and so Rupert Knightly felt, and so his sister Augusta felt for him. And now Rupert Knightly, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece-a clock on which gilt and enamelled Cupids chased winged and jewelled hours-said, 'By Jove! twenty minutes to eight! Gerald can't be coming by that train; we had better go and dine.' They went into the long, lofty dining-room, those two sisters and their brother, and choked back their tears, as Rupert said grace as master in that place for the first time-in that room where their father had been genial, happy, and hearty but the other day. His portrait hung on the wall opposite to Florence— the portrait of a fine, hale, handsome old man-and seemed to smile kindly down upon them. The dinner was irreproachable, and Thomas and Burton, the butler, waited as severely as ever; but what a farce that pretence of eating appeared to the grief-stricken children who were mourning a father. "Will you come back to the drawing-room with us, Rupert? Augusta asked, as she was leading the way out, when their stately meal was over. 'I shall come to you directly, Gussie. I wish one of you would just run up to my mother. I don't like the idea of her being up there without any one of us, crying and sobbing herself frantic.' 'I'll go up, but I don't think it's much use, Rupert,' answered Augusta, sadly. We have tried, both of us, so many times to-day, and it only makes her worse. I do so dread the idea of bringing on hysterics again.' For mercy's sake, don't do that, Gussie!-but go up. That maid of my mother's encourages anything of the sort, I know, and whines and howls herself at such a rate that I'm sure she must upset my mother terribly,' he added to Florence, as his eldest sister left the room on her unpromising mission. Baines has been a great comfort to mamma all through this trying time, dear Rupert,' said Florence, rather reproachfully. 'Mamma's nerves are weak at any time, and they are so shattered now that no one could have soothed her like Baines.' 'It seems to me that we could have done it better, Floy, if that wretched Baines had not kept the door closed on us. Well, Gussie?' Miss Knightly had evidently been unsuccessful. Mamma says she would rather be alone, Rupert, till Gerald comes. I want her to go to bed early, and not see Gerald till tomorrow morning; but she says she shall sit up all night if he doesn't come. We shall only be too glad to have you, dear, when you are tired of being alone.' The girls walked away to the drawing-room. Rupert sat alone over his wine, but not drinking it. The desolate widow lay on her couch upstairs. The domestics muttered in the servants' hall about the strangeness of that will, which, as they said, had left Mr. Rupert and Mr. Gerald nothing but beggars; and so for many hours there was silence in this stately mansion in Piccadilly. Still the hours went by, and Gerald did not come. Who Gerald was, and why he had not been there, shall be told in the next chapter. In this I will only state that at about eleven a cab dashed up to the door; there was a violent knock, and a rush of fresh air into the hall. The sisters had only time to exclaim hurriedly, 'It's Gerald!' when he was before them. CHAPTER II. SHOWING WHY GERALD WAS NOT The golden bowl was broken now, and the silver cord loosed, and the light of the lamp that had burned so brightly was quenched-gone out for ever; and only the other day he had been alive, well, amongst them all, so short a time since; and now the last had come; the handful of earth had been thrown-dust to dust, ashes to ashes'-and it was all over. But it had been very sudden. There is no doubt about it: sudden death, though a thing that some few may individually pray for, if wo can hope humbly that it finds us prepared, is very awful to the survivors. That seeing a loved one fade away, slowly and surely, may rend and tear our hearts, and cause our spirits to sink lower, lower every day with the sickening knowledge of what it is all coming to; but in that case there is not the fierce, unexpected pain. We are not cruelly frightened as well as cruelly hurt. Mr. Knightly's death had been sudden-terribly sudden. He had bidden guests to his table; welcomed them there warmly, and died while they were sitting around it. His wife and children had seen him last playing the part of the kind, genial host-a part he was ever playing--and soon they were summoned back, by cries of horror, to the room where he lay a ghastly corpse. It had been sudden awfully sudden. No time to bless either wife or child, but time to clasp Rupert's hand in one loving clasp before the spirit fled. He had time to give that assurance of love to the son who was there, but none to say one loving word about the son who was away-about the son he had parted with in anger. And this was why his sister had said