"_All_ my prospects! My dear Monk, do you think they don't go beyond a brougham, and unlimited staircases?"

"I only know," cried John, nettled into being a little off his guard, "that what you despise would be all the world to me!"

The admission was hailed triumphantly, but the Kencroft nature was too resolute, and the individual conscience too generous, to be brought round to accept the sacrifice, which John estimated at the value of the importance it was to himself, viewing what was real in Lucas's distaste, as mere erratic folly, which ought to be argued down. Finally, when the argument had gone round into at least its fiftieth circle, Mother Carey declared that she would have no more of it. Lucas should write a note to Dr. Ruthven, accepting his proposal for one or other of them, and promising that he should know which, in the course of a few days; so that John, if he chose, could write to his father or _anyone_ else.

Meantime there was to be no allusion to "the raid of Ruthven" till the day of the review was over. It was to be put entirely off the tongue, if not out of the head!

And the two young doctors were weary enough of the subject to rejoice in obedience to her.

The day was perfect except that poor Allen was pinned fast by his tyrant, all the others gave themselves up to the enjoyment of the moment. They understood the sham fight, and recognised all the corps, with Jock as their cicerone, they had a good place at the marching past, and Esther had the crowning delight of an excellent view of Captain Viscount Fordham with his company, and at the luncheon. Jock received an absolutely affectionate welcome from his old friends, who made as much of his mother and sister for his sake, as they did of the lovely Lady Fordham for her husband's, finding them, moreover, much more easy to get on with.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX. -- THE TRUANT.

The bird was sitting in his cage And heard what he did say; He jumped upon the window sill, "'Tis time I was away."

Ballad.

"There is a young lady in the drawing-room, ma'am," said the maid, looking rather puzzled and uncertain, on the return of the party from the review.

"A stranger? How could you let her in?" said John.

At that moment a face appeared at the top of the stairs, a face set in the rich golden auburn that all knew so well, and half way up, Mrs.

Brownlow was clasped by a pair of arms, and there was a cry, "Mother Carey, Mother Carey, I'm come home!"

"Elvira! my dear child! When--how did you come?"

"From the station, in a cab. I made her let me in, but I thought you were never coming back. Where's Allen?"

"Allen will come in by-and-by," said the astonished Mother Carey, who had been dragged into the drawing-room, where Elvira embraced Babie, and grasped the hands of the others.

"Oh, it is so nice," she cried, then nestling back to Mother Carey.

"But where did you come from? Are you alone?"

"Yes, quite alone, Janet would not come with me after all."

"Janet, my dear! Where is she?"

"Oh, not here--at Saratoga, or at New York. I thought she was coming with me, but when the steamer sailed she was not there, only there was a note pinned to my berth. I meant to have brought it, but it got lost somehow."

"Where did you see her?"

"At the photographer's at Saratoga. I should never have come if she had not helped me, but she said she knew you would take me home, and she wrote and took my pa.s.sage and all. She said if I did not find you, Mr.

Wakefield would know where you were, but I did so want to get home to you! Please, may I take off my things; I don't want to be such a fright when Allen comes in."

It was all very mysterious, but Elvira must be much altered indeed if her narrative did not come out in an utterly complicated and detached manner. She was altered certainly, for she clung most affectionately to Mother Carey and Barbara, when they took her upstairs. She had a little travelling-bag with her; the rest of her luggage would be sent from the station, she supposed, for she had taken no heed to it. She did so want to get home.

"I did feel so hungry for you, Mother Carey. Mother, Janet said you would forgive me, and I thought if you were ever so angry, it would be true, and that would be nicer than Lisette, and, indeed, it was not so much my doing as Lisette's."

Whatever "it" was, Mother Carey had no hesitation in replying that she had no doubt it was Lisette's fault.

