Fated to Be Free Part 21

"Even as the sparrow findeth an house, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, so I seek thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my G.o.d."--Psalm lx.x.xiv., Marginal Translation.

Rising early the next morning, Brandon found that he had an hour to spare before breakfast, and sallied forth for an early walk. A delicate h.o.a.rfrost still made white the shade, and sparkled all over the sombre leaves of some fine yew-trees that grew outside the garden wall.

Walking up a little rise, he saw the weatherc.o.c.k and one turret of a church tower peering over the edge of a small steep hill, close at hand, and turning toward it he went briskly on, under the lee of a short fir plantation, all the gra.s.s being pure and fresh with h.o.a.r-frost, which melted in every hollow and shadow as fast as the sun came round to it.

The house was too large and pretentious for the grounds it stood in, these being hardly extensive enough to be called a park; they consisted of finely varied wood and dell, and were laid out in gra.s.s and fed off by sheep.

He pa.s.sed through a gate into the churchyard, which had a very little valley all to itself, the land rising on every side so as to make a deep nest for it. Such a venerable, low, long church! taking old age so quietly, covering itself with ivy and ferns, and having a general air of mossiness, and subsidence into the bosom of the earth again, from whence its brown old stones had been quarried. For, as is often the case with an old burial-place, the soil had greatly risen, so that one who walked between the graves could see the whole interior of the place through the windows. The tiled roof, sparkling and white with the morning frost, was beginning to drip, and dew shone on the melting rime, while all around the enclosure orchards were planted, and the trees leaned over their boughs.

A woman, stepping from a cottage on the rise, held up a great key to him, and he advanced, took it, and told her he would return it.

A large heavy thing it was, that looked as if it might be hundreds of years old; he turned the lock with it and stepped in, walking down the small brick aisle, observing the ancient oaken seats, the quaint pulpit, and strange bra.s.ses; till, white, staring, obtrusive, and all out of taste, he saw in the chancel what he had come to look for, a great white marble monument, on the south side; four fluttering cherubs with short wings that appeared to hold up a marble slab, while two weeping figures knelt below. First was recorded on the slab the death of Augustus Cuthbert Melcombe, only son of Cuthbert Melcombe, gent., of this place.

Then followed the date of his birth, and there was no date of death, merely the information that he was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy.

Brandon copied this inscription into his note-book.

Below was the name of the young man's only sister, aged ninety-seven, "universally beloved and respected;" then the solemn words used before death by the aged patriarch, "I have waited for Thy Salvation, O Lord."

All about the chancel were various small tablets in memory of the successive vicars of the place and their families, but no others with the name of Melcombe on them. The whole building was so overflowing with the records of human creatures, inside and out, it appeared as if so saturated with man's thoughts, so used to man's prayers and tears, so about presently to decline and subside into the earth as he does, that there was almost an effort in believing that it was empty of the beings it seemed to be a part of--empty of those whom we call the living.

It was easy to move reverently and feel awed in the face of this venerable ancientry. This was the place, then, where that poor woman had worshipped whose son "had never judged her."

"If I settled," he thought, "in a new country, this is the sort of scene that, from time to time, would recur to my thoughts and get hold of me, with almost intolerable power to make life one craving for home.

"How hard to take root in a soil my fathers never ploughed! Let me abide where my story grew, where my dead are laid, in a country full of days, full of the echoes of old Englishmen's talk, and whose sunsets are stained as if with the blood shed for their liberties."

He left the church, noticing, as he went down the aisle, numbers of dogs'-eared books in the different pews, and the narrow window at the east end now letting in long shafts of sunshine; but there was nothing to inform him of any fact that threw light on his step-father's letter, and he returned the key to the s.e.xton's wife, and went back to breakfast, telling Mrs. Melcombe where he had been, and remarking that there was no date of death on Augustus Melcombe's tomb.

"I think they did not know the date," she replied. "It was during the long French war that he died, and they were some time uncertain of the fact, but at length the eldest son going to London, wrote his mother an account of how he had met with the captain of his young uncle's ship, and had been told of his death at sea, somewhere near the West Indies.

The dear grandmother showed me that letter," observed Mrs. Melcombe, "when first I married."

Brandon listened attentively, and when he was alone set that down also in his note-book, then considering that neither the ghost nor the young lieutenant need trouble him further, he felt that all his suspicions were cast loose into a fathomless sea, from which he could fish nothing up; but the little heir was well and happy, and he devoutly hoped that he would remain so, and save to himself the anxiety of showing, and to Valentine the pain and doubt that would come of reading the letter.

Mrs. Melcombe, narrow as were her thoughts, was, notwithstanding, a schemer in a small way. She had felt that Brandon must have had something to say to Laura when she herself coming up had interrupted him. Laura had few reserves from her, so when she had ascertained that nothing had occurred when she had left them together in the grandmother's sitting-room but such talk as naturally arose out of the visit to it, she resolved to give him another opportunity, and after breakfast was about to propose a walk, when he helped her by asking her to show him that room again.

