The two Anastasias. A novel

Chapter I

" That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more : Too common ! never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break." IN MBMORIAM. To-day Miss Lake did drive on to Chever ing ; and in less than half an hour, had alighted at Lake House and been shown into the parlour. It was empty, and some ten minutes elapsed before she was joined by Tasie. " How is Gerard ?" were Miss Lake's first Avords. VOL. III. B " No better, thank you." Something in the girl's quiet mournful tone made her aunt bend forward and kiss her before saying gently, "you mean he is in danger ?" " Yes. I — I think we have given up all hope. You asked for papa, aunt, but he said he could not see you, he sees no one now but Dr. Forbes." " But, my dear, how long has he been so ill?" " He has had the fever very badly from the first ; we ought to have written oftener to you, but we thought you would see Dr. Forbes — I could not write it !"

"And I have seen Dr. Forbes constantly. I was afraid he thought the attack serious, but he is always so cautious I could not °_ither more." "Hannah's baby has been very ill, too, which has made mamma very busy and anxious." " And Horace ?" " He is not come home yet," nor was he wanted in this time of trouble. Robert Lake winced at the very sound of this son's name, the son who would take Gerard's place should he die. Sometimes he felt that, in this case, he must give up Lake House to him at once and return to Calchester ; to admit him into the privileges and confidence due to a son and heir would be so impossible, so unen durable. " Tasie, tell me, can I be of any use to you in any way : will either you or your mother let me help you in nursing, or — could I cheer your father ?" " Oh, aunt, thank you, I think all our friends can do for us is to leave us alone !"

" And you shall be left alone, dear. I suppose I cannot see Gerard?" added Miss Lake a little wistfully. " He would not know you, he has not known me since Wednesday night ; but he knew me last, I had his last words !" and a flash of exultant love lighted up Tasie's heavy, grief-laden face. " Poor child ! Did he ever see Mr. Marshall ?" " No, he called several times, but Dr. b Forbes had said that the fewer people he saw the better, even of ourselves. I don't think Gerard needed that kind of help," added Anastasia half sobbing, and yet with some thing of sullen injury in her tone, "papa says he has never given him an anxious moment all his life, and I am sure no one ever had such a brother as he was to me." If Gerard were already insensible to the presence of his own family, it was useless to urge Mr. Marshall's admission to him ; and Miss Lake did not press the point but rose to take her leave.

" If you ever think I can be of any use, send for me," were her last words, " perhaps I could set your mother a little free of Hannah's room : but I leave this to you." "Thank you, aunt," and then Anastasia felt that she had let grief make her very cold ; and she offered her aunt luncheon, and pressed her, almost incoherently, to let her at least fetch her a glass of wine and a biscuit. " Poor Robert !" thought Miss Lake as she drove aAvay ; the Tyrrells, for the time, dismissed from her mind, " so trouble has THE TAVO ANASTASIAS. at last come to him. Few men have the nearly fifty years' of prosperity that have been his ; but this is a sore trouble, and no doubt his forty-seven years of sunshine makes it the harder to bear," The next two days Miss Lake sent to Dr. Forbes for further news of the nephew who was dear to her, though those at Lake House seemed to have forgotten it.

On Monday morning she drove over to the Old Farm, where Mrs. Tyrrell was still lingering, and likely to linger for days, even weeks. " I have heard from my son," she said with a faint smile of pleasure. " He says you told him how ill I was. Does he not write well ?" The few formal lines of concern at Miss Lake's neAvs, and hopes of a speedy recovery, had evidently been written at a master's dictation, and under a master's eye ; but they had done good service in gratifying his mother's dying hours. " And Mr. Tyrrell ?" Miss Lake ventured to ask, after she had read the lesser Frank's letter and returned it to his mother with some warm words of approbation of the well formed characters. " I have had no news of him, none !" " Does he know how ill you are ?" "Mr. Marshall wrote a fortnight ago to tell him."

Anastasia made her oavh stay the louger for the husband's neglect, and then drove on to Lake House. It was a brilliant Decem ber day, the first anniversary of the day on which she had bade farewell to Lake House as a home ; she walked slowly up the flagged court full of the contrasts between that day and this, or the strange aspect of the house must have struck her as occasioned by more than the clear December sunshine. "How is Mr. Gerard?" she asked of James Arden, who opened the door to her after some minutes interval, the door of a house so noiseless, so desolate-looking that she asked the question very low. "Gone, miss," and honest James Arden could scarce utter these tAvo words. " Dead !" " At nine this morning, ma'am ; he never knew nobody, not even poor master." " How is your master?" asked Miss Lake, after a moment's pause to make sure of her own powers of speech.

