But now she is thinking on the fete of six years ago--of the urgent alacrity with which her cousin and his beautiful intended had then volunteered their protection and support, and their subsequent neglect and abandonment. Might not this incident be a type of what she had to expect, under her present circ.u.mstances?

She did not even, in this mood of dark imagining to which she had yielded herself, carry her thoughts beyond the point of her discomfiture on that occasion, or she might perhaps have had some dream a.n.a.logous to the sequel, conjured up to brighten the gloom of her present antic.i.p.ations.

But dreams of any nature came not just then to her relief. She had never felt so wide awake to dull reality, unrelieved but by the meek philosophy with which she determined to make the best of everything relating to her present position, cheerfully and contentedly to submit herself to existing circ.u.mstances, keeping ever in view for her comfort the expected return of her much-loved brother from Canada, when whatever turn their fortunes might have taken, "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer," so that brother wrote, the cherished picture of their early youth, might still be realized, and a home provided for his favourite sister, which at least would make her independent of the cold and heartless people of the world, till she found or desired a dearer or a better.

"Two things are left me for my destiny: A world to rove o'er, and a home with thee."

Mary Seaham had just arrived at this point of her meditations, when her maid returned to say that Mr. de Burgh was in the house dressing for dinner, and to inquire whether her young lady would not do the same.

Mrs. de Burgh had not come home, but it was already past the usual dinner hour.

Miss Seaham proceeded accordingly to make the simple toilette she thought suited to the occasion, for she learnt from her maid that there was no company staying in the house, and then she determined to go down stairs, to have at least her interview over with her cousin Louis, whilst awaiting the arrival of her tardy hostess.

CHAPTER VI.

Alas! when angry words begin Their entrance on the lip to win; When sullen eye and flushing cheek Say more than bitterest tone could speak, And look and word, than fire or steel, Give wounds more deep--time cannot heal; And anger digs, with tauntings vain, A gulf it may not pa.s.s again.

L. E. L.

Two little children--a fine girl of four and a delicate boy of three--were pa.s.sing from the drawing-room, through the vestibule on their way to bed followed by a nurse. Mary Seaham would have stopped to make the acquaintance of her little cousins, but too eager in their amus.e.m.e.nt, the noisy chase of one another through the long _suite_ of rooms, they, like Jaques's careless herd, "jump along by her and never stay to greet her," in spite of the chiding injunctions of their attendant, to wait and speak to the young lady. And Mary walked on into the adjoining saloon.

There she found Mr. de Burgh standing alone, his elbow resting on the marble mantelpiece of the fireless grate, his eyes gazing fixedly through the opposite window.

He did not hear her noiseless approach over the velvet carpet; and she had time at the same moment that she recognized the unchanged, almost feminine beauty, of her cousin's handsome features, to remark no very promising expression, namely, one of dissatisfaction and annoyance, to be now seated on his countenance. It, however, brightened instantaneously, when he became aware of Mary's presence; and with the most affectionate cordiality, he advanced to meet and welcome her to his house. Then seating her on an ottoman by his side, he made anxious inquiries as to her journey and the wedding of her sister, slightly touching upon other family matters, in which, as guardian and trustee to his young cousins, he was concerned. And thus, for awhile, his attention and thoughts seemed diverted from any previous cause of discontent. But his powers of interest or politeness seemed at length exhausted. He became evidently restless and fidgetty, cast sundry impatient, or as Mary was more likely to interpret them, anxious glances towards the window which commanded the same view across the park as she had been lately contemplating, and finally rising from his seat, resumed his former station near the chimney-piece, to watch, as Mary concluded, for the arrival of his truant lady.

Mr. de Burgh had only alluded to his wife's absence during their conversation, by casually mentioning her not having returned from her drive; but Mary Seaham, after noticing with rising sympathy and compa.s.sion, the increasing perturbation of her cousin's countenance, and naturally attributing its origin to the tender solicitation of an adoring husband, ventured, after a few minute's silence, in which Mr. de Burgh had been too much absorbed in his own feelings for common discourse, to express in her gentle voice, the hope, that he was not uneasy at her cousin Olivia's remaining out so late.

"Uneasy? Oh no!" Mr. de Burgh exclaimed, aroused by the question, and turning to the speaker with a careless laugh, "Oh, no, not in the least uneasy! I suppose I shall have the pleasure of seeing her back between this and bed-time. Oh no! My present cause of uneasiness is merely at the thought that the dinner--for which about an hour ago I had considerable appet.i.te--must be, by this time, fit only for the dogs to eat: and, also, that you"--he added, softening his voice of irony into one of kind concern, observing probably, that his cousin looked pale, grave, and exhausted, "that you, after your long journey, must be quite faint for want of nourishment; but it is just like her," he continued, in soliloquy, hastily walking to the window, "selfish, inconsiderate, careless of everybody, everything, but her own pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt.

