“APRIL 30TH, 18——.
“MY DEAR SEVERN—
“You will remember my writing to you a few days after my wife’s death, enclosing to you a letter which she desired me to send to you as quickly as possible, and which she directed me to find in a certain place. Do you remember also my saying to you that though I had followed her directions exactly, the state in which I found the letter did not altogether correspond with her description? She said I should find it all written and signed, but not folded or addressed. On the contrary, the letter I sent you I found folded and addressed, all ready in short, save the stamps, to be posted. I am terribly afraid, my dear Severn, that I have made some dreadful mistake. Evidently there were two letters to be forwarded to you, of which the one I did send, and which I much fear was the least important, had escaped my poor wife’s memory. Only yesterday, being obliged to search among my wife’s papers for a missing document of some importance, I came upon the enclosed letter in one of the leaves of her blotting-book, written and signed, as she said, and lying there evidently waiting to be by her folded and addressed. Not improbably she had intended to enclose it to you in the same envelope as contained the one I sent. I now recollect that I felt surprised at finding it unsealed. As little as possible of the enclosed has been read by me. In my first astonishment at my discovery I read some lines of the first page; enough to explain to me that without doubt it was the letter Cissy referred to. The name of my wife’s young cousin, Marion Vere, caught my eye. Also that of a Miss Freer, with whom I am wholly unacquainted. Marion Vere spent the winter at Altes with my wife. It is probable you there met her. Beyond this the whole affair is a mystery to me. Nor do I ever wish to have it explained unless agreeable to you to do so. I earnestly trust my culpable, but not altogether inexcusable, negligence, may have done no harm. It will be an immense relief to me to hear this. I write in haste to catch the mail, so believe me, my dear Severn,
“Yours most truly,
“GEORGE ARCHER.”
Ralph read through this letter carefully, and felt after doing so as if he were dreaming. What could it mean? “Marion Vere,” who could she be? “Miss Freer,” a total stranger to Colonel Archer! Not for some moments did it occur to him to turn for explanation to the sealed enclosure.
Here indeed he met with it in full! With feelings of the utmost astonishment and bewilderment, succeeded, as gradually the mists cleared away, by a revulsion of almost intoxicating intensity of delight, gratitude, returning hope and reviving anticipation, did his mind at last take in the meaning of the strange solution of all past mystery. This then had been the poor child’s secret, this the reason of all the mistakes and cross-purposes! His Marion after all was no poor little struggling governess, on whom though he would have been proud to wed her, his narrow prejudiced world might have looked askance; but the daughter of one of the leading men of the day, come of a stock with which even Lady Severn herself could have no fault to find. And she had dreaded his blaming her innocent deceit, Cissy told him; had feared it might lower her irretrievably in his eyes! Truly as the daughter of an ancient house he could love her no more fervently, than as the despised little governess, sprang from no one knew where, with even the shadow of a suspected disgrace on her family; but yet in a very different sense, this revelation did increase his devotion, for it showed him yet more the unselfishness of her character and its rare union of strength and gentleness; and made him the more anxious to compensate to her by a life of happiness, of perfect mutual love and trust, for all he now well understood she must have so uncomplainingly suffered. It had not been a wise proceeding, this little comedy of hers—assumed names and positions are edged tools in the hands of inexperienced girls of nineteen—so much even Ralph’s partial judgment of all that Marion had done, could all but allow. But all the same he could not but lore and admire her the more for the sisterly devotion which prompted the scheme, the bravery and patience which had enabled her to carry it out.
Some hours’ reflection decided him that no time must be lost in tracing, by the light of Cissy’s communication, the girl whom he had little expected ever to see again. It all straight sailing enough now; the daughter of so well-known a man as Hartford Vere would be easy to find. He remembered hearing that the orphans of the late Mr. Vere had been left but scantily provided for; in all probability, therefore, their town house had been given up and the young people themselves received into the families of relatives, for he remembered too that Marion had told him more than once that she had no mother. Still he decided that London itself was the proper place in which to make enquiry, and thither he resolved as speedily a possible to betake himself.
One preliminary step only he felt it advisable to take. He must come to some understanding with his mother on the subject of his probable marriage. Not that he now anticipated much difficulty in this quarter, for things were very different between Lady Severn and her son from what they had been during the reign of Florence’s irritating influence.
The mother’s instinct had divined the change that had passed over her son; and now that she had come to know him better and love him more, there were few things she would not have agreed to, to give him pleasure. Often when he little suspected it, her heart ached for him, when the outward signs of the secret sorrow that had so changed him, came before her notice. The many grey hairs mingled with his black, the new furrows round eyes and mouth, the general air of depression and hopelessness, only too plainly visible even in one who had never been other than quiet and grave. She would have given worlds to have obtained his confidence; but she felt instinctively that she had neglected till too late to seek what now she would have prized so highly.