"I wish to speak to you in private, sir," said Miss Brunel to Mr.

Cayley; and thus dismissed, John Hubbard retired, thinking of the poor children who had been deprived of handsome little presents all through the blundering folly of their uncle.

"Hang him!" said John Hubbard; "the best thing the fool can do is to shoot himself and leave his money to the boys. As for _her_, he has set her dead against me for ever. And now she will be Lady Annie Knottingley, and my wife might have been her best friend, and we might have lived, almost, at that splendid place in Berks-and the children--"

There was no more miserable creature in London that day than the Count's brother; and he considered himself an injured, ill-used, and virtuous man.

The appearance of John Hubbard had done this one good thing-it had determined Annie Brunel to make up her mind. It recalled so forcibly the loneliness and misery, the humiliation and wretchedness of these past months, that she instantly resolved never, if she could help it, to come into contact with such people again. With this wealth at her command, she was free. She could choose such friends, and scenes, and pursuits as she liked best; she could-and here the warm heart of her leapt up with joy-she could reach out her hand to those friends who might be in want-she could be their secret protector, and glide in like an invisible fairy to scare away the wolf from their door by the sunshine of her gilded and luminous presence. This splendid potentiality she hugged to her heart with a great joy; and as she went away from Mr. Cayley's office (after a long interview, in which he explained to her the legal aspects and requirements of the situation) there was a fine happy light on her face. She no longer doubted that it was all real. She already felt the tingling of a full hand; and her brain was busy with pictures of all the people to whom that hand was to be freely extended. In many a romance had she played; but never a romance like this, in which all the world but herself was ignorant of the secret. She would go about, like an emperor with a bundle of pardons in his pocket, like a kindly spirit who would transform the coals in poor men's grates into lumps of gleaming rubies, and diamonds, and emeralds. She would conceal her mysterious power; and lo! the invisible will would go forth, and this or that unhappy man or woman-ready to sink in despair before the crushing powers of circ.u.mstance-would suddenly receive her kindly help, and find himself or herself enriched and made comfortable by an unknown agency.

Like every one who has suffered the trials of poverty, she fancied that nearly all the ills of life were attributable to want of money, and she saw in this wealth which had become hers a magnificent instrument of amelioration. She had a very confused notion of Mr. Cayley's figures.

She knew the value of five pounds, or twenty, or even a hundred; but when it came to thousands, comprehension failed her. She could not tell the difference between a hundred and fifty thousand pounds and the same sum per annum; both quant.i.ties were not reducible to the imagination, and consequently conveyed no distinct impression. She knew vaguely that the money at her command was inexhaustible; she could give each of her friends-certainly she had not many-a fortune without affecting (sensibly to herself) this acc.u.mulation of banker's ciphers.

So she walked westward through the crowded city, weaving dreams. Habit had so taught her to dread the expense of a cab, that she never thought of employing a conveyance, although she had in her pocket fifty pounds which Mr. Cayley had pressed upon her. She was unaware of the people, the noise, the cold January wind, and the dust. Her heart was sick with the delight of these vague imaginings, and the inexpressible joy of her antic.i.p.ations was proof against those physical inconveniences which, indeed, she never perceived.

Yet her joy was troubled. For among all the figures that her heart loved to dwell upon,-all the persons whom she pictured as receiving her munificent and secret kindness-there was one with whom she knew not how to deal. What should she give to Will Anerley? The whole love of her heart he already possessed; could she, even though he were to know nothing of the donor, offer him money? She shrank from such a suggestion with apprehensive dislike and repugnance; but yet her love for him seemed to ask for something, and that something was not money.

"What can I do better than make him marry Dove, and forget me?" she said to herself; and she was aware of a pang at her heart which all Harry Ormond's money, and twenty times that, could not have removed.

For a little while the light died away from her face; but by-and-by the old cheerful resolute spirit returned, and she continued her brisk walk through the grey and busy streets.

"Mr. Cayley," she said to herself, talking over her projects as a child prattles to its new toys, "fancies Mr. Anerley had thirty or forty thousand pounds. If I send him that, they will all go down to Kent again, and Dove will win her lover back to her with the old a.s.sociations. They might well marry then, if Will were not as fiercely independent as if he were a Spanish Duke. I could not send him money; if he were to discover it, I should die of shame. But it might be sent to him indirectly as a professional engagement; and then-then they would marry, I know-and perhaps they might even ask me to the wedding. And I should like to go, to see Dove dressed as a bride, and the look on her face!"