" Can't say, ma'am. He's locked himself in with Mr. Gerard — it's over my pantry, ma'am, and I be been sitting there listening to his sobs and groans this twro hours." Poor Robert Lake ! for seven-and-forty years the world had gone so smoothly with him ! and, now, the desire of his eyes had been taken from him at a stroke. " And your mistress ?" " Miss Tasie's got her to bed. Miss Tasie's a wonderful woman, ma'am," added James Arden with sudden energy, " we could none of us have got through this time of trouble but for her ; but she must break down, must break down now he's gone, so fond as she always was of Master Gerard." At that moment Anastasia appeared at the foot of the stairs. " Is that you, aunt ? will you not come in ?" Miss Lake was so longing to hear more, to be allowed to sorrow with her brother's family, that she did enter the house and follow Anastasia to the parlour.

The shutters were closed ; but four bright spots of light were dotting the walls from the diamond shaped holes in them, and the clear wintry sunshine found its way through many a chink. It was the room in which Miss Lake had had her interview with Mr. Tyrrell after her father's death. " I do not know why I troubled you to come in, aunt," said Anastasia as she closed the door, " I have really nothing to tell you. Gerard never woke up from that stupor, neither papa nor Dr. Forbes thought he would. I am sorry, now, he spoke last to me ; it would have given papa so much pleasure to think he had spoken last to him." " Your poor father ! how he must feel this !" " Yes, he does ! I have written to ask Dr. Forbes to come and take all — all that must be done off papa's hands. I thought at first your carriage was his.

" Poor child ! and all this falls on you." " Hannah's baby had another attack last night, mamma is gone to bed at last. She left me with Hannah, but she is asleep noAv." " And you — poor girl ! when did you last sleep ?" and, her eyes full of tears, Miss Lake drew her niece toAvards her. " I ? I don't know — I could not sleep whilst he might wake up and want me ; they had told Hannah that Stephen would never know her but he did. I am not tired," and Tasie looked up into her aunt's face surprised at its sudden tenderness for her. " But you must remember, dear child, that your strength will be wanted again yet. You must take care of yourself ; leave Susan with Hannah and try to get a little sleep yourself." " I — I could not sleep," and Tasie's lips began to quiver, " he — he — oh, aunt ! you never lost a brother !" and Tasie flung her self on her aunt's neck and burst into an agony of tears.

Miss Lake did not remind Tasie that she, too, had lost a brother: the death of her own brother Gerard had been but a childish, soon forgotten grief. She laid the girl's head on her shoulder to whisper, " I have known great trouble, Tasie ; I can feel for you — though mine came when I was older, when I ought to have been better able to bear it." "He was so good, we all loved him so, to think Horace was spared and Gerard taken ! oh, it is so hard ! so hard to — to — " but sobs choked her utterauce, and Miss Lake let her weep unrestrainedly. At length the strength of her agony ex hausted itself ; her sobs became tearless, and even these at last ceased. " I must go and see if Hannah wants me," she said half aggrieved at having been led to cry, half ashamed of having wept upon the shoulder of the spinster aunt at whose expense she and Gerard had enjoyed so many a laugh.

" I Avill come with you ; and, if Hannah is asleep, stay with her whilst you get a little rest." '.' But papa may want me." " I will be on the watch for any movement, and fetch you, if he Avants you : I will indeed, you must trust me, Tasie." Tasie suffered her aunt to follow her ; Han nah and her baby were still asleep. The whole household was exhausted by the past night's conflicting pains and duties : still Tasie was unwilling to leave the remaining patient in another's care ; she could not bear to be at rest, to have nothing to do but think. " You must go and lie down, Tasie ; I must insist on it, your mother would wish it, so Avould Gerard." "I will go; don't talk of him, aunt !" Miss Lake did not make further mention of Gerard's name ; but she followed Tasie to her room, found a warm cloak to lay over her, and then bent over her to kiss her and whisper, " don't harden your heart against God's hand, Tasie. / did that — and you knoAv what I became : ask for His Grace to help you through your trouble."

