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The drawing and dining rooms at Castleford were at opposite sides of a large square hall, and even in the short transit between them Errington felt instinctively that Miss Liddell shrank from him. The tips merely of her black-gloved fingers rested on his arm, while she kept as far from him as the length of her own permitted. At table her host was on her right, and Lady Alice opposite, next to the rector, who was the only invited guest; Errington was always expected, and had returned from a distant canvassing expedition, for the present member for West Clayshire was believed to be on the point of retiring on account of ill health, and Mr. Errington of Garston Hall, intended to offer himself for election to the free and independent.
He had had a fatiguing day, but scarcely admitted to himself how much more restful a solitary dinner would have been, with a cigar and some keen-edged article or luminous pamphlet in his own comfortable library afterward, than making conversation at Colonel Ormonde's table. However, to slight the lady who had promised to be his wife was impossible, so he exerted himself to be agreeable.
The rector discussed some parish difficulties with his hostess, while Colonel Ormonde, though profoundly occupied with his dinner, managed to throw an observation from time to time to his young neighbors.
"Rode round by Brinkworth Heath in two hours and a half," he was saying to Lady Alice, when Katherine listened. "That was fair going. I did not think you would have got Mrs. Ormonde to start without an escort."
"We had an escort. Lord Francis Carew and Mr. De Burgh came over to luncheon, and they rode with us."
"Ha, Errington! you see the result of leaving this fair lady's side all unguarded! These fellows come and usurp your duties."
"Do you think I should wish Lady Alice to forego any amusement because I am so unlucky as to be prevented from joining her?" returned Errington, in a deep mellow voice.
Katherine looked across the table to see how Lady Alice took the remark, but she was rearranging some geraniums and a spray of fern in her waistband, and did not seem to hear. She was a slight colorless girl of nineteen, with regular features, an unformed though rather graceful figure, and a distinguished air.
Errington caught the expression of his neighbor's face as she glanced at his fiancee , a sympathetic smile parting her lips. It was rarely that a countenance had struck him so much, which was probably due to his odd but strong impression that his new acquaintance, was both startled and displeased at being introduced to him—an impression very strange to Errington, as he was generally welcomed by all sorts and conditions of men, and especially of women.
The silence of Lady Alice did not seem to disturb her lover; he turned to Katherine and asked, "Were you of the riding party to-day!"
"No," she replied, meeting his eyes fully for an instant, and then averting her own, while the color came and went on her cheek; "I only arrived in time for dinner."
"Have I ever met this young lady before?" thought Errington, much puzzled. "Have I ever unconsciously offended or annoyed her? I don't think so; yet her face is not quite strange to me." And he applied himself to his dinner.
"I fancy you have had rather a dull time of it in town?" said Colonel Ormonde, leaning back, while the servants removed the dishes.
"No, I was not dull," replied Katherine, glad to turn to him. "I was very comfortable, and of course not in a mood to see many strangers or to go anywhere. Then I was interested in Mr. Payne's undertakings; they are quite as amusing as amusements."
"Bertie Payne! to be sure; the nephew or brother of your doughty chaperon. He is always up to some benevolent games. Queer fellow."
"He is very, very good," said Katherine, warmly, "and he does so much good; only the amount of evil is overpowering."
"Yes," said Errington; "I am afraid such efforts as Payne's are mere scratching of the surface, and will never touch the root of the evil."
"I suspect he is a prey to impostors of every description," said Colonel Ormonde, with a fat laugh. "He is always worrying for subscriptions and God knows what. But I turn a deaf ear to him."
"I cannot say I do always," remarked Errington. "While we devise schemes of more scientific amelioration, hundreds die of sharp starvation or misery long drawn out. Payne is a good fellow, and enthusiasts have their uses."
"You are so liberal yourself, Mr. Errington," cried Mrs. Ormonde, "I dare say you are often imposed upon in spite of your wisdom."
