Chapter IV: Part 4

‘Janie, I am going to ring for the landlord, to see if he can throw any light on the cause of our experiences. I never told you that, when we came to this inn to try for a nurse to supply Mary’s place, he informed me that nobody from his countryside would live at Rushmere; and asked me, in a manner which assured me he could have said more if he had chosen, if we had not heard anything whilst there. I laughed at the question then, but I do not feel so disposed to laugh at it now; and I am going to beg him to tell me all he may know. If nothing more, his story may form the stratum of a curious psychological study. Would you like to be present at our interview?’

‘Oh yes, Arthur; I have quite recovered my nerves since I’ve lost sight of Rushmere, and I feel even curious to learn all I can upon the subject. That poor, sobbing voice that whispered “Emily”—I shall not forget its sound to my dying day.’

‘Ring the bell, dear, and let us ask if the landlord is at leisure. To my mind, your experience of the details of this little tragedy appears the most interesting of all.’

The landlord, a Mr Browser, entered at once; and as soon as he heard my request, made himself completely at home with us.

‘After the little rebuff you gave me t’other day, I shouldn’t have ventured to say nothing, sir; but when I see your family getting out of the fly this afternoon, I says to Mrs Browser, “If that don’t mean that they can’t stand Rushmere another night, I’m a pumpkin.” And I suppose, now, it did mean it, sir?’

‘You are quite right, Mr Browser. The noises and voices about the house have become so intolerable, that it is quite impossible I can keep my family there. Still, I must tell you that, though I have been unable to account for the disturbances, I do not necessarily believe they are attributable to spirits. It is because I do not believe so that I wish to hear all you may be able to tell us, in order, if possible, to find a reason for what appears at present to be unreasonable.’

‘Well, sir, you shall hear, as you say, all we have to tell you, and then you can believe what you like. But it ain’t I as can relate the story, sir. Mrs Browser knows a deal more than I do; and with your leave, and that of this good lady here, I’ll call her to give you the history of Rushmere.’

At this information, we displayed an amount of interest that resulted in a hasty summons for Mrs Browser. She was a fat, fair woman, of middle age, with ruddy cheeks, and a clear blue eye—not at all like a creature haunted by her own weak imagination, or who would be likely to mistake a shadow for a substance. Her appearance inspired me with confidence. I trusted that her relation might furnish me with some clue to the solution of the occurrences that had so confounded us. Safe out of the precincts of Rushmere, and with the lapse of twelve hours since the unaccountable swoon I had been seized with, my practical virtues were once more in the ascendant, and I was inclined to attribute our fright to anything but association with the marvellous.

‘Be I to tell the story from the beginning, Browser?’ was the first sentence that dropped from Mrs Browser’s lips.

Her lord and master nodded an affirmative, whereupon she began:—

‘When the gentleman as built Rushmere for his own gratification, sir, died, the house let well enough. But the place proved lonely, and there was more than one attempt at robbery, and people grew tired of taking it. And above all, the girls of the village began to refuse to go to service there. Well, it had been standing empty for some months, when a gentleman and his wife came to look after it. Browser and I—we didn’t own this inn at that time, you will understand, sir, but kept a general shop in the village, and were but poorly off altogether, although we had the post-office at our place, and did the best business thereabouts. The key of Rushmere used always to be left in our keeping, too, and our boy would go up to show folks over the house. Well, one damp autumn day—I mind the day as if ’twere yesterday, for Browser had been ailing sadly with the rheumatics for weeks past, and not able to lift his hand to his head—this gentleman and lady, who went by the name of Greenslade, came for the keys of Rushmere. I remember thinking Mr Greenslade had a nasty, curious look about his eyes, and that his wife seemed a poor, brow-beaten creature; but that was no business of mine, and I sent Bill up with them to show the house. They took it, and entered on possession at once; and then came the difficulty about the servants. Not a soul would enter the place at first. Then a girl or two tried it, and came away when their month was up, saying the house was so lonesome, they couldn’t sleep at nights, and the master was so queer-spoken and mannered, they were afraid of him.’

‘Don’t forget to say what he was used to do at nights,’ here put in the landlord.

‘La, Browser, I’m a-coming to it. Everything in its time. Well, sir, at last it came to this, that Mrs Greenslade hadn’t a creature to help her in anythink, and down she came to ask if I would go to them for a few days. I stared; for there was the shop to be tended, and the post-office looked after, and I hadn’t been used to odd jobs like that. But my husband said that he could do all that was wanted in the business; and we were very hard drove just then, and the lady offered such liberal pay, he over-persuaded me to go, if only on trial. So I put my pride in my pocket, and went out charing. I hadn’t been at Rushmere many days, sir, before I found something was very wrong there. Mr Greenslade hardly ever spoke a word, but shut himself up in a room all day, or went mooning about the fields and common, where he couldn’t meet a soul; and as for the poor lady, la! my heart bled for her, she seemed so wretched and broken-down and hopeless. I used often to say to her,—

‘“Now, ma’am, do let me cook you a bit of something nice, for you’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, and you’ll bring yourself down to death’s door at this rate.”

