"I wish he were coming at a little more reasonable hour in the day,"

said Mr. Greenwood with a smile. But Harris thought that the time of the day would do very well. It was the kind of thing which his lordship very often did, and Harris did not see any harm in it. This Harris said with his hand on the lock of the door, showing that he was not anxious for a prolonged conversation with the chaplain.

CHAPTER XIII.

LADY FRANCES SEES HER LOVER.

On the Monday in that week,--Monday, the 5th of January, on which day Hampstead had been hunting and meditating the attack which he subsequently made on Zachary Fay, in King's Court,--Mrs. Vincent had paid a somewhat unusually long visit in Paradise Row. As the visit was always made on Monday, neither had Clara Demijohn or Mrs. Duffer been very much surprised; but still it had been observed that the brougham had been left at the "d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh" for an hour beyond the usual time, and a few remarks were made. "She is so punctual about her time generally," Clara had said. But Mrs. Duffer remarked that as she had exceeded the hour usually devoted to her friend's company she had probably found it quite as well to stay another. "They don't make half-hours in any of those yards, you know," said Mrs. Duffer. And so the matter had been allowed to pa.s.s as having been sufficiently explained.

But there had in truth been more than that in Mrs. Vincent's prolonged visit to her cousin. There had been much to be discussed, and the discussion led to a proposition made that evening by Mrs.

Roden to her son by which the latter was much surprised. She was desirous of starting almost immediately for Italy, and was anxious that he should accompany her. If it were to be so he was quite alive to the expediency of going with her. "But what is it, mother?" he asked, when she had requested his attendance without giving the cause which rendered the journey necessary. Then she paused as though considering whether she would comply with his request, and tell him that whole secret of his life which she had hitherto concealed from him. "Of course, I will not press you," he said, "if you think that you cannot trust me."

"Oh, George, that is unkind."

"What else am I to say? Is it possible that I should start suddenly upon such a journey, or that I should see you doing so, without asking the reason why? Or can I suppose if you do not tell me, but that there is some reason why you should not trust me?"

"You know I trust you. No mother ever trusted a son more implicitly.

You ought to know that. It is not a matter of trusting. There may be secrets to which a person shall be so pledged that she cannot tell them to her dearest friend. If I had made a promise would you not have me keep it?"

"Promises such as that should not be exacted, and should not be made."

"But if they have been exacted and have been made? Do as I ask you now, and it is probable that everything will be clear to you before we return, or at any rate as clear to you as it is to me." After this, with a certain spirit of reticence which was peculiar with him, he made up his mind to do as his mother would have him without asking further questions. He set himself to work immediately to make the necessary arrangements for his journey with as much apparent satisfaction as though it were to be done on his own behalf. It was decided that they would start on the next Friday, travel through France and by the tunnel of the Mont Cenis to Turin, and thence on to Milan. Of what further there was to befall them he knew nothing at this period.

It was necessary in the first place that he should get leave of absence from Sir Boreas, as to which he professed himself to be in much doubt, because he had already enjoyed the usual leave of absence allowed by the rules of the office. But on this matter he found aeolus to be very complaisant. "What, Italy?" said Sir Boreas. "Very nice when you get there, I should say, but a bad time of year for travelling. Sudden business, eh?--To go with your mother! It is bad for a lady to go alone. How long? You don't know? Well! come back as soon as you can; that's all. You couldn't take Crocker with you, could you?" For at this time Crocker had already got into further trouble in regard to imperfections of handwriting. He had been promised absolution as to some complaint made against him on condition that he could read a page of his own ma.n.u.script. But he had altogether failed in the attempt. Roden didn't think that he could carry Crocker to Italy, but arranged his own affair without that impediment.

But there was another matter which must be arranged also. It was now six weeks since he had walked with Lord Hampstead half-way back from Holloway to Hendon, and had been desired by his friend not to visit Lady Frances while she was staying at Hendon Hall. The reader may remember that he had absolutely refused to make any promise, and that there had consequently been some sharp words spoken between the two friends. There might, he had then said, arise an occasion on which he should find it impossible not to endeavour to see the girl he loved.