"I should like so much to have a photograph of Mr. Mortimer's picture,"

he said; "may I see it again?"

Nothing more easy. They all went up to the room; a fire had been lighted to air it, because its atmosphere had felt chilly the day before. Laura seated herself again on the sofa. Brandon, with pen and ink, began trying to make a sketch of the portrait, and very soon found himself alone with Laura, as he had fully expected would be the case. Whereupon, sitting with his back to her, and working away at his etching, he presently said--

"I mentioned yesterday to Mrs. Melcombe that I had come on business."

"Yes," Laura answered.

"So as it concerns only you, I will, if you please, explain it now."

As he leaned slightly round towards her Laura looked up, but she was mute through surprise. There was something in this voice at once penetrative and sweet; but now she was again conscious of what sounded like a delicately-hinted reproof.

"A young man," he proceeded, "whom I have known almost all my life--in fact, I may call him a friend of mine--told me of an event that had taken place--he called it a misfortune that had befallen him. It had greatly unsettled him, he said, for a long time; and now that he was getting over it, and wanted to forget it, he wished for a change, would like to go abroad, and asked if I could help him. I have many foreign acquaintances. It so chanced that I had just been applied to by one of them to send him out an Englishman, a clerk, to help him with his English correspondence. So I proposed to this young fellow to go, and he gladly consented."

Laura said nothing. Brandon's words did not lead her to think of Joseph.

So she thought of him, wishing she had been so led. She noticed, however, a slight emphasis in the words which informed her that the young man, whoever he was, "was getting over his misfortune, and wanted to forget it."

"It was very kind of you," she said at last, after a long pause.

Brandon turned. Her words were ambiguous, and he wished to be understood. "You observe, no doubt, Miss Melcombe," he said, "that I am speaking of Joseph Swan?"

"Joseph Swan!" Laura repeated, "then he is going away?"

"Yes; but when I had secured this situation for him, he said he felt that he must tell me what had occurred. He told me of an attachment that he had formed, and whatever I may think as to the prudence displayed in the affair, you know best whether _he_ was at all to blame. He had received certain promises, so he a.s.sured me, and for a long time he had buoyed himself up with hope, but after that, feeling himself very much injured, and knowing that he had been deceived, he had determined to go away."

Laura had never expected to have her conduct brought home to her, and she had actually been almost unaware that she was to blame.

"It was Amelia's doing," she murmured.

Brandon was anxious to speak guardedly, and would not mention Joseph's name again lest Mrs. Melcombe should enter suddenly and hear it, so he answered, "Yes; and the young man told me he knew you were very much afraid of your sister-in-law. It appears, however, that you had written to him."

"I did, two or three times," said Laura.

"So in case you should in after years feel anxious as to what had become of those letters, or should feel some compunction for groundless hopes excited and for causeless caprice, I undertook to tell you as a message from this young man, that, considering you to be completely under the dominion of your sister-in-law, he does not at all blame you, he does not admit that you are in fault; in one sense, now that he can look back on his attachment as over, he declares that he is the better for it, because it induced him to work hard at improving himself. He is to go out to Santo Domingo, where, in a new climate, and hearing a new language, he can begin life afresh; but he wishes you to be a.s.sured that he shall never trouble or annoy you, and he returns you your letters. I promised to say all this to you as a message from this young man--a young man who, whatever the world may call him, deserves, I think, by you (and me) to be from henceforth always regarded as a gentleman. Will you allow me to give you this packet?"

He had risen as he spoke, and while approaching her produced a small packet carefully done up; but Laura did not stir. She had dropped her hands on her knees, and he, stooping, laid it upon them, when meeting her eyes for a moment, he observed with amazement and discomfiture that she was silent not from shame and compunction for what had seemed very unfeminine and heartless conduct, but from a rapture that seemed too deep for words.

"Miss Melcombe!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," she answered, in a low voice. "It is an island that he is going to then. I always thought I should not mind marrying him if he would go to a desert island. And so he loved me, really and truly?"

"It appears that he did, _some time ago_" said Brandon, rather pointedly.

"Does any one else know," Laura asked, "but you?"

"Yes; John Mortimer does."

Laura blushed deeply.

"Joseph told him first about this affair, but did not divulge the lady's name. After all was settled, he acknowledged to us both that you were the lady. John was very glad that I was willing personally to give the letters into your own hands again."

"I suppose he thought I had been very imprudent?"

Brandon recalled the scene. John had in fact expressed himself to that effect in no measured terms; but he had been pleasant and even cordial to Joseph, partly because the young man declared the thing to be quite over, partly because he did him the justice to remember that such an acquaintance must always have been begun by the woman. It could not possibly be Joe's doing that he had corresponded with Laura Melcombe.

Laura repeated her words.

"I suppose he thought I had been very imprudent?"

"Perhaps he did."

"Perhaps he thought I had been heartless too?"

"Not to bring the thing to a decided and honourable termination?--yes, probably. He remarked that it certainly was most unnecessary to have behaved as you have done."