"My wisdom!" repeated Errington, laughing. "What an original idea, Mrs. Ormonde! Did you ever know I was accused of wisdom?" he added, addressing Lady Alice.
"Papa says you are very sensible," she returned, seriously.
"Of course," cried Mrs. Ormonde. "Why, he has written a pamphlet on 'Our Colonies,' and something wonderful about the state of Europe—didn't he, Mr. Heywood?"
"Yes," returned the rector. "I suspect our future member will be a cabinet minister before the world is many years older."
Lady Alice looked up with more of pleasure and animation than she had yet shown. Errington bent his head.
"Many thanks for your prophecy;" and he immediately turned the conversation to the ever-genial topics of hunting and horses. Then Mrs. Ormonde gave the signal of retreat to the drawing-room.
Here Katherine looked in vain for her nephews.
"I suppose the boys have gone to bed, Ada?"
"To bed! oh yes, of course. Why, it is more than half past eight; it would never do to keep them up so late. Would you like to see baby boy asleep? he looks quite beautiful."
"Yes, I should, very much," returned Katherine, anxious to gratify the mother.
"Come, then," cried Mrs. Ormonde, starting up with alacrity. As the invitation was general, Lady Alice said, in her gentle way.
"Thank you; I saw the baby yesterday."
"She has really very little feeling," observed Mrs. Ormonde, as she went upstairs with her sister-in-law. "She never notices baby."
"I am afraid I should not notice children much if they did not belong to me."
"My dear Katherine, you are quite different. Of course Lady Alice is sweet and elegant, but not clever. Indeed, I cannot see the use of cleverness to women. There is a fine aristocratic air about her. After all, there is nothing like high birth. I assure you it is a high compliment her being allowed to stay here. Her aunt, Lady Mary Vincent, is a very fine lady indeed, and chaperons Lady Alice. But her father, Lord Melford, is a curious, reckless sort of man, always wandering about—yachting and that kind of thing; he is rather in difficulties too. They are glad enough to send her down here to see something of Errington. You know Errington is a very good match; he has bought a great deal of the Melford property, and when old Errington dies he will be immensely rich. The poor old man is in miserable health; he has not been down here all the winter. I believe the wedding is to take place in June; we will be invited, of course; you see Colonel Ormonde is so highly connected that I am in a very different position from what I was accustomed to. And you, dear, you must marry some person of rank; there is nothing like it."
"Yes," said Katherine, with a sigh, "everything is changed."
"Fortunately!" cried the exultant Mrs. Ormonde, opening the door of a luxuriously appointed nursery.
"Here, nurse, I have brought Miss Liddell to see Master Ormonde."
A middle-aged woman, well dressed, and of authoritative aspect, rose from where she sat at needle-work, and came forward.
"I have only just got him to sleep, ma'am," she said, almost in a whisper, "and if he is awoke now, I'll not get him off again before midnight."
"We'll be very careful, nurse. Is he not a fine little fellow, Katherine?" and she softly turned back the bedclothes from the sturdy, chubby child, who had a somewhat bull dog style of countenance and a beautifully fair skin.
"How ridiculously like Colonel Ormonde he is!" whispered Katherine. "I do not see any trace of you."
"No; he is quite an Ormonde. He is twice as big as either Cis or Charlie was at his age."
After a few civil comments Katherine suggested their visiting the other children.
"Perhaps it would be wiser not to go," said the mother; "they will not be so sound asleep as baby, and——"
"You must indulge me this once, Ada. I long to look at them."
"Oh! of course, dear; ring for Eliza, nurse; she will show Miss Liddell the way. I must go back; it would never do to leave Lady Alice so long alone."
"Do not apologize," said Katherine, with a curious jealous pang, as she noted Mrs. Ormonde's indifference to the children of her first poor love-match.
A demure, flat-faced girl answered the bell, and led Katherine down passages and up a crooked stair to another part of the house.
