The Dowager's Determination

Chapter I

"And that is your last remark?" The words were uttered in a tone of mingled anger and despair, and the speaker flung himself back in his chair and fixed his eyes with intense yearning upon the face of the girl who sat opposite to him on the wide window-sill, half shadowed by the curtain which drooped above her. 1-1 My very last on this subject, but there are numerous others still open for discussion between us." There was a would-be lightness in her manner which deceived neither herself nor the man she addressed, and a dead silence followed her reply. It was about six o'clock on a May evening, and B the lengthening shadows were beginning to tell of the close of day as they fell from the tall cedar in the centre of the rectory garden, and from the limes that bounded the little lane beyond. Nothing could be more peaceful or more English than the scene.

The chimes which had just sounded from the "old church tower on the left, seemed, as they ceased, to leave a deeper stillness in the air, and the scent of the lilacs and syringa as it floated in thro' the open casement, filled the evening breeze with perfume. The small drawing-room with the few valuable prints on the walls, the open piano, the well chosen books that filled the low shelves, the work basket standing on the little inlaid table, — unpre tending as it was in its furniture and appointments, was still unquestionably a lady's room, and a not unfitting frame for its fair young mistress. It looked what the rector loved to consider it, the very abode of calm and content; but on this May evening, unfortunately, neither the one nor the other predominated within its precincts. The girl sat motionless for a time that seemed to her intermin able, but which might in reality have been about five minutes, with her head leaning against the oak shutter and her eyes fixed upon the familiar land scape, of which, however, at that moment, she saw no single detail.

She was young and very pretty, with fair hair, blue eyes and a rosebud colouring, but with a wilful determination about the mouth and chin which warred with the soft outlines ofthe rest of her face. Lilian Jardine, the niece of the bachelor rector, and the only child of the house, had been spoilt and deferred to until she had learnt to believe that the pedestal reared by flattery and indulgence, on which she had taken her stand, had in reality been built by her own talent, and that her superior judgment had caused her elevation to a point from which she could issue her opinions without fear of contradiction. She had much ofthe charm of youth and all the audacity of inexperience (that firm and almost pathetic belief of ignorance), but with these she had also considerable if undeveloped strength of character.

The man who sat opposite to her in the interval of silence, which seemed so long reckon ed by heart-beats, and was so short calculated by time, was of a very different type. He was about eight years her senior in age, and eighteen in knowledge of life. The son of a former rector, Eslington had been the home of his childhood; in his schoolboy time his holidays had been spent with his mother, who occupied a small house on the outskirts of the village, and now having com pleted his medical education, and finding an opening in the parish, he had purchased the practice and returned to live for the present, at any rate, in the place in which he felt the deepest interest. He was a clever and earnest man ; the marked features and keen eyes denoted strength and determination, and the honours he had won in his physiological studies proved that his intellect was of no ordinary character.

It was not likely that in the long run of life he would be satisfied with the narrow sphere a country village offered, but for a few years it might content him, and especially until he had gained the object upon which his heart was set, and per suaded Lilian to be his wife, and at first he had little doubt on the matter. The girl was very fond of him, enjoyed his society, and turned to him in every trifling joy or trouble. What more natural than that she should be satisfied to pass her life in his society, and undoubtedly she had contem plated doing so and had given encouragement which it might not be easy to explain away. But latterly things had not been going so smoothly, another star had arisen upon the horizon and Stephen Brand quickly realized that his own light was waning. At the same time conscious as he was that ambition and not affection was leading her on, he hoped that a few straightforward words would dispel the mists that were closing round her, and bring her to his side again.

And so he "put it to the test, to win or lose it all", and — she refused him. The shock was great, somehow he had not be lieved it possible that Lilian, his Lilian, whom he had doted upon since her babyhood, and who had ever seemed to rely so entirely upon him, could DETERMINAIION 6 put him aside like a broken toy. She flushed and paled as she answered him; she certainly did not appear happy in her action, but nevertheless she clung to her determination not to pledge herself to him, not to promise to be his wife and as he listened to her incoherent explanation of that re solve, mingled with the bitterness of his personal disappointment came a sickening dread of the future he saw before her. "Why don't you speak?" exclaimed Lilian at last, starting forward and laying her hand on his arm as the silence became intolerable.

