The Round of Life

Front matter

DEDICATED TO THE LADY ALICE DES VŒUX, BY A. WILDES, AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE RIFT." FOLKESTONE : J. RILEY, THE LIBRARY, HIGH STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 1871. THE BOUND OF LIFE. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. '* Two children in two neighbour villages Playing mad pranks along the healthy leas ; Two strangers meeting at a festival ; Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall ; Two lives fast bound in one with golden case ; Two graves, grass-green, beside a grey Church tower, Wasted with still rains and daisy-blossomed; Two children in one hamlet born and bied: So runs the round of life from hour to hour." — Tennyson. " TeU me a story," cries the three year old prattler, as it chmbs your knee, and looks wistfully in your face. " Let it be a real one," demands an elder child, with grave brown eyes.

"No, no, a fairy tale," exclaims a third, as, throwing down its toys, it rushes eagerly towards you. Now, how to satisfy all these is the difficulty, and just such a difficulty arises in the mind of an author in putting forth the creatures of his imagination before the eye of the public. For, although we are accustomed to speak of the Public in the singular number, stiU we are, when appearing before it, painfully reminded that its tastes are hydra-headed, and its name is Legion. To please all, is an impossibility ; to please the majority, is in the hands of those who pander to the prevailing fancy of the day ; to please the few, is for those, who, writing from the heart, speak to the heart. But all agree in this. "Tell us a story." A " story" then I'U tell. is TnE ROUND OF LIFE.

Chapter II

" She lifted up her eyes And loved him with that love which was her doom." — Elaine. Adelaide Watson was leaning over her father's gate, looking anxiously up the road which led to the Hall, and Uving over again, in thought, the exciting joys of the previous day, which had been spent there. The Squire's eldest son had then come of age, and the Squire had kept high festival in honour thereof; aU his tenantry and neighbours had been his guests, and Adelaide's father counted amongst the former, and was, moreover, one whom Sir Peter Morecombe held in especial respect. They had been boys together, and out of more than one youthful scrape had the sober-minded John Watson extricated the juvenile baronet, and in later years there was no undertaking into which Sir Peter entered, without the preliminary resolution, "I'U see what Watson thinks of it," and Watson's judgment invariably carried the day.

All the arrangements for the aU-important event of the young heir's coming of age had been especially committed to the care of Mr. and Mrs. Watson, and they and their only child, Adelaide, of " sweet seven teen," had been fuUy occupied at the HaU for many previous days seeing to the carrying out of what was nominally termed Lady Morecombe's wishes, but which were in reality but smihng acquiescences in whatever Mrs. Watson proposed, and which thereby saved her indolent ladyship from aU thought and exertion, though, to do her justice, U she could have roused herself at any time for anybody, it would have been now, and for her darling only son ; she had even gone once completely round the house to look at aU the preparations, and had just sunk into the repose of her luxurious boudoir, when the sound of wheels aroused her, and a carriage and four brought h up the long avenue amidst the cheers of the assembled crowds.

The day was briUiant in the extreme, and everyone had come to the Hall with the determination of fully enjoying it, and all carried out that deter mination to its close. For a detailed description I refer the reader to the "Illustrated News" of that week, as "our own correspondent" gave so good an account, that I feel it would be superfluous for ni9 to attempt a repetition. I will therefore content myself with that which was not mentioned, and invading the sacred enclosure of a human heart, ruthlessly lay it bare before the reader. Poor Adelaide ! she had " played mad pranks along the healthy leas" with Archie Morecombe when children together, but would he remember her again ? She had been away at a boarding school, he at Col lege, their times for being at home had not been the same, and years hai passed, and they had not seen each other until this eventful day, when they met as " strangers at a festival," not long to remain such, for Archie's quick eye soon espied the prettiest girl in the group round the open door, and although bound in courtesy to greet his own immediate kith and kin there first, he took the earliest opportunity to discover and renew his acquaintance with his early playmate.

Holding out his hand, he advanced to wards her with a fascinating smile and said, " Miss Watson, for I suppose I must not call you Addy now, allow me to express the pleasure it gives me to see you again. You are so grown, but not the least altered ; I should have known you anywhere." He forgot he had been enquiring but a short while before who she was, but it made a pretty introductory speech, and after a few observations on the beauty of the day and the kindness of the people in coming, he withdrew from her side, to utter similar speeches to his numerous acquaintances who thronged the house and gardens. Now and then throughout the day, ho would make B some passing observation to her, as he hurried by on some mission to his own particular guests, or else give a smile which seemed to say, " I may neglect you because we are such old friends."

