''He Cometh Not,' she said.'

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'"HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." "HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." ]5Y ANNIE THOMAS (MRS. PENDER GUDUP), AUTHOR OF "DENIS DONNE," "FLAYED OUT," "DOWER HOUSE," "A PASSION IN TATTERS," &.C. &C. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1873. [AU Rights Reserved by the Author.] LONDON BRADBUEY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEERIARS JltbrtafciJ, BY PERMISSION, TO LADY ELIZABETH BULTEEL. March, 1873. Dear Lady Elizabeth, One of the pleasantest memories I have of my life in Devon is the intercourse I enjoyed there with you. I shall never cease to be grateful for your friendship and hearty sympathy, and for the warm encouragement which you invariably accorded to my literary efforts. I can only hope you will find that this story is not entirely unworthy of the honour you have allowed me to do it, in inscribing your name on its first page. I am, dear Lady Elizabeth, Yours very sincerely, ANNIE THOMAS CUDLIF. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Madge Roden

The village lies partly in a shady hot hollow, and partly on a hreezy slope that is inclining away to the grand ridges of Exmoor. From some wild deep spring up in those purple heights a river takes its rise, and, after tearing tumultuously through this village of Halsworthy, pours itself a passionate offering into the sea that is lashing the cliffs out yonder. It is July ! — rich, sumptuous July. The B VOL. I. " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.' 2 year has "grown lush in juicy stalks," and the bees are everywhere keeping up a hum about the globes of clover and the waxy looking pale pink heath that blooms abund antly here. The land is wreathed with flowers, in short ; for the soil is fertile, and the love of flowers strong in this locality. Soft torpor is the normal characteristic of that portion of Halsworthy which nestles away in the hollow.

But to-day unwonted excitement, not to say agitation, reigns there. Halsworthy is about to compete with the great world of which it knows so little in the matter of pleasure. It is going to start a cricket, croquet, and archery club ; and it is going to commence proceedings to day. There is one name on tlie tongue of every man, woman, and child in Halsworthy to-day, and that is the name of Miss Roden. The girl finds that life lags more than a little in this sweet sleepy hollow ; and so, in her im patience of this lagging, she has at last incited Halsworthy to bestir itself in the matter of amusements. She has given up the lawn that stretches away in front of her own picturesque, many gabled house as the ground for the sports. And now she is standing on the steps just outside the porch, watching them decorate the tent that is to be called a " pavilion," and to be the scene of a " the dansant " with evergreens and purple heather.

She was born and has grown up in this free, invigorating moorland air, and now at twenty she is as full of health and spirit and fearlessness as an Exmoor pony. There is a strong bewitching element of untamed, un trained grace about her, as she suddenly jumps off the steps and walks quickly, with- B " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.' 4 out the faintest indication of Grecian bend, to meet a lady who is slowly coming up the drive. She wears a dress of some thick white material, cut just short enough in front to show her small, shapely feet. The tone of colour of any thick white material is enough to ruin the fairest complexion ; but, though Madge Roden is never called " fair," it does not ruin hers. Her round straight throat does not look brown rising even from the collar of such a dress. And as for her face, few people care to criticise the colour of a countenance that is bright, merry, and frank as a gratified child's. The roundness of youth has not left her cheeks yet.

Her eyes have not learned to drop or lower themselves. She gives back look for look without blushing. Indeed, altogether the bloom is very much on this beautiful peach — this girl on whom no rays that scorch have ever been allowed to fall. The lady whom she meets a little way down the drive takes her hand, holds her at arm's length, and scans her criticis ingly. When the inspection is over, she says,— " You will do very well, Madge. I like your rose-coloured ribbons and feather." " I tried a dozen colours at least before I settled on rose," Madge answers a trifle re piningly, " and then I felt after all, Who will see me 1 Who will take the trouble to come to Halsworthy. Mrs. Henderson ? do you think anyone will accept our challenges . do you think anyone will come . " Mrs. Henderson is forty-five.

She has a husband, children, a home, a round of duties that must be done, and a few anxieties. Nevertheless, she has the heart of a woman, " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." 6 and a great love and sympathy for Madge. So she says heartily, — "I hope so, dear — I think so. At any rate, your efforts won't be unrewarded, for you'll have given a great deal of pleasure to your old friends in the village ; they will meet here and enjoy themselves even if no strangers come." Madge has clasped her hands behind her back. There is a comic expression, half amused, half petulant, on her face. The light breeze that comes down from the hill has wafted a few stray locks of her bronze brown hair away from the confining pins. Her small, oval, eager face is changing its expression every instant. Her lustrous velvet eyes are lifted, with a look in them that pleads for more sympathy, with her longing for a change, with her craving for something better than she has known.

