Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  The first to arrive was Arnold Ravensworth, a distinguished-looking man, with a countenance cold, it must be confessed, but full of intellect. And the next to arrive was not the Major. The day passed on to night. The trains came into the neighbouring station, but they did not bring Major Carlen. Blanche cried herself to sleep. She remembered how kind her papa used to be to her — indulging her and taking her about to see sights — and she had cherished a great affection for him. In fact, the Major had always indulged little Blanche.

  Neither had he come the next morning. After breakfast, Blanche went to the end of the garden and stood looking out across the field. The shady dingle, where as a little child she had sat to pick violets and primroses, was there; but she was gazing at something else — the path that would bring her father. Arnold Ravensworth came strolling up behind her.

  “You know the old saying, Blanche: a watched-for visitor never comes.”

  “Oh dear, why do you depress me, Arnold? To watch is something. I shall cross the field and look up the road.”

  They started off in the sunshine. Blanche had a pretty straw hat on. She took the arm Mr. Ravensworth held out to her. Very soon, a stranger turned into the field and came swinging towards them.

  “Blanche, is this the Major?”

  It was a tall, large-limbed, angular man in an old blue cloak lined with scarlet. He had iron-gray hair and whiskers, gray, hard eyes, a large twisted nose, and very white teeth. Blanche laughed merrily.

  “That papa! What an idea you must have of him, Arnold! Papa was a handsome man with black hair, and had lost two of his front teeth. They were knocked out, fighting with the Caffres.”

  The stranger came on, staring intently at the good-looking young man and the beautiful girl on his arm. Mr. Ravensworth spoke in a low tone.

  “Are you quite sure, Blanche? Black hair turns gray, remember; and he has a little travelling portmanteau under that cloak.”

  Even as he spoke, something in the stranger’s face struck upon Blanche Heriot’s memory. She disengaged herself and approached him, too agitated to weigh her words.

  “Oh — I beg your pardon — are you not papa?”

  Major Carlen looked at her closely. “Are you Blanche?”

  “Yes, I am Blanche. Oh, papa!”

  The Major tucked his step-daughter under his own arm; and Mr. Ravensworth went on to give notice of the arrival.

  “Papa, I never saw anyone so much altered!”

  “Nor I,” interposed the Major. “I was wondering what deuced handsome girl was strolling towards me. You are beautiful, Blanche; more so than your mother was, and she was handsome.”

  Blanche, confused though she felt at the compliment, could not return it.

  “Who is that young fellow?” resumed the Major.

  “Arnold Ravensworth; Mr. Ravensworth’s nephew. He lives in London, and came down yesterday for a short visit.”

  “Oh. Does he come often?”

  “Pretty often. We wish it was oftener. We like him to be here.”

  “He seems presuming.”

  “Dear papa! Presuming! He is not at all so. And he is very talented and clever. He took honours at Oxford, and—”

  “I see,” interrupted Major Carlen, displaying his large and regular teeth — a habit of his when not pleased. He had rapidly taken up an idea, and it angered him. “Is this the parson, Blanche? He looks very sanctimonious.”

  “Oh, papa!” she returned, feeling ready to cry at his contemptuous tone. “He is the best man that ever lived. Everyone loves and respects him.”

  “Hope it’s merited, my dear,” concluded the Major, as he met the hand of the Reverend John Ravensworth.

  Ere middle-day, the Major had scattered a small bombshell through the parsonage by announcing that he had come to take his daughter away. Blanche felt it bitterly. It was her home, and a happy one. To exchange it for the Major’s did not look now an inviting prospect. Though she would not acknowledge it to her own heart, she was beginning to regard him with more awe than love. That the resolution must have been suddenly formed she knew, for he had not come down with any intention of removing her.

  “Papa, my things can never be ready,” was her last forlorn argument, when others had failed.

  “Things?” said the Major. “Trunks, and clothes, and rattle-traps? They can be sent after you, Blanche.”

  “I have a bird,” cried Blanche, her eyes filling. “There it is, in the cage.”

