About the same time, it might be the same night, far away, a deep blue, star-lit eastern sky was shining in still beauty over the cantonments of an English regiment, and Colonel Egerton was sleeping the restless disturbed sleep of a low fever. He wakes suddenly—fully roused—with a sense that he was wanted—that he was called. Yet he had not dreamt, at least, distinctly; nor was it till after some moments' thought, he connected that sudden impression with Miss Vernon—for Egerton was too full of rational energy to have his mind perpetually filled with one image. He had loved Kate, and still, at times, thought of her with deep tenderness; but a life of activity pleased and occupied him. Parting with her had swept away the light-hearted, buoyant gaiety of his early days; but left enough of cheerfulness to make life still very enjoyable. Time, absence, silence, above all, Burton's report, not long received, were gradually doing their work—ere long, his heart would have been free to cherish another, well and truly; yet never, oh, never, with the same exquisitely tender, pure unselfish love which she had breathed over the chaotic surface of his life; he still might taste the sweetness of the grape; but the unspeakable loveliness of its first fresh bloom was breathed upon—and vanished.
Colonel Egerton was worse the next morning; the regimental surgeon shook his head, and, at length, obtained a hearing, when, for the fourth time, he suggested native air.
Life at Carrington, with its innumerable small trials, is too monotonous to be carefully recorded.
Kate had much to suffer; yet it was not all suffering. She soon perceived the various rôles enacted by the family. Mr. Wilson was a thorough domestic tyrant, intense selfishness pervaded the whole party, except, perhaps, Mrs. Wilson. The eldest son was a pedant, a dry, cold calculating machine, who seemed chiefly to value his own unblemished character, because it gave him a right to be implacable to the failings of others. It is strange to write thus of the character of a boy not seventeen; but none could connect him with the faintest outline of that lovely, erring thing called "youth."
He was, however, an unceasing source of pride to his family; and even Pem., if he had an idea beyond his dinner, looked upon his brother as something quite extraordinary.
The day began with a severe trial, at least to Kate, in the shape of morning prayers. She shrank from Mr. Wilson's harsh tones, doling forth the gracious words of the gospel; and her rebellious thoughts refused to follow the long discursive address they all knelt down to hear read aloud, in accents of self-satisfied conscientiousness. Mr. Wilson dwelt, with unction, on the petition for the health and safety of his sovereign lady the Queen, and at the proper place even mentioned the servants, who, with demure and downcast looks occupied three chairs at the furthest possible distance permissible by the limits of the room. Then followed breakfast, at which he generally took the worth of his prayers out of them, in short, savage fault finding.
The morning meal over, Mrs. Jorrocks took her knitting, and Kate's duty was to read aloud, to her, till dinner time—one o'clock. But the books in which Mrs. Jorrock's soul delighted, were, unfortunately, of a class by no means suited to Miss Vernon. They were chiefly remarkable for the distinguished rank and general hard-heartedness of their characters, excepting only the heroine and her lover, whose sufferings, mental and physical, were rather supernatural; and usually drew tears from Kate's listener, who would have turned unmoved from the most affecting case of real distress; to be sure the novel only asked her tears, reality might have had some pretensions to touch her pocket.
Kate, however, read on perseveringly, she had made some attempts to recommend the style of book more suited to her own taste, and the age of her new protectress; but they were not well received, and she was compelled to return to the "dungeon and subterranean passage," revengeful, mysterious-stranger class of literature; still this was nothing to the task of reading aloud the newspapers. The police reports formed Mrs. Jorrocks' chief delight, and she expected Kate to read aloud, unhesitatingly the awful and revolting disclosures which the liberty of the press demands should disgrace its columns. This duty Kate gently and firmly refused, and she received unexpected support from Mrs. Wilson, who offered to read them herself. Nothing surprised Miss Vernon more than the untiring assiduity with which Mrs. Jorrocks devoted herself to the elucidation of her neighbours' affairs; none were too humble, none too exalted for her universal curiosity. The house-maid's lover, and the mayor's wife, the charwoman, and the duchess—she had scandalous stories of them all! Kate sometimes wondered if she thought well of her own children; she was never actively cross, nor could you ever discern that she was pleased, save on those rare occasions when a couple of aggravated failures amongst her acquaintances—a murder, a suicide, and the elopement of somebody's husband or wife, by their united excitement enabled her to pass a cheerful and satisfactory morning. Kate was almost surprised to perceive she was actually gaining favour in the eyes of this uncongenial old woman. She did not know the effect which her own grace and refinement produced upon the stiff, rugged, clayey nature she was thus brought in contact with. Each member of the family felt instinctively her superiority to themselves, while her unassuming gentleness prevented any of that soreness of feeling with which superiority is usually acknowledged; and although at first Kate was often disagreeably surprised to find that her presence was unnoticed when visitors came in, and no conversation was addressed to her who had been ever accustomed to find herself an object in society; yet all this wore off soon, and both Mrs. Jorrocks and her daughter learned to be proud of their elegant-looking inmate.
The greatest relief Miss Vernon experienced during this triste sejour was from the kind attentions of Mr. Davis's family, who were their near neighbours, and presented Kate with what she considered a beau ideal of an English merchant's family—hospitable, intellectual, well educated; respecting their own middle-class position, without a trace of that envious malignity towards rank which so often distinguishes les nouveaux riches. They might, perhaps, lack that extreme outward grace of manner and bearing, which nothing but an infancy and childhood passed among the refining influences of aristocratic accessories can bestow; but in every essential point they were ladies and gentlemen. A few hours passed with them was an inexpressible refreshment to Kate's spirit, and warmly was she received: they delighted in her music, and she willingly sang, even her most sacred songs, for them. Another—the only other comfort in Kate's life, was that Mrs. Jorrocks always retired early, and then she used to lock her door, and, if she felt her heart strong enough, indulge herself in a long study of the sketches Egerton had given her of Dungar and of the Priory.