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Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival

Chapter XXV. Persecution

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Chapter XXV. Persecution.

General Hawke was very ill for some days after this. He had had a slight stroke, and the doctor told Randal that though he might recover to a great extent, it was likely that his mind would never be quite the same again. During those days he often asked for Mabel, and she was glad to go and sit by him; for though she did not feel herself of any use there, his room was a refuge from Randal. He was constantly there, for he nursed his father and watched over him with the attention of a much more unselfish character; but he seemed to feel that love-making was out of place in a sick-room, and Mabel was at peace as she sat there quietly working near the old man’s pillow.

Still there were meals, and there were hours in the drawing-room and garden when, if Randal did not persecute her with words, he made her feel what was in his mind all the time. She wished she could make him understand how extraordinary she thought this behaviour of his; did not he know what she must think of him, since she heard the truth about Mrs. Lancaster? but he seemed quite easy on that score. Apparently he did not understand how entirely that history had altered and decided Mabel’s feelings towards him. He was just the same as before, only more attentive, more affectionate, more happily confident in his manner, and he would not see the stiffness that she tried to put into hers. He did not allude to his former engagement till one evening, when he came to her in the drawing-room, and told her that he was obliged to go away the next morning, to stay one night. Mabel felt very glad, but she did not say so.

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‘My father is really better,’ said Randal, ‘and his mind will soon be quite clear again, whatever Dr. King may say. What do you think he said to me just now, Mabel?’

‘I don’t know. What?’

‘He asked me when we were going to be married—you and I.’

‘I hope you told him—never,’ said Mabel, with crimson cheeks.

‘No; I did not,’ said Randal. ‘I told him that I thought we must wait till he was well enough to go to the wedding. He said: “No, that won’t do. You might wait for ever.” I believe it would be a wonderful thing for him, if that wish of his was-carried out.’

Mabel sat quite silent, looking on the ground.

‘Have not you had time enough to forgive me, Mabel?’ he said. ‘The best excuse for that most unfortunate affair is that it happened before I knew you. Every one has something to repent of and be forgotten. A good girl like you ought to think it her duty to forgive.’

‘I have nothing to forgive,’ said Mabel, ‘except the way in which you tried to deceive me about that—saying things about Mr. Northcote, as if it was he, and almost pretending that Mrs. Lancaster was out of her mind, poor thing, when all the time—I can’t think how you could!’

‘All very wrong, no doubt,’ said Randal; ‘but can’t you excuse what was done for love of you?’

‘I don’t like such love as that. I don’t want it,’ said Mabel.

‘You hate me, then?’ said Randal.

He had walked across to the window, and stood there looking at her as she sat in a corner of the sofa. Her hands were clasped together, the small fingers squeezing each other tightly; the bright flush had faded and left her very pale.

‘No, no,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t exactly page 233 hate you, but I am astonished at you—how you can say these things to me, when you know how wretched you have made poor Mrs. Lancaster.’

‘I assure you, Mabel, you are quite mistaken,’ said Randal solemnly. ‘She is not wretched at all. She has made up her mind; she has had her revenge, by doing her best to blacken me in your eyes. My dear girl, you don’t understand that kind of woman. She is a thorough flirt, and flirts don’t break their hearts. Trust me, I know all about it.’

Mabel did not believe him; but there was something in Randal—he ought to have succeeded better in life, with that to help him—which generally prevented people from setting themselves violently in opposition to him. Those words against Mrs. Lancaster made her shrink from him all the more, but she said nothing. After a pause she got up and walked towards the door. Randal came hastily after her.

‘I may not see you again to-night,’ he said. ‘Won’t you say good-bye? I must be off early to-morrow.’

Mabel gave him her hand: he held it, and looked earnestly into her face.

‘Sleep well,’ he said; ‘and if you think of me at all, try to forgive me. It was a very wrong, but it was for your sake. If you had never come here, you little witch, with those wonderful eyes of yours that read a man’s thoughts, nothing of all this would have happened.’

‘O, don’t say that! Let me go!’ exclaimed Mabel.

He stood a moment longer, holding her hand, and then suddenly kissed it and let it go.

‘You will have to belong to me one of these days, ma belle!’ he said.

In spite of her lover’s injunction, Mabel did not sleep at all well that night. She was very much troubled in mind, and lay awake thinking of him and his obstinacy, wondering what was to be the end of this state of things, page 234 and wondering, too, whether Mrs. Lancaster was really miserable. She was learning by experience to take Randal’s assurances with a great deal of doubt. But the difficulty was, how was, she to get out of it all, to free herself completely from him and his influence? It was all very well to make resolutions, but not so easy to keep them, with Randal in the house. She might shrink from him, and try to avoid him, but he was irrepressible.

Presently she fell asleep, and dreamed that Mrs. Lancaster, prettier than she ever was by daylight, was reproaching her bitterly for taking Randal away. Mabel tried to defend herself, and woke with tears on her face. But in consequence of this dream she made a resolution. Randal was gone, and for once she would act like an independent woman.

