One Love in a Life

Chapter I

A BACKWARD GLANCE. In street and mart still plies the busy craft, Still Beauty trims for stealthy steps the bower, By lips as gay the Hirlas horn is quaffed, To the dark bourne still flies as fast the hour, As when the many drew delight from one, And Arthur's smile was as to flowers the sun ! Bulwee. Ol EVEN years after ! Learned men tell us that the very frames of our bodies are changed in each component atom in that space of time. We are different phy sically, more different than we are men tally. It is rare that an entire change takes place in our thoughts and feelings — they b are modified, or developed, but seldom utterly metamorphosed. Now, in all lives, we come, at intervals, to some grand and supreme crisis, which stands out for ever after as a landmark on the way ; the rest is made up of little every day occurrences, which gradually mould the character into a new form.

So it was with Muriel : one great crisis came when she passed from girlhood to womanhood, and took up the burden of love and sorrow which that word implies ; and seven years after came another, and to that end had all the intervening years been tending. Link by link the chain of events had been forged, and now the time was come, and the second act in the drama of Muriel's life was to begin. But I must take you back, and tell you what happened in those seven years, before Caryl's return. Muriel's clock of life, counted not by hours, but by Caryl — so many years since she had seen him, so many months since she had heard his name, so many days since she read it in the papers — and all the while, like the con stant ticking, in between the striking of the hours, she thought of her early love. She had grown into a handsome woman ; she was twenty-four when those seven years ended ; the dark eyes had gained a deeper look — they were what the French call " les yeux voiles."

Beneath their out ward expression lurked the real one. How ever cheerful she seemed — however the eyes flashed brightly in some gay scene — they never smiled beneath. She had lost her shy and nervous manner, and it had been replaced by a frank, careless way, that was far more attractive. She cared very little what opinion people held of her ; there were very few in whom she believed sufficiently to care, and with her keen clear-sightedness she often read a motive in sundry remarks which others failed to see. She was exceedingly amused at the grave reproaches heaped on her particu larly well-set head by sundry mothers with partnerless daughters, on the score of her unbounded flirtations. She knew very well that every man in a ball-room sought her out first, and gave her as much un divided attention as she condescended to accept, and that this very fact was called " flirtation," because other girls were obliged to be thankful for Muriel's cast-off partners.

And, after all, it was their own fault if the moths singed their wings by her candle. She always warned them that she had no intention whatever of love or marriage, and it was not her fault if they were so conceited as to believe they could succeed where so many had failed. " Such a cunning plan, dear Mrs. Lang ley," would one irritated matron remark to another. " Of course the gentlemen feel themselves so safe, she does not want to trap them — oh, dear, no ! — and so they go on thinking it is all right, till they find it is all wrong, and Miss Gore has the pleasure of adding another name to her list of rejected lovers. I have no doubt she keeps it written down." " But, my dear," replied Mrs. Langley, to whom this remark was made, and who, having married off all her daughters, could afford to admire Muriel at her leisure, " it is very evident that what she tells them is true, for she does not accept or marry them."

" Wait till the right man comes, Mrs. Langley, and then you'll see." Mrs. Langley had her own ideas as to who this right man was, and so she only said, " When he does come, if that ever hap pens, I have no doubt that Miss Gore will marry him." Muriel herself never thought of this ; it did not seem possible that Caryl should ever return to love her. She believed that he remembered her — that sometimes the thought of her came back in silent hours with a sort of gentle affection and regret, but nothing more. She was a woman now, loved, and admired, and sought after ; but Caryl Trevor was her hero still. The heart that had awakened at the touch of love — the mind that had been developed by its power, had found employment for the energies thrown back on themselves in study. She read morning, noon, and night ; every subject had its turn, and in various languages (for which she had a special genius) ; and the amount of infor mation she thus acquired, aided by a powerful memory, was something marvel lous.

Some called her " Blue-stocking," at which she laughed. " I am only half a one," she said. " I do not write ; I shall some day ; then I shall wear a pair, instead of one." Her theology, as derived from various sources, was decidedly original, and very undecided, and had not her peculiarly æsthetic turn of mind stepped in, she would probably have wandered off into the wildest form of indifferent dissent. But she had a detestation of white-washed walls, and snuffling, of noisy hymns and vulgar preachers. She had no sympathy with the cold " gentility," so to speak, of the parish church, which she rarely attended, preferring the Roman Catholic chapel and its kind-hearted old priest, who was a great friend of her father's, and made a tremendous pet of his clever, wayward daughter. One mistake he made — he did not try to convert her ; he was so sure that, as he said, " she must come all right some day," and she probably might have attained to that happy state, in the good old man's limited sense of the word, but that she landed herself in Ritualism, an event which, however, had not taken place when the seven years I am speaking of had ended.