that she dreaded the meeting with poor Gerald. Gerald Knightly was a younger son; consequently his father had decided that it behoved him to make him something or other; so he put him into the army, a profession entirely after Gerald's heart. But for the last year or two Gerald had got into the habit of despising himself because he was in theth, quartered at Woolwich, instead of being in the Guards, quartered at Knightsbridge, with occasional duty at Windsor. He told his father, if he would supply the funds, he would himself soon manage the matter. But as Mr. Knightly did not see things in the same light, and refused to advance the necessary funds, after many applications had been made to him, Gerald had grown heated and angry, and had gone off to the Continent, without leaving a proper course of addresses. So it had come to pass that his father had died and been buried without Gerald knowing anything about it. They had that morning received a note from him -or rather Rupert had-directed to him at his own chambers, stating his intention of being home that night; and now this was the news they had to give him. No wonder they said, 'Poor Gerald!' for gay, and dashing, and reckless as he was, Gerald Knightly was a loving, tender, affectionate son. He would be sorry enough now that he had said all that about Woolwich, and made his father think him discontented. To say the truth, Woolwich is not the one spot under the sun that is most desirable. His sisters, in trying to reconcile him to the hard fate of being other than a Guardsman, had said, 'And then, Gerald, there are the Artillery balls and concerts!' But Gerald's position was unassailable. I could take you to them just as well without being fastened down there on duty,' he had replied. He had liked Woolwich very well when he had gone there first, a young ensign: this was another grievance-he belonged to an infantry regiment. He had been satisfied with the life at Woolwich, and the soirées at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich-where he invariably played a very prominent part-for a time, until he had stepped over the heads of men who might easily have been his grandfathers, and was hailed by the world at large as Captain Knightly, and pronounced by his sisters to be the handsomest man they ever saw. And then he began to look upon his lot as hard, very hard indeed, and upon himself as entirely thrown So his claims had grown more urgent lately, and had resulted in a coolness with the father, who had refused to meet them. And now that father lay cold and dead in his narrow tomb, and poor Gerald was still unconscious of the fact. away. He came rushing into the room where his two sisters stood waiting to receive him. Augusta, calm and graceful as ever, but showing in the swelling veins which marbled the back of the little white hand she pressed on the edge of a table, and in the deeper paleness which overspread her face, how great was the excitement under which she laboured. Florence bent forward in a drooping attitude, clasping and unclasping her hands in a passionate manner. 'What's the matter, Gussie? Burton keeps on shaking his head and saying nothing; what He stopped suddenly. His eyes fell on their black dresses, on their grief-stricken faces; and in a stunned, dazed manner he sat down and looked at them hopelessly, speechlessly. 'Papa! poor papa! Oh, Gerald!' from Florence, and,' Be calm, dearest Gerald; we have suffered a terrible loss, and we must all help one another to bear it,' from Augusta told him all. Still he sat there, with his face buried in his hands, till Rupert came in and laid his hand on his shoulder. 'My dear boy, my dear Gerald, I would have spared you this shock at any cost; bear up, old fellow; just think of these girls.' Gerald wrung his brother's hand. 'Was it,' he began hoarsely, 'anything that could-am I the cause in any way?' He ceased, and Rupert answered with a prompt, sympathising eagerness that went straight to Gerald's heart, 'There was no apparent cause -a spasm of the heart, Holford says; he was well, happy, hearty one minute, the next he was dead.' Then he my father-sent no word of forgiving love to me, Rupert?' 