Anastasia turned wondering but already drowsy eyes upon the speaker. " Surely your trouble was not so bad as this, aunt?" " To me, my dear, it was far worse. Ge rard has not betrayed the love and trust of years; but every one finds their own lot hardest, every one can bear a grief but he that hath it," and Miss Lake left the room to take Tasie's vacant chair beside Hannah's sofa. Tasie tried to think what her aunt could mean, why she should speak thus to her; but she was already very sleepy and in five minutes she was thoroughly asleep, her hands clasped in a prayer for resignation which exhausted nature had scarce given her time to form into actual words. Two hours Miss Lake kept watch by Han nah, marvelling at her quiet sleep, and think ing of the days when the dead lad, but two rooms off, had been as young, as treasured as the fragile infant whom this widowed mother was clasping to her heart.

What delight had Gerard's birth given, how proud had she herself been of the new honour of aunt-hood. She had not then seen Frank Tyr rell since he had grown to man's estate, had not yet quarrelled with her brother nor been wronged by his wife; she had been but a girl of sixteen, as yet the pet and plaything of her home, the humoured and Avarm-hearted daughter whose occasional obstinacies and caprices did but amuse the father from whom, before three years were over, she was to be estranged in heart and feeling. She was still full of such remembrances, when the door opened and Mrs. Lake looked in cautiously. She started at finding her sister-indaw instead of daughter beside Han nah's bed, and at once withdrew. Miss Lake rose and softly followed her into the passage to explain her apparent intrusion.

The sight of her sister-in-law had made her feel an in truder in her own brother's house. " I stayed to ask after you all," she said almost apologetically, " and Tasie was kind enough to come doAvn to speak to me. She looked so unlike herself that I persuaded her to try to get a little rest, and let me take her place by Hannah." " Thank you, it was very kind — " but there was no Avarmth in Mrs. Lake's grati tude ; and, as she paused, Anastasia hastened to add, " but now your daughter will have a better substitute, and I ought to be going home. I promised Tasie to call her the instant her father asked for her, 1 must ask you to be good enough to see my word to her is kept.' " Yes, but as yet Robert can see no one." Did Mrs. Lake know her sister-in-law so little as to think her likely to force herself on her brother in his first overwhelming grief.

" Good-bye," and as Miss Lake found her hand unpressed by that she had taken, pride had so deserted her that she pleaded, " oh, Hannah ! cannot you believe that I feel for you — for all — but most for you as the lad's mother." " I — I dare not feel as yet," answered Mrs. Lake, "my poor husband! Gerard was — ," but she could not trust herself to speak ; and, with a hurried piteous, " don't think me ungrateful — I dare not run the risk of breaking doAvn," hastened back to Hannah. One week later, Gerard Lake wTas laid be side his grandfather in the new Lake vault. His father, Sir George Leigh and Dr. Forbes were the chief mourners, or would have been but for the, in those days, strange addition of a young girl to their numbers. Anastasia's soul had been set on paying this last honour to her brother, on fulfilling the trust he had confided to her by keeping close to her father's side throughout this most trying hour of his life.

His father, that father whom Gerard, with his last conscious breath, had commended to her special love and care, " Tasie dear, I feel xery sleepy, I don't think I shall ever wake up again, I remember a fellow going off like this at school, if I shouldn't take care of my poor old father ! even if Kenneth comes home, don't forget him, Tasie. Do your best to comfort him, try to make Horace act plea santly by him — tell him I hoped he would," then, after a little pause during which his eyes had closed, he opened them again to add, with a light of tender love and pleasure on his face, " Tasie, I'm wondering whether I shall know whether Kenneth's safe before any of you; know whether he is come back to you long before we all meet again." Mrs. Lake had strongly opposed her daugh ter being added to the band of mourners, till her husband roused himself from the stupor which had succeeded the first violence of grief to say, " Let the poor girl go, if she wishes it !" and so Tasie had gone, and now stood beside her father looking down into the vault into which her brother was being lowered, not tearless but shedding only silent tears ; and clinging to her father's arm with a clasp that showed him that he had still a child left to love him, whose heart grieved in company with his.

Mr. Marshall was reading the service : he had not intruded on his new parishioners' sorrow this first week, but his heart had bled for them, was aching for them now. His voice faltered as he uttered those trying words, " earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and the handful of mould rattled cruelly on the coffin below him. He glanced towards the young girl upon whose ears that sound must fall the most cruelly. She had forgotten herself, and was looking a little anxiously into her father's face : but a light of faith and hope Avas within her eyes, and on her halfparted lips, as if she were trying to raise her eyes and mind from the dark vault beloAv them to that higher life Avhere God was giving her grace to picture the real Gerard ; whom it had " pleased" him " to take unto himself ;" it was not Gerard that lay within that coffin ; that at their feet was but the mortal body which, before they again saw it, Avould have put on immortality, and be as gloriously changed as the ears of wheat which winter frosts and spring shoAvers and summer sun have transformed from dry grains to waving fields of corn.

