Chapter V

Five minutes later, Archie Ridsdale burst abruptly into the room. ‘Here’s a pretty go!’ he exclaimed. ‘Read this, please, dear Madame De Vigne,’ putting a telegram into her hand.

Madame De Vigne took it and read: ‘“From Beck and Beck, Bedford Row, London.”’

‘The guv’s lawyers,’ explained Archie.

‘“To Archibald Ridsdale, _Palatine Hotel_, Windermere.—We are instructed to request you to be at our office at ten A.M. to-morrow, to meet Sir William Ridsdale.”’

Mora looked at him as she gave him back the telegram.

‘The last train for town,’ said Archie, ‘leaves in twenty-five minutes. My man is cramming a few things into a bag, and I must start for the station at once.’

‘Were you not aware that your father had arrived from the continent?’

‘This is the first intimation I’ve had of it. You know how anxiously I’ve been expecting an answer to the second letter I wrote him nearly a month ago.’

‘It would seem from the telegram that he prefers a personal interview.’

‘I’m glad of it for some things. He has never refused me anything when I’ve had the chance of talking to him, and I don’t suppose he will refuse what I shall undoubtedly ask him to-morrow.’

Madame De Vigne shook her head. ‘You are far too sanguine. Sir William knows already what it is you want him to do. He knew it before, when—when’——

‘When he sent Colonel Woodruffe as his plenipo. to negotiate terms with the enemy—meaning you,’ said Archie, with a laugh. ‘A pretty ambassador the colonel made!’

Madame De Vigne, who had risen and was gazing out of the window again, did not answer for a little while. At length she said: ‘Archie, while there is yet time, before you see your father to-morrow, I beg of you once more seriously to consider the position in which you will place yourself by refusing to break off your engagement with my sister. That Sir William will sanction your marriage with Clarice, I do not for one moment believe. What father in his position would?’

Archie, when he burst into the room, had omitted to close the door behind him. It was now pushed a little further open, and, unperceived by either of the others, Clarice, dressed for walking, stepped into the room.

‘Naturally, he must have far higher, far more ambitious views for his only son,’ continued Madame De Vigne. ‘As the world goes, he would be greatly to blame if he had not. So, Archie,’ she said, as she took both his hands in hers, ‘when you leave us to-night, I wish you clearly to understand that you go away unfettered by a tie or engagement of any kind. You go away as free and untrammelled as you were that sunny afternoon when you first set eyes on my sister. I speak both for Clarice and myself.’

Here Clarice came quickly forward. ‘Yes—yes, dear Archie, that is so,’ she exclaimed. ‘You are free from this hour. I—I shall never cease to think of you, but that won’t matter to any one but myself.’

‘Upon my word, I’m very much obliged to both of you,’ answered Archie, who was now holding a hand of each. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or be angry. A nice, low, mean opinion you must have formed of Archie Ridsdale, if you think he’s the sort of fellow to act in the way you suggest.’ Then turning to Clarice, he said: ‘Darling, when you first told me that you loved me, you believed me to be a poor man—poor in pocket and poor in prospects. That made no difference in your feelings towards me. There was then no question of a rich father coming between us—and I vow that neither he nor any one else in the world _shall_ come between us! I love and honour my father as much as any son can do; but this is one of those supreme questions which each man must decide for himself.’

‘I have said my say—the raven has croaked its croak,’ said Madame De Vigne with a little shrug, as she crossed to the other side of the room. ‘You are a wilful, headstrong boy, and I suppose you must be allowed to ruin yourself in your own way.’

‘Ruin, indeed!’ exclaimed Archie as he drew Clarice to him. ‘I don’t in the least care who looks upon me as a ruin, so long as this sweet flower clings to me and twines its tendrils round my heart!’ And with that he stooped and kissed the fair young face that was gazing so lovingly into his own.

‘Ah—boys and girls—girls and boys—you are the same all the world over,’ said Madame De Vigne with a sigh.

‘And you won’t be able to go to the picnic to-morrow,’ remarked Clarice plaintively.

Nanette appeared. ‘The carriage is at the door, sir. The driver says he has only just time to catch the train.’

‘I’m going to the station, dear, to see Archie off,’ said Clarice to her sister.

