Leonore Stubbs. Lucy Bethia Walford
she either did not possess or was not conscious of possessing, she only felt with a kind of numb misery that it was all strange and terrible, and that if Godfrey had been there to help her—and a burst of tears would follow.
But at least she was going home; she had never yet got quite over the feeling that Boldero Abbey was "home," and always spoke of it as such, even in the days when her stay there was limited to visits. How much more then now—now, when she had no foothold anywhere else, and when the past three years took in the retrospect the shadowy outlines of a dream.
It was odd how distinctly behind the dream stood out the days of childhood. As the train bore her swiftly through the open country she knew so well, on the mellow, misty October afternoon, which came at last, Leonore's throbbing bosom was a jumble of emotions, partly, though of this she was unaware, pleasurable. Until now she had been dwelling in the past—the near past—the past which was all loss and sadness,—but as one familiar scene after another unfolded itself, involuntarily they awakened interest and a faint anticipation. Of a nature to be happy anywhere, and to cull blossoms off the most arid soil, the necessity for living in a villa among other villas on the outskirts of a great manufacturing town, had never called for lament and depreciation: no one had ever heard Boldero Abbey descanted upon,—indeed Leonore had sharply criticised the taste of a new arrival on the scene, a girl transplanted like herself by marriage, who was for ever telling her new associates what was done in B—shire.
All this young lady's endeavours could not win an adherent in Mrs. Stubbs, who simply put on a wooden face, and said, "Indeed?" when the other threw out: "It's all so different here from what I am accustomed to. I have never lived in any place like this before."
Leo moreover had her triumph which she kept for Godfrey's ear. "You know how that girl brags, and what an amount of side she puts on? Would you believe it, Godfrey, she's only a sort of stable-keeper's daughter! Well, I don't know what else you call it; her father is a trainer of race-horses, and that's how she knows about them; and the big people she quotes, of course they are all about such places—and—oh, I think it's sickening, even if it were no sham—that running down of nice James Bilson, who never sets up to be anything, and is a hundred thousand times too good for his wife."
"You don't buck, anyway," said he.
"I'd be ashamed," said Leonore proudly.
Her father and sisters thought the villa with its luxurious, well-kept surroundings, met her every aspiration; they liked it very well themselves as a pied-à-terre,—and though of course the grounds might have been more extensive, and the smoke of tall chimneys farther off, the general was remarkably sensible on the point. "Land is valuable hereabouts, and a man must live where he can keep an eye on his business."
"And our horses can go almost any distance;" Leonore was always anxious to impress this point. "We have lovely drives round by the Dee; you would almost think you were in the real country there."
"Quite so, my dear," her father would respond urbanely.
In his heart he spurned the idea. Country? Up went his chin, God bless his soul, the whole locality stank of docks and offices. The array of dogcarts daily drawn up outside the little station, in punctual awaiting of the five o'clock train, betrayed the business atmosphere. As Leonore did not see it, well, well. Nay, all the better–
"Don't, for Heaven's sake, any of you unsettle her," ordered he, aside. "She's in precious snug quarters, and has the wit to know it."
But now a strange and hitherto stifled sensation was stealing dimly into Leo's breast. How blue the mists were, how noble that range of forest in the distance—how broad and lonely and inviting that straight road with only a solitary cart upon it! There was the old red-roofed homestead she remembered so well at this point. There were the huge ricks and ample outbuildings. There were the smoking teams being unharnessed from the plough.
It seemed to her that she had seen them there often and often before, doing the same—and as the thought arose, another followed; of course they were; it was at this hour, by the self-same train, that she and Godfrey had always passed that way.
And she had always selected the same corner seat in the train, and gazed from the window—Godfrey being immersed in his paper, and indifferent to the view. At the thought of Godfrey she caught her breath and sighed,—but after a while the past drifted again into the present.
Who would come to meet her? She had half expected an escort all the way, and been relieved when none was proposed, for to talk would have been an effort,—but of course one or perhaps two sisters would be on the platform when she stepped out? Or perhaps her father—she shrank with a sudden qualm.
Not that she was precisely afraid of the general; he was too uniformly urbane and approving towards herself for that,—but was it possible that he was never quite natural? Had she not invariably the feeling of being treated by him as company? As some one towards whom he was bound to be agreeable and jocular? The quick, terse reply, and the occasional frowning undertone—the family undertone—were not for her, any more than for Godfrey; and whereas every one else in the house was liable to be snapped up and made to understand that an opinion was of no account, she, Leo, the youngest and presumably most insignificant of General Boldero's offspring, might say what she chose, unchecked.
It had all been pleasant enough, only—only now—now she would as soon not see a certain grey wide-awake upon the platform; she would hardly know what to say; and—and there it was!
There it was, but luckily not alone, indeed surrounded by quite a crowd of familiar faces, and the awkward moment—for the moment was awkward, far, far more so than Leonore suspected—was tided over by its publicity.
Every one had been told beforehand what took the general to the station on the occasion.
In the interval which had elapsed between the present moment and his reluctant tender of the shelter of his hearth towards his unfortunate daughter, he had had time to think. Since he must have her and there was no help for it, he would brave out the situation. His neighbours were not in the least likely to have heard anything of Godfrey Stubbs' affairs, which had never got into the papers and which he himself only knew of by personal communication. They could still be made to believe in the wealth of his late son-in-law; and by his continued deference towards Godfrey's memory and Godfrey's widow, he would still be envied and applauded for the match whose advantages he had so assiduously vaunted. It would be intolerable to have the truth known, wherefore the truth should not be known.
"She must understand to hold her tongue, and do you all of you hold yours," he ordered. "No whining, and whispering; no being wheedled out of confidences by impertinent people who make a show of sympathy, while in reality there isn't one among 'em who wouldn't lick his lips over our discomfiture if it were known. What? That's easy enough. She comes to live with us because she can't live alone; too young and—and helpless. It wouldn't be a bad tip—that's to say, if people choose to think that Leonore hasn't the head to manage her money-matters, and that big investments require a lot of looking after, let 'em. We needn't enlighten them. Let the poor child have any prestige she can get that way. After all, what she has or what she hasn't is nobody's business but her own—and ours; so mind you what I say, I'll have no talk set agoing, and if I find any of you–" and it was all about to begin again when Sue interposed:—
"Of course we shall say nothing to vex you, father".
"You won't, I daresay, but," and he threw a glance at the other two, "those feather-brained creatures–"
"Oh, we're all right." Sybil nodded gaily. "We don't want to give the show away any more than you do. And it will be rather fun to mystify the neighbourhood, and have the men coming fortune-hunting after a bit–"
"What?" thundered the general, aghast.
"They will, oh, yes, they will. Leo will look uncommonly pretty and pathetic as the rich young widow, and I don't suppose she will be inconsolable–"
"And you mean—God bless my soul!" But though General Boldero rolled his eyes, and kept up his high tone of indignant amazement, the speaker did not feel snubbed as she might have done.
"We shall have all the impecunious youths–"
"That