Altogether, though she is not a beauty, Madge Roden is a very attractive specimen of womankind as she stands here, about to play the part of young lady of the land for the first time. She is an orphan, this girl who owns Moorbridge House and lands ; and though she has a brace of guardians, and an old aunt of her father lives with her, she is, to all intents and purposes, as free and un fettered as one of the uncaught Exmoor ponies, to which I compared her just now. For three years she has done very much as she pleases with herself and her two thou. sand per annum. But her flights have been very circumscribed, and she is longing to try her wings. All the fashion, youth, and beauty of Hals worthy arrive shortly after Mrs. Henderson. Halsworthy is not densely populated with the upper classes ; but still it has its pair of " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." 8 surgeons, its lawyer, and its one retired gentleman who has realised fabulous sums in the city.

These all have daughters who are delighted to shoot arrows in the air and play croquet. The sons of these respective families are out in the world, naturally, and Halsworthy knows them not. Madge hurls herself into the task of enter taining her friends ; and, aided by Mr. Hen derson (the vicar) and his wife her dear friend, she is succeeding, when a drag comes up, and the arrival of the " Incogniti," who are to play against the " Gentlemen of West Somerset," is proclaimed, Madge's heart thumps with joy. It is going to be a success, this enterprise of hers. If only the Gentle men of West Somerset would be good enough to come, all would go merry as a marriage bell. They come at last. The first cricket match of the week is played. The "the dansant " goes off in a way that makes it a sweet memory among the maidens of Hals worthy for ever.

And the veil of night descends upon enthusiastic pæans of praise and thanksgiving to Miss Roden, the origi nator of this holiday fete that has been so gloriously inaugurated. When that day's work is quite done, and the evil of forget fulness cannot be remedied, a thought that would have been such a happy one if it had only flashed across Madge's mind in time, comes into it and tantalises her. And in the act of saying good-night to Mrs. Henderson, she interrupts herself to cry out, " Oh ! why didn't you — why didn't you ask your friend's son — that Philip, you know . How could you forget him ? and how could I?" " How remiss ! — how stupid I am." Mrs. " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." 10 Henderson is as sincerely sorry and morti fied about this omission as Madge herself. "Never mind, Madge," she adds, directly, " I'll write to-morrow ; and if he can take a holiday, the good, hard-working fellow, he may be here by Wednesday, and enjoy three days of our jubilee."

After a long search Mrs. Henderson is rewarded by finding the last letter she has received from her old friend Mrs. Fletcher. They have been tender and true friends for thirty years ; but life is too full of work for the great majority, for frequent correspon dence in these days. This letter is dated two years ago. The address given is Number 20 in one of the insignificant streets in Chelsea, that do not dare to call them selves a portion of Belgravia. Mrs. Hen derson reads the letter over again with interest as keen and fresh as when she received it. It is full of the praises of Philip — of the good son and brother, whose quiet, unvaunted heroism wins a blessing from hi§ mother every hour of his life. Presently she gives a pleased shake of the head, and a well-satisfied smile, and says, — " I am justified.

A man who has given up a career he loved, as Philip loved the Bar, and has settled down so uncomplainingly to an occupation he must nearly loathe, for his mother's sake, must deserve even my child Madge. I'll ask him down : even his good ness will have its reward, if he wins her for his wife." So she sits down and writes to Mrs. Fletcher this night, tired as she is, and pleads the cause of the Halsworthy sports and pastimes so cleverly, that it seems as if Philip would be conferring a favour on every " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID. 12 one by coming to be a guest at the Vicarage for so long a time as he can take a holiday. And so the first link in the chain of compli cations which will ensue is forged by one of the kindest, truest hands in the world. For the first time for the day, the tempera ture of the front sitting-room in the little house in which the Fletchers live in Chelsea is pleasant, or, rather, endurable.

It is the day after the inauguration of the Halsworthy sports and pastimes. The evening post is just in, and Mrs. Fletcher — Philip's mother — is in receipt of a letter from her old friend Mrs. Henderson. Behold her as she sits there in the most comfortable chair in the room — a very old and feeble woman, though she only numbers fifty years. Like her son's, her nervous system is finely organised, and it has had some severe shocks from Fate and Fortune. There is a want of power about her muscles, a lack of physical force that makes her chil dren shrink in pain from any mention of the word " paralysis " — although her incapacity for action and exertion has never been broadly called by that name yet. Those children are about her now, as she finishes reading Mrs. Henderson's letter, and tired with the effort, lets it feebly flutter to the floor.

