A Real Queen: a romance

Front matter

VOL I NEW NOVELS AT EVERY LIBRARY. MAID OF ATHENS. By Justin McCarthy, M.P. 3 vols. ALL IN A GARDEN FAIR. By WALTER BESANT. 3 vols. THE LAND-LEAGUERS. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 3 vols, ANNAN WATER. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 3 vols. THE FOREIGNERS. By E. C. PRICE. 3 vols. IONE. By E. LYNN LINTON. 3 vols. BEATRIX RANDOLPH. By JULIAN HAWTHORNE. 2 vols. THE CANON'S WARD. By JAMES PAYN. 3 vols. FRESCOES : Dramatic Sketches. By OUIDA. 1 vol. FANCY FREE. By CHARLES GIBBON. 3 vols. CHATTO & WINDTJS, Piccadilly, W. '■■- M Romance BY R. E. FRANCILLON, AUTHOR OF "OLYMPIA," "QUEEN COlPHETUA," "ESTHER'S GLOVE," ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. 1. bonbon CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1884 [Ati right, reserved] PRINTED BY KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS; AND MIDDLE WILL, KINCSTON-ON-THA1IES. CHAPTEE I. I ca 11 This gift before all other good — To have the rose of womanhood Mine own, from hud to fall.

ROSAMOND !— why you must have taken leave of your seven senses, my dear boy. Rosamond ! Do you know her age ? " " Yes. She is old enough for me to know that the older she grows the better I shall love her. But I don't think you quite understand." " Well, that's soon seen. I'll state the case, as if for the judges. My niece, Rosamond, was just fifteen yesterday. You are — let me see, how old are you ? " " Three-and-twenty last July." VOL. I. B ■2 " Quite so. And you, Oswald Hargrave, who were only her age eight years ago, actually offer marriage to a child who in eight years will be only as old as you are now ! Come — put such nonsense out of your head ; and if you can't, come in doors, and I'll show you a flint hatchet — found only yesterday in Patchett's Piece, Oswald ! — which will. A real Celt, my boy."

" No, Mr. Fane," said Oswald Hargrave, colouring a little at the slight put upon the number of his years, but with certainly no other sign of indecision ; " I'm afraid — or rather I'm not afraid — that the flint is still unsound that can Avork that miracle. You haven't stated the case quite fully, after all. It's true Eosa mond's but fifteen, and I but twentj' three. "Well, I suppose most people are, at some time in their lives, either one or the other. Some day she will be twenty three, and I shall be thirty-one. Of course, I'm not asking to marry Eosa mond to-dav." " To-day ! God bless the boy ! " "But, as I surely mean to marry her some day, the sooner that's clearly un derstood by everybody the better it will be. I'll wait two years — three — lour ; but if I have to wait a hundred it will be the same."

Chapter II

She stood upon the charmed height Between the vales of Day and Night, And sighed. " But all in rain My secret path I strive to seek, AVhile clouds conceal the mountain-peak, And mists are o'er the plain." Yet, who may stand in doubtful wise, ■ 'Twixt clouded earth and cloudier skies? On moments hangs the way. By Chance's chasms creeps the path She dares, unknowing if she hath Bared forth toward Night or Day. BUT, as well as a Rosamond, there was a Sophy — a very good little girl, with wits as quick as lightning, and two eyes which only Avanted to be a little less blue in order to be as sharp as needles. It was she, not her sister, avIio happened to be looking out of the precise window which had a full A'iew of the kitchen garden up and down Avhich Uncle Æneas and A'oung Mr. Hargrave were pacing.

Somehow it alvol. i. c ways did happen so— that, when any thing happened, great or little, Sophy, by the merest accident, chanced to be at the only window which overlooked them. The visitor was welcome, for Oswald had never been shy with Sophy, and she ran off to let her sister share in her piece of good news. But, on her way through that devious house, she chanced to pass another window, and that happened to be the only window with a clear view of the entrance to the car riage drive at the precise moment when Mr. and Mrs. Pitcairn, the Rector and his Avise, Avere entering. Sophy did not care for the Eector one quarter of a straw, nor for the Rector's Avise more than three ; so it Avas with mingled feelings that she continued her flight, seeing nothing more by the Avay — where by it Avas proved to demonstration that there was nothing more to see.

