Lady Lovelace: a novel

Front matter

NEW THREE-VOLUME NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES. THE LOVER'S CREED. By Mrs. Cashel Hoey. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. By Sarah Tytler. A HARD KNOT. By Charles Gibbon. 'THE WEARING OF THE GREEN.' By Basil. GERALD. By Eleanor C. Price. PHILISTIA. By Cecil Power. THE SHADOW OF A CRIME By Hall Caine. LADY LOVELACE. By C. L. Pirkis. FARNELL'S FOLLY. By J. T. Trowbridge. (2 vols.) London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly. % Nobel BY C. L. PIRKIS AUTHOR OF " A VERY OPAL," " JUDITH] WYNNE," ETC. ETC. IN T/IEEE VOLUMES VOL. I. ___._). .Don CHATTO AND AVINDUS, PICCADILLY 1885 [The Right of Translation is reserved] CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. TO DR. J. B. SPENCE, OF MORNINGSIDE, -_rf)tj. Boot, is BeDuateD, as a small acknowledgment of great kindness and courtesy received from him by THE AUTHOR. NUTFIELD, 1885.

Chapter I

" I don't believe you have heard one word I have said," exclaimed Edie Fairfax from her perch among the low branches of a spreading walnut-tree. Then with a sudden petulant upward movement, she seized a bough that gracefully arched itself over her head, and sent a whole shower of the over-ripe nuts on the brown, withered grass beneath, where, book in hand, half lay, half reclined, the lithe, long figure of Philip Wickham, nephew to Miss Edie's father's oldest friend and nearest neighbour, Colonel Wickham, of Wickham Place. Her VOL. I. E betrothed lover also, ever since, as a small maiden of twelve years, she had looked up in his face and said : " Phil, I love you better than any one in the whole world ; when we grow up we'll keep house together, so mind you don't marry anybody else." Phil looked up lazily for a moment as the nuts came rattling about his ears.

"How now, Edie; what's up ? " he said calmly. (One might almost have declared he was used to such vehement expostula tions.) Then his eyes wandered back to his open book once more. Edie grewmore and more indignant. She was a small, slight girl, of the brown-eyed, brown-haired, English type, with a complexion pure and pale, and a colour that came and went with every passing mood. Her features were small and regular, her lips daintily curved, her nose straight. At first sight one was apt to think that somehow Nature had made a mistake in fitting such a nose on a face that seemed emphatically to demand one of the artless retrousse" type ; as one knew her better, however, one would feel bound to admit that Nature was correct as usual, and the nose as right as could be — -just what one would expect a person of Edie's temperament to own to ; in fact, the face taken as a whole (nose included), expressed the girl in all her moods to perfection.

It was a face that before any thing else seemed to say : "I am a happy young person, and I have been all my life a spoilt, petted, and happy young person. I am, perhaps, a little disposed to be imperious at times, and, not a doubt, I can't stand being thwarted or denied my own way." At the moment, however, when she rattled the ripe walnuts about Phil Wick ham's head, it is possible that her face expressed more imperiousness than happi- B ness, for the pretty little lips were straight ening out of their usual curves, dimples had disappeared, and there was a very determined ring in her voice as she said : " Phil, once for all, will you put away that horrid book, and listen to me with both your ears ? " " My dear Edie, I have been listening to you ever since I came out this morn ing with my book and pipe at eleven o'clock ; and now it's nearly one — that's close upon two hours of listening," was Phil's rejoinder in the same mild, lazy tone as before.

" That's close upon two hours of read ing, you mean ? How any one in his senses could waste all that time over a stupid novel is more than I can understand. I thought you men were above such frivolous nonsense as reading novels, I really did." " My dear Edie, we only occasionally look into them to see what the women spend so much time over. Also, I would like to remind you that the book I have in my hand at the present moment can not be characterised either as stupid or frivolous ; it is written by one of the cleverest men of the day, and is called " " I don't in the least want to know what it is called. It is written by a man, and that is quite enough for me ; I never take more than five minutes, at the out side, over a man's book " — here the short upper lip curled itself into the prettiest little attempt at a sneer of which it was capable — "such creatures as they turn out for heroes, and one is to take their word for it that they are drawn from life — he ugh-ugh !

