Chapter II: The Antecedents of Milady

The Lady Millicent Vavasour, whose proceedings were thus so freely commented upon by her inferiors, was the only child of the rich and potent Earl of Gillingham. That nobleman, who survived the Countess, his wife, but little more than a year, bequeathed at his decease, with restrictions and a good deal _à contre cœur_, all that he possessed, in land, mines, personalty, and otherwise, to his only child, the Lady Millicent aforesaid and in the last chapter duly commented upon.

The income produced by the above-mentioned properties--of all of which the heiress came into undisputed possession at the age of twenty-three--amounted at a moderate computation to thirty thousand pounds per annum. The Lady Millicent Vavasour therefore took her stand on the platform of public estimation with the _prestige_ of being one of the richest heiresses in England.

As might naturally be expected, the eyes of the world and eke the monster’s tongue had from her earliest womanhood a good deal to look and say on the subject of the Lady Millicent’s future disposition in marriage. That she would--like the Maiden Queen of mighty memory, or the banker’s heiress of nineteenth-century renown--be content to enjoy her power _alone_, no one appeared for a single moment to imagine. There exist, always have existed, and probably always will exist, a large proportion of the bolder sex of whom it is averred, and safely too, that they are not “marrying men;” but whoever in his or her experience--and I say it without prejudice--has heard of a “non-marrying woman”? Such a being, if it were discovered to exist, would be an anomaly, a _lusus naturæ_, a freak, so to speak, of the mighty mother who has done all things not only wondrously, but “decently and in order.”

But if there be a class of females likely to “go in,” as the saying is, for celibacy, that class is the _genus_ heiress. There are causes too numerous to mention that may account for this established fact: the watchfulness alike of friends and foes; a natural as well as a cultivated suspicion that “_men_ are not (always) what they seem;” the difficulties attendant on an _embarras de choix_; and last, but by no means least in importance, the fear of being reduced to a second-rate power,--may all be cited as good and sufficient reasons for the delay which so frequently occurs in the “going off” of an heiress. As regarded the Lady Millicent Vavasour, the rich _partie par excellence_ of this story, the last-mentioned cause was, far and away beyond the rest, the one to which might be attributed the important fact that she had reached the age of twenty-four while still a single woman.

There is much to be said in excuse for the almost proverbial arrogance and love of power which marks the woman who is born to greatness. She is so often taught--if not indeed by words, at least by the deference of those around her, by the inevitable yielding to her will, and by the _kotooing_ of dependents--that she is, in her way, a Queen, that it would be rather surprising if any humbler ideas of her own position should find entrance into her mind. A great deal has been advanced and written on the importance of public schools as tending to the discovery of that imaginary line known as a young gentleman’s “level;” but whether this hoped-for good is ever attained, and if attained whether it be worth the high price often paid for its possession, must remain an open question; the distressing truth however cannot, I fear, be disputed, that the “level” of a young lady possessed of forty thousand pounds per annum is never likely to be found, save and except in rare cases of matrimonial felicity--in those exceptional cases, I mean, where there is no struggle for power, where the Salic law as exemplified in the nineteenth-century wife is virtually set aside, and where (but this is a _sine quâ non_) the husband is in every way worthy of this heroic act of voluntary self-abnegation.

That the Lady Millicent Vavasour was very far from being the model woman whose price is far above rubies will very speedily be seen. She was a cold and unattractive child, and she grew up to be in many respects a cold and unattractive woman; but that she was so must in a great measure be attributed to the peculiarity of her “bringing up,” and, strange to say, to the regretable fact that she was not born to be a man. The Earl and Countess of Gillingham were both what I must be permitted to describe as “family-mad.” That the Vavasours were the most ancient, the noblest, and most exalted of all the races of men upon earth, this elderly and highly respectable couple religiously believed. Previously to her union with the last male of this ancient family, the Lady Caroline M‘Intyre (the respected mother of Lord Gillingham’s heiress) had entertained a foolish prepossession in favour of the old Scottish blood which ran in her own blue veins; but the engrafting of her northern race in the still nobler stock of the Vavasours of Gillingham was sufficient to inoculate her with every prejudice entertained by Richard, eleventh earl of that most princely house.

