Julian Home Part 32

And in those troubled waters of painful thought floated the broken gleams of a golden phantasy, the rainbow-coloured memories of a secret love. They came like a light upon the darkened waves, yet a light too feeble to dissipate the under gloom. Like the phosph.o.r.escent flashes in the sea at midnight, which the lonely voyager, watching with interest as they glow in the white wake of the keel, guesses that they may be the heralds of a storm,--so these bright reminiscences of happier days only gave a weird beauty to the tumult of the sick boy's mind; and the mother, as she sat by him night and day during the crisis of his suffering, listened with a deeper anxiety for future trouble to the delirious revelations of his love.

For Lady De Vayne had come from Other Hall to nurse her sick son. She slept on a sofa in his sitting-room, and nursed him with such tenderness as only a mother can. There was no immediate possibility of removing him; deep, unbroken quiet was his only chance of life. The silence of his sick-room was undisturbed save by the softest whispers and the lightest footfalls, and the very undergraduates hushed their voices, and checked their hasty steps as they pa.s.sed in the echoing cloisters underneath, and remembered that the flame of life was flickering low in the golden vase.

De Vayne was much beloved, and nothing could exceed the delicacy of the attention shown him. Choice conservatory flowers were left almost daily at his door, and men procured rare and rich fruits from home or from London, not because De Vayne needed any such luxuries, which were easily at his command, but that they might show him their sympathy and distress. Several ladies more or less connected with Saint Werner's offered their services to Lady De Vayne, but she would not leave her son, in whose welfare and recovery her whole thoughts were absorbed.

And so, gloomily for the son and mother, the Christmas holidays came on, and Saint Werner's was deserted. Scarcely even a stray undergraduate lingered in the courts, and the chapel was closed; no sound of choir or organ came sweetly across the lawns at morning or evening; the ceaseless melancholy plash of the great fountain was almost the only sound that broke the stillness. Julian, Lillyston, and Owen had all gone down for the holidays, full of grief at the thought of leaving their friend in such a precarious state, but as yet not permitted to see or serve him.

Lady De Vayne promised to write to Julian regular accounts of Arthur's health, and told him how often her son spoke of him, both in his wanderings, and in his clearer moments.

It was touching to see the stately and beautiful lady walking alone at evening about the deserted college, to gain a breath of the keen winter air, while her son had sunk for a few moments to fitful rest. She was pale with long watchings and deep anxiety, and in her whole countenance, and in her deep and often uplifted eyes, was that look of prayerfulness and holy communion with an unseen world which they acquire whose abode has long been in the house of mourning, and removed from the follies and frivolities of life.

Well-loved grounds of Saint Werner's by the quiet waves of the sedgy Iscam, with smooth green gra.s.s sloping down to the edge, and trim quaint gardens, and long avenues of chestnut and ancient limes! Though winter had long whirled away the last red and golden leaf, there was pleasure in the air of quiet and repose, which is always to be found in those memory-hallowed walks; and while Lady De Vayne could pace among them in solitude, she needed no other change, nor any rest from thinking over her sick son.

She was surprised one evening, very soon after the men had gone down, to see an undergraduate slowly approaching her down the long and silent avenue. He was tall and well made, and his face would have been a pleasant one, but for the deep look of sadness which clouded it. He hesitated and took off his cap as she came near, and returning his salute, she would have pa.s.sed him, but he stopped her and said:

"Lady De Vayne."

Full of surprise she looked at him, and with his eyes fixed on the ground he continued, "You do not know my name; if I tell you, I fear you will hate me, because I fear you will have heard calumnies about me.

But may I speak to you?"

"You are not Mr Bruce?" she said with a slight shudder.

"No; my name is Edward Kennedy. Ah, madam! do not look at me so reproachfully, I cannot endure it. Believe me, I would have died--I would indeed--rather than that this should have happened to Lord De Vayne."

"Nay, Mr Kennedy, I cannot believe that you were more than thoughtless.

I have very often heard Julian Home speak of you, and I cannot believe that his chosen friend could be so vile as some reports would make you."

"They are false as calumny itself," he said pa.s.sionately. "Oh, Lady De Vayne, none could have honoured and loved your son more than I did; I cannot explain to you the long story of my exculpation, but I implore you to believe my innocence."

"I forgive you, Mr Kennedy," she said, touched with pity, "if there be anything to forgive; and so will Arthur. A more forgiving spirit than his never filled any one I think. Excuse me, it is time for me to return to him."

"But will you not let me see him, and help you in nursing him? It was for this purpose alone that I stayed here when all the others went. Let me at least be near him, that I may feel myself to be making such poor reparation as my heedlessness requires."

She could hardly resist his earnest entreaty, and besides, she was won by compa.s.sion for his evident distress.

"You may come, Mr Kennedy, as often as you like; whenever Arthur is capable of seeing you, you shall visit his sick-room."

"Thank you," he said, and she perceived the tremble of deep emotion in his voice.