" Here a visible shudder, which sent half-a-dozen or so of the driest of the walnut-leaves on Phil's pages. "Well, I only hope a good providence won't send any such heroes limping across my path. Why, we'd die old maids a thousand times over rather than put up with such a horror as the one you're reading about there. I've forgotten his name — Heth, Hether, or Hethering something or other. A man who'd preach to you morning, noon, or night, no matter what you might do. He'd preach to you if you laughed, and he'd preach to you if you cried, and he'd preach to you if you didn't do either. He-ugh-ugh ! " k h Here, pausing for breath, she nodded somewhat viciously at the book, which Phil had now closed, and was leaning his elbows upon, while he looked up in her face, waiting for her tirade of criticism to cease.

When at length it came to an end, he clapped his hands vigorously, crying: "Well done — well done " But Edie interrupted him : " Be quiet, Phil ; you know how I hate to be applauded in that ironical way," she began petulantly. " My dear Edie," retorted the young man, " you should have let me finish. I was applauding myself, not you. I was going to say : ' Well done, Phil, old fellow ; you are a capital listener, after all.'" Edie laughed outright. In this young person's April - like temperament, smiles and petulance frequently trod upon each other's heels, or even at times came hand in-hand. "You do well to applaud yourself for your listening powers — no one else would do it for you. Not I, at any rate, for you have not heard one word I have been saying, as I have already told you a hundred times over."

" My dear Edie, as I have already told you, not a hundred times, but once only, I have heard not only every halfsyllable you have uttered since I have been lying here on the grass at your feet, but I have heard more than your words. Don't lift your eyebrows at me in that fashion. I distinctly heard two tremen dously heavy sighs when you made the announcement that Lady Lovelace was coming to stay with you for a few months — for the winter most probably." " I object to having my sighs cata logued in that businesslike fashion. As though they concerned anybody but my self! I object also to having my cousin called by any but her proper name, Ellinor Yorke." "But, Edie, she is a Lovelace — at the commencement of her career. Nothing will ever unmake her." " Now, Phil, who and what was Love lace ?

The man himself, I mean ? I am always meeting with allusions to him in books, but I have never come across the man himself, although I get through piles of novels every year ! Who was he ? What did he do ? " " Oh, nothing very much ; he used to go about the world breaking people's hearts — that was all." " Well, I see nothing wonderful in that ; as if anybody couldn't do that, if they tried ! " this said with a scornful emphasis. " And crushing people's souls — women's, that is," continued Phil. " Ah, that's another thing ! Anybody couldn't do that. But, Phil," this added after a moment's reflection, " it would have been grand to have turned the tables on him ! " Phil looked up suddenly in her face. "You couldn't do such a thing, Edie!" he said sharply, one might almost have said nervously.

There came no answer from Edie. She was slowly pulling the big leaves, damp and limp from October night dews, from the bough on which she sat, dropping them one by one on the ground at her feet. She seemed all engrossed in her task. Phil, with something of a canine stretch and shake, got up from his recumbent posture. He was a fine, stalwart young fellow, of about five or six - and - twenty, with a frank, honest-looking face, bright blue eyes, a heavy thickness of fair curling hair. The absence of beard or whisker on his face possibly made him look somewhat younger than his age. Also he carried himself — head and shoulders, that is — with an easy, indifferent, happy air, which, per haps, robbed him of another year or two. His was emphatically the carriage of an easy tempered, happy man, of a man who, it is possible, might possess strong will, strong brain, strong muscle, but who as yet was scarcely conscious of his possessions, never having had occasion to draw upon them.

He held out his hand to help Edie from her perch. " I suppose we ought to be going in," he said ; " it's nearly luncheontime." But Edie did not offer to stir. She had pulled off the last leaf from her bough, and was now slowly tearing its delicate tissue into morsels. " I told you, Phil, at breakfast this morning, that I had something of importance to say to you, if you would listen with both your ears instead of one and a half," she said in a low tone. " But, Edie, I thought the important communication was made, and that it had reference to Lady Lovelace's visit," said Phil with an accent of surprise. Edie went on pulling her leaf to pieces. " I am all attention, dear," said Phil, wonder increasing on him. Edie seemed to make a huge effort. She dropped her leaf, folded her hands in her lap, and looked down into his face.

" Well, ifr's just this," she said, speaking as though the words would hardly come. " I have been thinking a great deal lately, and it has come into my head that some how our engagement does not seem to be like real love-making, but more like playing at it, and that — that — that — perhaps, it would be better — better that — that — that we should not be engaged to each other any longer ! " The last half-dozen words came out with a desperate rush and hurry, and left her almost panting for breath. She had prac tised saying them at least a hundred and fifty times that morning in front of her looking-glass to make sure she could give them with proper effect ; but somehow now they were said they did not seem to sound one whit as she had expected they would. Phil stood still, looking up at her dumbly.

