Chapter VI: The Frame Has a Picture Once More

NORAH wrote as soon as possible to tell of her arrival at Paris, and pour forth on the same sheet her regrets at parting from the Whitmores, and her pleasure in being with all her kith and kin. At first there seemed a prospect of their returning to England; but later on, instead of hearing that a time was fixed for their coming, news arrived of a contrary character. The doctors advised Colonel Pease to winter at Cannes, in order that after so many years spent in India, he might not be too suddenly exposed to the severity of the season in England.

Richard Whitmore heard this, and began to meditate on the possibility of taking Miss Pease and his sisters to spend the winter in the Riviera, but he decided to let January come first, and then to journey South for the three following months.

Once more came a message from the angle window which put an end to his plans and froze to the death the glad hopes that he had been nourishing in his heart.

Gertrude was sitting there with Miss Pease, reading a letter aloud, when he entered the morning-room. She was not very fond of pet names, and often called her sisters by theirs at fall length instead of using the diminutives, Mina and Jo, and roused Molly's wrath by calling her Florence Mary. Since she had been aware that Norah was only short for Eleanor, Gertrude usually spoke of their late guest by her full name also.

As Richard entered the room he heard his sister say, "So Eleanor is actually engaged to Sir Edward Peyton. Is it not rather a sudden affair?"

"Perhaps it may be deemed so in respect to the engagement itself, but they have been long acquainted. While Norah was here she often spoke of his frequent visits and attentions when we were alone, but so long as there was nothing definite it was scarcely likely she would allude to such things before others."

Richard paused a moment to recover himself after the blow. Then he advanced towards Miss Pease, saying, "I was not an intentional eavesdropper, but I heard the news of your niece's engagement, and I suppose I must congratulate you on the event."

"Yes, Eleanor is engaged," said the little lady, all sympathetic smiles and blushes. "Sometimes I think when such events occur, condolences would be more fitting for those they leave behind. When there is but a single parent and few children, or only one, a break brings pain as well as pleasure, even though caused by marriage."

Richard begged Miss Pease to give his congratulatory messages, and then stole away into the library to think over what he had heard, and find comfort as best he might.

There was only one picture that came constantly before him, and that was the angle window without an occupant, and a dying bird on the terrace below.

And Richard whispered to himself, "Just another wounded bird. I could almost wish that I, too, had been injured even unto death. If it were not that I am needed, specially by Molly, I should say it in earnest. As it is, I must run away, lest the rest should see the wound."

Richard's mind was promptly made up. There was to be an expedition for the purpose of observing a total eclipse of the sun, visible in Southern latitudes, but not in England. He announced his intention of joining it, pleaded that he wanted a shake-up, that he was growing old and rusty by dint of over-petting and self-indulgence; and, in short, that he must go.

Before Miss Pease received another letter conveying a message of thanks for his congratulations, Richard had completed his arrangements and was on his way to Mauritius.

Whilst there he saw in the "Times," for February 27, an announcement of the marriage, at Cannes, of Sir Edward Peyton, Bart., and Eleanor Pease. It was simply worded, and as the "Queen" did not fall into his hands, Richard missed many details about dresses, bridesmaids, etc., some of which might have proved interesting.

He wondered a little that almost nothing was said in subsequent home letters about this marriage. Miss Pease did just mention that Eleanor's wedding had taken place, and there were allusions in some of his sisters' epistles to the good match made by her niece, but Norah, as the Norah of Mere Side, was not mentioned, or only in the most cursory way.

"Perhaps they guess," thought Richard, "and are silent for my sake. Thank God, for Norah's! From all I have been able to ascertain she has married a good man, and I pray that she may be happy. I would not grudge her to the husband of her choice, but somehow I cannot believe that any tie existed when she was with us. If I had only spoken, or gone when she did to meet her father—but it is too late."

It was not until the May twelve months after leaving home that Richard Whitmore set foot in England again.