‘And she’d answer,—

‘“No, thank you, Mrs Browser: I couldn’t touch it. I feel sometimes as if I’d never care to eat or drink again.”

‘And Mr Greenslade, he was just as bad. They didn’t eat enough to keep a well-grown child between the two of them.’

‘What-aged people were they?’ I asked.

‘Well, sir, I can hardly say; they weren’t young nor yet old. Mr Greenslade, he may have been about fifty, and his lady a year or two younger; but I never took much count of that. But the gentleman looked much the oldest of the two, by reason of a stoop in his shoulders and a constant cough that seemed to tear his chest to pieces. I’ve known him shut himself up in the parlour the whole night long, coughing away fit to keep the whole house awake. And his breathing, sir—you could hear it half a mile off.’

‘He was _assmatical_, poor man! that’s where it was,’ interposed Mr Browser.

‘Well, I don’t know what his complaint was called, Browser; but he made noise enough over it to wake the dead. But don’t you go interrupting me no more after that fashion, or the gentleman and lady will never understand the half of my story, and I’m just coming to the cream of it.’

‘I assure you we are deeply interested in what you are telling us,’ I said, politely.

‘It’s very good of you to compliment me, sir, but I expect it will make matters clearer to you by-and-by. You’re not the first tenants of Rushmere I’ve had to tell this tale to, I can tell you, and you won’t be the last, either. One night, when I couldn’t sleep for his nasty cough, and lay awake, wishing to goodness he’d go to bed like a Christian, I made sure I heard footsteps in the hall, a-creeping and a-creeping about like, as though some one was feeling their way round the house. “It can’t be the mistress,” I thought, “and maybe it’s robbers, as have little idea the master’s shut up in the study.” So I opened the door quickly, but I could see nothing.’

‘Exactly my own experience,’ I exclaimed.

‘Ah, sir, maybe; but they weren’t the same footsteps, poor dear. I wish they had been, and she had the same power to tread now she had then. The hall was empty; but at the same time I heard the master groaning and cursing most awful in the parlour, and I went into my own room again, that I mightn’t listen to his wicked oaths and words. I always hated and distrusted that man from the beginning. The next day I mentioned I had heard footsteps, before ’em both, and the rage Mr Greenslade put himself into was terrible. He said no robbers had better break into his house, or he’d shoot them dead as dogs. Afterwards his wife came to me and asked me what sort of footsteps they seemed; and when I told her, she cried upon my neck, and begged me if ever I heard a woman’s step to say nothing of it to her husband.

‘“A woman’s step, ma’am,” I replied; “why, what woman would dare break into a house?”

‘But she only cried the more, and held her tongue.

‘But that evening I heard their voices loud in the parlour, and there was a regular dispute between them.

‘“If ever she should come, Henry,” Mrs Greenslade said, “promise me you won’t speak to her unless you can say words of pity or of comfort.”

‘“Pity!” he yelled, “what pity has she had for me? If ever she or any emissary of hers should dare to set foot upon these premises, I shall treat them as house-breakers, and shoot them down like dogs!”

‘“Oh no! Henry, no!” screamed the poor woman; “think who she is. Think of her youth, her temptation, and forgive her.”

‘“I’ll never forgive her—I’ll never own her!” the wretch answered loudly; “but I’ll treat her, or any of the cursed crew she associates with, as I would treat strangers who forced their way in to rob me by night. ’Twill be an evil day for them when they attempt to set foot in my house.”

‘Well, sir, I must cut this long story short, or you and your good lady will never get to bed to-night.

‘The conversation I had overheard made me feel very uncomfortable, and I was certain some great misfortune or disgrace had happened to the parties I was serving; but I didn’t let it rest upon my mind, till a few nights after, when I was wakened up by the same sound of creeping footsteps along the passage. As I sat up in bed and listened to them, I heard the master leave the parlour and go upstairs. At the same moment something crouched beside my door, and tried to turn the handle; but it was locked, and wouldn’t open. I felt very uneasy. I knew my door stood in the shadow, and that whoever crouched there must have been hidden from Mr Greenslade as he walked across the hall. Presently I heard his footsteps coming downstairs again, as though he had forgotten something. He used to wear such thick boots, sir, you might hear his step all over the house. His loaded gun always stood on the first landing; when he reached there he stopped, I suppose it was his bad angel made him stop. Anyway, there was a low cry of “Father, father!”—a rush, the report of the gun, a low groan, and then all was still.

‘La! sir, I trembled so in my bed, you might have seen it shake under me.’

‘I’ve seen it shake under you many a time,’ said Browser.

‘Perhaps you would like to tell the lady and gentleman my exact weight, though I don’t see what that’s got to do with the story,’ replied his better half, majestically.

‘I don’t think I should ever have had the courage to leave my room, sir, unless I had heard my poor mistress fly down the staircase, with a loud scream. Then I got up, and joined her. Oh, it was an awful sight! There, stretched on the floorcloth, lay the dead body of a young girl; and my mistress had fainted dead away across her, and was covered with the blood that was pouring from a great hole in her forehead. On the landing stood my master, white as a sheet, and shaking like an aspen leaf.