"You see," continued Elvira, "I never meant anything but to plague Allen a little at first. You know he had always been so tiresome and jealous, and always teased me when I wanted any fun--at least I thought so, and I did want to have my swing before he called me engaged to him again. I told Jock so, but then Lisette and Lady Flora, and old Lady Clanmacnalty went on telling me that you knew the money was mine all the time, and that it was only an accident that it came out before I was married."

"Oh, Elvira, you could not have thought anything so wicked," cried Babie.

"They all went on so, and made so sure," said Elvira, hanging her head, "and I never did know the real way the will was found till Janet told me. Babie, if you had heard Lady Clanmacnalty clear her throat when people talked about the will being found, you would have believed she knew better than anyone."

So it was. The girl, weak in character, and far from sensible, full of self-importance, and puffed up with her inheritance, had been easily blinded and involved in the web that the artful Lisette had managed to draw round her. She had been totally alienated from her old friends, and by force of reiteration had been brought to think them guilty of defrauding her. In truth, she was kept in a whirl of gaiety and amus.e.m.e.nt, with little power of realizing her situation, till the breach had grown too wide for the feeble will of a helpless being like her to cross it. Though she had flirted extensively, she had never felt capable of accepting any one of her suitors, and in these refusals she had been a.s.sisted by Lisette, who wanted to secure her for her brother, but thanks to warnings from Mr. Wakefield, and her husband's sense of duty, durst not do so before she was of age.

Elvira's one wish had been to visit San Ildefonso again. She had a strong yearning towards the lovely island home which she gilded in recollection with all the trails of glory that shine round the objects of our childish affections. Lisette always promised to take her, but found excuses for delay in the refitting of the yacht, while she kept the party wandering over Europe in the resorts of second-rate English residents. No doubt she wished to make the most of the enjoyments she could obtain, as Elvira's chaperon and guardian, before resigning her even to her brother. At last the gambling habits into which her husband fell, for lack, poor man, of any other employment, had alarmed her, and she permitted her party to embark in the yacht where Gilbert Gould acted as captain.

They reached the island. It had become a coaling station. The bay where she remembered exquisite groves coming down to the white beach, was a wharf, ringing with the discordant shouts of negroes and cries of sailors. The old nurse was dead, and fict.i.tious foster brothers and sisters were constantly turning up with extravagant claims.

"Oh, I longed never to have come," said Elvira; "and then I began to get homesick, but they would not let me come!"

No doubt Lisette had feared the revival of the Brownlow influence if her charge were once in England, for she had raised every obstacle to a return. Poor Gould and his niece had both looked forward to Elvira's coming of age as necessarily bringing them to England, but her uncle's health had suffered from the dissipation he had found his only resource.

Liquor had become his consolation in the life to which he was condemned, and in the hotel life of America was only too easily attainable.

His death deprived Elvira of the last barrier to the attempts of an unscrupulous woman, who was determined not to let her escape. Elvira's longing to return home made her spread her toils closer. She kept her moving from one fashionable resort to another, still attended by Gilbert, who was beginning to grow impatient to secure his prize.

"How I hated it," said Elvira. "I knew she was false and cruel by that time, but it was just like being in a trap between them. I loathed them more and more, but I couldn't get away."

Nurtured as she had been, she was helpless and ignorant about the commonest affairs of life, and the sight of American independence never inspired her with the idea of breaking the bondage in which she was spellbound. Still, she shrank back with instinctive horror from every advance of Gilbert's, and at last, to pique her, Lisette brought forward the intelligence that Allen Brownlow was married.

The effect must have surprised them, for Elvira turned on her aunt in one of those fits of pa.s.sion which sometimes seized her, accused her vehemently of having poisoned the happiness of her life, and taken her from the only man she could ever love. She said and threatened all sorts of desperate things; and then the poor child, exhausted by her own violence, collapsed, and let herself be cowed and terrified in her turn by her aunt's vulgar sneers and cold determination.