They were not--barring this one folly--either a particularly silly or an especially objectionable pair. They were a little grand and distant to those who _might_ be so daring as to claim equality with themselves, but to their clearly-marked inferiors and to the actual _poor_ they were kind, generous, and “pleasant.”

Perhaps the person who suffered the most from the “madness” which may be said to be inherent in the Vavasour blood was their only child--the Lady Millicent, whose career will form one of the subjects of these pages. To her, without intending to be otherwise than affectionate and kind, the behaviour of both father and mother was invariably cold and distant. She was never forgiven for the “sin” of her birth--never pardoned, poor unconscious child, for the guilt of being a girl! As the last male descendant of the Vavasours, Lord Gillingham would willingly have given ten years at least of his vast rent-roll, for a son in whose person the grand old title might be perpetuated; and the Countess his wife fully shared in what she deemed his very natural discontent. To bear without murmuring this crumpled rose-leaf on their luxurious couch was not in the nature of either; so instead of making the best of the only child with which Providence had blessed them, they did precisely the contrary; and the little Lady Millicent, deprived of the caresses and the softening influence of a gentle mother’s love, grew up as I have described her to be--cold, arrogant, and unamiable.

The young lady herself was fully capable of appreciating the wrong that had been done, not only to her family but to society at large, by the deplorable accident of her birth. As one of the richest heiresses in England, and as the bearer of a name so noble and so honoured, she was of course a “personage;” and as one of the uppermost (that could not be denied) of the upper ten thousand she would take her place, and an exalted place too, among the great ones of the land; but--there was the rub!--_there_ “pinched the shoe,” and “galled the withers”--she was not and would not be, in the course of nature, a peeress! Power--the power that wealth would give--was hers, but precedence--that honour so dearly valued by her sex--was sadly and, unless it were obtained by marriage, for ever wanting.

When, after her parents’ decease, which occurred soon after she had completed her twenty-third year, the orphaned heiress pondered regretfully upon these things, the idea of purchasing with her valued thousands one of the highest of England’s titles could scarcely fail to occur to one whose love of rank--the well-imbibed prejudice of a dull and unsympathised-with childhood--was only outdone by her passionate attachment to power. Well did the Lady Millicent know--for her girlhood had not all been spent in the seclusion of Gillingham, and at London balls and routs and dinner-parties she had learned something of the level of gold--well did the heiress know that, were she willing to barter her rent-roll for rank, the negotiation would have been only too easily effected. But, all things considered, this young woman was not so willing. Any superiority enjoyed by a husband, any benefit conferred upon her through him, would--so singularly was she constituted--have been as gall and wormwood to her taste. She was overweeningly proud, besides, even as her parents had been before her, of the name she bore; and, singular as it may at first seem, it was to that very pride in, and attachment to the name of Vavasour that the tardy marriage of this proud and impracticable lady was owing.

Late in the summer of the year following on her accession to wealth and power, the Lady Millicent set forth in great state on a continental tour. As companions on the way she had chosen Lord and Lady Merioneth: a good simple-minded pair, ready and able to be amused, and withal tolerably slow to comprehend (from the circumstance of their own entire want of foolish family pride) the besetting sin of their young companion.