She had to find her own way to the light, through a long course of dark ness and doubt ; for hers was no mind that could accept a faith, just because she had been born in it ; and no really deep and truly religious mind ever became so by simply accepting a form of faith as presented to it by parents or teachers. They learn as they go on ; they reject, they ac cept, they enlarge, they modify, they doubt, and then believe, and at last are obliged to be content with that form of religious belief which comes nearest to their own convictions ; and, whilst they admit that it is not perfect: — that no human system ever is, yet they cling to it more truly, more fondly, because more intelli gently, than many a blind adherent, who has never been troubled by any doubts, and jogs quietly on in calm self-satisfac tion.

Of the three girl friends, Muriel was the only one unmarried. Kate had never returned to Ropsley. Shortly after Caryl's departure for India, she had married Lord Beauvilliers, and Alice had, for several years, been the wife of Alberic Parsons, Esq., of Lancaster Place, Hyde Park. The Crimean war had come and gone, and the Indian Mutiny had broken out and been suppressed. One trifling inci dent connected with it Muriel never forgot. She wras in London with some friends in the June of 1857, and accompanied them to a large garden-party, where the lion of the day was the young Prince of Oude, the grandson of the old King, who was then in England, some said afterwards, sent there to be out of the way. There was fortune telling going on ; a gipsy had been hired, who, from under a tent of boughs, told the fate of any who chose to submit their hands for her inspection.

Wealth and handsome husbands were liberally promised to all the prettiest girls, and success in love and wTar to the handsomest men, when the young Prince came smilingly forward, and proffered his thin nervous hand. The gipsy took it and crossed it with the gold he offered her, then flung hand and gold from her, with a kind of shriek. " It is all stained with blood — take it away ! What are your race doing now ? There is murder doing in the land you come from — English men and English wo men are calling in their agony for help and mercy, and you dare to be amongst their people here ! Go, or, in their revenge, you too may perish !" The Prince drew back, an ashy look on his brown face, and, with a sneer, turned away, and shortly after left the grounds. What the gipsy read in his hand, and how she knew what was not known for many days afterwards, none could ever tell ; but all present that day remembered the gipsy when the first sad tidings came.

In both these wars Caryl had borne his part ; his regiment was sent from India to the Crimea, and then back again. Muriel watched the papers from day to day ; she read with beating heart the list of killed and wounded, and Caryl's name was not there. The fierce storm passed over ; he was safe and well, and news of him came often to Ropsley. And this was how it came. When Kate married, Miss Jerome looked about her for some little home in which to pass her re maining days, as she said, " in peace and quiet," and nowhere suited her so well as Bopsley-on-the-Sea. She had many friends there, it was cheap, and at times cheerful, and there accordingly she repaired ; took a small house, and was as sociable and chatty a body, as ever lived and vegetated in a country town. Her society had a great attraction for Muriel.

Had she not seen the last of Caryl ? — had she not known him intimately all the while he was engaged to Kate ? — and Miss Jerome, who pretty well guessed Muriel's thoughts, gladly encour aged her visits, and gossiped on by the hour together about Captain Trevor and his superiority to Lord Beauvilliers. Kate was very fond of her old governess and chaperon, and kept up a lively corre spondence with her. She had twice invited Miss Jerome to visit her at Beauvilliers' s Castle, and treated her with every kind ness; but this pleasant intercourse had been interrupted by the whole regiment being ordered to India, and Lord Beauvil liers having to accompany it. There was no exchanging then, no staying behind on any pretence. It was dishonour even to suggest it. Besides, Beauvilliers really liked his profession — he had no inclination to settle down either in London or on his estates, and he received the order with every symptom of joy.

Kate was determined to go too — why, no one knew ; and if she had a reason she kept it to herself. She persuaded Beau villiers to let her go as far as Calcutta. She went out overland ; and when Beauvilliers and the regiment arrived (for the troop-ship was two days later than the mail-steamer), she was ready to receive them with a smiling welcome, and see them off on their way up country, with warm wishes and kind farewells. When the worst was over, and the regiment quartered in conquered Delhi, she rejoined her hus band, and there, in that city of terrible memories, she met Caryl once again ; and thus Miss Jerome was able, from Kate's letters, to give Muriel much information as regarded Captain Trevor. Possibly Muriel might have preferred that Caryl and Lady Beauvilliers had not been living quite so near each other.

