NEVERTHELESS this meeting could not be got out of Lady Stanton’s mind. She thought of it constantly; and in the stillness of her own room, when nobody but the little girls were by, she talked to them of the children, especially of little Nello, who had attracted her most. What a place of rest and refreshment that was for her, after all her trials with Laura and Lydia, and the seriousness of Sir Henry, who was displeased that she should have gone to Penninghame, and showed it in the way most painful to the soft-hearted woman, by silence, and a gravity which made her feel her indiscretion to her very heart. But notwithstanding Sir Henry’s annoyance, she could not but relieve her mind by going over the whole scene with Fanny and Annie, who knew, without a word said, that these private talks in which they delighted—in which their mother told them all manner of stories, and took them back with her into the time of her youth, and made them acquainted with all her early friends—were not to be repeated, but were their own special privilege to be kept for themselves alone. They had already heard of Mary Musgrave, and knew her intimately, as children do know the early companions of whom an indulgent mother tells them, to satisfy their boundless appetite for narrative. “And what are they to Mary?” the little girls asked, breathless in their interest about these strange children. They had already been told; but the relationship of aunt did not seem a very tender one to Annie and Fanny, who knew only their father’s sisters, old ladies to whom the elder girls, children of the first marriage, seemed the only legitimate and correct Stantons, and who looked down upon these little interlopers as unnecessary intruders. “Only their aunt!—is that all?”
They were not in Lady Stanton’s room this time, but seated on an ottoman in the great bow-window, one on either side of her. Laura and Lydia were out; Sir Henry was in his library; the coast was clear; no one was likely to come in and dismiss the children with a sharp word, such as—“Go away, little girls—there is no saying a word to your mother while you are there!” or “The little ones again! When we were children we were kept in the nursery.” The children were aware now that when such speeches were made, it was better for them not to wait for their mother’s half-pained, half-beseeching look, but to run away at once, not to provoke any discussion. They were wise little women, and were, by nature, of their mother’s faction in this house, where both they and she, though she was the mistress of it, were more or less on sufferance. But at present everybody was out of the way. They were ready to fly off, with their pretty hair fluttering like a gleam of wings, should any of their critics appear; but the girls had gone a long way, and Sir Henry was very busy. It was a chance such as seldom occurred.
“All? when children have not a mother, their aunt is next best; sometimes she is even better—much better,” said Lady Stanton, thinking in her heart that John’s wife was not likely to have been of any great service to her children. “And Mary is not like any one you know. She is a beautiful lady—not old, like Aunt Rebecca—though Aunt Rebecca is always very kind. I hope you have not forgotten those beautiful sashes she gave you.”
“I don’t think very much of an aunt,” said Fanny, who was the saucy one, with a shrug of her little shoulders.
“It must be different,” said Annie, hugging her mother’s arm. They were not impressed by the happiness of those poor little stranger children in being with Mary. “Has the little girl got no name, mamma—don’t you know her name? You say Nello; but that is the boy; though it is more like a girl than a boy.”
“It is German—or something—I don’t remember. The little girl is called Lilias. Oh yes, it is a pretty name enough, but I don’t like it. I once knew one whom I did not approve of—— ”
“We knew,” said Fanny, nodding her head at Annie, who nodded back again; “Mamma, we knew you did not like the little girl.”
“I! not like her! Oh, children, how can you think me so unjust? I hope I am not unjust,” cried Lady Stanton, almost with tears. “Mary is very proud of her little niece. And she is very good to little Nello. Yes, perhaps I like him best, but there is no harm in that. He is a delightful little boy. If you could have had a little brother like that—— ”
“We have only—big brothers,” said Annie, regretfully; “that is different.”
“Yes, that is different. You could not imagine Charley with long, fair curls, and a little tunic, could you?” This made the children laugh, and concealed a little sigh on their mother’s part; for Charlie was a big dragoon, and Lady Stanton foresaw would not have too much consideration, should they ever require his help, for the little sisters whom he undisguisedly felt to be in his way.
“I wonder if she wishes he was a little girl.”
“I wonder! How she must want to have a sister! A little brother would be very nice, too; we used to play at having a little brother; but it would not be like Fanny and me. Does she like being at the Castle, mamma?”
