CHAPTER XV.
LAUNCELOT.
Mrs. Darrell stood for some time clasped in her son’s embrace, and sobbing violently. The two girls withdrew a few paces, too bewildered to know what to do, in the first shock of the surprise that had come so suddenly upon them.
This was Launcelot Darrell, then, the long absent son, whose portrait hung above the mantel-piece in the dining-room, whose memory was so tenderly cherished, every token of whose former presence was so carefully preserved.
“My boy, my boy,” murmured the widow, in a voice which seemed strange to the two girls, from its new accent of tenderness; “my own and only son, how is it that you come back to me thus? I thought you were in India. I thought——”
“I was in India, mother, when my last letter to you was written,” the young man answered; “but you know how sick and tired I was of the odious climate, and the odious life I was compelled to lead. It grew unbearable at last, and I determined to throw everything up, and come home; so I sailed in the first vessel that left Calcutta after I had formed this determination. You’re not sorry to see me back, are you, mother?”
“Sorry to see you, Launcelot!”
Mrs. Darrell led her son across the lawn and into the house, through an open window. She seemed utterly unconscious of the presence of her two charges. She seemed to have forgotten their very existence in the wonderful surprise of her son’s return. So Laura and Eleanor went up to Miss Mason’s room and shut themselves in to talk over the strange adventures of the evening, while the mother and son were closeted together in the breakfast-room below.
“Isn’t it all romantic, Nelly, dear?” Miss Mason said, with enthusiasm. “I wonder whether he came all the way from India in that dreadful coat and that horrid shabby hat? He looks just like the hero of a novel, doesn’t he, Nell? dark and pale, and tall and slender. Has he come back for good, do you think? I’m sure he ought to have Mr. de Crespigny’s fortune.”
Miss Vane shrugged her shoulders. She was not particularly interested in the handsome prodigal son who had made his appearance so unexpectedly: and she had enough to do to listen to all Laura’s exclamations, and sympathize with her curiosity.
“I shan’t sleep a bit to-night, Nelly,” Miss Mason said as she parted from her friend. “I shall be dreaming of Launcelot Darrell, with his dark eyes and pale face. What a fierce, half-angry look he has, Nell, as if he were savage with the world for having treated him badly. For he must have been badly treated, you know. We know how clever he is. He ought to have been made a governor-general, or an ambassador, or something of that kind, in India. He has no right to be shabby.”