She had a vas;ue idea that married women could be very dangerous ; she knew the strength and fidelity of her own affection, and she thought that, if Caryl had ever loved Kate, he must do so still. She had tried to pic ture what it would be to cease to care for Caryl — it had not fallen to her lot to be obliged to try to do so, and she doubted if he would take it quite in the same way, and if he would think it wrong to love Kate still. A foreboding of evd was upon her, and she could not shake it off. And what during these seven years had become of that sweet Christian, Mrs. Evans ? She had vegetated on, day after day, still toadied by her poor relations, and uncontradicted by her friends ; and her state of spiritual pride had gone on gra dually increasing. Her contempt for the religious condition of all around had been so fostered by a course of Calvinistic read ing, that she pretty well narrowed the circle of the saved to Dr. O'Rourke, her self, and a miserable man who came round preaching, and who enunciated the awful doctrine that Christ only died for the elect, and that the rest of the world had no interest in His atonement.

Alice was married, and living in London. Very few young women would have been happy under her circumstances ; but a placid temperament, and the absence of home worries, perfectly reconciled her to her position. Her life was a dull one ; but so was her disposition. Mr. Parsons was absent all day in the City, and came home late, and too tired to be amusing, even if it had been in his power to be so, which it was not. He had one virtue — an apostolic one too — hospitality ; and his house was a perfect hotel for the Evans family and relations ; in fact, they formed the principal part of his society. He was too proud and desirous of rising in the social scale to associate with " City people ;" and the inner circle, whose doings are recorded in the Morning Post and the Court Journal, was closed to him. but this troubled Alice very little ; she read all the novels Mudie could supply her with ; she worked at every sort of sewing with a patent machine, and she kept the accounts, which, as she was a horribly bad arithmetician, were to her mysteries diffi- VOL. II.

C cult to unravel and impossible to clear up, and they were the only real bone of domestic contention. How many lives have been poisoned by accounts — some because they were not kept, and some because they were, amidst tears, and difficulty, and reproaches ! Charlie was the only one of Mrs. Evans's sons who disliked visiting in Lancaster Place ; he had no sympathy with Alice, her machine and her account books, and he had a pro found contempt for Alberic Parsons. He had grown bitter and cynical ; could he do less, in contact with his mother ? He saw how, day by day, and year by year, truth and honesty and fair dealing were ignored, in the name of the Lord, and " because all things were lawful " to the elect ; and as he saw how business prospered, and plans suc eceded,he believed in the Psalmist, who said, " The wicked flourish as a green bay tree."

Muriel was still his darling, most faith fully loved; he had failed to guard her from sorrow, and he read too well, for his own happiness, her undying remembrance of the man she loved ; and he thought with scorn how all Mrs. Evans's plots had failed, how Caryl was free, and Herbert detested by Muriel. The day might yet come, Trevor might return, and then he should know how he had been loved, how remem bered, and Muriel would be loved as she loved. That amiable youth, Herbert, had not im proved. He had a general notion of hav ing been id-treated by everybody, and of matters having been terribly mismanaged in the Kennedy affair. Not that he saw how things could have been mended, but, if ever anything went wrong, he always concluded that somebody was in fault — anybody except himself, of course.

He still continued to persecute Muriel, who by this time had learned to laugh at his attentions ; and Charlie declared it was out of mere obstinacy, and a resolution to have his own way, for that he could not c really love her, and yet make himself into a perpetual nuisance to her. And Dr. O'Rourke !— what of him ? He was doubly popular ; an arch-saint, if there be such a superior dignity amongst the canonized. Mrs. O'Rourke had gone to a better world, and he was eligible once more ! Oh ! the presents that poured in !—tea pots, coffee-pots, inkstands, rings, cambric bands of exquisite fineness, slippers of rich and sober colouring, black silk gowns of the thickest and stiff est sdk ; but not one single cassock — no ! They bordered on Rome and Ritualism, or, as the Doctor elo quently called it, " Rome's bastard child."

" What a pity it is !" said Charlie one day, as his mother was packing up an em broidered sermon-case — " what a very great pity that Dr. O'Rourke is not a Ritualist. You are so limited in your choice of offer ings of admiration in the evangelical world. Just think of the shades of all colour from purestwhite to blushing crimson, from fresh and emerald green to dark and gloomy peni tential purple ! Then the chasubles, and copes and albs and chalice veils, and altar covers, to say nothing of banners and palls, and many other interesting items ! Why, the dear doctor might accumulate a stock sufficient to lend to twenty churches, not so rich in millinery." " Charles," said his mother, severely dab bing down her seal on the red wax that secured her parcel, " do you believe that Dr. O'Rourke would look at one of those things you name ?"