Dove did not know at that moment what beautiful and generous spirit was scheming with a woman's wit to secure her welfare-what tender projects were blossoming up, like the white flowers of charity and love, in the midst of the dull and selfish London streets. But when Annie Brunel, having walked still farther westward, entered the house which the Anerleys occupied, and when she came into the room, Dove thought she had never seen the beautiful dark face look so like the face of an angel.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

ORMOND PLACE.

A still, cold, beautiful morning in March,-the dark crimson sun slowly creeping up behind the tall and leafless trees of the wood on this Berkshire hill. There is snow everywhere,-snow on the far uplands, snow on this sloping forest, snow on the shelving ground that glides down to the banks of the smooth blue waters of the Thames. There is a ruddy glow over that wintry waste of white; for the eastern vapours deaden the light of the sun, and redden it, and steep the far horizon in a soft purple haze. There is not a breath of wind. The sere and withered stems of the tall grey rushes by the riverside are motionless, except when the wild ducks stir in their marshy secrecy, or the water-hens swim out to take a cautious look up and down the stream. Here and there, too, the river catches a streak of crimson and purple, as it lies hushed and still in the hushed, still white meadows.

Back from these meadows lies the long low hill which slopes downward to the east, and loses itself in illimitable woods. Up here on its summit is the little village of Steyne-only a church, with a square grey tower, a vicarage smothered in dark ivy, and two or three cottages. Farther along the great bank you come to the woods of Ormond Place; and right in the centre of them, in a great clearance visible for miles round, stands, fronting the river and the broad valley and the far landscape, the house in which Harry Ormond, Marquis of Knottingley, died.

It is a modern house, large, roomy, and stately, with oval-roofed greenhouses breaking the sharp descent of the walls to the ground; a house so tall and well-placed as to overlook the great elms in the park, which, on the other side of the broad and banked-up lawn, slopes down into the valley. As the red sun rises over the purple fog, it catches the pale front of the house, and sheds over it a glimmer of gold. The snow gleams cold and yellow on the evergreens, on the iron railings of the park, on the lawn where it is crossed and recrossed with a network of rabbits' footprints. Finally, as the sun masters the eastern vapours, and strikes with a wintry radiance on the crimson curtains inside the large windows (and they have on this morning a wanner light flickering upon them from within), Ormond Place, all white and gold, shines like a palace of dreams, raised high and clear over that s.p.a.cious English landscape that lies cold and beautiful along the n.o.blest of English rivers.

There was life and stir in Ormond Place this morning. The carriage-drive had been swept; the princ.i.p.al rooms in the house stripped of their chintz coverings; great fires lit; the children of the lodge dressed in their smartest pinafores; the servants in new liveries; harness, horses, carriages, and stables alike polished to the last degree. The big fires shone in the grates, and threw lengthening splashes of soft crimson on the thick carpets and up the palely-decorated walls. The sleeping palace had awoke, and the new rush of life tingled in its veins.

About twelve o'clock in the forenoon the carriage that had been sent to Corchester Station returned with two occupants inside. The children at the lodge, drawn up in line, bobbed a curtsey as they stared wonderingly at the carriage-window, where they saw nothing. A few minutes afterwards Annie Brunel, pale a little, and dressed entirely and simply in black, walked into her father's house between the servants, who were unconsciously trying to learn their future fate in the expression of her face. And if they did not read in that face a calm forbearance, a certain sad sympathy and patience, they had less penetration than servants generally have.

She entered one of the rooms-a great place with panelled pillars in the centre, and a vague vision of crystal and green leaves at the farther end-and sate down in one of the chairs near the blazing fire. It was not a moment of triumph-it was a moment of profound, unutterable sadness.

The greatness of the place, the strange faces around her, increased the weight of loneliness she felt. And then all the reminiscences of her mother's life were present to her, and she seemed to have established a new and strange link between herself and her. It seemed as if the great chasm of time and circ.u.mstance had been bridged over, and that in discovering her mother's house, and the old a.s.sociations of these bygone years, she should have discovered her also, and met the kindly face she once knew. If Annie Napier had walked into the room just then, and laid her hand on her daughter's shoulder, I do not think the girl would have been surprised.

"Was my mother ever in this house?" she asked of Mr. Cayley, not noticing that he was still standing with his hat in his hand.