" Why are you angry with me because I cannot marry you ? I care for you just as much as I did last year or last month." "Or just as little!" he said, with a slow smile and a sudden contraction of the strong face. "You are unjust, you are unreasonable," she answered, with the pettishness of a spoilt child; "there has been no difference in me for ages, oh, I cannot tell how long, the difference is all in you." "Is it?" his keen glance seemed to look through her. "It may have been my imagination, but I certainly thought I detected some change since Lord Raymore arrived at the Castle, and that is the reason why I tested my opinion to-day; but if you will tell me positively that before that date you never contemplated the possibility of becoming my wife, I am bound to believe you and I shall do so."

Her face flushed under his gaze. "What is the use of talking like that?" she said impatiently, "how can I answer for every idle fancy I may have had? What j want now, at any rate, is to be friends and nothing more; do let us be friends, Stephen," she continued imploringly, "we have been such, — what is it they call it in French? — such bons camarades, there is nothing to prevent our continuing to be so." "There is everything," he said sternly, "when friendship is offered in the place of love, it is indeed a stone instead of bread. I am not angry, don't think it. I have been a fool of the eye, I have taken seeming for reality; I cared so much that I could not believe with all your pretty wiles and coaxing ways, you did not care at all, but to-night has undeceived me. I don't blame you; I suppose you know no more the pain you have inflicted than the child of two years old who pulls the wings off an insect, knows that the creature may possibly crawl, but will never fly again.

Your very offer of friendship proves your ignorance." He rose as he spoke, and his tall figure as he leant against the window, shook with suppressed emotion. She looked up at him dazed and frightened yet scarcely comprehending the storm she had evoked. He saw it and with a great effort controlled himself; besides there was something he must say before he left her, however much his motives in doing so might be misunderstood. "I beg your pardon," he said gently, but he did not reseat himself beside her, "I don't often allow my feelings to run away with me like this, no doubt they will be under rein and curb to morrow; forget them if you can for a moment, and talk to me about yourself. Are you going to marry Lord Raymore?" She turned her head away. " He has not asked me, and probably won't." "If he does, shall you accept him?"

"I won't be cross-examined;" she spoke angrily; "you have no right to ask such questions." He smiled grimly; he had quite recovered his self-command. "A man has no right to seize a woman by the hair of her head, he said, but if he does so to drag her out of a river in which she is drowning, he will hardly be prosecuted for assault and battery." "I don't know what you mean;" there was a break in her voice; "don't speak in those ridiculous parables. If Lord Raymore proposed to me and if I liked him, both 'iss' which are very improbable, there is no reason why I should not marry him, and I don't believe," she added sharply, "even your jealousy could find one." A bitter expression passed over his face, but her anger was too childish, too uncomprehending to awaken a similar feeling in him. "Yes," he said slowly, "perhaps you are right, perhaps I am jealous, and that I should be so of any man who stood in the place I longed so much to fill; but, Lilian, I have always been true to you, and you will believe my solemn assurance that it is not jealousy which makes me speak to-night."

He paused; she looked a little awed and very uncom fortable, and as he saw, was most anxious to escape, but he would not let her. " You must hear me out now, I won't keep you long. What do you know of this man, with whom at any rate you are be coming intimate?" "What do I know of him? I know that he is Lord Raymore, that he is very agreeable, that uncle was much pleased when he came to live at the Castle, and is always glad to see him here." She faltered a little, the inadequacy of her statement struck her slightly. " And is that all ? " Brand said coldly. "Let me supplement your knowledge. Lord Raymore is a man whose past I cannot enter into with a girl like you, further than that it must have deepened the hereditary taint in his blood : for I firmly believe there is madness in his family on both father's and mother's side, seeing that they were first cousins.

The late Lord, it is supposed, died a lunatic, and Lady Raymore lives on another property belonging to her son some ten miles off, nominally with a companion, but it is generally asserted, really with a keeper." He paused; Lilian had grown very pale, but an obstinate look he knew well was settling round her mouth. He bent forward and took her hand : " You would not, my dear Lilian, you would not under any circumstances, make such a marriage as that." She drew back impatiently; "I daresay it is exaggerated," she exclaimed ; " I daresay it is not half true ; you talk about belief and suppositions and assertions, you do not speak of any knowledge of facts. Why did you never say a word about it until to-night? he has been here these two months." " Because only in the last few days has the state of affairs become patent to me, and I have seen that that old tigress, his grandmother, is longing to take the chance of saving him by sacrificing you."