From the second window, she ran along a dark and narrow white-washed passage, full of bulges and beams, then plunged doAvn three steps into a sort of lumber room, Avith a skylight, and then struck Avith her fist a solemn blow upon a closed door. Counting three, aloud, she struck two blows ; then counted five, and struck three bloAVS. Then she waited to see what Avould come of this someAvhat complicated manner of tapping at a door. But Sophy Avas certainly not of the sort to wait long for anything ; so, after a minute, she showered a rain of raps, and called out, " Rosamond ! aren't you there ? But I know you are, for the door's locked. Let me in — I've got such heaps of news ! " Presently she was answered by the grating of a rusty key in an exceedingly stiff lock, and the door Avas opened, shoAving the interior of a loft not unlike Avhat a prison cell of ancient times may have been.

It Avas gloomy, being lighted only by a barred and lat ticed window nearly as high as the ceding ; the walls and floor were bare, and it was furnished only with a chair, c a table, and a thick heap of straw piled up in one corner. "When Avill you give the signals right, Sophy?" asked Rosamond — not impa tiently, but Avith sad reproof in her tones. "Didn't we settle that three knocks — three betAveen the first and second, and five between the second and third, Avas to mean ' Everything all right, and nobody Avants you?'" "Of course I know that — but I made, indeed I did, five — no, three, betAveen the first and second, and five — no, that Avas three — between the second and third ; and I know that's the sign for ' Come out at once — important news ! ' " Oh, Sophy," said Rosamond, " you must be more careful — you must indeed.

Just think what would happen, if the enemy — if signals were to be mixed up in a war ! We might as well have none at all. Before we go to bed I'll make you go over all the secret signs all over again. But Avhat is the news? And I'm so busy — mast I come doAvn ? " Sophy Avas already pretty ; but Rosa mond, the elder sister by a year, was not beautiful yet, although there was no reason why she should not, some two or three years hence, wake up one morn ing and find herself — or go out some evening and be found — beautiful. Mean- AA'hile, it was perfectly clear that she was magnificently alive. When out of doors, as every fisherman in Crossmarsh kneAV, her dark grey eyes were as good as telescopes for the horizon, and as microscopes for every tiniest caprice of nature among the rock pools. She ought to have been an invaluable niece to a collector of the caprices of nature and art like Uncle Æneas ; but, alas, she Avas nothing of the kind.

She was content to see things, . and disliked gathering them. Though not a down right brunette, she was by no means so fair as became her historical name, and her complexion, not as yet clear enough for beauty, had no suggestion of the lilies of her namesake, nor her hair of the gold — of the rose, about which the sea breezes had much to say, there was something ; her hair was brown and heavy, not to say at present shaggy, with an undertint of chestnut ; a good colour, and not too common. The lips had much of the child left in them, and had yet to form ; they pro mised to become the outward signs of a large and generous nature. She was well groAvn for her age, as the phrase is, and might remain at her present height for good and all without disadvantage. For she had already obtained a graceful and stately bearing at once erect and free ; Diana herself, at Avhat ever age among goddesses answers to mortal fifteen, must have been curiously like Rosamond.

Brotherless as they Avere, there had grown up between Sophy and Rosamond something of the relation of girl and boy, for, where but two are in company, the one must serve and the other must rule. In this case the ruler was unquestionably Rosamond. Sophy Avas all blue-eyed littleness and liveliness, Avith a suggestion of the kit ten, both in its softness and in its peculiar style of mischief; but if Rosa mond was in any sense femininely feline, it Avas in the lioness's Avay. And it is wood for a girl to have a touch of the boy in her, just as it is good for a boy to have a touch of the nature of the girl. "Yes, you must come down indeed!" answered Sophy. " OsAvald's here ! " "Oh!" said Rosamond; "that all? Sophy, you are incorrigible ! Just on the very point of raising the murderer's ghost, and to be interrupted for nothing, and the ghost rising so nicely, too.