Once in the evening he asked her to dance with him, and as he led her to a seat afterwards whispered, "We must often meet again, now that we are both at home once more ;" words which are engraven in the heart and ears of poor Adelaide Watson as she leans over her father's gate, and looks anxiously up the road that leads to the Hall. Presently a horseman turns the corner. Adelaide's heart beats quicker, 'tis he ! but not alone, a second horseman is seen the next instant at his side, they are trotting fast, they soon reach the gate, one Hfts his hat, bows gracefuUy as he passes, and leaves the girl suffused with blushes. She watches that one rider till the next turn in the road hides him from her view, she watches till each parti cle of dust his horse's hoofs have raised have again laid dormant in the road.

She watches ; and thoughts of aU the silly love tales her feUow school girls used to teU, and the still more pernicious ones she has read since leaving school, crowd into her mind, and she begins to weave her own romance, herself the heroine. Stealthy meetings, discovery by parents, indignation of the baronet, a runaway match ; aU these seemed not only feasible, but charming. The school training had done its work weU. She saw neither folly nor sin in the life she was planning for herseU. AU that was pure and modest in her early years, which under a mother's tender care would have ripened into sweet maidenhood, had been crushed out by that mother's vanity, in sending her child to be tutored by strangers at a "finishing boarding school !" And the good sound common sense which man alone can instil into woman, and which Mr. Watson was so well fitted to bestow on his daughter had she been left to daUy intercourse with him, was all lost by that givinoup of the natural guardians of the child to the traininoof paid teachers, far away from all the sweet and gentle influences of home.

God gives parents a charge, and they neglect it. The next day Adelaide suggested to her mother that it would be proper etiquette to call on Lady Morecombe, but Mrs. Watson was busy, and thought next week would be quite time enough. So Adelaide betook herself to her gate to watch for passers by, but none came, at least, none she looked for, and reason good. There was a large party staying at the Hall, and a pic-nic had been planned, and all were gone to it, and amidst all the fun, frolic, and flirting, none were so forward as Archibald Morecombe. Then came reaction on the following morning, indolence, which scarcely roused itself to looking on at a game of billiards, and lounging in the back seat of the carriage for an afternoon drive with the ladies. So the week slipped away and Sunday came, and Adelaide thought, " I shaU see him at church, and I shaU have my best things on, my new summer bonnet and pretty muslin drees."

Little did good Mr. Watson know the anxiety he caused his daughter, when on Saturday evening he came in to tea, prophesying a wet day on the morrow. But for once in his Hfe Mr. Watson was wrong. No, not he, but his faithful barometer ; not that he aUowed that it could be wrong ; no, it had gone down for wind or something, and he had mistaken it for rain. Was there ever so indulged a child as a favourite barometer? Who ever allows it can be wrong ? Excuses are always found for it. So the Sunday was fine after aU, and the church was fuU, of at least professing worshippers. But what the sermon was about, Adelaide Watson does not know to this day ; and as to the rest of the service, she does know this, that every time she looked up during the Psalms, shecaught Archibald Morecombe's eye, and if it had not been for those horrid high pews, she might have seen him when she sat down as well TnE ROUND OF LIFE. as when she stood, for the large square enclosures looked every way.

So it was easy to arrange one's seat to face which ever quarter of the globe (or of the church), that chanced for the time being to be attractive. The blessing pronounced, out rushed the congregation from their seats, and soon gathered in gossiping knots in the churchyard, regardless of the sanctity of the spot. Some few were waiting for their carriages ; but the majority had their's in readiness, the loss of half the sermon to their departing coach men having been but a minor consideration. Archibald having assisted in packing two carriage loads of ladies, turned back to the pathway where the Watson's were slowly emerging into the road, and shook hands with all three in a most friendly manner, walked a few paces with the father, talking of the crops ; then, addressing the mother, hoped she had not suffered from all her exertions on the mem morable day, it was so kind of her to do all she did, the success of the day had reaUy been mainly attributable to her, and so on.