‘“So, this is your doing!” I cried, angrily. “You’re a nice man to have charge of a gun. Do you see what you’ve done? Killed a poor girl in mistake for a robber, and nearly killed your wife into the bargain. Who is this poor murdered young creature? Do you know her?”

‘“Know her!” he repeated, with a groan. “Woman, don’t torture me with your questions. _She is my own daughter!_”

‘He rushed upstairs as he spoke, and I was in a nice quandary, left alone with the two unconscious women. When my poor mistress woke up again, she wanted me to fetch a doctor; but it would have been of no use. She was past all human help.

‘We carried the corpse upstairs between us, and laid it gently on the bed. I’ve often wondered since where the poor mother’s strength came from, but it was lent her for the need. Then, sitting close to me for the remainder of the night, she told me her story—how the poor girl had led such an unhappy life with her harsh, ill-tempered father, that she had been tempted into a foolish marriage by the first lover that offered her affection and a peaceful home.

‘“I always hoped she would come back to us,” said Mrs Greenslade, “for her husband had deserted her, leaving her destitute; and yet, although she knew how to enter the house unobserved, I dreaded her doing so, because of her father’s bitter enmity. Only last night, Mrs Browser, I awoke from sleep, and fancied I heard a sobbing in my room. I whispered, ‘Who is there?’ and a voice replied, ‘Emily!’ But I thought it was a dream. If I had known—if I had but known!”

‘She lay so quiet and uncomplaining on my knee, only moving now and then, that she frightened me; and when the morning broke, I tried to shift her, and said,—

‘“Hadn’t I better go and see after the master, ma’am?”

‘As I mentioned his name, I could see the shudder that ran through her frame; but she motioned me away with her hand.

‘I went upstairs to a room Mr Greenslade called his dressing-room, and where I guessed he’d gone; and you’ll never believe, sir, the awful sight as met my eyes. I didn’t get over it for a month—did I, Browser?’

‘You haven’t got over it to this day, I’m sometimes thinking, missus.’

‘That means I’m off my head; but if it wasn’t for my head, I wonder where the business would go to. No, sir—if you’ll believe me, when I entered the room, there was the old man dead as mutton, hanging from a beam in the ceiling. I gave one shriek, and down I fell.’

‘I don’t wonder at it,’ cried Janie.

‘Well, ma’am, when I came to again, all was confusion and misery. We had the perlice in, and the crowner’s inquest, and there was such a fuss, you never see. Some of Mrs Greenslade’s friends came and fetched her away; but I heard she didn’t live many months afterwards. As for myself, I was only too glad to get back to the shop and my old man, and the first words I said to him was,—

‘“No more charing for me.”’

‘And now, sir, if I may make so bold, what do you think of the story?’ demanded the landlord. ‘Can you put this and that together now?’

‘It is marvellous!’ I replied. ‘Your wife has simply repeated the scene which we have heard enacted a dozen times in Rushmere. The footsteps were a nightly occurrence.’

‘I heard the voice!’ exclaimed Janie, ‘and it whispered “_Emily._”’

‘The handle of my servant’s door was turned. The report of the gun was as distinct as possible.’

‘That is what everybody says as goes to Rushmere, sir. No one can abide the place since that awful murder was committed there,’ said Mrs Browser.

‘And can you account for it in any way, sir?’ demanded her husband, slyly. ‘Do you think, now that you’ve heard the story, that the noises are mortal, or that it’s the spirits of the dead that causes them?’

‘I don’t know what to think, Browser. There is a theory that no uttered sound is ever lost, but drifts as an eddying circle into space, until in course of time it must be heard again. Thus our evil words, too often accompanied by evil deeds, live for ever, to testify against us in eternity. It may be that the Universal Father ordains that some of His guilty children shall expurgate their crimes by re-acting them until they become sensible of their enormity; but this can be but a matter for speculation. This story leaves us, as such stories usually do, as perplexed as we were before. We cannot tell—we probably never _shall_ tell—what irrefragable laws of the universe these mysterious circumstances fulfil; but we know that spirit and matter alike are in higher hands than ours; and, whilst nature cannot help trembling when brought in contact with the supernatural, we have no need to fear that it will ever be permitted to work us harm.’

This little analysis was evidently too much for Mr and Mrs Browser, who, with a look of complete mystification on their countenances, rose from their seats, and wished us respectfully good-night; leaving Janie and me to evolve what theories we chose from the true story of the Invisible Tenants of Rushmere.

AMY’S LOVER.

It was five o’clock—five o’clock on a dull November afternoon—as I, Elizabeth Lacy, the wretched companion of Lady Cunningham, of Northampton Lodge, in the town of Rockledge, stood gazing from the dining-room windows at the grey curtain of fog which was slowly but surely rising between my vision and all outward things, and thinking how like it was in colour and feeling and appearance to my own sad life. I have said that I was the ‘wretched’ companion of Lady Cunningham: is it very ungrateful of me to have written down that word? I think not; for if a wearisome seclusion and continual servitude have power to make a young life miserable, mine had fairly earned its title to be called so. I had withered in the cold and dispiriting atmosphere of Northampton Lodge for four years past, and had only been prevented rupturing my chains by the knowledge that I had no alternative but to rush from one state of bondage to another. To attend upon old ladies like an upper servant—to write their letters, carry their shawls, and wait upon them as they moved from room to room—this was to be my lot through life; and if I ever dreamed that a brighter one might intervene, the vision was too faint and idealistic to gild the stern realities which were no dreams.

