A March Violet. A novel

Chapter I

Mrs. Ainslie — the sincerest friend man ever had, and a most able counsellor — -was a woman who had very essentially the courage of her opinions, and no after-reflections of doubts or fears visited her ; but, perhaps, if she had been the priestess of the future, she had disclaimed being ; if she had been able to look forward and see all the results of her interference, she might have held her hand on that particular occasion. However, that foreknowledge of after events, which some people ignorantly desire, VOL. III. B and which is so mercifully withheld from us, not being among her many gifts, she sat in great content, feeling she had done her duty, her mind still occupied by all she had heard, and resolved that if, as she believed, an un truth had brought mischief to Harold's cause, she would unravel it and brinw all to li_rht.

She had many occupations and various things to do, and she went off to do them, with a certain sense of preoccupation ; getting through what she could, conscious that the story she had heard was dwelling most in her mind, but able to give full and ready interest to other things. When she came in she found a note from Harold : "I have had bad news. My dear mother is very ill. I am hurrying to her. Of course I cannot leave London at this moment ; she must be my first consideration." " Complication number one," Mrs. Ainslie said to herself, with a little sigh of impatience at the first check to a plan which had seemed so excellent. She wrote a note full of sympathy to Harold, and turned her attention to her other notes. That evening Harold came from his house to the Squire to consult him about getting some one to help him to nurse his mother.

Between him and his uncle had grown up a certain cold ness. Ameha had entreated the Squire not to interfere ; but he was resentful, angry and suspicious. He did not understand the position of affairs at all. Harold made no show of being Amelia's lover. He never showed her any mark of affection, and the honest heart of Mr. Thurstone resented for her what he imagined she was too much in love to resent for herself.' When Harold arrived it was late. Amelia had gone to the play with some friend who had taken compassion upon her, and Mrs. Thurstone was going to bed. Her husband always went to his club at that hour ; and Violet, who often came and spent the evening with them, was alone in the little sitting-room waiting to be summoned, when Mrs. Thurstone should be ready for her. b Harold's ring had not been noticed, and he walked upstairs, too much absorbed in his anxiety about his mother, and the turn her illness had suddenly assumed, to ask the usual questions about who were in and who were out.

Opening the door, he saw the tall and well known figure of Violet before him. Even at that moment a throb of happiness made his heart glow. When his mother was better, when this anxiety was over, the wretched entanglement should be put an end to, and life would then once more be filled with hope for him. Then, swift as thought, came self-reproach, that even for one moment any thoughts but those connected with his real anxiety could turn his mind from his mother's condition. Violet's hands were full of books and papers ; it was one of the signs of that something lying between them, that she never touched his hand even in friendship ; but she saw evidences of sorrow and agitation, and with that entire forgetfulness of self which constituted one of her great charms, she turned with womanly sympathy towards him ; but it was only the calm sympathy as between old friends — there w-as absolute indifference as regarded any sentiment.

He was checked and attracted all at once, reading so well by the light of his own passion the entire absence of it in her. In a few well controlled words, he told her his errand. He did not sit down. The few conventional phrases were omitted. It was the very first time these two had been alone, since all had come and gone between them. Anxious and unhappy as he was, Harold felt as though he must speak, must find out what had caused this cruel change in her. He required all his self-control to put himself upon the level of the standpoint she had placed herself upon. He fancied the tumult of his heart and its loud passionate throbs must make themselves heard in the dangerous silence of the moments after he had spoken. But she answered, and those moments had gone. Her voice was in harmony with his excited feelings ; it was low and sympathetic, even kind • but though he felt the soothing and quiet tone, there was a coldness which impressed him ; the distance between them was no nearer tnan before.

" When I was in Yorkshire, I learned to know a friend of yours, Mr. Thurstone, and a very great, a very warm friend of your mother's — Miss Niederhohe. I heard from her to-day. She has given up the teaching she had taken up, and she wrote only this morning to tell me she was coming to London. She intends to have a little home of her own, and to have some classes. But as she dearly loves your mother, would she not go to you now ? How is it ? What is it exactly you require ? " " AVhat I want ? " stammered Harold, trying to read her heart through her truthful eyes, and seeing no ray of response ; then he came to himself again. " It would indeed be all I want. Miss Niederhohe would be perfectly invaluable to me. I — cannot speak of my mother ; but she is more than ever now all the world to tt me.