  “Leave it as a souvenir to the Rectory. Blanche, don’t be a child. I have pictured you as one hitherto, but now that I see you I find my mistake. You must be thinking of other things, my dear.”

  And thus Blanche Heriot was hurried away. All the parsonage escorted her to the station, the girls in tears, and she almost heart-broken.

  Of late years Major Carlen had been almost always in debt and difficulty. His property was mortgaged. His only certainty was his half-pay; but he was lucky at cards, and often luckier at betting. He retained his club and his visiting connection, and dined out three parts of his time. Just now he was up in the world, having scored a prize on some winter racecourse, and he was back in his house in Gloucester Place. It had been let furnished for three years, portions of which time the Major had spent abroad.

  “It will be very dull for me, papa,” sighed Blanche, as they were whirling along in an express train. “I dare say you are out all day long, as you used to be.”

  “Not dull at all,” said the Major. “You must make Mrs. Guy take you out and about.”

  “Mrs. Guy!” exclaimed Blanche, her blue eyes opening widely. “Is she in London?”

  “Yes, and a fine old guy she is; more ridiculously nervous than ever,” replied the Major. “She arrived unexpectedly from Jersey one evening last week, and quartered herself upon Gloucester Place; for an indefinite period, no doubt. She did this once before, if you remember, in your poor mamma’s time.”

  “She will be something in the way of company for me,” said Blanche with another sigh.

  “Aye! She is a stupid goose, but you’ll be safer under her wing and mine than you would have been ruralising in the fields and the parsonage garden with that Arnold Ravensworth. I have eyes, Miss Blanche.”

  So had Blanche, especially just then; and they were wide open and fixed upon the Major.

  “Doing what, papa?” cried she.

  “I saw his drift: ‘Blanche’ this, and ‘Blanche’ the other, and his arm put out for you at every turn! No, no; I do not leave you there to be converted into Mrs. Arnold Ravensworth.”

  Blanche clasped her hands and broke into merry laughter. “Oh, papa, what an idea! — how could you imagine it? Why, he is going to marry Mary Stopford.”

  Major Carlen looked blank. Had he made all this inconvenient haste for nothing?

  “Who the deuce is Mary Stopford?”

  “She lives in Devonshire. A pale, gentle girl with nice eyes: I have seen her picture. Arnold wears it attached to a little chain inside his waistcoat. They are to be married in the autumn when the House is up. The very notion of my marrying Arnold Ravensworth!” broke off Blanche with another laugh. A laugh that was quite sufficient to prove the fact that she was heart-whole.

  “The House!” repeated the Major. “Who is he, then?”

  “He is very well off as to fortune, and is — something. It has to do with the House, not as a Member, though he will be that soon, I believe. I think he is secretary to one of the Ministers. His father was the elder brother, and the Reverend John Ravensworth the younger. There is a very great difference in their positions. Arnold is well-off, and said to be a rising man.”

  Every word increased Major Carlen’s vexation. Even had his fear been correct, it seemed that the young man would not have been an undesirable match for Blanche, and he had saddled himself with her at a most inconvenient moment!

  “Well, well,” thought he; “she will soon make her mark, unless I am mistaken, and there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.”<
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  Mrs. Guy, widow of the late Admiral Guy, vegetating for years past upon her slight income in Jersey, was Major Carlen’s younger sister, and a smaller edition of himself. She had the same generally fair-featured face, with the twisted nose and the gray eyes; but while his eyes were hard and fierce, hers were soft and kindly. She was a well-meaning, but indescribably silly woman; and her nervous fears and fancies had so grown upon her that they were becoming a disease. Lying before the fire on a sofa in her bedroom, she received Blanche with a flood of tears, supplemented by several moans. The tears were caused by the pleased surprise; the moans at her having come home on a Friday, for that must surely betoken ill-luck. Blanche was irreverent enough to laugh.

  * * * * *

  Major Carlen still counted a few acquaintances of consideration in the social world, and Miss Heriot was introduced to them. Mrs. Guy was persuaded to temporarily forget her ailments, and to act as chaperon. The Major gave his sister a new dress and bonnet, and a cap or two; and as she had not yet quite done with vanity (has a woman ever done with it?), she fell before the bribe.