THE DO WAGER'S DETERMINATION 12 The girl sprang to her feet. "Stop!" she said fiercely, "I won't hear another word, — the Dowager is kindness itself to me. I know two of Lord Ray more's uncles and they have not gone mad; I don't believe that he ever will, and I don't see why he should. He is as sane as you are, and a great deal more generous, for I am sure he would never have spoken of you as you have of him." "Lilian, the taunt is unworthy of you, but it does not matter. What does matter is the prospect before you. Lord Raymore has not been always sane, at least such is my conviction ; there are two years in his life which are unaccounted for among his friends, and there is a look in his eyes which tells me he may lose his sanity again." "You are assuming again; you know nothing. I don't believe it."

The expression of obstinacy deep ened and she rose from her chair. He caught her dress and detained her. "Hear me, I implore you," he said, all thought of himself lost in the dread for her. "You are dazzled, you are ambitious, and you look at life with eyes which have seen nothing beyond this quiet house; but think what it will be when you find yourself alone in that great castle, in the dead of night, alone with a man who has madness in his blood, who may at any moment become himself a madman." His voice had an anguish of entreaty in it, but she tore herself from his grasp and ran from the room, closing the door after her with an angry sound which echoed thro' the little rectory. "It is no use, no use," thought the young man, speaking almost aloud in his pain ; " her ignorance and her wilfulness have raised a barrier it is hope less to attempt to pass.

God help her, for I cannot ! " Half an hour later, when her uncle came in, a very preoccupied niece awaited his arrival ; but un less his attention was called to it, and very often not then, the most obvious change of manner would have passed unnoticed by the rector. Amiable and absent, always crediting his fellow-men with the best motives, and so entirely taken up with the trivial round of his parish duties that Eslington and England were synonymous terms to him, he knew hardly more of a wider life than the plough boy he had christened eighteen years before, and was about as incapable of directing an impetuous, ambitious girl along the path of life as a blind man would be of conducting a traveller over an Alpine pass. Lilian loved him, but hardly ever dreamt of applying to him for advice, — in fact she generally told him what she considered was the right thing to be done, and unless it warred with his kindness to others, or his conscientious scruples (and then he was inflexible) he meekly acquiesced in her views.

And yet in the tumult that had been raised in her mind by her conversation with Brand, she felt she must seek something to allay the storm, and the very simplicity she had almost despised seemed to appeal to her to-night. The window was fastened, but the shutters were still unclosed when they returned to the drawing-room after dinner, and as the rector sank into an arm-chair drawn close to the casement, and looked lovingly on the familiar scene, Lilian drew a footstool towards her and seated herself by his side. He passed his hand dreamily over her fair hair : " Well, what have you been doing to-day? Widow Blake told me that she missed you, that you had not been near her since last week." "I am tired of her," said the girl abruptly, "she is always complaining. Who was it said we ' should not check the stream of sympathy by the dam of constant repetition ' ?

I am sure the dam is fifty feet broad, and at any rate it has choked my stream of sympathy at the source." "Dear, dear," said the rector, with much astonishment, looking down at the wilful face turned up towards him, " who would have thought you would speak like that, Lii ; you should remember that she is old and ill, she can't help that." "No, but she can help talking about it perpetually, as if no one else ever grew old, and as if her body contained every disease that flesh is heir to." " Well, my child, something has put you out with the poor old dame." The rector was so unused to administer reproof that he did not venture to find fault now. "Tell me what you have heard of that situation that Emily Drew was applying for; do you think it is suitable for the girl?" Lilian raised herself and put both her hands on Mr. Jardine's knee.

"I don't know and don't care. Uncle, will you understand that I am sick of the parish, that it would be nothing to me if Widow Blake and Emily Drew and all the rest of them were with Pharoah's host in the Red Sea, and that I want you to think about me and me only." "My child, I am always thinking about you, and though you must have your little joke at the expense of my poor people, I know you would do anything for them and me. What is it that has vexed you, my pet?" he added hurriedly, seeing that tears, very unusual guests in the clear blue eyes, were filling them now. Lilian dashed them away. "A great deal has vexed me, you won't wonder when you hear. Stephen Brand asked me to marry him to-day." The rector half raised himself up and sank back again, a look made up of pain, surprise and resignation was on his kind face.