He joined one scientific party after another, and went to and fro, adding much to his store of knowledge, and finding in change of scene and the habit of close observation, which gave him work for every day, the best remedy for the wound which healed but slowly.

Then he had to come home, to open his hands for more wealth. A distant cousin had left him thirty thousand pounds. When the news reached him he said, "This, divided into four and added to the little belonging to the girls, will give each of them ten thousand pounds, for the Maynards do not want it. There will be more for them by and by, from their bachelor brother, for I shall never marry now."

He did not tell them this, or even about the legacy at first. He had to hear of all that had passed during his absence, to note that Molly, now turned seventeen, was more like Norah Pease, slenderer and more thoughtful-looking than of old.

It was Dick's absence that had made her the last. Little Miss Pease's hair was greyer, but it just suited her delicately fresh complexion. Nina and Jo had altered less than Molly, but Gertrude was the most changed of all.

There was a new light in her eyes, a softer flush on her cheek, a gentleness of manner foreign to the old Gertrude. Molly's welcome was not more hearty than hers, or her sisterly embrace more tender or more entirely voluntary than was Gertrude's.

Nobody had told Richard anything, but he looked at his eldest sister and guessed her secret rightly.

The girl had given her heart to a good, but not a rich man, one who at first feared to offer his own to Miss Whitmore, of Mere Side, lest he should be suspected of seeking a rich bride whose wealth would make amends for his own small means.

For once Miss Sharp's tongue did good service without its being intended. Her keen eyes, ever on the watch, detected something in Gertrude's manner favourable to Mr. Kemble, of whose views she decided there could be no doubt.

"He is in the Civil Service, and has an income of three hundred a year," said Miss Sharp. "I dare say he thinks Gertrude Whitmore is an heiress, but I shall open his eyes, and show that proud minx what he is really looking after."

Miss Sharp carried out her resolution, and managed to let Mr. Kemble's sister and niece, visitors in the neighbourhood, know the exact amount to which Miss Whitmore was entitled under her father's will. The result astonished her.

Instead of packing up and departing at once, Mr. Kemble manifested the greatest delight. He would have shrunk from the heiress, but he dared to ask the girl he loved to share his lot, when he found out that there was not much disparity in their means, and none in social standing; and she accepted him with this proviso, that Richard must give his consent, though she was of age.

Gertrude told her brother this, sitting in the angle window, and with the moon shining in thereat.

Dick kissed her, rejoiced with her, and told her there was no need to wait for the advance of salary which Kemble was sure of in another year.

"True hearts should not be parted without a needs-be, my dear, and none exists in your case," he said. Then he told her how he had always put by a considerable portion of his income, in order that his sisters might not be dowerless maidens.

"I counted on this sort of thing coming to one of you at a time, you know, and I was fairly ready for your first turn, my dear, before something else happened, which has given me at a stroke enough for you all."

He told her of the legacy, and the share he had mentally appropriated to herself, then added, "As I am a cut-and-dried old bachelor, there will be more for you in the long run."

He was not prepared for what followed.

Gertrude broke into a flood of passionate tears and sobs, and between these she cried, "Dick, dear brother Dick, can you forgive me? I do not deserve anything from you. I have been hard and selfish and ungrateful. I have tried to make the others so, and cared nothing for your happiness, only how I could keep all good things to myself. It was when I learned to love Bertram that I knew what I had done to you."

The girl sank on her knees and hid her tearful face in her hands as she bowed her head over Dick's lap, and her frame shook with sobs.

Love had conquered at last, as he always believed it would, and Richard's face looked beautiful in the moonlight, as he bent over his sister and insisted on raising her from the ground and drawing her head on his breast.

"You do forgive me, Dick. Your kind touch tells me so without words; but please listen, I want you to know everything—" and the girl went on and laid bare all the envy, ingratitude, and selfishness that had begun during that visit to the Tindalls, and how these things had grown and for a long time influenced her life for evil. "Then," she said, "you were so persistently loving that I began to see the beauty of your life and disposition, and to loathe the ugliness of my own—till Norah came."