'My dear boy, do not be distressed at that; painful as it is, we are all in the same case; he had no time to speak to any of us: and I can assure you any little feeling of annoyance against you had passed away. He spoke of you two or three days before his death to me, and seemed to be looking forward to your return.' There was consolation in the words; they were intended to be consoling; and Gerald felt it to be due to his brother to acknowledge them as such. Thank you, Rupert,' he said simply, and then after kissing his sisters, he went away up to his mother's room. It was still early in the summer season; but sorrow is always chilly. The suddenly bereft wife lay upon a luxurious couch, wrapped up in cashmeres, in that boudoir which Martin and Graham had fitted up for her afresh, under her thoughtful, loving husband's directions, but a month ago. She lay before a blazing fire; moaning at intervals, and with crimson cheeks and burning hands, complaining of the cold. She looked too young-she was forty-seven or eight-to be the mother of those men and women down stairs; for hers was a lasting order of beauty. Rose was her name, and a rose she was, even now. Her husband had married her for her exceeding loveliness when she was sixteen, and idolized her for it up to the day of his death. She was a sweet woman, gentle and affectionate, and sensitively jealous. Mr. Knightly had worshipped and spoilt her with admirable constancy from the moment he first met her and found that her limpid hazel eyes brightened, and her rounded cheeks grew pinky at his approach. I have said that she was sweet, and gentle, and affectionate; but with all these good and charming qualities she was not a perfect woman by any means. She had a great weakness for being consulted on all occasions. Her husband had always found a pleasure in doing so; and it had ever been painful to her that the rest of the world-her worldwould not do likewise. Without knowing a note of music she would look poutingly hurt when her daughters would not ask for her suggestions as to turns and flourishes. She would have liked Rupert to consult her about his park hack, and Gerald about his book on the Derby; but they did not think of doing so; and this had been a crease in her roseleaf. Now-and this had been an alleviation of her woe-she would be of importance to them. They would owe the means of procuring their pleasures to her; so, surely, they would be asking her advice, and telling her all their plans. She adored her children; and had such a sacrifice been demanded, that plump, fair-haired, limpid-eyed, middle-aged matron would have given her life for them; but for all that she did, even in these moments of her first agony, like the notion of their being utterly dependent upon her. It never once occurred to her that the arrangement might not be equally agreeable to them; for they -the sons especially-had always been unanimous in flattering and pleasing their pretty mother. So now she lay upon her couch, with burning eyes and a racking headache, waiting for Gerald to come and say the same caressingly sympathetic things Rupert had said already. For the first time for many, many years she had cause to shed tears, and these unfrequent visitors had made her feverish and ill. She, too, had talked it over with Baines, talked it over in the soulharrowing way some women love. Baines had acted as lay figure, and held up all the crape-covered skirts one after the other, before her weeping mistress, and together they had examined and cried over the length and texture of the 'weepers.' Mrs. Knightly truly mourned her husband's death, and she liked outward and visible signs of things. She "Ah! mum, take my word for it, when we come back from Warmingston next year, 'twill be to this house, and no Harley Streets; 't ain't likely- -my gracious me, here's Captain Gerald !' The son was speedily clasped in the trembling, loving arms of the mother, who had been a silent witness of that last angry meeting with the dead husband and father; there was plenty to think about, and no need for words for a time. But Mrs. Knightly was soon able to speak as coherently as usual, and then she commenced detailing every little item connected with his father's sudden death and funeral, with that minuteness which is so exceedingly painful to men. Holding his hand firmly and tenderly, bedewing it with tears and covering it with kisses, the really loving mother succeeded in lacerating poor Gerald's heart terribly. 'You'll go into the Guards now, my darling boy, won't you?' I don't know, mother; I hope so, but I must talk to Rupert about it.' Talk to Rupert; why can't you talk to me about it as well as to Rupert? and you needn't say, you hope so but don't know; for I say you shall if you like.' 'Well, well, mother darling, all right, and now go to bed, will you? it's wrong to wear yourself out in this way. I only waited up to see you, Gerald,' wept the poor lady. 