When the race was done, Captain Bulstrode turned, and beheld the black-eyed sorceress in the midst of a group gathered about a grave Patriarch with gray hair and the look of one accustomed to command.
This grave Patriarch was John Pastern.
I write his name with respect, even as it was reverentially whispered there, till, travelling from lip to lip, everyone present knew that a great man was amongst them. A very quiet, unassuming veteran, sitting with his womankind about him—his wife and daughter, as I think—self-possessed and grave, while men were busy with his name in the crowd below, and while tens of thousands were staked in trusting dependence on his acumen. What golden syllables might have fallen from those oracular lips, had the veteran been so pleased! What hundreds would have been freely bidden for a word, a look, a nod, a wink, a mere significant pursing-up of the lips from that great man! What is the fable of the young lady who discoursed pearls and diamonds to a truth such as this? Pearls and diamonds must be of large size which would be worth the secrets of those Richmond stables, the secrets which Mr. Pastern might tell if he chose. Perhaps it is the knowledge of this which gives him a calm, almost clerical, gravity of manner. People come to him and fawn upon him, and tell him that such and such a horse from his stable has won, or looks safe to win; and he nods pleasantly, thanking them for the kind information; while perhaps his thoughts are far away on Epsom Downs or Newmarket Heath, winning future Derbys and Two Thousands with colts that are as yet unfoaled.
John Mellish is on intimate terms with the great man, to whom he presents Aurora, and of whom he asks advice upon a matter that has been troubling him for some time. His trainer’s health is failing him, and he wants assistance in the stables; a younger man, honest and clever. Does Mr. Pastern know such a one?
The veteran tells him, after due consideration, that he does know of a young man; honest, he believes, as times go, who was once employed in the Richmond stables, and who had written to him only a few days before, asking for his influence in getting him a situation. “But the lad’s name has slipped my memory,” added Mr. Pastern; “he was but a lad when he was with me; but, bless my soul, that’s ten years ago! I’ll look up his letter, when I go home, and write to you about him. I know he’s clever, and I believe he’s honest; and I shall be only too happy,” concluded the old gentleman, gallantly, “to do anything to oblige Mrs. Mellish.”
XIV
“Love Took Up the Glass of Time, and Turned It in His Glowing Hands”
Talbot Bulstrode yielded at last to John’s repeated invitations, and consented to pass a couple of days at Mellish Park.
He despised and hated himself for the absurd concession. In what a pitiful farce had the tragedy ended! A visitor in the house of his rival. A calm spectator of Aurora’s everyday, commonplace happiness. For the space of two days he had consented to occupy this most preposterous position. Two days only; then back to the Cornish miners, and the desolate bachelor’s lodgings in Queen’s Square, Westminster; back to his tent in life’s Great Sahara. He could not for the very soul of him resist the temptation of beholding the inner life of that Yorkshire mansion. He wanted to know for certain—what was it to him, I wonder?—whether she was really happy, and had utterly forgotten him. They all returned to the Park together, Aurora, John, Archibald Floyd, Lucy, Talbot Bulstrode, and Captain Hunter. The last-named officer was a jovial gentleman, with a hook nose and auburn whiskers; a gentleman whose intellectual attainments were of no very oppressive order, but a hearty, pleasant guest in an honest country mansion, where there is cheer and welcome for all.
Talbot could but inwardly confess that Aurora became her new position. How everybody loved her! What an atmosphere of happiness she created about her wherever she went! How joyously the dogs barked and leapt at sight of her, straining their chains in the desperate effort to approach her! How fearlessly the thoroughbred mares and foals ran to the paddock-gates to bid her welcome, bending down their velvet nostrils to nestle upon her shoulder, responsive to the touch of her caressing hand! Seeing all this, how could Talbot refrain from remembering that this same sunlight might have shone upon that dreary castle far away by the surging western sea? She might have been his, this beautiful creature; but at what price? At the price of honour; at the price of every principle of his mind, which had set up for himself a holy and perfect standard—a pure and spotless ideal for the wife of his choice. Forbid it, manhood! He might have weakly yielded; he might have been happy, with the blind happiness of a lotus-eater, but not the reasonable bliss of a Christian. Thank Heaven for the strength which had been given to him to escape from the silken net! Thank Heaven for the power which had been granted to him to fight the battle!
Standing by Aurora’s side in one of the wide windows of Mellish Park, looking far out over the belted lawn to the glades in which the deer lay basking drowsily in the April sunlight, he could not repress the thought uppermost in his mind.
“I am—very glad—to see you so happy, Mrs. Mellish.”
She looked at him with frank, truthful eyes, in whose brightness there was not one latent shadow.
“Yes,” she said, “I am very,
