“But rise, let us on more contend, nor blame Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive
In offices of love, how we may lighten
Each other’s burden, in our share of woe.”
Milton.
On the eventful night which had been passed by the earl and his companions above the clouds, the mourners in the vicarage had known but little of repose. If oblivion came, it was in brief troubled snatches of slumber, from which the fevered sleeper awakes with a start to feel an icy oppression on the mind,—slumber which has in it nothing of refreshment.
All arose very early, with a vague yearning hope that tidings might come with the morning light, and the eager greeting when two of that anxious household met together was always, “Have you heard?—are there any tidings?”
Annabella would not appear at the breakfast table. Ida, pale as sculptured marble, scarcely able to swallow the nourishment of which she partook as a duty, sat beside her father, every sense absorbed in anxious listening. She heard the postman’s[235] step before she could see his form, and eagerly sprang forward to meet him, for it was possible—just possible—that he might be the bearer of news!
The man shook his head sadly when questioned; he had brought nothing but a parcel for the Countess of Dashleigh with the London post-mark upon it; and, with a sickening sense of disappointment, Ida bore it to the room of her cousin.
A strange gleam of hope flashed in the countess’s large hollow eyes, as, without noticing the post-mark, she tore open the little packet; it was followed by a strange revulsion of feeling. There lay before her, beautiful in its fanciful binding of violet and gold, its glittering edges bright from the hand of the gilder, “The Fairy Lake, by the Countess of Dashleigh.”
There was a time when the youthful authoress would have gazed on the volume with delight, and turned over its pages with eager curiosity and pleasure! But now—there seemed written upon each a tale of wilful rebellion and insolent pride! Annabella flung her first book from her with an exclamation of anguish, for was it not connected in her mind with the fearful fate of her husband!
Then, with a sudden resolution, she rose from her seat, and hastily opened that desk at which she had penned her fatal article for the —— Magazine. Annabella would make some reparation, such reparation as yet was possible, for the deed so deeply[236] repented of. The countess wrote, with a hand that shook so that she could scarcely form the letters, a note to her publisher in London, bidding him at once cancel the whole edition of her romance, prohibiting him from selling a single copy of the work which he had been hurrying through the press, and making herself responsible for his losses, whatever they might be. No earthly consideration would have induced the miserable wife to delay, even for an hour, the act by which she crushed the bud of hope, so long eagerly fostered, at the very moment when it burst into blossom! The young authoress, once soaring so high in the pride of literary ambition, was cutting the cords of her balloon!
Almost every family in the neighbourhood, whether rich or poor, called at the vicarage that day, impelled by friendship, curiosity, or pity, to inquire if any tidings of the lost balloon had reached the family of the Aumerles. No visitors, however, were admitted, as soon as it was ascertained that they had come to receive information, and not to give it. The sound of wheels, and of frequent rings at the gate, almost drove Annabella to distraction! Ida and her father spent much of the time together in fervent prayer, but the miserable Countess of Dashleigh seemed too restless—too wretched to pray!
It was now the afternoon of one of the loveliest days in the loveliest of seasons. The soft tinkling of the distant sheep-bell, the low of the cattle in the[237] meadow, and the monotonous hum of the bee, came softly blended together to the ear. The bright mantle of sunshine fell on fruit-trees laden with blossom,—the hawthorn white with May’s perfumed snow, the fragrant lilac, the laburnum dropping its showers of gold! Annabella gazed from the open casement of her apartment upon a lovely and varied prospect, but she had not the slightest perception of what lay directly before her eye.
Another loud ring! The countess turned her head with quick impatience. A man was standing at the gate. Was there something in his manner that announced the eager bearer of tidings, or did the wife intuitively grasp the fact that he brought her news of her husband? Ida seemed to have had the same perception, for, with the breeze waving back her long dark tresses, she was at the gate almost before the tongue of the bell ceased to vibrate. Annabella saw her start, caught the uttered exclamation, and springing from her room, clearing the stairs almost at a bound, in less than a minute was at the side of her cousin. She was quickly followed by the vicar and Mrs. Aumerle, and every member of the household.
A telegraphic message had arrived from Augustine; yes, there was the precious little leaf, which, like the touch of a magician’s wand, changed the face of everything around, and flooded the dry, haggar............