Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 18

"Were you going to call upon us, Harry?"

"No, Miss Beauclerc. I am waiting for George Prattleton. He is at Griffin's."

"Miss Beauclerc!" she echoed; "how formal you are to-night. I'd not be as cold as you, Henry Arkell, for the whole world!"

"I, cold!"

He said no more in refutation. If Georgina could but have known his real feelings! If she could but have divined how his pulses were beating, his veins coursing! Perhaps she did.

"Are you better? What a fall you had! And to faint after it!"

"Yes, I think I am better, thank you. It hurt my head a little."

"And you had been annoyed with those rebellious school boys! You are not half strict enough with the choristers. I hope Aultane will get a flogging, as Lewis did for locking you up in St. James's Church. I asked Lewis the next day how he liked it: he was so savage. I think he'd murder you if he could: he's jealous, you know."

She laughed as she spoke the last words, and her gay blue eyes were bent on him; he could discern them even in the dark, obscure corner where the deanery door stood. Henry did not answer: he was in wretched spirits.

"Harry, tell me--why is it you so rarely come to the deanery? Do you think any other college boy would dare to set at nought the dean's invitations--and mine?"

"Remembering what pa.s.sed between us one night at the deanery--the audit night--can you wonder that I do not oftener come?" he inquired.

"Oh, but you were so stupid."

"Yes, I know. I have been stupid for years past."

Miss Beauclerc laughed. "And you think that stopping away will cure you?"

"It will not cure me; years will not cure me," he pa.s.sionately broke forth, in a tone whose anguish was irrepressible. "Absence and _you_ alone will do that. When I go to the university----" He stopped, unable to proceed.

"When you go to the university you will come back a wise man. Henry,"

she continued, changing her manner to seriousness, "it was the height of folly to suffer yourself to care for me. If I--if it were reciprocated, and I cared for you, if I were dying of love for you, there are barriers on all sides, and in all ways."

"I am aware of it. There is the barrier between us of disparity of years; there is a wide barrier of station; and there is the greatest barrier of all, want of love on your side. I know that my loving you has been nothing short of madness, from the first: madness and double madness since I knew where your heart was given."

"So you will retain that crotchet in your head!"

"It is no crotchet. Do you think my loving eyes--my jealous eyes, if you so will it--have been deceived? You must be happy, now that he has come back to Westerbury."

"Stupid!" echoed Miss Beauclerc.

"But it has been your fault, Georgina," he resumed, reverting to himself. "I _must_ reiterate it. You saw what my feelings were becoming for you, and you did all you could to draw them on; you may have deemed me a child then in years; you knew I was not, in heart. They might have been checked in the onset, and repressed: why did you not do it? why did you do just the contrary, and give me encouragement? You called it flirting; you thought it good sport: but you should have remembered that what is sport to one, may be death to another."

"This estrangement makes me uncomfortable," proceeded Miss Beauclerc, ignoring the rest. "Papa keeps saying, 'What is come to Henry Arkell that he is never at the deanery?' and then I invent white stories, about believing that your studies take up your time. I miss you every day; I do, Henry; I miss your companions.h.i.+p; I miss your voice at the piano; I miss your words in speaking to me. But here comes your friend George Prat, for that's the echo of old Griffin's door. I know the different sounds of the doors in the grounds. Good night, Harry: I must go in."

She bent towards him to put her hand in his, and he--he was betrayed out of his propriety and his good manners. He caught her to his heart, and held her there; he kissed her face with his fervent lips.

"Forgive me, Georgina," he murmured, as she released herself. "It is the first and the last time."

"I will forgive you for this once," cried the careless girl; "but only think of the scandal, had anybody come up: my staid mamma would go into a fit. It is what _he_ has never done," she added, in a deeper tone.

"And why your head should run upon him I cannot tell. Mine doesn't."

Henry wrung her hand. "But for him, Georgina, I should think you cared for me. Not that the case would be less hopeless."

Miss Beauclerc rang a peal on the door-bell, and was immediately admitted--whilst Henry Arkell walked forward to join George Prattleton, his heart a compound of sweet and bitter, and his brain in a mazy dream.

But we left Mr. Fauntleroy in a dream by the side of his fire, and by no means a pleasant one. He sat there he did not know how long, and was at length interrupted by one of his servants.

"You are wanted, sir, if you please."

"Wanted now! Who is it?"

"The Rev. Mr. Prattleton, sir, and one or two more. They are in the drawing-room, and the fire's gone out."

"He has come bothering about that t.i.the case," grumbled Mr. Fauntleroy to himself. "I won't see him: let him come at a proper time. My compliments to Mr. Prattleton, Giles, but I am deep in a.s.size business, and cannot see him."

Giles went out and came in again. "Mr. Prattleton says they must see you, sir, whether or no. He told me to say, sir, that it is about the cause that's on, Carr and Carr."

Mr. Fauntleroy proceeded to his drawing-room, and there he was shut in for some time. Whatever the conference with his visitors may have been, it was evident, when he came out, that for him it had borne the deepest interest, for his whole appearance was changed; his manners were excited, his eyes sparkling, and his face was radiant.

They all left the house together, but the lawyer's road did not lie far with theirs. He stopped at the lodgings occupied by Serjeant Wrangle, and knocked. A servant-maid came to the door.

"I want to see Serjeant Wrangle," said Mr. Fauntleroy, stepping in.

"You can't sir. He is gone to bed."

"I must see him for all that," returned Mr. Fauntleroy.

"Missis and master's gone to bed too," she added, by way of remonstrance.

"I was just a-going."

"With all my heart," said Mr. Fauntleroy. "I must see the serjeant."

"'Tain't me, then, sir, that'll go and awaken him," cried the girl.

"He's gone to bed dead tired, he said, and I was not to disturb him till eight in the morning."

"Give me your candle," replied Mr. Fauntleroy, taking it from her hand.

"He has the same rooms as usual, I suppose; first floor."

Mr. Fauntleroy went up the stairs, and the girl stood at the bottom, and watched and listened. She did not approve of the proceedings, but did not dare to check them; for Mr. Fauntleroy was a great man in Westerbury, and their a.s.size lodger, the serjeant, was a greater.

Tap--tap--tap: at Serjeant Wrangle's door.

No response.

Tap--tap--tap, louder.

"Who the deuce is that?" called out the serjeant, who was only dignified in his wig and gown. "Is it you, Eliza? what do you want? It's not morning, is it?"

"'Tain't me, sir," screamed out Eliza, who had now followed Mr.