But Robert Lake was gazing too intently into the gloomy vault to catch his daughter's glance. He was thinking how he had lived from year to year in blind security, never dream ing of the possibility of the calamity which had now fallen on him ; never dreaming but that this son Avould at some distant day lay him in the grave, years thence to be laid to rest, in his turn, by a son. All these dreams were over. Gerard had not only died a young man, but died childless ; and at his age Robert Lake had been twice a father, both the son at his feet and the daughter on his arm had been born to him VOL. III. c before he was four-and-twenty. At that thought Robert Lake did glance into his Tasie's face ; but her eyes were once more lowered, and she was listening intently to each word the reader was uttering.

Robert Lake had heard that service many times, and at times when his mind had been more at leisure to attend to outer matters than was the case to-day : on Anastasia's ears its grand tone of triumph, its soothing rhythm fell for the first time. She had left her home resigned to her Maker's will ; she returned to it praying that He would teach her to join in the Church's thanksgiving that He had been pleased to take " the soul of her dear brother" thus early " to Himself."

Chapter II

" Strangers yet ! Oh ! the bitter thought to scan, All the loneliness of man : Nature by magnetic laws, Circle unto circle draws, But they only touch when met, Never mingle — strangers yet. " Strangers yet ! Will it evermore be thus, Spirits still impervious ? Shall we never fairly stand Soul to soul as hand to hand ? Are the bounds eternal set To retain us — strangers yet ?" E. MONCKTON MILNES. Thus closed the year 1781 to the dAvellers in Lake House. Thus opened the new year to the prisoners at Seringapatam : — " January 1st, 1782. This day ushered in a new year, c THE TAA'0 ANASTASIAS. and though Ave had been prisoners upwards of sixteen months, our prospect of deliverance seemed to be farther distant from our view than ever, as our hopes had been so often disappointed. Most of us had now got swel lings in our legs, from the Aveight of our irons and the confined state of our limbs."

Mrs. Tyrrell was still lingering on at the Old Farm, to wliich her husband had paid one short visit just to see if he should bring Frank home for his Christmas holy days ; he had still so much feeling for his family as to be willing to spend Christmas with them, and as yet had never failed to do so ; he had generally brought his wife a gown, his girls some little present ; but this year he decided to take Frank to Ash Court and spend his Christmas there. Much as he disliked his wife and under-rated her powers, the house seemed lonely, and its arrangements wretched, iioav she could no longer superintend them ; so this last Christmas of her life Mrs. Tyrrell had neither husband nor child beside her. But she had visitors. Mr. Marshall walked over to Tyrrell End after his second service to find that Miss Lake had been there before him on a like errand of compassion.

Gerard Lake Avas then lying unburied in his home ; and his aunt, in her old-fashioned notions of decorum, had not left her home even to go to church since her return from Chevering ; but she trusted that God would pardon this visit to a deserted fellow-creature. January had nearly passed away before Horace Lake returned to his home. Gerard's illness and death had not outAvardly altered his previous plans. " Robert," Mrs. Lake had ventured to say the day after Gerard's death, " I think Ave ought to send for Horace, that he ought to be at the funeral;" but Robert Lake had only shaken his head, and his wife had not urged the matter further. To do Horace justice, he felt for his father in the necessity now imposed on him of receiving himself in a new character. He had wished Gerard no ill, had never envied him his position as elder son.

Gerard's gayer temper and love of society had often angered him, and he had even hated him for proposing a dance or bringing home a friend to dinner ; but he had never hated him for all the love which had been lavished on him, and of which he had no share. All Horace had ever desired of his family was to be left alone, a feeling which many of them had knoAvn of late. In due time appeared the Cambridge class list, and Horace found his name in quite as good a position as he had expected. Anxiety for Gerard, sorrow for his loss had not un nerved him nor distracted his thoughts. He stayed up a few days longer so as to finally settle all University claims, and then set off by coach for Chevering. He wras expected in his home, and his coming made many nervous. Tasie had written to him immediately after Gerard's death, to send him his brother's last message, trusting that it would soften not anger him ; but she knew him too little to pre-judge of its effect.

