From a Bed of Roses

Book I. Chapter Page

I. A woman's dream 1 ii. the phœnix - - - 16 in. another of dighton's friends - - - -27 IV. CHANGE OF DIET - - 40 V. CUTTING HIS WISDOM TEETH - - - - - 50 VI. COUSIN JANET - 61 VII. IN THE PRIORY CHAPEL ------ 69 VIII. IN THE HAY-FIELD ------- 80 IX. A TALK BY THE RIVER ------ 87 X. THE FIRST START - - - - - --95 XI. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE - 106

Book II

I. janet's other lover - Ill ii. Cyril's brother - - 117 in. in the nursery 125 IV. nutfield farm - 131 V. LIFE AT THE FARM - 136 VI. martin's future 139

Book III

I. TIDINGS OF CYRIL 143 II. THE MEETING 151 III. DREAMS - - - - CONTENTS. IV CHAPTER PAGE IV. IN THE SICK-ROOM i60 V. THE HAYMAKERS' FEAST ----- 168 VI. AN OLD FRIEND 178 VII. BARBARA 192 VIII. A BROKEN BUBBLE 202 IX. A PARTING GIFT 210 X. "IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN" - 221 XI. HIS FATHER'S SHADOW ------ 224 XII. CUT ADRIFT - - 235

Book IV

I. TWO YEARS AFTER ------- 243 II. GOING TO " THE LONG HOME " - 249 III. TOO LATE -------- 255 IV. THE SEARCH -------- 267 V. WITHERED VIOLETS

Book I. Chapter

I. a woman's dream. The rays of the setting sun fell in golden patches upon the Manor House, lighting up the windows, and shining down upon the lawn and shrubberies. It was a still, calm evening ; the air was laden with the scent of roses, and soft, fast-fleeting shadows and intermittent sunbeams chased one another over the distant slopes. " Oh, you must not talk of going away, Dighton. I have quite made up my mind that you had much better decide to give up your rooms in town, and take up your residence here for good and all. You have been here a twelvemonth, and I am sure we have got on capitally together ; why need we make any alteration ? We are both bachelors, and, as far as I am concerned, likely to remain so; our tastes are very much alike; the old house is a great deal too large for one, and we don't interfere with one another in the least," said Philip Heriot, the owner of the Manor House, a very respectable member of society, and much admired by his friends and acquaintances, possessing every thing as far as money and position went to render him so, and no thing whatever to make him otherwise.

He was walking with his friend, James Dighton, up and down the avenue before the house, smoking a cigar, and thoroughly enjoying the evening. His friend — a tall, dark man, of a somewhat sinister expression, from a constant habit of sneering, yet almost handsome when he allowed himself to relax into a smile — took his cigar from his mouth, puffed a cloud of smoke into the blue air, and answered : " Well, my dear fellow, it is all very true ; we get on uncommonly well together ; it is very jolly here, and I should be an infernal ass to reject so very kind a pro posal. But a thing like this is rather a serious matter, and to prevent future unpleasantness it is as well to come to a definite understanding at once. If I come I must have my own way, keep my own hours, have my own friends, and, in short, my dear fellow, share the expenses of the house, and all the rest of it.

I am well off, I am thankful to say, and so can well afford it, and if I could not, I should feel uncomfortable, I should not feel free and independent. I could not give up my liberty, it is about the only thing I value, it is essential to my comfort. If I come, which I should Like to do, as I said before, we must stand on an equal footing." Heriot laughed good-naturedly ; for he was essentially good-natured, when to be so involved him in no trouble or annoyance. " All right, my dear fellow, we will settle all that another time ; I detest business matters, as you know ; and that reminds me I have got a confounded letter to answer at the present moment." " Then you agree to my proposal ?" said Dighton, complacently ; " and that being the case, I will see Morrison about my rooms in Brooke Street, and give him orders about the furniture ; some of which I will send for here, and my books too.

I have a large library, you know, so I must have a room fitted up to receive it." " Of course ; I think it would be better for you to have a suite of rooms, and then you will be more com fortable; what say you to those which poor Charles had fitted up for his brother ?" "Yes, they will do nicely. What a queer thing that was about Charles dying like that, and his brother, too ; lucky turn of fortune for you ; you never knew much of him, did you ? Did not you and his father quarrel ?" " Yes." " Ah ! so I thought. It has always puzzled me how such a confoundedly lazy, easy-going fellow as you, should take such a lot of trouble to quarrel ; you have fallen out with all your family, have you not ? I never hear you mention any of them." " It is not my fault," said Heriot. " I don't think a man was ever so unfortunate with respect to his rela tives as I am.

