“There now, I am sure it is him—there he is,” cried Rachel; and it was Charlie, beyond dispute, shouldering his carpet-bag. The greeting was kindly enough, but it was not at all sentimental, which somewhat disappointed Rachel, at whom Charlie gazed with visible curiosity. When they turned with him, leading him home, Marian fell still farther back, and drooped more than ever. Perhaps the big boy was moved with a momentary sympathy—more likely it was simple mischief. “So,” said Charlie in her ear, “the Yankee’s cut out.”
Marian started a little, looked at him eagerly, and put her hand with an appealing gesture on his arm. “Oh, Charlie, what did papa say?” asked Marian, with her heart in her eyes.
Charlie wavered for a moment between his boyish love of torture and a certain dormant tenderness at the bottom of his full man’s heart, which this great event happening to Marian had touched into life all at once. The kinder sentiment prevailed after a moment’s pause of wicked intention. “My father was not angry, May,” said the lad; and he drew his shrinking sister’s pretty hand through his own arm roughly but kindly, pleased to feel his own boyish strength a support to her. Marian was so young too—very little beyond the rapid vicissitudes of a child. She bounded forward on Charlie’s arm at the words, drooping no longer, but triumphant and at ease in a moment, hurrying him up the ascending high-road at a pace which did not at all suit Charlie, and outstripping the entire party in her sudden flight to her mother with the good news. That Papa should not be angry was all that Marian desired or hoped.
At the door, in the darkness, the hasty girl ran into Mamma’s arms. “My father is not angry,” she exclaimed, out of breath, faithfully repeating Charlie’s words; and then Marian, once more the most serviceable of domestic managers, hastened to light the candles on the tea-table, to draw the chairs around this kindly board, to warn Hannah of the approach of the heir of the house. Hannah came out into the hall to stand behind Mrs Atheling, and drop a respectful curtsy to the young gentleman. The punctilious old family attendant would have been inconsolable had she missed this opportunity of “showing her manners,” and was extremely grateful to Miss Marian, who did not forget her, though she had so many things to think of of her own.
The addition of Rachel slightly embarrassed the family party, and it had the most marvellous effect upon Charlie, who had never before known any female society except that of his sisters. Charlie was full three years younger than the young stranger—distance enough to justify her in treating him as a boy, and him in conceiving the greatest admiration for her. Charlie, of all things in the world, grew actually shy in the company of his sisters’ friend. He became afraid of committing himself, and at last began partly to believe his mother’s often-repeated strictures on his “manners.” He did unquestionably look so big, so brusque, so clumsy, beside this pretty little fairy Rachel, and his own graceful sisters. Charlie hitched up his great shoulders, retreated under the shadow of all those cloudy furrows on his brow, and had actually nothing to say. And Mrs Atheling, occupied with her husband’s long and anxious letter, forbore to question him; and the girls, anxious as they still were, did not venture to say anything before Rachel. They were not at all at their ease, and somewhat dull as they sat in the dim parlour, inventing conversation, and trying not to show their visitor that she was in the way. But she found it out at last, with a little uneasy start and blush, and hastened to get her bonnet and say good-night. No one seemed to fear that it would be difficult to find Rachel’s escort, who was found accordingly the moment they appeared in the garden, starting, as he did the first time of their meeting, from the darkness of the angle at the end of the hedge. Marian ran forward to him, giving Charlie’s message as it came all rosy and hopeful through the alembic of her own comforted imagination. “Papa is quite pleased,” said Marian, with her smiles and her blushes. She did not perceive the suppressed vexation of Louis’s brow as he tried to brighten at her news. For Marian could not have understood how this haughty and undisciplined young spirit could scarcely manage to bow itself to the approbation and judgment even of Papa.
CHAPTER XXX.
A CONSULTATION.
“And now, Charlie, my dear boy, I quite calculate on your knowing about it, since you have been so long at the law,” said Mrs Atheling: “your father is so much taken up about other matters, that he really says very little about this. What are we to do?”
Charlie, whose mobile brow was shifting up and shifting down with all the marks of violent cogitation, bit his thumb at this, and took time before he answered it. “The first thing to be done,” said Charlie, with a little dogmatism, “is to see what evidence can be had—that’s what we have got to do. Has nobody found any papers of the old lady’s?—she was sure to have a lot—all your old women have.”
“No one even thought of looking,” said Agnes, suddenly glancing up at the old cabinet with all its brass rings—while Marian, restored to all her gay spirits, promptly took her brother to task for his contempt of old women. “You ought to see Miss Anastasia—she is a great deal bigger than you,” cried Marian, pulling a shaggy lock of Charlie’s black hair.
“Stuff!—who’s Miss Anastasia?” was the reply.