It troubled Lady Stanton that they should think of nothing but this little girl. It was Lilias that had won their interest, and she could not tell them why it was that she shrank from Lilias. “They have left their poor papa all alone and sad,” she said, in a low voice. “I used to know him too. And it must make them sad to think of him so far away.”
Once more the children were greatly puzzled. They were not on such terms of tender intimacy with their father as were thus suggested, but, on the whole, were rather pleased than otherwise when he was absent, and did not follow him very closely with their thoughts. They were slightly humbled as they realized the existence of so much greater susceptibility and lovingness on the part of the little girl in whom they were so much interested, than they themselves possessed. How she surpassed them in this as well as in other things! She talked German as well as English (if it was German; their mother was not clear what language it was)—think of that! So perhaps it was not wonderful that she should be so much fonder of her papa. And a moment of silence ensued. Lady Stanton did not remark the confused pause in the minds of her children, because her own mind was filled with wistful compassion for the lonely man whom she had been thinking of more or less since ever she left Penninghame. Where was he, all alone in the world, shut out from his own house, an exile from his country—even his children away from him, in whom perhaps he had found some comfort?
This momentary silence was interrupted abruptly by the sound of a voice. “Are you there, Cousin Mary? and what are you putting your heads together about?”
At this sound, before they found out what it was, the children disengaged themselves suddenly each from her separate clinging to her mother’s arm, and approached each other as if for flight; but, falling back to their places when they recognized the voice, looked at each other, and said both together, with tones of relief, “Oh, it’s only Geoff!”
Nothing more significant of the inner life of the family, and the position of these two little intruders, could have been.
Geoff came forward with his boyish step and voice in all the smiling confidence of youth. “I thought I should startle you. Is it a story that is being told, or are you plotting something? Fanny and Annie, leave her alone for a moment. It is my turn now.”
“O Geoff! it is about a little girl and a boy—mamma will tell you too, if you ask her; and there’s nobody in. We thought at first you were papa, but he’s so busy. Come and sit here.”
Geoff came up, and kissed Lady Stanton on her soft, still beautiful cheek. He was a son of the house, and privileged. He sat down on the stool the children had placed for him. “I am glad there’s nobody in,” he said. “Of course the girls will be back before I go; but I wanted to speak to you—about something.”
“Shall the children go, Geoff?”
“Fancy! do you want them to hate me? No, go on with the story. This is what I like. Isn’t it pleasant, Annie and Fanny, to have her all to ourselves? Do you mind me?”
“Oh, not in the least, Geoff—not in the very least. You are like—what is he like, Annie?—a brother, not a big brother, like Charley: but something young, something nice, like what mamma was telling us of—a little brother—grown up—— ”
“Is this a sneer at my height?” he said; “but go on, don’t let me stop the story. I like stories—and most other pleasant things.”
“It was no story,” said Lady Stanton. “I was telling them only of some children:—you are very good and forgiving, Geoff—but I fear you will be angry with me when you know. I was—out by myself—and notwithstanding all we have against them, I went to see Mary Musgrave. There! I must tell you at once, and get it over. I shall be sorry if it annoys you; but Mary and I,” she said, faltering, “were such friends once, and I have not seen her for years.”
“Why should I be annoyed—why should I be angry? I am not an avenger. Poor Cousin Mary! you were out—by yourself!—was that your only reason for going?”
“Indeed it is true enough. It is very seldom I go out without the girls: and they—feel strongly, you know, about that.”
“What have they to do with it? Yes, I know: they are plus royalistes que le roi. But this is not the story.”
“Yes, indeed it is, my dear boy. I was telling Annie and Fanny of two poor children. They belong to a man who is—banished from his own country. He did wrong—when he was young—oh so many, so many years ago!—and he is still wandering about the world without a home, and far from his friends. He was young then, and now—it is so long ago;—ah, Geoff, you must not be angry with me. The little children are with Mary. She did not tell me much, for her heart did not soften to me as mine did to her. But there they are; the mother dead who was at the bottom of it all; and nobody to care for them but Mary; all through something that happened before they were born.”