" Possibly not ; but his son is casting a sheep's eye that way. Have you not heard that Walter is keeping the Saints' days in his new living ?" " How dreadful ! — to worship sinful mortals !" " Very ; I quite agree with you ; but it is just as bad to worship living saints as dead ones. I am afraid those poor souls never received in this world such a share of admiration, and such solid proofs of it, as Dr. O'Rourke." To this Mrs. Evans vouchsafed no reply. Charlie was generally, as he expressed it, one too many for her. And thus stood matters at Ropsley, when, after seven years had passed, I ask you once more to watch my darling through her stormy trial.

Chapter II. Across The Sea

The branches cross above our eyes, The skies are in a net, And what's the thing beneath the skies We two would most forget ? Not birth, my love, no ! no ! Not death, my love, no ! no ! The love once ours, but ours long hours ago. D. G. Rosetti. T7JAB over the sea, to the land so lately -*- convulsed by a terrible struggle, now gradually calming down. The old regi ment is there, and with it Colonel St. Barbe and Lord Beauvilliers, now its Major. And there, too, in the imperial city of Delhi, — still mourning in dust and ashes, — was Kate, Lady Beauvidiers, in the fud bloom of matured beauty, the admired of all, except the men of her own regiment, and they remembered Trevor and Muriel, the pleasant, unaffected, simple girl, who had won their gallant Colonel's heart, all unawares, and who had suffered so much from Trevor's uncertain disposition.

Lady Beauvilliers was neither an ill treated nor unhappy wife. Her husband was very proud of her, and very kind to her. But when the first triumph of suc cess and the first burst of passionate at tachment had cooled down, he betook him self to his old amusements — to his horses and dogs, to his regimental duties, and his mess dinners. She had a splendid allowance, and she spent it royally. She loved dress, and her husband liked to see her well dressed. She always welcomed him with a smile, never cross-questioned him as to the cause of his absence, nor as to who his companions might have been. He was duly grateful, and returned the confidence by leaving her unlimited freedom. Was Kate happy? She had rank and wealth, youth and a buoyant temperament. To all observers it might have seemed that Lady Beauvilliers occupied a most enviable position.

Yet it was not so. Kate had a heart, warped and untrained, to be sure, yet she could love — she had loved; she had sold herself for a coronet, and she had never cared for Beauvilliers. Like Muriel, she remembered. It was strange that such a man as Caryl Trevor should have had such power over two hearts, that an unstable disposition like his, a vacillating temper and a weak character, could win such constant memory from two so different as Kate and Muriel. When, with his regiment, he reached Delhi, he knew Kate was there. One fierce longing was in his soul — to meet her again, to see if any trace of regret and remembrance lingered amidst all her suecess. They did meet before the world was twenty-four hours older, and Caryl knew that he was not forgotten. Lord Beau villiers had no intention of behaving with any coolness to Trevor.

" Why should he ?" he thought. " Had he not been the conqueror in the battle for Kate ? Poor devil ! it was probably very hard to lose her, but what between her jilting him, and ad the fighting that had been going on, love must have been pretty wed knocked out of him." So when they met he greeted him as an old comrade, and, though the colour deepen ed on Caryl's bronzed cheek, he thought of Kate's low greeting the night before ; he could not bar against himself the entrance to her society, and he returned Lord Beau villiers's courtesy with equal warmth. He caded on Colonel St. Barbe, and that gallant officer was not quite so effusive in his welcome. " Sorry you are obliged to come to Delhi, Trevor," he said. " It must be painful to you to meet Lady Beauvilliers." " Not at all, Colonel," said Trevor, hesitatingly.

" It is so long ago now since all that happened, — seven years, you know, — that really it is time all unkindness should be forgotten." "Unkindness! yes, most certainly; but there are certain memories which we can not always shake off. I should have thought that you were not quite free from them." " They are not so pleasant that I should care to keep them. I wish sometimes I had never seen Ropsley." " I wish it sometimes, too," said St. Barbe in a low voice. " Then it was true Colonel, you did care for Miss Gore ?" " Quite true," answered the Colonel, bending his head. " That is a memory I do not wish to part with ; to have loved so true and pure a creature, is an honour to any man. I only regret that I came too late." Caryl looked down. " There are some things about it all, that puzzle me very much, Colonel.

