“You feel sure to win that consent, in spite of the stain on her grandfather’s name?”
“When Darrell learns that, but for my poor father’s fault, that name might be spotless now!—yes! I am not Mr. Darrell’s son—the transmitter of his line. I believe yet that he will form new ties. By my mother’s side I have no ancestors to boast of; and you have owned to me that Sophy’s mother was of gentle birth. Alban Morley told me, when I last saw him, that Darrell wishes me to marry, and leaves me free to choose my bride. Yes; I have no doubt of Mr. Darrell’s consent. My dear mother will welcome to her heart the prize so coveted by mine; and Charles Haughton’s son will have a place at his hearth for the old age of William Losely. Withdraw your interdict at once, dearest Lady Montfort, and confide to me all that you have hitherto left unexplained, but have promised to reveal when the time came. The time has come.”
“It has come,” said Lady Montfort, solemnly; “and Heaven grant that it may bear the blessed results which were in my thoughts when I took Sophy as my own adopted daughter, and hailed in yourself the reconciler of conflicting circumstance. Not under this roof should you woo William Losely’s grandchild. Doubly are you bound to ask Guy Darrell’s consent and blessing. At his hearth woo your Sophy—at his hands ask a bride in his daughter’s child.”
And to her wondering listener, Caroline Montford told her grounds for the belief that connected the last of the Darrells with the convict’s grandchild.
CHAPTER VI.
CREDULOUS CRYSTAL-SEERS, YOUNG LOVERS, AND GRAVE WISE MEN—ALL IN
THE SAME CATEGORY.
George Morley set out the next day for Norwich, in which antique city, ever since the ‘Dane peopled it, some wizard or witch, star-reader, or crystal-seer’ has enjoyed a mysterious renown, perpetuating thus through all change in our land’s social progress the long line of Vala and Saga, who came with the Raven and Valkyr from Scandinavian pine shores. Merle’s reserve vanished on the perusal of Sophy’s letter to him. He informed George that Waife declared he had plenty of money, and had even forced a loan upon Merle; but that he liked an active, wandering life; it kept him from thinking, and that a pedlar’s pack would give him a license for vagrancy, and a budget to defray its expenses; that Merle had been consulted by him in the choice of light popular wares, and as to the route he might find the most free from competing rivals. Merle willingly agreed to accompany George in quest of the wanderer, whom, by the help of his crystal, he seemed calmly sure he could track and discover. Accordingly, they both set out in the somewhat devious and desultory road which Merle, who had some old acquaintances amongst the ancient profession of hawkers, had advised Waife to take. But Merle, unhappily confiding more in his crystal than Waife’s steady adherence to the chart prescribed, led the Oxford scholar the life of a will-of-the-wisp; zigzag, and shooting to and fro, here and there, till, just when George had lost all patience, Merle chanced to see, not in the crystal, a pelerine on the neck of a farmer’s daughter, which he was morally certain he had himself selected for Waife’s pannier. And the girl stating in reply to his inquiry that her father had bought that pelerine as a present for her, not many days before, of a pedlar in a neighbouring town, to the market of which the farmer resorted weekly, Merle cast an horary scheme, and finding the Third House (of short journeys) in favourable aspect to the Seventh House (containing the object desired), and in conjunction with the Eleventh House (friends), he gravely informed the scholar that their toils were at an end, and that the Hour and the Man were at hand. Not over-sanguine, George consigned himself and the seer to an early train, and reached the famous town of Oazelford, whither, when the chronological order of our narrative (which we have so far somewhat forestalled) will permit, we shall conduct the inquisitive reader.
Meanwhile Lionel, subscribing without a murmur to Lady Montfort’s injunction to see Sophy no more till Darrell had been conferred with and his consent won, returned to his lodgings in London, sanguine of success, and flushed with joy. His intention was to set out at once to Fawley; but on reaching town he found there a few lines from Dairell himself, in reply to a long and affectionate letter which Lionel had written a few days before asking permission to visit the old manor-house; for amidst all his absorbing love for Sophy, the image of his lonely benefactor in that gloomy hermitage often rose before him. In these lines, Darrell, not unkindly, but very peremptorily, declined Lionel’s overtures.
“In truth, my dear young kinsman,” wrote the recluse—“in truth I am, with slowness, and with frequent relapses, labouring through convalescence from a moral fever. My nerves are yet unstrung. I am as one to whom is prescribed the most complete repose;—the visits, even of friends the dearest, forbidden as a perilous excitement. The sight of you—of any one from the great world—but especially of one whose rich vitality of youth and hope affronts and mocks my own fatigued exhaustion, would but irritate, unsettle, torture me. When I am quite well I will ask you to come. I shall enjoy your visit. Till then, on no account, and on no pretext, let my morbid ear catch the sound of your footfall on my quiet floor. Write to me often, but tell me nothing of the news and gossip of the world. Tell me only of yourself, your studies, your thoughts, your sentiments, your wishes. Nor forget my injunctions. Marry young, marry for love; let no ambition of power, no greed of gold, ever mislead you into giving to your life a companion who is not the half of your soul. Choose with the heart of a man; I know that you will choose with the self-esteem of a gentleman; and be assured beforehand of the sympathy and sanction of your ‘CHURLISH BUT LOVING KINSMAN.’”