Lady Stanton grew red as she spoke, her voice trembled, her whole aspect was full of emotion. The young man shook his head—
“I suppose a great many of us suffer from harm done before we were born,” he said, gravely. “This is no solitary instance.”
“Ah, Geoff, it is natural, quite natural, that you should feel so. I forgot how deeply you were affected by all that happened then.”
“I did not mean that,” he said, gravely. His youthful face had changed out of its light-hearted calm. “Indeed I had heard something of this, and I wanted to speak to you—— ”
“Run away, my darlings,” said Lady Stanton; “go and see what—nurse is about. Make her go down with you to the village and take the tea and sugar to the old women in the almshouses. This is the day—don’t you remember?”
“So it is,” said Annie. “But we did not want to remember,” said Fanny; “we liked better to stay with you.”
However, they went off, reluctant yet obedient. They were used to being sent away. It was seldom their mother who did it, willingly—but everybody else did it with peremptory determination—and the little girls were used to obey. They untwined themselves from her arms, to which they had been clinging, and went away close together, with a soft rush and sweep as of one movement.
“There go the doves,” said Geoff, looking after them with kind admiration like that of a brother. It pleased Lady Stanton to see the friendly pleasure in them which lighted the young man’s eyes. Whoever married him, he would always, she thought, be a brother to her neglected children, who counted for so little in the family. She looked after them with that mother-look which, whether in joy or sorrow, is close upon tears. Then she turned to him with eyes softened by that unspeakable tenderness:
“Whatever you wish,” she said. “Tell me, Geoff; I am ready to hear.”
“I am as bad as the rest. You have to send them away for me too.”
“There is some reason in it this time. If you have heard about the little Musgraves you know how miserable it all is,” said Lady Stanton. “The old man will have nothing to say to them. He lets them live there, but takes no notice—his son’s children! And Mary has everything upon her shoulders.”
“Cousin Mary, will it hurt you much to tell me all about it?” said the young man. “Forgive me, I know it must be painful; but all that is so long over, and everything is so changed—— ”
“You mean I have married and forgotten,” she said, her lips beginning to quiver.
“I scarcely remember anything about it,” said Geoff, looking away from her that his eyes might not disturb her more, “only a confused sort of excitement and wretchedness, and then a strange new sense of importance. We had been nobodies till then—my mother and I. But I have heard a few things lately. Walter,—will it pain you if I speak of him?”
“Poor Walter!—no. Geoff, you must understand that Walter loved somebody else better than me.”
She said this half in honest avowal of that humiliation which had been one of the great wonders of her life, partly in excuse of her own easy forgetfulness of him.
“I have heard that too, Cousin Mary, with wonder; but never mind. He paid dearly for his folly. The other—— ”
“Geoff,” said Lady Stanton, with a trembling voice, “the other is living still, and he has paid dearly for it all this time. We must not be hard upon him. I do not want to excuse him—it would be strange if I should be the one to excuse him; but only—— ”
“I am very sorry for him, Cousin Mary. I am glad you feel as I do. Walter may have been in the wrong for anything I know. I do not think it was murder.”
“That I am sure it was not! John Musgrave was not the man to do a murder—oh, no, no; Geoff! he was not that kind of man!”
Geoff looked up surprised at her eager tone and the trembling in her voice.
“You knew him—well?” he said, with that indifferent composure with which people comment upon the past, not knowing what depths those are over which they skim so lightly. Could he have seen into the agitation in Lady Stanton’s heart! But he would not have understood nor realized the commotion that was there.
“I always—took an interest in him,” she said, faltering; and then she felt it her duty to do her best for him as an old friend. “I had known him all my life, Geoff, as well as I knew Walter. He was hasty and high-spirited, but so kind—he would have gone out of his way to help any one. Before he saw that young woman everybody was fond of John.”
“Did you know her too?”
“No, no; I did not know her. God forbid! She was the destruction of every one who cared for her,” said Lady Stanton with a little outburst. Then she made an effort to subdue herself. “Perhaps I am not just to her,” she said with a faint smile. “She was preferred to me, you know, Geoff; and they say a woman cannot forget that—perhaps it is true.”
