Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 25

"No," replied Mrs. Davenant--and surely there was something like a tone of relief in her voice--"no; when he is in London he lives in chambers in rooms by himself; but he has been staying at Hurst Leigh."

"At Hurst Leigh!" echoed Una, softly, and a faint color stole over her face. How wonderful it was! That other--he whose face was always with her, was going there!

"At Hurst Leigh," repeated Mrs. Davenant. "Do you know it?"

Una shook her head silently. She longed to ask more, to ask if Mrs.

Davenant knew the youth who had taken shelter in the cottage, but she simply could not. Love is a wondrous schoolmaster--he had already taught her frank, out-spoken nature the art of concealment.

"It is a grand place," continued Mrs. Davenant. "A great, huge place,"

and she shivered faintly, "and--and if Squire Davenant has left it to Stephen, he will live there."

"You don't like it?" said Una, with acute intuition.

"No," replied Mrs. Davenant, with unusual earnestness. "No, oh no! it frightens me. I was never there but once, and then I was glad--very, very glad to get away, grand and beautiful as it was!"

"But why?" asked Una, eagerly.

"Because--have you never heard of Ralph Davenant?"

Una hesitated a moment. She had heard of him.

"He was a wonderful man, but terrible to me. His eyes looked through one, and then he had been so wicked."

She stopped short, and Una sighed. So there was another person who was wicked.

"Why are men so wicked?" she asked, in a low voice.

"I--I--don't know. What a singular question," said Mrs. Davenant. "No one knows. Perhaps it is because they have different natures to ours.

But you need not look so grieved, my dear," she added, with a little smile, "you need not know any wicked men."

"Who can tell? One does not know; wicked men are just like the others, only we like them better."

Mrs. Davenant stared at her, and utterly overwhelmed by the strange reply, sank into her corner and into silence.

The panting engine tore along the line, and presently the clear atmosphere was left behind, and the cloud of smoke which hangs over the Great City came down upon them and took them in, and infolded them.

To Una's amazement the train seemed to glide over the tops of houses, houses so thick that there seemed but two, or three inches between them.

With suppressed excitement--she had resolved to express no surprise or fear--she watched through the window. Sometimes she caught sight of streets thronged with people, and with commingled alarm and curiosity, wondered what had happened to draw them all together so.

She would not ask Mrs. Davenant, for wearied by her double journey, she was leaning back with closed eyes.

Suddenly the train stopped--stopped amidst the noise and confusion of a large terminus--Mrs. Davenant woke, a porter came to the door, received instructions as to the luggage and handed them out.

Notwithstanding her resolution, Una felt herself turning pale.

From Warden Forest to a London railway station.

"Keep close to me, dear," said Mrs. Davenant, who seemed only nervous and helpless in her son's presence. "Come, there is a cab."

In silence Una followed. Men--and women, too,--turned to look at the tall, graceful figure in its plain white dress, and stared at the lovely face, with its half-frightened, half-curious, downcast eyes, and Una felt the eyes fixed on her.

"Why--why do they look at me so?" she asked, when they had entered the cab.

Mrs. Davenant regarded her with a smile, and evaded the frank, open eyes. Was it possible that the girl was ignorant of her marvelous beauty?

"People in London always stare, my dear Una," she replied, "and they see that you are strange."

"It is my dress," said Una, who had been looking out of the window at some of the fashionably-attired ladies. "It is different to theirs.

See--look at that lady! Why does she wear so long a dress? she has to hold it up with one hand."

"It is your dress, no doubt, my dear," she said. "We must alter it when we get home."

The cab rolled into the street, and Una was rendered speechless.

But for her resolve she would have shrunk back into the farthest corner of the cab. The number of people, the noise, alarmed her, and yet she felt fascinated.

Were all the people mad that they hurried on so with such grave and pre-occupied faces. She had never seen her father hurry unless he had cut down a tree that had been struck by lightning, and which might injure others in its fall unless cut down with greatest care.

Presently they pa.s.sed into one of the leading thoroughfares, already lit up, its shops gleaming brightly with the gas-light, its ceaseless line of cabs, and omnibuses, and carriages.

At last, when her eyes were weary with looking, she murmured: "This--this--is the world then at last."

"Yes," said Mrs. Davenant, with a sigh. "This is the world, Una!"

"And are those palaces!" asked Una, as they pa.s.sed through the West End streets and squares.

"No," said Mrs. Davenant; "they are only houses, in which rich people dwell, as you would call it."

"And the trees! Are there no trees?" asked Una, with, for the first time, a sigh.

"Not here, dear. There are some in the parks; some even in the middle of the city itself. You will miss your trees, Una."

"Yes, I shall miss my trees. But this--this world seems so large; I thought that----"

"Well," said Mrs. Davenant, amused with her bewilderment.

"I thought that people in the world knew each other; but that is impossible."

And she sighed, as she thought that, after all, now that she was in the world, she was no nearer that one being who, for her, was the princ.i.p.al person in it.

"Very few people know each other, Una. It's a big world, this London. I wonder whether you will be happy?"

Una turned to her with a look upon her face that would have melted a sterner heart than Mrs. Davenant's.

"I shall be happy, if you will love me," she said.

Something in the frank, simple reply made Mrs. Davenant tremble. What had she undertaken in the charge of this simple, pure-natured girl, whose beauty caused people to turn and stare at her, and whose innocence was that of a child?