Mrs. Russell Penton shook her head. She herself was very pale; her eyes shone with a strange, unusual luster. She said to herself that it was superstition. Why should not an old man take a passing fancy? It would pass with the occasion, it might mean nothing. There was no reason to suppose that this wonderful contradiction, this apparent revolution in his mind, was anything but a sudden impression, an effect—though so different from that in herself—of the stirring up of old associations. She sat down beside her father, and did her best to subdue the state of unusual exhilaration in which he was.
“You must not stay longer than you feel disposed,” she said, with her hand upon his arm.
“Oh, don’t fear for me, Alicia. I am wonderfully well; I never felt better. Look at young Wat, with that little partner of his! Isn’t she the little heiress? I shouldn’t wonder if he carried off the prize, the rascal! eh, Gerald? and very convenient too in the low state of the exchequer,” the old gentleman said; and he chuckled and laughed with the water in his eyes, while his daughter by his side felt herself turning to stone. It was not, she said to herself passionately, for fear of his changing his mind. It was that a change so extraordinary looked to her anxious eyes like one of those mental excitements which are said to go before the end.
It was Ally’s own fault that she got behind backs, and escaped the attentions which Mr. Russell Penton, absorbed, he, too, in this curious little drama, had intended to pay her. Ally, in the shade of larger interests, fell out of that importance which ought to belong to a débutante. It was a great consolation to her when young Rochford suddenly appeared, excited and delighted, anxious to know if she had still a dance to give him. Poor Ally had as many dances as she pleased to give, and knew nobody in all this bewildering brilliant assembly so well as himself. She was unspeakably relieved and comforted when he introduced her to his sisters and his mother, who, half out of natural kindness, and half because of the distinction of having a Miss Penton—who was a real Penton, though a poor one, in the great house which bore her name—under her wing, encouraged Ally to take refuge by her side, and talked to her and soothed her out of the frightened state of loneliness and abandonment which is perhaps more miserable to a young creature expecting pleasure in a ball-room than anywhere else. They got her partners among their own set, the guests who were, so to speak, below the salt, the secondary strata in the great assembly—who indeed were quite good enough for Ally—quite as good as any one, though without handles to their names or any prestige in society. Mab, when she met her new friend, stopped indeed to whisper aside, “Where have you picked up that man?” but Mab, too, was fully occupied with her own affairs. And Walter was altogether swept away from his sister. He made more acquaintances in the next hour or two than he had done for all the previous years of his life. If his head was a little turned, if he felt that some wonderful unthought-of merit must suddenly have come out in him, who could wonder? He met Ally now and then, or saw her dancing and happy; and, with a half-guilty gladness, feeling that there was no necessity for him to take her upon his shoulders, abandoned himself to the intoxication of his own success. It was his first; it was totally unexpected, and it was very sweet.
The time came, however, as the time always comes, when all this fascination and delight came to an end. Sir Walter had retired hours before; and now the last lingering guest had departed, the last carriage had rolled away, the lights were extinguished, the great house had fallen into silence and slumber after the fatigue of excitement and enjoyment. Walter did not know how late, or rather how early it was, deep in the heart of the wintery darkness toward morning, when he was roused from his first sleep by sudden sounds in the corridor, and voices outside his door. A sound of other doors opening and shutting, of confused cries and footsteps, made it evident to him that something unusual had occurred, as he sprung up startled and uneasy. The first thought that springs to the mind of every inexperienced adventurer in this world, that the something which has happened must specially affect himself, made him think of some catastrophe at home, and made him clutch at his clothes and dress himself hurriedly, with a certainty that he was about to be summoned. There flashed through Walter’s mind with an extraordinary rapidity, as if flung across his consciousness from without, the possibility that it might be his father—the thought that in that case it would actually be he, as old Sir Walter had said, who would be—The thought was guilty, barbarous, unnatural. It did not originate in the young man’s own confused, half-awakened mind. What is there outside of us that flings such horrible realizations across our consciousness without any will of ours? He had not time to feel how horrible it was when he recognized Mrs. Russell Penton’s voice outside in hurried tones, sharp with some urgent necessity. “Some one must go for Edward Penton and Rochford—Rochford and the papers. Who can we send, who will understand? Oh, Gerald, not you, not you. Don’t let me be alone at this moment—let all go rather than that.”
“If it must be done, I am the only man to do it, Alicia—if his last hours are to be disturbed for this.”
“His last hours! they are disturbed already; he can not rest; he calls for Rochford, Rochford! It is no doing of mine—that you should think so of me at this moment! How am I to quiet my father? But, Gerald, don’t leave me—don’t you leave me?” she cried.
Walter threw his door open in the excitement of his sudden waking. The light flooded in his eyes, dazzling him. “I’ll go,” he said, unable to see anything except a white figure and a dark one standing together in the flicker of the light which was blown about by the air from some open window. Presently Alicia Penton’s face became visible to him, pale, with a lace handkerchief tied over her head, which changed her aspect strangely, and her eyes full of agitation and nervous unrest. She fell back when she saw him, crying, with a sharp tone of pain, “You!”
“I’m wide awake,” said the young man. “I thought something must have happened at home. If there’s a horse or a dog-cart I’ll go.”
“Sir Walter is very ill,” said Russell Penton. “I hope not dying, but very ill. And you know what they want, to settle the matter with your father and get that deed executed at once.”