Airy Fairy Lilian Part 71

"To see this Lady of Shalott, this mysterious Mariana in her moated grange?" asks Chesney, lightly.

Odd as it may sound, he has never yet been face to face with Cecilia.

Her determined seclusion and her habit of frequenting the parish church in the next village, which is but a short distance from her, has left her a stranger to almost every one in the neighborhood. Archibald is indeed aware that The Cottage owns a tenant, and that her name is Arlington, but nothing more. The fact of her never being named at Chetwoode has prevented his asking any idle questions and thereby making any discoveries.

When they have come to the rising mound that half overlooks The Cottage garden, Lilian comes to a standstill.

"Now you must leave me," she says, imperatively.

"Why? We are quite a day's journey from The Cottage yet. Let me see you to the gate."

"How tiresome you are!" says Miss Chesney; "just like a big baby, only not half so nice: you always want more than you are promised."

As Chesney makes no reply to this sally, she glances at him, and, following the direction of his eyes, sees Cecilia, who has come out for a moment or two to breathe the sweet spring air, walking to and fro among the garden paths. It is a very pale and changed Cecilia upon whom they look.

"Why," exclaims Chesney, in a tone of rapt surprise, "surely that is Miss Duncan!"

"No,"--amazed,--"it is Mrs. Arlington, Sir Guy's tenant."

"True,"--slowly,--"I believe she did marry that fellow afterward. But I never knew her except as Miss Duncan."

"You knew her?"

"Very slightly,"--still with his eyes fixed upon Cecilia, as she paces mournfully up and down in the garden below them, with bent head and slow, languid movements. "Once I spoke to her, but I knew her well by sight; she was, she _is_, one of the loveliest women I ever saw. But how changed she is! how altered, how white her face appears! or can it be the distance makes me think so? I remember her such a merry girl--almost a child--when she married Arlington."

"Yes? She does not look merry now," says Lilian, the warm tears rising in her eyes: "poor darling, no wonder she looks depressed!"

"Why?"

"Oh," says Lilian, hesitating, "something about her husband, you know."

"You don't mean to say she is wearing sackcloth and the willow, and all that sort of thing, for Arlington all this time?" in a tone of astonishment largely flavored with contempt. "I knew him uncommonly well before he married, and I should think his death would have been a cause for rejoicing to his wife, above all others."

"Ah! that is just it," says Lilian, consumed with a desire to tell: she sinks her voice mysteriously, and sighs a heavy sigh tinctured with melancholy.

"Just so," unsympathetically. "Some women, I believe, are hopeless idiots."

"They are not," indignantly; "Cecilia is not an idiot; she is miserable because he is--alive! _Now_ what do you think?"

"Alive!" incredulously.

"Exactly so," with all the air of a triumphant _raconteur_. "And when she had believed him dead, too, for so long! is it not hard upon her, poor thing! to have him come to life again so disagreeably without a word of warning? I really think it is quite enough to kill her."

"Well, I never!" says Mr. Chesney, staring at her. It isn't an elegant remark, but it is full of animated surprise, and satisfies Lilian.

"Is it not a tragedy?" she says, growing more and more pitiful every moment. "All was going on well (it doesn't matter what), when suddenly some one wrote to Colonel Trant to say he had seen this odious Mr.

Arlington alive and well in Russia, and that he was on his way home. I shall always"--viciously--"hate the man who wrote it: one would think he had nothing else to write about, stupid creature! but is it not shocking for her, poor thing?"

At this, seemingly without rhyme or reason (except a depraved delight in other people's sufferings), Mr. Chesney bursts into a loud enjoyable laugh, and continues it for some seconds. He might perhaps have continued it until now, did not Lilian see fit to wither his mirth in the bud.

"Is it a cause for laughter?" she asks, wrathfully; "but it is _just like you_! I don't believe you have an atom of feeling. Positively I think you would laugh if _auntie_, who is almost a mother to you, was _dead_!"