" She must indeed be a noble and a grand character. You must feel so proud of her." Violet's coldness sensibly lessened ; the history of his mother's life appealed to aU her highest feelings ; for a moment she forgot all but that side of his life. " It is kind and good of you to speak so," he said with deep feeling. "Miss Niederhohe then has told you about her. You became friends ? " "I learned to know her well, and admire and like her much," Violet answered unguardedly. " It was natural that she should talk much about you and your mother." He came nearer, pleading hard for one friendly glance by his own beseeching look. It was a mistake, and recalled Violet to the present. " There is her address," she said ; and Harold, with that quickened sense of her avoidance of him which made him note her most trifling action, saw with a pang that she placed the address upon the table, avoiding his outstretched hand.

A burning flush of resentment rose in his face ; he felt irritated, baffled, miserable. "Thank you," he said. "You have — pro bably against your wish, since you have so learned to hate me — done me a valuable service ; " And with a look of passionate reproach he left her. " Are all men like that ? " asked Violet ; and, her self-restraint gone as the necessity for it disappeared, she sank upon the rug in a heap in front of the fire, and stared into the hot and glowing coals for her answer. " Are they all base and horrible, and ready to try and make every girl they meet believe that she has their love and all their devotion in her own keeping ? " She could not say, "I know all; Amelia has told me." And supposing she could, would he not explain and extenuate what could never in her eyes be either extenuated or explained.

She had grown to hate him, so he said. Was this true ? She thought she did hate him, it was true ; and she resented passionately the way in which he had tried to soften her, and make her once more look kindly at him. There was in his action even that evening, as she read it, disloyalty towards Amelia and cruelty towards herself. Harold . had not advanced one step, and no one knew it better than he did. Why could he not tear this hopeless love for a girl who scorned him out of his heart ? Should he ever know what lay behind all this ? Mrs. Ainslie's words came to his mind ; he had great belief in her powers, but he was too unhappy to be able to take much comfort from her words then. " There is an exception to every rule," he said to himself bitterly, "and I am the exception, I believe." To minister to a mind diseased there must be very full understanding of what led to its loss of health and loss of power.

The kindness shown to a child incapable of reason, an acquiescence in word, and a contradiction in facts, is often the only remedy tried by those who are wanting in experience, and who imagine that their love and affection can supplement that one great want. But a mind unhinged is not an unreasoning mind. There is the widest and greatest dis tance between reason which is trembling in the balance and a total want of reason. The very fact of the perpetual absence of argument helps to destroy what might be built up. Miss Niederhohe, who had studied, and thought, and nursed during the war, had more than once been thrown with those who had received an injury to the brain. Her own powerful intellect was one which grappled with what was not perfectly comprehended. When she was told what was wrong with her friend she went at once.

But she went fully resolved that she would bring every atom of intelligence and fullest compre hension. She listened to words meaningless to others, and put the pieces together ; and she took with her one element of success which no one had thought of. She alone, excepting Harold — who, from his occupation, could be but so little beside his mother — was capable of speaking to the brave heart stricken down from the overwork, sorrow, and tension of years, in the language of her childhood and her girl hood ; she alone could start afresh, as it were, answering each question, which no one but her self understood, by the light of those earlier days ; and in her own quiet tones, in the tongue so dear to the invalid, she talked of childish scenes and experiences, loosening the strains of the tired mind, explaining and helping her back step by step, as it were, from the past to the present.

And she did it all so gladly. To a mind like hers the opportunity of showing practically her love and the power of expressing her gratitude by any outward action was, of all things, what she most wished. The desire of her heart was given her, and she fervently thanked God.

Chapter II

Mr. Harley Dixon was often, in these days, sorely tried. It was inconceivable the very slight grounds upon which young men or their friends made it clear to him that the one desi rable thing in their lives was the hand of one of his daughters. It was, however, matter for rejoicing that the manner of the young ladies did not invite confidence, and that the brunt fell upon the father's shoulders — shoulders cer tainly broad enough to bear most things. He was glad, however, that the girls remained heart-whole and fancy-free, and he hoped that, as he had tried to give them a high and a real standard, they would not be dazzled or led into love affairs to which he could not give his consent. Elizabeth was the cleverest ; she had much of his power of discernment, and was able to understand many sides of a question.

