I am not jealous. I do notgrudge him his happiness, if this marriage can make him happy. I onlyfeel that I have lost him for ever.'
'My dear Milly, that is utterly unreasonable. Your father told me mostparticularly to assure you of his unaltered affection, when I broke thenews of this marriage to you. He was naturally a little nervous aboutdoing it himself.'
'You must never let him know what I have said, Julian. He will neverhear any expression of regret from me; and I will try to do my duty tothis strange lady. Have you seen her yet?'
'No, they have not come home yet. They were in Switzerland when I heardof them last; but they are expected in a week or two. Come, my dearMilly, don't look so serious. I trust this marriage may turn out foryour happiness, as well as for your father's. Rely upon it, you willfind no change in his feelings towards you.'
'He will always be kind and good to me, I know,' she answered sadly.'It is not possible for him to be anything but that; but I can never behis companion again as I have been. There is an end to all that.'
'That was a kind of association which could not be supposed to last allyour life, Milly. It is to be hoped that somebody else will have aclaim upon your companionship before many years have gone by.'
'I suppose you mean that I shall marry,' she said, looking at him withsupreme indifference.
'Something like that, Milly.'
'I have always fancied myself living all my life with papa. I havenever thought it possible that I could care for any one but him.'
Julian Stormont's face darkened a little, and he sat silent for someminutes, folding and refolding the newspaper in a nervous way.
'You are not very complimentary to your admirers at Thornleigh,' hesaid at last, with a short hoarse laugh.
'Who is there at Thornleigh? Have I really any admirers there?'
'I think I could name half-a-dozen.'
'Never mind them just now. I want you to tell me all you know about mystepmother.'
'That amounts to very little. All I can tell you is, that she is thedaughter of a gentleman, highly accomplished, without money, andfour-and-twenty years of age. She was travelling as companion to anelderly lady when your father met her in a picture-gallery at Florence.He knew the old lady, I believe, and by that means became acquaintedwith the younger one.'
'Only four-and-twenty! only four years older than I!'
'Rather young, is it not? but when a man of your father's age makes asecond marriage, he is apt to marry a young woman. Of course this isquite a love-match.'
'Yes, quite a love-match,' Milly repeated, with a sigh.
I knew she could not help that natural pang of jealousy, as she thoughthow she and her father had once been all the world to each other. Shehad told me so often of their happy companionship, the perfectconfidence that had existed between them.
Julian Stormont sat talking to her--and a little, a very little, tome--for about half an hour longer, and then departed. He was to sleepat Fendale, and go back to North Shields next morning. He was hisuncle's right hand in the business, Milly told me; and from the littleI had seen of him I could fancy him a power in any sphere.
'Papa has a very high opinion of him,' she said, when we were talkingof him after he had left us.
'And you like him very much, I suppose?'
'O yes, I like him very well. I have known him all my life. We arealmost like brother and sister; only Julian is one of those thoughtfulreserved persons one does not get on with very fast.'
CHAPTER III.
AT THORNLEIGH.
The midsummer holidays began at last, and Mr. Darrell came in person tofetch his daughter, much to her delight. She was not to return toschool any more unless she liked, he told her. Her new mamma was mostanxious to receive her, and she could have masters at Thornleigh tocomplete her education, if it were not already finished.
Her eyes were full of tears when she came to tell me this, and carry meoff to the drawing-room to introduce me to her father, an introductionshe insisted upon making in spite of my entreaties,--for I was rathershy at this period of my life, and dreaded an encounter with a stranger.
Mr. Darrell received me most graciously. He was a tall fine-lookingman, very like the photograph in Milly's bedroom, and I detected thehard look about the mouth which I had noticed in both portraits. Heseemed remarkably fond of his daughter; and I have never seen aprettier picture than she made as she stood beside him, clinging to hisarm, and looking lovingly up at him with her dark hazel eyes.
