Clemency Franklin. By the Author of 'Janet's Home'

Chapter I

Still in the wind, a helpless reed thou art, Caressed or trembling 'neath its tyrant will ;' And could'st thou not, ere now, rebellious heart, Learn to be still ? Thou, who would'st snatch at golden dreams afar, Forlorn and unenriched must pine and weep ! Oh, patience, patience ! each eternal star Its path must keep. The weeks which Miss Arnays and Clemency spent at High Combe were regarded at the Manor as the most perfect harvest weather, known for many years. They were the busiest weeks of the whole busy summer, and certainly the most inconvenient time for a member of the household to choose to be iU. Mrs. George Serle had no manner of patience with such a proceeding. She could believe in a person's having a bad feverish cold at Christmas time, and pity him for it if he did not persist in keeping it too long ; but an illness in harvest time, in the hot August and still VOL. II.

B September days, when every moment was precious, and when the energies of all the women in the house ought to be directed to providing for the extra workers out of doors, was a weakness which she could not allow any one under her jurisdiction to give way to without remonstrance. Sydney,' who was the culprit that year, did not give her sister as much cause for complaint as might have been expected. Even Mrs. George was obliged to allow that she struggled for a long time to keep her place in the house, and was quite as unwilling to allow she was ill, as the rest of the household were slow to perceive anything amiss with her. No one could exactly say when the failure in her health began. When Mr. Humphreys was first consulted he laid the blame on the ball at Mrs. Franklyn's, and talked in a grave, aggrieved tone of a certain walk in the garden undertaken without proper precautions, which had, doubtless, done all the mischief.

Mr. Serle blamed himself bitterly for not having taken better care of his daughter that night, till everyone in the house re minded him that Sydney had been quite weU and unusually happy for at least a week after the ball. The children were all sure that she had been the busiest and merriest of the party, when they had gone to see the first sheaf of corn cut, and when they had gathered the last apricots from the orchard wall ; and Mrs. George testified to her having shown a zeal about the autumn preserves, that had almost made her hope she was becoming a useful woman at last. As far as any one could recollect, there had been a gradual increase in Sydney's energy, till it had degenerated into a feverish restlessness which seemed to forbid her remaining in one place, or keeping to one employment for five minutes together.

Then tbe wan looks and the fits of exhaustion began to appear which had alarmed Mr. Serle. Sydney herself could not have given any better ac count of the change; she did not know how she had slipped down from the heights of hope to the depths of despair. For the first week after the ball, she had moved about in a golden haze of joy and wonder, beyond which she did not care to look. She was rather glad to hear that Colonel Edgecombe had left Combe. She did not much wish to see him again just yet, or to hear any more from him, till she had grown accustomed to the wonderful events of that night. He had called her dear Sydney — he had held her hand — he had assured her that he did not care for Clemency Franklyn. That was quite enough for her for the time, for though the belief in his love made her very happy, the prospect of having to see a good deal of him, and talk quite freely E before him, was formidable enough to make her very glad to have it postponed for awhile.

He so often said things she did not quite understand, and she was afraid he would not be as easily satisfied with random answers as Mr. Humphreys was. Then there was the terrible thought of how Mrs. Edgecombe would look at her, after she knew that she was to be her daughter-in-law. For about a week, Sydney was thankful to be able to enjoy her happiness without the drawbacks she knew must follow the public acknowledgment of it. She felt very complacent, like a queen in disguise, towards all the people who would hereafter have to look up so far to her, and treat her with such respect. She told the children wonderful stories of what she would do for them one day ; and while obeying Lizzie's orders meekly about the preserves, she consoled herself by inventing little patronising attentions by which she would hereafter, without any unkindness, mark the distance between them.

But days passed on, and a little restlessness began to insinuate itself into her joy. She hardly liked to think how long the interval of silence bad become. One day, a thought struck through her like a poisoned arrow : perhaps she had misunderstood him — perhaps he had not meant what she thought, or had only been trifling with her. She tore the suspicion out of her heart again, but the wound remained ; and after that she began to dread the passing of each day, for every one that went without anything happening seemed to confirm her unacknowledged fear. It was a feverish, miserable state to be in, and she had no sort of trust or hope in higher guidance, to help her to bear the sus pense. There was nothing present to her mind but the one intense passionate wish to have her way, whether it were right or not for herself or others.