He was, if anything, more proud of her than of any of them, though he was certainly quite as fond of his other children ; and Elizabeth was in these days so capricious and fitful that he was very much puzzled ; and the man whose chief talent lay in his pow7er of discerning what lay below the surface of things, tried in vain to account for inconsistencies in a girl who, up till now, had been remarkably consistent. Her temper, hitherto sunny and cheerful, was now irritable, and she seemed perpetually on the alert, looking out for slights, and acting upon the defensive. What worried him most, however, was the way in which she treated Mr. Sinclair. He seemed to speak only to offend her, and he was often driven into openly siding with the young man, who, it must be allowed, bore the skirmishes in question with a philosophy which never allowed him to show any disturbance on the surface of his own unruffled calm.

"Money certainly is powerless in many essential matters," thought the successful man. "Here is Violet Campbell, very like a sensitive plant ; if she had married George, she would have had the most peaceful life in the world, and would never have known a sharp breath if he could have saved her from it ; and she will not look at him, and all her life is spoiled, because of a reserved fellow who is not, to my mind, fit to tie her shoe-strings, and who has evidently been playing a double game ; and I, who love that chdd, and would lay any money down for her sake, or to give her happiness, can clo nothing." Miss Niederhohe had been a few days settled in the secluded house near Norwood before she wrote to Violet. " Come and see me," was the burden of her song ; " I cannot get away for long, but if you will come we can talk together, and you will find a happier and a more contented woman than the one you talked to in the Yorkshire farmhouse.

My coming has brought peace to my friend, and I have found my niche in the world. I am happier here than I ever thought I should have been again in this world. Come and see me. I owe much to your remembrance of me." Thus invited, Violet wished to go. Amelia was the person who tried to persuade her not to go. She was afraid of everyone in any way connected with Harold. At first, she had refused to go and see his mother, and made many excuses. Lately, Harold himself had recognised that her going was impossible. If this was so, it ought to have been equally impossible for Violet ; and a curious feeling of jealousy made her say many disagreeable things. She assured Violet that the poor woman was mad, and that her going was dangerous ; then she questioned the delicacy of her going there. "But I shall probably not see her," urged Violet.

"I go to see my friend, Miss Nieder hohe, and I hardly suppose, if she is as ill as you say, that I shall be allowed to see Mrs. Harold Thurstone ; seeing any stranger might do her harm." " You certainly will not see her." " Well, then, what harm can my going do ? Am I to avoid seeing my friend because she happens to be staying there ? " "You have more courage than I have. I have such a perfect dread, such a horror of mad people." " Now you are very inconsistent. You assure me I am not to see her, and then praise my courage all in a breath." "Are you sure you will see no one else there ? " and Amelia gave her a long look in which two expressions curiously blended together. Violet was indignant, and did not answer. " At any rate, if I were you, I would ask Harold's leave first. Shall I ask him for you ?

" "I acknowledge no right he has," exclaimed Violet hotly. " If I wished to see his mother he might certainly have the right to interfere ; but, as I have explained to you, I intend going to see my friend, and I certainly require no per mission from him. I intend to go whether he likes or dislikes it." " Is your mother fit to receive visitors ? " asked Amelia carelessly, when next she saw Harold alone. " Certainly not," he answered, frowning as he did when he was annoyed. " She has to be quiet just now. What makes you ask the question ? I do not suppose that you intend going. When I wished you to go you re fused ? " " Violet Campbell is bent upon going. I said I thought she might wait and ask you, but that had no effect." "My opinions have no weight with Miss Campbell, that I well know," said Harold hotly ; " but I do think that in this matter she might in common courtesy have consulted me."