After breakfast, and after visiting the General, who was sleepy, and did not seem to want her, Mabel put her hat on and went out to the stable-yard. She had often been there with Randal to take sugar and apples to the horses, but to-day she went with a different purpose. Randal’s horse, Turk, was outside the stable-door, having his legs washed. Jenkins, the groom, looked up from his splashing to touch his cap to Miss Ashley.

‘Is the Turk tired, Jenkins?’ said Mabel.

‘O, dear, no, miss! He’s only been as far as the station.’

‘I want very much to go to St. Denys this morning. Do you think you could take me?’

Mabel was alarmed at her own boldness, and spoke very doubtfully.

‘Yes, miss, I could take you,’ said Jenkins, rather surprised. ‘In the dog-cart, did you mean?’

‘Yes. How soon can you be ready?’

‘In twenty minutes, miss.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mabel.

She did not go back into the house, but wandered page 235 about till Jenkins brought the carriage round. He was sure that his master would wish him to attend to Miss Ashley’s orders; all the servants saw very well what was to be.

‘I want to go to Captain Cardew’s house,’ Mabel said, as they drove down the hill. ‘Do you know which it is?’

‘Yes, miss.’

Mabel felt none of the misgivings that poor Flora Lancaster had felt when she came to visit her. She was only eager to be there, and wished unreasonably that the Turk would trot faster. She was delighted to find herself at last at the garden-gate, at the house-door, actually ringing the bell. It was only when the little maid had opened the door and was staring at her that she was suddenly seized with a nervous fear: perhaps Mrs. Lancaster would not see her; perhaps she would be angry and reproachful, as she was in the dream.

Mabel provided against the first danger by following the maid straight into the drawing-room, where Flora, pale, hollow-eyed, and wrapped in a large shawl, was sitting in an armchair. Mrs. Cardew, in a very old gown and cap with a duster in her hand, was settling the ornaments on the chimneypiece. Neither of them dreamed of a visitor so early in the day. Mrs. Cardew, turning round in consternation, and having only had distant glimpses of Mabel driving by, did not at first know who this dark slight girl could be, who came forward to Flora with such a sad face, and such a shy yet eager manner.

Flora’s pale face became rosy all of a sudden; she got up, holding her visitor’s hand, and looking at her wonderingly.

Mabel broke the very awkward silence, looking at Mrs. Cardew.

‘Is it—your mamma?’ she said softly to Flora.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Cardew, smiling and nodding. She page 236 had just had presence of mind to drop her duster into a corner behind the coal-scuttle.

‘This is Miss Ashley, mother,’ said Flora, speaking with an effort.

Mrs. Cardew’s face became grave immediately. Mabel guessed that she wondered what business Miss Ashley could have with her daughter.

‘I have only a few minutes,’ said Mabel, who had a loyal fear of the Turk’s catching cold, ‘but I wanted most particularly to speak to you.’

Flora looked at her mother, and Mrs. Cardew, the most dutiful of women, went quietly out of the room.

‘Sit down,’ said Flora. ‘There is a nice little chair. This is not quite such a breezy meeting as our last one on the beach, Miss Ashley.’

She sank back into her own chair, smiling at Mabel, who felt now as if she could not speak. The wreck of Flora’s beauty struck her as too terrible. And was this all her fault?

She could not sit still in her chair, like a grown-up civilised woman. She came and knelt down by Flora, looking up into her face with wet imploring eyes.

‘O, do forgive me!’ she said. ‘I did not know, and yet it is all my fault. But I hate him!’

She had taken off her hat as she left her chair, and now she stooped her head down and laid her cheek against Flora’s hand, as it rested on the arm of the chair. Flora’s outward calmness deserted her for a moment then. She looked at the small head with its soft dark waves of hair, at the slight little figure crouching there beside her, and shivered suddenly all over.

‘O child, don’t!’ she cried, with a sharp pain in her voice. Then, yielding to a strong attraction that she could not herself understand, she bent down over Mabel, drew her gently into her arms, and kissed her many times.

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‘Did you come to comfort me, you dear child?’ she said presently.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mabel. ‘I came to see you, and to tell you that I never would—and to ask you something too.’

‘What is it?’ said Flora.

‘What I am to do. He is so dreadfully determined. He does not mind what I say, and it is more horrid than I can tell you, now that the General is ill. Last night I could not sleep for thinking of it. It is so trying for a girl like me.’

‘You don’t care for him at all?’ said Flora, in a low voice. Her arm was still round Mabel, and the girl was leaning against her. It was too strange and sweet, this sympathy, to be given up quickly, and Mabel felt that she must be doubly safe from Randal, guarded thus by his old love.

‘No; I did like him rather, but never so much as that. And now I can’t bear to see him or think of him,’ said Mabel gravely. ‘And I can’t possibly understand why he cares for me.’

