The Tenants of Malory. Volume 2

"Margaret! Margaret, darling– one word!"

And turning suddenly, she saw Cleve Verney before her. Under the thick folds of her chestnut hair, her features were pale as marble, and for a time it seemed to him he saw nothing but her wild, beautiful eyes fixed upon him.

Still as a statue, she stood confronting him. One little foot advanced, and her tiny hand closed, and pressed to her heart in the attitude in which an affrighted nun might hold her crucifix.

"Yes, Margaret," he said at last, "I was as near going – as you were near leaving me – unheard; but, thank God! that is not to be. No, Margaret darling, you could not. Wild as my words may sound in your ears, you will listen to them, for they shall be few; you will listen to them, for you are too good to condemn any one that ever loved you, unheard."

There was a little pause, during which all that passed was a silent pressure of Miss Sheckleton's hand upon Margaret's, as very pale, and with her brow knit in a painful anxiety, she drew hurriedly back, and left the two young people together, standing by the roots of the old tree, under the faint, rose-tinted sky of evening.

Lovers' promises or lovers' cruelties – which oaths are most enduring? Where now were Margaret's vows? Oh! inexhaustible fountain of pity, and beautiful mutability of woman's heart! In the passion avowed, so often something of simulation; in the feeling disowned, so often the true and beautiful life. Who shall read this wonderful riddle, running in romance, and in song, and in war, the world's history through?

"Margaret, will you hear me?" he pleaded.

To her it was like a voice in a dream, and a form seen there, in that dream-land in which we meet the dead, without wonder, forgetting time and separation.

"I don't know that I ought to change my purpose. I don't know why I do; but we shall never meet again, I am sure, so speak on."

"Yes, Margaret, I will speak on, and tell you how entirely you have mistaken and wronged me," said Cleve Verney, in the same sad and passionate tones.

Good-natured Anne Sheckleton, watching at a little distance, saw that the talk – at first belonging altogether to Mr. Verney, at last began to divide itself a little; then side by side they walked a few steps, and then paused again: and so once more a short way, the lady looking down, and then on and on to the margin of that long straight pond, on which in their season are floating water-lilies, and, under its great oblong mirror, gliding those golden fishes which are, as we have seen, one of our spinster friend's kindly resources in this quaint exile. And so the twilight deepened: and Miss Sheckleton saw these two figures like shadows gliding side by side, to and fro, along the margin, till the moonlight came and lighted the still pool over, and dappled the sward with the shadows of the trees, and made the old château in the background, with its white front, its turrets and pinnacles and gilded vanes, look filmy as a fairy castle.

Wrapping her cloak about her, she sat herself down upon the marble seat close by, unobserved and pleased, watching this picture of Lorenzo and Jessica, and of all such moonlighted colloquies, with a wonderful and excited interest – with, indeed, a mixture of melancholy and delight and fear.

Half-hour after half-hour glided by, as she looked on this picture, and read in fancy the romance that was weaving itself out of the silvery thread of their discourse in this sad old scene. And then she looked at her watch, and wondered how the time had sped, and sighed; and smiling and asking no question, came before them, and in a low, gentle warning, told them that the hour for parting had come.

As they stood side by side in the moonlight, did the beautiful girl, with the flush of that romantic hour, never, never to be forgotten, on her cheek, with its light in her wonderful eyes, ever look so beautiful before? Or did that young man, Cleve Verney, whom she thought she understood, but did not, ever look so handsome? – the enthusiasm and the glow of his victory in his strangely beautiful face.

There were a few silent moments: and she thought could fancy paint a more beautiful young couple than these!

There are scenes – only momentary – so near Paradise – sights, so nearly angelic, that they touch us with a mysterious ecstasy and sorrow. In the glory and translation of the moment, the feeling of its transitoriness, and the sense of our mortal lot, cross and thrill us with a strange pain, like the anguish that mingles in the rapture of sublime music. So, Miss Sheckleton, very pale, smiling very tenderly, sobbed and wept, one would have said bitterly, for a little while; and, drying her eyes quickly, saw before her the same beautiful young faces, looking upon hers; and the old lady took their hands and pressed them, and smiled a great deal through her tears, and said – "All, at last, as I wished it: God bless you both – God Almighty bless you, my darling: " and she put her arms about Margaret's neck, and kissed her very tenderly.

And then came the reminder, that must not be slighted. The hour had come, indeed, and Cleve must positively go. Miss Sheckleton would hear of no further delay – no, not another minute. Her fear of Sir Booth was profound; so, with a "God bless you, darling," and a very pale face, and – why should there not be? – one long, long kiss, Cleve Verney took his leave, and was gone; and the sailing moon lost herself among clouds, so darkness stole swiftly over the landscape.

Margaret Fanshawe drew her dear old cousin near to her, and in her turn, placing her arms round her neck, folded her close, and Anne Sheckleton could feel the wild throbbing of the young girl's heart close to her own.

Margaret was not weeping, but she stood very pale, with her arms still laid on her cousin's shoulders, and looked almost wildly down into her wistful eyes.