Philip, her son, is reading a news paper. His occupation as head clerk in an important mercantile house does not leave him much time for even press-literature during the hours of the day. He is a young man of eight and twenty, neither grave-looking nor endowed with a disappointed expression, though he has re linquished some hopes in life that have been -and still are — desperately dear to him. " 'HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.' 14 He has a power of happiness and enjoyment about him still. Looking at him as he sits there by his mother, his fair hair tossed off his open brow, his eyes sparkling with his keen sense of the humour of something that is only seen by himself, one feels inclined to endorse Mrs. Henderson's opinion, and declare that he does deserve even such an one as her favourite, the heiress, Madge Roden.

His two sisters, "the girls" as they are called still, though one is twenty-ssven and the other twenty-five, are hovering about full of suggestions. "You might manage it so easily, surely, Phil. Get Roberts to take your work for a week, and give your pupils papers : the holiday would do you so much good." " And to feel you were having a holiday would do mamma so much good," the younger sister pleads. " Chrissy and I would never let her miss you, would we Chriss 1 " Chriss, a determined, good, practical, hard headed, pretty woman of twenty-seven, takes careful stock of all the possibilities before she answers. " Mamma wouldn't miss him very much if Cousin Philip stayed here with us while Phil was away : the change to Phil would do her good, wouldn't it, mamma 1 " " And Cousin Philip is entirely at your service, now and for ever," a refined full toned voice says, as a man lounges forward from the darkest corner of the room, and shows himself in the gleam of light that still comes in at the window, without any dread of that light being; too fierce for him.

The two girls, Chrissy and Mabel, look at him admiringly, rapturously, gratefully. " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID. 16 Philip Fletcher, their own good, true, thoroughly appreciated brother,' is cast in a mould that is very agreeable in the eyes of young womankind. But this cousin of his is just so much taller, handsomer, finer in every way as forces one to see the difference, even when one does not want to mark it. He is quite as clever, too, as Phil — quite as am bitious, quite as attractive. But he lacks all that patient, gallant spirit of self-abnegation which has made Phil sacrifice himself to his mother's real tangible comfort. He lacks all the self-control, all the plodding perseverance, all the higher elements of Phil's nature.. But he is very attractive, very bewildering, very greatly gifted with the power of seem ing, and the women are all bewitched by him.

Even his old aunt feels as if she could blush with pleasure, when she hears him say that he will willingly stay and play Phil's part in the household, while Phil goes down to Halsworthy to play croquet and cricket, and to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Henderson's dear child, Madge Roden. " Though why that young person should be held out as a bait in these days of strikes, and high prices, and general inability to marry and be happy on nothing a year, is incompre hensible to me," he says. And then he learns for a certainty that Miss Roden has two thousand per annum. It is a dreadful disappointment to the mother, to the sisters (and to the cousin, he himself affirms), but later that night Phil Fletcher comes to the conclusion that he "can't go to Halsworthy." Another pupil is looming on his horizon.

The senior partner of his house wants to get away to Switzerland early this year. He " doesn'/ see his way out of it all till September. VOL. I. c " ' HE COMETH NOT,1 SHE SAID.' 18 he says ; and then he kisses his mother and adds, — " One of the girls must write and tell Mrs. Henderson this as politely as possible, mother. A good thing, too : her child, as she calls this Madge Roden, might entangle herself in my life, and she must fly higher." The girls have a very full portion of work allotted to them already, in spite of all Phil's efforts to smooth their paths. Chrissy keeps the house, and does daily battle with butcher and baker ; to say nothing of the hourly combat that goes on between mind and matter, the former being represented by herself, the latter by the cook and house maid. Chrissy's time is very fully occupied.

She always feels as if so much ground were cut from beneath her feet, when she has to sit down to write a letter. And Mabel, the younger sister, is striving to be independent of " dear, noble, hard-working Phil." She gives music-lessons from ten till four, and after four, well ! she is not inclined to rush into a correspondence with a woman who is to her only "mamma's old friend Mrs. Hender son." But Cousin Philip, the handsome idler about town, of whom utter ruin has been prognosticated by discerning friends a hun dred times and more, — Cousin Philip, the irresistible scamp of the Fletcher family, comes to the fore on this occasion in a most unprecedented way. He will write and explain (in his aunt's name) to Mrs. Henderson that his cousin has no time for Halsworthy, aid all the happiness Halsworthy might represent to him.

