Two Lilies

Chapter I

A DRIZZLING rain fell and made the pavement of the Strand dark and slippery ; the gaslights burned redly in the fog that came from the river; the September evening wore a most unfriendly aspect, yet Edward Graham walked briskly with his hands in his pockets, whistling softly to himself as pleased as a schoolboy out on a holiday. He had just received the quarterly amount of his one hun dred a year, and of these twenty-five pounds which had not been an hour in his possession, he was going to spend ten on the purchase of a book. A rare book was this, a wonderful book, not to be found in the British Museum, aud which, though modern, was a scarce book, of VOL. I. B which only a few privileged beings could say, "It is mine." Edward Graham had spent a year in hunting for it. He had discovered a copy of it six months before this day in the shop of Mr. Clement, the well-known bookseller's shop in the Strand, but notwithstanding his eager longing for that treasure, he had not been able to secure it yet.

It was still that some thing to long for which is both the torment and the privilege of youth. It was so expensive ! Ten pounds is a large sum when your income is only one hundred a year and you can add no more than thirty or forty pounds to it by your profession ; moreover, the thirty-six pounds ten shillings and sixpence which architecture had brought in to Edward Graham within the last twelve months were not yet in his pocket, and the ten pounds which he was going to invest in the book in Mr. Clement's shop, did not merely represent a large amount of self-denial in the way of cigars and omnibuses, but also, and especially, the total loss of that yearly Septem ber holiday which is so dear to a true Londoner's heart. For all this Edward Graham cared naught if he could only secure the prize he so coveted.

But could he secure it? He knew that the book was there the day before this. He had seen it. With his own eyes he had read for the hundred and fiftieth time the title : g£ llcititebHlc, gintitmi-S Paisons b_ la bilk b_ Saint in printed in Gothic characters of yellow gold on the brown morocco binding of the thick quarto. But what if some other covetous amateur, some other ambitious young architect, anxious to re novate the domestic architecture of England, and to win unto himself golden opinions and golden rewards by going to the fountain-head of fine old Norman art, had caught sight of the volume this morning as he went down the Strand, entered Mr. Clement's shop and bought it out forthwith ! Edward Graham's heart fell at the thought. That would be a blow indeed, and so far as the book was concerned, he did not hope to recover it.

It was a wonderful chance to have seen the book at all, and two wonderful chances do not occur in a lifetime. He could not indulge in the vision of running over to Paris and reading De Renneville there in the National Library. It had been the whim of a rich man, it was printed for private cir culation only, and was as inaccessible to the general public as are a lady's pearls and dia- B mouds. No ; if the book was gone, (here was no remedy for it. Edward Graham had seen it once for half an hour on tho table of Sir Edmund Shrievewell, but everyone knew that the great architect was the closest and stingiest of mortals in imparting knowledge. Sir Ed mund was the man of all others to keep De Renneville in his library safe under lock and key for ever. " No," thought Edward Graham, with his haud on the door of Mr. Clement's shop, " if it is gone, I must think no more about it; I must forget it as if I had never seen it, or the book will only set me astray, and instead of working or thinking for myself, I shall always be dream ing of what I could have done if I had had it ; just like poor Long, who never recovered the loss of his thousand pounds.

If I had that thousand pounds, you know, I could do this or that, and so, instead of setting himself to earn a thousand pounds like a man, and letting by gones be bygones, he took to drinking." " And is that Edward Graham ?" said a cheery voice behind the young architect, whilst a hand was placed with careless familiarity on his shoulder. Mr. Graham turned round rather sharply. He was a sensitive man, also a proud one. Familiarity under any aspect was odious to him. Moreover, he entertained a special dislike for the owner of that cheery voice; so, as we said, he turned round rather sharply, and though his manner was courteous, it was de cidedly cool, as he replied : " How do you do, Cowper ?" " Oh ! excellently well, of course. I am going off to Gaul by the tidal boat. Will you join me?" " Are you going now ?"

