“No.” Agnes affected no surprise that the question should be asked her, and did not even show any emotion. Marian, with a sudden impulse of generosity, got up instantly, and came to her sister. “Oh, Agnes, I am very sorry,” said the little beauty, with her palpitating heart; and Marian put her pretty arms round Agnes’s neck to console and comfort her, as Agnes might have done to Marian had Louis been in distress instead of joy.
Agnes drew herself instinctively out of her sister’s embrace. She had no right to be looked upon as the representative of Lionel, yet she could not help speaking, in her confidence and pride in him, with a kindling cheek and rising heart. “I am not sorry for Mr Rivers now,” said Agnes, firmly; “I was so while this secret was kept from him—while he was deceived; but I think no one who does him due credit can venture to pity him now.”
Miss Anastasia roused herself a little at sound of the voice. This pride, which sounded a little like defiance, stirred the old lady’s heart like the sound of a trumpet; she had more pleasure in it than she had felt in anything, save her first welcome of Louis a few hours ago. She looked steadily into the eyes of Agnes, who met her gaze without shrinking, though with a rapid variation of colour. Whatever imputations she herself might be subject to in consequence, Agnes could not sit by silent, and hear him either pitied or belied.
“I wonder, may I go and see Miss Rivers? would it be proper?” asked Rachel timidly, making a sudden diversion, as she had rather a habit of doing; “she wanted me to stay with her once; she was very kind to me.”
“I suppose we must not call you the Honourable Rachel Rivers just yet—eh, little girl?” said Miss Anastasia, turning upon her; “and you, Marian, you little beauty, how shall you like to be Lady Winterbourne?”
“Lady Winterbourne! I always said she was to be for Louis,” cried Rachel—“always—the first time I saw her; you know I did, Agnes; and often I wondered why she should be so pretty—she who did not want it, who was happy enough to have been ugly, if she had liked; but I see it now—I see the reason now!”
“Don’t hide your head, little one; it is quite true,” said Miss Anastasia, once more a little touched at her heart to see the beautiful little figure, fain to glide out of everybody’s sight, stealing away in a moment into the natural refuge, the mother’s shadow; while the mother, smiling and sobbing, had entirely given up all attempt at any show of self-command. “Agnes has something else to do in this hard-fighting world. You are the flower that must know neither winds nor storms. I don’t speak to make you vain, you beautiful child. God gave you your lovely looks, as well as your strange fortune; and Agnes, child, lift up your head! the contest and the trial are for you; but not, God forbid it! as they came to me.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE RIVAL HEIRS.
Louis and Rachel returned that night with Miss Anastasia to the Priory, which, the old lady said proudly—the family jointure house for four or five generations—should be their home till the young heir took possession of his paternal house. The time which followed was too busy, rapid, and exciting for a slow and detailed history. The first legal steps were taken instantly in the case, and proper notices served upon Lord Winterbourne. In Miss Anastasia’s animated and anxious house dwelt the Tyrolese, painfully acquiring some scant morsels of English, very well contented with her present quarters, and only anxious to secure some extravagant preferment for her son. Mrs Atheling and her daughters had returned home, and Louis came and went constantly to town, actively engaged himself in all the arrangements, full of anxious plans and undertakings for the ease and benefit of the other parties concerned. Miss Anastasia, with a little reluctance, had given her consent to the young man’s plan of a compromise, by which his uncle, unattacked and undisgraced, might retire from his usurped possessions with a sufficient and suitable income. The ideas of Louis were magnificent and princely. He would have been content to mulct himself of half the revenues of his inheritance, and scarcely would listen to the prudent cautions of his advisers. He was even reluctant that the first formal steps should be taken, before Mr Foggo and an eminent and well-known solicitor, personally acquainted with his uncle, had waited upon Lord Winterbourne. He was overruled; but this solemn deputation lost no time in proceeding on its mission. Speedy as they were, however, they were too late for the alarmed and startled peer. He had left home, they ascertained, very shortly after the late trial—had gone abroad, as it was supposed, leaving no information as to the time of his return. The only thing which could be done in the circumstances was hastened by the eager exertions of Louis. The two lawyers wrote a formal letter to Lord Winterbourne, stating their case, and making their offer, and despatched it to the Hall, to be forwarded to him. No answer came, though Louis persuaded his agents to wait for it, and even to delay the legal proceedings. The only notice taken of it was a paragraph in one of the fashionable newspapers, to the effect that the late proceedings at Oxford, impugning the title of a respected nobleman, proved now to be a mere trick of some pettifogging lawyer, entirely unsupported, and likely to call forth proceedings for libel, involving a good deal of romantic family history, and extremely interesting to the public. After this, Louis could no longer restrain the natural progress of the matter. He gave it up, indeed, at once, and did not try; and Miss Anastasia pronounced emphatically one of her antique proverbs, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
This was not the only business on the hands of Louis. He had found it impossible, on repeated trials, to see the Rector. At the Old Wood House it was said that Mr Rivers was from home; at his London lodgings he had not been heard of. The suit was given against him in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and Mr Mead, alone in the discharge of his duty, mourned over a stripped altar and desolated sanctuary, where the tall candles blazed no longer in the religious gloom. When it became evident at last that the Rector did not mean to give his young relative the interview he sought, Louis, strangely transformed as he was, from the petulant youth always ready to take offence, to the long-suffering man, addressed Lionel as his solicitors had addressed his uncle. He wrote a long letter, generous and full of hearty feeling; he reminded his kinsman of the favours he had himself accepted at his hands. He drew a very vivid picture of his own past and present position. He declared, with all a young man’s fervour, that he could have no pleasure even in his own extraordinary change of fortune, were it the means of inflicting a vast and unmitigated loss upon his cousin. He threw himself upon Lionel’s generosity—he appealed to his natural sense of justice—he used a hundred arguments which were perfectly suitable and in character from him, but which, certainly, no man as proud and as generous as himself could be expected to listen to; and, finally, ended with protesting an unquestionable claim upon Lionel—the claim of a man deeply indebted to, and befriended by him. The letter overflowed with the earnestness and sincerity of the writer; he assumed his case throughout with the most entire honesty, having no doubt whatever upon the subject, and confided his intentions and prospects to Lionel with a complete and anxious confidence, which he had not bestowed upon any other living man.