But at all events," he added, "we'll have dinner, such as it is," and approaching the bell, he rang it impatiently, and desired that the dinner should be immediately served.

If Mary Seaham had looked pale and serious before, she was ten times more so after what she had heard. This outbreak of her cousin took her so by surprise. The bitter words he had spoken with regard to his wife, were in such direct unconformity, not only with anything she had been accustomed to hear from one relative towards another, but, also, with the picture her imagination had previously formed of the mutual happiness and affection of the married pair with whom she had come to sojourn. She looked back to the devoted lovers in their wanderings through the flowery paths of courtship, devotion she had believed to be but a faint fore-shadowing of the full-crowned sacred bliss, the well-tried love, of a six years' union, such as she had expected it would be now her lot to witness. But those disdainful expressions, this disparaging declamation, came like an icy wreath upon her warm imaginings.

"Selfish!" "Inconsiderate!" Could her cousin's beautiful wife really merit such a character? Or was the accusation merely the casual effusion of a hungry husband's fretful humour. If this were not the case, it spoke indeed little for her own chance of comfort as that lady's guest.

Still she was far less affected by any selfish interested consideration, than by the shock her inherent principles and preconceived ideas upon the subject had received.

Louis de Burgh remained too much engaged with his own inward dissatisfaction, for any further conversation; consequently, no more words were spoken till dinner was announced, and then her cousin's arm, with something of revived cheerfulness, was offered to her, and they proceeded to the dining-room.

They were seated _tete-a-tete_ at the table, and had not proceeded half way through the meal, which was far from justifying Mr. de Burgh's unpromising prognostications, when the sound of carriage wheels was heard, and a loud peal at the door bell denoted the expected arrival.

Mr. de Burgh made no demonstration of interest or excitement, but continued the occupation in which he was now pleasantly engaged in uninterrupted indifference. Mary, on the contrary, felt no slight degree of nervous trepidation, and laying down her knife and fork, awaited in anxious suspense the entrance of her other cousin.

In less than an instant, Mrs. de Burgh, in carriage costume, made her appearance followed by a gentleman.

"Well, here we are at last," she exclaimed, rushing in with careless abruptness, "and Mary arrived, I declare!" she added, with immediate change of tone, "well, I _am_ shocked! I really had imagined that you could not be here till nightfall. But welcome a thousand times!" she continued, advancing with extended hands, and embracing her with an affectionate warmth which almost brought tears into Mary's eyes.

"The fact is," she continued after a few other inquiries, and having thrown her bonnet aside, and put back the ringlets from her face--flushed and heated to a very brilliant hue by the exertions of a hurried drive--she seated herself to partake of the dinner reproduced for herself and her companion. "The fact is, I have really been engaged in your service, for feeling sure you would be horrified to come out of the wilds of Wales, to find us here in as stupid and uncivilized a state of reclusiveness as any of the natives of Kamschatka--though, for what I know," she parenthesized with a laugh, "_they_ may have much more society of their kind--feeling sure, however, of the dullness of this place, I determined to drive my ponies as far as Morland, and see if I could beat up a few recruits from the party a.s.sembled there, for your enlivenment."

Mary smiled and blushed, hardly knowing how to answer this speech.

"_I_ am a person," continued Mrs. de Burgh, "who _can_ exert myself a little for the sake of my friends--who _am_ willing to take some slight trouble, unconnected with my own tastes and inclinations; to consider that a young lady _may_ possibly require a little more amus.e.m.e.nt than seeing trees cut down--a little more society than a man, his wife and two children."

Mary remarked the flashing eyes of Mrs. de Burgh directed towards her husband, as she made this latter speech with much of marked significance in her look and tone; and with the very contradictory charges brought against the absent wife by Mr. de Burgh fresh in her memory, she would, if she had deemed it smiling matter, have been inclined to smile to see the table thus turned upon him.

Perhaps her cousin was not himself quite unimpressed or unconvicted in his conscience by the unconscious retort, for colouring slightly, and for the first time directly addressing his wife since her entrance, though he had entered into some conversation with the gentleman by his side, he said with a not ill-natured, though somewhat provoking laugh, which nevertheless displayed to great advantage his set of ivory teeth.

"Well, Olivia, pray, the next time let your _unselfish consideration_,"

with a stress on the latter words, "be a little more considerately timed. To keep a tired guest waiting for her dinner till nearly nine o'clock--for you knew as well as I did, that she was sure to arrive before seven--whilst you are scouring the country in search of people to say pretty things to her on the morrow, is a specimen of attentive consideration, which at least was not dreamt of before in my philosophy."

"No of course not," was the contemptuous reply, "though perhaps Mary Seaham may see the circ.u.mstance in a different light, supposing that dinner, as she is a reasonable being, is not quite so important and paramount a point in her existence as in yours. But why you waited for me I cannot tell. You are not usually so painfully polite. I suppose you wanted to show off to the utmost, the great inconsideration which marks my conduct towards yourself and others, and the excessive consideration of your own."