The delicate health of Lady Millicent Vavasour was, to the surprise of the world in general, the alleged motive for her spending the winter abroad. It had been suddenly discovered that the lungs of the heiress were delicate; and although her breadth of chest and generally healthy appearance tended to correct the assertion, public interest--no unusual occurrence when the _malade imaginaire_, or otherwise, happens to be a millionaire--was immediately enlisted in “poor dear” Lady Millicent’s behalf. “So young!” “so gifted!” “so attractive!” It would, indeed, be hard (and a “liberty” was _implied_, if not actually spoken) if Death should venture to approach within hailing-distance the august person of the Lady of Gillingham. Happily, however, as it soon became manifest, there was no immediate danger that the wealth of the heiress would be turned into some obscure and probably (to the public) uninteresting channel. Long before the money-scattering English party had reached Florence the Lady Millicent had thrown off every appearance of invalidness, and was ready for any amusement suitable to her exalted position which chance might throw in her way. And ready, too, for something more than amusement--ready to be softened into as much love as her nature was capable of feeling, by one worthy of the best affections of a far worthier woman than was the Lady Millicent Vavasour. Cecil Vavasour was a cousin, many times removed, of that autocratic lady--the descendant of a junior branch of the noble family whose name he bore; and, moreover, in _his_ branch of the family there existed the title of baron--a title which there was every probability would eventually be borne by this poor and comparatively obscure relation. Comparatively obscure, for in a world of his own--a world that was not that of the Lady Millicent Vavasour--the intellectual but retiring Cecil was known and honoured. She for that reason, among others too insignificant to mention, had never till on the occasion of this her first continental trip chanced to fall in with her kinsman; and when at last she did make his acquaintance, the effect of even a first meeting was marked and decisive. Not that there was much in Cecil Vavasour’s outward man calculated to touch a woman’s fancy or to win her heart. He was some years past thirty, and in person neither handsome nor the reverse; but there was a something undefinably attractive even in the reserve of manner, that spoke of latent power, and of an intelligence above that of ordinary and unreflecting mortals. He was tall, too, and of a stately presence; one of those men, in short, to whom, both physically and mentally, a woman, be she ever so highly placed in her own estimation, would hardly have refused to pay the tribute of tacitly acknowledging to her own self that he was her master. Cecil’s father, a practical though not exactly a discerning man, had intended his only son for the Bar; but circumstances, to say nothing of the young man’s own individual tastes, decided against the realisation of the old gentleman’s plans. A short sojourn in Italy, whither he had gone to protect and comfort an invalid sister, whose days when she left the shores of England were already well-nigh numbered, had completed the dislike to his profession which before had been little more than a surmised distaste. Cecilia Vavasour died a tranquil death in the soft climate of Tuscany; and her brother, throwing law study to the winds, and leaving _Blackstone_ to grow dusty on its shelves, remained to make the best of his three hundred a year in the sunny land that he had learned so soon to love.

Cecil Vavasour had been three years in Italy--a busy idler, devoted, almost to idolatry, to the Beautiful that has survived the touch of Time; as well as to the memories, the associations, and the soft sadness that cling around the decaying ruins of the past. He had roved from place to place, mixing little in society, but yet not actually shunning communion with his fellows, when Lady Millicent arrived at Florence. It would have been impossible, even had he felt the wish (which he did not) to avoid his cousin, for the quondam barrister not to become intimate with the heiress of Gillingham. At first he was very shy--as shy as a proud poor man was almost certain to be under the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed. Compared to the cousin, who called him Cecil, and treated him from the first with marked kindness and consideration, he might well be termed an impecunious relation. Had Lady Millicent’s conduct towards him been different--had she behaved to him with anything approaching to her usual rigid arrogance--his poverty would have troubled Cecil Vavasour but little. It was his young kinswoman’s gentleness, her unwonted amiability, her actual deference towards himself, that, while it rendered him ill at ease in her society, both puzzled and touched him. He little guessed, while gradually falling under the spell of a woman who in youth was not destitute of personal attractions, and who could be agreeable when she chose, what was the true mainspring of her conduct regarding him. He could form no idea of the hidden demon of Pride lurking beneath that still exterior. To his thinking, Lady Millicent Vavasour--young, courted, with tens of thousands yearly at her command, with power to effect so vast an amount of good to others, and (which we fear was almost equally enviable in Mr. Vavasour’s sight) with wealth to indulge to the utmost every æsthetic taste--was scarcely likely to ambition any extra or unpossessed advantage. And then he was himself so utterly unassuming, so entirely unaware that he in his own person owned, or was likely ever to own, gifts that the rich heiress of Gillingham could covet, that, as I said before, he was at the beginning almost more puzzled than gratified by her notice.

That this state of things should have occasioned at first a something of distance in the relations between the cousins is not surprising, nor need it afford subject for wonder that that very _distance_ lent a piquancy to their intercourse which was not, to the petted heiress at least, without its charm. Lady Millicent had been so beset by flatterers, and so cloyed by adulation, that the silence, the fits of absence, and the almost _brusqueries_ of her cousin Cecil were greeted by her as a very agreeable variety. She was sick to death of oversweet confections, of butter and honey she had been positively surfeited, so that the honest brown-bread diet, dry and husky though it was, which was all that she appeared likely to obtain from Cecil Vavasour, tasted fresh and wholesome to her fevered palate.