At the moment he forgot Violet's intimacy with Miss Niederhohe. " Oh, Violet does not in the very least care for your opinion one way or another," said VOL. III. c Amelia cuttingly. " She fully intends going whether you like or dislike it ; those are her very words." " If she takes that line she will find that she takes trouble for nothing, for she will not be admitted. Why does she want to go ? What motive has she ? " " I cannot say I took the trouble to ask ; but I suppose she is curious, and " " No," said Harold, whose right impression of Violet's character always reasserted itself after a moment or two, " you are unjust to her. It is not like her ; and, of course, it is quite natural she should wish to go and see Miss Niederhohe ; it is not my poor mother, it is her friend she wishes to see."

" Oh ! " said Amelia, provoked to find how soon he allowed his irritation towards Violet to subside, " that is it, is it ; well, she might have put it more politely about you, at any rate." "Miss Campbell hates and despises me," said Harold slowly ; " she has so violent and extreme a dislike to me, that I am perfectly convinced some dreadful mischief, some terrible slander, has been the cause." " She is, perhaps, jealous ? " and Amelia gave him a curious look of inquiry. " It was not jealousy that prompted her letter to me," he answered quickly ; " she wrote to me as though I was utterly unworthy. No one knows better than I do that I am in all ways her inferior, save in offering her a love which even her disdain and scorn cannot shake ; and now, Amelia, I want to speak to you candidly and openly.

Will you hear me patiently ? " " I wdl not hear you speak of your love for another ; " and Amelia's dark eyes flashed ominously. " I wish to say what I have to say without hurting or vexing you ; no man could be more sensible than I am of your forbearance. I am a rude disagreeable fellow, and I think you are only too good to put up with me for an hour ; but all our future lies before us. A mistake now can never be rectified ; our lives spent here c together is the beginning of the life beyond. Do you not yourself feel, can you not acknow ledge, that our vague and indefinite engagement is a mistake ? " " If it makes me happy ? " " How can it make you happy ? You tliink you care for me, but my belief is that a woman as beautiful as you are could win a man's honest love. Why should you be content with the little I can give you ?

Have I not been honest with you ? I told you that, till I had learned to look upon Violet with indifference, I never would fulfil my engagement to you — that it would not be honest. I have never deceived you in the very smallest particular ; if I had, I would acknowledge my fault, aud bow down to you and ask you to forgive me. You know how the engagement was made — that I had never sought you. I had never breathed a word to be construed into the faintest acknowledgment of love. When that poor lady, believing death was near, gave me your hand, I fully believed that your words meant you understood how it was, and that you would yourself put an end to what was a mockery." Amelia's face was proud and hard as stone. " I have loved you, Harold ! " came from her parted lips. " Perhaps you did once, but " — and a faint smile crossed Harold's face — " I think that your love, or what you imagined your love for me, is not what it was, and that but for your pride, you would give me up."

He looked eagerly for some sign in the calm face before him. Many conflicting emotions took riotous possession of Amelia. Should she throw up all she had so worked for ? It was true that her great fancy for Harold was far less than it had been ; but the difficulties of her position hemmed her in. If Harold was free, would he not once more regain the ground he had lost with Violet ? Would that shameful lie not be dragged to hght ? At all hazards she must temporise, she must gain time. If the matter were left in her hands, she might gather her. mantle round her and die with decency. She held out her hand to him : "I cannot answer you all at once," she said, with a faint flush in her face ; " it is too serious a matter not to be thought over. If my love for you is lessened, it is your fault, and not mine ; even I, little as you may think of me, begin to shrink from the prospect of living with a husband who will never love me.

But I am not the only one to be thought of ; my aunt will break her heart if we break our engao-ement. We must not risk hurting her." " I clo not think you understand her, or do her justice," said Harold, feeling as though at last a hope dawned before him once more. " I am more convinced every day that the only right way of action is the straight way. Why not allow me to tell her frankly how it all was ? " " For my sake you must not do so ; you must leave it to me," exclaimed Amelia earnestlv. " I will think over your words, and let you know the conclusion to which I come — soon. At any rate, we may remain friends, whatever happens. " I must have something more definite before me ; " and Harold rose and stood before her. " I have applied to be sent on a mission which will take me out of England for some months.