How distressing and astounding all this was to Mary's feelings may be imagined, more especially from being herself made so prominent an object in the debate.

In the first agitation of the meeting, what with the grateful and gratified surprise which the unexpected warmth of her reception had inspired, and subsequently her attention and interest being so much absorbed by her newly arrived cousin, on whose unchanged beauty she could not refrain from dwelling in unfeigned admiration--her opposite neighbour who sat with his back to the now declining light had almost entirely escaped her notice; but now, as with downcast eyes and flushing cheeks, she sat listening in painful embarra.s.sment to this conjugal _tirade_, it occurred to her to lift a timid glance to discern how her fellow-sufferer bore the infliction to which they were mutually exposed.

She raised her eyes, therefore, and having done so, that very timid glance was rivetted, and became gradually changed into a gaze of earnest, calm surprise, for as she gazed the indistinctness of the vision seemed to clear away, and the face of him whose kindness had been once so strongly impressed upon her girlish fancy to be revealed to her astonished sight.

The same dark eyes fixed with interest upon her changeful countenance, that very same peculiar smile which he had turned towards her, when they were left standing alone together on the occasion of her second _cavalier_ abandonment, by the self-absorbed lovers--seemed to mark his observation of the discomfiture which the startling contrast now exhibited had caused her. A smile--such as moves one to look again, and observe with curious interest the countenance from whence it emanates--in much the same way as one would look upon a book of strange characters, whose mystic language we feel certain could we but read it aright, would unto us a tale unfold of more than common import.

But, setting aside the interest which this unexpected recognition inspired--the encouragement that smile, as on the former occasion just mentioned, tended to convey--Mary Seaham felt--considering the many secret thoughts and feelings which in her idle moments she had once wasted on this--the almost, it might be said, ideal hero of her imagination--wonderfully little affected by the fact of his real substantial embodiment--not more so perhaps, than one might be who awakens from a series of fanciful dreams to see the object who has played therein the most fantastic and highly coloured part, standing, divested of all supernatural and exaggerated characteristics, before his eyes; and with a smile, almost as quiet and confiding as the one with which she had yielded herself to his guidance six years before in the grounds of Morland, she had acknowledged the recognition, ere Mrs. de Burgh, after an angry pause and a killing glance across the table--provoked by her husband's mortifying contradiction of her a.s.sertion respecting the knowledge she had entertained of the hour of her guest's arrival (a glance which was probably intended to convey to his conviction how extremely odious an individual she deemed him)--recovered sufficiently to proceed with her relation in the same lively strain.

"I was not very successful," she continued. "Of course, every body is in London; however, I have the promise of a reinforcement in a day or two.

In the meantime, determined not to return empty-handed, I pressed this gentleman--whom I found just about to start homewards--into my service, and brought him--I cannot say a willing captive--chained to my triumphant car. Nay, I am glad you are beginning to be ashamed of your conduct," she added, as the accused party, looking at Mary, attempted a smiling refutation of the charge.

"Ah, yes, we will imagine what you would bring forth as your excuse--that you did not expect _such_ a young lady, for you know I told you there _was_ a young lady in the case, that you cannot deny. Well, Mary and I will forgive you, now you are here, if you will only stay, and withal--make yourself extremely agreeable--but, bye the bye, I ought to introduce you to one another--how very forgetful of me! Miss Mary Seaham or rather Miss Seaham now, I believe I should say--Eugene Trevor."

And Mary Seaham and Eugene Trevor exchanged another smile, as they slightly bent their heads in acknowledgement of the ceremony, but both at the same time murmuring their declaration of a previous acquaintance.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. de Burgh, with some surprise, "when and where could you have possibly met?"

"You forget the fete at Morland, when you so cruelly abandoned Miss Seaham to her fate, whilst you and Louis," with a little covered malice in his tone, "went love-making."

"Ah! to be sure, I do remember something of the kind," rejoined Mrs. de Burgh, "that is to say, of you two being together, but that is so very long ago," she added, in a tone of marked carelessness, and glancing at her husband.

"Not quite six years," said Mary.

"_Only_ six years!" interposed Mr. de Burgh, blandly, "I should have imagined it sixteen."

"And I too," rejoined the wife colouring; "but at any rate," she continued, with affected carelessness, "it has been quite long enough to have almost effaced from my mind the impression--almost the recollection of things then existing--you two it seems," glancing from Mary to Mr.

Trevor, "have better memories."

Mr. de Burgh retorted with a beautiful smile; that the tablets of their memories had happily been kept apart during that interregnum, that there was nothing like six years of close contact for rubbing out old impressions.

"And then in that s.p.a.ce of time," he added, probably with more secret meaning than the not very original remark expressed, "and then in six years, a great deal of change may have taken place."