“Thank you, Cecilia,” said Monica quietly. “I will.”
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.
A VISIT TO ARTHUR
“Are you getting tired of this sort of thing, Monica?” asked Randolph, about three days later.
He had fancied he detected traces of weariness at times – weariness or anxiety: he could hardly have told which – in the lines of her face; and he thought that possibly some trouble was resting upon her. He was very quick to note the least change in one he loved so well.
Her smile, however, was very reassuring.
“I think I should never be really tired of any life you shared, Randolph; but I like being alone together best.”
“I, too,” he responded, with great sincerity. “Monica, as we have done our duty by society now, shall we indulge ourselves once more, and leave the world to wag on its own way, and forget it again for a few more happy weeks?”
Her face was bright and eager.
“Go back to the moorland shooting-box, Randolph?” she questioned.
“No; not that quite. The season is getting a little late for remaining up in the north. I have a better plan in my head for you.”
“Are we going back to Trevlyn, then?”
“Trevlyn is not ready for us; it will be some time before it is. Can you think of nothing else you would like to do? – of nobody you want to see?”
A flush rose suddenly into Monica’s face: her eyes shone with happiness.
“Oh, Randolph! are you going to take me to see Arthur?”
“You would like to go?”
“Above everything.”
“Then the thing is done. We will start next week. I talked about it to the doctor when I saw him, and he advised three months of entire quiet and seclusion whilst he settled down to the new life. After that, he believed there would be no reason at all against his seeing friends from home. I wrote again last week to put the question definitely, and the answer is entirely satisfactory. If you want to go, Monica, the whole question is settled.”
She came close up to him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder, and looking up with loving gratitude and delight.
“You think of everything, Randolph. You are so good to me. It is just the one thing to make my happiness complete: to see my boy again, and make sure with my own eyes that he is well cared for and content with his life. I want to be able to picture him where he is. I want to hear him say that he is happy: that he does not pine after Trevlyn.”
“I think you will have your wish, then, Monica, for, from what I can gather, he is very well pleased with his quarters, and improved health makes life pleasant and full of zest. He has the natural love of change that you never knew, and your inherited love for your old home is not really shared by him to any great extent now that he has tried another life. Trevlyn is not woven into the very fibres of his heart as into yours. I think the home-sickness passed off quickly with him.”
“Yes, I daresay. I believe I was foolish myself about Trevlyn, and taught him to be foolish too. Why is it that the younger we are, and the less we know, the more we are convinced we are always right? I have made so many, many mistakes. Once I thought you did not love me, Randolph.”
It was sweet to him still to hear her speak thus, with the intonation that always thrilled him through – with the look upon her face so much more eloquent than any words. It was sweet to feel her loving confidence and dependence. Again and again he vowed deep down in his heart that she should never know a trouble from which he could save her.
The journey was approved by both. It would take them away once again from the round of social duties and pleasures – of which for the time being they had had enough – and leave them practically alone together, to be all in all to one another, as was now their greatest happiness.
“It is too bad of you to run away, Monica,” Beatrice grumbled, when she heard the news. “Your brother can’t want you more than we do here. And if you go, you’ll vanish no one knows for how long, as you did before, and then you will go and bury yourselves in your enchanted castle right away by the sea, and nobody will hear of you any more. I call it too bad: just as we were getting to be friends and learning to know you.”
Monica smiled at the imputation of vanishing so entirely.
“You shall hear of us sometimes, I promise you,” she answered. “If you and your brother will not find the ‘enchanted castle’ too dull, I hope you will come and see us there when we go back in the autumn. There are not a great many attractions, I am afraid, but there is some shooting and hunting. I should like to show you Trevlyn some day, Beatrice, though I believe it will be a good deal changed from the place I have sometimes described to you.”
“It is sure to be perfect, whatever it is like,” was the quick response. “I should think we would come – Haddon and I – if ever we get an invitation. I always did long to see Trevlyn, and I am sure he does the same, though he is no hand at pretty speeches, poor old boy!”
Haddon smiled, and coloured a little; but answered frankly enough.
“Lady Trevlyn does not want pretty speeches, as you call it, made to her, Beatrice. She knows quite well what a pleasure it would be to visit her and Randolph at Trevlyn.”
“I should like my husband’s oldest friends to see the place,” she answered, smiling. “So we will call that matter settled when we really do get home; though I do not quite know when that will be.”
