“They generally are,” said another.
There was that in the tone to make Roland Dorrien start. Three young men in evening dress and crush hats overtook and passed them, and simultaneously three heads came round to look at his companion. But one head remained around a moment longer than the others, and it took in not only the face of the girl but that of himself, and in it he beheld once more the face of his brother Hubert. And it needed not the start the latter gave to show that the recognition was not one-sided.
Chapter Twenty Seven.
Interim.
Christmas had come and gone, and Eustace Ingelow was at home again, but things were not going well with him, and he was in consequence proportionately gloomy. Never, since the day he surprised her in the midst of her grief, had he had the chance of speaking to Nellie Dorrien alone. Whether by accident or design, she had been invited to visit a relative at a distance for Christmas. She had left Cranston a few days before his arrival, and it seemed unlikely that her return would take place before his departure, and he had failed in his undertaking, for no trace could he discover of her missing brother. Venn had written stating that he feared they would see no more of Roland Dorrien until such time as that worthy chose to disclose his whereabouts. And Eustace’s heart had sunk. If Venn, a London man, could not trace his friend, what chance had he himself, who could bring neither time nor experience to bear upon his quest? His failure and misgivings he had made known to Nellie, who had recognised the force of them. Poor Eustace, however, was very unhappy. He had been looking forward to the Christmas vacation with the bright, warm glow of first love fresh at his heart, and with all the sanguine buoyancy of youth. Things would come right somehow. But, now that his hopes were so cruelly disappointed, and that the meetings, all the sweeter if stolen, to which he had been looking forward, were not to be, the poor fellow hardly knew how to conceal his despondency. In Olive he found a ready sympathiser, but hers was a sympathy that was all on one side. Never since the receipt of that last letter from Roland Dorrien had the girl opened her lips on the subject of her griefs to any living soul. It was a strange reticence—yet one that she heroically and rigidly preserved, and now, though she entered lovingly into poor Eustace’s troubles, of her own she breathed not one word. With such elements of despondency in their midst it was not to be wondered at that Christmas festivities this year had seemed to the rector’s family to fall somewhat flat.
At Cranston Hall the chronic atmosphere of gloom and constraint in nowise tended to a clearance, and Time, so far from allaying General Dorrien’s resentment towards his eldest son, rather tended to heighten it; as one or two incidents showed. Mr Curtis, the easy-going but good-hearted vicar of Cranston, happening to be aware of the complete ruin in which the exiled one had been involved through the bank failure, took an opportunity of cautiously approaching this vindictive parent on his behalf, but was met with such an angry rebuff as would have constituted a mortal insult to a less good-natured man, but which the easy-tempered vicar had suffered to pass over him unresented. It was only his duty, he argued to his wife, to try and set things smooth if possible; if not, well, he had done his best. The exile’s other advocate was Colonel Neville, who had thought Christmas a capital time for putting in his word, but with like result; and the Colonel falling far short of the parson in the quality of forbearance, something very like a quarrel had taken place between the old friends and companions-in-arms, and a coolness set in between their two houses.
Alone in this uncongenial home poor Nellie had a bad time of it. Her father seldom addressed a word to her, or indeed, to anybody—for as his moroseness increased he would shut himself up in his study for hours or wander about by himself, going nowhere nor entertaining anybody, and since he had discovered the meeting between herself and Eustace Ingelow he had treated her as though very little better than her banished brother. Between herself and her mother there had never been any sympathy, and now there seemed to be less than any. One bright spot was on her horizon—Christmas would come, and she would see Eustace again, and to that she looked forward as to a forlorn hope. And Christmas had come, and previously to it she had been sent away, as we have seen, a procedure which, at any other time and under other circumstances, would have met with her unbounded approval. But now?
The only one whose spirits were in nowise impaired was Hubert. Why, indeed, should they be, seeing that he was now the assured heir to the broad acres and splendid rent-roll of Cranston? So on the strength of his prospects he found means of launching out into unlimited dissipation. He was now leaving Oxford, and had already mapped out for himself a dazzlingly attractive programme for the enjoyment of “life” when he should take up his abode in London in a week or two to read for his “call.” Meanwhile, even in Wandsborough, Master Hubert found scope for some very lively doings, and was only restrained just within the bounds of prudence by the fear of certain of his high jinks reaching the paternal ears, which possibility kept him in a state of periodical and wholesome terror. And there was always the apprehension that circumstances might combine to restore Roland to his rightful place, which would mean nothing less than ruin to himself.