‘Good-bye—for a little while,’ said Archie, as he took Madame De Vigne’s hand. ‘The moment I have any news, you shall hear from me; and in any case, you will see me back before we are many days older.’

‘Good-bye—and good-bye. Above all things, don’t forget the love and obedience you owe your father, and remember—the moment you choose to claim your freedom, it is yours.’

‘Ah, dear Madame De Vigne’——

She interrupted him with a slight gesture of her hand. ‘Do not think me hard—do not think me unkind. I have to remember that I am this girl’s sister and mother in one.’

‘But’——

‘Not another word.’ She took his head in both her hands and drew it towards her, and kissed him on the forehead. ‘Bon voyage! Dieu vous protège. The prayers of two women will go with you.’

There was a tear in Archie’s eye as he turned away. Nanette was standing by the open door. A moment later, and the young people were gone.

Madame De Vigne stepped out into the veranda and waved her handkerchief as the carriage drove off.

‘He will marry her whether Sir William gives his consent or not,’ she mused. ‘He is in youth’s glad spring-tide, when the world is full of sunshine, and the dragons that beset the ways of life seem put there only to be fought and overcome. Well—let me but see my darling’s happiness assured, and I think that I can bear without murmuring whatever Fate may have in store for myself.’ She stepped back into the room, and as she did so, Nanette opened the door once more and announced—‘Colonel Woodruffe.’

A slight tremor shook Madame De Vigne from head to foot. She drew a long breath, and advanced a step or two to meet the colonel as he entered the room.

‘I told you that I should come,’ said Colonel Woodruffe, with a rich glow on his face as he went forward and held out his hand.

‘And you are here,’ answered Madame De Vigne, who had suddenly turned very pale.

‘Did you not expect me?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, as for a moment she looked him full in the eyes.

She sat down on an ottoman, and the colonel drew up a chair a little distance away. He was a tall, well-built, soldier-like man, some thirty-eight or forty years old.

‘You know the purpose that has brought me?’ he asked.

‘I have not forgotten.’

‘Two months ago I had the temerity to ask you a certain question. I, who had come to judge you, if needs were to condemn, had ended by losing my heart to the only woman I had ever met who had power to drag it out of my own safe keeping. You rejected my suit. I left you. Time went on, but I found it impossible to forget you. At length I determined again to put my fortune to the proof. It was a forlorn hope, but I am an old soldier, and I would not despair. Once more I told you all that I had told you before; once more I put the same question to you. This time you did not say No, but neither did you say Yes. To-day I have come for your answer.’ He drew his chair a little closer and took one of her hands. ‘Mora, do not say that your answer to-day will be the same as it was before—do not say that you can never learn to care for me.’

She had listened with bent head and downcast eyes. She now disengaged her hand, rose, crossed to the window, and then came back. She was evidently much perturbed. ‘What shall I say? what shall I say?’ she asked half aloud.

The colonel overheard her and started to his feet. ‘Let me tell you what to say!’ he exclaimed.

She held up her hand. ‘One moment,’ she said. Then she motioned to him to be seated, and herself sat down again.

‘Has it never occurred to you,’ she began, ‘to ask yourself how much or how little you really know about the woman whom you are so desirous of making your wife? Three months ago you had not even learnt my name, and now—even now, how much more do you know respecting me and my antecedents than you knew the first day you met me?’

‘I know that I love you. I ask to know nothing more.’

‘You would take me upon trust?’

‘Try me.’

She shook her head a little sadly. ‘It is not the way of the world.’

‘This is a matter with which the world has nothing to do.’

‘Colonel Woodruffe—I have a Past.’

‘So have all of us who are no longer boys or girls.’

‘It is only right that you should know the history of that Past.’

‘Such knowledge could in nowise influence me. It is with the present and the future only that I have to do.’

‘It is of the future that I am now thinking.’

‘Pardon me if I scarcely follow you.’