" This moment." " Why, where is your luggage ?" " Confound the luggage !" replied Mr. Cowper, with gay heartiness. " I send it off to the station beforehand, and never set my eyes on it again till it has passed through the Custom house." Mr. Cowper's appearance did not belie the easy philosophy implied by this declaration. He was a gentlemanlike-looking young man, with a debonnair manner which few people could resist. Of these few Edward Graham was one. That beaming countenance and pleasant voice both inspired him with a sort of superstitious horror. A large share of Italian blood flowed in his veins, and he had an Italian's secret be lief iu and abhorrence of the evil eye. That gay-looking, fair-haired, blue-eyed Mr. Cowper, who now stood before him, detaining him at the door of Mr. Clement's shop, with his hand im patiently stretched out to open it, had played the part of Gettatore in Edward Graham's life.

Whenever they had met, trouble had infallibly been at hand, and with involuntary nervousness the young architect now thought : "Cowper has turned up, the book is sure to be gone." "And where do you perch now?" asked Mr. Cowper, with that total want of ceremony which characterized his address. " In the old tree at Chelsea?" " I still live iu the same place," coldly an swered Edward Graham. The words were scarcely uttered when Mr. Cowper hailed an empty hansom cab passing by, and jumping into it with a careless "Au revolt; old fellow," vanished in a moment. With a sigh of relief, Edward Graham entered the shop. A look told him that the book, his book, was still there. " Good evening, Mr. Clement," he said, ad dressing a neat little man, who stood as straight as a Chinese figure behind the counter.

" Have you still got De Renneville ?" Mr. Clement was somewhat tired of the ques tion, which, under various insidious forms, this young man had been putting to him for the last six months, so it was rather shortly that he re plied : " Yes, sir, I have got De Renneville." " May I look at it ?" Mr. Clement took down the quarto and placed it on the counter without uttering a word. With sparkling eyes and eager hand, Edward Graham opened the volume. He looked at the frontispiece, counted the plates with scrupulous attention, closed the book, examined the bind ing, then, putting his hand into his pocket, he took out a little bundle of five-pound notes, and placing two on the counter, he said, with seem ing composure, "I believe that is your price, Mr. Clement?" " Yes, sir, it is," answered Mr. Clement, some what surprised at this unexpected conclusion.

" Won't you have the book sent, sir ?" "Thank you, there is no need," replied Edward Graham, and he walked out ofthe shop with the long-coveted volume under his arm, ia all the triumphant exultation of a desire ful filled. Philosophers may preach and practise (but they do not), they may say what they please about the wisdom of indifference to all mere mortal pleasures, there is nothing in this world like wishing, and getting the thing wished for. The longing may be painful and wearisome, the joy when wou may not last, but to wish is to live, spite the doom of death hanging over us, and to win is the oue glimpse of Paradise that was left to man after his bitter loss. When Edward Graham reached Chelsea, en tered his bachelor's front parlour, where a bright coal fire was burning in the grate, and the tea-tray was waiting for him on the table ; when he drew his arm-chair in front of the hearth, and sinking down into it, opened his book with the greed of a miser counting his gold, he uttered aloud au emphatic " At last !" which came from the depths of his heart.

At first Mr. Graham's countenance, as he bent over the open book on his knee, expressed only the triumphant gladness ofa man who has just achieved a long cherished purpose, but gradually that meaning faded away ; his hand no longer turned over page after page in eager haste, but lingered over one for ten minutes at a time and more, and the most entire medita tions and the closest attention were written in the strong lines of his Italian face. It was thoroughly Italian in complexion and charac ter, and it had the noble though rather heavy Roman type. Edward Graham was the son of a lovely Italian girl whom a Scotch gentleman of ancient descent, but scanty means, had married for her delicate beauty. This she had not transmitted to the young man. He was tall, more strongly built than are most men of twenty-five, and not handsome, but from some Roman ancestor or other of his he had certain ly derived the aquiline cast of his features, the ease and dignity of his carriage, and that im pressive gravity of aspect which made even those who passed him by in the street feel that he was a remarkable-looking man.