Here she was shown into a room sparsely supplied with old furniture. There was a good fire, and a shaded lamp stood on a large table, where a girl sat writing.
"Here is a lady to see the young gentlemen," said the nurse-maid. The young scribe started up, looking confused.
"If it would not disturb them," said Katherine, gently, "I should like to see my nephews in their sleep."
"Oh, Miss Liddell!" exclaimed the governess, a younger, commoner-looking person than Katherine had chosen before she left England. "This is their bedroom," and she led Katherine through a door opposite the fireplace into an inner room. There in their little beds lay the boys who were all of kith or kin left to Katherine Liddell.
How lovingly she bent over and gazed at them!
Cecil had grown much. He looked sunburnt and healthy. One arm was thrown up behind his head, the other stretched straight and stiff beside him, ending in a closely clinched little brown fist. His lips, slightly apart, emitted the softly drawn regular breath of profound slumber, and the smile which some pleasant thought had conjured up before he closed his eyes still lingered round his mouth. Katherine longed to kiss him, but feared to break his profound and restful slumbers. She passed to Charlie. His attitude was quite different. He had thrown the clothes from his chest, and his pinky white throat was bare; one little hand lay open on the page of a picture-book at which he had been looking when sleep overtook him; the other was under his soft round cheek; his sweet and still baby face was grave if not sad. He looked like a little angel who had brought a message to earth, and was grieved and wearied by the sin and sorrow here below. Katherine's heart swelled with tenderest love as she gazed upon him, and unconsciously she bent closer till her lips touched his brow. Then a little hand stole into hers, and, without moving, as though he had expected her, he opened his eyes and whispered, "Will you come and kiss me every night, as grannie did?"
"I will, my darling, every night."
"Will grannie never come and kiss me again?"
"Never, Charlie! She will never come to either of us in this life." A big tear fell on the boy's forehead.
"Don't cry, auntie; she loves us all the same." And he kissed the fair cheek which now lay against his own as his aunt knelt beside his bed.
"Go to sleep, dear love; to-morrow you shall take me to see your garden and the pony."
"You will be sure to come?"
"Yes, quite sure."
In a few minutes the clasp of the warm little hand relaxed, and Katherine gently disengaged herself.
"The boys are no longer first in their mother's heart," thought Katherine, as she returned to the drawing-room. "Were they ever first? They are—they might become all the world to me. They might fill my life and give it a fresh aspect. The new ties at which Mr. Newton hinted can never exist for me. Could I accept an honorable man and live with a perpetual secret between us? Could I ever confess? No. My most hopeful scheme is to be a mother to these children. And oh! I do want to be happy, to feel the joy in life that used to lift up my spirit in the old days when we were struggling with poverty! I will throw off this load of self-contempt. I have not really injured any one."
In the drawing-room Colonel Ormonde was seated beside Lady Alice, making conversation to the best of his ability. She looked serenely content, and held a piece of crochet, the kind of fancy-work which occupied the young ladies in the "sixties." The rector and Mr. Errington were in deep conversation on the hearth-rug, and Mrs. Ormonde was reading the paper.
"So you have been visiting the nursery?" said the Colonel, rising and offering Katherine a chair. "Your first introduction to our young man, I suppose?"
"Yes. What a great boy he is!—the picture of health!"
"Ay, he is a Trojan," complacently. "The other little fellows are looking well, eh?"
"Very well indeed. Cis is wonderfully grown; but Charlie is much what he was."
"He'll overtake his brother, though, before long," said Colonel Ormonde, encouragingly, as he rang and ordered the card-table to be set.
"You play whist, I suppose? We want a fourth."
"I am quite ignorant of that fascinating game," returned Katherine, "and very sorry to be so useless."
"It is lamentable ignorance! Lady Alice, will you take compassion on us? No?—then we must have Errington."
Errington did not seem at all reluctant, and the two young ladies were left to entertain each other.