‘How shall I express to you what I wish to convey?’ She rose, crossed to the table, and taking up a book, began to turn its leaves carelessly over, evidently scarcely knowing what she was about. ‘If—if it so happened that I were to accede to your wishes,’ she said—‘if, in short, I were to become your wife—and at some future time, by some strange chance, some incident or fact connected with my past life, of which you knew nothing, and of which you had no previous suspicion, were to come to your knowledge, would you not have a right to complain that I had deceived you? that I had kept silence when I ought to have spoken? that—that’——

‘Mora—Mora, if this is all that stands between me and your love—between me and happiness, it is nothing—less than nothing! I vow to you’——

‘Stay!’ she said, coming a step or two nearer to him. ‘Do not think that I fail to appreciate your generosity or the chivalrous kindness which prompts you to speak as you do. But—I am thinking of myself as well as of you. If such a thing as I have spoken of were to happen, although your affection for me might be in nowise changed thereby, with what feelings should I afterwards regard myself? I should despise myself, and justly so, to the last day of my life.’

‘No—no! Believe me, you are fighting a shadow that has no substance behind it. I tell you again, and I will tell you so a hundred times, if need be, that with your Past I have nothing whatever to do. My heart tells me in accents not to be mistaken that you are a pure and noble-minded woman. What need a man care to know more?’

‘I should fail to be all that you believe me to be, were I not to oppose you in this matter even against your own wishes.’

‘Do you not believe in me? Can you not trust me?’

‘Oh, yes—yes! I believe in you, and trust you as only a woman can believe and trust. It is the unknown future and what may be hidden in it, that I dread.’ She crossed to the chimney-piece, took up the letter, gazed at it for a moment, and then went back with it in her hand. ‘Since you were here five days ago, I have written this—written it for you to read. It is the life-history of a most unhappy woman. It is a story that till now has been a secret between the dead and myself. But to you it must now be told, because—because—oh! you know why. Take it—read it; and if after that you choose to come to me—then’——

Not a word more could she say. She put the letter into his hand, and turning abruptly away, crossed to the window, but she saw nothing for the blinding mist of tears that filled her eyes.

Colonel Woodruffe, with his gaze fixed on the letter, stood for a moment or two turning it over and over in his fingers. Then he crossed to the fireplace. In a stand on the chimney-piece were some vesta matches. He took one, lighted it, and with it set fire to the letter, which he held by one corner till it was consumed. Madame De Vigne had turned and was watching him with wide-staring eyes.

‘“Let the dead Past bury its dead,”’ said the colonel gravely, as the ashes dropped from his fingers into the grate. ‘Your secret shall remain a secret still.’

‘’Tis done! I can struggle no longer,’ said Madame De Vigne to herself.

The colonel crossed to her and took one of her hands. ‘Nothing can come between us now,’ he said. ‘Now you are all my own.’

He drew her to him and touched her lips with his. All her face flushed rosy red, and into her eyes there sprang a light of love and tenderness such as he had never seen in them before. Never had he seen her look so beautiful as at that moment. He led her back to the ottoman and sat down beside her.

‘Tell me, dearest,’ he said, ‘am I the same man who came into this room a quarter of an hour ago—doubting, fearing, almost despairing?’

‘Yes, the same.’

‘I began to be afraid that I had been changed into somebody else. Well, now that the skirmish is over, now that the fortress has capitulated, suppose we settle the terms of victory. How soon are we to be married?’

‘Married! You take my breath away. You might be one of those freebooters of the middle ages who used to hang their prisoners the moment they caught them.’

‘We are prepared to grant the prisoner a reasonable time to make her peace with the world.’

Madame De Vigne laid a hand gently on his sleeve. ‘Dear friend, let us talk of this another time,’ she said.

‘Another time then let it be,’ he answered as he lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Meanwhile’——

‘Yes, meanwhile?’

‘I may as well proceed to give you a few lessons in the art of making love.’

‘It may be that the pupil knows as much of such matters as her teacher.’

‘That has to be proved. You shall have your first lesson to-morrow.’

‘Merci, monsieur.’

‘By Jove! talking about to-morrow reminds me of something I had nearly forgotten.’ He started to his feet and pulled out his watch. ‘Now that you have made me the happiest fellow in England, I must leave you for a little while.’

‘Leave me?’ she exclaimed as she rose to her feet.

‘Only for a few hours. On my arrival here I found a telegram from my brother. He has been staying at Derwent Hall, near Grasmere. To-morrow he starts for Ireland. We have some family matters to arrange. If I don’t see him to-night, we may not meet again for months. I’m sorry at having to go, but you won’t mind my leaving you till to-morrow?’

