Chapter X · A SURPRISE.

When Oliver Lennox passed away, he left Mary little that she could call her own, save her paraphernalia and a few jewels that had been her mother's. Lonewoodlee had been sold piecemeal in times long past, and the little that remained was mortgaged to the turret-vanes. The spot of ground around it was mortgaged too, even to the last tree that grew thereon. There was the old furniture of the days of the Regency, now scarcely worth removal; there were some grim old portraits, by Ramsay and Aikman, and even two by Sir Peter Lely, which would sell readily to those who were "getting up" galleries of ancestors elsewhere. There were some old arms, even bits of armour that had seen service in the Border Wars; steel caps and jacks, and Jedwood axes; old cabinets, and eggshell china in the chintz-covered drawing-room; old books, old rods and guns, and whips; and many a household god, to which Mary's heart clung yearningly now that she knew she must leave them all behind her; for whichever way her eyes turned they fell on some object through which, by the mere association of ideas, she was tortured.

But she strove to cast such thoughts aside, as she reflected on the littleness of life and the worthlessness of it—a bitter conclusion when formed by the heart of one so young, and when that heart should feel all the best impulses of hope in a joyous future, and in a long life of lasting happiness.

Had her father been more provident in his hot fox-hunting youth; had her brother, the lancer, contracted fewer debts of honour, her fate might, she knew, have been different now. But her father was dead, and Harry was dead—buried in his Indian grave, far, far away; so she crushed the thoughts that would upbraid them. Yet when taken in conjunction with her broken engagement, and the whole details of her luckless love affair with Cyril Wedderburn, her heart

"Ached with thoughts of all that might have been,"

had her fortune and circumstances in life been more prosperous and suitable to her birth.

When the gloomy excitement of the funeral was past, and she came steadily to see the necessity for facing the future, she felt at times an irritation—an almost angry and defiant emotion at Destiny; while sharing with Alison Home the hope that "when things are at the worst, they are sure to mend—at least they couldna' weel be waur." But she knew that with her they must mend elsewhere than in her old ancestral home. And knowing that the Chesters' story had caused her to be coldly and malevolently regarded in the neighbourhood, now she felt only the most intense longing to quit it, and for ever.

In the years of the future, if God spared her, when her name had been forgotten here, she might, if she chose, return again to see her father's grave, and perhaps to erect a little monument over it. And so, thinking over these possibilities, pondering alone—for the minister's wife had that day gone back to the Manse—Mary, seated in her modest black dress, gave herself up to thoughts that became most difficult to unravel.

She leaned her head upon her right hand, and sat in the deep recess of one of the dining-room windows. She heard only the beating of her heart, save when the intense solitude that reigned around the old house was broken by the cawing of the black rooks in the ancient thicket—the lone wood—from which the Tower took its name, or the bleating of a sheep on the hillside close by.

A day was coming, she knew, when her eyes must rest on other lands and prospects than the old familiar view she saw from her window now; and never did the fields, laden with golden grain, or the green pasture meadows and the purple heather of the hills now bathed in the amber hues of sunset, look more lovely than in this her time of sorrow.

With all her anxiety to begone now, she dreaded the change. She was so young, and so totally ignorant of the world and all its crooked ways; the uprootal from old associations amid which she had lived from infancy; the risk of venturing among the cold, hard, suspicious, and perhaps unpitying strangers—more than all, of precipitating herself into a human wilderness so vast, and to her unknown, as that of London, appalled her—for to London she was bent on going!

She felt herself little able to work, but alike ashamed and unable to beg! These, and such as these, were crushing thoughts to a tender girl in the sensitive time of youth, when all around her should be happiness and sunshine.

Her former friends and school companions now in London were, many of them, girls of good and high position. But in her change of circumstances she shrunk from intruding on any of them as a supplicant; and resolved that among strangers only should she look for work and bread.

