By Birth A Lady Part 49

Volume 3, Chapter XIV.

THE BEARER OF TIDINGS.

Nine o'clock the next--or rather, by the way in which we calculate time, calling by the same t.i.tle the hours of obscurity and those of sunshine, the same--morning, Mr and Mrs Marter were not down, nor likely to be for some time; but Ella was just rising from the schoolroom breakfast-table, where she had partaken of a pleasant meal of extremely weak tea, sweetened with moist sugar of a fine treacley odour, and thick bread, plastered with rank, tubby, salt b.u.t.ter. The meal had gone off more quietly than usual,--no one had upset any tea, neither had the youngest child turned her delicate hand and arm, as was much her custom, into a catapult, for the purpose of hurling bread-and-b.u.t.ter at her sisters. Certainly, this young lady had made one s.n.a.t.c.h at the b.u.t.ter, lying lumpy and yellow upon a plate, and had succeeded in grasping it, as was shown by the traces of her fingers; but when admonished therefor, and threatened with long tasks, she had only howled for five minutes, and had not, as was her wont, thrown herself upon her back upon the floor, and screamed until she was black in the face.

"Mr Bray wants to see you, miss," said a housemaid, entering the schoolroom, the footman not being dressed at so early an hour.

"To see me?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ella.

"Yes, miss; he says he wants to see _you_ pertickler, and he's now waiting in the dining-room."

"Is Mrs Marter down yet?" said Ella, troubled at this unusual call, and at such a strange hour.

"No, miss; nor won't be for long enough."

"Ask Mr Bray if he would be kind enough to call again at twelve," said Ella, after a few moments' thought. "I am engaged now with the children."

"Yes, miss," said the girl; and she departed, to return at the end of five minutes, with a card bearing in pencil:

"_If you value your peace of mind, come to me. I have a letter for you from the country. A case of life or death_!"

"Mrs Brandon must be ill," thought Ella; and hurriedly leaving the room, she stood the next minute face to face with Max, who was very pale, as he respectfully held out his hand, which was, however, unnoticed.

"Miss Bedford," he said softly, "I fear that my visits have always been a.s.sociated with that which was to you unpleasant, from the fact, though, that you did not know my real nature. This visit will, I fear, be only another that shall add to the dislike you entertain for me, but which of late you have so kindly disguised."

Ella did not speak, but stood watching him eagerly.

"You know I was late home last night. I found there this letter, delivered evidently by the late post, and you will guess my emotion when you read it. I came back here; but I could not get a cab, and it was half-past two when I reached the house. If I had roused you, nothing could have been done, while now a calm night's rest has made you better prepared. So I returned to lie down upon the sofa for a few hours'

rest, meaning to be here as soon as the house was opened; but--I am almost ashamed to tell it--I slept heavily from the effects of my long walk, and did not wake till eight. Can you bear to read it?" he said gently.

"Yes, yes," cried Ella huskily; and she took a formal-looking letter, that had evidently been hurriedly torn open. She glanced at the address--to "Maximilian Bray, Esq., 109 Bury-street, Saint James's, London." The postmark, two days old, Penzance, while the London mark was of the day before. "Am I to read this?" she said, without raising her eyes.

"Yes," he said gently; and he turned away from her, but only to go to the mantelpiece and cover his eyes with his hands, where it was quite possible that he might have been able to see, by means of the mirror, every act of the trembling girl.

Ella drew out a folded letter from the envelope, when a smaller one fell to the ground, addressed to her in the same hand as that in which the larger letter was written.

The characters seemed to run together as she opened this second envelope, took out a little folded note in another hand, read it, and then for a few moments the room seemed to swim round. But by an effort she mastered her emotion, re-read the note, and then hastily perused the letter through and through before doubling both together, and standing white and trembling, clutching the papers tightly as she gazed straight before her at vacancy.

There was no cry, no display of wild excitement; nothing but those white quivering lips and the drawn despairing look, to show the agony suffered by that heart, till she started back, as it were, into life, when Max turned softly and stood before her.

"Miss Bedford," he said gently, "I will not trouble you with words of commiseration. I must go now to make preparations."

"Preparations?" she said, as if not understanding his remark.

"Yes; preparations. I telegraphed to Lexville as I came; and now I must go, for I shall run down by the express. There will be no time saved if I start earlier."

"You are going?" said Ella dreamily.

"Yes," he said almost angrily, "of course! Do you take me to be utterly devoid of feeling? But you will write, and I will be the bearer."

"Write!" said Ella, with a wild hysterical sob--"write!"

"Yes. Surely you will do that," he said anxiously.

"Heaven help me!" cried Ella. "I must go."

"You will go?" he said excitedly.

"Yes," she said, with a strange dreamy look; "it is my fate. I must go."

"Ella--Miss Bedford--will you trust me?" said Max in an earnest voice.

"Leave matters to me, and I will arrange all. But Mrs Marter will object to your leaving."

"I must go," said Ella, who seemed to be speaking as if under some strange influence.

"You will go in spite of her wishes?" said Max.

"Yes, yes; I must go," said Ella huskily; and raising her hands to her face, she would have left the room.

Volume 3, Chapter XV.

HOVERING ROUND THE SNARE.

"Stop, stop!" said Max hoa.r.s.ely. "We must have no scene with that weak woman. I will be in waiting by the park entrance of the Colosseum with a cab at four. Meet me there. The train leaves Paddington at 4:50.

But do you hear me?"

"Yes," she said, speaking as if in a dream.

"Do you understand? At the Colosseum at four, without fail."

"Yes," said Ella again abstractedly, as he held her cold hand in his, her face being turned towards the door.

"But mind this," he said, "this is no time for child's-play. If you are not there soon after the time named, I must catch the train, and I dare not wait. If you are not there, I go alone!"

"Do you think I could fail?" said Ella, turning upon him her sweet candid countenance. "I will be there."

Was Max Bray ashamed of his face, that he held it down as he hurried from the house? Perhaps not; but he was evidently much excited, for he muttered half aloud, as if running over certain plans that he had arranged for a particular end.

"Could it be right? Was it all true?" Ella asked herself, when alone in her bedroom, with the sense of a deep unutterable misery crushing her; and once more she read the letters she had retained.

"O yes, it was too true, too true! But what was she about to do? To accompany the man she mistrusted, the man she dreaded? He had been trusted, though, before now; and of late, too, his conduct had been so different--he had even seemed to dislike her. Still, under any other circ.u.mstances, she would not have gone; but at such a time, in answer to such an appeal, how could she stay?"

Her brain was in a whirl, and she could not reason quietly. She only knew now the depth of love she felt, and urged by that love, everything else seemed little and of no import.

Hours must have pa.s.sed, when, after sending twice to Mrs Marter, she received that lady's gracious permission to wait upon her.

"I should have sent for you before long--as soon as I felt that I could bear it, Miss Bedford," said Mrs Marter--"to demand some explanation of your receiving visitors early in the morning without my consent. I understand that somewhere about seven o'clock--"