‘Can you ask? Do you know, I’m rather glad you are going.’

‘Why glad?’

‘Because it will give me time to think over all that has happened this evening. I—I feel as if I want to be alone. You are not a woman, and can’t understand such things.’

Again his arm stole round her waist. The clock on the mantel-piece struck the hour. Mora disengaged herself. ‘Twilight seems to have come all at once,’ she said. ‘You will have a dark drive. It is time for you to go.’

‘More’s the pity.’

‘To-morrow will soon be here; which reminds me that we have arranged for a picnic to-morrow at High Ghyll Force.’

‘You will be there?’

‘Clarice and Miss Gaisford have induced me to promise.’

‘If I should happen to drive round that way on my return, should I be looked upon as an intruder?’

‘As if you didn’t know differently from that!’

‘Then possibly you may see me.’

‘I shall expect you without fail.’

‘In that case I will not fail.—My driver will be wondering what has become of me.’

‘Good-night,’ said Mora impulsively.

‘Harold,’ he said softly.

‘Harold—dear Harold!’ she answered.

‘My name never sounded so sweet before,’ exclaimed the colonel as, with a parting embrace, the gallant wooer quitted the apartment.

‘Heaven bless you, my dearest one!’ she murmured as the door closed. Then she sank on to a seat and wept silently to herself for several minutes. After a time she proceeded to dry her eyes. ‘What bundles of contradictions we women are! We cry when we are in trouble, and we cry when we are glad.’

Nanette came in, carrying a lighted lamp. She was about to close the windows and draw the curtains, but her mistress stopped her. After the hot day, the evening seemed too fresh and beautiful to be shut out. Nanette turned down the flame of the lamp till it seemed little more than a glowworm in the dusk, and then left the room.

‘How lonely I feel, now that he has gone,’ said Mora; ‘but to-morrow will bring him again—to-morrow!’

She crossed to the piano and struck a few notes in a minor key. Then she rose and went to the window. ‘Music has no charms for me to-night,’ she said. ‘I cannot read—I cannot work—I cannot do anything. What strange restlessness is this that possesses me?’ There was a canary in a cage hanging near the window. It chirruped to her as if wishful of being noticed. ‘Ah, my pretty Dick,’ she said, ‘you are always happy so long as you have plenty of seed and water. I can whisper my secret to you, and you will never tell it again, will you? Dick—he loves me—he loves me—he loves me! And I love him, oh, so dearly, Dick!’

She went back to the piano and played a few bars; but being still beset by the same feeling of restlessness, she presently found her way again to the window. On the lawn outside, the dusk was deepening. The trees stood out massive and solemn against the evening sky, but the more distant features of the landscape were lost in obscurity. How lonely it seemed! There was not a sound anywhere. Doubtless, several windows of the hotel were lighted up, but from where Mora was standing they were not visible. Dinner was still in progress; as soon as it should be over, the lawn would become alive with figures, idling, flirting, smoking, seated under the trees, or promenading slowly to and fro. At present, however, the lady had the whole solemn, lovely scene to herself.

She stood gazing out of the window for some minutes without moving, looking in her white dress in the evening dusk like a statue chiselled out of snowy marble.

‘My heart ought to beat with happiness,’ she inwardly communed; ‘but it is filled with a vague dread of something—I know not what—a fear that has no name. Yet what have I to fear? Nothing—nothing! My secret is still my own, and the grave tells no tales.’

Suddenly a breath of air swept up from the lake and shook the curtains. She looked round the dim room with a shudder. The tiny tongue of flame from the lamp only served, as it were, to make darkness visible. She made a step forward, and then drew back. The room seemed full of weird shadows. Was there not something in that corner? It was like a crouching figure, all in black, waiting to spring upon her! And that curtain—it seemed as if grasped by a hidden hand! What if some one were hiding there!

She sank into the nearest chair and pressed her fingers to her eyes. ‘No—no—no!’ she murmured. ‘These are only my own foolish imaginings. O Harold, Harold! why did you leave me?’

Next moment the silence was broken by the faint, far-away sound of a horn, playing a slow, sweet air. Mora lifted her head and listened.