“How could he? was he mad?” Geoff said. Geoff was himself tenderly, filially in love with his cousin Mary. He thought there was nobody in the world so beautiful and so kind. And even now she was not understood as she ought to be. Sir Henry thought her a good enough wife, a faithful creature, perfectly trustworthy, and so forth. It was in this light that all regarded her. Something better than an upper servant, a little dearer than a governess; something to be made use of, to do everything for everybody. She who, Geoff thought in his enthusiasm, was more lovely and sweet than the youngest of them, and ought to be held pre-eminent and sacred by everybody round her. This was not the lot that had fallen to her in life.
“So I am not the best judge, you see,” said Lady Stanton with a little sigh. “In those days one felt more strongly perhaps. It all seems so vivid and clear,” she added half apologetically, though without entirely realizing how much light these half-confessions threw on her present state of less lively feeling, “that is the effect of being young—— ”
“I think you will always be young,” he said tenderly; then added after a pause, “Was it a quarrel about—the woman?—” He blushed himself as he said so, feeling the wrong to her—yet only half knowing the wonder it was in her thoughts, the double pain it brought.
“I think so. They were both fond of her; and Walter ought not to have been fond of her. John—was quite free. He was in no way engaged to any one. He had a right to love her if he pleased. But Walter interfered, and he was richer, greater, a far better match. So I suppose she wavered. This is my own explanation of it. They met then when their hearts were wild against each other, and there was a struggle. Ah, Geoff! Has it not cost John Musgrave his life as well as Walter? Has he ever ventured to show himself in his own country since? And now their poor little children have come home to Mary; but he will never be able to come home.”
“It is hard,” said Geoff thoughtfully. “I wish I knew the law. Fifteen years is it? I was about six then. Could anything be done? I wonder if anything could be done.”
She put her hand on his shoulder with an affectionate caressing touch, “Thanks for the thought, my dear boy—even if nothing could be done.”
“You take a great deal of interest in him, Cousin Mary?”
“Yes,” she said quickly; “I told you we were all young people together; and his sister was my dear friend. We were called the two Maries in those days. We were thought—pretty,” she said with a vivid blush and a little laugh. “You may have heard?”
Geoff kissed the pretty hand which had been laid on his shoulder, and which was perhaps a little fuller and more dimply than was consistent with perfection. “I have eyes,” he said, with a little of the shyness of his years, “and I have always had a right as a Stanton to be proud of my cousin Mary. I wonder if Miss Musgrave is as beautiful as you are; I don’t believe it for my part.”
“She is far prettier—she is not stout,” said Lady Stanton with a sigh; and then she laughed, and made her confession over again with a half-jest, which did not make her regret less real, “and I have lost my figure. I have developed, as people say. Mary is as slim as ever. Ah, you may laugh, but that makes a great difference; I feel it to the bottom of my heart.”
Geoff looked at her with tender admiration in his eyes. “There has never been a time when I have not thought you the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said, “and that all the great beauties must have been like you. You were always the dream of fair women to me—now one, now the other—all except Cleopatra. You never could have been like that black-browed witch—— ”
“Hush! boy. I am too old to be flattered now; and I am stout,” she said, with that faint laugh of annoyance and humiliation just softened by jest. Geoff’s honest praise brought no blush to her soft matronly cheeks, but she liked it, as it pleased her when the children called her “Pretty Mamma.” They loved her the best, though people had not always done so. The fact that she had grown stout did not affect their admiration. Only those who have known others to be preferred to themselves can realize what this is. After a moment’s hesitation, she added in a low voice: “I wonder—will you go and see them? It would have a great effect in the neighbourhood. Oh, Geoff, forgive me if I am saying too much; perhaps it would not be possible, perhaps it might be wrong in your position. You must take the advice of somebody more sensible, less affected by their feelings. Everybody likes you, Geoff, and you deserve it, my dear; and you are Lord Stanton. It would have a great effect upon the county; it would be almost like clearing him—— ”
“Then I will go—at once—this very day,” said Geoff, starting up.
“Oh no, no, no,” she said, catching him by the arm; “first of all you must speak to—some one more sensible than me.”