But there was, as I before said, another cause--_the_ cause, in fact--for Lady Millicent’s obvious appreciation of her cousin, and that motive power was her cousin’s future rank; for Mr. Vavasour, simple as he stood before her, quiet, unpretending, noticeable for his carelessness of outward advantages, his simple manners, and his unfashionable dress, could nevertheless, failing some very abnormal event, be the means of obtaining for her in a mitigated degree the fulfilment of her long-cherished desire--the hope of her heart, the insatiable craving, known only to herself, to wear, while retaining the noble name of Vavasour, the coronet of a British peeress on her brow.

The courtship, if courtship it could be called, between Lady Millicent and the future Baron de Vavasour was somewhat singular and out of rule; and if any distinct offer of marriage were made between the parties--not a common occurrence, by the way, in set and deliberate phrase, between acknowledged lovers--that offer was believed by those best acquainted with the contracting parties to have emanated from the lady. That Cecil believed--free from personal vanity though he was--in her attachment to himself there could be no doubt; nothing, therefore, remained for the man whose own nature was too noble for him to fear for himself the imputation of mercenary motives, but to put his pride, and his scruples, if such he had, into his comparatively empty pockets, and to accept the goods which his millionaire kinswoman had provided for him.

Perhaps, had the autocratic mistress of Gillingham and its dependencies been better acquainted with the character of Cecil Vavasour, she might have hesitated longer ere she selected him as the partner of her life. With all her ambition, she yet required a husband who would understand _her_ character and enter into her views; and of this Mr. Vavasour soon showed himself to be incapable. Misled by the natural faith which we all are apt to place in our own individual judgment, Lady Millicent had discovered imaginary qualities in the man whom she had _honoured_ with her choice. Deceived by the extreme composure of manner and the gentle reserve which were among her kinsman’s outward characteristics, she had given him credit for an indolence of disposition which she rather approved of than regretted, and for an inborn pride of race calculated to assimilate satisfactorily with her own. They were married, and the Lady Millicent was not long in discovering to her _annoyance_--for hers was not a character to take a disappointment to _heart_--that she had made a fatal mistake. A better man, nor one possessed of a more conscientious spirit than that which dwelt in Cecil Vavasour, never walked the earth. That this was so, no one who boasted the slightest knowledge of character would long doubt. It might be, though that fact had yet to be decided, that the lawyer _manqué_ was not likely to be a distinguished man; but the most casual observer would have decided at once upon the impossibility of his being otherwise than an upright and a straightforward one. But for all this, and though Mr. Vavasour proved to be, in the broad and usual acceptation of the term, an excellent husband, Lady Millicent was, and withal showed herself to be, bitterly and hopelessly disappointed. It was terrible to find that, instead of sympathising in her ambitious desires, Cecil was content to devote himself to the cultivation of his understanding, the care of his wife’s extensive property, the amelioration of the condition of the poor, and later, as the--to him--exceeding blessing of children was granted to his hopes, to the education and moral training of his sons and daughters. _At_ every time and season, and _to_ all the occupations and interests of her husband, Lady Millicent took marked exception. She had expected to find him an amiable nonentity, and instead, there was ever at her side an earnest and highly intelligent companion; one too who, although he was no rival power ready to edge her off the throne she so dearly prized, was nevertheless a man who, entertaining both stern and exalted notions of the responsibilities of the rich, was not easily to be diverted from the line of duty--often narrow and difficult--which he had marked out for himself to follow. Under the vexatiousness of this tardy discovery, Lady Millicent daily fumed and fretted--fumed and fretted till her temper, never one of the best, grew peevish and easy of irritation, and till the chafing of the crumpled rose-leaf against the sensitive skin of the proud woman’s self-esteem grew to be a painful, and in process of time a never-to-be-cicatrised sore.