‘Music on the lake. How sweet it sounds. It has broken the spell that held me. It seems like the voice of a friend calling through the darkness. I will walk down to the edge of the water. The cool air from the hills will do me good.’

There was a black lace scarf hanging over the arm of a couch; she took it up and draped it over her head and round her throat and shoulders. Her foot was on the threshold, she was in the act of stepping out into the veranda, when she heard a voice outside speaking to some other person. The instant she heard it she shrank back as though petrified with horror.

‘That voice! Can the grave give up its dead?’ she whispered as though she were asking the question of some one.

Next moment the figures of two men, one walking a little way behind the other, became distinctly outlined against the evening sky as they advanced up the sloping pathway from the lake. The first of the two men was smoking, the second was carrying some articles of luggage.

The first man came to a halt nearly opposite the windows of Madame de Vigne’s sitting-room. Turning to the second man, he said, with a pronounced French accent: ‘Take my luggage into the hotel. I will stay here a little while and smoke.’

The second man passed forward out of sight. The first man, still standing on the same spot, took out another cigar, struck a match, and proceeded to light it. For a moment by the light of the match his features were plainly visible; next moment all was darkness again.

But Madame De Vigne, crouching behind the curtains of the dimly lighted room, had seen enough to cause her heart to die within her.

‘The grave _has_ given up its dead! It is he!’ her blanched lips murmured.

Some minutes later, Clarice Loraine, on going into the sitting-room, found her sister on the floor in a dead faint.

AN EDUCATIONAL PIONEER.

It would be difficult to find a more unique or more interesting educational body than the so-called Brothers of the Christian Schools. Founded some two hundred years ago by the venerable John Baptist de la Salle, on lines which the best schools of to-day have not hesitated to adopt, the influence of this Institute has spread over all the civilised, and even to some regions of the uncivilised world. Its extension to Great Britain is but of recent date, and only seven schools have as yet been inaugurated. The thoroughness and practical value of the instruction given are mainly due to a strict adherence to the ‘object’ lesson principle.

Hitherto, we have been accustomed to associate this with the Kindergarten ideas of Pestalozzi and Froebel; but although their efforts to lighten the intellectual labours of the young were mainly instrumental in bringing ‘playwork’ to its present perfection, recent researches have shown that the venerable Dr de la Salle in his educational plan strongly urged that pupils should be taken to exhibitions and so forth, where their masters could give practical illustrations of special studies. Zoological or botanical gardens were in this way to be visited, that the uses and benefits of certain animals or plants might be demonstrated; and school museums, herbaria, geological, mineralogical, and other collections were afterwards to be formed by the pupils themselves. And not only did De la Salle institute object-teaching, but he was also the first to introduce class methods. Before his time, children were for the most part taught individually, or, where this was not so, large numbers were collected in one room, each in turn going to the teacher to have separate instruction, whilst the others were allowed to remain idle, free to torment one another or the little victim at the master’s table. Great care was taken by De la Salle in examining and placing the children committed to his care in the classes best fitted for them; and the success of his method was so great, that the numerous schools opened by the Brothers under his direction soon became overcrowded.

His great object was to reach the poor, and to train them to a knowledge of a holy life and an independent livelihood. The opposition he met with was at times very great. The ire of professional writing-masters was first aroused; the poor had necessarily been debarred from learning to write, because only the well-to-do could afford the stipulated fees, and writing-masters were therefore employed to do all the correspondence of those who could not write. So, when De la Salle undertook to teach every child who came to him what had been in some senses a secret art, their fury vented itself in an opposition so overpowering that they drove the Brothers from their schools in Paris and threw their furniture into the streets. The opposition was only temporary, however; and as time passed, fresh schools were opened, not only in France and her colonies, but in every European country, and many parts of America, as well as in one or two districts of Asia and Africa.

