The Lady of Holt Dene

Front matter

THE LADY OF HOLT DENE ON THE TERRACE. See sage 25. Frontispiece. THE LADY OF HOLT DENE BY EMMA MARSHALL AUTHOR OF L -' THE COURT AND THE COTTAGE " " ONLY SUSAN " " UNDER SALISBURY SPIRE " ETC. ETC. " For 'tis a question left as yet to prove Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love." Ham/et " So, on your patience evermore attending, New joy wait on you ! " Pericles GRIFFITH FARRAN BROWNE & CO. LIMITED 35 BOW STREET, COVENT GARDEN LONDON CONTENTS — ♦ — CHAP. PACK I. OLD MEMORIES ...... 9 II. AT THE MANOR ...... 24 III. INDECISION . . . . . . 41 IV. REPARATIONS . . . . . -55 V. FAREWELLS ...... 77 VI. CONFIDENCES ...... IOI VII. SPRINGMINSTER . . . . . . Il8 VIII. ON THE HILLTOP ...... 140 IX. IN THE MOONLIGHT . . . . . 165 X. HOLLY GRANGE . . . . . .183 XI. A CRISIS ....... 201 XII. AWAKENING ...... 219 XIII.

A NEW LIFE ...... 234 XIV. CHANGE UPON CHANGE . . . .252 XV. IN THE CHURCH OF HOLT . . . .274 XVI. STORM AND CALM. ..... 293 XVIL TWO ANGELS' DAYS . . . • 3J6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ON THE TERRACE ..... Frontispiece "I HOPE YOU HAVE HAD A PLEASANT JOURNEY" Facing p. 96 FAITH IN THE CATHEDRAL . . . .,,129 ,_ 129 "what a view it is!" . . . „ 149 THE MOONLIGHT GAVE THE FIGURE A SILVERY I8l RADIANCE "GOING? OH MY! WHATEVER SHALL I DO?" . „ 209 STOOPING OVER HILDA AND KISSING HER FOREHEAD „ 267 "AND I AM HAPPY TOO, FAITH" . . . „ 310 3IO

Chapter I Old Memories

" And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? The very source and fount of day Is dash'd with wandering isles of night." In Memoriam. MRS. BURLINGHAM was standing one afternoon by the window of her house in a dull square in a provincial town, with no very especial object in view. There was but little to be seen from her vantage-ground ; — a melancholy elm tree, which had suffered in a gale in the previous autumn, was trying to clothe what branches were left to it with emerald buds, but a chill rain had discouraged its efforts, and the tree had made no advance towards spring beauty for several days. The bitter east wind had withered the flowers in the window boxes, and those in the circular flower-beds in the* square were drooping. Only two or three brave tulips held up their heads with a determination to make the best of existing circumstances.

Chichester Square had once been fashionable, but of late years the spacious red brick houses had fallen into a bad state of repair, and Mrs. Burlingham, who had inherited the house from her father, was almost the last of the original inhabitants of the square. Many things had been against Mrs. Burlingham of late. Her eldest son had gone out to the Far West, when her hopes had been set on seeing him prosperous in some profession, for which she had done her best to prepare him by a university education. " Wasted now in the wilds," she told herself. He might as well have been the son of her opposite neighbour, Mr. Mercer, who was satisfied with the Grammar School of his native town for his sons, as he had been for himself, and put them to business as soon as they left school. It was provoking to Mrs. Burlingham that she had just read in the papers the announcement that the eldest son of Mr. Mercer was engaged to the daughter of a baronet.

A new-made baronet, it is true, with no ancestry to look back on, but wealthy, and with a wife who pushed herself or insinuated herself into the best county families in the neighbourhood of Little Medchester. Why Little Medchester is a question I cannot answer, for, as far as I know, there is no Great Medchester ; but so the town is described in the handbook of the Midland county where its fine church tower rises against the low-lying hills which skirt the valley to the north. Mrs. Burlingham had retreated from the window, against which the rain was beginning to patter in good earnest, while the cruel east wind whistled through every crevice by which it could find an entrance, and, taking up her knitting, she awaited the arrival of her two daughters, who had gone to tea at the Rectory. Before many minutes had passed, the door bell was violently rung, and the servant's step was heard in the hall as she went to open it.

