Читать книгу A Novel Without a Name - William Aubrey Burnage - Страница 17

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The afternoon sun was smiling its warmest and brightest upon the many-hued stocks and carnations that adorned the little front garden of Woodbine cottage, and Polly Seymour, the sunshine of Aunt Letitia's home, was sitting at work in the back parlor. Her sweet gentle face bent over her sewing. Her nimble fingers appeared ambitious of keeping pace with the rapid flight of her thoughts, so fast the bright needle flew in and out of the cambric she was hemming. A happy expression was settled upon her radiant features; and the brightest of smiles played upon her pretty little mouth. It was evident that the subject of her thoughts was a most pleasant one from the glad light that beamed from her eyes. A beautiful girl, indeed, was this fair damsel—so industrious both with head and hands. Of a different style certainly from the beauty of Mabel Wilton, but of a softer and more loveable type. None could look upon the dazzling loveliness of Mabel without admiration. Few could see the pure and ethereal beauty of Polly without being attracted by its sweet and gentle influence. Upon a table before her lay a letter she had just written to her brother, and beside it an envelope addressed to Mr. Frank Seymour, c/o. H. Talford, Esq., Barrister, Inner Temple.

"How grand and handsome Harry looked as he rode past me on his beautiful grey horse! He didn't recognise me though. Little did he think that one who loves him so dearly, was so near." So ran the current of her busy thoughts. "I do wish he and Frank were friends again, as they used to be in the dear old days, when he saved Frank's life in the Serpentine! I dare say he might then come to visit Frank here sometimes. O, that would be delightful. What can be the cause of their quarrel, I wonder. I have never been able to guess; and yet it is hard so see those bad friends whom I love as dearly as I do Harry and Frank!"

A "Rat, tat," in a very self-assertive and business-like tone roused her from her reverie; and she hurried to the front door to receive the dainty little pink letter the postman was so impatient to part with, that he might hurry on his round.

"A letter from Fanny Fenton," she exclaimed eagerly, to the infinite amusement of the postman, who said to himself, as he hurried on to his next destination, "'Taint every day that young lady is blessed with the luxury of a letter, I fancy! She seems as pleased with it as my little Nellie was with her new doll."

"It's nearly time she did write too," continued Polly, closing the door, and returning to her seat. "My last letter to her must be nearly six months old; and she never answered it till now."

After a few seconds examination of the post marks, and a brief reverie upon the last time she met Fanny, when on a visit to a school-day friend at Chelmsford the year before, she broke the seal. A pleased smile lighted up her fair young face, as she read the current gossip—an account of Harry Fenton's return home on leave, and of the coming back of Squire Wilton and Mabel; a description of the grand party Mrs. Fenton was to give next week in honor of Harry's being amongst them again; and Fanny's earnest wish that Polly could be one of the guests; and a glowing narration of the glorious moonlight ride she had had with Clara and Harry to the ruins of an old castle some ten miles from Elmgrove—but on reaching the top of the fourth page an expression of acute pain suddenly drove her smile away; and the letter dropped from her fingers, and fluttered down to the carpet. Tears fell thick upon the tiny missive, as Polly stooped, and picked it up. "Oh Harry, Harry," she wailed in her agony, "I have loved you so dearly all these years only to find at last that you loved Mabel all the while."

Girl-like, Fanny had betrayed the foolish confidence of her impulsive open-hearted brother, who had been so indiscreet as to tell her of his unpleasant interview with Mabel's father, and its unexpected, but, to him, delightful termination. "It was really like a scene in a drama," rattled on Fanny's thoughtless pen: "Just fancy old Mr. Wilton's consternation when Mabel—she's such a dear girl—stepped forward like a tragedy queen, and declared that she would love Harry for ever and a day. I felt as if I could have hugged her, when Harry told me about it. I expect the proud old gentleman will have to make a virtue of necessity now, and give his consent; and after that, I suppose, comes the wedding. Mabel is sure to ask you to be one of the bridesmaids. In fact if she does'nt, I will not be one myself. Don't you think Harry is to be congratulated upon his good fortune in winning her? There isn't a girl in the world I would so soon have for a sister-in-law? But the strangest part of it is that they should'nt see each other for five years; and yet remain in love all that time. I would not have believed it possible out of a French novel."

A deep sigh shook Polly's fragile form; and she laid the unhappy letter down upon the table near the one she had just written to her brother. She knew only too well, as it now proved, how possible it was for true, deep, and passionate love to live on for so many years. Long and sadly the heart-stricken girl sat brooding over the bitterness of her misery. "You can never love me now, Harry? You can never love me now," was the burden of her troubled thoughts. She felt that could she but have won his love, she could have died content, "But that may never be now. That may never be now. Oh that I was dead, that I might forget my misery and be at rest?"

"Well, my dear, have you finished your letter to Frank yet? I am going into Knightsbridge; and I can post it for you," said an old lady, bustling into the room in a walking dress.

Polly brushed away her tears, and glanced nervously up. "Yes, aunt, I have written it," she replied in a broken voice. "I will put it in the envelope at once," and snatching up one of the two letters upon the table, she slipped it into the envelope addressed to her brother, and wafered it.

