Lettice

But here he stopped.

“I wish you would say all you mean,” said Lettice curtly.

“I have no objection whatever to doing so, except the fear of annoying you,” he replied. “I was going to say that, remembering his own experience I should have thought your father the very last man to force, or even advise a profession unless the lad himself thoroughly liked it.”

“Force it?” exclaimed Lettice, really surprised, and Nina added hastily —

“Oh no, while papa was alive there was no question but that Arthur wished it.”

“While papa was alive, Nina,” repeated Lettice. “What do you mean? You speak as if Arthur did not wish it now.”

Nina blushed painfully, and seemed at a loss for an answer.

“I did not mean to say that,” she said at last. And Lettice, too prepossessed by her own wishes and beliefs to take in the possibility of any others, thought no more of Nina’s agitation. But Mr Auriol did not forget it.

He was, however, painfully anxious to come to an understanding with his cousins as to their relations with their uncle. Mr Morison was now at home again, and eager to receive his nephews and nieces and to discuss with them the best arrangements for a permanent home, which he and his wife earnestly hoped would be, if not with, at least near them.

But though he had plenty of opportunities for talks with Nina, he tried in vain to have any uninterrupted conversation with Lettice. She almost seemed to avoid it purposely, and he disliked to ask for it in any formal and ceremonious way.

“Though I shall be forced to do so,” he said to Nina one day, when, as usual, he found himself alone with her, Lettice having made some excuse at the last minute for not going out with them. “Do you think she avoids me on purpose, Nina?” he asked, with some irritation.

“I really do not know,” said Nina. “Sometimes I do not understand Lettice at all.”

“I fear I rubbed her the wrong way that first day by the way I spoke of Arthur,” said Godfrey reflectively. “And Arthur, too, baffles me. I have tried to talk to him and to lead him on to confide in me if he has anything on his mind, but it is no use. So I must just leave him for the present. But about this other matter I must do and say something. It is not my own concern. I have promised to see about it.”

Nina listened with great sympathy and great anxiety.

“I wish I could do anything,” she said. “But I, too, have tried in vain. Lettice seems to avoid the subject.”

“Well, then there is nothing for it but to meet it formally. I must ask Lettice to give me half an hour, and I will read her your uncle’s last letter. There she is,” he added hurriedly, pointing to a figure which suddenly appeared in the lane a short way before them. “So she has been out, after all.”

“Where have you been, Lettice?” asked Nina, as they came up with her, for she was walking slowly. “I thought you were not coming out.”

“I changed my mind,” said Lettice. “I have been some little way on the Garford road.”

The words were slightly defiant, but the tone was subdued, and Nina, looking at her sister, was struck by the curious expression of her face. It had a distressed, almost a frightened look. What could it be?

Mr Auriol, intent on his own ideas, did not notice it.

“Lettice,” he began, “I never seem to see you at leisure, and I must leave the day after to-morrow. When can you give me half an hour?”

“Any time you like – any time to-morrow, I mean,” said Lettice. “It is too late this evening.”

“Very well,” he said; “just as you like.”

Lettice was longing to get away – to be alone in her own room to think over what had happened, and what she had done that afternoon.

She had not meant to go out after refusing to walk with Nina and her cousin. But Lotty had come to ask her advice about a little garden she was making; and, after this important business was settled, Lettice, feeling at a loss what to do with herself, strolled a short way down the road. It was too soon to meet Nina and Mr Auriol; they would not be back for an hour at least, and Arthur was as usual shut up in his own room with his books. Who, then, could the figure be whom she saw, when about a quarter of a mile from the house, coming quickly up the road? It was not Godfrey, nor Arthur, and yet it was but seldom that any one not making for the cottage came along this road, which for half a mile or so was almost like a private one. And then, too – yes, it did seem to Lettice that there was something familiar about the walk and carriage of the gentleman she now clearly perceived to be such, though he was still too far off for her to distinguish his features. Another moment or two and she no longer hesitated. It was – there could be no doubt about it – it was the person whom of all others she most dreaded to see – Philip Dexter!