Next day Randolph and Monica said good-bye to Scotland, and began their journey southward. They were in no great haste, and travelled by easy stages. Arthur was to be told nothing of the prospective visit, which was to be kept as a surprise till the last moment. Monica was never a very good correspondent, even where Arthur was concerned, and if she posted a letter to him, last thing before leaving England, he would not be surprised at a silence of a fortnight or more, by which time at latest she would be with him.
So they took their time over their journey, and the strangeness of all she saw possessed a curious charm for Monica, when viewed beneath her husband’s protecting care, and in his constant company. He took her to a few quaint Norman towns, with their fine old churches and picturesque streets and market-places; then to Paris, where a few days were passed in seeing the sights, and watching the vivid, hurrying, glittering life of that gay capital.
Steering an erratic course, turning this way and that to visit any place of interest, or any romantic spot that Randolph thought would please his wife, they approached their destination, and presently reached the pretty, picturesque little town, hardly more than a village, which was only just rising to importance, on account of the value of its mineral springs lately discovered.
One good-sized hotel and the doctor’s establishment, both of which stood at the same end of the village, and a little distance from it, testified to the rising importance of the place. Randolph had secured comfortable rooms in the former, where they arrived late one evening.
Monica liked the place; it was not in the least like what she had pictured, far more pretty, more primitive, and more country-like. Wooded hills, surrounded the valley in which it lay. A broad rapid stream ran through it, spanned by more than one grey stone bridge, and the irregularly-built village was quite a picture in its way, with its quaint old houses, with their carved gables and little wooden balconies, and the spire of its church rising above the surrounding trees. Viewed by moonlight, as she saw it first, it was a charming little place; and the charm did not vanish with the more prosaic light of day.
The interview with the doctor was most satisfactory. He was a kindly, simple-minded man, much interested in his patient from a professional standpoint, and fond of the lad for his own sake. Monica’s beauty and sweetness were evidently not lost upon him. He had heard much of her from the young Herr, he explained, and could understand well the feelings he had so often heard expressed.
No, the invalid had not been told of the expected arrival. He did not know but that Lord and Lady Trevlyn were in England. Did the noble lady wish to go to him? He would honour himself by leading the way.
Monica followed him with a beating heart. They went up a wide carpetless staircase, and on the first landing her guide paused, and indicated a certain door.
“He is up; madame can go straight in. A joyful surprise will but do him good.”
Monica turned the handle, and entered, as quietly and calmly as if this had been the daily visit to the old room at Trevlyn. Arthur was lying with his back to the door. He was reading, and did not turn his head, fancying it was the servant entering, as he heard the rustle of a dress.
Monica came and stood behind him, laying her hand upon his head.
“Arthur!” she said softly.
Then he started as if he had been shot.
He sat up with an energy that showed a decided increase of strength, holding out his hands in eager welcome.
“Monica! Monica!” he cried, in a sort of rapturous excitement. “It is Monica herself!”
She bent over him and kissed him again and again, and would have made him lie down again; but he was too excited to obey.
“Monica! My own Monica! When did you come? What does it all mean? Oh, this is too splendid! Where’s Randolph?”
“Here,” answered that familiar voice, just within the door. “Well, my boy, how are you getting on? Like a house on fire, eh? Monica and I are on our wedding trip, you know. We thought we would finish it off by coming to have a look at you. Well, you look pretty comfortable up here, and have made fine progress, I hear, since I saw you last. Like everything as much as you make out in your letters, eh?”
“Oh! I’m all right enough. Never mind me. Tell me about yourselves. Whose idea was this? I call it just splendid!”
“Randolph’s idea,” answered Monica. “All the good ideas are his now, Arthur. We have come to stay a whole fortnight with you; and when I have seen everything with my own eyes, and am quite convinced that everybody is treating you well, I shall go home content to Trevlyn, to wait till you can join us there.”
“I mustn’t think of that just yet,” answered Arthur, cheerfully. “My old doctor says it will be a year – perhaps two – before I shall really be on my legs again; but he is quite sure he is going to cure me, which is all that matters. I am awfully comfortable here, and there are some jolly little children of his, who come and amuse me by the hour together. Oh, yes! I have capital times. I couldn’t be more comfortable anywhere: and if you and Randolph come sometimes to see me, I shall have nothing left to wish for.”
