A Life Sentence. Sergeant Adeline
we all want him!" said Hubert good-humoredly. "I wish to make my nephew's acquaintance, at any rate. I have something for him in my portmanteau up-stairs."
Florence made a sudden and, as it seemed, involuntary gesture, and knocked down a vase of flowers on the table at her right hand. There was some confusion in consequence, as the flowers had to be gathered up and the fragments of the broken vase collected, so that Hubert had little opportunity of talking to his nephew. And, as soon as "the fuss," as he mentally called it, was over, Mrs. Vane said, in her coldest, slowest voice—
"Now, Dick, you may go to the nursery. Say good-night."
"Good-night?" questioned Hubert. "Why, he does not go to bed at this hour in the afternoon, does he?"
"He goes at half-past six or seven," replied Florence. "Pray do not interfere with nursery regulations, my dear Hubert."
"I shall see more of him to-morrow, I suppose," said Hubert, smiling at the child's wistful face as he went from one to another to say good-night.
Little Dick's eyes lit up at once, but the light in them died out when, on tip-toe, as if afraid of disturbing her, he approached his mother. Hubert thought that there was a touch of something odd in the manner of everyone present, and was glad to see that Enid's kisses and whispered words of endearment brought a flush of pleasure to the child's delicate cheeks before he turned away.
The General then took possession of the visitor and marched him off to look at the stables. The old man had recovered all his old cheeriness and heartiness of manner; there was a little more feebleness in his gait than there used to be, and he walked with a stick, but Hubert was pleased to see that his eyes were bright, and to find him loquaciously inclined. The shock of Sydney's death had not seriously affected him, and Hubert was conscious of a thrill of relief at the sight of his evident health and happiness. Considering that Mr. Lepel believed himself to have closed his heart against the past, he was singularly open to attacks of painful memory. He was annoyed by his own readiness to be hurt, and almost wished that he had not come to Beechfield.
He saw neither of the ladies again till dinner time, when he thought that Enid looked even lovelier in her simple white frock than in her riding-habit. He observed her a good deal at dinner, and made up his mind that she was the very model of an ideal heroine—sweet, gentle, pure-minded, intelligent—all that a fresh young English girl should be. The type did not attract him greatly; but it was just as well to study so perfect a specimen when he had one at hand; he wanted to introduce a girl of this sort into his next novel, and he preferred portraiture to mere invention. He would keep the novel in mind when he talked to her; it would perhaps prevent any dwelling on unpleasant subjects—for, oh, how like the girl's eyes were to those of her dear father!
So he sat by the piano after dinner while Enid played dreamy melodies, that soothed the General into slumber, and then he persuaded her to walk with him in the moonlight on the terrace, and talked to her of his strange adventures in foreign lands until the child thought that she had never heard anything half so wonderful before. And, as they passed and repassed the windows, they were watched by Florence Vane with eyes that gleamed beneath her heavy eyelids, with the narrow intentness of the emerald orbs belonging to her favorite white cat. She had never looked more as if she were silently following some malevolent design, than when she watched the couple on the terrace on that moonlit night.
Enid very quickly made friends with Mr. Lepel—so quickly indeed that she was led to confide some of her most private opinions to him before he had been much more than twenty-four hours at Beechfield Hall. It was anent little Dick and his mother that the first confidence took place.
The whole party had been having tea under the great beech-tree on the lawn, and after a time Enid and Hubert were left alone by the others. They chatted gaily together, he answering her eager questions about London and Paris and Berlin, she catechising him with an eagerness which amused and interested him. Presently they saw Dick running towards them across the lawn. A white figure at one of the windows on the terrace, a call to the boy, and Dick's wild career was arrested. He stood still for a moment, then turned slowly towards the house, breaking into a childish wail of grief as he did so. Hubert stopped short in the sentence that he was addressing to his young cousin, and looked after the boy.
"What is the matter with the poor little chap?" he asked.
Enid's eyes were fixed anxiously upon the window where the white figure had appeared.
"Florence called him," she said, in a very small voice.
"And why should the fact of his mother's calling him make him cry?"
"Florence thinks it best to be strict," said Enid, still with unnatural firmness of manner. "He is running away from his nurse now, I know; and I suppose he will be sent to bed directly after tea for doing so—as he was yesterday."
"Was he? Poor little beggar! Was that the reason why he looked so miserable and you were all so solemn? What had he done?"
"He came into the drawing-room without permission. He was let off very easily because you were there, but I have known his mother punish him severely for doing so."
"But, good heavens," said Hubert, rising from his seat, and leaning against the trunk of the beech-tree, while he looked down at Enid with an expression of utter perplexity, "why on earth should the child have so little freedom; and why should Florence be so hard on him? She must be altered! She was never fond of children, but she was too indolent to be severe. Was not that your experience of her when you were a child?"
"Yes," said Enid, but too hesitatingly to give Hubert all the assurance that he wished for—"yes; she did not take much trouble about what I did. It is different with her own child."
"Surely she loves her own child better than she loved other children—better even than you!" said Hubert, with the soft intonation that turned the words into a compliment. "It is natural in a mother."
"One would think so," said the girl. Then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, she spoke hurriedly, with her beautiful eyes full of tears. "Oh, cousin Hubert"—it was thus that she had addressed him ever since her babyhood—"do not think that I am unkind to Florence—I do not mean it unkindly—but it does seem sometimes as if she really hated her little boy! Poor little Dick has never known what it is to have a mother's love. I am so sorry for him! I know what it is to be motherless." Hubert averted his face, and gazed into the distance. "I have lived many years without either father or mother," said the girl, in a tone the simple pathos of which seemed to pierce her hearer's heart, "but at any rate I remember what it was to have their love."
She wondered why Hubert stood motionless and irresponsive; it was not like him to be so silent when an appeal was made to his sympathy. She colored rosy red, with the instinctive fear that she had gone too far, had said something of which he did not approve, and she tried, in her naive unconsciousness of ill, to put the matter straight.
"But I have been very happy," she said earnestly. "Florence has always been kind, and dear mamma herself could not have done more for me. It is only that she seems cold and severe with Dick——Dear cousin Hubert, I hope you are not angry with me for saying what I have said about your sister?"
He was obliged to look at her when she addressed him thus directly. She was surprised by the expression of pain—bitter humiliating pain—upon his face. Was it sympathy for her loss, she wondered, or grief for little Dick's position, or distress at her accusation of Florence that caused his face to wear that look of positive anguish? She could not tell.
"Angry?" he said, stretching out his hand and laying it tenderly on her own, while the pain in his eyes softened into a melancholy as inscrutable as the pain. "Could I ever be angry with you, Enid? Poor little lonely motherless child! Heaven knows, if I could protect you from sorrow or pain henceforth, I would do so at the cost of my life!"
He withdrew his hand and walked away somewhat abruptly, without once looking round. Enid remained where he had left her, pale with emotion, overpowered by a feeling that was neither joy nor fear, but which partook of both.
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