"No, I should not," declares Archibald, subsiding from amus.e.m.e.nt to the very lowest depths of sulk: "pardon me for contradicting you, but I should not even _smile_ were Lady Chetwoode dead. She is perhaps the one woman in the world whose death would cause me unutterable sorrow."

"Then why did you laugh just now?"

"Because if you had seen a man lie dead and had attended his funeral, even _you_ might consider it a joke to hear he was 'alive and well.'"

"You saw him dead!"

"Yes, as dead as Julius Caesar," morosely. "It so happened I knew him uncommonly well years ago: 'birds of a feather,' you know,"--bitterly,-- "'flock together.' We flocked for a considerable time. Then I lost sight of him, and rather forgot all about him than otherwise, until I met him again in Vienna, more than two years ago. I saw him stabbed,--I had been dining with him that night,--and helped to carry him home; it seemed a slight affair, and I left him in the hands of a very skillful physician, believing him out of danger. Next morning, when I called, he was dead."

"Archie,"--in a low awe-struck whisper,--"is it all true?"

"Perfectly true."

"You could not by any possibility be mistaken?"

"Not by any."

"Then, Archie," says Lilian, solemnly, "you are a _darling_!"

"Am I?" grimly. "I thought I was a demon who could laugh at the demise of his best friend."

"Nonsense!" tucking her hand genially beneath his arm; "I only said that out of vexation. Think as little about it as I do. I know for a fact you are not half a bad boy. Come now with me to The Cottage, that I may tell this extraordinary, this delightful story to Cecilia."

"Is Cecilia Miss Duncan?"

"No, Mrs. Arlington. Archie,"--seriously,--"you are quite, utterly sure you know all about it?"

"Do you imagine I dreamed it? Of course I am sure. But if you think I am going down there to endure hysterics, and be made damp with tears, you are much mistaken. I won't go, Lilian; you needn't think it; I--I should be afraid."

"Console yourself; I shan't require your a.s.sistance," calmly. "I only want you to stay outside while I break the good news to her, lest she should wish to ask you a question. I only hope, Archie, you are telling me the exact truth,"--severely,--"that you are not drawing on your imagination, and that it was no other man of the same name you saw lying dead?"

"Perhaps it was," replies he, huffily, turning away as they reach the wicket gate.

"Do not stir from where you are now," says she, imperiously: "I may want you at any moment."

So Archibald, who does not dare disobey her commands, strays idly up and down outside the hedge, awaiting his summons. It is rather long in coming, so that his small stock of patience is nearly exhausted when he receives a message begging him to come in-doors.

As he enters the drawing-room, however, he is so struck with compa.s.sion at the sight of Cecilia's large, half-frightened eyes turned upon him that he loses all his ill humor and grows full of sympathy. She is very unlike the happy Cecilia of a month ago, still more unlike the calm, dignified Cecilia who first came to Chetwoode. She is pale as the early blossoms that lie here and there in soft wanton luxuriance upon her tables; her whole face is eager and expectant. She is trembling perceptibly from head to foot.

"What is it you would tell me, sir?" she asks, with deep entreaty. It is as though she longs yet fears to believe.

"I would tell you, madam," replies Chesney, respect and pity in his tone, taking and holding the hand she extends to him, while Lilian retains the other and watches her anxiously, "that fears are groundless.

A most gross mistake has, I understand, caused you extreme uneasiness. I would have you dismiss this trouble from your mind. I happened to know Jasper Arlington well: I was at Vienna the year he was there; we met often. I witnessed the impromptu duel that caused his death; I saw him stabbed; I myself helped to carry him to his rooms; next morning he was dead. Forgive me, madam, that I speak so brusquely. It is best, I think, to be plain, to mention bare facts."

Here he pauses, and Cecilia's breath comes quickly; involuntarily her fingers close round his; a question she hardly dares to ask trembles on her lips. Archibald reads it in the silent agony of her eyes.

"I saw him dead," he says, softly, and is rewarded by a grateful glance from Lilian.