Certainly Arthur was surrounded by every luxury that wealth could bestow. There was none of the foreign bareness about his rooms that characterised its other apartments. Randolph had ordered everything that could possibly add to his comfort, and make things home-like for him, even to the open fire-place, with its cheerful fire of logs, although the stove still retained its place, and in cold weather did valuable service in keeping an even temperature in the room.
Arthur’s visitors had made him gradually understand how much more sumptuously he was lodged than other patients, and he well knew to whom he owed the luxuries he enjoyed. He explained all this to Monica, and in her own sweet way she thanked her husband for his tenderness towards her boy.
“I always feel as if Arthur were a sort of link between us, Monica,” he said. “I am sure he was in those old days, when we were strangers to each other. I owe him a great deal that he knows nothing about. Were it only for that, I must always love him, and feel towards him as towards a brother.”
Quickly and happily the days slipped by and the pleasant visit drew to its close. It lengthened out into nearly three weeks; but at last the news came that Trevlyn was ready for its master and mistress, and Arthur bid a brave farewell to those who had done so much for him, and settled himself with cheerful readiness to his winter with his new friends. A visit next spring and summer was confidently promised, and he saw his guest go with an unselfish brightness that was in no way assumed.
Monica was quite happy about him now, and, though the parting was a little hard, she was as brave as he. She turned her face homeward with a light heart. Only one little cloud of anxiety lay upon her heart. “What was Conrad Fitzgerald doing? Was he still lurking about Trevlyn?”
Even that question was destined to be answered in a satisfactory manner before many days had passed.
They travelled rapidly homewards, as the season was advancing, and they were anxious to be once more at Trevlyn.
They were in a train, which had stopped at some station, when another train from an opposite direction steamed up and also stopped. Monica, leaning back in her corner seat, noticed nothing for a time, but was roused to the consciousness that she was being intently regarded by a passenger in the opposite train, whose face was pressed close against the glass.
For some seconds she resisted the impulse to look; but as she felt the glance withdrawn, she presently turned her eyes in the direction of the half-seen face, and then she started violently.
Conrad Fitzgerald, his face pale and sharp, wearing a frightfully malevolent expression, was gazing, or rather glaring, at her husband, with eyes like those of a wild beast, in their fiery, hungry hate.
Randolph, seated opposite her, reading the paper, was perfectly unconscious of the proximity of his foe; but Monica recoiled with a feeling of horror she could hardly have explained.
The next moment the train had moved on. At least, it was some comfort to know that they were being rapidly carried in opposite directions. Yet it was long before she could forget the vindictive hatred of the gaze she had seen directed towards her husband.
Would Conrad Fitzgerald ever do him the deadly injury he had vowed?
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
BACK AT TREVLYN
“Randolph! Can this really be Trevlyn?”
The young countess stood in all her radiant loveliness upon the threshold of her old home, and turned her happy face towards the husband who stood beside her, watching with a smile in his eyes for the effect to be produced by his labour of love.
“Can this really be Trevlyn?”
“You seemed destined never to know your old home again when you have been banished from it, Monica,” he answered, smiling. “Well, is it as much changed as you expected?”
“It is perfect,” said Monica simply; adding, after another long look round her: “If only my father could have seen this – could have lived to witness the realisation of his dream!”
But he would not let her indulge one sad thought that should cloud the brightness of this happy home-coming. He kissed her gently in token of his sympathy, and then drew her towards the blazing fire, whose dancing flames were illuminating the great hall.
“Does it realise your dream, too, my Monica?” he asked softly.
She looked up in his face, deep feeling welling up in the glance of her soft dark eyes.
“To be with you is my dream, Randolph. That is enough for me.”
He saw that she was moved, and knew that the associations of Trevlyn, the old home, were crowding upon her. Without speaking, he led her towards a door, which in old days led to a room vast and empty, save for the odds and ends of lumber that gradually accumulated there. Monica glanced up in a sort of surprise as he turned the handle. Why was he taking her there?
She paused on the threshold, and looked about her in mute amaze.
The floor was of polished parquetrie work; the panelled walls, quaintly and curiously carved, shone with the care that had been bestowed upon them; the vaulted roof had been carefully restored and was a fine specimen of mediæval skill and beauty. The mullioned window to the west had been filled with rich stained glass, that gave back a dusky glimmer through its tinted panes, though the daylight was failing fast. Near to the window stood the one great feature of the room, an organ, which Monica’s eyes saw at once was a particularly fine and perfect instrument. An organ of her very own! It was just like Randolph to think of it! She gave him one sweet glance of gratitude, and went up to it in the dim, dusky twilight.