'I know it, mother, and I am only anxious to get you to take rest, because we can't, any of us, bear the thoughts of not having your face amongst us, or of seeing it wan and pale.' even had serious thoughts, she told Baines, of leaving this, their old family mansion in Piccadilly, and going to live in Harley Street, because she had often noticed how many dowagers lived in Harley Street, and she thought it due to Baines's dear late master, &c. But Baines refused to fan the flame when it took this direction. Grief in moderation and within bounds was highly proper, and she felt it incumbent upon herself to go with her mistress to very great lengths; but not to such lengths as a removal to Harley Street. Baines had an eye to the future; and there was the steadiest of butlers-not to say the wealthiest-living next door, who had been rather particular in his attentions of late. Baines did not doubt the strength of his attachment, but she felt that it would be as well not to test it too severely. So she said, when Mrs. Knightly spoke of migrating to Harley Street- ment but he also felt the words 'It's getting an old face, Gerald.' Not a bit of it,' he interrupted fondly; it's as pretty a face still as either of your pretty daughters can boast. Good night, dear mother.' Gerald loved his mother; but he felt, as he walked away along the corridor and down stairs, that those were not the attempts at consolation which would have best become him to offer to his widowed mother in these early days of her bereave and sentiments suited the hearer, if they did not the occasion. The sisters had retired to their rooms, happier now Gerald was come; and the two young men sat together in Rupert's room late into the night, talking over late events and future prospects. When does my mother go down to the Hall, Rupert?' 'To-morrow or the next day, I hope; but nothing has been decidedly settled as yet.' I should advise her-in a few months, that is-to look out for a nice box somewhere near Warmingston, so as to be close to you and Georgie when she's out of town; indeed I suppose, as you'll be here, and Gussie will have a town house too, that my mother won't think it worth her while to have any fixed residence in London; she can always be with one of you. You'll stand for Warmingston of course? It's a shame to bother you about money matters, with such an expensive affair as an election before you, but I hope you'll arrange that exchange business for me, Rupert.' My mother hasn't told you anything about the disposal of the property then, Gerald?' No; what is there to tell?' Rupert had risen and now stood leaning one shoulder against the mantelpiece, looking down into the handsome animated face of his brother. Only that every penny is left to her; that Warmingston is hers; this house hers; and that if Georgie Clifford marries me now, I can give her no position. I am-we all are -dependent on my mother.' By George, it's intolerable!' exclaimed the younger brother, starting to his feet; I could have stood it for myself-indeed I, as a younger son, always anticipated being dependent on somebody or other-but for you, Rupert! Oh, my mother must see at once-it must be represented to her-that this cannot be. If you are not put in possession of your rights, it will be a positive injustice. I am convinced my mother will see things in a proper light.' 'You surely know her well enough to be convinced that, eager as she is always to please us, it must be in her own way.' Gerald's brow grew very dark. My poor father has made a great mistake, Rupert; but it is a mistake that her motherly and even womanly feelings will induce her at once to rectify. Are the girls' fortunes assured to them, or specified? They were to have thirty thousand: I hope they are, for Tollemache is not a fellow to marry on an uncertainty, or wait on the pleasure of any mother-in-law; and Gussie is very fond of him.' 'No; there's nothing settled on them. I've thought of Gussie too; she's too proud to go to Tollemache under other circumstances than he and she too-believed to exist when he proposed to her. It's an unfortunate affair altogether.' 'It's the weakest thing my father ever did in his life,' said the young officer, who had been half an hour before heartful of love and reverence for both parents. My mother is no more fit to have an atom of power in her hands than that poodle down there' (stirring up as ho spoke a curled white French gentleman with pink skin); 'it was weak, very weak, of my father.' The only satisfactory thing is,' said Rupert, that at all events my mother is far too devoted a motherhas been far too loving and loved a wife, ever to contemplate matrimony again.' Heavens! yes!' replied Gerald sternly; 'I never once thought of disgrace in connection with her.' Grown-up sons--and daughters too -are generally inclined to take a very harsh view of their mothers marrying again. 'No, no, Rupert; not so bad as that; we need not fear her ever disgracing herself; and in spite of the doubt you have expressed, I do firmly hope that when it's put before her in a proper light, she will place you in your right position without the least reservation. I understand now why she said just now that I should be a Guardsman if I liked; but till you are all right, old fellow, I shall accept nothing at her hands.' And then the two brothers shook hands heartily and separated. |