Then, looking full into Adelaide's eyes, he said with a smile and slow shake of the head, " Sha'nt ask how you are after it all, for young ladies are never the worse for a dance, are they ?" " Oh, no, all the better," said Adelaide, laughing. "The better? but," added Archie in a lower tone, "you could not have looked better than you did." Holding out his haud, he gave hers a lingering pressure, and ran back to his companions, whose jest at the expense of the farmer's pretty daughter was echoed by his light laughter, and the party strolled back across the fields to the HaU, to a wasted afternoon. The bells were chiming for the afternoon service, when a gentle hand opened the garden door, and Lilia Bertram descended the steps, crossed the lawn, passed over the bridge that divided it from the park, and after traversing it for about half a mile, emerged into a narrow lane that soon brought her to the church.

Pausing a moment under the Lich-gate, her thoughts were with the dead ; raising her eyes to the Cross that surmounted it, her thoughts were with the Uving. "He died; He ever liveth," she murmured, and as a bright tear fell upon her cheek, she men tally added, " and he too, my dear, dear father, is not dead, but sleepeth." " God's finger touched him and he slept."

Chapter III

"No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt In angel instincts, breathing Paradise, Interpreter between the Gods and men, Who looked all native to her place, and yet On tip-toe seemed to touch upon a sphere Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved, And girdled her with music." — PrinCess. And who was Lilia Bertram ? And who that father she still mourned for, though more than two years have passed since she stood by his open grave? Ample time to forget our dead ones ; so think the generality of human beings. No sooner does the green sod cover them, or the crushing weight of the family vault's memorial lid fall heavily down, than it seems as if it were almost a sin even to speak of them. They are then only to be vaguely alluded to, or mourn fuUy apostrophised as "poor" so and so; everything belonging to them is carefully hidden from sight, and it appears to become tbe aim and object of the sur vivors to obliterate their very existence from aU memories.

I do not say this is always the case, but alas! too often we find it such, even amongst those who profess to believe in the " Communion of Saints." Not so was it with Lilia Bertram and her widowed mother. With them it was as if his spirit ruled now, even more than then, when his bodily presence moved amongst them; the change was but from "what would you wish," to "what woidd he have wished ;" and though saddened by that fearful blank, no an swer, yet it was with no morbid feeling that wife and daughter thought, spoke and referred to the loved one, who had joined that company, of whom it has been so beautifully said, " They do not die. Nor lose their mortal sympathy, Nor change to us, although they change." Thus felt Mrs. Bertram and the gentle Lilia, and when the invitation to Morecombe Hall arrived at Fernley Cottage, for the latter to be present at her cousin's " coming of age," the mother's first thought was, " Your father would like you to go to his sister's for it, and he was always fond of Archie."

So LiHa went for the gay doings, though the pleasure was sorely damped by the parting with her mother, from whom she had scarcely ever been separated, even for a day. But why did not her mother go with her ? That was just the very question that crossed the minds of several persons, but Lady Morecombe did not say to them, no, nor hardly to herseU, that she disliked the thought of her brother's widow coming to the house at a time when she wished everything to be joyous and bright, especiaUy as she heard that Mrs. Bertram still wore her widow's dress, and was therefore, she supposed, dull and mournful in accordance with it. Besides, Lady Morecombe did not like to be reminded of her brother's death. There was but a year's difference in their ages, and she said it made her so nervous to think of him ; had he been killed in battle it would have been quite different ; but to live through so many engagements, and then to die at home, why, it was a thing that might happen to— to anyone, it reaUy was not a pleasant thing at all to think about, and the way his widow would still talk about him, made her feel herself quite justified in not having extended the invitation beyond her niece, but Lady Morecombe need not have feared the presence of her sister, there were few, if any, of her visitors who would have been found more cheerful, few, who would so entirely have ignored self, to add to the joy and comfort of others.

Whatever resemblance there might have been in early youth between Lady Morecombe and her brother, Use's training had indeed aU but eradicated. The exceeding gentleness, which had been the especial characteristic of both, had, by the early marriage of the one with a weak-minded man, dwindled into selfish indolence ; in the other, the battles of life at a public school, and the necessity of self-reliance in many posts of trust and danger during his military career, had ripened the gentleness of Colonel Bertram into quiet firmness, resulting from calm deliberation and the echo to aU that was good, which he ever found in his loving, sensible wife. - Such were the parents of our Lilia, who is now, book in hand, making her way through the flower garden to that inviting looking seat under the beech trees yonder ; but a peacock has taken possession of the spot ; he looks proudly and indignantly at her.

