And this tall and handsome lad—this young soldier going forth to carry the Queen's colours in the distant East, was once her "baby boy," the child she had borne, nursed and nurtured. She had a sweet and sad, yet proud and joyous consciousness in this. Had he been weakly, deformed or crippled, she should have loved him all the same; but then, thank God! her Denzil was so handsome.
Often in far-away lands, on weary marches, in comfortless tents and rickety bungalows, on the banks of the Sutlej, or amid hostile Sikhs and Afghans, would he dream of the soft and loving face that had been bent in silence over his—the face he never more might see, save in those kind visions that God sends in sleep, to soothe—it may be, to sadden and to warn us.
"No child can ever know how dearly its parents love it—how they suffer in its illness, loss or departure," whispered Constance to herself; "still," she thought upbraidingly, "I left my poor father to sorrow in his humble home at Montreal—but then it was with a husband, so dear and true!"
The child that is ill or absent, is always valued the most; so poor Sybil was almost forgotten by her mother for the time. A few hours more, and both husband and son had left her in tears, to separate in London, each to pursue his own journey.
Of Richard's ultimate intentions, Denzil and Sybil were to be left in ignorance, and also of the object and purport of his absence. So Constance was left with her daughter only by her side.
The poor mother's heart felt as if thrust back upon herself now, for she was the mistress of a great family secret, which, as yet, she could not share even with Sybil.
So the long dreaded "to-morrow," had come, and other morrows followed, and Constance began to feel herself most sadly alone. Often she stole into the well-known room to kiss the pillow on which her Denzil's cheek had rested; to weep over the bed as if a death had been there, and not the departure of a gallant boy full of hope and life; and on each occasion as she lingered there, she strove to pourtray in fancy his face, as she last saw him, sleeping all unconscious that she hovered near; and with a wild but loving presentiment and hope that he would again occupy it some day, she kept his room intact, exactly as he had left it; his books, his fencing foils on those particular shelves, his old hat stuck round with fishing flies, on that particular peg where he was wont to hang it; his rods and guns, in yonder corner; though every detail, such as these, reminded her of him more vividly, fed her grief and roused the intense longing for his presence and return to her arms again.
"India—India?" she would say half aloud when communing with herself; "it may be ten years of separation. Ten years! Oh—no, never, surely! With my Richard's great influence as a peer of the realm, that must never be permitted. In ten years what changes must inevitably happen; who may be alive then, and who dead? Sybil should then be seven-and-twenty—married perhaps—and to whom?—with children it may be—my poor innocent Sybil! Oh no; three years at the utmost, and Denzil shall be again by his mamma's side!"
So the lonely Constance pondered, hoped and lovingly spun out like a web, her desires or mental view of the future, striving to gather happiness therefrom; while Sybil sought in vain to cheer her with music, to lure her out for a walk in the willowed dell, or a drive along the coast road, in their pretty pony phaeton.
The month was October now. With a sullen wail the autumnal blasts swept from the wooded hollows of Moorwinstow to the cavernous headland of Tintagel, cresting before their breath the waves of the Bristol Channel. There came gusts of rain too, that beat dolefully on the window panes, with an angry and impatient patter, adding to the dreariness of heart experienced by those in the Villa of Porthellick. The season was bleak, and nowhere could it seem more so than among the barren moors, the sea-beat bluffs, and resounding caverns, the wind swept pasture lands and promontories of Cornwall.