The inner man did not belie the outward one in Edward Graham. The patience of great strength, mental aud physical, its careless dignity and quiet fortitude, were his. He had also the steady ambition of those old Romans who set no other limits to the power of their race thau those of the world, and who, whilst living for their own generation, yet laboured for eternity. Solidity was his characteristic ; his very imagination was subordinate to this great law of his nature. It was warm and powerful, but was rarely allowed to lead its master astray. He never undertook what he could not accomplish, and he neither over nor underrated his power of accomplishing it. Thus the simplest things which he did were well done, and everything that he aimed at was worth the effort he made to attain it. Mr. Edward Graham was very careful of his money, per haps because his father was a Scotchman, and that blood is strong, perhaps also because he was honourable and poor ; but he had spent ten pounds ungrudgingly and de liberately on the book now in his hands, and even though that purchase should never bring him in the return of one shilling in his pro fessional career, he was not the man to regret it.

He was an architect, a poor unknown architect as yet, but he had determined that to reno vate, so far as this may lie in one man's power, the domestic architecture of England should be the object of his ambition ; and for the last five years every moment of his leisure, every shilling X he could spare, had been devoted steadily and patiently to that aim. He had travelled in every direction sixty miles around London searching for and studying ancient mansions. He had found them in the spots where they still linger — some on the banks of quiet streams that glide by them with a low murmur like the song of Time; others embosomed in the green shade of ancestral trees and dreaming life away there like the sleeping beauty in the wood ; others again rising quaint, tall and strong, with meaner dwellings clustered around them, dwellings of mushroom growth, that had come there as if for shelter and protection.

And how well he knew them, these old mediæval abbeys, with their quiet cloisters, these Elizabethan abodes of red brick embrowned by time, these bare-looking but roomy old houses of the days of Queen Anne, with their formal Dutch gardens — how he had visited and studied them all. Books and prints had made him almost equally familiar with habitations more remote, and he had spent days in the reading-room of the British Museum, to master in all its minutia, the external aspect and internal economy of a dwelling he never expected to see. The same amount of study and time he had bestowed, so far as in his power lay, on foreign domestic architecture, old and modern. He knew every celebrated house of Pompeii by heart. He preferred that of Pausa to the house of Diomedes, and the house of the Faun he liked best of all.

With grand old Roman palaces and stately French chateaux and h&tela he also had acquaintance, though more remote ; and of all the valuable information thus acquired, not one tenth he knew would ever avail him. It mattered very little to Edward Graham ; for that one-tenth he was willing to toil, and would have scorned himself could he have grudged the cost. The volume now lying on his knee was the very book for a man of such a temper. It gave a clear and plain account of every habitation of wood and stone which time had spared in that most Nonnan of Norman towns, Saint Aubin. The old fourteenth and fifteenth century houses of wood, with their projecting fronts, gable ends, aud carved beams, were considered at full length. The grave stone mansions of the fif teenth and sixteenth centuries were no less minutely described ; and there was a whole chapter, with numerous illustrations, upon the vanes which still decorated the roofs of these ancient dwellings.

Now, Mr. Graham had a special weakness for vanes, and his mind fired to see those of Saint Aubin, as represented in the series of plates before him. These vanes in no manner resem bled the straight, stiff gilt rods we see now-a days. One was in the shape of a sword-like spike tapering gently out of the roof. Four laughing heads peeped out from between graceful scrolls ; bell-like flowers, with their leaves, drooped from the blade of the sword, the tips of which closed with acanthus-looking foliage. Another vane, evidently not mediæval, showed Cupids and vases of flowers in alternate rows ; and a third, a straight, tall stem, only bore pine cones on its branches. But, fascinating though these vanes were, what were they to the Hotel de Saint Aubin, the gem of the town and of the book, as it appeared in three large plates !