" Asked you to marry him ! My little Lii ! Why, I never looked upon you but as a child. We grow old and the young beside us grow up," he continued in his meditative man ner," and we never seem to know it until the nest is empty and the bird has flown. This nest will be very empty without you ; but I don't want to be selfish, my darling," — as if he ever was — " Stephen is a good fellow, a right good fellow, he is sure to make you happy, and thank God, you will not be far away." "But I don't want to marry him," cried Lilian, much exasperated; "why should you think I did? It is most tiresome of him to have taken such an idea into his head." " You don't want to marry him ! Well, I'm sure I don't want you to marry anyone, but you are sure to do so some day, and you will scarcely find a better and a truer man than Brand.

You always seemed fond of him, Lii, why don't you like him now?" "I do like him," she said quickly, "but it would c be all so dull; the same village, the same round, the same everyday life; if I married I should like some change and excitement, something broader and bigger." "The man is the first thing, Lii!" "Yes, I daresay, but Stephen is not the only man in the world who has some good qualities." Mr. Jardine did not answer immediately; a dim perception of the state of the case was coming over him, very dim, since it gave no credit to an am bition that did exist, and much to a love which did not. "There is some one else, dear," he said quietly, "you won't mind telling your old uncle, — is it Lord Raymore?" Lilian threw back her head, and a bright colour rose in her cheeks : " I don't mind your knowing anything," she said quickly, sure of the sympathy which in every childish joy and sorrow she had never sought in vain, and little as she relied on his judgment, painfully anxious that that judgment now should be on her side, "but I know so little myself.

Sometimes I thought, I thought — " "You thought he liked you?" " Yes, I did ; and to night Stephen said that there was madness in his family, that I ought not to marry him ; but a great many people have madness in their families and marry and are happy, and I think it was wicked and cruel of him to talk as he did," and she leant her head on her uncle's knee and burst into tears. The rector was sorely pained and perplexed. The present Lord Raymore's father had died be fore Mr. Jardine came to the parish, and though there were strange stories of the last years of his life, and it was rumoured that he was not sane, the rector had made few enquiries, and of the facts relating to the young man's mother and his own temporary disappearance he knew nothing. Then again the modern scare of heredity and all its consequences had never reached Eslington, whose inhabitants, a rural and primitive folk, lived intel lectually in an age when neither physical nor men tal railroads existed.

Theology, in an elementary manner (very elementary indeed beside the school of modern thought), Mr. Jardine had studied, but all that related to physiology was a sealed book to him. Disease and death came, he considered, by the visitation of God only, and man was power less to prevent the one or delay the other. In his simple creed the master-hand directed every detail, and tho' of course he had heard of the taint of blood descending from father to son, yet he was inclined to regard every outbreak as a sporadic case, sent for some inscrutable reason to which the victim must bow, but which he could not com prehend: and while a man was as yet untouched by the threatened calamity, the rector doubted much the right of his fellow-men to darken the life which Providence had not yet shadowed, by denying him the blessings of ordinary humanity because of a possibility which might never occur.

Very ignorant and unscientific were these views, tho' they were part and parcel of Mr. Jardine's benevolent nature and the blind religion of the old school, which, with curious inconsistency, believes in a man's responsibility for his soul, yet denies the same responsibility in all things pertaining to his body or his earthly welfare. Preventible dis eases, ills based for future generations on the faults and follies of the generation that was, and of that which is, and the stern mercy which would cut off the evil at the fountain-head by refusing to trans mit the taint, — these were things which the rector had never studied, and which to his childlike belief would have looked like the worst form of Atheism, the becoming Gods to ourselves, as he would have expressed it. Nevertheless he was much startled by the repetition of Brand's strong opinion, and, deprecating tho' he did, the doctor having spoken in such a manner to his little girl, he sincerely wished that a preference for Stephen himself had effectually prevented the subject being mooted.

Lilian went on sobbing unrestrainedly; having given way at last, she really had for the moment no power to control herself, and her uncle felt he must say something to soothe her, and that that something must not be contrary to the convictions of his life time, tho' he was unpleasantly aware of an anxiety that it should be. Also her tears distress ed him extremely; he had hardly ever seen her cry, tor the best of all reasons that she had no thing to cry for, and making no allowance for shaken nerves, he attached undue importance to the pain which occasioned the outburst. "Don't, my darling, don't," he said tenderly ;" I cannot speak to you while you are in this state, and I was so startled and am so unprepared for what you have told me, that I don't feel very competent to speak at all. Let us leave it for to night, Lii, and have some conversation in the morning when we are both calmer."