She did not acknowledge that she was unhappy — that would have seemed Uke giving up all ; but she could not prevent herself from starting every time the old clock in the front kitchen struck an hour, or from hating the recurrence of each little daily or weekly duty that marked the passing of time in the regular household, or from feeling every evening, as the sunlight faded out of the valley, as if one more ray of hope faded out of her heart, and darkness deepened there. It was a relief to her that no one remarked her restlessness and want of appetite, or the feverish glow that burnt in her cheek. Yet sometimes she felt it bard and strange that the people round her should be so occupied with their own concerns, that no one of them noticed how wearily the bright days passed with her. Finding her always pre-occupied, the other members of the family began to leave her out of their schemes for work or amusement; even her father discovered that his eldest granddaughter, little Lizzie, was a more interesting companion, in a tour over the farm, than Sydney was now ; and Sydney, when she saw him set tina off on his afternoon rounds with the little one trot ting after him, as she used to do years ago, felt bitterly that she had let herself sbp out of her place at home, and that the one person to whom she had believed her self important, was learning to do without her.

To fiU up the time and keep herself from thinking, she began to take long sobtaiy walks, always aiming at getting, as far as possible, out of sight of the Combe Woods. It was after one of these, when she had wandered beyond her own knowledge and lost herself in the dreary country of unworked stone and coal pits beyond the Valley, that her first alarming attack of iUness came on. Mr. Humphreys, who was called in, was very grave over her symptoms. Her father's anxiety was fairly roused, and she had to resign herself to the character of invabd, which she had so long struggled against. At first it was almost a relief to be obliged to give up her efforts to go about as usual. While she was lying still on the sofa in the drawing-room, only knowing what was going on in the rest of the house by the occasional intrusion of one of the children, or by her father's visits, it hardly seemed as if the days were passing ; it was like a pause in time which need not be accounted for.

She might, she thought, put off her task of expect ing and doubting tiU the indefinite period when she should be well again. Her father's extreme sobcitude was her greatest pain. He used to come in so often to ask after her, and stand looking at her so wistfully and enquiringly, she sometimes thought his anxious eyes would read down to the bottom of her heart, or draw the words of explanation from her bps. It seemed so cruel to let him go on wondering what ailed her, when she knew so well herself ; and was so sure that no medicine could do her any good, only the hearing a word or two that might yet be spoken any day. She would hardly have restrained her longing to con fide in him if there had not been other enquiring eyes fixed on hers that steeled her against the tender curio sity of his.

One day, whUe Mr. Humphreys and Lizzie were whispering together in the window, she overheard the words — " Something preying on her mind ; " and after that, she noticed that Lizzie came in and out of the drawing-room, oftener than was consistent with her previous complaints about the inconvenience of having to look after fanciful invalids during the press of her autumn business. A few soft words, even from a person she did not much love, would have won confidence from Sydney just then ; but soft words were not at aU in Lizzie's way, besides she did not wish to be confided in, she always preferred finding out for herself. Sydney's words would have passed for nothing with her, compared with her own observations ; she had had her eyes open all the time, and she considered she knew what was going on better than anyone could teU her.

She watched and put things together, and waited till she thought the right time for interference had come, and then she took an opportunity of speaking her mind. Poor Sydney knew all day that it was coming. Everybody in the house knew the premonitory symptoms of a fit of mind-speaking in Mrs. George ; the pursed-up lips that only opened for the shortest yes and-no repbes ; the obstinate expression in her eyes, the wrinkled-up forehead, the heavy, ominous footfall, as she moved about the house during her morning's employ ments. Every one knew what they portended; but that day Sydney had the additional certainty that the inevitable outpouring was coming upon her, and that there was only one subject it could concern. WhUe she lay on the sofa in the afternoon, listening with throbbing nerves to her sister-in-law's movements overhead, that made all the casements in the old house shake, and calculating how soon her up stairs occupations would be concluded, and the dreaded interview might be expected to begin, a desperate resolution came into her mind.

She resolved that she would not hear what she believed her sister in-law was going to say to her. It was bad enough to have been misled ; but to have Lizzie taunting her with her disappointments and her presumptuous love was just that last bitterest drop which would make her cup of pain undrinkable. She would at any cost push that from her. She thought of a sentence she might say which would triumphantly answer Lizzie's accusa tions, and prevent any repetition of them to her or any one else. She knew it was a very serious thing to speak the four or five words of the sentence she meditated ; that they would alter the whole course of her life after wards ; and yet, as she dwelt on the coming interview, picturing all its details to herself, her determination to say them became every moment stronger.

