wipe out the injustice I did him.” And this bride-elect of a lord absolutely added that—she was unworthy to be the wife of a tailor!
“He! how unequalled he is! There is nothing he fears except shame. Oh, how sad it will be for him to find no woman in his class to understand him and be his helpmate!”
Over this sad subject, of which we must presume her to be accurately cognisant, Rose brooded heavily. By mid-day she gave her grandmother notice that she was going home to Juliana’s funeral.
“Well, Rose, if you think it necessary to join the ceremony,” said Lady Elburne. “Beckley is bad quarters for you, as you have learnt. There was never much love between you cousins.”
“No, and I don’t pretend to it,” Rose answered. “I am sorry poor Juley’s gone.”
“She’s better gone for many reasons—she appears to have been a little venomous toad,” said Lady Elburne; and Rose, thinking of a snake-like death-bite working through her blood, rejoined: “Yes—she isn’t to be pitied: she’s better off than most people.”
So it was arranged that Rose should go. Ferdinand and her aunt, Mrs. Shorne, accompanied her. Mrs. Shorne gave them their opportunities, albeit they were all stowed together in a carriage, and Ferdinand seemed willing to profit by them; but Rose’s hand was dead, and she sat by her future lord forming the vow on her lips that they should never be touched by him.
Arrived at Beckley, she, to her great delight, found Caroline there, waiting for the funeral. In a few minutes she got her alone, and after kisses, looked penetratingly into her lovely eyes, shook her head, and said: “Why were you false to me?”
“False?” echoed Caroline.
“You knew him. You knew why he did that. Why did you not save me?”
Caroline fell upon her neck, asking pardon. Rose spared her the recital of facts further than the broad avowal. Evan’s present condition she plainly stated: and Rose, when the bitter pangs had ceased, made oath to her soul she would rescue him from it.
In addition to the task of clearing Evan’s character, and rescuing him, Rose now conceived that her engagement to Ferdinand must stand ice-bound till Evan had given her back her troth. How could she obtain it from him? How could she take anything from one so noble and so poor! Happily there was no hurry; though, before any bond was ratified, she decided conscientiously that it must be done.
You see that like a lithe snake she turns on herself, and must be tracked in and out. Not being a girl to solve the problem with tears, or outright perfidy, she had to ease her heart to the great shock little by little: sincere as far as she knew: as far as one who loves may be.
The day of the funeral came and went. The Jocelyns were of their mother’s opinion; that for many reasons Juliana was better out of the way. Mrs. Bonner’s bequest had been a severe blow to Sir Franks. However, all was now well. The estate naturally lapsed to Lady Jocelyn. No one in the house dreamed of a Will, signed with Juliana’s name, attested, under due legal forms, being in existence. None of the members of the family imagined that at Beckley Court they were then residing on somebody else’s ground.
Want of hospitable sentiments was not the cause that led to an intimation from Sir Franks to his wife, that Mrs. Strike must not be pressed to remain, and that Rose must not be permitted to have her own way in this. Knowing very well that Mrs. Shorne spoke through her husband’s mouth, Lady Jocelyn still acquiesced, and Rose, who had pressed Caroline publicly, had to be silent when the latter renewed her faint objections: so Caroline said she would leave on the morrow morning.
Juliana, with her fretfulness, her hand-bounties, her petty egotisms, and sudden far-leaping generosities, and all the contradictory impulses of her malady, had now departed utterly. The joys of a landed proprietor mounted into the head of Sir Franks. He was up early the next morning, and he and Harry walked over a good bit of the ground before breakfast. Sir Franks meditated making it entail, and favoured Harry with a lecture on the duty of his shaping the course of his conduct at once after the model of the landed gentry generally.
“And you may think yourself lucky to come into that catalogue—the son of a younger son!” said Sir Franks, tapping Mr. Harry’s shoulder. Harry also began to enjoy the look and smell of land. At the breakfast which, though early, was well attended, Harry spoke of the advisability of felling timber here, planting there, and so forth, after the model his father had held up. Sir Franks nodded approval of his interest in the estate, but reserved his opinion on matters of detail.
“All I beg of you is,” said Lady Jocelyn, “that you won’t sow turnips within the circuit of a mile;” which was obligingly promised.
The morning letters were delivered and opened with the customary calmness.
“Letter from old George,” Harry sings out, and buzzes over a few lines. “Halloa!—hum!” He was going to make a communication, but catching sight of Caroline, tossed the letter over to Ferdinand, who read it and tossed it back with the comment of a careless face.
“Read it, Rosey?” says Harry, smiling bluntly.
Rather to his surprise, Rose took the letter. Study her eyes if you wish to gauge the potency of one strong dose of ridicule on an ingenuous young heart. She read that Mr. George Uploft had met “our friend, Mr. Snip” riding, by moonlight, on the road to Beckley. That great orbed night of their deep tender love flashed luminously through her frame, storming at the base epithet by which her lover was mentioned, flooding grandly over the ignominies cast on him by the world. She met the world, as it were, in a death-grapple; she matched the living heroic youth she felt him to be with that dead wooden image of him which it thrust before her. Her heart stood up singing like a craven who sees the tide of victory setting towards him. But this passed beneath her eyelids. When her eyes were lifted, Ferdinand could have discovered nothing in them to complain of,