I do not be lieve in any engagement to Herbert Evans, do you ?" " To Herbert Evans ! No, certainly not ; what makes you think so ?" "Mrs. Evans most assuredly hinted at it ; but, as she is not married to him, I begin to doubt it." " Trevor," said St. Barbe, slowly, " there was around all that Evans family, Charlie excepted, such an air of mystery and untruthfulness that I believe in foul play both to Beauvdliers and you. He would have proposed before you did at that very pic-nic, had he not been told that Kate Kennedy was only playing with him, to draw you on." " And I was told," broke in Caryl, " that Muriel was only flirting with me to pique Herbert Evans." " More fool you," said St. Barbe, angrily, " to believe it. Why, man, could you not see that Miss Gore did not know what the word flirting meant ?

She does now, I have no doubt. Whom has she to thank for that ? Acts compromise as well as words, and if ever acts spoke affection, yours did." " I know it now," said Caryl, with a weary sigh ; " but she was always too good for me, and it is too late — she must have outgrown it all." " That, too, I doubt, Trevor. Well, we shall see; and if she does remember, don't fling away your happiness, and such a heart, a second time." " No, Colonel, it is too late ; we may be years before we return to England, and Miss Gore may be married long before then ; besides, she would not dream of accepting Lady Beauvilliers' cast-off lover." And with a light laugh he turned away, evidently wish ing to change the conversation. The Colonel looked after him as he strode out of the room, and shook his head. " Breakers a-head," he thought.

" My lady would have no scruple in whistling the stray bird back to her feet ; and I don't trust my friend Trevor, he is too easily led. Beauvdliers is too carelesslyindifferent,and so that his wife does not openly compromise him, he cares very little as to the state of her heart, if she has one. I am mistaken if there is not mischief in the wind. I am glad Trevor is not in the regiment. If there is a sort of fellow I distrust, it is your unstable, impressionable one." And the Colonel was right, mischief was in the wind. Day after day, and evening after evening, Trevor passed in Kate's society. He was her escort when she rode, her partner when she danced. The world began to couple their names together, and to wonder if Lord Beauvdliers was quite blind. It is not pleasant to linger over the details of folly and weakness, but they had their effect on Muriel's after-life — they were links in the long chain of trial that bound her for so many a year.

What were Kate's motives it would be difficult to say. It does not appear that she had any, but only acting in accordance with the love she still felt for Trevor, she drifted down the tide of circumstances, and shut her eyes to pos sible consequences. As to local gossip, she despised it. Was she not Katherine, Baroness Beauvilliers, a Peeress of the realm. Are not we English in our secret hearts born tuft-hunters and toadies ? May not a Peer do many things with impunity, that wouldbrino' a Commoner into disgrace? And if matters go so far that disgrace does ensue, is it not easily condoned? Even round the worst crime a woman can commit against society, there is thrown a halo of romance denied to more vulgar sinners ; and if only the law of the land sets the erring one free, and a second marriage follows, do we not see the new name figur ing in the lists of the distinguished company entertained by this or that member of the most exclusive circle of the upper ten thou sand ?

Besides, Kate had no intention whatever of forfeiting her position, and she fancied that this worldly motive would be her suf ficient self-guard ; she did not know the terrible truth that all earthly consider ations are scattered by the tempest-blast of passion, " Like heath that on the wilderness The wild wind whirls away." There must be some stronger wall of defence in such an hour as that than mere ly worldly motives, and that hour comes to almost every woman once at least in her life. If those sober and staid matrons who sit in judgment on the weaknesses of their younger and frailer sisters would come into the public confessional, as penitents and converts did of old, and lay bear the secrets of their inner life, we should hear strange tales of hair-breadth escapes from the very fate they are foretelling for these, the tried and tempted ones, of this their day of safety !

Cannot they remember this, and, for the sake of a buried past, deal more gently with them, and win them back, by loving sympathy, to the way they are forsaking ? But if there had been a confessor near, Roman or Anglican, Kate would not have troubled him with any revelations of her secret soul. She paid all decent respect to the public ordinances of religion ; it was the right thing to do, and did not take up much time ; beyond that, she did not go. No doubts and fears had ever troubled her ; and unless some thunder-bolt aroused her, she was likely to go on in the same calmly indifferent way till the end came. The flirtation went on, and the world talked ; and at last St. Barbe, like a true and good man, spoke to Caryl, as to one he had known for years, and took him to task. Trevor saw what lay before him — VOL. II.