So ended my uncle's rambling letter, which certainly had the effect of setting me to think too, and with a heart full of sudden trouble, anxiety, and irritation.
CHAPTER XV.
In aught that tries the heart, how few withstand the proof.
* * * * *
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now?
BYRON.
If Lady Louisa had not mentioned me in her letter to Cora, there was doubtless a secret and very good reason for the omission; but I thought it cold, and certainly uncourteous, that the countess, fresh from a long visit at Calderwood, should omit to invite me to her house; and that the earl should not have left his card for me at the barracks.
So Cora was going to Chillingham Park! Well, at all events, I would visit my cousin Cora, were it but to evince my regard for Sir Nigel. But to know that Louisa was now, and had been for a month past, within a few miles of me, and that I had neither seen nor heard from her, while Berkeley was a frequent visitor at her father's house, filled me with such mortification that I could barely control my emotion when in his presence. His silence on the subject, too, added to my suspicions, and inflamed my smothered wrath; yet it was a matter on which I had no right to question him.
Wounded vanity and self-esteem also sealed my tongue; and I actually despised myself when discovering that I could not help remarking his absence or his presence in quarters, and his going from the barracks to and fro.
In the old duelling days—ay, had we been so circumstanced only some ten years before, and ere so decided a change came over public opinion—I should have made short work of it with my esteemed brother officer, and unmasked his duplicity. He might be a suitor to whose suit no response was made, even though Lady Chillingham seconded his intentions; but then she had, I knew, views regarding Lord Slubber. Louisa, however, could not have changed; or, if so, why send me the pretty miniature?
Vainly I strove to busy myself with the interior economy of my troop, its management and discipline. Vainly I sought to kill time by attending closely to the men's messes and equipment, their pay-books, accoutrements, and horses, counting the days as they passed; but no letters came. I frequently absented myself from the barracks between the parades, with that strange superstition and hope which many persons have, that if they go away for a little time they will find the longed-for answer when they return. But save tradesmen's bills—missives which became more urgent as the rumoured day of departure drew nearer—no enclosures ever came to me.
At last, finding suspense intolerable, one evening—I remember that it was the last of March—Beverley gave me leave from parades for two days. I mounted, and took the way by Sittingbourne—a quaint old Kentish town, which consists of one wide street bordering the highway, and by the village of Ospringe, to Canterbury, where I put up at the Royal Hotel; and, after having my horse corned, trotted him along the Margate Road, till I came to the well-known gate of Chillingham Park.
The lodge—a mimic castle in the Tudor style—was pretty, and already covered with green climbers; through the bars of the iron gate, which was surmounted by a gilded earl's coronet, I could see the carefully-gravelled avenue winding away with great sweeps between the stately old trees, and bordered by the smooth, velvet-like lawn of emerald green, towards the house, a small glimpse of the Grecian peristyle and the white walls of which were just visible. There she dwelt; and I gazed wistfully at the white patch that shone in the sunshine between the gnarled stems of her old ancestral trees. On hearing a horse reined up without, the lodge-keeper came forth, key in hand, and politely touched his hat, as if waiting my pleasure; but I waved my hand, and with a flushing cheek and an anxious heart, let the reins of my nag drop on his neck, and rode slowly and heedlessly on.