And yet there was nothing very alarming in the young man’s appearance as, on catching sight of her, he hastened his steps and came on hurriedly, his features lit up with eagerness, while Lettice walked more and more slowly, at every step growing more dignified and icy. The smile faded from Philip’s face as he distinguished her clearly.

“Miss Morison!” he exclaimed. “I saw you some way off, but I was not sure – I thought – ”

“You thought I was my sister, probably,” said Lettice calmly, as she held out her hand. “I, too, saw you some way off, Mr Dexter, and at first I could scarcely believe my eyes. Are you staying anywhere near here?”

“No,” said Philip, braced by her coldness to an equal composure; “I have no acquaintances close to this. I came by rail to Garford, and left my portmanteau at the hotel there, and walked on here. I have come, Miss Morison, on purpose to see – you.”

“Not me, personally?” said Lettice, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes, you, personally, though not only you. I am, I think, glad to have met you alone. If that is your house,” – for they were approaching the cottage – “will you turn and walk back a little? I would rather talk to you a little first, before any one knows I am here.”

With the greatest readiness, though she strove to conceal it, Lettice agreed. They retraced their steps down the road, and then she led him along a lane to the left, also in the Garford direction, though she knew that by it Mr Auriol and Nina could not return.

“I will not beat about the bush, Miss Morison,” said Philip. “I have come to see Nina – to ask her to marry me. I would have done so already – last winter at Esparto – but your mother’s illness, the difficulty of seeing any of you the latter part of the time, interfered, and I thought it, for other reasons too, better to wait. Nina has no father and mother – you are not much older, but you are the eldest, and I know you have immense influence over her. Before seeing her, I should like to know my ground with you. Do you wish me well?”

In face of this straightforward address Lettice felt, for a moment, off her guard.

“You have never consulted me hitherto,” she said evasively.

“That is not the question now,” said Philip. “Tell me, do you wish me well, and, still more, do you – do you think I am likely to succeed?” At this Lettice looked up at him.

“I don’t know,” she said, and she spoke honestly. “Almost the only thing I am sure of is that I wish you had not thought of it – not come here.”

Philip’s bright, handsome face fell; he looked in a moment years older.

“You think there is something in the way, I see,” he said. “Ah! well, there is nothing for it but to make sure. I must see Nina herself. Where is she?”

“She is out,” said Lettice, and her face flushed. “She is out walking with Godfrey Auriol.” Something in her tone and expression made Philip stop short and look at her sharply. She bore his look unflinchingly, and that perhaps impressed him more than her words. She was able to do so, for she was not conscious of deceiving him. She deceived herself; her determined prejudice and self-will blinded her to all but their own tendencies and conclusions. Mr Dexter’s eyes dropped. At this same moment there flashed before his memory the strangely enthusiastic tone with which Godfrey had spoken of – as Philip thought —Nina, that first morning at Esparto. His face was very pale when he looked up again.

“Miss Morison – Lettice,” he said, “you do not like me, but you are incapable of misleading me. You think there is something between Nina and Mr Auriol?”

“He is very fond of her,” said Lettice. “I do not know exactly, but I think – ”

“You think she returns it?”

Lettice bowed her head in agreement. “Then I will go – as I came – and no one need know anything about my having been,” said Philip. “You will tell no one?”

“Not if you wish me not to do so; certainly not,” she replied, only too delighted to be, as she said to herself, obliged to conceal his visit. “I very earnestly beg you not to tell of it,” he said; “it could serve no purpose, things being as you say they are.”

Lettice made a little movement as if she would have interrupted him. Then she hesitated. At last —

“I did not – exactly – ” was all she got out.

“No, you did not exactly in so many words say, ‘Nina is engaged, or just going to be, to Godfrey Auriol.’ But you have said all you could, and I thank you for your honesty. It must have been difficult for you, disliking me, and knowing that I know you dislike me, to have been honest.” Philip spoke slowly, as if weighing every word. Something in his manner, in his white, almost ghastly face, appalled Lettice.

“Mr Dexter,” she exclaimed, involuntarily laying her hand on his arm, “I don’t think I do dislike you, personally;” and she felt that never before had she been so near liking, and certainly respecting, the young man. “But you know all the feelings involved. I am very, very sorry it should have gone so far with you. Yet I could not have warned you sooner last winter; it would have been impossible. I had no reason to think there was anything so serious.”

