"O, Geraldine, my poor Geraldine, let me go to her!" cried Lady Laura, disengaging herself from her husband's arms and rushing upstairs. Mr.

Armstrong hurried after her.

"Laura, my sweet girl, don't agitate yourself; consider yourself," he cried, and followed, with Lady Louisa sobbing and wailing behind him.

Geraldine had not left her room yet. The ill news was to find her on the threshold, calm and lovely in the splendour of her bridal dress.

CHAPTER XVII.

"'TIS DEEPEST WINTER IN LORD TIMOR'S PURSE."

Before nightfall--before the evening which was to have been enlivened by a dinner-party and a carpet-dance, and while bride and bridegroom should have been speeding southwards to that n.o.ble Kentish mansion which his uncle had lent George Fairfax--before the rooks flew homeward across the woods beyond Hale--there had been a general flight from the Castle. People were anxious to leave the mourners alone with their grief, and even the most intimate felt more or less in the way, though Mr. Armstrong entreated that there might be no hurry, no inconvenience for any one.

"Poor Laura won't be fit to be seen for a day or two," he said, "and of course I shall have to go up to town for the funeral; but that need make no difference. Hale is large enough for every one, and it will be a comfort to her by-and-by to find her friends round her."

Through all that dreary day Lady Laura wandered about her morning-room, alternately sobbing and talking of her father to those chosen friends with whom she held little interviews.

Her sisters Louisa and Emily were with her for the greater part of the time, echoing her lamentations like a feeble chorus. Geraldine kept her room, and would see no one--not even him who was to have been her bridegroom, and who might have supposed that he had the chiefest right to console her in this sudden affliction.

Clarissa spent more than an hour with Lady Laura, listening with a tender interest to her praises of the departed. It seemed as if no elderly n.o.bleman--more or less impecunious for the last twenty years of his life--had ever supported such a load of virtues as Lord Calderwood had carried with him to the grave. To praise him inordinately was the only consolation his three daughters could find in the first fervour of their grief. Time was when they had been apt to confess to one another that papa was occasionally rather "trying," a vague expression which scarcely involved a lapse of filial duty on the part of the grumbler. But to hear them to-day one would have supposed that they had never been tried; that life with Lord Calderwood in a small house in Chapel-street, Mayfair, had been altogether a halcyon existence.

Clarissa listened reverently, believing implicitly in the merits of the newly lost, and did her best to console her kind friend during the hour Mr.

Armstrong allowed her to spend with Lady Laura. At the end of that time he came and solemnly fetched her away, after a pathetic farewell.

"You must come to me again, Clary, and very, very soon," said my lady, embracing her. "I only wish Fred would let you stay with me now. You would be a great comfort."

"My dearest Lady Laura, it is better not. You have your sisters."

"Yes, they are very good; but I wanted you to stay, Clary. I had such plans for you. O, by the bye, the Grangers will be going back to-day, I suppose. Why should they not take you with them in their great travelling carriage?--Frederick, will you arrange for the Grangers to take Clarissa home?" cried Lady Laura to her husband, who was hovering near the door.

In the midst of her grief my lady brightened a little; with the idea of managing something, even so small a matter as this.

"Of course, my dear," replied the affectionate Fred. "Granger shall take Miss Lovel home. And now I must positively hurry her away; all this talk and excitement is so bad for you."

"I must see the Fermors before they go. You'll let me see the Fermors, Fred?"

"Well, well, I'll bring them just to say good-bye--that's all--Come along, Miss Lovel."

Clarissa followed him through the corridor.

"O, if you please, Mr. Armstrong," she said, "I did not like to worry Lady Laura, but I would so much rather go home alone in a fly."

"Nonsense! the Grangers can take you. You could have Laura's brougham, of course; but if she wants you to go with the Grangers, you must go. Her word is law; and she's sure to ask me about it by-and-by. She's a wonderful woman; thinks of everything."

They met Mr. and Miss Granger presently, dressed for the journey.

"O, if you please, Granger, I want you to take Miss Lovel home in your carriage. You've plenty of 'room, I know."

Sophia looked as if she would have liked to say that there was no room, but her father's face quite flushed with pleasure.