"No, no, I shall not sleep, I have no one else to advise me but you. Stephen was wrong, very wrong; wasn't he, uncle?" "I think he was mistaken," said Mr. Jardine slowly; "I do not think he meant to be unkind. His studies have led him to believe too much in what he calls natural causes, too little in an over ruling Providence. Because a calamity has happened to the father (and even of that he is not sure), I do not see why it should happen to the son. Lord Raymore is twenty eight, and I have never heard of his having any illness." "Stephen said he disappeared for two years," whispered Lilian falteringly, she would rather not have said it, but something impelled her to do so. " Ah ! now you mention it, I do remember some thing of the kind being said, but I recollect his grandmother telling me that he was travelling in India.

All the same, (tho' I reverently feel that we have no right to put ourselves in the place of our Creator, and decide a man's life for him), un less you feel that your heart is bound up in him, I would rather, far rather, see you Stephen Brand's wife." "That I shall never be," she answered sullenly; "but I don't say I shall be Lady Raymore either. Thank you, uncle, I knew you were sure to be fair, were sure to comfort me. I don't want to talk any more, I will go to bed now. Good night." The rector put his arm round her and looked at her wistfully : " I want some comfort myself, Lii, I don't feel at all happy, it is so difficult even in the clear light of religion to see if one is walking right, if one's judgment is just," and the simple minded old man pressed her to him, with a dim consciousness that the world was full of devious ways, and that he understood very little the childish looking girl whom he had brought up since her infancy.

Lilian went upstairs, but not to bed; she threw a shawl round her and sat in the window of her little room far into the night. The air was very still, the soft gloom was full of perfume, and in the faint light of the new moon she could see, a mile to the left, the woods of Eslington Park, and knew that the dawn would touch the flag that waved on the great tower, and told that its owner was resident at the Castle. She was tired of her quiet life, as she had said, she longed for new worlds to conquer, and except for Lord Raymore, how was she, who hardly left the precincts of the parish, ever to see them ? There was a tightening at her heart when she thought of Stephen, she was not so indifferent to him as she tried to persuade her self, and she ardently wished that he was in the place of the young peer; but her ambition bore down her love, and bore down also the dread which flashed now and then thro' her mind as she remembered his words.

The powers of self-deception in the human being are amongst the most wonderful that exist in our nature. Lilian had never enter tained a high opinion of her uncle's judgment, and indeed considered that he and it belonged to a by gone age, whose theories had long been exploded, and yet to-night she trusted in it as if it were a fortress of defence. " If he had thought there was any danger he would have forbidden it ; if he had believed it was not safe, he would have refused to let me see Lord Raymore again ; he says that time which Stephen spoke so cruelly about, Lord Raymore was in India ; he says he never heard that anything was wrong." So ran her unspoken soliloquy, and yet all the while, in an unacknowledged way, she felt that Brand would not have spoken without reason, and that the castle she was building was on the shifting sand.

She soothed herself again with declarations that Stephen was jealous and ungenerous, that the rector must have heard had there been anything evil to hear, and above all, that the Dowager, who was so kind to her, would have discouraged all intimacy with her grandson if those two years could not have been accounted for, as she had herself accounted for them to Mr. Jardine. But she was still sitting at the open window when the May dawn broke slowly in the east, and tho' she had elected to tread the path she saw opening before her, there was a vague fear over her as her eyes followed it into a distance which she could not see.

Chapter II

The great saloon at Eslington Castle was a grand old room with deep mullioned windows and a groined roof, while on the walls panelled with oak whose sap had died three hundred years ago, great squares of tapestry hung, on whose surface was woven the loves of the Gods and the battles of the ancient Greeks, and between them were the family pictures, the pride of the house of Raymore ; Vandyke's stately courtiers and delicate ladies, Lely's unblush ing beauties, and the later loveliness limned by Kneller's hand. They were a handsome and a strong race in the old times, and the archives of the house told histories of those amongst them who had distinguished themselves as soldiers and statesmen. The stream in those days must have run full and deep, but it had dwindled down now to a shallow brook indeed ; of the passing generation all that remained were two old bachelor brothers who lived abroad and were not often seen, and of the present, Edgar, Viscount Raymore, who had just settled himself (he said) permanently in his ancestral home, was the last of his name.