Never a word found its way to his lips. The pause was insupportable " Don't you understand me, Phil ? " she asked, her words jerking in time and tune to her painfully beating heart. " I don't think I do," he answered hoarsely. " I can't think you mean to throw me over, Edie, after all these years." He was listening with both his ears now, not a doubt. Edie began to grow troubled. Her eyes drooped, her fingers twined and twisted themselves in and out on her lap. " I did not think you would take it in that way," she began falteringly. " I hardly know how to explain what I mean. It seems to me sometimes that we are more like brother and sister than — than — any thing else. You see, we somehow slipped into our engagement without exactly know ing how, or thinking much about it — and —and — of course it's a thing that ought to be thought over " Here she broke off; it was absolutely impossible for her to get another word out.

Phil drew a long breath ; his senses were beginning to come back to him. " Am I to understand," he began in slow, somewhat formal tones, "that you, having thought well over our engagement, have come to the conclusion that there is some thing in me so objectionable that you can't possibly love me and be happy with me ? " Edie slid off her perch in a moment. She stood close to Phil's side (her head scarcely reached to his shoulder), laying her hand upon his arm, and throwing her soul into her brown eyes, which she lifted appealingly to his blue ones. " Oh, Phil, Phil— dear Phil ! " she cried, "you must not talk like that, or I shall wish I had not spoken. You don't understand me one bit, I can see. As if I ever could leave off caring for you ! Why, I've known you ever since I was a baby ! What I really meant to say was : I was not sure whether — whether — oh, don't you see ? — whether I cared for you in the right sort of way, and whether you cared too.

Don't you see — can't you understand?" Here she stamped her foot petulantly on the dry leaves at her feet. " Oh dear, oh dear ! what a great, dull fellow you are. There's nothing bright about you but your eyes and your hair ! " Phil began to smile again ; he loved to hear Edie talk to him in this way, it seemed more like her natural self. " I am, as you say, Edie, a great, dull fellow," he answered quietly ; " but I think I begin to see what you mean. You won't mind my telling you, dear, that you — you only of us two — are the one who need to find out whether your love is of the right sort. I am, you know, eight years older than you, and all you have just been saying came into my head exactly five years ago, and was very satisfactorily answered. Now don't you think, dear, that the easiest and best way for you to get an answer to your doubts would be to marry me as quickly as possible — say in a month's time ? — you could then without much trouble find out the sort of way in which you cared for me."

His arm stole round her waist as he finished speaking. He even dared to push back her poke sun-bonnet so as to get a better view of those brown eyes and the now rapidly flushing cheek. Edie greatly affected poked sun-bonnets ; they were such comfortable things and could be so easily tilted with a jerk from behind over her eyes when Phil took it into his head (as he often did) to say sweet or saucy things to her. She did not try to free herself from his arm, in fact seemed very comfortable under its pressure, and to be rapidly recovering her composure. " Now, what an absurd thing to say. It's just like you ! " she cried. " Where would be the use of my finding out after we were married that I didn't like you, and didn't want to live with you. Don't you see it's the point of the whole thing that I'm to find it out before it's too late ?

Now do be sensible and serious, Phil, and help me out with what I want to say. I'm not asking anything very unreasonable ; I only want not to be engaged for a time — say a year — and then, you know, at the end of the year, if we're both willing, we can be en gaged again. That's all. There's nothing very terrible in that, is there ? " Phil grew grave again. " Must it be a year — a whole year, Edie?" he asked; "wouldn't three months do ? " "Three months — absurd! Why, that VOL. I. C would be like playing at breaking it off; I want it to be the real thing. No ; it must be for a whole year, beginning from to-day ! " " From to-day ! No, no ; we needn't start so soon as all that. Let's begin at the beginning of next year, start even and fair from the ist of January, or a little later on — say somewhere in March, about Lady Day eh, Edie?"

And he said to himself as he said this : " Thank heaven, all the detestable tennis-parties are over for this year ! There are those confounded Christmas balls, though, to get through ! " Edie was resolute. " It must be from to-day," she said, with a great air of decision ; " when you have made up your mind to a thing, there's nothing like beginning at once. Now there's the luncheon-bell ; please carry my cloak so — on that arm ; my sketching portfolio so — in your other hand ; now we'll walk sedately up to the house if you don't mind, and, remember, we're beginning now — this very minute — not to be engaged." " This looks like beginning," said Phil as he ladened himself obediently with Edie's belongings. But Edie knew very well what she was doing. She had given Phil occupation for both his hands, and her waist was consequently set free.