So immersed was Mary in her own sad thoughts that she heard neither the sound of horses' hoofs, the rolling of wheels, nor the barking of the Dalmatian dogs; nor was she roused from her reverie till the startled Alison Home placed before her an old and well-worn silver salver, whereon lay two black-edged cards. Almost immediately after there was a rustling of silk and crape, as Lady Wedderburn and Gwendoleyne entered; and, being both in deep mourning, their appearance was most consonant to the occasion. Lady Wedderburn at once introduced herself, adding,—

"Miss Lennox—my niece, Miss Wedderburn."

A flush crossed Mary's pale face, and her quickened heart beat painfully as she rose to receive visitors who were entirely unexpected. But still, in the native pride of her heart, she strove to restrain her tears.

"Lady Wedderburn," said she, "it is most—most kind of you to come to me——"

"Surely not at a time like this, my dear child," replied Lady Wedderburn, seating herself on the deep old horse-hair sofa, and thinking how beautiful and how perfectly ladylike the pale girl looked in her black dress—an orphan in mourning for her father.

"Yes, at a time like this—the darkest of a blighted, a stricken life!" continued Mary, deeply moved by the soft and kind manner of her visitors.

"My son Cyril asked me to—to—," poor Lady Wedderburn paused, conscious that she was beginning to blunder already.

"Cyril—Captain Wedderburn—did he——"

"Yes. He asked me to be kind to you if aught happened. You understand, Miss Lennox?"

Mary did understand, and she began to weep hysterically, while her visitors, unused to grief of this kind, glanced at each other uneasily.

The elder had ignored, slighted, even "cut" her. But could Mary forget that she was the mother of Cyril, who once loved her, and whose ring was yet on her engagement finger—Cyril, whom she still loved so well! Her heart was crushed-by her own great grief: she felt weak and tender, and had the desperate longing in her utter and intense loneliness for some one to love her, for something to cling to. And she had now all the passionate desire to throw herself into the arms of Lady Wedderburn, as she might have done into those of a parent, and then weep freely and fully, pouring out her sorrow; but a remnant of family pride—the genuine old Scottish instinct, of not "letting oneself down," sustained Mary's spirit, and withheld the generous emotion which the other was too motherly and too kind-hearted to have misunderstood.

She had admitted Cyril's interest in Mary's welfare, and she resolved to ignore that she knew or suspected more; but somehow the conversation always turned to Cyril.

"I have now learned,—I think it right to tell you, my dear Miss Lennox—the true story of that visit you paid to the house—the gate, I mean—of Captain Chesters. I learned it quite incidentally," she added, perceiving that a momentary flash of anger lit up Mary's eyes; "but I do think, as a friend, that it was most unfortunate for yourself that you concealed it so."

"I concealed it, knowing the character of Captain Chesters, and in dread of the very event that took place."

"And this event?" asked the other, looking a little perplexed.

"Was your son's just indignation at that which I had no control over; indeed I had not," replied Mary, referring thus to her engagement in the most straightforward manner, and not ill-pleased that the attractive eyes of the beautiful cousin were occupied by an album in the recess of a window.

"Control?" stammered Lady Wedderburn, not knowing well what to say.

"Before that, he loved me very truly, madam."

"For long?"

"Almost ever since he brought my dear papa my brother's sword and rings from India."

"And you loved him?"

"Yes," replied Mary, in a low voice like a sigh.

"It was great duplicity on Cyril's part, when he knew our families were on bad terms; and latterly," she added, with a glance at the unconscious Gwenny, "an unfortunate folly on yours, under all the circumstances."

"You refer, madam, I presume, to the engagement with his cousin of which Captain Cheaters told me?"

Lady Wedderburn was silent; and thus, unwittingly, perhaps, permitted Mary to adopt a painful error.

"Well, well," she sighed, looking sadly down the while; "I can have no more bereavements now. My papa's death leaves me alone in the world."

"Alone?"

"Yes; God and myself only know how fearfully alone!"