"Doubtless. She was married in that little church we pa.s.sed."

"And instead of spending her life here in comfort and quiet, he let her go away to America, and work hard and bitterly for herself and me."

Mr. Cayley said nothing.

"Do you know anything of her life here? How long she stayed? What were her favourite rooms? Where she used to sit?"

"No, your ladyship; I only presume Lady Knottingley must have lived here for a little while before going to Switzerland. My father might be able to tell me."

"I am very anxious to see him,-he is the only person I am anxious to see. He knew my mother; perhaps he can tell me something about her life here and in Switzerland. She _may_ have left some things in the house-a book or a picture-that he might tell me was hers; don't you think so?"

Mr. Cayley, against his knowledge, was forced to admit that it _was_ possible, for he saw there were tears in the girl's eyes.

"Would you care to go through the house now?" he suggested. "Mrs.

Tillotson will go with you, and see what arrangements or alterations you want made. And about your future residence here--"

"I cannot stay here," she said; "the place is too big and too lonely. I could not bear to live alone in this great place."

"Your ladyship need not want for society. Both of the trustees, Lord Sefton and--"

"I will not see one of them!" she said, with flashing eyes. "I consented to see them, when you said it was necessary-but to meet them as friends! They knew my mother; they must have seen her and known her; and they never tried to help her. They were men; and they let a woman be treated like that!"

The bitter scorn of the words sounded so strangely as it came from the gentle face; but there was an indignant flush in her cheeks, and indignation in her eyes.

"My mother spent years of weary labour that she might never go amongst these people. With all her love for me, she thought it better that I, too, should work for my living, and run the chances of illness, rather than go amongst them; and am I to make friends with them now? Their condescension is great; but when a woman has lived the life that I have; she begins to mistrust people who want to be friends with you only when you become fortunate. And why do they want to be friends with me? They will take me into society?-I don't wish to go. They will offer me their wives and sisters as companions?-I prefer other companions. I would rather walk out of this house a beggar to-morrow morning, than pretend to be friends with people _whom I hate_!"

"Your ladyship is unjust," said Mr. Cayley. "These gentlemen tried to induce your mother to return to England, and accept that effort at compensation which Lord Knottingley made when it was too late. Nor could they show any interest in your welfare before now without revealing that secret which your mother had imposed on us all. As well blame me for not seeking you out before you came to our office. We all of us knew who you were; we were bound to let you make the first overtures yourself."

"Compensation? You imagine that a woman who had her heart broken should have accepted that tardy acknowledgment of her rights as a sufficient compensation?"

"It was all Lord Knottingley could then offer," said the lawyer, who stuck manfully to the clear outlines of the case as they lay mapped out in his brain, without regard to the distortion produced by the generous impulses of love, and pity, and indignation. These disturbant influences, in the present case, he could not well understand; for he failed to comprehend the powerful caste-hatred which the girl had sucked in with her mother's milk-a bitter and illogical prejudice, which neither the tenderness of her own nature, nor the provoked arguments of Will, nor the wise counsel and example of Mr. Anerley, had in any way tempered.

Shortly afterwards, they went on a tour of inspection through the house, accompanied by Mrs. Tillotson, a tall, thin-faced, dark woman, with placid melancholy eyes and a soft voice. The first question asked of the housekeeper by her new mistress was whether she remembered Lord Knottingley's wife. But neither Mrs. Tillotson, nor any one of the servants, had been with Lord Knottingley at that time.

"Except Brooks, my lady, perhaps; he has been with the family since he was a boy.

"Who is Brooks?"

"The lodge-keeper. Perhaps your ladyship didn't see him at the gate, for he is old, and seldom moves out-of-doors. But surely on such a day as this--"

"I saw some children--"

"They are his grandchildren-John Brooks's children. They all live in the lodge. But he is sure to present himself during the day; and I hope your ladyship won't be offended by his-his manner-his bluntness of speaking--"

When they had gone through the house, and the young girl had indicated what rooms she should occupy, they returned downstairs. There was an old man in the hall, his cap in his hand, his long white hair falling on the neck of his fine Sunday coat, which was considerably too small for him. He regarded Annie Brunel with a curious look, and said to her, as she approached-

"Pardon, my lady; I thought I'd come up and see as it were all true.

And true it is-true it is."

"That is Brooks," said Mrs. Tillotson.