The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, though nominally Roman Catholic, is truly catholic in its widest sense, for, besides admitting children of every religious denomination, secular learning is admirably provided for. Their greatest successes have perhaps been achieved in the art of writing and drawing, as applied to all technical industries and art products. One illustration of the results of their method of teaching writing in a remote region where the pupils are not the easiest to train, may be cited as an example. When the treaty of commerce between France and Madagascar in 1868 was about to be signed, Queen Ranavalona was much struck by the beautiful caligraphy of the copy presented to her by the Chancellor of the French Consulate, and she determined that hers should not be inferior. The pupils in all the chief schools in the island furnished examples of handwriting to the queen’s prime-minister, but without satisfying her taste. At last, an officer who had seen the Brothers’ schools suggested that one of their pupils should compete. A young boy, Marc Rabily-Kely, sent in some beautiful specimens of different styles of writing; and the copying of the treaty was at once intrusted to him. When the two copies were presented side by side, a murmur of applause went round at the sight of Queen Ranavalona’s copy, and all cried out: ‘Resy ny vasoha’ (The whites are beaten). This is only one instance among many, and shows how much can be done by systematic training in the art of writing, a subject much neglected in the majority of schools.

But De la Salle did not stop short at educating the poor; he was the first to found training colleges for masters, and the first to institute regular boarding-schools in which everything relating to commerce, finance, military engineering, architecture, and mathematics was taught, and in which trades could be learned. Besides these, he founded an institution in which agriculture was taught as a science. At St Yon, where the first agricultural school was started, a large garden was devoted to the culture of specimens of fodder-plants, injurious plants, grain, plants peculiar to certain soils, fruits and flowers. The students of to-day study all this, and in addition to working on model farms, visit all the best farms around, are sent with special professors to attend certain markets and sales of live-stock, and have special field-days for practically studying botany, geology, and entomology. The innovations introduced by De la Salle extended to other matters than practical education. Before French boys in his day were allowed to study their own language, they were obliged to learn to read Latin, and thus years were sometimes spent in acquiring a certain facility in reading a language they never understood. De la Salle changed all this, in spite of repeated opposition, and succeeded in making the vernacular tongue the basis of their teaching instead of Latin. Owing to this change, the poor scholars progressed much more rapidly than those in other schools, and the Brothers’ Institutes were soon far ahead of all the elementary schools of their day. The way in which they have held their position even till to-day is shown by the results of the public examinations in Paris during the last thirty-five years. Out of sixteen hundred and thirty-five scholarships offered during this time, pupils of these schools have obtained thirteen hundred and sixteen. This in itself is an enormous proportion; but it is even greater than it appears, when we consider that seculars had more schools, fewer pupils per teacher, and thus a better chance to advance the individual scholar, and as a rule, a richer class of scholars to select from. These scholarship examinations have recently been discontinued, though not until after the Brothers’ pupils were excluded from competition in consequence of the so-called ‘laicisation’ of schools in 1880, after which the Brothers of Paris gave up their government schools and opened voluntary ones.

The whole educational scheme of De la Salle was admirably complete; but perhaps the most interesting feature of the whole—now that we are familiarised with his systems for teaching special subjects by their spread in their original or a modified form to most European countries—was his very simple plan for enforcing discipline. He was always loath to believe unfavourable accounts of any pupil, and in the first place took pains to discover whether the failings were the result of the misdirection of those in authority or of the pupil’s own wilfulness. When there was evidently a necessity for punishment, the culprit was put in a quiet and fairly comfortable cell. Once shut in alone, his notice was attracted to stands obviously intended for flowers, to empty cages and other things which reminded the little prisoner that there were good and beautiful enjoyments for those who deserved them. One of the first questions the boys generally asked was why there were nails for pictures, cages for birds, &c., and yet neither pictures nor birds. In answer, they were told that as they improved they would be supplied with all these good things; that if they left off using profane or bad language, a bird would be put in the cage; that as soon as they became industrious and worked well, their prison vases would be adorned with flowers; that when they acknowledged their previous wrong-doing, pleasant pictures would be hung on the panels; that when their repentance was seen to be sincere, they would rejoin their schoolfellows; and that in time they would be allowed to go back to their families.

The system worked so well, and is still found to succeed so thoroughly, that it is almost a wonder it has not become more general. It has certainly many advantages over the plan of giving boys so many hundred lines to write, which is a mere task, soon forgotten, and benefiting no one. But as there are only seven schools, and those of very recent foundation, in England, we may perhaps still have to wait before hearing that this discipline is at all general. In the meantime, all interested in the training of the young might derive valuable hints from studying this and other methods initiated by the pioneer of popular education not only in France, but in all Europe.

THE MISSING CLUE.

A TALE OF THE FENS.