Ralph Wilton's weird Part 26

"We have a fortnight still before us, so we will run over to A---- to-morrow. Our host can lend us his _shandradan_, with that monstrous gray mare, to drive over there. I know you expressed a great wish to sketch some of those picturesque old towers as we came through, and you shall buy some lace if you like. I have had so much fishing that I shall come back with renewed zest after a short break."

"Yes; I should greatly like to take some sketches in A----; but, as to buying lace, do you know we spend a quant.i.ty of money here--I am astonished and shocked to think how much?"

"Then I am afraid I have been a very extravagant fellow, for I do not think I ever spent so little in the same s.p.a.ce of time before. But, talking of money reminds me I must write to Lord St. George. I have forgotten all about him--all about every one except you, you little demure sorceress!"

"Do not forget him, if he is old and a relation."

"Well, I will write to him to-morrow. It is not much matter; he will never see my face again."

"Because you married me?"

"This is really a very picturesque place," said Ella as they strolled through the princ.i.p.al street of A----, and ascended the plateau, once adorned by a cathedral, "but, after all, there is more cheerfulness in English scenery. I miss the gentlemen's seats, the look of occupation, the sense of life that springs from individual freedom. Tyranny and want of cultivation--these are the real 'phantoms of fright.'"

"Yes; we have never mistaken license for liberty in England," returned Wilton, with genuine John-Bullism.

"Thanks to your early training," said Ella, smiling; "but if for centuries you had never been allowed to stand or walk without leading-strings, supports, restraints on the right hand and on the left, and had then been suddenly set free, with all accustomed stays wrenched from you, do you think you would not have stumbled and fallen like your neighbors?"

"True, O queen! but why did not our neighbors begin to train themselves in time? They are of different stuff; there lies the key to the puzzle."

"And in the might of circ.u.mstance," put in Ella. "You can never thank Heaven enough for your insular position; but there _is_ something in race."

"No doubt of it. Look at this man coming toward us; you could never mistake him for anything but a Briton."

"No, indeed!" exclaimed Ella; "and"--drawing a little near to him--"is it not your cousin, St. George Wilton?"

"By Jove! you are right, Ella. What can bring him here?"

The object of their remark was facing them as the colonel ceased to speak.

"Ralph Wilton--Miss--" St. George stopped himself in his exclamation, and then continued, raising his hat with a soft but meaning smile, "I little thought I should encounter you in this remote region!"

"Nor I you," returned Wilton, bluntly. "Mrs. Wilton and I have been staying near this, at a place called Vigeres, where there is very tolerable fishing, and drove over this morning to look at this old town.

What brings you so far from the haunts of men?"

"The vagaries of an old woman, if it be not too irreverend to say so,"

replied St. George, raising his hat again with profound respect as his cousin p.r.o.nounced the words "Mrs. Wilton." "I have an aged aunt who, for some inscrutable reason, chooses to mortify her flesh and spare her pocket by residing here. I never dreamed I should meet with such a vision of happiness as--Mrs. Wilton and yourself in this fossilized place."

There was just a slight, significant pause before the name "Mrs.

Wilton," which caught her husband's ear, and it sounded to him like a veiled suspicion.

"Where are you staying?" he asked.

"Oh, at the Hotel du Nord. My aunt wishes the pleasure of a visit from me, but declines to put me up."

"We are just going to dine at your hotel," said Colonel Wilton, "and will be very happy if you will join us."

St. George accepted his cousin's invitation with his best air of frank cordiality. It was a very pleasant dinner; nothing could be more agreeable than the accomplished _attache_. His tone of cousinly courtesy to Ella was perfect; his air of well-regulated enjoyment positively exhilarating. Wilton never thought he should like his kinsman's society so much. Even Ella warmed to him comparatively, and, though more disposed to listen than to talk, contributed no small share to the brightness of the conversation.

At last it was time to undertake the homeward drive to Vigeres, some four or five miles up and down hill. While waiting for the remarkable-looking vehicle in which the journey was to be performed, St.