But hitherto, though he had refused to submit himself to the demand made upon him, he had complied with its spirit. At this moment, as it seemed to him, a period had come in which it was essential to him that he should visit her. There had been no correspondence between them since those Konigsgraaf days in consequence of the resolutions which she herself had made. Now, as he often told himself, they were as completely separated as though each had determined never again to communicate with the other. Months had gone by since a word had pa.s.sed between them. He was a man, patient, retentive, and by nature capable of enduring such a trouble without loud complaint; but he did remember from day to day how near they were to each other, and he did not fail to remind himself that he could hardly expect to find constancy in her unless he took some means of proving to her that he was constant himself. Thinking of all this, he determined that he would do his best to see her before he started for Italy. Should he fail to be received at Hendon Hall then he would write. But he would go to the house and make his attempt.

On Thursday morning, the day on which Hampstead arrived at Trafford Park, he went down from London, and knocking at the door asked at once for Lady Frances. Lady Frances was at home and alone;--alone altogether, having no companion with her in the house during her brother's absence. The servant who opened the door, the same who had admitted poor Crocker and had understood how much his young mistress had been dismayed when the Post Office clerk had been announced, was unwilling at once to show this other Post Office clerk into the house, although he probably understood well the difference between the two comers. "I'll go and see," he said, leaving George Roden to sit or stand in the hall as he liked best. Then the man, with a sagacity which certainly did him credit, made a roundabout journey through the house, so that the lover stationed in the hall might not know that his mistress was to be reached merely by the opening of a single door. "A gentleman in the hall?" said Lady Frances.

"Mr. Roden, my lady," said the man.

"Show him in," said Lady Frances, allowing herself just a moment for consideration,--a moment so short that she trusted that no hesitation had been visible. And yet she had doubted much. She had been very clear in explaining to her brother that she had made no promise. She had never pledged herself to any one that she would deny herself to her lover should he come to see her. She would not admit to herself that even her brother, even her father, had a right to demand from her such a pledge. But she knew what were her brother's wishes on this matter, and what were the reasons for them. She knew also how much she owed to him. But she too had suffered from that long silence. She had considered that a lover whom she never saw, and from whom she never heard, was almost as bad as no lover at all. She had beaten her feathers against her cage, as she thought of this cruel separation. She had told herself of the short distance which separated Hendon from Holloway. She perhaps had reflected that had the man been as true to her as was she to him, he would not have allowed himself to be deterred by the injunctions either of father or brother. Now, at any rate, when her lover was at the door, she could not turn him away. It had all to be thought of, but it was thought of so quickly that the order for her lover's admittance was given almost without a pause which could have been felt. Then, in half a minute, her lover was in the room with her.

Need the chronicler of such scenes declare that they were in each other's arms before a word was spoken between them? The first word that was spoken came from her. "Oh, George, how long it has been!"

"It has been long to me."

"But at last you have come?"

"Did you expect me sooner? Had you not agreed with Hampstead and your father that I was not to come?"

"Never mind. You are here now. Poor papa, you know, is very ill.

Perhaps I may have to go down there. John is there now."

"Is he so ill as that?"

"John went last night. We do not quite know how ill he is. He does not write, and we doubt whether we get at the truth. I was very nearly going with him; and then, sir, you would not have seen me--at all."

"Another month, another six months, another year, would have made no difference in my a.s.surance of your truth to me."

"That is a very pretty speech for you to make."

"Nor I think in yours for me."

"I am bound, of course, to be just as pretty as you are. But why have you come now? You shouldn't have come when John had left me all alone."

"I did not know that you were here alone."

"Or you would not have come, perhaps? But you should not have come.

Why did you not ask before you came?"

"Because I should have been refused. It would have been refused; would it not?"

"Certainly it would."

"But as I wish to see you specially--"

"Why specially? I have wanted to see you always. Every day has been a special want. It should have been so with you also had you been as true as I am. There should have been no special times."

"But I am going--"

"Going! Where are you going? Not for always! You are leaving Holloway, you mean, or the Post Office." Then he explained to her that as far as he knew the journey would not be for long. He was not leaving his office, but had permission to absent himself for a time, so that he might travel with his mother as far as Milan. "Nay," said he, laughing, "why I am to do so I do not in the least know. My mother has some great Italian mystery of which she has never yet revealed to me any of the circ.u.mstances. All I know is that I was born in Italy."