AU suspense and expectation would be over then. No one need ever know what she had hoped, how she had suffered ; and surely, when everything was settled, a sort of peace would come even to her. When at last she heard Lizzie's step beginning to descend the stairs, she searched in a little work-basket for a letter that had come to her that morning, wrapped round a bottle of fever medicine. She read it hastily through once more, tore off the blank sheet, wrote a few lines on it in pencil, twisted it into a note, and laid it by her on the sofa-table. Then she lay back on her pillow, very flushed and panting, and Lizzie, burdened with a great tray of preserve-jars which wanted labelUng, pushed open the drawing-room door, and entered. Mrs. George had no intention of letting her fingers be idle while her tongue was busy ; and she thought she might as weU give Sydney a chance of employing herself usefully while she was being scolded.

Sydney was too much flurried to think of offering any assistance. She lay back on the sofa for a long time, watching her sister-in-law's movements, and almost wishing that the lecture would begin. They were quite' alone in the house. It was a hot September afternoon, the first day of loading corn, and all the children and the servants had gone into tbe field to look on or help. Distant echoes of their voices came through the open window, mingled with the thousand delicious sounds of a September afternoon at Vale Combe — the perpetual babble of the tiny rivulet at the bottom of the garden, the hum of the bees in the clematis round the front door, the far-off bleatinoof sheep on the opposite hiU. A gentle wind brought all these close to Sydney's couch, but to her they were all drowned in the click of the jars Mrs. George was arranging, and in the beating of her own heart, which she tried in vain to still, lest Mrs. George should bring its agitation as a witness against her.

The silence was broken at last. Mrs. George took for her text Sydney's supineness, in lying on the sofa when work, in which she might bave taken part, was be fore her eyes ; and for half-an-hour or so Sydney let her talk on without interruption. She had a great deal to say on the vanity and folly of girls who fancy that every man who pays them a Uttle attention, is about to make them an offer ; and on the wickedness of letting a really suitable match pass by, for the sake of some out-of-the-way, fancied preference. As long as she kept to generalities, Sydney could listen quietly ; but when proper names came in to tbe tirade, and Mrs. George accused her of pining her self ill for Colonel Edgecombe, who, she averred, had never thought more of her than of little Lizzie, then the courage to bring out the annihilating sentence she had prepared came to Sydney.

She sat upright on the sofa, fixed her large brown eyes, now burning with a singular light, on her sister's face, and spoke almost fiercely. "Lizzie, you must never say such a thing as that to me again, for it is not true ; and I won't hear it. I am engaged to Mr. Humphreys— he would be very much displeased if he heard anyone speak so to me now." The announcement was quite as startling, and the victory as complete, as Sydney had expected. Mrs. George put down the jar she was covering, and remained silent for a minute. " WeU, I think you might have told me," she said at last, in a very subdued voice. " It was very unsisterly, to say the least of it. Pray bow long have you and John Humphreys been engaged ? " " Only to-day. He wrote to me, and here is my acceptance. His servant is to call for it at five o'clock, and be will come himself this evening.

You may read the letter if you like. He cares for me and thinks well of me, if no one else does. Don't you ever praise him or blame him again to me after to-day, for he is a great deal better than you or me. You have always been wishing me away, Lizzie, and now I hope you will be content. Little Lizzie can have my bed-room ; I know you want it for her ; and she can go. about with my father, and take my place ; — I don't grudge it to her — only you had better let me be at peace as long as I do stay here ; and beware how you ever again speak as you did just now about Colonel Edgecombe. Now, if you like to bring the ink to the sofa, I will write the labels for the preserves for you, and we will work together for the rest of the afternoon without quarrelling." Sydney's face had such an unwonted expression in it, and she spoke with such a tone of authority, that Mrs. George was, for once in her life, quite put down and conquered.

She brought the ink to the sofa, and answered Sydney's questions quite meekly ; and for the rest of tbe afternoon, sat subdued and silent over her work. The proud, defiant spirit Mrs. George's accusation had roused, remained with Sydney all the evening, and gave her strength to play the difficult part she had imposed on herself. It enabled her to tell her father of Mr. Humphreys' offer, and answer his eager, fond questions in such a way as perfectly satisfied him. It made her brother George's perpetual jokes on the subject of her engagement tolerable ; and it carried her safely through the ordeal of her first short interview with Mr. Humphreys. When she went upstairs to bed at night, leaving her happy, triumphant lover to receive the congratulations of the rest of the family, she felt almost happy.