“How good you are to me!” she said softly.
He heard the little quiver in her voice, and bent his head to kiss her; but he spoke in a lighter tone.
“Do you like it? I am so glad! I thought your home ought not to be without its music-room. See, Monica, your organ will be a sort of friend to whom you can confide all your secrets; for you want nobody to blow it for you. You can set the bellows at work by just turning this handle, and nobody need disturb your solitude when you want to be alone.”
She looked up gratefully. He never forgot anything – not even her old love for solitude.
“I never want to be alone now, Randolph,” she said. “I always want you.”
“And you generally have me, sweet wife. I think we have hardly been separated for more than a few hours at a time since that happy, happy day that made you really mine.”
“I want it always to be like that,” said Monica, dreamily; “always like that.”
He looked at her, and carried the hand that he held to his lips.
“Will you play, Monica?”
She sat down and struck a few dreamy chords, gradually leading up to the theme that was in her mind. Randolph leaned against the mullioned window-frame and watched her. He could see, even in the darkness, the pure, pale outline of her perfect profile, and the crown of her golden hair that framed her face like an aureole.
“Another dream realised, Monica,” he said softly, as she turned to him at length.
“What dream, Randolph?”
“A dream that came to me once, in the little cliff church where we were married, as I watched you – little as you knew it – sitting at the organ, and playing to yourself, one sunny afternoon. But this is better than any dream of pictured saint or spirit – my Monica, my own true wife.”
She looked up at him, and came and put her arms about his neck – an unusual demonstration, even now, for her, and they stood very close together in the gathering darkness that was not dark to them.
Monica paid an early visit to St. Maws to see her friends, and to confide to Mrs. Pendrill a little of the wonderful happiness that had flooded her life with sunshine. Then, too, she wanted to see Tom, and to ask him the result of the mission he had half promised to undertake. So far she had learned nothing save that Fitzgerald had not been seen near Trevlyn for many weeks, and was supposed to have gone abroad.
“Did you see him, Tom?” she asked, when she had found the opportunity she desired.
“Yes, once or twice. I had a good look at him. I should not call him exactly mad, though in a decidedly peculiar mental state. We merely met, as it were, by chance, and talked on indifferent subjects for the most part. Once he asked me, in a sort of veiled way, for professional advice, describing certain unpleasant symptoms and sensations. I advised him to give up the use of spirits, and to try what travelling would do for him. He seemed to think he would take my advice, and shortly afterwards he disappeared from the neighbourhood; but where he has gone I do not know.”
Monica knew that this advice had been followed. “He may go anywhere he likes, if he will only keep away from here,” she said. “I am very much obliged to you, Tom, for doing as I asked.”
“Pray don’t mention it.”
“I must mention it, because it was very good of you. Tom, will you come and stay at Trevlyn next week? We have one or two people coming for the pheasants, and we want you to make one of the party, if you will.”
“Oh, very well; anything to please. I have had no shooting worth speaking of so far. I should like a week’s holiday very well.”
So that matter was speedily and easily arranged.
Tom did not ask who were the guests he was to meet, and Monica did not think of naming such entire strangers, Lord Haddon and Lady Beatrice Wentworth. She forgot that Tom and the young earl had met once before on a different occasion.
Those two were to be the first guests. Perhaps later on they would ask more, but Monica was too entirely happy in her present life to wish it in any way disturbed, and Randolph by no means cared to be obliged to give up to guests those happy hours that heretofore he had always spent with Monica. But Beatrice and her brother had already been invited. They were his oldest friends, and were Monica’s friends too. She was glad to welcome them to her old home, and the rapturous admiration that its beauties elicited would have satisfied a more exacting nature than hers.
Beatrice was, as usual, radiant, bewitching, delightful. Monica wished that Tom had come in time to see her arrival, and listen to her sparkling flow of talk. Tom professed to be a woman-hater, or next door to it, but she thought that even he would have to make an exception in favour of Lady Beatrice Wentworth.
She went upstairs with her guest to her room at length, when Beatrice suddenly turned towards her, with quite a new expression upon her face.
“Monica,” she said, looking straight into her eyes, “you are changed – you are different from what you were in London – different even from what you were in Scotland, though I saw a change then. I don’t know how to express it, but you are beautified – glorified. What is it? What has changed you since I first knew you?”