Richard started at the mention of that name, and Gertrude felt his heart beat fuller and faster.

"No one, not even I, could help loving Norah," she said, "and often I thought what a perfect mate she would be for you, dear Dick; but I could not endure the idea of her coming here as mistress and turning us all out of Mere Side. I thought you cared for her, and she for you, but nothing came of it, only I was glad when she went away, though I expected you and she would soon meet again. You would have done so if you had not set out for Mauritius, for we were invited to the wedding, only we did not go as you were absent."

"How could I have gone?" asked Dick, with a groan of anguish that went to the listener's heart and told her something of what he had suffered.

"Then you did think it was Norah who married Sir Edward Peyton. I thought you misunderstood, and yet I purposely held my tongue. I know what my silence has done. I felt it when I realised what it would be if I were called on to part with Bertram. You will never forgive me, never."

"For pity's sake tell me what you mean, Gertrude! I am not often so impatient, but suspense will drive me mad. Is Norah married?"

"No, Dick, neither has she ever been engaged. Do you remember that morning when Miss Pease was reading the colonel's letter, in which he called his daughter 'Eleanor'? Nora was going to explain why she was never addressed by it at her aunt's, but someone interrupted. She told me afterwards that Eleanor was her grandmother's name, and that her elder cousin bore it as well as herself. To distinguish between them, one was called Nelly; that was the girl whom Miss Pease described as having been 'all elbows' when she was just in her teens, and the other, our Eleanor, was Norah to everybody. Nelly is Lady Peyton, and Norah is Norah Pease to-day."

An irrepressible thanksgiving broke from Richard's lips, and confirmed Gertrude's conviction, whilst it increased her penitence.

"You must know all," she added. "All the rest believed that you knew which of the girls was engaged to Sir Edward Peyton. I led them to think so, without directly saying it; and though they had thought you cared for Norah, when you went away so suddenly they concluded either that they had made a mistake or that she had refused you. This is why they scarcely named her in letters."

"Are Colonel Pease and Norah in England?" asked Richard, in a voice unlike his own, so moved was he.

"Yes; and they are coming here to-morrow. They were to have come together so long ago, but they have been wintering abroad and travelling about with the other family ever since."

There was a short silence, and again Gertrude faltered out—

"Can you forgive me, now you know all?"

"Thank God, I can, as I hope to be forgiven. He has overruled all for good—even my rashness and blindness."

For a little moment Richard still held the weeping girl to his breast, and then he kissed her once more, and, gently placing her on the seat whence he had risen, left her alone in the moonlight.

The next day brought Norah and her father, and the first sight of the dear fair face told Richard as plainly as words that she had come back unchanged, and was glad to be there.

A few more happy days, and then Richard told the story of his love, and knew that the treasure he desired above all others was his very own, with her father's full consent.

He spoke and she listened, in the fittest place of all—the angle window, which is no longer a frame without a picture. A white-robed figure sits on what was once the mother's seat, and gives her husband an answering smile when he looks in that direction from amongst the roses.

Colonel Pease has bought a fine estate in Saltshire, with a house on it ready to his hand, and his gentle little sister presides over his domestic arrangements.

Gertrude's home is in the outskirts of London; Mina will soon follow her sister's example, and go to a new nest. The other girls will do as they have done since Dick's marriage—flit between Mere Side and Overleigh, the colonel's home; for the old soldier is never happier or Miss Pease more in her element than when they have young faces about them.

It is said that Miss Sharp has greatly affected the society of Miss Pease since she began her rule at Overleigh; but there is no fear for the colonel; he is too old a soldier.

Brother Dick is as truly blessed as his unselfish nature deserves to be, now he has quite recovered from the wound he received through the angle window.

A MERE FLIRTATION