“Last winter,” repeated Philip. “I don’t understand you. There was no reason to warn me off then. Before she had ever seen him? I had all the field to myself. You don’t suppose I am giving it up now out of deference to that shameful, wicked nonsense of prejudice and dig like to the best man in the world – your uncle, and mine, as I am proud to call him?” And Philip gave a bitter and contemptuous laugh. “I am going away because I see I have no chance. I esteem and admire Godfrey Auriol too much to enter into useless rivalry with him. He is not likely to care for any woman in vain. But if I had not been so afraid of hurting you last winter, if I had thrown all the prejudice to the winds, I believe I might have won her. Godfrey would never have come between us had he had any idea of how it was with me. So, after all, it is that wicked, unchristian nonsense that has done it all. You may think it is right; you cannot expect me to agree with you. At the same time, I repeat that I thank you for your honesty. Good-bye. Can I reach Garford by this way?” and Philip, in a white fever of indignation and most bitter disappointment, turned to go.

Lettice had never perhaps in all her life felt more discomposed.

“Mr Dexter,” she said, “don’t leave me like this; don’t be so angry with me. I have tried to do rightly – by you, too.”

“I have not denied it; but I cannot stand and discuss it as if it were anything else. I am only human. I must go. I am afraid of – of meeting them. Tell me, is this the right way?”

“Yes,” replied Lettice mechanically; “straight on brings you out on the road again. It is a short cut.”

Philip raised his hat; and before Lettice had time for another word, had she indeed known what to say, he was gone. She stood and looked after him for some moments with a blank, half-scared expression; and then, retracing her steps, she walked slowly back, and thus came to be observed by her sister and Godfrey returning in the other direction.

It was not a happy moment for Mr Auriol to choose for his renewed attempt. Lettice slept badly, and woke in the morning feverish and excited; but, by way perhaps of shifting the misgiving and self-reproach which would insinuate themselves, more blindly determined than ever to stand to her colours. She listened to her uncle’s letter and to all Mr Auriol had to say, and then quietly announced her decision. Nothing could induce her to regard as a relation the man who had supplanted her father, the representative of the unnatural family who had treated him all his life long as a pariah and an outcast, and had been the cause of sorrows and trials without end to him and her mother.

“I am the eldest,” she said. “I can remember more distinctly than the others the privations and trials they went through – at the very time when my father’s father and brother were rolling in riches, some part of which surely, by every natural law, should have been his.”

“And some part of which was his,” said Godfrey. “Everything he had came from his father. And why it was not more was his own fault. He would not take it.”

“Neither will I,” said Lettice, crimsoning. “What my father accepted and left to us I considers ours; but I will take no more in any shape, directly or indirectly.”

“Then,” said Godfrey, also losing his self-control, “you had better give up all you have. For, is surely as I stand here, you would not, as I have already explained to you, have had one farthing left but for what Ingram Morison did and risked. You owe all to him.”

Lettice turned upon him, very pale now.

“You may some day repent taunting me so cruelly with what I am in no way responsible for,” she said.

Godfrey, recognising the truth of this, tried to make her better understand him; but it was useless.

“I must bear it for the present,” was all she would say; and Nina heard her mutter something to herself about “once I am of age,” which made her still more uneasy.

“I have done more harm than good,” said Godfrey at last. “There is no more to be said.”

He glanced at Nina and Arthur, but neither spoke. Lettice saw the glance.

“We are all of one mind,” she said proudly. “Are we not, Nina? Are we not, Arthur?”

Nina’s eyes filled with tears; Arthur was very pale.

“You know, Lettice,” said Nina, “at all costs we must cling together;” and Lettice preferred not to press her more closely.

And Godfrey Auriol returned to town the next morning.

Chapter Seven.

A Tramp in the Snow

“There is no dearth of kindness In this world of ours, Only in our blindness We gather thorns for flowers!”

Gerald Massey.

A very cold winter morning, colder than is often the case before Christmas, and Christmas was still some days off. Snow had fallen in the night; and while some weather optimists were maintaining that on this account it would feel warmer now, others, more experienced, if less hopeful, were prophesying a much heavier fall before night – what lay on the ground was but the precursor of much more.

