"A big blundering fellow like that, Til," she said; "and I do assure you, Miss Maurice, he quite forgot the time for the draught when he was shut up there with him the other day--and talk of he's doing Geoffrey no harm! All I can say is, if Geoffrey had not been crying when I went into his room, and wasn't trembling all over in his bed, I never was so mistaken before."
Then Til and Annie looked blankly at each other, in mute wonder at this incomprehensible sorrow--for the women knew nothing but that Margaret had fled with a former lover--so much had been necessarily told them, under Bowker's instructions, by Charley Potts; and Annie, after a little, went sorrowfully away.
That day at dinner Lord Beauport was more than usually kind in his manner to her; and Annie considered it due to him, and a fitting return for some inquiries he had made for "her friend," which had more of warmth and less of condescension than usual in their tone, to rouse herself into greater cheerfulness than she had yet been able to assume. Lady Beauport rose sooner than usual; and the two ladies had hardly seated themselves in the dreary drawing-room when the Earl joined them. There was an air of preparation in Lord Beauport's manner, and Annie felt that something had happened.
The thing which had happened was this--Lady Beauport had not miscalculated her experienced power of managing her husband. She had skilfully availed herself of an admission made by him that Lionel's absence, at so great a distance just then was an unfortunate complication; that the necessary communications were rendered difficult and tedious; and that he wished his "rustication" had been nearer home. The Countess caught at the word 'rustication:' then not expulsion, not banishment, was in her husband's mind. Here was a commutation of her darling's sentence; a free pardon would follow, if she only set about procuring it in the right way. So she resorted to several little expedients by which the inconvenience of the heir's absence was made more and more apparent: having once mentioned his name, Lord Beauport continued to do so;--perhaps he was in his secret heart as much relieved by the breaking of the ban as the mother herself;--and at length, on the same day which witnessed William Bowker's visit to Lionel Brakespere's deserted wife, Lady Beauport acknowledged to her husband that their son was then in London, and that she had seen him. The Earl received her communication in frowning silence; but she affected not to observe his manner, and expatiated, with volubility very unusual to her, upon the fortunate concurrence of circumstances which had brought Lionel to England just as his improved position made it more than ever probable he would be perfectly well received.
"That dear Mr. Barford," she said--and her face never changed at the name of the man in whose arms her son had died so short a time before--"assures me that every one is delighted to see him. And really, George, he mustn't stay at Long's, you know--it looks so bad--for every one knows he's in town; and if we don't receive him properly, that will be just the way to rake up old stories. I'm sure they're old enough to be forgotten; and many a young man has done worse than Lionel, and--"
"Stop, Gertrude," said Lord Beauport sternly; "stick to the truth, if you please. I hope very few young men in our son's position have disgraced it and themselves as he has done. The truth is, that we have to make the best of a misfortune. He has returned; and by so doing has added to the rest a fresh rascality by breaking his pledged word. Circumstances oblige me to acquiesce,--luck is on his side,--his brother's death--" Lord Beauport paused for a moment, and an expression, hitherto unfamiliar, but which his wife frequently saw in the future, flitted over his face--"his brother's death leaves me no choice. Let us say as little as possible on this subject. He had better come here, for every reason. For appearances' sake it is well; and he will probably be under some restraint in this house." Here the Earl turned to leave the room, and said slowly as he walked towards the door, "Something tells me, Gertrude, that in Arthur's death, which we dreaded too little and mourn too lightly, we have seen only the beginning of evils."
Lady Beauport sat very still and felt very cold after he left her. Conscience smote her dumbly,--in days to come it would find a voice in which to speak,--and fear fell upon her. "I will never say any thing to him about Annie Maurice," she said to herself, as the first effect of her husband's words began to pass away; "I do believe he would be as hard on Lionel as poor Arthur himself, and warn the girl against him."
How relieved she felt as she despatched a note to Lionel Brakespere, telling him she had fulfilled her task, and inviting him to return to his father's house when he pleased!
Assuredly the star of the new heir was in the ascendant; his brother was dead, his place restored to him, and society ready to condone all his "follies,"--which is the fashionable synonym for the crimes of the rich and the great. If Lionel Brakespere could have seen "that cursed woman"--as in his brutal anger he called his wife a hundred times over, as he fretted and fumed over the remembrance of their interview--as William Bowker saw her that day,--he would have esteemed himself a luckier fellow still than he did when he lighted his cigar with his mother's note, and thought how soon he would change that "infernal dull old hole" from what it was in Caterham's time, and how he would have every thing his own way now.
Such, as far as his knowledge of them extended, and without any comment or expression of opinion of his own, were the circumstances which Lord Beauport narrated to Annie. She received his information with an indescribable pang, compounded of a thousand loving remembrances of Arthur and a keen resuscitation by her memory of the scene of Lionel's disgrace, to which she and her lost friend had been witnesses. She could hardly believe, hardly understand it all; and the clearest thought which arose above the surging troubled sea within her breast was, that the place which knew Arthur no more would be doubly empty and desolate when Lionel should fill it.