He (in his aunt's name) undertakes to make the refusal a more gracious thing than the acceptance of the invitation would have c " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.' 20 been. He (in his aunt's name) will take care that Phil's conduct shall shine out more gloriously than ever in Mrs. Henderson's eyes. Thus much he declares to the mother and the sisters. To his cousin Phil he simply says — " I'll put it all so neatly, old fellow, that you will be able to step into that hospitable Hendersonian home at any time. Look here, Phil, my opinion is not worth much, I'm aware. I'm rather of the vagabond order, I know. But you are right not to fall into a silk net yet : work, work, is the thing for us both. I am off to-morrow, to try to shift for myself at last." As he utters this virtuous resolve, he rises and holds out his hand, and Phil grasps it, opening his mouth in amazement the while.

" You work ! " he ejaculates. " Yes, I'm going in for the hardest work I've ever done in my life. Shake hands, old boy, and say good-by to your mother and sisters for me." Phil Fletcher hears a pupil in the hall; he has no time to be astonished at his cousin's determination. He says rapidly, as he is arranging his papers for the evening — " I hope you put it smoothly to Mrs. Hen derson : she may be a useful friend to the girls. I wish she'd give them the chance of a holiday there ; but it's as likely as not that we don't hear of her for another half-century." " As likely as not," Cousin Philip rejoins. Then he says good-by once more, rather brokenly, and goes and kisses his aunt and bids the girls farewell. w For all these arrangements a fresh impetus is given to the Halsworthy hilarities on " ' IIE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.' 22 Wednesday night by the introduction of Mr. Philip Fletcher.

Mrs. Henderson takes him up to Moor bridge House herself, apd specially presents him to the young presiding deity. " He's his mother's son, dear, — that's the only claim he has on my regard," she whispers to Madge; but she adds, as Madge is turning away — " He's as good as he's good-looking, dear ; I dare venture to tell you that. This holiday is the first he has had for years, and he half repents having taken it now. My own girls are darlings, but I do envy my old friend that son." " Yet he isn't quite what I expected to see," Madge says, a little wistfully : " he's so handsome, and his goodness sits so easily upon him. His sisters must like him very much. And how good of you to get him! for I have so many young girls to think of, haven't II" This from the fair chatelaine of twenty. Surely Philip Fletcher's lines are cast in pleasant places !

Chapter II. Olive Aveland's Error

The Thursday following Philip Fletcher's arrival is the best, brightest, most beautiful day of the Halsworthy week so far. The houses of all the clergy and gentry, for ten miles round, are filled with guests, and these, together with their entertainers, flock to the lawn of the head-centre of all this gaiet}-, Miss Roden herself. Her friends from the Vicarage are with her very early, and Madge soon finds herself con sulting Mr. Fletcher rather humbly about many things over which she had assumed the sole control before he came. For a man whose whole grown-up life has been given to engrossing business (engrossing though dis tasteful), he is surprisingly well up in all that pertains to athletic sports, pastimes, amuse ments of every kind. " And he doesn't vaunt his familiarity with them at all— it just seems to slip out against his will," Madge tells Mrs. Henderson towards the end of the day, when Philip has carried off the stranger's honours in a flat-race.

Old Miss Roden, the great-aunt who takes care of Madge and manages (!) Moorbridge House (she really believes that she does both these things, thanks to Madge's tact and kind-heartedness), is out on the lawn in an arm-chair under the bright green sweeping branches of a deciduous cypress. All those visitors who are of suflicient note in the neighbourhood have been presented to the lady who is in authority over pleasant Madge " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." 26 Roden. To Madge's great delight, her aunt has invited a great number of people to finish the evening in Moorbridge House on this happy day. "The young people can dance till twelve, and then we will have supper," she said, when she issued her invitations the day before to the happy many who have been chosen. And all this she has done of her own accord, and not at Madge's instigation.

Presently those who are to remain troop in joyfully, and every bed and dressing room in spacious Moorbridge House is soon full of merry young people intent on making the best of themselves. Only Madge lingers out on the lawn still, saying a few more words to her friends, the Hendersons, who are jroino; home to dress. " Don't rely on my coming back, Madge," Mrs. Henderson says. " I'm but a weak mortal, and the temptation to stay at home and be cool and comfortable all the evening O may overcome me." " Fancy anyone abstaining from dancing!" Madge says pityingly, as they saunter slowly towards the entrance-gate. " I'm tired now : if I'd nothing to look forward to, my feet would ache horribly, and I should be asleep in two minutes ; but, as it is, my feet are only throbbing to dance, and I do wonder at your thinking of coolness and comfort and home, when you have an opportunity of flying round double time to Olive Aveland's playing."