Yet still she held out against the marriage. "I told them it would be wicked," she said. "And when I went to Church, all the Psalms and everything said it would be wicked. Then Lisette said it was wicked to love a married man, and I said I didn't know, I couldn't help it, but it would be more wicked to vow I would love a man whom I hated, and should hate more every day of my life. Then they said I might have a civil marriage, and not vow anything at all, and I told them that would seem to me no better than not being married at all. Oh! I was very very miserable!"

"Had you no one to consult or help you, my poor child?"

"They watched me so, and whenever I was making friends with any nice American girl, they always rattled me off somewhere else. I never did understand before what people meant when they talked about G.o.d being their only Friend, but I knew it then, for I had none at all, none else.

And I did not think He would help me, for now I knew I had been hard, and horrid and nasty, and cruel to you and Allen, the only people who ever cared for me for myself, and not for my horrid, horrid money, though I was the nastiest little wretch. Oh! Mother Carey, I did know it then, and I got quite sick with longing for one honest kiss--or even one honest scolding of yours. I used to cry all Church-time, and they used to try not to let me go--and I felt just like the children of Israel in Egypt, as if I had got into heavy bondage, and the land of captivity.

O do speak, and let me hear your voice once more! Your arm is so comfortable."

Still it seemed that Elvira had resisted till another attempt was made.

While she was at a boarding-house on the Hudson a large picnic party was arranged, in which, after American fashion, gentlemen took ladies "to ride" in their traps to and from the place of rendezvous. In returning, of course it had been as easy as possible for her chaperon to contrive that she should be left alone with no cavalier but Gilbert Gould, and he of course pretended to lose his way, drove on till night-fall, and then judgmatically met with an accident, which hurt n.o.body; but which he declared made the carriage incapable of proceeding.

After walking what Elvira fancied half the night, shelter was found in a hospitable farmhouse, where the people were wakened with difficulty.

They took care of the benighted wanderers, and the farmer drove them back to the hotel the next morning in his own waggon. They were received by Mrs. Gould with great demonstrations both of affection, pity and dismay, and she declared that the affair had been so shocking and compromising that it was impossible to stay where they were. She made Elvira take her meals in her room rather than face the boarding-house company, paid the bills (all of course with Elvira's money) and carried her off to the Saratoga Springs, having taken good care not to allow her a minute's conversation with anyone who would have told her that the freedom of American manners would make an adventure like hers be thought of no consequence at all.

The poor girl herself was a.s.sured by Mrs. Gould that this "unhappy escapade" left her no alternative but a marriage with Gilbert. She would otherwise never be able to show her face again, for even if the affair were hushed up, reports would fly, and Mrs. Lisette took care they should fly, by ominous shakes of the head, and whispered confidences such as made the steadier portion of the Saratoga community avoid her, and brought her insolent attention from fast young men. It was this, and a cold "What can you expect?'" from Lisette that finally broke down her defences, and made her permit the Goulds to make known that she was engaged to Gilbert.

Had they seized their prey at that moment of shame and despair, they would have secured it, but their vanity or their self-esteem made them wish to wash off the mire they had cast, or to conceal it by such magnificence at the wedding as should outdo Fifth Avenue. The English heiress must have a wedding-dress that would figure in the papers, and, even in the States, be fabulously splendid. It must come from Paris, and it must be waited for. All the bridesmaids were to have splendid pearl lockets containing coloured miniature photograph portraits of the beautiful bride, who for her part was utterly broken-hearted. "I thought G.o.d had forgotten me, because I deserved it; and I only hoped I might die, for I knew what the sailors said of Gilbert."

Listless and indifferent, she let her tyrants do what they would with her, and it was in Gilbert's company that she first saw Janet at the photographer's. Fortunately he had never seen Miss Brownlow, and Elvira had grown much too cautious to betray recognition; but the vigilance had been relaxed since the avowal of the engagement, and the colouring of the photographs from the life, was a process so wearisome, that no one cared to attend the sitter, and Elvira could go and come, alone and unquestioned.