Everyone round her seemed content with her. Her father had put his hand on her head, and blessed her fondly. George had looked pleased and proud ; and there had been something more than content in Mr. Humphreys' face, when he foUowed her to the door to bid her good night, with which she could not help being a little touched. He was very ugly, and he used incomprehensible words, and walked oddly on the points of his toes when he came into a room ; but he certainly loved her very much ; — there could be no doubt that he meant every affectionate word he had ever said to her, and a great deal more than words could say, — it must be weU to have such love, and to make so many people happy. Sydney reflected ; and with such thoughts as these she tried to satisfy herself. But the excitement that had kept her up all the afternoon, died away even before this amount of reflection, and the next morning found her in the weary, despondent state she had been in before.

Poor Mr. Humphreys was sadly puzzled by it. He caUed her complaint by a fresh name every day, and was constantly finding out some new good reason, why his former remedies had had so Uttle effect, and why the last-thought-of ones must benefit her. It never crossed his honest mind to suspect that there could be any secret trouble weighing on her now. He was too happy, too grateful, and too unexacting to find any want in her ; or to think of blaming her for any failure in love to himself. He had always some generous ex cuse to make when the impatience and petulance of her manner to him, shocked and perplexed her father and brother. " No one knew better than a doctor," he used to say, "how natural it was to the best-tempered people, to be a little unreasonable when they were suffering." Yet his anxiety about her health grew with his determination to admit no other cause than illness, for the change which everyone was talking about.

On the day when he confided his troubles to Miss Arnays, he spent several hours at Vale Combe, and though Sydney walked about the garden with him for nearly an hour, and afterwards sat in her usual place in the window-seat, patiently sewing in her old way, while he pulled to pieces the flowers they had gathered, and explained their properties to her, there was a weary, suffering look on her face all the time that went to his heart. He attempted to mix his instruction with a little ponderous playfulness to amuse her ; he made her observe bow the flowers of the little blue'speedwell may be blown from tbefr calyxes by the slightest puff of wind, and he told her that the 'Germans bad for that reason christened the flower "Man's faith." "It might be German's faith," he said, "but it was not Englishman's, — at least not his."

His, like himself, was solid and firmly fixed, and it would take a great many angry or scornful puffs from her lips to blow him away. Sydney did not even give him a glance up from her work in reward for his speech, but she held out her hand for the flower, and a minute afterwards he perceived, that she was trying the experiment of puffing the blossoms away, and to his amazement her large eyes filled with tears, when the dehcate blue cups floated from her high in the air. Nothing but the extreme weakness, conse quent on great derangement of health, could, he was convinced, account for such extraordinary sensibUity. He rose to leave some time afterwards, ostensibly because he had another visit to pay, really because he could no longer bear to see her sitting before him so sad and weary. He begged Mrs. George to persuade her to go to bed as soon as he had left, but Sydney was in an obstinate mood, and could not be drawn from her place in the window.

One of the children brought her tea there, and she sat looking out till long after it was too dark to distinguish even the tall, white lychnideas in the nearest garden bed. All the evenings of that summer seemed to pass in review before her, without any effort of her own to call them up : the times in the early spring when she had sat there looking at the turrets of the Great House among the budding trees, and wonder ing what Colonel Edgecombe, and Mrs. Edgecombe, and Clemency were doing within ; the evening when she and Colonel Edgecombe had talked about the cherry-tree, and the succeeding , one, when she had expected him, and Mr. Humphreys had come instead. She took a sort of pleasure in dwelling on the inci dents of that evening ; her vivid disappointment when she saw Mr. Humphreys' face at the door — her anger with him for coming just then — the irritation which the monotonous sound of his voice kept up in her mind all tbe evening.

Pitying herself for that long-past pain, was a sort of compensation for not daring to look at a very present one — only too like it — for which she knew she must never pity herself. She was occupied with these pictures when she heard some sounds with out that seemed almost like the echo of her thoughts. Unexpected steps on the gravelled road ; the undoing of the gate after it had been fastened for the night ; a man's step pausing at the front door. Could Mr. VOL. II. Humphreys have ridden back to tbe house from High Combe ? It did not seem likely, yet who else could it be ? Sydney remembered she had promised to go to bed several hours before, and did not like tbe thought of aU the fond remonstrances on her imprudence, she should have to hear if she were found in her present position. She had time to move from the window-seat to the sofa, and rest there for a Uttle whUe before the room door opened.