‘Does he care for you?’ said Flora.

‘He says so,’ answered Mabel, with startled eyes.

‘I should like you to think a little,’ said Flora, after a pause, ‘and try to find out why he professes to care so much for you. Think of the differences between you and me—your superiority to me.’

Mabel blushed and almost laughed as she looked up at her friend.

‘I can’t think of that, because it does not exist,’ she said. ‘You are entirely superior to me. That is part of the mystery of it.’

‘No; I am your inferior,’ said Flora, ‘in birth, but that does not matter so much. And in something else, which is everything.’

‘You don’t mean money?’

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‘Yes; I do. Listen,’ said Flora. ‘If you had cared for him at all, I should never have told you this. But as you don’t, and as you want to know what it is that interests him so much in you, and as you are too innocent and noble-minded to have guessed the truth for yourself, I think you had better be made to understand it. When he broke off his engagement with me that day on the beach, he told me that it was necessary for him to marry some one with a fortune. It is a bad world, and one had better not set one’s heart on it,’ said Flora, ending with a sigh.

‘I was most wonderfully stupid not to think of it before.’ said Mabel. ‘O, horrid wretch, how could he!’

‘On the whole,’ said Flora, ‘I don’t suppose he is more horrid than half the young men in England. But don’t let us talk about him any more. I hope you will soon meet somebody who cares for you for yourself, dear.’

She sat dreamily gazing at Mabel, and stroking the hair back from her forehead with slow unconscious fingers.

‘But what am I to do?’ said Mabel.

‘Be resolute, and try and leave Pensand as soon as you can. Have you no excuse for going away?’

‘No, I have no friends to ask me.’

‘Mrs. Strange?’

‘I just know her, but I can’t ask to go there,’ said Mabel, shaking her head.

On that subject it seemed impossible to come to any conclusion. Flora could not help Mabel herself, and was not in a position to ask any one else to help her; it seemed as if the poor little heiress must fight her own battle as best she could. But in spite of that she felt stronger and happier, now that she and Mrs. Lancaster really understood each other. They were friends, and that was something, though it was not a friendship that could be of any use.

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Mabel’s first visit to St. Denys was a long one. Jenkins was tired of driving up and down the hill before she appeared; the Turk was impatient too, and flew home as if his master was behind him.

Mabel was not Flora’s only visitor that day. Dick Northcote came in towards evening, and told her that his aunt was at Carweston, and he was very dull at home.

‘You people in this neighbourhood are very selfish, I think,’ said Flora. ‘You enjoy yourselves, going to each other’s houses, and never think of that poor girl at Pensand, who is quite miserable all this time.’

‘Because General Hawke is ill?’ said Dick.

‘That certainly does not make her any happier, because it throws her entirely with the man who wishes to marry her, and whom she dislikes with all her heart.’

‘How do you know that?’ said Dick. ‘On the contrary, I believe she likes him very much.’

‘She came to see me this morning, in a state of despair, poor child. It is true, Dick; I am not exaggerating. She does not know what to do to free herself from him, and indeed I did not know what to suggest.’

‘But what does the fellow mean by it?’ cried Dick, in great indignation.

‘He wants her fortune, and he means to marry her,’ said Flora. ‘He intends to bring her round to it in time. And certainly, keeping her shut up there at Pensand, without a creature to speak to, he has a very good chance of tiring out her patience. She is very unhappy, but what can she do? Imagine her coming to me of all people, and confiding in me, poor little thing! I could do nothing to help her. I have no money, no influence, no establishment. If I had anything, I would fetch her away from Pensand in spite of ten guardians. Mrs. Strange might do it. Your aunt might do it. Why don’t they?’

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‘Her being miserable, and disliking Randal, is a new light, you see,’ said Dick. ‘I’ll bring it to bear on them this evening. I’m going to dine at Carweston.’ He gazed out of the window, gave a long low whistle, and muttered, ‘Poor little thing! Do you think her pretty?’ he said to Mrs. Lancaster.

‘Very pretty, in a peculiar interesting way. If I was Mr. Dick Northcote, I, should think it only civil to go to the Castle and inquire for General Hawke.’

‘Well, I suppose it would be the right thing,’ said Dick, smiling slightly.

He got up to go, and then suddenly remembered his manners. ‘I came to see how you were, by the bye. Do you feel any stronger?’

‘Yes, I am better; thank you,’ said Flora.

Dear old Dick! she thought, when she was left alone. She had plenty of things to repent of in her life—flirtations, mistakes, selfishnesses—but perhaps nothing with regard to him. One could not be double or heartless with him, good honest fellow.

‘Yes,’ Flora thought, ‘I may be sorry for many things, but I don’t think I shall be sorry for advising him to go to the Castle. Little Mabel may be happy if she finds such a refuge as that. So true and frank and kind! Ah, why are there not more men like you, Dick?’