She could see how anxious her mother was, how every sound made her start, how she was ever, furtively, watching her husband's face and movements. Poor THE TAVO ANASTASIAS. 23 Robert Lake ! he had resolved to spend that morning alone in his study, and come to a decision how he should receive his only son, his heir ; but he was perpetually in and out of the room where his wife and daughters were sitting, and could come to no decision. Horace could not arrive till nearly dusk ; and after dinner Robert Lake shut himself into the study, boltiug the door behind him, and Tasie sat at work in the parlour rejoicing as each hour was struck that another hour Avas gone ; and yet her colour had begun to flame and fade before four came, and in ten minutes more Horace would probably have come. As this hour was striking, Robert Lake looked into the parlour to say : "lam going over to Calchester to see Forbes, don't wait tea for me ; if he be out till late, I may sleep there."

Mrs. Lake said simply, " Yes, but wrap yourself up well, Robert, the evenings are very cold." Anastasia glanced at her father as the door was closed, but met no answering gaze. She rose, her heart beating fast at her intended boldness, and followed her father to the hall. " Papa," she said tremulously, " don't let Horace come home to find he has driven you away. He could not help Gerard's dying." " Did I ever say he could ?" asked Robert Lake, as sharply as he had turned on this daughter at any foolish speech ten years back. " No ; but, oh ! father, I feel you ought to be here to welcome him, and we must make up our minds to him ; God has given us no choice." " I tell you what I will do if you wish it, Tasie : give him all that will ever be his at once, and go back to Great Anne Street. Will that satisfy you ?"

He was growing impatient, almost con temptuous ; but Anastasia was not to be daunted even by her father's anger and sarcasm. " No, papa, that could not be right. But perhaps he may be coming home feeling sorry for us all, wishing, at last, to be a comfort to you, and if he found you could not even bear the sight of him — " " He might be gone before I came back again. Pray Heaven he may take such offence !" " Oh, father, you cannot mean that !" and, unconsciously, Anastasia's tone showed how his Avords had shocked her. " No'; not quite that. Tasie, my little girl, I did not mean to be cross to you ; but — but my heart's broken ! aud there's an end of it ;" and Robert Lake thrust her away, and began once more to put on his great coat. " Papa, let me say one thing more," said Anastasia, pursuing her end with characteristic persistency, when Hannah would have de sisted long ago, and her mother have thought that duty called her to sacrifice her own opinion to her husband's wishes.

" I am sure Gerard would be so grieved if he knew that Horace was coming home to find you not here ; he did so hope you would get on together, he — " " For God's sake, Tasie, don't talk of them together !" cried Robert Lake, almost stamp ing in the pain which this coupling of his two son's names occasioned him, and he Avalked to the hall door to open it— and go, Anas tasia supposed, but she was mistaken ; for he opened the door to say to the waiting-man, " I shall not go into Calchester this evening, John, you may take the horse out again." Anastasia stole back to the parlour, her face alight with pleasure — a pleasure unalloyed by the fear, noAv her point was won, that it might have been better that the father and son should not meet till she knew what effect Gerard's words had had on Horace ; till he had seen the home desolation, and learnt to grieve for the chief sufferer.

Her instinct always was to do what she believed right, regardless of expediency ; and she felt that her father ought to remain to greet his son. " I hope your father has his fur cloak with him," said Mrs. Lake on Tasie's return. Hannah had taken her baby upstairs and, in the dusk, her mother's tears had of late been dropping silently on the Avork which even otherAvise she could scarcely see. " He is not gone, mamma. He has put off going to-night." " I— I think it is better so," said Mrs. Lake after a pause of surprise ; Avith all her knowledge of Tasie's boldness she could scarcely believe she had been bold enough to take such a responsibility as this upon her shoulders, " but it will be a terrible trial to him." " Yes, and to us all, mamma. I wish it had come at once ; it w-ould have been better — and right."

" His examination," began Mrs. Lake, but she w7as a truthful woman and faltered in this excuse ; and again silence fell on them and continued till there was a ring at the bell, and a bustle on the flags outside, that made both start. " It — it must be Horace," said Mrs. Lake, and covered her face Avith her hands. For her husband's sake she had never yet out wardly broken doAvn ; and nature was having its revenge in unhinging her, unfitting her — even when her former good judgment and cheerful promptness in decision and action were most needed — to take her true place in her own home. " It must be Horace," said Tasie at the same moment, rising at once and going to the hall. Yes ! there Avas Horace, uncertain who was the black figure advancing to meet him, till his sister had put her arms around him and kissed him warmly, saying, " Oh !