I daresay there are plenty of people in this world more miserable than I: indeed, I knew it for a fact even at the time of which I speak; and the few friends I possessed were never tired of telling me that I was better off than many, and that I should strive to look on the bright side of things, and to thank heaven who had provided me with a safe and respectable home, when I might have been upon the parish. Did not Job have friends to console him in his trouble? Do not we all find in the day of our distress that, whatever else fails, good advice is always forthcoming? Well! perhaps I _was_ ungrateful: at all events, I was young and headstrong, and good advice irritated and worried, instead of making me any better. I knew that I was warmly clothed, whilst beggars stood shivering at the corner of the streets, and that beneath the care of Lady Cunningham no harm could happen to me, whilst women younger than myself broke God’s holy laws to put bread in their mouths. And yet, and yet, so perverse is human nature, and so perverse was mine above all others, that, engaged on my monotonous round of duty, I often envied the beggars their liberty and their rags; and even sometimes wished that I had not been reared so honestly, and had the courage to be less respectable and more free. Perhaps one reason why my life chafed me so fearfully, was because I had not been brought up to it. Five years before, I had been the child of parents in good circumstances, and loved and made much of, as only daughters generally are. My father, who held the comfortable living of Fairmead in Dorsetshire, had always managed to keep up the household of a gentleman, and my poor delicate mother and myself had enjoyed every luxury consistent with our station in life. She had had her flower-garden and her poultry and her pony-chair, and I my pets and my piano and—my lover. Ah! as I stood at the wire-blinded windows of Lady Cunningham’s dining-room that sad November afternoon, and recalled these things, I knew by the pang which assailed me at the thought of Bruce Armytage, which loss of them all had affected me most. My father and mother, who from my youth up had so tenderly loved and guarded me, were in their graves, and with them had vanished all the luxuries and possessions of my early days. But though I stood there a penniless orphan, with no joy in my present and very little hope in my future, the tears had not rushed to my eyes until my memory had rested on Bruce Armytage; and then they fell so thickly that they nearly blinded me; for mingled with his memory came shame as well as regret, and to a woman perhaps shame is the harder feeling of the two. His conduct had been so very strange, so marvellously strange and unaccountable to me, that to that day I had found no clue to it. When he first came down and took lodgings in Fairmead—for the purpose of studying to pass his examination for the law, he said—he had seemed so very, very fond of me that our engagement followed on the avowal of his love as a matter of course. But then his family interfered; they thought, perhaps, that he ought to marry some one higher than myself, though my father was a gentleman, and no man can be more; at any rate, _his_ father wrote to say that Bruce was far too young (his age was then just twenty) to fix upon his choice for life, and that no regular engagement must be made between us until he returned from the two years’ foreign tour he was about to make. My father and mother said that old Mr Armytage was right, and that in two years’ time both I and my lover would be better able to form an opinion on so serious a matter. Bruce and I declared it was all nonsense, that fifty years of separation could make no difference to us, and that what we felt then, we should feel to our lives’ end. And they smiled, the old people, whilst our young hearts were being tortured, and talked about the evanescence of youthful feelings, whilst we drank our first draught of this world’s bitterness. How seldom can old people sympathise with the young! How soon they become accustomed to the cold neutral tints of middle age, and forget even the appearance of the warm fires of youth at which they lighted those passions which time has reduced to ashes! It was so with my parents: they were not unkind, but they were unsympathetic; they rather hoped, upon the whole, that I should forget Bruce Armytage; and, in order to accomplish their end, they pretended to believe it. But he went, with the most passionate protestations upon his lips, that as soon as he returned to England, no earthly power should keep us separate; and he never came back to me again! My father and mother had died rather suddenly, and within a few months of each other; our home had been broken up, and at the age of nineteen I had been sent forth upon the world to earn my own living; and, at the age of three-and-twenty, I was at the same trade, neither richer nor poorer than at first, but with all my faith in the constancy and honour of mankind broken and destroyed; for Bruce Armytage had never found me out, or, as far as I knew, inquired after me. His family had permitted me to leave Fairmead and enter on my solitary career without a word of remonstrance or regret; since which time I had had no communication with them, though at that period my pride would not have forbidden my sending an account of my trouble to Bruce, believing that he cared for me. Correspondence between us during his foreign tour had been strictly prohibited, and I had no means of ascertaining his address. For a while I had expected he would write or come to me; but that hope had long died out, and the only feeling I had left for him was contempt—contempt for his fickleness and vacillation, or the pusillanimity which could permit him to give up the woman he had sworn to marry because his father ordered him to do so. No! filial obedience carries very little weight with the heart that is pitted against it; and as I thought of it and him, I bit my lip, dashed my hand across my eyes, and hoped the day might yet come when I should be able to show Bruce Armytage how greatly I despised him.