No, Sophy. If it's only Oswald, I don't think I'll come down. He can't want me — it's only that new flint thing that's brought him, you may depend. We'll haA'e a neAv signal for Oswald. If he asks after me, tell him I'm particularly engaged. " " With the ghost of a murderer ? " asked Sophy, simply; but perhaps not quite so simply as it seemed. For she represented the humour of the household in her blue-eyed Avay. " For goodness sake — no ! " exclaimed Rosamond, colouring to the hair. " You might just as Avell let him in to all our secret signs. We understand, Sophy, but, A\'hen you come to know the Avorld, you'll find that people like Oswald only laugh at such things : and it isn't nice to be laughed at. He'd call me a Avitch — and — and all sorts of things." " Yes, I think very likely he would," said Soph}'.

" And the ghost — is it A'ery dreadful? Is it really rising well?" " You'll see ! I only knew it haunted me all last night — at least till I fell asleep — till I really thought I should ne\-er close my eyes. You see, I had committed such a terrible murder " " The ghost, you mean ? " " Of course — before it ivas a ghost, you know — that what came afterwards — But I can't tell you now. No. I can't leave the ghost iioav. He's just coming out of his grave, and he might go in again if I Avent away, and then I should have to begin to raise him all over again." It is lamentable that Sophy was not of an imaginative nature, for thus was thrown away a picture that more than one of those feAV painters avIio had as yet discovered Crossmarsh and Windgates and all that country would have thought Avorth risking an academic rejection for.

There Avas the Avitch's magic chamber — dark, silent, secret, cell-like, as such cham bers ought to be. Only enough sunlight came through the lattice to bring out the gloom of the background, and, by leaving the corners untouched, to leaA^e an unex plored further region of darkness, in Avhich the fancy might work spells at AviU. A veritable ghostly outline was af forded by the heap of straAV — at any rate, any ordinary brush could easily conjure up the suggestion out of a material where of ghosts have been so often made. And there, at the entrance, framed by the black oaken doorway, stood the witch herself, with the pale day of the skylight bearing full upon her face — a wild young Avitch, disturbed in the midst of her ghastly incantations by a smiling blue eyed child. " Oh ! but won't the ghost Avait ?

" asked Sophy. " And you've been with him all day!" " No ; he can't wait," said Rosamond, " and / can't wait " " Then he's a selfish creature," said Sophy. " Can't you tell him that if there's one thing I hate in all the Avorld, it's having to talk to those Pitcairns ? And you do it so nicely, and I've so much to show Oswald. Oh, Rosamond, I don't like your ghost to-day ! " "The Pitcairns? Are they here too?" " Yes ; but I'm sorry I said it now. Of course, if you wouldn't come down to OsAvald, you won't for the Pitcairns." "Well, Avhat shall I say about Avhy you can't come ? " Rosamond looked lingeringlv behind her, then up at the skylight, and pushed back her tumbled mane. " Of course it's dreadfully provoking : but — I do really want to see — the Pit cairns, " said she. And she meant the Pitcairns, and did not mean Oswald Har grave, for all that she made that pause before the name — so false a Avitness a tell tale pause may be.

Whatever the nature of her, secret incantations, the heart of the witch was too honestly absorbed in them to desire the company of an earthly farmer who knew no magic but that of phos phates and steam boilers. But there were reasons why Mr. Pitcairn, though reputed a bore, represented to the mind of Rosa mond the great, wide, unknown, wonderful world that lay beyond Crossmarsh — nay, even beyond Windgates : beyond everywhere. "I have a question," she said, " that I Avant to ask Mr. Pitcairn. I want to ask him if, when he was a missionary, he ever saw the upas tree." " Oh ! that will be delightful ! " cried Sophy. " I can take Oswald into the garden, and uncle can show Mrs. Pitcairn his cabinets, and you can talk to Mr. Pit cairn about the upas tree. They're all safe to stop to tea, and that will suit us all.