Katherine, who had gone to the other end of the room to look at some water-color drawings, came back and sat down beside her. Lady Alice looked amiable, but did not speak, and Katherine felt greatly at a loss what to say.
"What very fine work!" she said at length, watching the small, weak-looking hands so steadily employed.
"Yes, it is a very difficult pattern. My aunt, Lady Mary, never could manage it, and she does a great deal of crochet, and is very clever."
"It seems most complicated. I am sure I could never do it."
"Do you crochet much?"
"Not at all."
"Then," with some appearance of interest, "what do you do?"
"Oh! various things; but I am afraid I am not industrious. I would rather mend my clothes than do fancy work."
"Mend your clothes!" repeated Lady Alice, in unfeigned amazement.
"Yes. I assure you there is great pleasure in a symmetrical patch."
"But does not your maid do that?"
"Now that I have one, she does. However, you must show me how to crochet, if you will be so kind; my only approach to fancy-work is knitting. I can knit stockings. Isn't that an achievement?"
"But is it not tiresome?"
"Oh! I can knit like the Germans, and talk or read."
"Is it possible?" A long pause.
"Mrs. Ormonde says you are very learned and studious," said Lady Alice, languidly.
"How cruel of her to malign me!" returned Katherine, laughing. "Learned I certainly am not; but I am fond of indiscriminate reading, though not studious."
"I like a nice novel, with dreadful people in it, like Miss St. Maur's. Have you read any of hers?"
"I don't think so. I do not know the name."
"The St. Maurs are Devonshire people—a very old country family, I believe. Still, when she writes about the season in London, I don't think it is very like." Another pause.
"You have been in Italy, I think, Lady Alice?" recommenced Katherine.
"Oh yes, often. Papa is always cruising about, you know, and we stop at places. But I have never been in Rome."
"Yachting must be delightful."
"I do not like it; I am always ill. Aunt Mary took me to Florence for a winter."
"Then you enjoyed that, I dare say," said Katherine.
"I got tired of it. I do not care for living abroad; there is nothing to do but to go to picture-galleries and theatres."
"Well, that is a good deal," returned Katherine, smiling. "Where do you like to live, Lady Alice?"
"Oh, in the country. I am almost sorry Mr. Errington has a house in town. I am so fond of a garden, and riding on quiet roads! I am afraid to ride in London. The country is so peaceful! no one is in a hurry."
"What a happy, tranquil life she will lead under the ægis of such a man as Mr. Errington!" thought Katherine.
"Do you play or sing?" asked Lady Alice, for once taking the initiative.
"Yes, in a very amateur fashion."
"Then," with more animation, "perhaps you would play my accompaniments for me; I always like to stand when I sing. Mrs. Ormonde says she forgets her music. Is it not odd?"
"Well, people in India do as little as possible. I shall be very pleased to play for you. Shall we practice to-morrow?"
"Oh yes; immediately after breakfast. There is really nothing to do here."
"Immediately after breakfast I am going out with the boys—Mrs. Ormonde's boys. Have you seen them? But we shall have plenty of time before luncheon."
"Are you fond of children?" slowly, while her busy needle paused and she undid a stitch or two.
"I am fond of these children; I do not know much about any other."
"Beverley's children (my eldest brother's) are very troublesome; they annoy me very much." Silence while she took up her stitches again. "The worst of this pattern is that if you talk you are sure to go wrong."
"Then I will find a book and not disturb you," said Katherine, good-humoredly. She felt kindly and indulgent toward this gentle helpless creature, who seemed so many years younger than herself, though barely two, in fact. That she was Errington's fiancee gave her a curious interest in Katherine's eyes. She would willingly have done him all possible good; she was strangely attracted to the man she had cheated. There was a simple natural dignity about him that pleased her imagination, yet she almost dreaded to speak to him, lest the very tones of her voice, the encounter of their eyes, should betray her.
At last Errington, looking at his watch, declared that as the rubber was over, he must say good-night.
"What, are you not staying here to-night?" said Colonel Ormonde.