She apologises for thus interrupting him, and holds out her hand invitingly. He rejects all overtures to peace, spreads his wings, and after a clumsy flight, wheels down on the parapet of an adjoining terrace, poises himself for a moment, then spreading out his gorgeous tail, turns round and with a defiant look eyes his disturber. Lilia settles herself as usurper on the vacant throne, opens her book, and is soon deep in its pages, when, lo ! an intruder appears before her, and the disturber becomes the disturbed. TnE ROUND OF LLFE. Did a gleam of satisfaction appear in the peacock's eyes ? Are birds capable of lowering themselves to human feelings of revenge ? We know not ; but wiU take the earliest opportunity of enquiring of Buck land, the very first time we have the pleasure of meeting him.

We authors are not so presumptuous as to imagine we can divine the feeHngs of animals, we only content ourselves with those of our own species, and thus it is that we know perfectly well what is passing through the mind of Archie More combe, as he approaches his cousin. " How nicely Lilia looks this morning. I declare if it were anyone else I should go up and teU her nothing could be prettier than her present dress and attitude, bending over her book, and those trees as a background — quite a study for an artist ; but, dear me, as to my saying such a thing to LiHa, I should as soon think of flying. I dont know how it is, I can get on with most girls, but somehow I feel half afraid of her; never can make a pretty speech to her; never manage the least bit of a flirtation. I wonder why ? I fancy it would soon become a real thing with her, everything seems so real and full of meaning about her.

I never feel like the same being with her as with anyone else ; even now as I approach her my heart seems to put out feelers, like an insect with its its antennæ, when nearing some suspicious object. What does it mean ? Are our destinies to be the same, our fates to be Hnked, or to be violently antagonistic ? I am sure these sensations portend something. Is she to have an influence over me — rubbish, I ought to have it over her. I'U go and chaff her about that book she is reading. I did not waste all my time at coUege, so am rather more up in Hterature than all those noodles who have been hanging about here since that ridiculous day when I was made such a fool of, merely because I happened to survive teething and measles, and lived to be twenty-one." "Lilia," he exclaimed as he now stood before her, " d!d you ever hear of those German fairies, who after visiting England went home and died of risible dropsy."

"No indeed," said Lilia laughing, "what au absurd story, not over complimentary to us English, and really I dont see why the Gerniaus should find so much to laugh at in us, besides if I had been of the party, I am sure I should just have laughed at the time, not waited to get home before I expressed my feeHngs." " No that would have been rude, and the Germans are a very polite nation, so whatever struck them as absurd, they suppressed their sense of it, tiU safe beyond all chance of its being known by those who caused it." "And death was the consequence," said LiHa, " that makes it rather a sad story." " Well then shaU we give it another ending ? Let me see. Oh I know how you would have acted." " How ?" "Shall I tell you? "Yes. Do." " Everytime you saw anything to disapprove of you would have put on a very sad face, and you would have said ' My dear English brothers and sisters, pray do not repeat such an act as this, it is foolish in the extreme ; you lose the good opinion of others and your own self-respect.' " The words, the tone of this speech brought the colour painfully into the listener's cheeks, she but too weU recognised her own being' thus mimicked, and the first moment a feeling of anger arose in her mind, but instantly subduing it, she said, gently, " Archie, you mean that as a reproof to me, I will accept it as such, and try for the future not to arro gate the post of teacher so often."

" Dear LUy," exclaimed her cousin warmly, " I did not mean to pain you, and I know I have ; do forgive me. Oh ! if only you knew how much I valued your teaching, you would lecture me every day." " It would be the same lecture repeated every day, I think," said Lilia trying to smile. " I know what you are thinking of," and Archie's tone and manner softened into a grave and almost solemn one as he continued "You are thinking of yesterday, when we all laughed at you for slipping away from us to go to church by yourself in the afternoon. I assure you, I quite hated myself for it afterwards, and actually came out here this morning with the express purpose of telling you so, and of asking you to let me know another time, and I will go with you ; it reaUy would be such a pleasure to me to have the quiet walk with you.

Now I know what you are going to say ; I can read the reproof in your eyes, before it come from your lips. Don't smUe, I am quite serious now, only I can't be good all at once, and if I begin to go to church for the pleasure of a walk with you, the better feeling may come afterwards." A reproving "lecture" for this speech rose in Lilia's mind, but she hesitated, and doubted if it were wise just then to give vent to it, and her cousin began to feel somewhat elated with the notion that he had sUenced her and rather gained the day, a hope came over him that the expressions of pleasure for being with her had not been altogether displeasing to the recipient of them ; he thought he had inserted the edge of his object and might now drive it further into that heart he was so desirous of invading. Seating himself by his cousin's side, he asked "Did you not have a letter from my aunt this morning, I thought I saw a black edged one in the letter bag for you.