Rosamond, you will get the ghost to wait till after tea ? " Rosamond looked doAvn — some distance down — at her sister,, and then, for the first time, smiled. She had, at any rate, laid one ghost — that of temper. Sophy, after all, Avas dearer to her even than her murderer's spirit, and the more masculine nature, as a matter of course, gave Avaj*. I have said that Rosamond Avas the one who nature ruled. And eA-en so do men rule — by obeying her. If there be one grain of paradox in the relation between Sophy and Rosamond, betAveen man and woman, be tAveen mind and matter, Science shall decide. The scene in the Avitch's cave had not occupied many minutes, but still, with its necessary sequence of a slight toilette, long enough to have assembled the visitors in the drawing-room. Except as regarded the stables, there Avas a decidedly old-fashioned air about everybody and everything about Cliff Cottage Avhich unmistakably embraced its two young mistresses.

Both Rosamond and Sophy were certainly Avhat is called old-fashioned young people, each in her separate and different way. Indeed, it would be surprising had it not been so, seeing Iioav completely out of the common air of the living modern world tlieir bringing up had been — all in all to one another, and otherwise companionless, save for an antiquarian uncle and a grave, grown-up young man. Even in tlieir talks with one another, simple and unaffected as they were, they had developed certain mannerisms, which might strike outsiders as being quaintly set and formal. Sophy, in spite of her own indiA'iduality, very considerably re flected Eosamond when in company, and the contrast betAveen her own self and Rosamond's reflection made her often appear the more singular child of the tAvo. The grown-up sayings and the long, sometimes eA'en pedantic words were odder in her than in the elder and statelier Rosamond, avIio might at times pass a'most as a real woman for an hour together.

Oswald AA'ondered sometimes Avhether Rosamond had ever been a real child — sometimes whether she would ever cease to be one. And nobody else eA7er studied her at all. This, however, is to stray from the draAving-room, Avhere Uncle Æneas and his ATisitors Avere gathered. The host himself was A'ery decidedly and appro priately old fashioned, in accordance with his surroundings, for it was full tAvo generations since the Fanes of Crossmarsh had bought any new furniture worth mentioning. The room Avas therefore as little like the results of modern fashion, and as much like what modern fashion fancies itself to be restoring, as can possibly be imagined. Art Avas utterly absent, and chance reigned supreme — that chance avIio alone is possessed of realh' good taste in such matters. More over, the place had its traditions, AAdiich Rosamond and Sophy accepted as matters of hereditary faith, Avithout any insight into the æsthetics of them.

The window Avas open, but the air of the room Avas mysteriously fragrant vvitli the forgotten mysteries of pot-pourri instead of the stinging scent of the sea shore. The frame Avas ready, but empty ; and, when Rosamond entered, with Sophy's hand in hers, the picture, so OsAvald thought, breathed into being, and the frame be came full. Oswald was lounging in the window ; Uncle Æneas was displaying the ancient British hatchet to a plain little old lady, in a real bonnet and flat grey curls ; and the Rector, a burly clergyman, evidently considerably younger than his wife, was apparently delivering a lecture to the Avorld at large. The two girls had not seen enough strangers in their lives to have caught the shyness that only seeing more and more strangers can partly cure. Sophy at once left her sister for Oswald, and Rosamond, taking a quick kiss from Mrs. Pitcairn, and a beaming handshake from the Rector, without interrupting the discourse, settled herself quietly on an out-of-the-way sofa.

OsAvald could cer tainly have gone to her, but he Avas Sophy's prisoner ; and, though bold enough to Uncle Æneas, that very bold ness had rendered him embarrassed before the girl. HoAvever, he Avould speak to her presently ; and, meaiiAvhile, any com mon, public speech would be out of keeping with his humour. And besides, there seemed, to his eyes, always some thing ucav about Rosamond. WheneA'er he saAv her again, after hoAvever short an absence, she had spread out some neAv and unexpected charm — and a neAv charm meant a change that required fresh study before adding to his heart's familiar pic ture. For his love for this child was still childlike ; he foresaw the passion that it would become some day, and meanwhile, lived in an air of conscious hope, which is the purest air that a man can breathe.