At this juncture the housemaid came bustling into the room with a little note for me—a dear little cocked-hat note—which seemed to speak of something pleasant, and at the writer of which I had no need to guess, for I had but one friend in Rockledge who ever sent such notes to me.

‘Waiting for an answer,’ said the bearer curtly; and I tore it open and devoured its contents.

‘DEAR LIZZIE,—I think you will be _very much_ surprised to hear
that your little friend Amy is engaged to be married! However,
it is quite true, although the business was only settled this
morning; and the young gentleman has promised to spend the
evening with us, and to bring a cousin whom he is anxious to
introduce. Will you come and take tea with us also? The doctor
has only just told me that Lady Cunningham dines out to-night,
or I should have sent before. Do come, Lizzie. Amy is crazy to
see you and tell you all her secrets, and you know that you are
always sure of a welcome from your affectionate friend,

‘MARY RODWELL.’

The perusal of this little epistle threw me into a perfect whirl of excitement and delight, which would have appeared extraordinary to any one who had not been acquainted with the maddening monotony of my daily existence. These Rodwells, the family of the good old doctor who attended Lady Cunningham, were my only friends in Rockledge, the only people with whom I ever caught a glimpse of a happy domestic life, such as had been once my own. To spend the evening at their large, old-fashioned house, which rang from basement to attic with the sound of happy voices, was the only dissipation by which my days were ever varied, and a relaxation all the more precious because, on account of Lady Cunningham’s requirements, it came so rarely to me. And on the afternoon in question, when I had allowed myself to become absorbed by fanciful thought, the cordial and unexpected invitation warmed my chilled spirits like a draught of generous wine. All things seemed changed for me: I no longer saw the grey fog nor remembered my mournful past, but in their stead pictured to myself the brightly-lighted, crimson-curtained room at Dr Rodwell’s house, and heard the ringing laughter and merry jests of his many boys and girls. In a moment I had shaken off my despondency—my eyes sparkled, my heart beat: I was in a flutter of anticipation at the pleasure in store for me.

‘Is there any answer, miss?’ demanded the housemaid, who had been waiting whilst I read my note.

‘Yes, yes; I will go, of course. Say I will be there in half-an-hour,’ I replied, for my evening, in consequence of Lady Cunningham’s absence, was at my own disposal. ‘And, Mary, please bring me up a jug of hot water; I am going to take tea with Mrs Rodwell.’

‘Well, I’m very glad of it, miss; it’s a shame you shouldn’t have a holiday oftener than you do,’ returned my sympathising hearer as she departed with my answer.

I must say that, during my years of servitude, I had nothing to complain of respecting the treatment I received from the hands of servants. I have read of needy companions and governesses being cruelly insulted and trampled on by their inferiors; I never was. From the first they saw I was a gentlewoman, and to the last they treated me as such.

With a hasty vote of thanks to Mary for her kind speech, I ran upstairs to my own bedroom to make the few preparations needful for my visit. I knew that Mrs Rodwell would not desire me to dress; but to arrange my hair anew with a blue ribbon woven in it, and to change my dark merino body for a clear muslin Garibaldi, made me look fresh and smart, without taking up too much of the precious time I had to spend at her house. Besides, were there not to be some gentlemen present? At that thought my mind reverted to the wonderful news of Amy’s engagement, and I could scarcely proceed with my toilet for thinking of it. Little Amy! younger by five years than myself, who had always appeared so shy and modest and retiring—was it possible she could have had a lover without my knowing it? And now to be actually engaged! going to be married at her age! It almost seemed incredible, until I remembered with a sudden sigh that I had been no older myself when Bruce Armytage proposed to me, and had been able to keep my secret very well until the necessity for doing so was over.

But I would not let such thoughts engross me now, for I had no wish to carry a long face to Mrs Rodwell’s house; and so I hurried on the remainder of my things, and wrapping myself up warmly in a dark cloak, hurried bravely out into the evening air. It was then six o’clock, and the fog was denser than before; but what cared I for outer dulness any longer? My imagination ran on before me, vividly picturing the cheerful scene in which I should so soon mingle, and my feet tripped after it joyous as my heart. I had not far to go, and my eagerness shortened the way; so that in a few minutes I was rapping at Dr Rodwell’s hall door and scraping my feet upon his scraper. How quickly it was opened by little Amy herself! And what a mixture of bashfulness, pleasure, and self-importance was in her blushing face as I threw my arms around her neck and warmly congratulated her.

‘Come upstairs, Lizzie,’ she entreated in a whisper; ‘come up and take off your things, and I’ll tell you all about it.’

We were soon in her own room—that cosy room in which she and her younger sister Mattie slept, and which bore so many evidences of their mother’s tender care and thought for them.

‘And so you are really engaged to be married, Amy?’ I exclaimed as the door closed behind us. ‘That was a very astounding piece of intelligence to me, who had never heard the faintest whisper of such a thing before.’

‘You forget you have not been near us for a month,’ she answered, laughing; ‘but the truth is, Lizzie, it was all so uncertain till this morning that mamma said it would be very unwise to mention it to anybody; so that you were the first recipient of the news, after all.’