"You an Italian?"

"I did not say that. There is an old saying that you need not be a horse because you were born in a stable. Nor do I quite know that I was born in Italy, though I feel sure of it. Of my father I have never known anything,--except that he was certainly a bad husband to my mother. There are circ.u.mstances which do make me almost sure that I was born in Italy; but as my mother has been unwilling to talk to me of my earliest days, I have never chosen to ask her. Now I shall perhaps know it all."

Of what else pa.s.sed between them the reader need learn no details.

To her the day was one of exceeding joy. A lover in China, or waging wars in Zululand or elsewhere among the distant regions, is a misfortune. A lover ought to be at hand, ready at the moment, to be kissed or scolded, to wait upon you, or, so much sweeter still, to be waited upon, just as the occasion may serve. But the lover in China is better than one in the next street or the next parish,--or only a few miles off by railway,--whom you may not see. The heart recognizes the necessity occasioned by distance with a sweet softness of tender regrets, but is hardened by mutiny, or crushed by despair in reference to stern parents or unsuitable pecuniary circ.u.mstances.

Lady Frances had been enduring the sternness of parents, and had been unhappy. Now there had come a break. She had seen what he was like, and had heard his voice, and been rea.s.sured by his vows, and had enjoyed the longed-for opportunity of repeating her own. "Nothing, nothing, nothing can change me!" How was he to be sure of that while she had no opportunity of telling him that it was so? "No time;--nothing that papa can say, nothing that John can do, will have any effect. As to Lady Kingsbury, of course you know that she has thrown me off altogether." It was nothing to him, he said, who might have thrown her off. Having her promise, he could bide his time. Not but that he was impatient; but that he knew that when so much was to be given to him at last, it behoved him to endure all things rather than to be faint of heart. And so they parted.

She, however, in spite of her joy, had a troubled spirit when he was gone. She had declared to her brother that she was bound by no promise as to seeing or not seeing her lover, but yet she was aware how much she owed to him, and that, though she had not promised, he had made a promise on her behalf, to her father. But for that promise she would never have been allowed to be at Hendon Hall. His brother had made all his arrangements so as to provide for her a home in which she might be free from the annoyances inflicted upon her by her stepmother; but had done so almost with a provision that she should not see George Roden. She certainly had done nothing herself to infringe that stipulation; but George Roden had come, and she had seen him. She might have refused him admittance, no doubt; but then again she thought that it would have been impossible to do so.

How could she have told the man to deny her, thus professing her indifference for him in regard to whom she had so often declared that she was anxious that all the world should know that they were engaged to marry each other? It would have been impossible for her not to see him; and yet she felt that she had been treacherous to her brother, to whom she owed so much!

One thing seemed to her to be absolutely necessary. She must write at once and tell him what had occurred. Thinking of this she sat down and wrote so that she might despatch her letter by that post;--and what she wrote is here given.

MY DEAR JOHN--

I shall be so anxious to get news from Trafford, and to hear how you found papa. I cannot but think that were he very ill somebody would have let us know the truth. Though Mr. Greenwood is cross-grained and impertinent, he would hardly have kept us in the dark.

Now I have a piece of news to tell you which I hope will not make you very angry. It was not my doing, and I do not know how I could have helped it. Your friend, George Roden, called to-day and asked to see me. Of course I could have refused. He was in the hall when Richard announced him, and I suppose I could have sent out word to say that I was not at home. But I think you will feel that that was in truth impossible. How is one to tell a lie to a man when one feels towards him as I do about George? Or how could I even let the servants think that I would treat him so badly? Of course every one knows about it. I want every one to know about it, so that it may be understood that I am not in the least ashamed of what I mean to do.

And when you hear why he came I do not think that you can be angry even with him. He has been called upon, for some reason, to go at once with his mother to Italy. They start for Milan to-morrow, and he does not at all know when he may return. He had to get leave at the Post Office, but that Sir Boreas whom he talks about seems to have been very good-natured about giving it. He asked him whether he would not take Mr. Crocker with him to Italy; but that of course was a joke. I suppose they do not like Mr. Crocker at the Post Office any better than you do. Why Mrs. Roden should have to go he does not understand. All he knows is that there is some Italian secret which he will hear all about before he comes home.