There was Charles — a most quarrelsome, ill-tempered fellow; I am sure I never wanted to quarrel with him. And the girls have brought it on themselves. I have no desire to support them all, and that is what I should be obliged to do, if I gave them the least encouragement. You know about Florence, don't you ? You were soft on Flo once, I fancy. Well, she was a beautiful girl certainly, the flower of the flock ; all the men who came across her lost their hearts to her " " Don't number me among 'em, pray," said Dighton. " I admired her beauty, of course ; but as for losing my heart — not quite ; my heart is rather too tough for that 1—2 sort of thing ; I could not get on without it, so make a point of never losing it." " Ah ! yes, of course," said Heriot, quietly ; " but any how, some of the other fellows were not so wide-awake, and you know who the poor simpleton married at last, don't you ?"

" I heard, I think. Was it not a foreign fellow, who turned out a swindler or something, and committed suicide 1" " Exactly. A Spaniard ; such a handsome fellow, the handsomest man I ever saw ; he seemed to fascinate the girl ; most queer thing altogether, for he had neither money nor position to recommend him ; but both Elo and Francie were always such romantic simple tons." " They did not both marry him, did they ?" inquired Dighton, sleepily. Heriot laughed. " Not quite," he said ; " but I daresay they would, had it been lawful. Well, the fellow persuaded Flo to elope with him when the family naturally opposed the connection, and she did so ; such a vulgar sort of thing, you know, so bad for the family. Of course we threw her off after that, all but Francie, her twin sister, who left home and joined Flo in Spain.

In course of time the fellow began his little games — played, lost his money and hers too, drank, ill used his wife, swindled or got himself into some political scrape, and took poison in prison. Florence died, Francie declares her heart broke ; of course it was heart disease, it runs in the family, and that is why I am always so careful not to agitate myself, for I daresay I have got it. She left a child, and not a farthing to keep him, his father's disgrace his only legacy ; Francie took him into her care, and has devoted her whole life to him, refusing several offers of marriage because she fancied it was her duty to be a mother to him, poor, silly fool ! Well, she has had him ever since, and I daresay she is uncommonly sorry for it ; for there is not the least doubt that he has turned out a rip like his father, and the whole of his father's family, a family remarkable, I have since discovered, for its rascality."

" Do you believe in hereditary rascality then ? I have been thinking a good deal upon the subject of late, and I think there is a strong presumptive evidence in its favour ; I see no reason why immorality should not be handed down from father to son in the same way as disease," said Dighton ; " that would account for so many of the incongruities in men's characters too." " I have never doubted it," said Heriot ; " I always believed it to be an established fact." " I never place a blind reliance upon established facts, I like to test their veracity," said Dighton. " I am an ardent student of human nature, you know, and so, anxious to enlarge my knowledge of it in every way I can." " I see ; well, I have not seen Francie since we quarrelled about Flo's marriage ; she wrote to me the other day, in trouble — they all write when they are in trouble ; it seems she has lost most of her money ; it was all in Sharpe and Plymton's, such utter folly putting it there, you know; if she had asked me I should have told her long ago that it was quite unsafe, but that is Frances all over, she is as stubborn as a mule, always was."

" What will she do ?" asked Dighton. "Do! I don't know. She says she can't live, she has been attacked in the same way as Florence ; I suppose Emily will take the boy, I believe he goes by her name ; ah, and that is a nice mess, did I ever tell you about Emily ?" " No, what of her 1 And then there was another sister, a little blue-eyed girl, was there not ? I liked her, I remember. What has become of her 1" "Oh, Janet. She married an Indian officer of the name of Fane — a good sort of fellow, but rather badly off. She died, you know, out in India ; and so did he. Her child is at Ditchcombe, with her grandmother ; I see her sometimes. But I was telling you about Emily. She married very well ; a good sort of an uninteresting man, grave and taciturn, severely moral and objection ably religious, but very decent and straightforward, though rather too old and serious for Emily, it appears; for she was, or pretended to be, very unhappy during his life, and as soon as he died, married a good-for nothing fellow of the name of Temple — who does nothing but get himself into trouble.