He, rightly or Avrongly, reverenced in Rosamond the woman who Avas yet to be, so soon as the unapproachable angel of the bud should give place to the visible and gracious angel of the open flower. These Avere not his conscious words, but they Avere his thoughts ; and it did not end in sentiment, but in the fixed resolve he had spoken to Uncle Æneas — that he, who alone had perceived the beauty of the bud, should alone gather the flower. That he did not Avholly understand what Avas hidden and growing in the closed petals he perfectly well knew. But he was content to be aware of mysteries, without a thought of forcing the petals apart before their time. And so, where Rosamond was, it was OsAvald, for all his age and knowledge, who was shy. " As you're so curious in axes, Fane, vol. i. n said Mr. Pitcairn, in his rich voice, by which an Ulster man Avould have been reminded of his allegiance to the pious and immortal memory of the Prince of Orange, " you must come over some day soon — drop in to pot-luck, you know — and see some of mine ; I've got axes — aye, and some with the blood on them still!"

Uncle Æneas smiled superior, aud stroked his own last new treasure gently — a singularly perfect specimen of the times before flint had wholly yielded to steel. " I dare say you must have gathered some curious things," said he. " But they are the Avork of savages, after all. Now this — how old this is, heaven knows." '• And what were any of us but savages, before CromAvell ? " asked the Rector. " Come, Miss Rosamond, you've learned your books well enough for that, I dare say. Noav I like natives myself, because I knoAv how to deal Avith them. Maria can tell you that : I forget, though — the savages were in my first wife's time. Anyhow, she could tell." "Do you like Mr. Pitcairn, Oswald?" whispered Sophy, in the window. " Because if you do " " The first Mrs. Pitcairn," said the second, as if the allusion, and the error, had been the most delicate and natural in the world, " was the lady who shared the earlier portion of Mr. Pitcairn's life Avhen he was working among the South Seas.

I never had the pleasure of her acquaintance, but I have her portrait among the other curiosities at home. She Avas not exactly what in England, at least, would be considered beautiful, but she must have been interesting, decidedly. She, her picture, has an ex traordinary darkness of complexion, and there is a singular crispness about the hair which is quite unique in its way. I consider it one of my misfortunes that I was never acquainted with the first Mrs. Pitcairn." d Having thus, in the sweetest manner, executed condign vengeance upon the Rector, the second Mrs. Pitcairn, whose money had paid for his presentation to Crossmarsh, embraced the whole company with a contented smile. " Do you detest Mrs. Pitcairn, OsAvald ? " whispered Sophy again. " Because if you don't " "But the question is, Pitcairn," said Uncle Æneas, ever ready to effect a di version in the direction of peace and harmony, " how you did deal with the savages in the South Seas.

I must say it would puzzle me, magistrate as I am, and with savages enough in Crossmarsh, and in Windgates to " "How did I deal with them?" asked the Rector, upon whom the delicate satire of his richer half had been entirely thrown away — " why, as easy as I looked at them. I took the natives one by one, man to man. I kept a lot of blue glass beads in one tail pocket, and a bit of stick, with eight ounces of lead at the end, in the other. Then I preached at him just as hard as I could, till I'd done. If he gave in before I was hoarse, I gave him a handful of beads ; if he didn't, I took out the bit of stick and made him feel reason. I made more converts that way than any man on the station ; and there wasn't one I made but stuck to his guns and turned out well." " Yes, Sophy," whispered OsAvald back, " yes, I think I do rather like Mr. Pit cairn."

" But did they never preach back, or strike back ? " asked Rosamond. " I don't think you'd have converted me that way." " Certainly not, my dear ; I should have begun on you with the blue beads." " You must not take everything Mr. Pitcairn says seriously," said Mrs. Pit cairn. " Of course he does not mean that he really converted the heathen of the South Seas with those sort of things. But you know his way." " But I do mean it, Maria," said the ex missionary ; "I do mean it, every word. I used every device but rum. To that I never would give in. I just took hold of a semi-brute, and by main force I made a man of him, or as much of a man as might be. If I'd taken any other tack I should only have made a humbug of him. Per haps I didn't make quite so many bad Christians as some did, but I know I made a good many decent savages.