The family party round the breakfast table in the pretty Rectory of Thorncroft were discussing the question from various points of view.

“If it would stop snowing now, and go on freezing hard till the end of the holidays, so that we could have skating all the time, then I don’t care what it does after,” said Tom, a typical youth of fourteen, to be met with, it seems to me, in at least six of every seven English country families.

“No,” said Ralph, his younger brother, “I’d rather it’d go on snowing for about a week, so that we could have lots of snow-balling. I like that better than skating.”

“There wouldn’t be much of you or Tom left to skate or snowball either, if it went on snowing for a week. We’d be snowed up bodily,” remarked their father. “Have you forgotten grandpapa’s stories?” For Thorncroft was in an out-of-the-way part of the country, all hills and valleys, where snowings-up were not altogether legend. “But, independently of that, I don’t like you to talk quite so thoughtlessly. Either heavy snow or hard frost long prolonged brings terrible suffering.” And the kind-hearted clergyman sighed, as he rose from the table and walked over to the window, where he stood looking out for a few moments without speaking.

“I must tell cook to begin the winter soup at once,” said the mother, speaking to her eldest daughter. For in this family there was a sort of private soup kitchen in severe weather – independently of charity to their own parishioners – for the benefit of poor, storm-driven waifs and strays, many of whom passed this way on their tramp to the northern towns, which they were too poor to attain by the railway. It was an old custom, and had never been found productive of abuse.

“Yes,” replied the young girl; “for I am sure the weather is going to be dreadful. Shall I go and speak about it, mamma?”

“Do, dear; your father may want me for a few minutes.”

Daisy left the room, but only to reappear again very shortly with a troubled face.

“Papa, mamma,” she said, “there is a tramp at the door now. He seems nearly fainting, and cook says he must have been out in the snow all night. There is no soup ready; might I have a cup of tea for him?”

“Certainly,” said her mother. “Run, one of you boys, for a kitchen cup; it will taste just as good, and I don’t like to risk one of my dear old china ones.”

“Mamma,” said Daisy, in a low voice – she was always a little afraid of the boys laughing at her – “I don’t think it would have mattered about the cup. Do you know, he looks quite like a gentleman?”

Her father, who was standing near, overheard the last words. He had been reading a letter, which he threw aside.

“There is nothing from Ingram,” he remarked to his wife. “I had hoped for a letter. I am so sorry for him, just at Christmas time again the old disappointment. But what is Daisy saying?” The young girl repeated what she had told her mother, and Ralph just then appearing with a substantial cup and saucer, Mrs Winthrop poured out the tea, and Daisy, carrying it, went off with her father to the kitchen door.

“A gentleman, you say, Daisy?” he repeated.

“Yes, papa, and quite young. Cook says she is sure he is a gentleman.”

“And begging?” added her father.

“Oh no – at least, I don’t think so. He just knocked at the door and asked if he might warm himself at the fire. And she said he looks so ill. I did not quite see him. I just peeped in.”

“Well, wait a moment, I’ll speak to him first,” said her father; for by this time they had traversed the long passage which led to the kitchen and offices – the Rectory at Thorncroft was a large roomy old house, and the Winthrops were rich – and so saying the clergyman went in to have a look at the stranger.

Almost immediately, Daisy, waiting at the door, heard herself called.

“Quick, my child – the hot tea. He is nearly fainting, poor fellow!”

And Daisy, hurrying in, saw her father half lifting on to a chair a tall thin figure with white face and closed eyes; while cook stood by looking very frightened, and perhaps not altogether pleased at this desecration of her spotless kitchen. For the snow, melted by the heat, was running off the stranger in little rivulets.

He was only half-fainting, however. They made him swallow the tea, and sent for another cup, into which Mrs Winthrop put a spoonful of brandy. Then the young man sat up and looked about him confusedly. Recognising that he was among strangers, he thanked them earnestly for their kindness, and struggling to his feet said that he must be going on.

“Going on, my good fellow!” said Mr Winthrop. “You are not fit for it. You must stay here an hour or two at least, and get dried and have something to eat. Have you far to go to-day?”

The young man coloured.