  He had been right in his opinion that Blanche’s beauty would not fail to make its mark. So charming a girl, so lovely of face and graceful of form, so innocent of guile, had not been seen of late. Before the spring had greatly advanced, a Captain Cross made proposals for her to the Major. He was of excellent family, and offered fair settlements. The Major accepted him, not deeming it at all necessary to consult his daughter.

  Blanche rebelled. “I don’t care for him, papa,” she objected.

  The Major gave his nose a twist. He did not intend to have any trouble with Blanche, and would not allow her to begin it.

  “Not care!” he exclaimed in surprise. “What does that matter? Captain Cross is a fine man, stands six feet one, and you’ll care for him in time.”

  “But, before I consent to marry him, I ought to know whether I shall like him or not.”

  “Blanche, you are a dunce! You have been smothered up in that parsonage till you know nothing. Do you suppose that in our class of society it is usual to fall in love, as the ploughboys and milkmaids do? People marry first, and grow accustomed to each other afterwards. Whatever you do, my dear, don’t betray gaucherie of that kind.”

  Blanche Heriot doubted. She never supposed but that he whom she called father had her true interest at heart, and must be so acting. Mrs. Guy, too, unconsciously swayed her. A martyr to poverty herself, she believed that in marrying one so well-off as Captain Cross, a girl must enter upon the seventh heaven of happiness. Altogether, Blanche yielded; yielded against her inclination and her better judgment. She consented to marry Captain Cross, and preparations were begun.

  Meanwhile, Arnold Ravensworth had been an occasional visitor at Major Carlen’s, the Major making no sort of objection, now that circumstances were explained: indeed, he encouraged him there, and was especially cordial. Major Carlen had invariably one eye on the world and the other on self-interest, and it occurred to him that a rising man, as Arnold Ravensworth beyond doubt was, might prove useful to him in one way or another.

  One evening, when it was yet only the beginning of April, Mr. Ravensworth called in Gloucester Place, and found the Major alone.

  “Are Mrs. Guy and Blanche out?” he asked.

  “They are upstairs with the dressmaker,” replied the Major. “We sent to her to-day to spur on with Blanche’s things, and she has come to-night for fresh orders.”

  “Is the marriage being hurried on, Major?”

  “Time is creeping on, sir,” was the gruff answer.

  “Are they getting ahead with the settlements? When I saw you last week, you were in a way at the delay, and said lawyers had only been invented for one’s torment.”

  “They got on, after that, and the deeds were ready and waiting for signature. But I dropped them a note yesterday to say they might burn them, as so much waste paper,” returned the Major.

  “Burn the settlements!” echoed Mr. Ravensworth.

  The Major’s eyes, that could look pleasant on occasion, glinted at his astonishment. “Those settlements are being replaced by heavier ones,” he said. “Blanche does not marry Captain Cross. It’s off. A more eligible offer has been made her, and Cross is dismissed.”

  Mr. Ravensworth doubted whether he heard aright. Major Carlen resumed. “And she was making herself miserable over it. She cannot endure Cross.”

  “What a disappointment for Cross! What a mortification! Will he accept his dismissal?”

  “He will be obliged to accept it,” returned the Major, pulling up his shirt-collar, which was always high enough for two. “He has no other choice left to him. A man does not die of love nowadays; or rush into an action for breach of promise, and become a laughing-stock at his club. Blanche marries Lord Level.”

  “Lord Level!” Mr. Ravensworth repeated in a curious accent.

  “You look as though you doubted the information.”

  “I do not relish it, for your daughter’s sake,” replied Mr. Ravensworth. “She never can — can — like Lord Level.”

  “What’s the matter with Lord Level? He may be approaching forty, but — —”

  Mr. Ravensworth laughed. “Not just yet, Major Carlen.”