"Why, what is the matter, child? Your eyes are quite red. What have you been crying about?" exclaimed the old lady in motherly solicitude, seeing at a glance that something was wrong.

"Nothing, aunt, thank you! I have a bad headache," replied Polly, coloring, and shrinking timidly from the bare idea of revealing the cause of her tears to anyone.

"Stuff and nonsense child! Girls don't cry about a headache. There must be something else the matter with you," returned the old lady, irritably, not at all pleased at Polly's evident disinclination to unbosom her troubles to her. "But if it is a headache, you had better go and lie down; I will make you some hoarhound tea when I get back." Saying which, Miss Letitia Vaughan hurried away to do some shopping, and post Polly's letter. This genial kindly old lady exhibited none of the disagreeable peculiarities generally supposed to be characteristic of an advanced stage of feminine "single blessedness." She was a simple, loving, trusting, warm-hearted woman, brimful of the often-heard-of, but seldom met with, 'milk of human kindness;' and she had proved herself a worthy foster mother to the orphan girl and her brother.

Polly resumed her seat, and her sad thoughts, directly her aunt left the house, and sat nursing her so recent grief for a weary hour, till the maid entered the room to set the tea things.

"Please, Miss Polly, here's a letter of yours blowed off the table!"

Polly colored, and held out her hands eagerly for Fanny's epistle. No eyes but hers must see that fatal letter. It must be safely locked up among her treasures—it, that had destroyed her most precious of treasures, peace and contentment.

"I don't think Mr. Frank will be able to read it now, Miss Polly; for it got into your white kitten's saucer of milk, and the dust is sticking to it where it got under my feet," said Nancy, industriously trying to shake the dust off again.

"Frank's letter?" cried Polly, turning pale, as the possibility of a mistake flashed through her mind. "His was post——" she did not finish the sentence: but gazed with blank confusion at her own writing upon the letter. It was the one she had an hour or two before written to her brother. "And I have posted Fanny's letter to him," she exclaimed in great distress, "Oh, what shall I do? I would not have him see it for the world."

"What's the matter Miss Polly? Is there anything I can do for you?" asked the sympathetic maid-servant.

"I have put the wrong letter into the envelope for Frank by mistake, Nancy," cried Polly hysterically, bursting into tears.

Nancy strove in her rough but kindly way to comfort her. "But it's no matter, Miss Polly? He's your brother; and he will be certain sure to keep it for you. It is'nt like as if you'd been and sent it to strangers," she urged earnestly. "The best thing to do now is to put this letter into another envelope, and send it too. You can easy write on it about the mistake."

Nancy's advice appeared so sensible that Polly instantly adopted it, and snatching up her pen she wrote across a page of the letter in a shakey hand. "Dear brother, I sent you the wrong letter by mistake! Send me Fanny Felton's back at once? Your loving Polly."

Nancy volunteered to run to the nearest post-office with it; but Polly preferred going herself. "My head aches very much, Nancy; and I think the walk may do it good," she replied.

In two minutes she was bonnetted and out, and walking towards the post-office at a great rate, her thoughts in a perfect tumult. She was very much excited and flushed; and a gentleman passing by stopped to look at her.

"One would think, Miss Seymour that you were walking for a wager," he said laughing. "Your exercise is giving you quite a color."

Polly raised her eyes and encountered the gentleman's amused gaze. "Mr. Talford, I didn't see you," she exclaimed in some confusion. "How is my brother?"

"I wish you would give him a sharp, little, sisterly lecture about working too hard. He is killing himself with work. Not only is he devouring all my law books, and writing out all my opinions for the attorneys—work enough for an ordinary individual—but he is a constant contributor to half the magazines. If he will only take care of himself. I for one should not be surprised to see him climb up to the Woolsack in time. He is——"

"The Woolsack, sir?" interrupted Polly.

"O, that's the very pinnacle of fame for us lawyers—the seat of the Lord Chancellor of England. He has talent and unflinching energy enough for anything; but human nature has its limits to its powers of endurance."

"It is of little use for me to speak to him, sir. I often beg of him to give himself a few days holiday; but he only laughs and says he cannot afford the time," replied Polly.

"Your brother says that he is determined to work his way to the summit of the profession; and I suppose he will, for determination and powers such as his can push on in defiance even of fate herself," said Mr. Talford warmly. "Are you going to post that letter?" he continued. "If so, I may save you the walk; for I shall be passing the office."

"It is for Frank, sir."

"O, then, in that case I can give it him myself and save the postage. I shall call at my chambers in the morning."

"Thank you, sir," replied Polly, handing Mr. Talford the letter, which he put away carefully in his pocket-book.

"Do please give it him directly you see him in the morning. I am anxious for him to get it as soon as possible."

"Very well, Miss Seymour, I will not lose a minute in placing it in his hands, when I meet him in the morning. Good-bye! Remember me kindly to your aunt," and Mr. Talford lifted his hat gallantly, and passed on; while Polly slowly retraced her steps homeward thinking sadly, poor girl, of what might have been, had Mabel not have won and held Harry's heart.