"No; I have a good deal of letter-writing to get through to-morrow, so did not accept Mrs. Ormonde's kind invitation."
"You'll have a deuced cold drive. Come over on Thursday, will you? Old Wray, the banker, is to dine here, and one or two Monckton worthies. Stay till Tuesday or Wednesday. The next meets are Friday and Monday, on this side of the county. There will not be many more this season."
"Thank you; I shall be very happy." He crossed to where Lady Alice still sat placidly at work, and made his adieux in a low tone, holding her hand for a moment longer than mere acquaintanceship warranted, and having exchanged good-nights, left the room, followed by his host.
There was a good fire in Katherine's bedroom, and having declined the assistance of Mrs. Ormonde's maid, she put on her dressing-gown and sat down beside it to think. She was still quivering with the nervous excitement she had striven so hard and so successfully to conceal.
When Mrs. Ormonde had given her rapid explanation of who Errington was, and without a pause presented him, Katherine felt as if she must drop at his feet. Indeed, she would have been thankful if a merciful insensibility had made her impervious to his questioning eyes. She well knew who he was.
He was the real owner of the property she now possessed. The will she had suppressed bequeathed all John Liddell's real and personal property to Miles Errington, only son of his old friend Arthur Errington, of Calton Buildings, London, E. C., and Calcutta. She, the robber, stood in the presence of the robbed. Did he know by intuition that she was guilty? How grave and questioning his eyes were! Why did he look at her like that? How he would despise her and forbid his affianced wife to be outraged by her presence if he knew!
He looked like a high-minded gentleman. If he seemed almost sternly grave, his smile was kind and frank, and she had made herself unworthy to associate with such men as he.
But he was rich. He did not need the money she wanted so sorely. What of that? Did his abundance alter the everlasting conditions of right and wrong? Perhaps if she had not attempted to play Providence for the sake of her family, and let things follow their natural course, Mr. Errington might have spared a few crumbs from his rich table—a reasonable dole—to patch up the ragged edges of their frayed fortunes. Then she would not be oppressed with the sense of shame, this weight of riches she shrank from using. She had murdered her own happiness; she had killed her own youth. Never again could she know the joyousness of light-hearted girlhood, while nothing the world might give her could atone for the terrible trespass which had broken the harmony of her moral nature by the perpetual sense of unatoned wrong-doing. How she wished she had never come to Castleford! True, her seeing Mr. Errington did not make her guilt a shade darker, but oh, how much more keenly she felt it under his eyes! And now she could not rush away. She must avoid all eccentricities lest they might possibly arouse suspicion. Suspicion? What was there to suspect? No one would dream of suspicion. Then that will! She would try and nerve herself to destroy it, though it seemed sacrilege to do so. Whatever she did, however, she must think of Cis and Charlie. Having committed such an act, her only course was to bear the consequences, and do her duty by the innocent children, whose fate would be cruel enough should she indulge in any weak repentance or seek relief in confession. She had burdened herself with a disgraceful secret, and she must bear it her life long. It gave her infinite pain to face Miles Errington, yet while at one moment she longed to fly from him, the next she felt an extraordinary desire to hear him speak, to learn the prevailing tone of his mind, to know his opinions. There was an earnestness in his look and manner that appealed to her sympathies. He was a just, upright gentleman. What would he think of the dastardly deed by which she had robbed him?
"I must not think of it. I must try and forget I ever did it, and be as good and true as I can in all else. And the will! I must destroy it. I am sure my poor old uncle meant to do away with it. Perhaps if it were clean gone I might feel more at rest. How strange it is that instead of growing accustomed to the contemplation of my own dishonesty I become more keenly alive to the shame of my act as time rolls on! Perhaps if I am brave and resolute I may conquer the scorpion stings of self-reproach. How dear those two sweet peaceful years have cost me! Would I undo it all to save myself these pangs? No. Then I suppose to bear is to conquer one's fate."