hasty, for only a month would have passed since Elvira's arrival, before her wedding-day; but this was by her own earnest wish. She made it no secret that she should never cease to be nervous till she was Allen Brownlow's wife, even though a letter to her cousins at River Hollow had removed all fear of pursuit by Mrs. Gould; she seemed bent on remaining at New York, and complained loudly of 'the ungrateful girl,' whose personal belongings she retained by way of compensation.
It would have been too much to expect that Elvira should be a wise and clever woman, but she had really learnt to be an affectionate one, and in the school of adversity had parted with much of her selfish petulance and arrogance. Allen, whose love had always been blindly tender, more like a woman's or a parent's love than that of an ordinary lover, was rapturous at the response he at last received. At the same time, he knew her too well to expect from her intellectual companionship, and would be quite content with what she could give.
They were both of them chastened and elevated in tone by their five years' discipline.
The night before the party went down to Belforest, where they were to meet the Evelyns, Allen lingered with his mother after all the rest had gone upstairs.
'Mother,' he said, 'I have thought a great deal of that dream of yours. I hope that the touch of Midas may not be baneful this time.'
'I trust not, my dear; you have had a taste of the stern, rugged nurse.'
'And, mother, I know I failed egregiously where the others rose.'
'But you were rising.'
'Then you will let me do nothing for you, and I feel myself sneaking into your inheritance, to the exclusion of all the rest, in a back- door sort of way.'
'My dear Allen, it can't be helped, you have honestly loved your Elf from her infancy, when she had nothing, and she really loved you at the very worst. Love is so much more than gold, that it really signifies very little which of you has the money. You and she have both gone through a good deal, and it depends upon you now whether the possession becomes a blessing to yourselves and others. Don't vex about our not having a share, you know yourself how much happier we all are without the load, and there will never be any anxiety now. I shall always fall back on you, if I want anything.'
'That is right,' said Allen, clearing up a good deal as she looked up brightly in his face. 'You promise me.'
'Of course I do,' she said smiling. 'I'm not proud.'
'And you did make Armine consent to our paying those expenses of his. That was good of you, but the boy only does it out of obedience.'
'Yes, he would like a little bit of self-willed penance, but it is much better for him to submit, bodily and mentally.'
'Elvira has asked me whether we can't, after all, build the Church and all the rest which he wanted so much, and give it to him.'
Caroline smiled, she would not vex Allen by saying how this was merely in the spirit of the story book, endowing everybody with what they wanted, but she said, 'Build by all means, and endow, when you have had time to see what is needed, and what is good for the people, but not for Armine's sake, you know. He had much better serve his apprenticeship and learn his work somewhere else. He would tell you so himself.'
'I daresay. He would talk of the touch of Midas again. Elvira will be sadly disappointed. She had some fancy of presenting him to it as soon as he was ordained!'
'Getting the fairies meantime to build the whole concern in secret? Dear Elfie, her plans are generous and kind. Tell her, with my love, that her Church must not be a shrine for Armine, but that perhaps he and it will be fit for each other in some five years' time. Meantime, if she wants to make somebody happy, there's that excellent hardworking curate of Eleanor's, who has done more good in Kenminster than I ever saw done there before.'
'I don't see why Kencroft should get all the advantages!'
'Ah! You ungrateful boy! Now if Rob had carried off Elfie, you might complain!'
At which Allen could not but laugh.
'And now, good night, Mr. Bridegroom; you want your beauty sleep, though I must say you look considerably younger than you did two months ago.
The wedding was a bright one, involving no partings, only joy and gladness, and the sole drawback to the general rejoicings seemed to be that it was not Mrs. Brownlow herself who was returning to take possession.
But on that very afternoon came a chill on her heart. Her own letter and Elvira's to Janet were returned from America! It was quite probable that the right address might have been in Elvira's lost note, and that Janet might be easily found through the photographer. 'But,' said her mother, 'I do not believe she will ever come home unless I go to fetch her.'
'The very thing I was thinking of doing,' said Jock. 'Letters will hardly find her now, and I have not settled to anything. The dear old Doctor's legacy will find the means.'
'And I am sure you want the rest of the voyage. I don't like the looks of you, my Jockey.'
'I shall be all right when this is over,' said Jock, with an endeavour at laughing; 'but I find I am a greater fool than I thought I was, and I had much better be out of the way of it all till it is a fait accompli.'
'It' was of course John's marriage. This was the first time Jock had seen the lovers together. In spite of vehement talking and laughing, warm greetings to everyone, and playing at every interval with the little cousins, Jock could not hide from either of the mothers that the sight cost him a good deal, all the more because the showing the Belforest haunts to Sydney had always been a favourite scheme, hitherto unfulfilled; nor was there any avoiding family consult- ations, which resulted in the fixing of the wedding for the middle of September, so that there might be time for a short tour before they settled down to John's work in London.
Mrs. Evelyn begged that Barbara would come to her whilst her mother and brother were away, Armine would be at his theological college, and there was nothing to detain Mrs. Brownlow and her son from the journey, to which both looked forward with absolute pleasure, not only in the hope of the meeting, but in the being together, and throwing off for a time the cares of home and gratifying the spirit of enterprise.
Jock had one secret. He had reason to think that Bobus would have a kind of vacation at the time, and he telegraphed to Japan what their intended voyage was to be, with a hope he durst not tell, that his favourite brother would not throw away the opportunity of meeting them in America.
CHAPTER XL. EVIL OUT OF GOOD.
And all too little to atone For knowing what should ne'er be known. Scott.
The season at Saratoga was not yet over, the travellers were told at New York, though people were fast thronging back into 'the city.' Should they go on thither at once, or try to find the photographer nearer at hand? It was on a Friday that they landed, and they resolved to wait till Monday, Jock thinking that a rest would be better for his mother.
The early autumn sun glowed on the broad streets as they walked slowly through them, halting to examine narrowly every display of portraits at a photographer's door.
It was a right course; they came upon some exquisitely-finished ones, among which they detected unmistakably the coloured likeness of Elvira de Menella. They went into the studio and asked to look at it. 'Ah, many ask that,' they were told, 'though the sensation was a little gone by.'
'What sensation?' Jock asked, while his mother trembled so much that she had to sit down on one of the velvet chairs.
'I guess you are a stranger, sir, from England? Then no doubt you have not heard of the great event of the season at Saratoga, the sudden elopement of this young lady, a beautiful English heiress, on the eve of marriage, these very portraits ordered for the bridesmaids' lockets.'
'Whom did she elope with?' asked Jock.
'That's the remarkable part of it, sir. Some say that she was claimed in secret by a lover to whom she had been long much attached; but we are better informed. I can state to a certainty that she only fled to escape the tyranny of an aunt. She need only have appealed to the institutions of the country.'
'Very true,' said Jock. 'Let me ask if your informant was not the lady who coloured this photograph, Mrs. Harte?' 'Yes.' 'And is she here?'
'No, sir,' with some hesitation.
'Can you give me her address? I am her brother. This lady is her mother, and we are very anxious to find