Monica knew right well; but some feelings could not be translated into words.
“I am very happy,” she said, quietly. “If there is any change, that must be the cause.”
“Happier than you have ever been before?”
“Yes; I think every week makes me happier. I learn to know my husband better and better, you see.”
A sudden wistful sadness flashed into the eyes so steadily regarding her. Monica saw it before it had been blotted out by the arch drollery of the look that immediately succeeded.
“And it does not wear off, Monica? Sometimes it does, you know – after a time. Will it ever, in your case, do you think?”
“I think not,” she answered.
“And I think not, too,” answered Beatrice. “Ah me! How happy some people are!”
She laughed, but there was something of bitterness in the tone. Monica looked at her seriously.
“Are you not happy, Beatrice?”
The girl’s audacious smile beamed out over her face.
“Don’t I look so?”
“Sometimes – not always.”
“One must have variety before all things, you know,” was the gay answer. “It would never do to be always in the same style – it lacks piquancy after a time. Now let me have time to beautify myself in harmony with this most charming of old places, and come back for me when you are dressed; I feel as if I should lose my way, or see bogies in these delightful corridors and staircases.”
And Monica left her guest as desired, coming back, half an hour later, to find her transformed into the semblance of some pictured dame of a century or two gone by, in stiff amber brocade, quaintly cut about the neck and sleeves, and relieved here and there by dazzling scarlet blossoms. Beatrice never at any time looked like anybody else, but to-night she was particularly, strikingly original.
“Ah, you black-robed queen, you will just do as a foil for me!” was the greeting Monica received. “Whenever I see you in any garb, no matter what it is, I always think it is just one that suits you best of everything. Are you having a dinner-party to-night?”
“Not exactly. A few men are coming, who have asked Randolph to shoot since we came back. You and I are the only ladies.”
And then they went down to the empty drawing-room a good half-hour before any one else was likely to appear.
Beatrice chatted away very brightly. She seemed in gay spirits, and had a great deal to tell of what had passed since their farewell in Scotland a month or two ago.
She moved about the drawing-room, examining the various treasures it contained, and admiring the beauty of the pictures. She was standing half concealed by the curtains draping a recessed window, when the door opened, admitting Tom Pendrill. He was in dinner dress, having arrived about an hour previously.
“You have come then, Tom,” said Monica. “I am glad. I was afraid you meant to desert us after all.”
“The wish being father to the thought, I presume,” answered Tom, shaking hands. “By-the-bye, here is a letter from Arthur’s doctor I’ve brought to show you. He gives a capital account of his patient. Can you read German writing, or shall I construe? He writes about as crabbedly as – ”
And here Tom stopped short, seeing that Monica was not alone.
“I beg your pardon,” he added, drawing himself up with a ceremoniousness quite unusual with him.
“Not at all,” answered Monica, quietly. “Let me introduce you to Lady Beatrice Wentworth – Mr. Tom Pendrill.”
They exchanged bows very distantly. Monica became suddenly aware, in some subtle, inexplicable fashion, that these two were not strangers to one another – that this was not their first meeting. Moreover, it appeared as if their former acquaintance, such as it was, could have been by no means agreeable to either, for it was easy to see that a sort of covert antagonism existed between them which neither of them took over much pains to conceal.
Tom’s face assumed its most sharply cynical expression, as he drew at once into his hardest shell of distant reserve and sarcastic politeness.
Beatrice opened her feather fan, and wielded it with a sort of aggressive negligence. She dropped into a seat beside Monica, and began to talk to her with an air of studied affectation utterly at variance with her ordinary manner, ignoring Tom as entirely as if no introduction had passed between them, and that with an assumption of hauteur that could only be explained by a deeply-seated antipathy.
Monica tried to include Tom in the conversation; but he declined to be included, returned an indifferent answer, and withdrew to a distant corner of the room, where he remained deeply engrossed, as it seemed, in the study of a photographic album.
Monica was perplexed. She could not imagine what it all meant. She had never heard the Pendrills speak of Lady Beatrice Wentworth, and she was sufficiently acquainted with Tom’s history to render this perplexity the greater. She was certain Mrs. Pendrill had heard the name of her expected guest, and it had aroused no emotion in her. Yet she would presumably know the name of a lady towards whom her nephew cherished so great an antipathy. Monica could not make it out. But one thing was plain enough: those two were sworn foes, and intended to remain so – and they were guests beneath the same roof!