It was a hot, hazy October morning ; they had gone down to a quiet corner of the orchard under pretence of sketching a pretty little " bit " Edie had said she was "dying" to have framed and hung in her sitting-room. The sketch, however, had fared but badly, a few faintly-marked pencil lines were its only representative in the portfolio Phil closed and tucked up under his arm. The dry leaves crunched under their c feet as they slowly made their way towards the house ; the autumn sunlight went dancing and glancing in and out among the pear and plum-trees ; a late bee went by humming cheerily ; a big codlin came down with a crash almost at Edie's feet. " There's one thing more," she said, stopping suddenly on the edge of the orchard, " you must tell the papas all about it, Phil — I mean my papa and your uncle.

You know men always do the asking and telling in such matters." " Do they ? " said Phil ; " with excep tions, you mean. You won't forget you made me the offer in the first instance — Edie, let me see — exactly six years ago." "When I was an absurd little dot in short frocks, and thought asking a person to marry you was much the same as asking for more pudding or a new doll ! Well, at any rate now you must do all the dis agreeable part. I dread telling papa, in case he should be ridiculous and lose his temper. " Now, Edie, as if your father had ever in his whole life been known to lose his temper over anything except a game of whist ! " " Well, then, in case I might lose mine — it comes to much the same thing in the end. Now don't forget; this afternoon I'll see that you get papa all to yourself, and you must tell him that from to-day — by-the bye, what is the date of to-day, Phil ?

" The ist of October, 1881." "Well, then, from the ist of October, 1 88 1, till the ist of October, 1882, we are not to be engaged. Now, that's all, I think." And Edie went serenely on her way once more. " That's not all ; there's one thing more, Edie," said Phil, in low, earnest tones, laying his hand on her arm. " One thing more ! What is it ?" asked the unsuspecting Edie. " This," and Phil, throwing cloak and portfolio on the ground, caught the girl in his arms, and imprinted one long, strong, passionate kiss on her lips. "Forgive me, dear," he said humbly; " it may be so long before I shall get another ! " And a sudden sharp terror seized him as the thought rose up momentarily in his heart, " Would that kiss, in all its passionate fervour, be repeated on the ist of October, 1882?"

Chapter II

Mr. Fairfax — or, as he was generally called by his neighbours and friends in the little village of Stanham, "the Squire" — sat com fortably rubbing his knees over his library fire. Although the days were bright and almost summer-like, the evenings were chill and damp, and he liked to hear the crackle and splutter of the logs up his wide chimney. " And do you mean to tell me, Phil, you have known Edie all these years and not found out she has a will of her own, and a good stout one too, at times ? " he was saying to Phil, who was leaning against the mantelpiece, looking down on him some what moodily. This was the first oppor tunity Phil had had of informing the Squire of Edie's resolution to suspend her engagement. All that afternoon Edie had had callers, and Mr. Fairfax had been obliged to put in an appearance in the \drawing room ; then dinner had intervened, and Phil was compelled to ask for five minutes in the library before he could get the Squire all to himself.

Anthony Fairfax was a fine, well-pre served old country gentleman, tall, straight, massive in feature and limb. At first si__ht one would be disposed to credit him with a vast amount of dignity ; a tendency to put stringent measures into force on a very slight provocation ; a huge sense of self importance. A second or third glance, however, would dissipate the idea entirely. One would find out that his appearance of self-conscious dignity and importance arose chiefly from the fact of his possessing a loud and somewhat magisterial voice, a good carriage of his head and shoulders, a slow and stately walk. See a friend touch his hand, watch him listening to some woman's tale of sorrow, and all idea of a pompous, crusty old gentleman would vanish. Edie knew her father's temperament, his " points " good and bad, just as she knew those of her favourite mare who, as she used to say, " needed a light but firm hand."

On this principle, to all appearance, she managed both father and mare. Possibly the father knew the daughter as well as the daughter knew him, for he took Phil's confidences very easily, in spite of the disconsolate manner in which they were communicated. " Give her her head, my boy, for a time — don't thwart her," he said, rubbing his knees .once more. " If she has made up her mind to carry out this little whim, depend upon it she'll do it. You ought to have known her well enough by this time to know that. I am only surprised at your expecting me to ' get her to do ' this, that, or the other — that's all." Phil sighed. " There's one thing I do think you might have done for me, Mr. Fairfax," he said, with something of reproach in his tone, " and that is, have let me hasten on our marriage.