And that, I maintain, is the only way to begin Treat your native like a child, tell him to be good, and tell him how ; and if he won't obey you, knock him down till he's tired." " Didn't any native ever try to convert you," asked Uncle Æneas, " on the same lines ? " " Often — often ; but the same man never tried again. But about that neAv old chopper of yours, Fane. What barbarians our ancestors must have been — before Cromwell. My savages would be ashamed to turn out a weapon like that. You should see my lances and knives, as I said before. It would make another chapter for 3'our book. By-the-way, how's that getting on ? HaA'e you found out who was buried in Pix-Knoll?" " Ah," said Uncle Æneas, with a shake of the head, and a wise smile, " you've hit the question there. When the world reads the twenty-seventh chapter of the History of the Barrow in Crossmarsh, commonly called Pix-Knoll, for which I am collecting the materials at this moment, I think the world will stare.

Think of it — every pre historic theory that has eArer been invented, overturned in an instant by things like this that I hold in my hand ! I cannot but feel myself justified in thinking that a special Providence caused such an over flowing mine of pre-historic discovery as Pix-Knoll to be discovered on my land." " Oh, Mr. Fane ! " protested Mrs. Pit cairn. " Why not ? " If Providence, as we believe, watches over history, why not OA^er the records also ? As I was saying to Moldwarp only the other day, if he could only find in that Barrow a Phœnician sun-dial, of a certain peculiar form, my theory would be totus teres atqice rotundus -that is to say, Mrs. Pitcairn, without a flaw. Yes, as sure as we are sitting here, Rome herself was a colony, not from Troy, but from Pix-Knoll." " A strange fellow, that Moldwarp," said the Rector.

" I'm told," said Mrs. Pitcairn, " that he works in the Barrow on Sundays. But, surely, that cant be true." " I knoAv nothing about that," said Mr. Fane, with some guilty haste. " He is certainly an extraordinary man. With no education, and, when he came here, Avith out even local knoA\'ledge, he can hardly Avalk ten yards without coming upon some most important relic of antiquity. He brings me everything he finds that strikes him as out of the Avay, and it's wonderful how seldom he brings me what isn't Avorth its weight in gold. And yet, with all his talent for finding, he learns nothing I reasoned out once that there must have been a coin of King Caractacus in that barrow ; must have been, or else a most important piece of evidence would have been wanting to my theory. Now nobody ever found, that I heard of, a coin of King Caractacus anywhere.

Well, about a month after, Moldwarp finds, in the barrow, what turned out to be a coin of King Caractacus beyond doubt or question. And yet Moldwarp can't be got to call him any thing but the King o' Carrots to this day ! If he could only, find that Phœnician sun dial — but, well, one can't have every thing." " Too true," said Mrs. Pitcairn, solemnly. " Yes ; I found that out long ago. And it gets truer and truer every day." " And a good thing too," said the Rector. " A good big want's the best thing a man can owe. I only wish I had one myself, but with such a pai'ish as Crossmarsh, and such a Avise as Maria, faith, I'm afraid it's past praying for. And what's the result ? I'm the only miserable soul in the room. There's you, Fane, wanting a Phœnician sun-dial ; and when you've got it, and MoldAvarp has drunk the price of it, he'll be all the worse, and you none the better.

There's Hargrave — being a farmer, he Avants wet weather, since it's fine; that's the calling for a man to enjoy himself in, for it's all ' I want ' from year's end to year's end. There's Maria : she wants new furniture for the drawing-room ; so, as I like to make her happy, I won't let her lose her Avant too soon. There's Sophy, wanting a neAv doll. And here's Rosamond, Avanting — wanting — no ; I don't know Avhat Miss Rosamond wants, unless she'll tell." " Pooh," said Uncle Æneas, remembering what Oswald wanted of Rosamond, and glad of an opportunity for once more setting his foot down, " pooh — Rosamond wanted the purple jar." " And she got it too,"' said the Rector, " and made another point to my moral thereby ! But she wasn't the only Rosa mond, Fane. There was Fair Rosa mond, who wanted — who got, any way — what she choose, and wasn't the happier for that, anyhoAV.