“Pooh, nonsense, Prescott! we know very well that she does not care for me, thank goodness; and, therefore, it is all the more likely that she may for you.”
Prescott did not care to pursue the subject farther, for he did not wish his friend to see that he felt any serious interest in the matter.
When Frank Maynard had left the house in Lowndes Square, Alice Heathcote did not for some time carry out the intention she had expressed of going downstairs to pacify her uncle. As she sat in her low easy-chair before the fire, not leaning back, but with her figure bowed, her hands listlessly clasping each other, and a look of weary hopelessness upon her face, she needed comfort too much to be able to dispense it. Alice had suffered a severe shock; one of those shocks which cast a shade over the whole life. The pain of a rejection—or, perhaps, more properly speaking, the duration of that pain—is in almost exact proportion to the amount of hope which was previously entertained. Instances are not wanting, indeed, where a perfectly hopeless attachment has embittered a whole existence; but those who so suffered must have been endowed either with a peculiarly sensitive organisation, or an ill-regulated mind.
It is the same thing in all relations of life. If a man hopes to attain a large fortune by the death of a relation, or by a fortunate speculation, or successful invention, he will form plans for the future, and build greatly upon his expectations. It will be a great shock, then, when he finds that the money is left to another, or the speculation or invention turns out a failure; but it will not rankle in his mind, will not permanently affect his whole career in life as it would do had a banker, with whom he had placed a similar sum of money, failed. It needs certainty, or that strong belief which is the same as certainty, to make the loss of a fortune, or the failure of a love-dream, cast a permanent blight over a life. Had Alice Heathcote doubted Frank’s feelings for her, she might still have loved him truly, she might have dreamed happy dreams, and built fairy castles of love and happiness. But she never would have quite given way to her love; she would have known that her dreams were but visions which might never come true, and that her castles were but baseless fabrics after all. Had she then found out that Frank did not love her, she would have felt it as a very great pain; she would have mourned over her vanished dreams, and her ruined castles, but the wound, deep as it might have been, would have healed over in time, and left but a slight scar. But she had believed, believed surely, that her love was returned, and so had given her whole heart, and nursed her love until it had become a part of her very being. Many things had assisted to cause this delusion. For so many years, almost ever since she could remember, she had looked up to him as her protector and adviser. He had always seemed fond of her, and, having no sister of his own, had petted and made very much of her; and Frank had a warm kindly way about his manner and talk which might very well deceive a young girl into the belief that his affection was love. While he was abroad, too, he had written so often and so affectionately, that, judging his feelings by her own, she had believed that he loved her. But most of all she had been deceived by her uncle’s manner and talk. The little hints and innuendos he frequently threw out, the way in which he had seemed to consider that it was a settled thing, had impressed her with the idea that Frank had spoken to him upon the subject before he left England, and was only waiting until his return to ask her formally. And so she had given her whole heart, trustingly and confidingly, and it was now a terrible shock to find that she had been mistaken after all. She could not blame him; she knew now that her eyes were opened, that he had never spoken or looked as a cousin, thrown with her as he had been, might not have done. Nor could she blame herself; for she felt that it would, under the circumstances, have been next to impossible for her not to have misinterpreted him. She could only lament her mistake, and feel with grief and bitterness, that her bright hopes and dreams had all faded away, that her castles which had seemed so solid had fallen, and that there was nothing to take their place; that dreaming and hoping were over for her, and the light of her life gone out for ever. So she sat there, and looked with a dull pain into the fire; the slight fingers twined in and out round each other, the lips, folded together to keep in the cry of grief she could hardly repress, yet quivering restlessly, while from time to time great tears rolled down from the long lashes. For a long while she sat thus; sometimes quite quiet, at others swaying herself backwards and forwards. At last, when the clock upon the mantel struck six, she roused herself with a weary sigh that was almost a wail, passed her hands slowly across her forehead and back over the hair by her temples, and then, dropping them listlessly by her side, passed out and up to her own room. She did not come downstairs until the dinner was announced; but when she did there were few signs upon her face of the hard struggle she had gone through. Captain Bradshaw, on the other hand, had by no means recovered the equability of his temper. He was throughout dinner in a state of explosion. He swore at the footman in an unusual way, and sent fiery messages to the cook, until she was, as she expressed it, so flustered she did not know what she was doing. Even the footman, accustomed as he was to his master’s outbreaks, felt aggrieved.
“He is just the very image of an Indian tiger, cook. I have been with him a good many years now, but I never did know him so awful cantankerous as he is to-day. He ain’t a bad master, the Captain, noways, but flesh and blood can’t put up with him; not white flesh and blood, black might; I shall tell him in the morning he must provide himself elsewhere.”
“Why didn’t you tell him now?” the cook asked sarcastically. “I would, right off.”
“I don’t think you would now, cook; I wouldn’t, no, not if he were to swear ten times wuss at me. He’s a regular old tiger, when his temper’s up, he is; and if any one were to say anything to him it would be a dreadful business; pretty nigh as much as one’s life were worth, I should say. Lor’ bless you, he would think nothing of taking up a poker or a candlestick, or a soup tureen, or anything which happened to come handy to him at the time.”
“And what does Miss Alice say to it all, James?”
“She is a right down good one, she is,” the footman said, admiringly; “she does all she can, but to-day he’s too fierce even for her. She ain’t looking quite herself neither. She did try once or twice to smooth him down a bit, but, bless you, when he’s in such a tantrum as he is to-day, nothing short of a strait-waistcoat and a cold bath would smooth him down.”
While this conversation was passing below, Alice Heathcote was having by no means a pleasant time of it upstairs. Captain Bradshaw had taken his usual place by the fire, with his port wine upon a small table beside him, while Alice sat down opposite, with a piece of fancy work in her hands as an excuse for idleness. For a little time after the servant had left the room, there was silence, and then Captain Bradshaw, after drinking off a glass of wine, and pouring himself out another, said, with great deliberation,—