You know how hard I begged for it at the beginning of the year." The Squire laughed. " A most unreasonable thing on your part to expect. Yes, yes, I remember per fectly. I told you then what I tell you now : that she is a great deal too much of a child for me to think of marrying her off for another three or four years to come. Why, she's scarcely out of short frocks and pinafores at the present moment ! " " She's turned eighteen. You'll find lots of fellows think a girl out of short frocks and pinafores at that age." " Ay, but not the fellows' fathers and mothers, Phil, who have lived a little longer, and know a little more possibly. No, no ; take my advice, let her have her own way in this little freak of hers ; you'll come together all right again at the end of the year — take my word for it.

And don't be in such a confounded hurry over the marrying part of the business. Y ou young fellows like everything done at express speed — engaged to-day, married to-morrow ! The world wasn't made in a day " " No ; but I think, all things considered, it might very well have been made in three at the farthest," said Edie, opening the door at that moment. " Minerals the first day, animals the second, vegetables the third to feed them all on. Oh, papa, what can you two people have found to talk about all this long time ? I am so sleepy, I have come in to say good-night. You can't possibly have anything else to say to each other." " No ; I suppose there is nothing more to be said," said the Squire, looking at Phil with a vague feeling that he himself had said a great deal. " I suppose there is nothing more to be said," echoed Phil, with a sigh and a vague feeling that he himself had said nothing at all.

" Then I'll say good-night and go," said Edie ; "you know I must get all the beauty sleep I can the next few days, if I don't want to look quite washed out beside my cousin Ellinor." She went up to her father, and gave him one, two, three good earnest kisses. " Now, papa," she said, as she gave him the last, " you are a sensible, middle aged man, and are supposed to know everything. I do so wish you could give me an idea — the glimmering of an idea, why Ellinor has taken it into her head all of a sudden to come and take up her abode with us ? " " My dear, her mother gave a sufficiency of reason when she wrote. She is obliged to take Juliet — that's her other daughter," he explained, turning to Phil — "to the Riviera to pass the winter on account of her lungs, so she naturally wishes to leave Ellinor in comfortable keeping till her return."

" But why couldn't Ellinor go with her, or why couldn't she stay with some of her intimate friends in London ? " "Her mother naturally prefers leaving her with relatives." " But we are such distant relatives. You are her twentieth or thirtieth cousin, and I am fortieth or fiftieth, I suppose," said Edie, following a method of reckoning all her own. " And to take such a lot of trouble to hunt us up," she added; "it is incomprehensible. " " If," said Phil, " the Winterdownes were at the Castle, it could easily be under stood." Lord Winterdowne was the largest landed proprietor in the neighbourhood, but had not been in residence at the Castle for more than a dozen years. "How spiteful ! " exclaimed Edie, turning sharply upon him ; "I did not think men ever said disagreeable things about beautiful young women."

" There are some beautiful young women who never have anything but disagreeable things said about them by men," answered Phil ; "the heartless-flirt tribe, I mean." " Heartless flirts are specially sent into the world by Providence to avenge the wrongs of their sisters who have hearts and get them broken — by the men," retorted Edie. "Now, Edie — now, Edie," interposed the Squire, who had a rooted dread of sparring, even in its mildest form ; " what can you, of all people in the world, know about broken hearts, and what can heartless flirts, male or female, have to do with the reason why Ellinor Yorke prefers spending a winter with us instead of with her friends in London ? " " I should say she wanted to shuffle her cards and begin all over again," muttered Phil, a little savagely perhaps — but then he had met Ellinor Yorke in London, and had been thrown occasionally into her society.

Edie turned upon him quickly. " If that's your opinion of my cousin," she began, " I should advise you not to " She broke off a little suddenly, adding : " I think I'll say good-night, and go now." Then, with a little bow to the gentlemen, she left the room. "I think I'll go too," said Phil; "it's getting late." The Squire rose and went with the young man to the hall-door. It seemed odd to Phil not to see Edie's bright little face peeping behind her father's shoulder. She had stood on the door-step and watched him away down the avenue — ah ! he couldn't say for how many years. Well, he must get used to doing without her in all sorts of ways now, he said to himself with another sigh. " Pitch-dark, is it ? " said the Squire, throwing back the door ; " have a man with a lantern to see you through the shrubbery ?