A Life Sentence. Sergeant Adeline
But it was in her nature to rule—she could not help making her influence felt wherever she went, and the reins of government fell naturally into her hands as soon as she appeared upon the scene. She was the General's junior by five years only, and had always looked on Sydney and his wife as poor, irresponsible, frivolous young creatures, quite incapable of managing their own affairs. A difference of opinion on this point had driven her to London, where she had a nice little house in Kensington, and was great on committees and boards of management. But real sorrow chased all considerations of her own dignity or comfort from her mind. She hurried down to Beechfield as soon as she knew of her brother's need; and during the weary days and weeks between Sydney's death and Westwood's trial, she had been invaluable as a friend, helper, and capable mistress of the disorganised household.
She sat one June morning at the head of the breakfast-table in the dining-room at Beechfield Hall, with an unaccustomed look of dissatisfaction and perplexity upon her handsome resolute face. Miss Vane was a woman of fifty, but her black hair showed scarcely a line of silver, and her brown eyes were as keen and bright as they had ever been. With her smooth, unwrinkled forehead, her colorless but healthy complexion, and her thin well-braced figure, she looked ten years younger than her age. Not often was her composure disturbed, but on this occasion trouble and anxiety were both evinced by the knitting of her brows and the occasional twitching of her usually firm lips. She sat behind the coffee-urn, but she had finished her own breakfast long since, and was now occupying her ever-busy fingers with some knitting until her brother should appear. But her hands were unsteady, and at last, with an exclamation of disgust, she laid down her knitting-pins, and crossed the long white fingers closely over one another in her lap.
"Surely Hubert got my telegram!" she murmured to herself. "I wish he would come—oh, how I wish that he would come!"
She moved in her seat so as to be able to see the marble clock on the massive oak mantelpiece. The hands pointed to the hour of nine. Miss Vane rose and looked out of the window.
"He might have taken the early train from town. If he had, he would be here by this time. But no doubt he did not think it worth while. 'An old woman's fancy!' he said to himself perhaps. Hubert was never very tolerant of other people's fancies, though he has plenty of his own, Heaven knows! Ah, there he comes, thank Heaven! For once he has done what I wished—dear boy!"
Miss Vane's hard countenance softened as she said the words. She sank down into her chair again, crossed her hands once more upon her knees, and assumed the attitude of impenetrable rigidity intended to impress the observer with a sense of her indifference to all mankind. But the new-comer, who entered from the terrace at that moment, was too well used to Miss Vane's ways and manners to be much impressed.
"Good morning, aunt Leo. I have obeyed your orders, you see," he said, as he bent down and touched her forehead lightly with his lips.
He was a young man, not more than one or two and twenty, but he had already lost much of the freshness and youthfulness of his years. He was of middle height, rather slenderly built, well dressed, well brushed, with the air of high-bred distinction which is never attained save by those to the manner born. His face was singularly handsome, strong, yet refined, with sharply-cut features, dark eyes and hair, a heavy black moustache, and a grave, almost melancholy expression—altogether a striking face, not one easily to be forgotten or overlooked. As he seated himself quietly at the breakfast-table, and replied to some query of his aunt's respecting the hour of his arrival, it occurred to Miss Vane that he was looking remarkably tired and unwell. The line of his cheek, always somewhat sharp, seemed to have fallen in, there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his olive complexion had assumed the slightly livid tints which sometimes mark ill-health. In spite of her preoccupation with other matters, Miss Vane could not repress a comment on his appearance.
"What have you been doing with yourself, Hubert? You look positively ghastly!"
"Do I!" said Hubert, glancing up with a ready smile. "I shouldn't wonder. I was up all last night with some fellows that I know—we made a night of it, aunt Leo—and I have naturally a headache this morning."
"You deserve it then. Surely you might have chosen a more fitting time for a carouse!"
It seemed to her, curiously enough, that he gave a little shiver and drew in his lips beneath his dark moustache. But he answered with his usual indifference of manner.
"It was hardly a carouse. I can't undertake to make a recluse of myself, my dear aunt, in spite of the family troubles."
"Hubert, don't be so heartless!" cried Miss Vane imperiously; then, checking herself, she pressed her thin lips slightly together and sat silent, with her eyes fixed on the cups before her.
"Am I heartless? Well, I suppose I am," said the young man, with a slight mocking smile in which his eyes seemed to take no part. "I am sorry, but really I can't help it. In the meantime perhaps you will give me a cup of coffee—for I am famishing after my early flight from town—and tell me why you telegraphed for me in such a hurry last night."
Miss Vane filled his cup with a hand that trembled still. Hubert Lepel watched her movements with interest. He did not often see his kinswoman display so much agitation. She was not his aunt by any tie of blood—she was a faraway cousin only; but ever since his babyhood he had addressed her by that title.
"I sent for you," she said at last, speaking jerkily and hurriedly, as if the effort were almost more than she could bear—"I sent for you to tell the General what you yourself telegraphed to me last night."
A flush of dull red color stole into the young man's face. He looked at her intently, with a contracted brow.
"Do you mean," he said, after a moment's pause, "that you have not told him yet?"
Miss Vane averted her eyes.
"No," she answered; "I have not told him. You will think me weak—I suppose I am weak, Hubert—but I dared not tell him."
"And you summoned me from London to break the news? For no other reason?"
Miss Vane nodded—"That was all."
Hubert bit his lip and sipped his coffee before saying another word.
"Aunt Leo," he said, after a silence during which Miss Vane gave unequivocal signs of nervousness, "I really must say that I think the proceeding was unnecessary." He leaned back in his chair and toyed with his spoon, a whiteness which Miss Vane was accustomed to interpret as a sign of anger showing itself about his nostrils and his lips. She had long looked upon it as an ominous sign.
"Hubert, Hubert, don't be angry—don't refuse to help me!" she said, in pleading tones, such as he had never heard from her before. "I assure you that my post in this house is no sinecure. Poor Marion"—she spoke of Mrs. Sydney Vane—"is rapidly sinking into her grave. Ay, you may well start! She has never got over the shock of Sydney's death, and the excitement of the last few days seems to have increased her malady. She insisted on having every report of the trial read to her; and ever since the conviction she has grown weaker, until the doctor says that she can hardly outlast the week. Oh, that wicked man—that murderer—has much to answer for!" said Miss Vane, clasping her hands passionately together.
Hubert was silent; his eyebrows were drawn down over his eyes, his face was strangely white.
"Your uncle," Miss Vane continued sadly, "is nearly heart-broken. You know how much he loved poor Sydney, how much he cares for Marion. He has been a different man ever since that terrible day. I am afraid for his health—for his reason even, if——"
"For Heaven's sake, stop," said the young man hoarsely. "I can't bear this enumeration of misfortunes; it—it makes me—ill! Don't say any more."
He pushed back his chair, rose, and went to the sideboard, where he poured out a glass of water from the carafe and drank it off. Then he leaned both elbows on the damask-covered mahogany surface, and rested his forehead on his hands. Miss Vane stared at his bowed head, at his bent figure, with unfeigned amazement. She thought that she knew Hubert well, and she had never numbered over-sensitiveness amongst his virtues or vices. She concluded that the last night's