The first plate gave a view of the court, round which the hotel, an elegant little structure, was built. Only one of the two octagonal turrets which had formerly flanked it remained, but this was covered with basso-relievos representing rural scenes, to a separate representation of which, as well as of other basso-relievos on a lowgallery enclosing one side of the court, the two other plates were devoted. The sculptured orna ments of that gallery were remarkable, and they interested Edward Graham very deeply. They represented the meeting of Henry VIII. of England and of Francis I. of France, as they were proceeding to the great pageant of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The English came out of Guines, the French from Ardres. A pompous cavalcade of prelates, cross-bearers, pages, and esquires followed each monarch.

The two kings met in the centre. " Ay, there are Henry's leopards on the housings of his charger," thought Edward Graham, " and these are the lilies of Francis." So wrapt was Mr. Graham in the contempla tion of this bygone pageantry that he never heard a double knock at the street door which the sound of a car passing by helped to drown. He roused himself, however, with a start as the door of his front parlour suddenly opened, and a foolish-looking, untidy maid-servant put in her head, and said, with a startled look — " Oh ! please, sir, there's a gentleman !" And she spoke in a tone which implied that evening visitors were not frequently seen in Mr. Graham's front parlour. " Never mind showing me in, my good girl," said a cheerful voice ; and gently pushing her aside, Mr. Cowper entered the room, and laughed gaily at Edward Graham's look of surprise.

Chapter II. You

certainly did not expect to see me, did you, now?" remarked Mr. Cowper, as he came forward. " You missed the train," replied Edward Graham, closing his book with a smile. " My dear fellow," airily answered Mr. Cow per, sinking down into a chair by the fire. " You speak with a sagacity which the divine Ulysses might envy — only you are wrong. The train is in fault — not I. There has been an accident, and I cannot leave before to-morrow morning. So I have come round to you in the hope of persuading you into accompanying me. I suppose that shake of the head means ' No.' My dear Graham, allow me to prove to you that your obstinacy is most deplorable. Ever since swallows established the fundamental law of migration, man has, in a greater or a less degree, followed the example set by these intelligent birds.

Savages go from one hunting ground, or from one island to another, as they happen to be continental or insular savages ; and civilized man has his excursion trains, which run at certain times of the year, according to custom and climate. Now, the French coast is a very favourite hunting-ground with the real Londoner ; only he will colonize, which is a pity. But, spite that drawback, I consider Saint Aubin as pleasant a little town as you " " Saint Aubin !" interrupted Edward Graham with involuntary surprise ; " it is there you are going ? " To the very place," answered Mr. Cowper with unmoved composure. " I have an uncle there, and I am going to pay him a flying visit." Edward Graham had known Mr. Cowper all his life, but he had never known before this moment that Mr. Cowper had an uncle in or out of France.

He looked delightfully open, charmingly frank and easy, but new traits in his history were always coming out after this sudden fashion, startling even the most unob servant amongst his intimate friends into the unpleasant conviction that they knew little or nothing about Mr. Cowper after all. VOL. I. C " Do you know this ?" asked Edward Graham, pushing De Renneville's volume towards him. " Oh, yes, quite well," replied Mr. Cowper, merely glancing at the book, then looking once more at the fire ; " the author kindly gave me a copy — I fancy by the way that I left it at my uncle's — he is dead, poor fellow. He was a shy little man — rather a clever book, is it not ?" "Very clever and especially suggestive," replied Mr. Graham, giving the fire a thrust of the poker which, if translated into speech, would have run thus : " That fellow knows everyone and everything, and has every luck in life, I do believe.