  “Well, say he’s thirty-four; thirty-three, if you like. Blanche, at twenty, needs guiding. And if he is not as rich as some peers, he is ten times richer than Cross. He met Blanche out, and came dangling here after her. I did not give a thought to it, for I did not look upon Level as a marrying man: he has been somewhat talked of in another line — —”

  “Yes,” emphatically interrupted Mr. Ravensworth. “Well?”

  “Well!” irritably returned the Major: “then there’s so much the more credit due to him for settling down. When he found that Cross was really expecting to have Blanche, and that he might lose her altogether, he spoke up, and said he should like her himself.”

  “Does Blanche approve of the exchange?”

  “She was rather inclined to kick at it,” returned the Major, in his respectable phraseology, “and we had a few tears. — But if you ask questions in that sarcastic tone, sir, you don’t deserve to be answered. Not that Blanche wanted to keep Cross; she acknowledged that she was only too thankful to be rid of him; but, about behaving dishonourably, as she called it. ‘My dear,’ said I, ‘there’s your absurd rusticity coming in again. You don’t know the world. Such things are done in high life every day.’ She believed me, and was reconciled. You look black as a thunder-cloud, Ravensworth. What right have you to do so, pray?”

  “None in the world. I beg pardon. I was thinking of Blanche’s happiness.”

  “You had better think of her good,” retorted the Major. “She likes Level. I don’t say she is yet in love with him: but she did not like Cross. Level is an attractive man, remember.”

  “Has been rather too much so,” cynically retorted Mr. Ravensworth.

  “Here she comes. I am going out; so you may offer your congratulations at leisure.”

  Major Carlen went away, and Blanche entered. She took her seat by the fire, and as Mr. Ravensworth gazed down upon her, a feeling of deep regret and pity came over him. Shame! thought he, to sacrifice her to Level. For in truth that nobleman’s name was not in the best odour, and Arnold Ravensworth was a man of strict notions.

  It has been asserted that some natures possess an affinity the one for the other; are irresistibly drawn together in the repose of full and perfect confidence. It is a mysterious affinity, not born of love: and it may be experienced by two men or women who have outlived even the remembrance of the passion. Had Blanche Heriot been offered to Arnold Ravensworth, he would have declined her, for he loved another, and she had as much idea of loving the man in the moon as of loving him. Nevertheless, that never-dying, unfathomable part of them, the spirit, was attracted, like finding like. Between such, there can be little reserve.

  “What unexpected changes take place, Blanche!”

  “Do not blame
me,” she replied, with a rising colour, her tone sinking to a whisper. “My father says it is right, and I obey him.”

  “I hope you like Lord Level?”

  “Better than I liked someone else,” was her answer, as she looked into the fire. “At first the — the change frightened me. It did not seem right, and it was so very sudden. But I am getting over that feeling now. Papa says he is very good.”

  Papa says he is very good! The old hypocrite of a Major! thought Mr. Ravensworth. But it was not his place to tell her that Lord Level had not been very good.

  “Oh, Blanche!” he exclaimed, “I hope you will be happy! Is it to be soon?”

  “Yes, they say so. As soon, I think, as the settlements can be ready. Papa sent to-day to hurry on my wedding things. Lord Level is going abroad immediately, and wishes to take me with him.”

  “They say so!” was his mental repetition. “This poor child, brought up in the innocence of her simple country home, more childish, more tractable and obedient, more inexperienced than are those of less years who have lived in the world, is as a puppet in their hands. But the awakening will come.”

  “You are going?” said Blanche, as he rose. “Will you not stay and take tea? Mrs. Guy will be down soon.”

  “Not this evening. Hark! here is the Major back again.”

  “I do not think it is papa’s step,” returned Blanche, bending her ear to listen.

  It was not. As she spoke, the door was thrown open by the servant. “Lord Level.”

  Lord Level entered, and took the hand which Mr. Ravensworth released. Mr. Ravensworth looked full at the peer as he passed him: they were not acquainted. A handsome man, with a somewhat free expression — a countenance that Mr. Ravensworth took forthwith a prejudice against, perhaps unjustly. “Who’s that, Blanche?” he heard him say as the servant closed the door.