But though the days and weeks went by with an unnatural rapidity, as it seemed to Mrs. Monckton—with a wearisome slowness in the opinion of her husband—the progress of time brought George Vane’s daughter no further onward, by so much as one step, upon the pathway which she had chosen for herself.
Christmas came; and the girl whose youth had been spent in the shabby lodgings in which her father had hidden the poverty of his decline, the patient young housekeeper who had been used to eke out ounces of tea, and to entreat for brief respite and grace from aggrieved chandlers, was called upon to play my Lady Bountiful at Tolldale Priory, and to dole out beef and bread, blankets and brandy, coals and flannels, to a host of hungry and shivering claimants.
Christmas passed, and the new year straggled into life under every disadvantage of bad weather; while the spring, the dreaded early spring, which was to witness Laura’s marriage, approached with a stealthy footfall, creeping day by day nearer and nearer.
Eleanor, in very despair, appealed to Richard Thornton.
She appealed to him from the force of habit, perhaps: as a fretful child complains to its mother: rather than from any hope that he could aid her in her great scheme.
“Oh, Richard,” she wrote, despairingly, “help me, help me, help me! I thought all would be so easy if I could once come to this place. But I am here, and I see Launcelot Darrell every day, and yet I am no nearer the end. What am I to do? January is nearly over; and in March, Laura Mason is to marry that man. Mr. de Crespigny is very ill, and may die at any moment, leaving his money to his niece’s son. Is this man, who caused my father’s death, to have all the brightest and best things this world can give? Is he to have a noble fortune and an amiable wife? and am I to stand by and permit him to be happy; remembering what happened upon that dreadful night in Paris—remembering that my father lies in his unconsecrated grave, and that his blood is upon this man’s head? Help me, Richard. Come to me; help me to find proof positive of Launcelot Darrell’s guilt. You can help me, if you please. Your brain is clearer, your perception quicker, than mine. I am carried away by my own passion—blinded by my indignation. You were right when you said I should never succeed in this work. I look to you to avenge my father’s death.”
CHAPTER XXXI.
A POWERFUL ALLY.
Richard Thornton was not slow to respond to Eleanor’s summons. The same post which carried Mrs. Monckton’s letter to the young man conveyed another letter, addressed to the Signora, urging her to abandon her pupils, for a time at least, and to come at once to Tolldale.
Eleanor had not forgotten the faithful friends who had succoured her in the day of her desolation, but the Signora’s habits of independence were not to be conquered, and Mrs. Monckton found there was very little that Eliza Picirillo would consent to accept from her.
She had insisted upon removing the music-mistress from the eccentric regions of the Pilasters to a comfortable first-floor in Dudley Street. She had furnished this new shelter with easy chairs, and Brussels carpets, an Erard’s piano, and proof impressions of the Signora’s favourite pictures; and in doing this she had very nearly exhausted her first year’s income, much to the satisfaction of Gilbert Monckton, who implored her to call upon him freely for any money she might want for her friends.