“I wanted to get to Clough,” he said. “It is ten days since I started. I got on well enough, though it has been horribly cold,” and he shivered as he thought of it, “till last night.”

“Were you out in the snow?” asked the rector compassionately.

“Not all night. Oh no; I sheltered in a barn till early this morning. Then it looked as if it were clearing, and I set off again. I was anxious to get on as far as I could before it came on again; but I lost my way, I think; there was moonlight at first, but since daylight I have been wandering about, not able to find the road. Am I far from the high-road to Clough?”

“Not very; you must have taken the wrong turn a couple of miles off. We are accustomed to – people,” – “tramps,” he was going to have said, but he changed the word in time – “making that mistake. Now you had better take off your wet things and get them dried, and have something to eat; and, if you must go on, we will set you on your way. And,” – here the good rector hesitated – “you seem very young,” he went on; “if I can give you any counsel, remember, it is my business to do so.”

The young fellow coloured up again painfully. “You are very kind, sir,” he said.

“Think it over. I will see you again. Peters,” he called, and a man-servant, brimful of curiosity appeared, “this,” – again an instant’s almost imperceptible hesitation – “this young gentleman has lost his way. Take him to Master Tom’s old room and help him to change his things. We must find you a change while they are drying,” he went on. But the young fellow held up a small bag he had been carrying. “I have other things, thank you,” he said. “But I should be most thankful to have these dried.”

Mr Winthrop rejoined Daisy and her mother.

“He is a gentleman, is he not, papa?” said the former eagerly.

“He strikes me as more of a schoolboy than anything else. I hope he has not run away in any sort of disgrace. Still, whatever it is, one must be kind to him, poor boy. He is evidently not accustomed to roughing it, and as far as one could see through the plight he was in, he seemed well dressed. I hope he will tell me something about himself.”

The worst of the weather-prophets’ predictions were realised. Before noon the snow came down again, this time in most sober earnest, and long before dark Mr Winthrop, becoming convinced that they “were in for it,” began to take some necessary precautions. It was out of the question for the young stranger to pursue his foot-journey. His kind host insisted on his remaining where he was for the night, though somewhat embarrassed as to how to treat him.

“I cannot bring a complete stranger in among our own children,” he said to his wife, “and yet it seems impossible to tell him to sit with the servants.”

But the difficulty was solved by the young man’s unfitness to leave his room. He had caught a chill, and was, besides, suffering from exhaustion, both nervous and physical.

“Seems to me to have had a shock of some kind, and evidently very little food for some days past,” said the doctor whom Mr Winthrop was obliged to send for the next morning. “It may go on to rheumatic fever, or he may – being young and healthy enough – fight it off. But any way, you’ve got him on your hands for two or three days, unless you like to get a vehicle of some kind and send him to the hospital at Clough,” said the doctor, pitying the inconvenience to Mrs Winthrop.

“It would be a great risk, would it not?” said the rector.

“Yes, certainly it would be a risk. Still you are not obliged to give house-room to every benighted wanderer,” said the doctor, smiling.

But Mr Winthrop felt certain this was no common case, and his kindness was rewarded. Thanks to the care and nursing he received, the dreaded illness was warded off, and by the fourth day the young stranger was well enough to pursue his journey.

“I can never thank you enough for your goodness to me, an utter stranger,” he said to his host, with the tears in his eyes. “And I feel so ashamed, so – ” But here he broke down altogether.

“My poor boy,” said the rector, “can you not give me your confidence? Why are you wandering about the world alone like this? I cannot believe you have done anything wrong – at least, seriously wrong. If you have left your friends hastily for some half-considered reason, it may not be too late to return. Can I do anything to help you? Can I write to your father so as to put things straight again?”

“I have no father and no mother,” said the lad.

“No, I have done nothing wrong; nothing disgraceful, in the usual sense, I mean. But I have done wrong in another way. I have disappointed every hope and effort that had been made for me, and I cannot face the result I cannot tell you all, for if I did, you would probably think it your duty to interfere – it is all so complicated and confused. All I can tell you is that I am going off like Whittington,” he added with a faint smile, “to seek my fortune. And if I find it, it will not be mine. I owe it to others, that is the worst of it.”