He is an artist by profession, but will speculate and involve himself in difficulties. He has started some company or other, that he wants me to take shares in. He pestered me so about the thing that I was compelled to consent to take one or two." " What a fool !" " Yes. I never expect to see the money again ; but I can afford it." " No man can afford to be robbed," said Dighton. " That is a very common error ; it is not the amount, but the principle of the thing, that one should look to." "Yes, of course," said Heriot, becoming fidgetty. " I think I ought to write that letter now. I will join you in about half-an-hour." Dighton flung himself into a garden-seat, lighted a fresh cigar, and proceeded to enjoy himself after his own fashion, looking at the rich colouring of the clouds piled up in gorgeous splendour one above another, and thinking about his change of residence, and how he could make himself the most comfortable.

He was aroused from his agreeable speculations by the sound of carriage-wheels, and theu approaching footsteps, and finally by a voice he remembered to have heard in his younger days very frequently. He rose at once, with his usual air of extreme courtesy, and saw a face that he would not have remembered, or at least recognised, had not the voice apprised him that it was Frances Heriot who stood before him. He remembered her as a beautiful girl, with a round, rosy face, roguish dark eyes, and laughing mouth; now she was grave and pensive, with sharp, thin features stamped with a persistent melancholy. " Do you remember me, Mr. Dighton ?" asked the voice. "Remember you! How can you doubt it?" an swered Dighton, quickly flinging his cigar over the laurel bushes, and inwardly cursing the fates for baulk ing his dolce far niente.

" And yet," said Miss Heriot, a little timidly, " I am very much changed since you saw me last. Let me see, it was at Torquay, I met you, when Florence and I were together." " I remember," said Dighton, and hastily changed the subject. " We all change. I have probably done so more than you; not outwardly, perhaps," with a smile, "though I think I am hardly quite the same, even in outward appearance ; but in character, in mind." " I daresay," said Frances Heriot, gazing into the cold, pale features for a moment, and then turning away. " You have heard of poor Florence's death ?" she added, in a softened tone. " Yes." " You were fond of Florence once, I think." " You do not think — you know," said Dighton, a little bitterly. " She treated you very badly, Mr. Dighton ; she was very, very sorry afterwards."

" She deceived me, madam ; that was all. All women do that, I believe. What does it matter ? I was a fool, and she was a jilt ; most boys are fools, and most girls jilts." " You still feel angry. You would not, had you seen poor Florence before her death — such a wreck ; you know how beautiful she was, and how light-hearted ; she became so melancholy — I never saw her smile — she lost all her loveliness." " Indeed." " Can you not feel sorry for her ?" " Oh, yes ; I am very sorry, very sorry indeed. What was the cause of the change ? Pray do not stand, you look tired." " She, too, was deceived, and cruelly so — she loved a man who broke her heart." " Poor thing ! I am truly sorry ; your brother, strange enough, was telling me about it this very evening. An unprincipled man he seems to have been ; and so he killed her, poor girl !

I should not have done that, per haps she would have killed me." " Poor Florence !" sighed Frances. " It was a great pity she married him," said Dighton, not knowing quite what to say ; " it was very impru dent." " We are not always prudent when we are in love, do you think ?" " Well, really, I am so little versed in those matters, that I hardly know. I have very little faith in what goes by the name of ' love ;' I mean when applied to that sentiment subsisting between man and woman. It appears to me a myth, a delusion, the last rag of the swaddling-clothes that cling to the animal before it is emancipated from babyhood, and ere reason has assumed her sway. I hear a good deal about it, and am taught by the poets to regard it as something very fine indeed, but I can't take in all their rhapsodies about it, and when I open my eyes and look about me to see the reality I don't see any thing at all like it, so I naturally assume that it is a figment of the poet's brain, just as patriotism is."

" Oh, Mr. Dighton ! how can you think that ?" cried Frances, her face flushing with excitement. " Both love and patriotism are truths — glorious truths." Dighton made a polite bow. " Whatever a lady says, of course, must not be con tradicted," he said, with a slight sneer lurking about the corners of his mouth. " Yes it may. Treat me as a human being, a man, anything, but not a lady ; let us help, and not foil one another by sugary compliments and insincerities," said Miss Heriot, quickly. "I have thought much upon these things, or I would not venture to discuss them with so clever a man as you. I began life with a vague but beautiful dream ; I have lived to realise in part that dream." " Indeed ; I am very glad," said Dighton. " I, too, began life with a vague dream, indeed, a good many vague dreams, but I have lived to prove their utter futility and unreality.