Then a voice rang through the silent house, and presently the drawing-room door was flung open, and Hilda Burlingham said — " Look, mother ! I am like a drowned rat." " Why don't you wear a waterproof cloak ? " "Horrid old-fashioned things! No, I prefer the rain. "And rheumatism or a bad cold," her mother said. "Go and change your dress at once. Where is Gwendoline ? " "Oh, she is all right. She borrowed an umbrella, and I ran on without her. "What awful weather it is!" Hilda continued. " Have you been moping by yourself, little mother, all the afternoon, and pining for Mark ? Has no one been here ? " "Only Mrs. Bateson, who told me she was surprised I allowed you to ride a bicycle. She said no gentlewoman would think of such a thing." " Stupid old thing ! " "But, my dear," her mother again urged, "do go and change your dress."

At this moment Gwendoline came into the room. There was no sign of haste about her, no wet garments to change, for she had borrowed not only an umbrella, but one of the despised water proofs, from Miss Rivers at the Rectory, and having shed it, chrysalis-like, in the hall, now stood before her mother just as trim and neat and unruffled as she had been when she started. It was said in the family that nothing ever put out Gwendoline, and that if the house was on fire, she would stop to dress herself with precision before making her escape, provided she had to make it. "You did not get wet, Gwendoline, like Hilda?" " No ; I did not choose to rush out without any protection into the pelting rain. Hilda is so wild and careless. I wonder when she will tame down ; it is time, now she is twenty-one."

" She has great spirits, poor child," her mother said, "and I am sure it is a happy thing for her. Nothing is very bright with us just now." " Have you heard anything to-day to depress you, mother ? " "Not to-day ; but of course I am vexed about the little way your brothers are making in life. I see Robert Mercer is going to marry Miss Fordham." " Well ! you wouldn't wish one of us to marry Robert Mercer, I should think," Gwendoline replied ; "they are so hopelessly middle class." "No, of course not, still" — Mrs. Burlingham stopped. She often did break off suddenly, when speaking to her daughters. There was not the sympathy and exchange of confidence between them which is so sweet, and is becoming so rare. Mothers and daughters so often lead separate lives, the daughters taking their own way, and the mother, from a mistaken idea that it is better to do so, keeping her anxieties and cares to herself.

Gwendoline, who was settling some loose sheets of music on the piano and closing it, now said — " I wish Hilda would not be so untidy. There is a leaf lost from one of the books of Chopin's Preludes, and she always leaves the piano open. " Pat Rivers is at the Rectory," Gwendoline said, as she was leaving the room. "He is not doing much at Cambridge, so that may console you for Jim being gulfed in Mods, at Oxford. Pure idleness on his part." "Poor Jim!" was Mrs. Burlingham's reply, "it is strange that your father's sons have not inherited his talents." Then, as Gwendoline shut the door, Mrs. Burlingham's heart went out in a full tide of love over her idle Jim, her absent Mark, and her youngest and perhaps best loved son, who was still a schoolboy at Rugby. "He will surely do his father's name credit one day — he is doing it now," she said.

" How delightful it is to get a report like his at Christ mas! Yes, it had been delightful, but Gwendoline had an unfortunate trick of rubbing the bloom off the peach, for her mother never mentioned Vero's report, since his sister had said to a friend in her mother's hearing that it was a pity Vero was not as high in the sixth form as he ought to be, and that there was no hope of his getting an Oxford Scholarship. Mrs. Burlingham forgot his place in the form when she dwelt on the master's words — " Pure and without reproach throughout his school life. Studious, industrious and kindly, — modest in success, brave in failure. We shall all be sorry to lose him when the time comes, and hope his persistent work will be rewarded." There are many mothers who can sympathise with Mrs. Burlingham when she weighed these words of honest praise against the place in the sixth form, which was not as high as she had fondly hoped it would be in Vero's last year at Rugby, and gave her decision in their favour !