He asked me where I was to spend my holidays; and on hearing that I wasto stay at Albury Lodge, asked whether I would like to come toThornleigh with Milly for the midsummer vacation. My darling clappedher hands gaily as he made this offer, and cried:
'O yes, Mary, you will come, won't you?--You dear kind papa, that isjust like you, always able to guess what one wishes. There is nothingin the world I should like better than to have Mary at Thornleigh.'
'Then you have only to pack a box with all possible expedition, and tocome away with us, Miss Crofton,' said Mr. Darrell; 'the train startsin an hour and a half. I can only give you an hour.'
I thanked him as well as I could--awkwardly enough, I daresay--for hiskindness, and ran away to ask Miss Bagshot's consent to the visit. Thisshe gave readily, in spite of some objections suggested by Miss Susan,and I had nothing more to do than to pack my few dresses--my twocoloured muslins, a white dress for festive occasions, a black-silkdress which was preeminently my 'best,' and some printmorning-dresses--wondering as I packed them how these things would passcurrent among the grandeurs of Thornleigh. All this was finished wellwithin the hour, and I put on my bonnet and shawl, and randown--flushed with hurry and excitement, and very happy--to join myfriends in the drawing-room.
Miss Bagshot was there, talking of her attachment to her sweet youngfriend, and her regret at losing her. Mr. Darrell cut theselamentations short when he found I was ready, and we drove off to thestation in the fly that had brought him to Albury Lodge.
I looked at the little station to-day with a very different feelingfrom that dull despondency which had possessed me six months before,when I arrived there in the bleak January weather. The thought of fiveweeks' respite from the monotonous routine of Albury Lodge was almostperfect happiness. I did not forget those I loved at home, or cease toregret the poverty that prevented my going home for the holidays; butsince this was impossible, nothing could have been pleasanter than theidea of the visit I was going to pay.
Throughout the journey Mr. Darrell was all that was gracious and kind.He talked a good deal of his wife; dwelling much upon heraccomplishments and amiability, and assuring his daughter again andagain that she could not fail to love her.
'I was a little bit of a coward in the business, I confess, Milly,' hesaid, in the midst of this talk, 'and hadn't courage to tell youanything till the deed was done; and then I thought it was as well tolet Julian make the announcement.'
'You ought to have trusted me better, papa,' Milly said tenderly; and Iknew what perfect self-abnegation there was in the happy smile withwhich she gave him her hand.
'And you are not angry with me, my darling?' he asked.
'Angry with you, papa? as if I had any right to be angry with you! Onlytry to love me a little, as you used to do, and I shall be quite happy.'
'I shall never love you less, my dear.'
The journey was not a long one; and the country through which we passedwas very fair to look upon in the bright June afternoon. The landscapechanged when we were within about thirty miles of our destination: thefertile farmlands and waving fields of green corn gave place to an openmoor, and I felt from far off the fresh breath of the ocean. This broadundulating moorland was new to me, and I thought there was a wild kindof beauty in its loneliness. As for Milly, she looked out at the moorwith rapture, and strained her eyes to catch the first glimpse of thehills about Thornleigh--those hills of which she had talked to me sooften in her little room at school.
The station we had to stop at was ten miles from M
r. Darrell's house,and a barouche-and-pair was waiting for us in the sunny road outside.We drove along a road that crossed the moor, until we came to a littlevillage of scattered houses, with a fine old church--at one end ofwhich an ancient sacristy seemed mouldering slowly to decay. We drovepast the gates of two or three rather important houses, lyinghalf-hidden in their gardens, and then turned sharply off into a roadthat went up a hill, nearly at the top of which we came to a pair ofnoble old carved iron gates, surmounted with a coat-of-arms, andsupported on each side by massive stone pillars, about which the ivytwined lovingly.
An old man came out of a pretty rustic-looking lodge and opened thesegates, and we drove through an avenue of some extent, which ledstraight to the front of the house, the aspect of which delighted me.It was very old and massively