‘Well, I suppose I must be satisfied with that; and when did you meet him, Amy?’

‘Last month, up in London, while I was staying with my Aunt Charlesworth.’

‘And is it a settled thing, then?’

‘Oh yes! His parents have consented, and are coming to Rockledge on purpose to call on us. And—and—_he_ came down this morning to tell papa; and I believe we are to be married in the spring.’

‘So soon?’ I ejaculated, thinking how easily some people’s courtships ran.

‘Yes,’ replied Amy, blushing; ‘and he is here this evening, you know, with his cousin, who is staying at Rockledge with him. He talked so much about this cousin, but oh! he is not _half_ so nice-looking as himself; and—and—I hope you will like him, Lizzie dear,’ kissing me affectionately as she spoke, ‘for I have told him so much about you.’

‘I am sure I shall, Amy,’ I replied as I returned her caress; we were on the staircase at the time, descending to the dining-room. ‘I assure you I am quite impatient to see your hero. By-the-bye, dear, what is his name?’

‘Armytage.’ And then, seeing my blank look of amazement, she repeated it—‘Armytage. Have you never heard the name before? I think it’s such a pretty one. Amy Armytage,’ she whispered finally in my ear, as, laughing merrily, she pushed me before her into the dining-room.

It was all done so suddenly that I had no time to think about it, for before the echo of her words had died away, I was in the midst of the family group, being warmly kissed by Mrs Rodwell, and Mattie, and Nelly, and Lotty, and shaken hands with by the dear, kind old doctor, and his rough school-boys.

‘Well, Lizzie dear,’ exclaimed my motherly hostess, as she claimed me for a second embrace, ‘this is quite an unexpected treat, to have you here to-night; I thought we were never going to see you again. But you look pale, my child; I am afraid you are kept too much in the house. Doctor, what have you been about, not to take better care of Lizzie? You should give her a tonic, or speak to Lady Cunningham on the subject.’

But the good old doctor stuck both his fingers into his ears.

‘Now, I’m not going to have any talk about pale looks or physic bottles to-night,’ he said; ‘the time for doctoring to-day is over. Miss Lizzie, you just come and sit between Tom and me, and we’ll give you something that will beat all the tonics that were ever invented. Here, Mattie, pass the scones and oatcakes down this way, will you? If you children think you are going to keep all the good things up at your end of the table, you are very much mistaken,’ and with no gentle touch my hospitable friend nearly pulled me down into his own lap.

‘Now, doctor!’ exclaimed Mrs Rodwell, with an affectation of annoyance, ‘I will not have you treat my guests in this way. Lizzie has come to see _me_, not _you_, and she sits by no side but mine. Besides, you have not even given me time to introduce the gentlemen to her. Lizzie, my dear, we must all be friends here this evening. Mr Bruce Armytage, Mr Frederick Armytage—Miss Lacy. And now, doctor, we’ll go to tea as soon as you please.’

I had known from the moment of my entering the room that there were strangers in it, but I had not dared to glance their way. Amy’s announcement of her lover’s name had come too unexpectedly to permit me to form any fixed idea upon the subject, excepting that it was the same as mine had borne, and yet, when Mrs Rodwell repeated it with the familiar prefix, strange to say, I seemed to hear it with no second shock, but to have known the bitter truth all along.

Not so, however, Bruce Armytage; for Mrs Rodwell’s introduction was scarcely concluded before I heard his voice (unforgotten through the lapse of years) exclaim, ‘Miss Lacy!’ in a tone of surprise, which could not but be patent to all.

Cold and pulseless as I had felt before, the mere tones of his voice sent the blood rushing from my heart to my head, till the room and the tea-table and the group of living figures swam before my dazzled eyes. I felt my weakness, but I determined all the more that no one else should guess at it, and mentally stamped upon my heart to make it steady against the moment when its energies should be required.

‘You have met Mr Armytage before, Lizzie?’ said Mrs Rodwell, with a pleasant astonishment.

Then I lifted my eyes and looked at him. Good God! What is the vital force of this feeling, called love, which Thou hast given to us, far oftener to prove a curse than a blessing, that after years of separation, coldness, and neglect, it has the strength to spring up again, warm and passionate as ever, at the sight of a face, the tone of a voice, or the touch of a hand? Has nothing the power to trample life out of it? Will it always revive when we think it most dead, and turn its pale mutilated features up to the glare of day? Shall our mortal dust, even when coffined in the mould, stir and groan and vainly strive to make itself heard, as the step of one whom we have loved passes sorrowfully over the fresh grass beneath which we lie?

I lifted up my eyes, and looked upon Bruce Armytage, to be able to say truly if I had met him before. Yes, it was he, but little altered during our five years of separation, excepting that he had passed from a boy to a man. He coloured vividly beneath my steady gaze; for a moment I thought he was about to seize my hand, but my eyes forbade him, and he shrank backward.

‘Mr Armytage and I _have_ met before,’ I said, with a marvellous quietness, in answer to Mrs Rodwell’s previous question—‘when I was living in my old home at Fairmead; but that is so many years ago that we are nothing but strangers to each other now.’