In fact, I have awakened, and see that I have been dreaming. Excuse me, but I fancy mine is the healthier state of mind. I remember of old your dreams — you used to try to convert me to your way of thinking ; we used to argue together, but I do not recollect that you ever convinced me, and since then I am more than ever assured that my sterner view of life is the only true one." " Florence knew to her cost that such a thing as love really existed," said Frances Heriot ; " she idolised her husband, and no wonder, for when she first knew him, and, indeed, up to the last, he was the handsomest and most fascinating of men — he had the face of an angel, and was inexpressibly winning and captivating in his manners ; poor fellow ! he was his own worst enemy ; every one who saw him loved him." " That must have been deuced inconvenient," said Dighton, but quickly and smilingly apologised.

" I tell you this to account to you for her strange fascination," continued Frances in a low, sad voice ; " he seemed to win and captivate every-one who came in contact with him. I have never seen so perfectly beau tiful a face except in his son." " It is a good thing so handsome a breed is not extinct. May I ask whether the young gentleman in herits any of his father's other excellencies ?" inquired Dighton with a sneer, but Frances did not seem to per ceive it, and answered quickly : " God forbid ! It has been my constant prayer to eradicate all that is evil and cherish all that is good in the dear boy. It is of him I wish to speak ; it is about him and his future that I have come here to-night. It is against the doctor's express orders, but I could not help it." " It was highly imprudent," said Dighton.

" You might have written quite as well." " No ; that would not have been the same thing. I wished to see Philip myself, and interest him in the boy ; and I know that you influence him a good deal, you always did, so I want to win you over to my side ; you do not bear Florence a grudge ?" " Dear me, no ; on the contrary I feel much obliged to her for teaching me early a lesson that every-one must learn sooner or later ; she conferred upon me an inestim able benefit. I owe her a life's gratitude; had she yielded to what I wished, I should have been one of the most miserable of men," said Dighton, complacently. " You could never have loved her, to speak and look so," said Frances, sadly. " Very probably not," said Dighton, quietly. " At all events you will love her son ; you will not be able to help it," said Frances.

Dighton smiled grimly : he thought it very doubt ful. " Every one does," continued Frances. " Humph ; then of course I must be in the fashion." " But, in very earnest he is the realization of my dream — he is the living embodiment of all my girlish fancies," said Frances, speaking with animation. " Oh ! if you had known how my poor darling dreaded lest her boy should inherit her husband's vices you would be able to enter somewhat into my feelings, but I will tell you all. As a girl I used to dream of a perfect character; I used to fancy that if ever I became a mother, my care and prayer should be to keep my child pure and holy, to educate it by beauty, to cherish and shelter it from all evil influences, to bring to bear upon it all that is pure, all that is good, all that is noble. This I have done with Cyril.

All that is impure, un holy, vile, or despicable, is a sealed book to him ; crime and all that is gross and degrading are unknown to him. I have educated his mind from the first by the highest culture ; ever since he could see, his eye has fallen upon beautiful objects, from the first his ear has been attuned to harmonious sounds. His thoughts have been purified and elevated by religion, poetry and philosophy ; in short his whole life until now has been a beautiful poem. He has lived in a happy seclusion, surrounded by beauty, conversant witli books all carefully selected, kept from the degrading influences of evil companions or the contaminating power of newspapers. He is good, pure, and beautiful, and has no desire to be different ; he dreads and fears evil and vice as debasing, and pursues virtue because it appears lovely in his eyes."

Dighton listened quietly, with a peculiar expression on his face ; he looked at his companion's flushed cheek and thought to himself with a compassionate shrug of the shoulders : " Mad, poor thing ! What strange phases madness assumes ! I have not met with this sort of mania before ;" but his thoughts did not appear in his next remark, and Frances had no idea of what was passing in his mind. " So you have really tried this system of education, have you ?" " Really and truly." "And what sort of animal — I mean what kind of young man have you turned out ? I should fancy, if I may be allowed to express an opinion, that he must be either an idiot or a milksop." " He is neither," said Frances Heriot, with a triumphant smile ; " he is a chivalrous, courteous gentleman, with the lofty aspirations of a poet, and the guileless in nocence of a child."

" For the latter I could vouch ; no doubt about his innocence, as you call it, but which I should rather call ignorance. And how long do you suppose your phœnix will remain innocent ? Why, your poor dove will come fluttering to the earth the first time he tries his wings, which, white and pure as they are now, will become at once soiled by the world's mire ; in plain Enghsh, the young man, as soon as he is free to do what he chooses, will rush into every kind of dissipation and extravagance, and imagine that because a thing is wrong, it must of necessity be delightful. Such a plan has been tried before, though not altogether in your way, but suf ficiently like to permit one to see its utter futility. If a child be brought up carefully, kept from all evil influences, wrapped up in wadding, he or she is safe to turn out badly ; it is the natural rebound.