" I asked Pat Rivers to come in this evening, mother," Hilda said, as the mother and daughters were together in the drawing-room after dinner. "He said he wanted to see you. I suppose you don't mind." "Oh no. I shall be very glad to see him." " I should have asked him to dinner, only I knew Gwendoline would make a fuss, and say she did not want him." " I think you ought to have consulted me," Gwendoline said looking up from the book she l6 THE LADY OF HOLT DENE was reading. " The invitation ought to have come from the eldest sister." " Invitation! As if Pat were a stranger, when we have known him all our lives, and when he is like a brother to us — indeed, more like a brother than Jim." " Jim is very kind and good-natured, I am sure," Mrs. Burlingham said. " I cannot endure to hear you always girding at your brothers.

If you had"— It was one of Mrs. Burlingham's unfinished sentences, for the door opened and Pat Rivers came into the room. He was a tall, good-looking boy, who was yet a boy, though in his second year at Cambridge, where he was celebrated for prowess in cricket and football and for missing lectures and chapel, and treating the university as a happy hunting-ground, with no thought for the future, or his place in the Tripos when the time came. A universal favourite, and one with whom it was difficult to be angry, even when he was most provokingly careless about his work. His grandfather had letters of grave complaint from his tutors and from the authorities of his college, and had made up his mind to tell him on his return for the Easter vacation that he should remove him from the university, and that he must think of some other career for him.

Yet when Mr. Rivers had called his grandson into his study on the first day of his arrival, with the full intention of telling him that his patience was exhausted, and that he was excessively dis pleased with him, the boy's frank and winning manner once more changed the lecture he had prepared, and the threat he had intended to hold out, into a few words of gentle remonstrance, and the expression of fervent hopes that Pat would now begin afresh and really set himself to atone for past carelessness by good, persistent work. Pat promised, and really meant to keep his promise, but as he made it, he thought of the May week in the near future, and knew that of all terms at Cambridge, the coming one was the most full of temptation to his easy-going, happy-go-lucky nature, and he mistrusted himself.

Mrs. Burlingham made the conventional in quiries for Mr. and Miss Rivers, and heard in return that they were "very fit," and that no one would believe his grandfather was close on eighty. Then he discussed the new bicycle craze with Hilda, and said he was sure she would soon beat the record, but, with a merry laugh, he said he could never imagine Gwendoline on a bicycle. " I never mean to ride one. I hate them," was her reply. "Well, they are getting the fashion, and all sorts of swells ride in the Park." " The ' swells' ' example won't affect me," Gwendoline said. " I shouldn't mind betting you will be riding a bicycle before another year is out." " I am afraid you will lose your bet. As I can't have a horse to ride, I prefer my own feet." "There is a great prejudice against bicycles," Mrs. Burlingham said; "and I am a little sorry Hilda has taken to it."

"That is only because Mrs. Bateson told you it was unladylike, mother. It would be a good thing if she was ladylike enough to mind her own business. Vulgar gossip and mischief-maker ! " " Mrs. Bateson is a very kind woman ; you ought not to speak of her in that way, Hilda. She is wonderfully good to the poor ; only, perhaps, her tongue is " — "A sharp sword! I'll finish the sentence for you, mother. And now, Pat, sing us one of your newest songs." " I don't mind, if Gwendoline will play the accompaniment. Have you got any of Chevalier's songs ? " "No. What are they like ? " "I'll show you," was Pat's reply; "though I make a fearful hash of accompanying myself." Pat seated himself at the piano and began the prelude of " My Old Dutch," which has a ring of true music and pathos in it. Chevalier was at this time growing in favour with the bicycle.