Perhaps I ought to have gone to Saint Aubin and not bought De Renneville — but no, that would not have done. Saint Aubin must be for next year." " Oh ! very suggestive, of course," rejoined Mr. Cowper in his airy fluent way; "full of meaning to you, especially, I should say ; but then there is a meaning in everything, if we but knew it. There was a meaning even in the famous grey coat which Napoleon wore at Austerlitz. It was chosen grey, I believe, that the dust and smoke of battle might not tell upon it. I remember liking De Renneville's book. I wonder you do not run over just to look at Mr. Bertram's house. It is the great show-place of Saint Aubin, and quite the thing for you." "I suppose you mean the Hotel de Saint Aubin,with a turret and basso-relievos, all about the Field of the Cloth of Gold," said Edward Graham, his black eyes sparkling with anima tion.

" Yes ; the very same. Mr. Bertram is rather weak about that Field _of the Cloth of Gold. It seems that one of his ancestors figures in King Henry's suite, and for so perfect a gentleman as he is, he talks rather more of that circumstance than is needful." "Is the place his?" asked Mr. Graham, still eager and interested. "No ; it belongs, in point of fact, to his little girl. Her great-grandfather was French, a fisherman, or a drysalter, or something of the kind, who bought the place for a song in the great Revolution. His son, Mr. Bertram's father-in-law, appointed my uncle her guardian, but her father lives in the house, of course. It is anything but a convenient one within, how ever charming it may be without. Mr. Bertram raves about it, however ; but then, being the last of the Bertrams, I suppose he has a right c2 to rave about these old-fashioned things."

" Why, who are the Bertrams?" asked Edward Graham, throwing back his head in half real, half scornful surprise. " What ! You never heard of the Bertrams— the Gerald or Geraldine Bertrams, one of the great* old, old English Catholic families! My dear Graham, even the little bare-footed boys who run about Saint Aubin worrying one for sous, know all about the Bertrams. The late Mr. Bertram died there, and was buried in the famous old abbey outside Saint Aubin, and his son was reared in Saint Aubin, and married one of the Saint Aubin girls, and is one of the magnates of the place, and undoubtedly the acknowledged head of the English colony, by whom he is all but worshipped, partly because he is one of the handsomest of men, and partly because he is one of that aristocracy which John Bull adores, as only John Bull can adore when he sets about it.

So now have I tempted you to go to Saint Aubin ? " "No," almost shortly replied Edward Gra ham. It was hard not to be able to afford going to the place he most longed to visit, and to see that easy good-for-nothing Richard Cowper, who lived no one knew how, doing it without effort, was still harder; but to be asked to allow himself to be tempted was not endurable. " I never saw such an inexorable fellow," said Mr. Cowper gaily ; " that ' no ' was uttered with a sternness worthy of your Roman ancestors, Graham, and yet Miss Lily Scot, the belle of the English colony of Saint Aubin, is a sort of connection of yours. I am sure I have heard her talk of a godmother of hers, who must be your aunt Mrs. Graham." " My aunt's god-daughter does reside in Saint Aubin," quietly replied Edward Graham ; " but my aunt has never seen her, nor has she been there."

" Ergo, you will not go ; your logic is unan swerable." Mr. Cowper looked very much amused, and Mr. Graham felt proportionately irritated. A hundred times before these two men had been on the extreme verge of a breach, which the strong aversion on Mr. Graham's side would have rendered irreparable, slight though the motive which might have caused it always was, but every time something or some one had prevented the catastrophe. The Deus ex machind now came under the shape of a loud and very peculiar double-knock. " A visitor for you, of course," remarked Mr. Cowper, with his easy smile. Yes, it was a visitor for Mr. Graham, who recognised his aunt's double-knock, and foresaw with some annoyance that Mr. Cowper, instead of shortening, would assuredly lengthen his visit ; but he was too hospitable, after all, to indulge such feelings, and subduing them at once, he said : " We were speaking of my aunt ; here she is, come to give you a message for that beautiful Saint Aubin god-daughter of hers."