At these words any purpose which he might have entertained of claiming me as an old acquaintance evidently died out of Bruce Armytage’s mind; for, retreating a few paces, he bowed coldly to me, and took a seat, where his proper place now was, by Amy’s side.

‘Oh, not strangers, my dear—oh no!’ exclaimed Mrs Rodwell, who had taken my answer in its literal sense. ‘You must all be friends together here, you know, if it is only for Amy’s sake. Mr Frederick Armytage, will you be so kind as to pass the muffins up this way? Thank you! Now, Lizzie, my dear, you must make a good tea.’

I sat down between my host and hostess, triumphant on the subject of the manner in which I had acquitted myself, and feeling strong enough for any future trial; but before many minutes had elapsed I was overtaken by a sickly and oppressive sensation for which I was quite unable to account. The hot flush which had risen to my face whilst speaking to Bruce Armytage died away, leaving a cold, leaden weight upon my breast instead; my pulses ceased their quick leap and took to trembling; the rich dainties which the doctor and his wife heaped upon my plate nauseated me even to contemplate; and a whirring confusion commenced in my head, which obliged me to rally all my forces before I could answer a simple question. The noise and laughter of the tea-table seemed to increase every minute; and if one might judge from the incessant giggling of Amy, Mattie, Nelly, and Lotty, the two gentlemen at the other end were making themselves very agreeable. I tried to eat; I tried to force the buttered toast and plum cake and rich preserves down my throat, but there was something there which utterly prevented my swallowing them.

‘Lizzie, my dear, are you not well?’ inquired Mrs Rodwell, presently. The friendly interrogation saved me. I had just been relapsing into a state of weakness which might have resulted in hysteria: her words recalled me to myself. Should all the table know that I was grieving? Or rather should he—he who had deserted me, and had forsworn himself, who now sat by the side of his newly betrothed—guess that his presence had the slightest power to affect me? Good heavens! where was my pride? where the contempt which I had hoped to have an opportunity of showing for him? I almost sprang from my chair at the thought.

‘Not well, dear Mrs Rodwell!’ I exclaimed, speaking as fast and as shrilly as people generally do under the circumstances; ‘why, what can make you think so? I never felt better in my life. But, really, you do so oppress me with good things that it is quite impossible I can do justice to them all, and talk at the same time. No, doctor, not another piece of cake. I couldn’t, really; thank you all the same. You know there is a limit to all things, though you never seem to think so where I am concerned.’

Whilst my voice thus rang out, harshly and unnaturally, across the table, I felt the dark eyes of Bruce Armytage were regarding me from the other end, and I wished I had the courage to stare him down, but I had not. By-and-by, however, when he was again engaged in conversation, I tried to let my eyes rove in his direction, as though I were an uninterested hearer, but the moment that they reached him, he raised his own as if by intuition, and my lids dropped again. I hated myself for this indecision, though I felt it was but nervousness, and that were we alone together but for five minutes I should have strength of mind to look him in the face, and tell him what I thought of his behaviour. As it was, however, it was a great relief to me when the doctor gave the order to march, and the whole party adjourned to the drawing-room. As soon as we had entered it, Amy left her lover’s side and flew to mine.

‘Oh, Lizzie,’ she whispered as we sat in a corner together, ‘do tell me what you think of him! I am dying to hear. Is he not very handsome?’

‘Very handsome,’ I answered with closed lips.

‘Much better looking than his cousin?’

‘Yes, certainly; there is no comparison between them,’ which was true, inasmuch as Frederick Armytage, with his fair hair and blue eyes, was a washed-out, sickly-looking creature by the side of his dark, stalwart cousin Bruce.

‘I knew you would say so, Lizzie; I was sure you would agree with me. But just fancy your having met Bruce before! Where was it, and when? I couldn’t ask you a lot of questions at tea-time, but you made me so curious.’

‘Amy,’ I said suddenly, for I felt this was a subject on which she must not be inquisitive, ‘when I knew Mr Bruce Armytage, I was living at home with my dear father and mother at Fairmead, and you must be aware that an allusion to those days cannot be a pleasant allusion to me. So, please, like a dear girl, don’t ask me any more questions about it, or let me remember that I ever saw your friend before I met him here to-night.’

‘I won’t,’ said Amy, submissively. ‘Poor, dear Lizzie!’ and she stroked my hand with her soft little palm.

‘And do not mention me to him, either. Our acquaintance was but a brief one: he can have no interest left in the matter.’

‘Oh, but he has though, Lizzie,’ with a shy upward glance. ‘He was talking about you all tea-time; his cousin and I thought he would never stop. He asked where you were, and what you were doing, and seemed so sorry when I told him of Lady Cunningham, and what a cross old thing she is, and said several times that he could not get over the surprise of having met you here to-night.’