Many fastidious people who despised the ordinary comic song could laugh or cry, as the case might be, at " Mrs. 'Enry 'Awkins," or " My Old Dutch." Unlike the bicycle, which has now become universal, Chevalier has rather declined instead of growing in popular favour, and other composers of the same type have taken his place. When Pat Rivers had played the concluding symphony after the last verse in a manner peculiarly his own, he twisted round on the music-stool and said — " Is not Lord Holtston a relation of yours, Mrs. Burlingham ? " " Yes ; he is my mother's cousin. "He is dead. I saw it in the paper this evening." " Really ? Are you sure ? " " Quite sure ; and I see he has only left a girl, and the title is extinct." " Do you know anything about her, mother? I never heard you mention her."

" I have had no communication with the Holts tons for years," Mrs. Burlingham said. " I knew Lord Holtston married, late in life, a woman of very large fortune, which saved the place from going into the market. It is a fine place, I believe. I was there when I was young, in the lifetime of Lord Holtston's mother ; but that is many years ago, and I do not remember much about it. Lady Holtston never took any notice of me, indeed, I doubt if she knew of my existence. Pro bably she thought I was not a connection worth cultivating. She was the daughter of a very rich merchant or manufacturer, who left her a huge fortune." "That's how money goes in these days. I wish I was the daughter of a merchant," Hilda sighed. " I would rather be as I am," Gwendoline rejoined. "Poor and proud, Gwen? Well, I confess, I would sooner be rich and humble.

Not that the rich tradespeople are humble ; they are generally as proud as peacocks, and give themselves airs." Then Pat and the two girls talked over the chances of their being allowed to go to Cambridge for the May week if Mrs. Burlingham could be persuaded to bring them up for it. And while that very unlikely contingency was talked over, Mrs. Burlingham was quietly knitting golf stockings for Jim, and meditating upon past days. The news of Lord Holtston's death had awoke long-slumbering memories of the past. She recalled her visit to Holt Dene, with some of its details, long, long since forgotten. She saw herself, in a lilac muslin with many flounces, on a terrace where peacocks were strutting in the summer sunshine. She remembered the gracious old lady who spoke to her of her son, and her anxiety that before she died he might take to himself a wife ; and then she had added, "If it were not that money was so necessary, I know who I should like for a daughter."

It had flashed upon her then, that the old lady had meant her as the daughter she would have liked, and how she had even then thought no broad lands and no high-sounding title could have reconciled her to be the wife of the dark-browed, moody man who scarcely ever spoke a civil word to anyone, and who treated the mother who adored him with but scant courtesy. So long ago, so long ago, Mrs. Burlingham thought, and with these memories of Holt Dene, the tall figure of the student who had won her love rose from the mists of years as she had known him first, young, and full of hopes and ambitions of a brilliant career as a scholar ; hopes that were never fulfilled, for, when all things were full of promise, one of these frequent and mysterious breakdowns made of the overwrought scholar and student a prematurely old man, whose powers of mind and body declined perceptibly year by year, leaving him a hopeless and often querulous invalid, who died when Vero was scarcely six years old.

It is one of the solaces of age to recall those whom we have loved as we knew them in their youth. They rise before us sometimes at night, often in day-dreams, in their old likeness, with their eyes bright and undimmed with tears, smiling at us as they once smiled, speaking as they once spoke words of love and tenderness, which are to warm our hearts and sound in our ears no more on this side of the grave. Nor are these visions always of those who are gone from us, and separated by the river of death, beyond our ken. Often they are the vanished personalities of those with whom we have grown old — those from whom time has taken much that we loved in by gone days — of those who have been scarred by earthly sins and sorrows, and on whom we look when we awake from our blissful dreams and ask ourselves whether they can be the same, the very same, as those whom we knew and loved in the sunny days of youth.