" I shall be delighted to bear any tender message to the lovely Lily Scot," gaily replied Mr. Cowper. " I have a great weakness for that young lady, and I believe she knows it." He had scarcely ceased speaking, when the parlour door opened, and the servant girl showed in this time, without any signs of sur prise, an old lady in a great poke bonnet, be neath which appeared a bright face, which, though framed with locks of snow-white hair, was fresh in colour and open in expression as that of a child. "Edward," she said from the door, and walking hastily towards him as she spoke, " I am in a mess, so I have come all the way from Hammersmith for you to get me out of it. Mr. Cowper, is that you ? Why, I have not seen you this age ! It mnst be seven years." " It is indeed," replied Mr. Cowper, throwing a shade of melancholy on his cheerful face, and doing it very successfully, considering the shortness of the notice (but then he was accustomed to look everything he pleased).

" I have, however, had compensation in hearing frequently about you through your god daughter, Miss Scot." Now this pretty little speech was charmingly delivered, but scarcely hearing it to the end, and not seeming to give it the least attention, Mrs. Graham, eagerly fastening a pair of blue eyes, which were still bright and expressive, full on Mr. Cowper's face as he stood before her smiling, easy, and courteous, put this most irrelevant and certainly unexpected of ques tions : " Are you fond of birds ?" and before the young man could give either assent or de nial to so comprehensive an interrogation, Mrs. Graham opened her shawl, and placed on the table a small cage, in which two very small birds, with very pink bills and claws, were perched side by side in a little hoop. "Here they are," said Mrs. Graham.

"You can take them away with you, if you like ; for," she added, with the most engaging candour, " / don't know what to do with them." Mr. Cowper was never discomposed, so it was with perfect ease of look and manner that he replied — " You are most kind, but I should be sorry to rob my friend Edward Graham, for whom these two little darlings are evidently meant." " Bless you ! he does not care about birds," interrupted Mrs. Graham. " Besides," continued Mr. Cowper, without heeding the interruption, " I am leaving town." " Are you going to Saint Aubin ?" exclaimed Mrs. Graham, and before he could answer, she continued — " because, if so, you can take them, birds, cage, and all, to Lily." This time Mr. Cowper did look disturbed for one second ; then rallying, he submitted with a smile and a bow, and a " most happy," which was as sincere as most such " most happys " are.

Mrs. Graham sank down on a chair with a sigh of evident relief, and, covering the cage with her pocket-handkerchief, she exclaimed — " Well, Mr. Cowper, I am so glad, you can't imagine what a weight is taken from my mind." Mr. Cowper bowed again, and again was most happy ; whilst Edward Graham, an amused and silent listener till then, now said, as he rang the bell, " Come, auntie, take off your bonnet, and have a cup of tea." " Well, I do think I will, my dear boy," replied Mrs. Graham, untying her bonnet strings, tossing her bonnet on a chair, and taking from her pocket a very limp cap, which she at once placed on her head. " These birds have made me thirsty, I believe. You see, they belonged to a poor foreign lady, a neighbour of mine, who died a week ago in Hammersmith, leaving these little wretches unprovided for. 1 took them in, and, you may believe me, I have not had a night's rest since they came to the house ; for I have a cat, and Mrs. Johnson has a cat, and I do believe that all the cats in Hammer smith come to our garden.

And then they look chilly, the mites of things, so I had a fire for them, lest they should be starved. Yet they are great bathers," she added, looking at Mr. Cowper, and addressing him as the temporary guardian of her protege's ; " and you need give them no chickweed, only a little salad, and seed, of course, and plenty of water — they are not at all troublesome." "But you had a bird formerly," said Mr. Cowper — " I remember him quite well, a very yellow canary, called Tommy — what has become of him?" "He was called Tommy, and he was very yellow," said Mrs. Graham, with a sudden brightness, that passed like light over her whole countenance, " but he is dead, dead and buried," she resumed, iu an altered tone — " you would never guess where, Mr. Cowper — in Kensal Green ! He was my daughter's bird, you know," she added, with a little quivering of her nether lip, in which age as well as emotion had a part " and I thought I could bury him in her grave.