The kind-hearted barrister had been introduced some months before to Mr. Frank Seymour by the editor of a magazine the young man was contributing to; and learning his ambition to enter the bar, and the financial difficulties that beset him, he had generously offered to take him as pupil sans premium; and as Mr. Talford had a very superior, legal library, and was considered a rising man, Frank gratefully accepted the offer.

At ten o'clock on the morning following the day Polly received Fanny Fenton's letter, Mr. Frank Seymour entered Mr. Talford's chambers, with a large roll of proof-sheets in his hands. He had a few days before written an exhaustive and able article upon Electoral Reform for a leading Review, and had been highly complimented upon it by the editor; and he now entered the chambers with a proud firm step, and a bright eye. It was indeed seldom that a young man at his age wrote with such clear and comprehensive thought; as he had exhibited in this article; and he felt pleased and flattered at the praise he had received. On sorting the morning's letters he found one addressed to himself in his sister's hand; but, being too full of his article to think of anything else just then, he put it into his breast-pocket, and set about the revision of his proofs. Half an hour later Mr. Talford entered the room. "Good morning Mr. Seymour!" he said as Frank glanced smiling, up from his work. "I met Hepward just now! Allow me to congratulate you upon the success of your article!" And taking his seat at the writing table, he continued, "Upon my word it is a pity you are not in parliament? Hepward declares you are a born politician."

Frank laughed. "I may be there yet, sir; but one thing at a time, to do it well. I must become a successful barrister first."

"One thing at a time! Why, how can you reconcile literature and study with that theory?"

"Well, sir, the fact is, this exception to my rule is forced upon me by necessity. I must earn a little money some way; and writing for it is the most congenial to my tastes. I dare say my aunt would supply me with funds to keep on with, but I do not like the idea of dependence."

"A noble thought, my dear boy! A noble thought! But, to business—Here is a rough draft of my opinion in Douglas v. Underwood. Make out a fair copy of it ready for Gray's clerk, who will call round for it about three o'clock. I have penciled in the margin reference pages of the authorities hearing upon the matter, so that you may store that capacious mind of yours with the law of the case. I must hurry off now to the Common Pleas. You will have plenty of time to finish your proofs first."

Frank thanked his kind friend and teacher for his valuable marginal references; and Mr. Talbot took up his brief, and turned to depart. "O, by-the-way, here is a letter for you Miss Seymour entrusted me with. I met her yesterday at Kensington."

Mr. Talford hurried out; and Frank dropped the letter into his pocket, saying, as he took up his pen again, "Polly appears to have a writing fit on just now? Well, this will do to keep the other company until I have time to read them."

In a couple of hours the work was finished; and he hurried over to the office with it, and then returned and set to work upon Mr. Talford's opinion re Douglas v. Underwood. The fair copy made, he took down the authorities referred to in the margin of the rough draft; and turning up the pages penciled down, he began the study of the points of law involved in the suit; and he did not close the volumes until he had thoroughly mastered and digested the intricacies of the case. The great mental exertion it cost him caused him to forget Polly's letters, and he took a walk in the Temple Gardens before returning to his lodgings.

After tea Frank took out his papers, and sketched out the first rough copy of a short essay in verse upon Liberty—a work which occupied him till long after the midnight hour had struck. When he had concluded the work, and was about to retire, he suddenly recollected his sister's letters. "I wonder what is the weighty intelligence that could require two letters to convey it?" he said drawing them from his pocket. "Probably she forgot the all-important postscript in the first, and so sent it on in the second. Well, we will read the postscript first."

He read the affectionate little letter hurriedly through. It was as young ladies epistles usually are, composed of interesting little nothings most prettily said. By some means he missed the uncertain scrawl, Polly had written on discovering her blunder: and taking up the second letter he tore it open remarking, "Well since the postscript is so full of interest, I must not expect much in the principal letter, I suppose?"

On glancing at the letter as he drew it from the envelope, his eyes fell upon the words, "Mabel is sure to ask you to be one of the bridesmaids." He breathlessly unfolded the letter, and hurried through the gossip at the commencement and then read Fanny Fenton's vivid and lively account of her brother's interview with Mr. Wilton, and Mabel's bold admission of her love for his hated rival. With white face, and blue lips, and cold beads of perspiration upon his clammy brow, he slowly read the letter fatal through a second time. "It is; it must be impossible!" he frantically exclaimed in his new-born agony. "What but the hope, the mad hope of yet winning her, has kept me year by year working, working, working, striving to prepare for wrestling with the world for what it has denied my birth—wealth and honor! No, no! I could not survive the conviction that I had lost her! I must! I will win her!" and the excited youth rose, and raced the confined limits of his room like a caged tiger. Suddenly stopping, and glancing at the open letter he had dashed upon the table, he read it through again; and then, raising his hand, he muttered some hurried words as of prayer or imprecation. Was it supplication to the Father of Mercy for strength to bear his cruel disappointment; or was it the registry of a vow for revenge!