Nor was Cecil Vavasour long behindhand in awaking from the one delusion that had so effectually changed for him the cherished habits of a life. The conviction that the love in which he had believed had been but a passing fancy, and the certainty that he was solely valued by her as a stepping-stone on which to rise to rank, were not subjects for agreeable reflection. But though Vavasour was capable of feeling keenly the wrong--for wrong it was--that had been done him, he was the last man in the world either to complain of, or to grow silently morbid under, its infliction; only by his deeds could it be surmised that he was an unwilling sharer in the good things procurable by the Lady Millicent’s gold; and as, previously to his marriage, he had steadfastly resisted the making of any _settlement_ by which he could in his own person benefit, so did he, after becoming convinced of his wife’s indifference, keep with rigid economy his private expenses within the scope of his own limited means to defray, while he abstained as much as lay in his power from indulgence in luxuries which those means would, unassisted, have been inadequate to procure for him.

Setting aside this glaring instance (which it clearly was) of eccentricity, Cecil Vavasour, as was universally allowed, acted well up to the obligations imposed upon the rich and powerful. There was no lordly house throughout the length and breadth of the land in which the rights of hospitality were exercised with a more liberal hand than at the various residences owned and occupied by the Vavasour family. At Gillingham Castle especially, where the establishment was on an almost princely scale, the grand old house was twice a year brimming over with guests, and far and wide spread the reputation for “good entertaining” of the Lady Millicent and her consort. But for all that this was so, and although Cecil Vavasour was loved and appreciated by the poor, whose invaluable friend and adviser he ever proved himself to be, he was not generally popular either with his equals or his superiors in social position. To anyone accustomed to look inquiringly into human motives, and to those who have gained knowledge of mankind by enlarged association with their fellows, the fact that Cecil Vavasour, with all his excellence, his gentleness and his hospitality, was not generally a favourite, will excite but little surprise. As a rule, the silent and apparently self-conceited man rarely meets with favour, for silence is too often taken for a diagnostic of pride, and pride is of all human qualities the one which both men and women find the most difficult to pardon. But there was yet another quality, and it was the one to which his taciturnity was mainly to be attributed, that interfered greatly with the comfort of Cecil Vavasour’s existence--he was constitutionally, and therefore incurably, _shy_. Now the shyness of a middle-aged gentleman who has lived much in society, and whose intellect is above the average, is one of those “facts” to believe in which it is necessary that the individual called upon to exhibit this credulity should be either a physiologist, or himself the victim of _mauvaise honte_. It is probable that Mr. Vavasour met with few or none who were capable either of understanding or making allowances for his infirmity; and thus it chanced that, though no man living was more formed by nature to enjoy the blessings of friendship, he passed through life without meeting (of his own degree) a single congenial soul into whose breast he could pour out his sorrows, or ask for sympathy with his joys.

What wonder is it if under these circumstances, and with his large warm heart dependent solely upon _them_ for tenderness and love, he should have fairly doated on his children? There were four of them. The eldest, Arthur, a handsome dark-eyed lad, was destined by the provisions of his grandfather’s will to enter into possession, at the age of twenty-five, of by far the greater portion of the Gillingham property, provided that on his--the said eldest son of Lady Millicent Vavasour--arriving at the above-named age, his mother should not be in legal phrase a _femme couverte_. This singular disposition of property occasioned at the time of the Earl’s decease no little surprise, but owing probably to the circumstance that there was at that period no “heir male of Lady Millicent’s body” in existence, only a very limited amount of discontent was mingled with the universal astonishment of all who thought themselves qualified to give an opinion on the subject.

The child next in age to this fortune-favoured individual was also a son; he was little more than a year his brother’s junior, and inherited more of his father’s disposition than had been engrafted on his elder brother. The two boys offered (both in person and character) marked contrasts to each other. The heir was, as I before said, a handsome fellow, tall, dark-eyed, and well formed. From his cradle he had been a child of whose outward comeliness any parent might be proud, and Lady Millicent _was_ proud of him accordingly--proud, but not fond; it was not in her nature to attach herself to any living being, save and except the heiress of Gillingham: and the effects of this monopoly of sentiment very soon became apparent in the young family growing up around her.