I hope she is well, and not going to be selfish and send for you yet" " Mamma is never selfish," said LiHa, smiling, "and she teUs me she is very weU, which I made her her promise to put into her letters, because I knew if she did not that then she would be ill. You know we have scarcely ever been parted, and I thought this was the best plan. I knew she would tell me the exact truth, and if she writes she is weU then I am content, but if she omitted to write it, then I should fear she was ill, and should rush away home directly." A prettily worded speech of fervent good wishes for the health of Mrs. Bertram was at once on the lips of her nephew, but something seemed to stop them there, and he felt he could not utter them. He had said more that morning than ever before, and yet how different had it been to the customary flippant style in which he was wont to address the softer sex.

His good looks, still more, his fascinating manners, made him a general favourite amongst those who looked not beyond the surface and were satisfied with the amusement of the hour, and although Archibald Morecombe was not altogether deficient in talent, or in some degree of common sense, yet he rarely chose to trouble himself to the exertion of employing either. ' ' What's the good of it ?' ' he would sometimes ask himseU, ' ' the world wags on very well with me as it is." But with his cousin, as we have seen, things were different, he rarely indulged in the smallest approach to flattery, never to actual nonsense, he would watch her expressive mouth, which was the one great beauty of her countenance, and when he saw the scornful Up curl, his siUy speeches dissolved into their original nothingness, and at times he would feel ashamed of himself for having even thought them.

But all was different this morning, and when the gong sounded to bring them in to luncheon, he accompanied his cousin to the house with a satisfied sensation pervading him that they had spent a decidedly plea sant morning together. A new kind of feeling was creeping over him ; he wanted to be alone. He went into the stable yard, ordered his horse, rode out of the back gate without saying a word of his intentions to anyone. Slowly he proceeded down the lane, but had not gone far before he suddenly reined up his horse, turned quickly round, and pushing open a gate, cantered across the green turf, field after field in an opposite direction. "Little fool," he muttered, "I believe I did say I would come and have a chat with her this evening, but she'U look a long time over her father's gate, before she sees me again.

I wish I had gone to church with Lilia yesterday, instead of making such a simpleton of myself as I did with that pretty little Addy ; but she certainly is pretty, and it gave her a great deal of pleasure, so that after aU I don't know that I need blame myself so much." Such were the reflections of the one cousin, and what were those of the other, as she sat in the window seat of her room, a piece of untouched work lying in her lap, and even her mother's letter unanswered by her side? "Archie was very pleasant to-day; how kindly he spoke of dear papa, and told all that he remembered of him, and the nice letter he wrote him when he went first to coUege. How charming a college life must be ! I am sure Archie's description was delightful. Such opportunities of acquiring knowledge from men and books.

Well, I really must write to mamma, I can't think how it is, I have been idling away this afternoon sadly ? I suppose it's the heat, but this room is deliciously cool, and the sun quite gone behind the trees ; what a perfect shade they made this morning. Oh ! are those the rooks coming home ahead}'? surely it can't be so late! Oh, no, it's the pigeons from the yard taking a flight round the park. How odd it is that Archie still makes pets of them just as he used to do as a boy, but he is very gentle for a man. I hope I was not dictatorial to him, it was quite right of him to give me that little reproof. I must tell mamma about that, and let her see I am not being "spoUt," as she says she is afraid I shall be here. Now I really will begin my letter to her. I know there is something in it that requires an immediate answer, but I quite forgot what it was.

I must read the letter over again first ; how nicely dear mamma writes, so much better than I ever shaU, but all my pens are so bad. Archie said he would mend me some, but I daresay he won't think of it again." And thus the young girl's thoughts rambled on, until the striking of a clock reminded her it was nearly time for her to pay her customary visit to her aunt in her boudoir, for she always liked to have her niece with her for a chat over their afternoon tea ; so it came to pass, Mrs. Bertram had a shorter letter than usual from her daughter, and felt at first a little disappointed, but the next moment caUed herself a selfish mother to expect always to have long letters, when no doubt Lilia's time was fully occupied, a large party of young people in the house, and a great deal going on.