"This is most sad," replied Lady Wedderburn, kindly, as she took Mary's hands in hers, and gazed tenderly into the sweet young face. "Can I not assist you, Miss Lennox? In anything you may command me," she added, for secretly her heart went forth to the girl who had loved her absent son, and had the courage to honestly avow that love; so with charming inconsistency, forgetting all about her past accusation of art, of cunning, and decoying on Mary's part, with much of pity and sudden affection, she surveyed her; for Mary was so wasted and worn by past watching, nursing, and sorrow, that she was more like a spirit, having dark brown hair and large violet eyes, with bluish unhealthy circles under them, than a living being.

"You do not seem strong, Miss Lennox," said she.

"Nor am I; my health may never recover the shocks I have sustained of late, with dear papa's long illness, and the hard task—a labour of love—watching him by night and day; so Doctor Squills tells me, that unless I am very careful, my grave is not far distant, and at best, assuredly not far off."

"Poor child! And what do you mean to do? Pardon me, but you cannot live here alone."

"Here!" repeated Mary, and as she glanced at the old faded dining-hall, the bitter smile stole over her lip again; "no, not here—not here. I mean to get some teaching if I can."

"And if not?"

"Then I can but—die!"

"Do not speak thus, I implore you!"

"My voice is thought to be a good one, and has been well cultivated, for papa was vain of it; but I fear I have lost a note or two since—since——"

"Since when?"

"Last March."

("That was when Cyril left this," thought Lady Wedderburn.)

"And you mean to go London, I have heard; is that true?"

"Yes; in a few days."

"Have you friends there?"

"Not one."

"This is a terrible—a bleak prospect!"

"Bleak indeed; fatherless, motherless, and in time, it may be, penniless! But not hopeless, while God spares and helps me. Assuredly, Lady Wedderburn, this world is not the place where our fondest hopes are realized, or where our brightest dreams are always embodied. It is a place, rather, where we should bear and forbear one with another, striving to be happy if we can; and if we cannot be happy, to be at least resigned and content."

"My poor child, by living so much alone, you have learned to talk and think painfully beyond your years," replied the other, who could not help contrasting the probable fate, fortune, and future of Mary and Gwenny, both alike so young and beautiful.

Somehow her visit proved a very protracted one. She found the charms of Mary's mind and manner were such, that even her loveliness seemed to be but a secondary excellence. She pressed her to visit Willowdean—to come away with her now in the carriage; to spend even a single day there; but Mary remembered her father's luckless and expensive quarrels and disputes with Sir John; she thought, too, of the bitter slights and mortifications that had been put upon herself; and now that all was over between her and Cyril, and that another possessed the love that had once been her own, she steadily declined, so her visitors ceased to press; and all this seemed very strange to the blushing and simpering Mrs. M'Guffog, who had just returned, happy that she was in time to have an opportunity of even shaking hands "wi' her leddyship."

She prevailed upon Mary, however, to accept of a letter of introduction to a lady friend in London, who had two little daughters, and who, she was assured, would befriend her; and for this, Mary felt herself compelled to express gratitude; and there the interview, which afforded sincere pleasure to Mary, ended, and the splendid carriage, with its liveried servants and brace of spotted dogs, rolled away from the door of the desolate and dilapidated house.

When Gwenny, after kissing Mary and weeping with her at parting, in the mode adopted by most young ladies, who so readily share each others' joys and griefs—expatiated on the romantic solitude of the old tower, and the quaintness—so she was good-natured enough to term it—of its furniture and so forth, Lady Wedderburn reminded her that the Lennoxes were but as mushrooms when compared to the old Welsh line of Ap-Rhys of Llanchillwydd; but so she might, with a safer conscience, have added were the Wedderburns of Willowdean; for so, even in this advanced age of the world, will some people talk, and set a mighty store upon their real or fancied little bit of heraldry, as if there had been more Adams than one in Eden.