Of Horace, her second son, the Lady Millicent was neither proud nor fond. He was born delicate, and his infancy being a sickly and a troublesome one, his lady mother took a disgust to the child who was associated in her mind with doctors’ visits (this great personage, being very robust herself, had no patience with illness), occasional visits to a nursery smelling of drugs, and the irritating wailing of a suffering infant. As little Horace advanced in years, everyone, with the exception of his mamma, pronounced him to be, though a plain mite of a child enough, a very engaging and intelligent specimen of humanity. He was very sweet-tempered too, and docile, “getting” his baby lessons, as the head nurse expressed herself, twice as quick as Master Vavasour. But then it must be remembered that Arthur was an elder son; and when a child is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, anything above the average amount of brains is, as all the world will allow, a superfluous possession. Two daughters, Rhoda and Katherine--of whom more hereafter--completed the family, to the care and education of which Cecil Vavasour, both from a high sense of duty and following the dictates of his own heart, greatly devoted himself. Perfectly alive to the injury done to the children by the absence on their mother’s part of either the appearance or the reality of maternal tenderness, he did all that lay in his power to remedy the evil; but with the best intentions, a man cannot in such a case, to any effectual purpose, play a woman’s part. A father’s caresses to his child lack ever the softness of a woman’s touch; and moreover Cecil Vavasour’s nature was not, as we know, a demonstrative one: his constitutional infirmity of shyness, even when alone with the children in whose well-being his own happiness was bound up, shackled and oppressed him, proving a sad hindrance to that perfect confidence between parent and child which is so valuable an element in education. But although in some respects Cecil Vavasour might fall short in his exalted aims, though the young people at the Castle might and probably did miss the invaluable advantage of which they were deprived by Lady Millicent’s natural _hardness_ of character, they were nevertheless, in one respect at least, highly favoured. On their father’s unchangeable justice they could ever and always implicitly rely, as well as on that entire absence of caprice which is one of the most precious negative gifts with which those in power, whether great or limited, can be endowed.

Perhaps the main error in Mr. Vavasour’s system of education--for he had in his deep and absorbing conscientiousness formed a plan for the bringing-up of his children, from which he never deviated--was, that they were over-educated, and kept too strictly within the narrow bounds of _standard_ and routine. He may have forgotten, and it is probable that his lady wife had never known, that the natural fermentation of human passions within the breast, if too closely confined therein, is liable to become a dangerous element. Tie the vessel in which inflammable matter is kept too tightly and too early down, and when the _hot_ season of the year arrives, and the working goes on with furious heat within, then bursts the ligature and out flies the cork, while careful parents, terrified at the explosion, marvel how, after all their precautions, and the mighty pains they took, there should be a crash so fearful, and so melancholy a waste of good materials.

There are some men, and of these was Cecil Vavasour, into whose inner life other, and apparently unauthorised, people entertain a morbid desire to pry. The question of who really ruled at the Castle was often mooted, not only in the village of Switcham itself, but throughout the whole of the adjacent country. That Mr. Vavasour was a very “superior” man, the world had been from the first quite ready to acknowledge. If any confirmation of this received fact were wanting, it was to be found, so said the initiated, in the great and manifest improvement in Lady Millicent’s property since the epoch of her marriage. This improvement had been brought about so quietly, and Mr. Vavasour took so little apparent part in the management of the estates, that it was hard to say at whose instigation, or by whose superior judgment, so many salutary reforms had been carried out. There had been no sudden or startling changes. There had not even been an unjust steward dismissed, or a series of hitherto unsuspected frauds unearthed and punished. How and when this silent, unboastful man worked so effectually for the good, not only of his rich wife’s estates, but for the welfare of each individual amongst the many whom he religiously believed were, in a manner, intrusted to his charge, was a mystery to all. Nor was this the only mystery talked over amongst the inquisitive--and they were many--regarding Cecil Vavasour and his belongings. Was he, asked the curious, a happy and a contented man? Had the acquisition of wealth opened to him new sources of enjoyment? Had Lady Millicent’s husband, during the years of his married life, suffered in mind from domestic disappointment, from the coldness of his wife’s unsympathising nature, or from her besetting sin--a mean jealousy of power? It is very probable that he did so suffer, for those men frequently undergo the most whose exterior is undemonstrative, and who are to all appearance insensible to the touch of Sorrow’s wand; but whether Cecil Vavasour were or were not, in these respects, a fitting object for sympathy, the public never was quite able to make up its mind; for before such a desirable end could be attained, death, to the regret of all who knew him, cut short the earthly career of one who might truly have been called the “poor man’s friend.”