Doubtless, there are some grey heads which wear a crown of glory youth never knew, some loyal hearts that beat as true in age as in youth, some to whom time has only added grace and strengthened in them all that is beautiful and good and true. But, alas ! these are the exceptions to what is a relentless law, and let those who can say, " Sweet as was the past, the present is yet sweeter, eventide has a subdued and chastened radiance more lovely than the morning light," give thanks. For them the visions of a bygone time can have no sadness, for they are content with the reality which is granted them, and would not have it otherwise.

Chapter II At The Manor

"With strong new life the gladdened Earth is teeming, The budding trees have waked from winter's dreaming, Death and despair the Sun has captive led. Life everywhere '. a joyous life is springing, Life everywhere ! the happy birds are singing, And men alone are sleeping with the dead ! ■ F. M. Owen. THE peacocks were sunning themselves on the terrace before the old manor of Holt Dene on a spring morning a few days after Mrs. Burling ham had been going back in thought to the time when she walked there with old Lady Holtston. The cruel east wind and the chill rain were over, — spring had really come. The rooks were conversing in their nests, with the low, satisfied "caw" which always shows the fledglings are hatched and doing well, The birds in the woods behind the Manor were making them echo with a chorus of glad song.

The cuckoo was calling for the first time from a distant copse, to make the assurance of spring doubly sure. The flowers were in full beauty in the borders which skirted the terrace, old-fashioned beds with box-edges, full of polyanthus and daffodil, narcissus and golden-brown wallflowers, where bees were humming their monotonous welcome to the sweets of the spring, and taking full advantage of them. Presently a young girl stepped out on the terrace from one of the windows opening on it, and, crossing to the stone parapet, with its deep coping, she leaned against it, her arms folded and her head bent. The attitude was one of dejection, and the deep mourning gown which hung round her slim figure added to the sadness which seemed to oppress her. Steps on the terrace made her look up and turn her head, and she straightened herself at once and hastily brushed away a tear which had fallen un bidden upon her arm as she leaned upon it.

A tall man of middle age, with an erect and stalwart figure, now came up to her, saying — "You are out early. I want to speak to you ; will you come into the library ? " " I think I had rather hear what you have to say here, please." "Very well ; but I have a letter to consult you about. I must know what are your wishes before I reply to it. I will fetch the letter." He turned to leave her, and then, with a sudden impulse, she followed him. " I don't want to be consulted. You must do what you like. It is nothing to me what becomes of me." "You must not talk after that fashion, Miss St. Clair. You have your life before you, and life is a gift no one must set light store by." "That is all very well, but I don't see why I should set store by mine. I have no one in the world belonging to me now my father is gone — no relations — no friends, except two or three well - meaning ones who enrage me with their -*_. » pity.

" I hope you will count me as a friend," was the reply; "and I am very far from pitying anyone in the first freshness of youth, and with more than common gifts of varied kinds." "Gifts?" the girl repeated. "I don't know what you mean. I have had a scrappy education, with no advantages, leading a life shut in by narrowing walls, if not," with a little laugh, "nunnery walls. If I have, as you say, gifts, I have had no use for them." "Well," was the answer, "you may yet find plenty of use for them." They were in the library now, where Faith had spent many hours amongst the books which lined the walls, and a manuscript lay open in which she had written extracts from an ancient copy of the Morte d 'Arthur. She had not been in the library since her father's death, and with an in voluntary movement she closed the book, and then, turning to Mr. Perceval, said— " What have you to say to me ?

I heard yester day that I have a great deal of money of my mother's, and that when I am of age I shall have — oh, I forget how much ! " "Yes," Mr. Perceval said, "you are an heiress, and as there is no one to succeed to the title, you have the undisputed right to Holt Dene as it stands." " You told me that yesterday. Now what do you want to consult me about ? " "Your future. I was, by reason of my position as your guardian and one of the trustees under Lord Holtston's will, turning over his papers yesterday — private papers, which the lawyer and his man of business did not think it was necessary for them to read. I found amongst the papers this letter, which points to the fact that you have some relations on your father's side." " Relations ! Who are they ? " "A Mrs. Burlingham, who was Lord Holtston's cousin, on his mother's side.