He came the next morning, and she allowed him to see De Vayne. He entered noiselessly, and gazed for a moment as he stood at the door on the pale wasted face, looking still paler in contrast with the long dark hair that flowed over the pillow. He was awake, but there was no consciousness in his dark dreamy eyes.

As De Vayne murmured to himself in low sentences, Kennedy heard repeatedly the name of Violet, and once of Violet Home. He sat still as death, and soon gathered from the young lord's broken words, his love, his deep love for Julian's sister.

And when Kennedy first recognised this fact, which had hitherto been quite unknown to him, for a moment a flood of jealousy and bitter envy filled his heart. What if Violet should give up her troth in favour of a wealthier, perhaps worthier lover? What if her family should think his own poor claims no barrier to the hope that Violet should one day wear a coronet? The image of Julian and Violet rose in his fancy, and with one more pang of self-reproach, he grew ashamed of his unworthy suspicions.

Yet the thought that De Vayne, too, had fixed his affections on Violet filled him with uneasiness and foreboding, and he determined, on some future occasion, to save pain to all parties, by getting Julian to break to De Vayne the secret of his sister's betrothal.

For several days he came to the sick-room, and a woman could hardly have been more thoughtful and tender than he was to his friend. It was on about the fourth evening that De Vayne awoke to complete consciousness.

He became aware that some one besides his mother was seated in the room, and without asking he seemed slowly to recognise that it was Kennedy.

"Is that Kennedy?" he asked, in a weak voice.

"It is I," said Kennedy, but the patient did not answer, and seemed restless and uneasy and complained of cold.

When Kennedy went, De Vayne whispered to his mother, "Mother, I am very weak and foolish, but it troubles me somehow to see Kennedy sitting there; it shocks my nerves, and fills me with images of something dreadful happening. I had rather not see him, mother, till I am well."

"Very well, Arthur. Don't talk so much, love; I alone will nurse you.

Soon I hope you will be able to return to Other."

"And leave this dreadful place," he said, "for ever."

"Hush, my boy; try to sleep again."

He soon slept, and then Lady De Vayne wrote to Kennedy a short note, in which she explained as kindly and considerately as she could, that Arthur was not yet strong enough to allow of any more visits to his sick-room.

"He shuns me," thought Kennedy, with a sigh, and packing up some books and clothes, he prepared to go home.

Of course he was to spend part of the vacation at Ildown. Violet wondered that he did not come at once; she was not exactly jealous of him, but she thought that he might have been more eager for her company than he seemed to be, and she would have liked it better had he come earlier. Poor Kennedy! his very self-denials turned against him for the sole reason why he kept away from Ildown was, that he feared to disturb the freedom of Frank and Cyril by the presence of a stranger all the time of their holidays, and he hesitated to intrude on the united happiness which always characterised the Ildown circle.

Eva, too, was invited, and the brother and sister arrived at Ildown by a late train, and drove to the house. What a glowing welcome they received! Julian introduced them to Mrs Home, and Kennedy kissed affectionately the hand of his future mother. Frank and Cyril had gone to bed, but Frank was so determined to see Violet's lover that night, that he made Julian bring him into their bedroom, and he was more than satisfied with the first glimpse.

"And where is Violet?" asked Kennedy, in a matter-of-fact tone, for he well knew that she would not choose to meet him in the presence of others.

"In her own little room," said Julian, smiling; "I will show you the way." He led Kennedy up-stairs, and left him at the door; he well knew that her heart would be fluttering as much as his.

A light knock at the door, and a moment after they saw each other again.

She sat on the sofa, and the firelight flickered on the amethyst--his gift--which she wore on her white neck; and her bright eyes danced with tears and laughter, and her bosom heaved and fell as he clasped her to his breast and printed a long, long kiss upon her cheek.

In silence, more exquisite than speech, they gazed on each other; and as though her beauty were reflected on his own face, all trace of sorrow and shame fled like a cloud from his forehead; and who would not have said, looking upon the pair, that he was worthy of her, as she of him?

"My own Violet," he said, "you are beautiful as a vision to-night."

"Hush, flatterer!" and she placed her little hand upon his mouth:--no wonder that he seized and kissed it.

"And what a thrice-charming dress."

"Ah, I _meant_ you to admire it," she said, laughing.

"'And thinking, _this_ will please him best, She takes a ribbon or a rose,'"

he whispered to her.

"Come," she replied, "no ill-omened words, Edward. You know the sad context of those lines."

"No! no sadness to-night, my own Violet, my beautiful, beautiful Violet; you quite dazzle me, my child. I really can't sit by your side; come, let me sit on your foot-stool here, and look up in your face."

"Silly boy," she said, "come along, we shall keep them all waiting for supper."

While poor De Vayne languished on the bed of sickness, his sufferings were almost the only shadow which chequered the brightness of those weeks at Ildown. In the morning, Julian and Kennedy worked steadily; the afternoon and evening they devoted to amus.e.m.e.nt and social life.