So soon as my mother is really better, I believe I shall be sent. For your sake, as for my own, the new position, the new relation in which we stand towards each other, must be settled and made known. " Amelia," he added, and he took her hands in his, "forgive me, but I feel about you that there are two natures in you ; listen to your higher and nobler instincts ; let the world blame me. I will not justify myself ; but you know the truth. No need for me to go over all again. Act now according to your sense of right, and the approval of your conscience." There was an intense silence for a little space ; then Amelia rose. He could not understand the conflict, or measure the horrible fears of discovery which kept her back. At length she spoke, and her good angel triumphed. " Go, Harold ! " she said in a low and tremu lous voice.

" You are free, and you may publish your freedom to all the world ! " And snatching her hands from him, she rushed away to relieve her troubled and anxious spirit by a passionate outburst of tears !

Chapter III

When we have overcome a difficulty, which appears to us the chief obstruction in our path, we are a little apt to think that other things will be overcome as easily. We enhance uninten tionally what we have gone through, and in sensibly diminish and make of smaller account the various difficulties still looming before us. Harold, once he was set free by that conver sation with Amelia, felt the intense relief of being rescued from a false position. When he did remember how Violet had rejected him, a very plausible explanation offered itself. She had been influenced by Mrs. Thurstone's wishes, and had misunderstood the position of affairs. He had been hurried into an engagement, and had entered into it on the faith of Amelia's words. Though to all the world he would say no word in his own justification, it would be impossible not to tell Violet the truth.

She was so open herself, and so generous, she would understand. What words passed between Amelia and her uncle he never knew ; but the Squire was in clined to admire her for breaking with a man who was so half-hearted a lover. " I always thought it the most extraordinary thing, my dear, that you should have had any patience with a man who was so lukewarm about it all." "But you wished it, uncle." " I wished it very much. I used to wish it more than I can say. I suppose it was natural ; but now I know Harold, and know that he's as good an Englishman at heart as any of us, why, half the sting about him has gone. He certainly is not like the ruddy Saxon side of the family ; but his colour don't go deep, and he is a very clever fellow, and will do a great deal of good in his generation." " Then you do not mind so much ?

" " Frankly, my dear, now that my dear wife is getting so much better I do not mind any thing very much," said the Squire heartily. " I assure you to-day, when I found her fussing over her caps, I never was so pleased about anything ; and that reminds me I have a message from her to Madame Somebody, and must go and give it." "Will she mind ? " Amelia asked, conscious of not standing in quite so important a light to her uncle as she imagined, and receiving one of those little shakes to her self-love in consequence. The Squire looked grave. " She did wish for this, hope for this, very much ; but Amelia, when somehow that other world is brought very near to one, when it comes home to one, wishes and hopes and things of our own look much smaller ; they do look very small. I think that she has always felt sorry she interfered ; understand me, dear, we love you quite as well, but we have both gone through a very serious time, and we are content to leave important matters in higher hands.

I will tell her myself." "You think it quite wise to risk exciting her ? " " I think concealment very unwise ; I never have made mysteries with her, and I am not going to begin," said Mr. Thurstone bluntly. Amelia could say no more. That very day had been chosen by Violet to pay the promised visit to Miss Niederhohe. The Norwood villa was reached by a lane which was bordered by hedges just beginning to show green. The birds flicked their tails about and chirped, and showed their pleasure at a sunshiny day in bird fashion. It was not with out emotion that Violet dwelt upon the proba bility of seeing Harold's mother. She had no fear ; she knew from the letters of her Dutch friend that Mrs. Harold Thurstone's illness was entirely nervous, and that she was much better, also that she did not receive people ; therefore, that though they might meet by chance, it would be only a momentary meeting.

But Miss Niederhohe had told her so much, that had she never liked Harold, she must have felt interested in a woman who had done what this woman had done, sustained the burden of the little household, and single-handed fought the battle of life so successfully. Thinking of her brought her thoughts very naturally to Harold himself. Putting aside all thoughts of herself, how earnestly she wished that it was possible to reinstate him upon the pinnacle from which, in her eyes, he had fallen ! How could the son of such a mother have played the part he had played ? Then a curious and almost Quixotic feeling came to her ; she would seek every opportunity of being with Amelia ; she would try and awake in her every instinct that was high or noble, and by her influence she would reach him. Herself powerless (since they must meet as seldom as possible) in this way she might be able to appeal to all that was good in him.