"I shall be only too happy," he said, "if Miss Lovel will trust herself to our care."

"And perhaps you'll explain to her father what has happened, and how sorry we are to lose her, and so on."

"Certainly, my dear Armstrong. I shall make a point of seeing Mr. Lovel in order to do so."

So Clarissa had a seat in Mr. Granger's luxurious carriage, the proprietor whereof sat opposite to her, admiring the pale patrician face, and wondering a little what that charm was which made it seem to him more beautiful than any other countenance he had ever looked upon. They did not talk much, Mr. Granger only making a few stereotyped remarks about the uncertainties of this life, or occasionally pointing out some feature of the landscape to Clarissa. The horses went at a splendid pace Their owner would have preferred a slower transit.

"Remember, Miss Lovel," he said, as they approached the village of Arden, "you have promised to come and see us."

"You are very good; but I go out so little, and papa is always averse to my visiting."

"But he can't be that any more after allowing you to stay at the Castle, or he will offend commoner folks, like Sophy and me, by his exclusiveness.

Besides, he told me he wished Sophy and you to be good friends. I am sure he will let you come to us. When shall it be? Shall we say to-morrow, before luncheon--at twelve or one, say? I will show you what I've done for the house in the morning, and Sophy can take you over her schools and cottages in the afternoon."

Sophia Granger made no attempt to second this proposition; but her father was so eager and decisive, that it seemed quite impossible for Clarissa to say no.

"If papa will let me come," she said doubtfully.

"O, I'm quite sure he will not refuse, after what he was good enough to say to me," replied Mr. Granger; "and if he does not feel equal to going about with us in the morning, I hope we shall be able to persuade him to come to dinner."

They were at the little rustic gate before Mill Cottage by this time. How small the place looked after Hale Castle! but not without a prettiness of its own. The virginia creeper was reddening on the wall; the cas.e.m.e.nt windows open to the air and sunshine. Ponto ran out directly the gate was opened--first to bark at the carriage, and then to leap joyously about Clarissa, overpowering her with a fond canine welcome.

"You'll come in with us, Sophia?" asked Mr. Granger, when he had alighted, and handed Clarissa out of the carriage.

"I think not, papa. You can't want me; and this dreadful morning has given me a wretched headache."

"I thought there was something amiss. It would be more respectful to Mr.

Lovel for you to come in. I daresay he'll excuse you, however, when he hears you are ill."

Clarissa held out her hand, which Miss Granger took with an almost obvious reluctance, and the two young ladies said "Good-bye" to each other, without a word from Sophia about the engagement for the next day.

They found Mr. Lovel in his favourite sitting-room; not dreaming over a Greek play or a volume of Bentley, as it was his custom to do, but seriously engaged with a number of open letters and papers scattered on the writing-table before him--papers that looked alarmingly like tradesmen's bills. He was taken by surprise on the entrance of Clarissa and her companion, and swept the papers into an open drawer with rather a nervous hand.

"My dear Clarissa, this is quite unexpected!--How do you do, Mr. Granger?

How very good of you to bring my little girl over to see me! Will you take that chair by the window? I was deep in a file of accounts when you came in. A man must examine his affairs sometimes, however small his household may be.--Well, Clary, what news of our kind friends at the Castle? Why, bless my soul, this is the wedding-day, isn't it? I had quite forgotten the date. Has anything happened?"

"Yes, papa; there has been a great misfortune, and the wedding is put off."

Between them, Mr. Granger and Clarissa explained the state of affairs at the Castle. Mr. Lovel seemed really shocked by the intelligence of the Earl's death.

"Poor Calderwood! He and I were great friends thirty years ago. I suppose it's nearly twenty since I last saw him. He was one of the handsomest men I ever knew--Lady Geraldine takes after him--and when he was in the diplomatic service had really a very brilliant career before him; but he missed it somehow. Had always rather a frivolous mind, I fancy, and a want of perseverance. Poor Calderwood! And so he is gone! How old could he have been? Not much over sixty, I believe. I'll look into Debrett presently."

As soon as he could decently do so after this, Mr. Granger urged his invitation for the next day.