The four are walking abreast as Madge says this, and Mrs. Henderson answers, — " You dear exhaustingly unfatigued per son, you had better go in and dress now, or you'll be a laggard hostess — as bad a thing in a woman as it is for a man to be a laggard in love or war ; isn't it, Philip 1 " " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." 28 The vicar's wife turns kindly to include her old friend's son in the conversation ; and as her eyes fall on him, she exclaims, "Philip, you have overdone yourself to-day ;" for Philip Fletcher seems to be almost stag gering as he walks. " Yes," he says rather faintly, " this sudden burst after my sedentary life — it tries a fellow ; and you were right, Miss Roden : when that ball struck my foot, it gave me a harder blow than I confessed to." " Oh ! " Madge cries, full of a feeling that is half pity for him, and half fear that this handsome young stranger may not be able to dance all the round dances with his lame foot.

" Oh ! do come into the house, and have your things sent up ; do save yourself the walk : he must, mustn't he, Mrs. Hen derson." " It would be wise to do it," both the Hendersons tell him ; but his foot gets instantaneously better, and he insists on going back to the Vicarage ; and Madge at last goes in to dress with a feeling that it will be a great blow to the beauty of this enter tainment of theirs, if the flower of the man hood here assembled must be a wall-flower. Madge is no laggard. In clouds of rose coloured gauze that shade away to white nearly, she is springing down the stairs before any of the guest-chambers give forth their renovated occupants. All the walls of Moorbridge House are panelled with finely veined and polished wood, that was cut on the estate two centuries ago. It is all sombre and superb ; but the bright young figure, that glances from room to room so swiftly, seems to make it all radiant at once.

Flowers droop in hanging baskets from " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.' 30 every corner and every ceiling. Flowers on pedestals, in pyramids, on brackets, render every available corner gorgeous and fragrant. But not a bloom there is sweeter, brighter, or purer than the girl who owns them all — the frank-faced, light-hearted, pleasure-loving little heiress. Suddenly there comes towards this Queen Rose of the rose-bud garden of girls a glorious contrast to her, in the form of as perfect an Amber Witch as the eyes of men have ever beheld. The two figures increase their speed as they approach one another. The rose-coloured gauze floats over the folds of an amber-hued silk ; the round clear complexioned cheek of bonnie Madge is pressed by the crimson lips and the ivory white cheek of a tall, dark, lissom-figured girl, whose movements are supple and se ductive as a serpent's. " You dear Olive, to have come after all : isn't this all jolly !

" Madge (who has not been trained down to be reticent on the subject of the charms of her own house) exclaims. " It's all very delightful, Madge," the new comer says carelessly, "but you know that I think it a pity that all these people should be coming in to spoil it : I hate these gather ings!" She says these last words with such an increase of force and emphasis as proves that she means them. She gives an im patient gesture, too, and sits down abruptly on a sofa, and twists a bracelet round her arm roughly. " It's so good of you to have come, as you do hate it all so," Madge says ruefully : " no one plays as you do, and I should have been obliged to give up dancing myself and strum for them, ifyou hadn't been so kind ; " ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID." 32 but I shall feel so selfish if you don't seem to enjoy it at all."

Olive Aveland laughs a little contempt uously. " Even you can't work a miracle, Madge ; but I'll tell you this for your comfort, dear. If I sit with my back to the congregation and my face to the piano all the evening, and you keep people from speaking to me, I shall be as happy here as I should have been in Mrs. Wilmot's school-room." " I can't keep them from speaking to you ; and why should I, when everyone admires you so, and longs to be introduced to you " "Tell them that I'm Mrs. Wilmot's governess," Olive interrupts ; " say that there's something suspicious about the way I refuse to speak about my life before I came here ; say what you like, only save me from being leset by anyone." She is unquestionably a handsome high bred looking girl, this one who rises up now trembling a little from the effects of the vehe mence with which she has spoken.

A dark haired handsome girl, with a pale face that tells falsehoods if its owner has not suffered a wealth of disappointment and sorrow in her time, however easily the world may be wagging with her now. There is a good deal of something that is not perhaps absolute defiance in her manner and expression. It is not absolute defiance. It is more a conviction that she will shortly be attacked, and an impatient readiness to defend herself. But people who are not given to drawing deli cate distinctions between attributes which differ greatly, though on the surface they resemble one another slightly, fall into the error of fancying her largely endowed with the quality of defianpe, and a rather D VOL. I. ' HE COMETH NOT,' SHE SAID.' presuming person altogether for her posi tion. As she stands now, still playing with the bracelet that clasps her tender arm, with a half averted face, and a well-developed ex pression of " not wishing to be one of them," as Madge and old Miss Roden receive the friends who come trooping in, more than one glance falls upon her with pronounced, compelled ad miration.