Pious families are frequently the hotbeds for the worst men and the most depraved women ; they only wait for an opportunity to turn out worse, sevenfold, than their neighbours Avho have not been so carefully guarded; just as a child that a mother coddles in flannel and worsted is much more susceptible of catching catarrh than children who are permitted to rough it, and go out in all weathers. Such a mode of education would send the veriest saint to hell." Miss Heriot shook her head gravely, and a radiant smile flashed across her pale, emaciated countenance. " You have not seen Cyril, you do not know how my system has answered ; it is not fair to give an opinion until you know the result of the experiment, and until you become acquainted with Cyril you cannot. I am quite sure of its truth, quite sure, but I am uneasy about the poor fellow now, because I shall not be much longer with him, and he will be thrown upon the world.

I have lost all the httle fortune I had saved for him, and the mere trifle that I shall leave him will be of little good. I have been afraid to tell him this, he has no idea of it, nor does he think that my illness is as serious as it is ; I cannot tell him. Now he is not old enough, nor indeed fit to jostle in the world; he will publish his poems and writings some day, but as yet he is only eighteen ; he is very clever, and will certainly make a name hereafter ; he writes beautiful poetry even now, he has since he was a child." " No doubt ; and I daresay he paints well, does not he ?" inquired Dighton. " Oh yes, very well indeed." " And plays ?" " Yes, he has great musical talent, which he inherits from his father, and a most lovely tenor voice ; he can improvise with the greatest ease if the fit be on him."

" How delightful, and I daresay the fit is upon him very often ?" "Oh yes; he is a httle changeable and unstable though, that is his only fault ; you would get very fond of him. Do you think my brother would let him come here ? If he only once knew him I am sure he would love him, and who knows but that he might make him his heir. Will you try to persuade him to be a father to him ?" " Certainly ; but Heriot is a stubborn man — very stubborn," said Dighton. " He will not refuse a dying woman, and that woman his sister," said Miss Heriot. " But I have something more to say. Cyril is in perfect ignorance concerning his father and mother ; he is so acutely sensitive that I feared the shadow of his father's guilt might darken his life ; now he starts fresh, and believes himself to be the son of my sister Emily."

" Oh, I see," said Dighton, dryly. " And you imagine this system of delusion will be good for him, do you ? It will be his ruin, take my word for it, unless indeed it be counteracted." " You do not know Cyril," Miss Heriot repeated, with a placid smile. " Surely you grant that our characters are formed for the most part by surrounding influences, that our daily life and those objects which become part and parcel of our being are the things that determine the colour of our minds : the artist becomes saturated, permeated with beauty, his eyes are open to all the changing glories of nature, he sees all those soft shades and delicate shapes that a less refined glance would pass by unheeded : the musician, too, possesses an ear so sensitively susceptible to harmonious sounds that the least discord distresses and irritates him, while a coarser ear feels neither intense enjoyment nor acute pain.

Then, surely, the nature of a man whose life is spent in the contemplation of the beautiful is neces sarily nobler and better than that of others deprived of this association, and moreover separated on the one hand from the narrow, restricted borderland of supersti tion, and on the other from the tangled mazes of materialism ; for influenced from the beginning by sur roundings the most lovely and elevating, and taught that goodness is the highest beauty, and beauty the chief good ; ignorant alike of wickedness, deceit, or vulgarity, how can such a nature, I say, be tinctured by anything but goodness and holiness ? A mind so trained must of necessity be purer and more beautiful than other minds. Cyril is attracted by beauty in every form just as a moth is by light, it is a part of his nature, his mind is full of music."

Dighton smiled caustically. " I beheve moths sometimes burn their wings ; take care your phœnix does not burn his. And as for what you have been saying, in my humble opinion, it amounts to mere optimism, balderdash. We, being moulded by out ward circumstances, require to be made automatically, in order to execute certain functions. One automaton, a baker, has his cerebrum concocted into a baking centre, and becomes a good baker; another has his nervous centre adapted for painting, and becomes a good painter, but he must be an automaton, and to this effect you must educate him. Now then, for your spiritualising influence of art and beauty. All beauty is circumstance, a fortuitous concourse of atoms to produce a pleasant titillation of your senses, be it the eye, the ear, or the palate ; but that circumstance has no right to rank above its neighbours.