This letter is addressed to her by your father, and was apparently never posted. It bears a recent date." Mr. Perceval put the letter into Faith's hand, and he saw that she read it with quivering lips. Her dead father's handwriting, and her name con spicuous on the first sheet ! " Dear Mrs. Burlingham, — We have had no communication for many years, but we are of kin. My only child, Dulcibel Faith St. Clair, will soon be left alone in the world. " I ask you to befriend her. I know naught of your position. I have lived the life of a hermit since my wife died. " If it in you lies, make Holt Dene your home, and care for my child, as for your own. She is " — Here the letter broke off, but there was a feebly written signature, evidently added with difficulty. Faith gently folded the letter and returned it to Mr. Perceval.

Her young face was a study of repressed emotion, and her guardian's heart went out to her in keen sympathy. He was silent for a few moments, then he said "We must, of course, let Mrs. Burlingham see this letter. It is imperative for us to do what Lord Holtston wished." " I don't want anyone to live with me," was the answer. " I have got dear old Birtwistle, and she will take care of me." "It is not possible for you to live in this house alone. It cannot be done. You are so young." " Nearly nineteen," she interrupted. " Yes ; and we generally consider nineteen young." " I don't feel young. I am certain I should not hit it off with a stranger." " This lady is not a stranger ; she is a rekition." "A relation! — yes, and I daresay would come and be aggressive and disagreeable." " However that may be," was the answer, "my duty is clear.

I must send the letter to Mrs. Burlingham, and ask for an interview as your guardian. It is addressed, you see, at the foot of the page, — Mrs. Burlingham, Chichester Square, Little Medchester." " I wish you would wait — let me think over it. Don't do so to-day." "Yes, I must do so to-day." Mr. Perceval said decidedly. "The sooner your future is settled the t better. As I said, it is impossible for you — young and beautiful " — "Don't/" she said. "I hate to hear you say that ! " " Well, I will say young and rich. As soon as it is known that you are in sole possession here, people will come, and you will be sought after by those whose motives may not possibly be wholly disinterested. Surely you must understand what I mean." " My father lived a retired life — no one came here except the rector, the doctor, and the agent, and his mother and his niece.

Some of the grand neighbours left a card once a year, but I never saw them. They thought my poor father was mad, and I daresay they thought I was mad too ! " "Nonsense!" Mr. Perceval said sharply ; "no one would dare to say so. There is no madness in your family on either side — I know enough to know this. Lord Holtston grew eccentric from the habit of years, and he suffered a good deal of pain, as you know." "Yes," she said sadly, " a great deal, and I was not much comfort to him ; I might have been, but I was not." " I am leaving Holt Dene to-day," Mr. Perceval said. " I shall give Mrs. Burlingham my London address, and run down to Medchester to see her when I have prepared her for my coming. You shall hear from me as soon as possible. Meantime, try to face your position, and trust in God to show you what is your duty.

Good-bye." He took Faith's slender hand in his for a moment, was about to raise it to his lips, and then dropped it, saying, "God bless you, my child!" and then he was gone. Faith stood where he had left her, and perhaps the loneliness of her position came upon her more forcibly than it had done besore. She clasped her hands with a sudden passionate earnestness, and said aloud — " Now — now he is gone, it is so much harder to bear — so much harder ! " Then, as if to gather up her strength to face what lay before her, she drew herself to her full stately height and said — " My duty ! My duty ! Yes, I will do it, when I can see what it is." If it was hard for Faith to be left, it was almost harder for Mr. Perceval to leave her. He had not seen her since she was a child, and he had been taken by surprise when he found the tall, awkward girl had formed into the beautiful, graceful woman.