It was only Mrs. George, bringing in the lighted lamp. She put it down on the table, and began to move about the room, arranging the chairs and gathering up the stalks and leaves of the flowers Mr. Humphreys had thrown down. There was a look of mystery and caution, and a subdued excite ment about her, that roused Sydney's curiosity at onoe. " What is it, Lizzie ? what has happened ?" she said. Lizzie came close to the sofa, and whispered, " Some one has come — a visitor — Colonel Edgecombe, wanting very much to speak to you. I hope you'll be careful what you say to him. For mercy's sake don't repeat what I said the other day. I was quite mistaken, and you need not tell — " Mrs. George paused in her whispered cautions. Sydney did not hear them, her eyes had looked beyond Mrs. George to the doorway, where Colonel Edgecombe was standing, waiting for a sign or word from her to bid him enter.

He came forward, as soon as he saw the start of joy ful surprise with which she recognised him. Mrs. George saw him stoop down and take one of her trem bling hands in both his, and then she slipped out of tbe room, shutting the door behind her. " I was just going to caution her not to say a word to him about her engagement to John Humphreys, which we must get her out of now as quickly as pos sible," she said to herself ; " but I see there's no need, she won't so much as remember there is such a person as John Humphreys while Colonel Edgecombe is with her. Well, Serle-like, she has got herself into a mess, and will want me to help her out of it. I'll do my best to make it all smooth for her ; and afterwards, when she is Mrs. Edgecombe, she must understand she is not to give herself airs towards me.

It is fortunate for the Series that they have me to think for them. I'd never have let Sydney engage herself if I'd had the least idea she had any chance of this other one. But to be sure, who would have thought it ? " Mrs. George was right in her estimation of the fidelity of Sydney's memory. All thought of John Humphreys o and of her promise to him, did pass out of her mind whUe she was listening to Colonel Edgecombe's profes sions of love. The sudden revulsion from despair to joy was too overwhelming, to leave her any thought but for the person whose presence had wrought the change. Mrs. George took care that the interview should be a very short one, pleading Sydney's state of health, and the lateness of the hour, as excuses for sending Colonel Edgecombe away. Sydney bad only time to compre hend the wonderful fact that Colonel Edgecombe did love her, that he was asking her to be his wife, and that he had been hoping aU this time that she was remembering and trusting him.

When he had gone, and she had Ustened to the last sound of his horse-hoofs which it was possible for her to hear, a sudden agony of fear lest he should be angry with her for having doubted him, brought the first recollection that came to trouble her of her promise to John Humphreys. Mrs. George found her in a terrible paroxysm of weeping when she returned from fastening the front door, and had to exercise some ingenuity, to get her upstairs without betraying her trouble to her father. Tbe strangest thing in all that strange evening to Sydney, was the being helped to bed, and soothed and comforted by Mrs. George. " You leave it all to me, and I'll manage your father, and your brother, and John Humphreys, and everyone," that lady said, as she shaded the night-light from Sydney's aching eyes and prepared to leave her.

" John Hum phreys is too good-hearted a man to stand in the way of the good fortune that has come to you, and the famUy through you, to-day. He'll see plainly enough that he must give you up, when I put it to him in the right way ; and as to your father and George, I'll talk to them, too." It did startle Sydney a little, to think that she was allying herself with Lizzie to overrule her father, but her head was aching too much for thought that night. When she shut her eyes, visions of Colonel Edge combe's face as she had seen it in the doorway, or as it had looked bending down over the sofa, floated up to her, and she fell asleep thinking that she would. do and suffer anything rather than see the look of love upon it change to one of contempt or anger. She would be Lizzie's slave for life if she could save her from that woe.

Chapter II

All this the ftoro confused my brain : and nothing could I realize, But the great fact of my own pain : I saw the fields : I heard the cries : The crow's shade dwindled up the hill : the world wtnt on : my heart stood still. Owen Meredith. Mrs. Edgecombe's anticipated happy day began with an annoyance, which ruffled her equanimity a little. Before they had quite finished breakfast Mr. and Mrs. Franklyn made their appearance, evidently with the intention of spending the greater part of tbe day at High Combe. Mr, Franklyn had come at Miss Arnays' request to speak to her on some business connected with her will, and Mrs. Franklyn excused herself for accom panying him by pleading her great anxiety to ascertain for herself, how her dear sister-in-law really was. It might be a weakness in her, she said, but it always did make her so nervous when people began to talk about making their wills.