‘Indeed! He has a more retentive memory than I have; you can tell him so next time he speaks of me.’ I answered so haughtily that little Amy looked timidly up in my face, and I remembered suddenly that I was speaking of her lover. ‘There is your mamma beckoning to you, Amy; and Mattie and Tom are clearing away the chairs and tables. I suppose they want a dance. Tell them I shall be charmed to play for them;’ and then, seeing that Bruce Armytage was crossing the room with a view to seeking Amy, I quickly left my seat, and taking possession of the music-stool, commenced to rattle off a polka. Soon they were all busily engaged in dancing, and the noise occasioned by their feet and voices almost prevented my hearing the conversation which Mrs Rodwell, who had taken up a station with her knitting close to the piano, addressed to me.

‘You were very much surprised to hear our news, Lizzie, I’m sure,’ she began, as she bent toward my ear.

‘Very much surprised, Mrs Rodwell—never more so.’

‘Ah!’ with a sigh, ‘dear Amy is full young—only eighteen last October, you know, Lizzie; but I think she’ll be happy. I’m sure I trust so. He is a very steady young man, and they are to live in Rockledge, which is a great comfort to me.’

‘In Rockledge!’ Was I to undergo the pain of continual intercourse with him, or the alternative of quitting my present situation? ‘Did I hear you rightly, Mrs Rodwell?’

‘Yes, my dear. His papa, who appears to be a very pleasant old gentleman, has decided to set him up in an office here, that Amy may not be separated from her family. So thoughtful of him, Lizzie, is it not?’

‘Very!’ I remembered the pleasant old gentleman’s conduct on a similar occasion more immediately concerning myself, and could scarcely trust my voice to answer her.

‘You have heard that Mr Armytage is in the law, have you not?’ I nodded my head: I had heard it. ‘A nice profession—so gentlemanly; and he is a fine-looking young man too; don’t you think so? I have heard that some people prefer his cousin’s looks to his; but beauty is such a matter of taste, and Amy is quite satisfied on the subject. You may stop playing now, my dear, for they have all done dancing. Nelly, child, how hot you are! Come away at once from the draught of the door.’

‘A waltz, a waltz, Lizzie!’ they all shouted as they surrounded the piano.

‘Perhaps Miss Lacy is tired,’ suggested the deep voice of Bruce Armytage. I had been going to plead for a brief respite, but at that sound the desire for repose fled, and without a look in his direction I returned to the instrument and began to play the dance they had asked for. But I had not been so occupied long before I became aware that some one amongst them continued to hover about the piano, and felt by intuition that it was Bruce Armytage. At that discovery my fingers flew faster and more gaily, and I regarded the notes before me with a fixed smile, whilst, in order to keep up my courage, I kept repeating to myself: ‘He deserted me: he left me for no fault of mine. My father and mother died, and he never came near me in my sorrow. He is fickle, base, dishonourable—unworthy of regard.’ I tried to set the notes of the waltz that I was playing to the words, ‘Fickle, base, dishonourable!’ but they refused to be so matched, and only seemed to repeat instead, ‘I loved him, I loved him, I loved him!’ and then a blurred mist came before my eyes, and I had to play from memory; for Bruce Armytage had taken up his station at the back of the piano and was looking me full in the face.

‘It is a long time since we met, Miss Lacy,’ he remarked presently, but in so low a voice that had my hearing not been sharpened by anger at his daring to address me, I do not think I should have caught the words.

‘Do you think so?’ I answered carelessly, for I felt that I must say something.

‘How can you ask? Have the last five years passed so pleasantly as to leave no evidence of the flight of time?’

‘Considering,’ I replied, panting with indignation at what appeared to me such thorough indifference to my feelings, ‘considering, Mr Armytage, that during the years you speak of I have lost both my dear parents, I should think you might have spared me the allusion.’

‘Forgive me. I did not mean to wound you. But if the loss of your parents is the only loss you have to regret during those five years, you are happier than some, Miss Lacy. Death is natural, but there are griefs (the loss of love and hope, for instance) almost too unnatural to be borne.’

How dared he, how dared he—he who had treated me in so cruel and unnatural a manner himself, who had but just plighted his faith afresh to my friend—quietly stand there, looking me in the face with his dark, searching eyes, and taunt me with the barrenness of the life which he had made sterile? Much as I had loved him—much as I feared I loved him still—I could have stood up at that moment and denounced him to them all as a traitor and a coward. But I thought of Amy, dear little innocent, confiding Amy, and I was silent.

‘_I_ have not lost them,’ I answered him, quietly. ‘Therefore I cannot sympathise with your allusion. The death of my dear parents was more than sufficient trouble for me; all else of solace that this world can give me is mine.’

‘Do you mean to tell me—’ he commenced quickly.

‘I mean to tell nothing,’ I replied in the same cold tones. ‘I am not in the habit of discussing my private affairs with strangers. Had you not better go to Amy? I see that she is sitting out this dance.’

Upon which he gravely inclined his head in acquiescence, and left me to myself.

‘Lizzie, Lizzie, how fast you have been playing! We are all out of breath,’ exclaimed Mattie, as she and Tom danced up to my side. ‘Get up, there’s a good girl, and let me take your place; we are going to have a game of “Magical Music.” Tom, will you go out first? That’s right; now, girls, what shall we hide? Oh, papa’s keys; they will do, and then, if he wants them, he will take quite an interest in coming and joining in the game himself.’