"Cousin Anne – oh, darling! you must pray for me," said Margaret Fanshawe. "I thought it could never be; I thought I knew myself, but all that is vain: there is another will above us – Fate – Eternal Fate, and I am where I am, I know not how."

"Why, Margaret, darling, it is what I have been longing for – the very best thing that could have happened; you ought to be the happiest girl in the world," urged Miss Anne Sheckleton, cheerily.

"No, darling; I am not happy, except in this, that I know I love him, and would not give him up for all the world; but it seems to me to have been, from first to last, a fatality, and I can't shake off the fear that lies at my heart."

"Hush, dear – I hear wheels, I think," said Miss Sheckleton, listening.

Margaret was pre-occupied, and did not listen. I don't think she cared much at that moment who came or went, except that one to whom her love was now irrevocably given.

"No; I can't hear – no; but he will be here immediately. We must not be out, you know; he may ask for me, and he is so – so very – what shall I say?"

Margaret did not mind. She turned a wild and plaintive look upward towards the struggling moon – now emerging, now lost again.

"Come, darling – let us go," said Margaret.

And she looked round her gently, as if awaking from a dream.

"Yes, darling, come," she continued, placing her hand on Anne Sheckleton's arm.

"And you are not to tease yourself, Margaret, dear, with fancies and follies. As I said before, you ought to be one of the happiest girls in existence."

"So I am," she answered, dreamily – "very happy – oh! wonderfully happy – but there is the feeling of something —fatal, as I said; and, be it what it may, let it come. I could not lose him now, for all the world."

She was looking up, as she spoke, towards the broken moonlight, herself as pale, and a strange plaintive smile of rapture broke over her beautiful face, as if answering the smile of a spirit in the air.

"Come quickly, darling, come," whispered Miss Sheckleton, and they walked side by side in silence to the house, and so to Margaret's room, where she sat down by the window, looking out, and kind Anne Sheckleton sat by the table, with her thin old hand to her cheek, watching her fondly, and awaiting an opportunity to speak, for she was longing to hear a great deal more.

CHAPTER XII

CLEVE VERNEY HAS A VISITOR

So Cleve Verney returned direct to England, and his friends thought his trip to Paris, short as it was, had done him a world of good. What an alterative and tonic a little change of air sometimes is!

The Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney was, in his high, thin-minded way, at last tolerably content, and more pompous and respected than ever. The proof of his succession to the peerage of Verney was in a perfectly satisfactory state. He would prove it, and take his seat next session. He would add another to the long list of Lord Viscounts Verney of Malory to be found in the gold and scarlet chronicle of such dignities. He had arranged with the trustees for a provisional possession of Verney House, the great stone mansion which glorifies one side of the small parallelogram called Verney Square. Already contractors had visited it and explored its noble chambers and long corridors, with foot-rule and note-book, getting together material for tenders, and Cleve had already a room there when he came up to town. Some furniture had been got in, and some servants were established there also, and so the stream of life had begun to transfuse itself from the old town residence of the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney into these long-forsaken channels.

Here, one morning, called a gentleman named Dingwell, whom Cleve Verney, happening to be in town, desired the servant to show into the room where he sat, with his breakfast, and his newspapers about him.

The tall old man entered, with a slight stoop, leering, Cleve thought, a little sarcastically over his shoulder as he did so.

Mr. Dingwell underwent Mr. Cleve Verney's reception, smiling oddly, under his white eyebrows, after his wont.

"I suspect some little mistake, isn't there?" said he, in his cold, harsh, quiet tones. "You can hardly be the brother of my old friend, Arthur Verney. I had hoped to see Mr. Kiffyn Fulke Verney – I – eh?"

"I'm his nephew."

"Oh! nephew? Yes – another generation – yes, of course. I called to see the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney. I was not able to attend the consultation, or whatever you call it. You know I'm your principal witness, eh? Dingwell's my name."

"Oh, to be sure – I beg pardon, Mr. Dingwell," said Cleve, who, by one of those odd slips of memory, which sometimes occur, had failed to connect the name with the case, on its turning up thus unexpectedly.

"I hope your admirable uncle, Kiffyn Verney, is, at all events, alive and approachable," said the old man, glancing grimly about the room; "though perhaps you're his next heir, and the hope is hardly polite."

This impertinence of Mr. Dingwell's, Mr. Cleve Verney, who knew his importance, and had heard something of his odd temper, resented only by asking him to be seated.

"That," said the old man, with a vicious laugh and a smirk, also angry, "is a liberty which I was about to take uninvited, by right of my years and fatigue, eh?"

And he sat down with the air of a man who is rather nettled than pleased by an attention.

"And what about Mr. Kiffyn Verney?" he asked, sharply.

"My uncle is in the country," answered Cleve, who would have liked to answer the fool according to his folly, but he succumbed to the necessity, inculcated with much shrewdness, garnished with some references to Scripture, by Mr. Jos. Larkin, of indulging the eccentricities of Mr. Dingwell's temper a little.