a pack of hounds, would he have been at all seriously disconcerted by the prospect? And Vernon could have no honest love for her, because if a man means to wed a young woman, he does not stigmatize her behaviour in scurrilous verses, even to secure an advantage over a supposed rival. Or does he—when he is not quite a gentleman? ”