Arthur Vavasour had just completed his fifteenth year--he being then in the fifth form at Eton--when he received the direful intelligence of a loss which, to him, was truly an irreparable one. The casualty which rendered him an orphan had from the first been pronounced by the medical men to be a serious case. It was occasioned by the accidental going-off of a gun in the hand of a careless under-keeper, one bright May morning, when Mr. Vavasour and his younger son, who was the private pupil of a neighbouring clergyman, were rook-shooting in a distant part of Gillingham Chace. For several days Cecil Vavasour continued to suffer much and patiently; then on a sudden all pain left him, and he knew that his doom was sealed. The report of Mr. Vavasour’s danger spread rapidly through the country, and people flocked in crowds to the lodge-gates of Gillingham to learn the truth, and to inquire, with hushed voices and with saddened looks, whether there were any hope that the good man whose days were numbered might yet be spared to them. For, if they had never known the value of Cecil Vavasour before, they recognised it now. When he was about to be removed from amongst them, there was scarcely one amongst the poor, the sorrowful, and the troubled but remembered some act of generosity, some sympathising word, some excellent advice bestowed in time of need. It seemed difficult to realise the truth that such a man--one too in the full vigour of his life and strength--was so early destined to go the way of all flesh. To be sure he was but enduring the lot appointed for everyone that is born of a woman, and _why_ men should show longer faces, and talk with more whispering voices of the accidents and losses of the great and wealthy than they are given to do of the self-same misfortunes when they befall those who are formed of more common clay, it may at first sight be difficult to understand; but the fact that so it is remains the same. And thus it chanced that the Lady Millicent, self-absorbed and phlegmatic though she was, elicited in her threatened widowhood far more of general sympathy and interest than would have been awarded to a hundred bereaved and penniless women sobbing out their hearts’ grief in an atmosphere of poverty and dirt, and surrounded by ragged orphans howling for the bread-winner who would return to them no more for ever.

It was well for Cecil Vavasour that he had not left to “the last” the duty of preparing for the end; for the time allowed him for such preparation was short indeed. On his bed of death he found courage to speak very frankly to the wife who stood shocked, miserably disappointed, and perhaps at that supreme moment remorseful, by his side. In few but solemn words he committed his children to her care. They would, under God, who is the Father of the fatherless, be hers only now, hers to guide, to counsel, and to instruct. On her and on her only would rest, so the dying man in his feverish anxiety declared to her, their well-being both in this transitory life and in that to which _he_ was hastening; and as she should do her duty by his treasures, so, prayed the feeble voice with touching fervour, might He who judgeth all men have mercy upon her in the world that is to come! They were his last words. After a faintly-whispered farewell to the old servants, who were weeping near the door, there remained but the silent pressure of the death-cold hand, a quiver of the pale lips, as one by one his children bent their young fresh faces to receive the parting kiss, and the spirit of Cecil Vavasour entered into its rest.

There was a grand funeral, at which Lady Millicent, in the longest and _crapiest_ of robes, and utterly devoid of crinoline, assisted, leading her eldest son by the hand, and looking the bereaved and grieving widow to perfection. There were many true mourners in the crowd that followed Cecil Vavasour to the grave, and not a few of these were of opinion that true sorrow shuns a multitude, and that the newly-made widow who _can_ follow her husband’s ashes to their last resting-place has not very dearly loved him in his lifetime. Be this as it may--and it is after all as hard to judge the feelings of others as it is to estimate their powers of self-control--the Lady Millicent, surrounded by her children, did conduct herself at her dead husband’s funeral with a very praiseworthy amount of dignified self-command. Among those who had been Cecil Vavasour’s friends and acquaintances there were grave faces and regretful hearts; but the poor wept for him; and the time soon came, after he had departed from among them, when folk of all degrees began to see clearly what manner of man he had been of whom during his unobtrusive life they had known so little.