George Wilton found a moment to speak with his cousin alone.

"And it is a real _bona fide_ marriage, Ralph?"

"Real as if the Archbishop of Canterbury had performed it, with a couple of junior officers to help him."

St. George was silent, and affected to busy himself in preparing a cigar. Not even his trained self-control could enable him to command his voice sufficiently to hide the enormous contempt that such a piece of frantic insanity inspired.

"So very charming a person as Mrs. Wilton," said he at last, blandly, "may well excuse the imprudence of a love-match; but let me ask, merely that I may know how to act, is it an open as well as a _bona fide_ marriage? I mean, do you wish it concealed from our friend Lord St.

George, because--"

"Certainly not," interrupted Colonel Wilton. "I have not written to inform him of it, for he has left my last letter some months unanswered, and I did not think he cared to hear from me; but, as it is possible he may fancy I intended to make a secret of my marriage, I will write to him to-morrow."

"It is not of much importance," said St. George, checking the dawning of a contemptuous smile. "Whatever view he takes of the subject will be inimical to your interests. Suppose I were to call upon him and explain matters? I start for London to-morrow morning."

"I will not trouble you," said Wilton a little stiffly; and Ella, appearing at that moment in the door-way, the conversation took a different turn.

"Draw your cloak closer, Ella," said her husband, as they proceeded homeward under the soft silver of a young May moon at the sober pace which was their steed's fastest; "there is a tinge of east in the wind.

I began our acquaintance by wrapping you up, and I see I shall always be obliged to make you take care of yourself."

"I take care of myself _now_," she replied, nestling nearer to him. "I did not think your cousin could be so agreeable," she continued.

"Nor I," said Wilton, shortly.

"Yet," resumed Ella, "I can never banish my first impression of him."

"What was it?"

"That he could always keep faith in the letter and break it in the spirit; that he could betray in the most polished manner possible, without ever committing any vulgar error that law or society could fasten upon."

"Upon my soul, you have made a very nice estimate of the only member of your new family with whom you have come in contact. And where, pray, have you found such well-defined ideas of treachery? I did not think there was so much of this world's lore in that pretty little head. How did you learn it?"

"Ah, treachery is a thing I have often known! The wonder is, as my father used to say, that, where so many powerful temptations surrounded us, poor political outcasts, so few proved false."

"Yet you have not learned to be suspicious, Ella?"

"Heaven forbid! No one who is _really_ true at heart ever _really_ learns to be suspicious."

Wilton fulfilled his intention the following day, and wrote a short, simple account of his marriage to Lord St. George, regretting that he should be a source of disappointment to him, and stating that he, of course, held him quite exonerated from any promise, implied or not, respecting his property.

It was _quite_ a relief to him having accomplished this. He had now cut himself adrift from all chances of social preeminence; it remained to work up in his profession, and his thoughts naturally turned to India.

Great changes, civil and military, were pending there; his own services had been recognized by men high in office; already the breath of the outer world had somewhat withered the loveliness of his Arcadia--it was time for him to be up and doing.

"Ella! come here, darling. I am afraid we must go back to London and common life next week; so let us make an expedition to Mont St. Michel to-morrow. How does the tide serve?"

Three or four happy days were spent in visiting the strange fortress-prison and Old-World picturesque little town of Granville; in delicious rambles and abundant sketching. Ella was absolutely excited by the wealth of subjects, all of a new character to her, which offered themselves for her pencil. But Wilton had exhausted his slender capacity for repose, and, having thoroughly enjoyed himself, was once more longing for active life.

The day but one after their return from this brief expedition, a letter reached Wilton from the family solicitor. He had been out smoking, and talking of farming with the landlord; and Ella remarked, as he took the letter, that he exclaimed, as if to himself, "From old Kenrick! what can he want?" His countenance changed as he read: and then, throwing down the letter, he cried, "I wish to Heaven I had written to him before! He has pa.s.sed away, doubting me!"