LITMIR.BIZ

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arriving in London, George Haldane was driven straight to the house of an old friend at Chelsea, where he always stayed during his visits to the Metropolis. This friend was Lovell Blakiston, as eccentric a being in his own way as Haldane himself was in his. He had been, since boyhood, in the India Office, where he still put in an appearance several hours a day, and whence he still drew a large income, with the immediate right to a retiring pension whenever he choose to take it. He was a great student, especially of the pagan poets and philosophers; and the greater part of his days and nights were spent in his-old-fashioned library, opening with folding doors on to a quiet lawn, which led in its turn to the very river-side. He had two pet aversions – modern progress, in the shape of railroads, electricity, geology; all the new business of science and modern religion, especially in its connection with Christian theology. He was, in short, a pagan pure and simple, fond of old books, old wine, old meditations, and old gods. However he might differ with Haldane on such subjects’ as the nebular hypothesis, which he hated with all his heart, he agreed with him sufficiently on the subject of Christianity. Both had a cordial dislike for church ceremonies and church bells.

      The two gentlemen had another taste in common. This was the opera, which both enjoyed hugely, though Blakiston never ceased to regret the disappearance of that old operatic institution, the ballet, which, like a rich dessert wine, used to bring the feast of music to a delightfully sensuous conclusion. Haldane was too young a man to remember such visions of loveliness as Cerito, whom his old friend had often gone to see in company with Horne Took.

      So it happened that two or three days after his arrival, Haldane accompanied his host to the opera house, where Patti was to appear in “Traviata.”

      Seated comfortably in the stalls, he was glancing quietly round the house between the acts, when his attention was attracted to a face in one of the private boxes. A pale, Madonna-like, yet girlish face, set in golden hair, with soft blue eyes, and an expression so forlorn, so wistful, so ill at ease, that it was almost painful to behold.

      Haldane started in surprise.

      “What is the matter?” said his friend; “Have you recognized anybody?”

      “I am not certain,” returned Haldane, raising his opera-glass and surveying the face through them. Then, after a long look, he added’ as if to himself, “I am almost sure it is the same.”

      “Do you mean that young lady in black, seated in the second tier?”

      “Yes. Oblige me by looking at her, and tell me what you think of her.” Blakiston raised his opera-glass, and took a long look.

      “Well?” asked Haldane.

      “She reminds me of one of your detestable pre-Raphaelistic drawings, shockheaded and vacuous. She is pretty, I grant you, but she has no expression.”

      “I should say, on the contrary, a very marked expression of deep pain.”

      “Tight lacing,” grunted Blakiston. “Your modern women have no shape, since Cerito.”

      Here Haldane rose from his seat. Looking up again, he had met the young lady’s eyes, and had perceived at once that she recognized him.

      “I am going to speak to her,” he explained. “She is a neighbour of ours, and a friend of my wife.”

      He made his way to the second tier, and finding the door of the box open, he looked in, and saw the person he sought, seated in company with an elderly lady and a young man.

      “Miss Dove!” he said, advancing into the box. “Although we have only met twice, I thought I could not be mistaken.” Edith (for it was she) turned quickly and took his outstretched hand..

      “How strange to find you here!” she exclaimed. “Is Mrs. Haldane with you?

      “No, indeed. I left her to the pious duties of the parish, which she is fulfilling daily, I expect, in company with your seraphic friend the minister.”

      Edith looked at him with strange surprise, but said nothing.

      “When did you come to town?” he asked. “I thought you were quite a country young lady, and never ventured into the giddy world of London.”

      “I was not very well,” replied Edith, “and my aunt invited me to stop with her a few weeks. This is my aunt, Mrs. Hetherington; and this gentleman is my cousin Walter.” Here Edith went somewhat nervously through the ceremony of introduction. She added, with a slight flush, “My cousin insisted on bringing us here to-night. I did not wish to come.”

      “Why not?” demanded Haldane, noticing her uneasiness.

      “Because I did not think it right; and I have been thinking all the evening what the vicar will say when I tell him I have been to such a place.”

      Here the old lady shook her head ominously, and gave a slight groan.

      “Is the place so terrible,” asked Haldane, smiling, “now you have seen it?”

      “No, it is very pretty; and of course the singing is beautiful. But Mr. Santley does not approve of the theatre, and I am sorry I came.”

      “Nonsense, Edith,” said young Hetherington, with a laugh. “You know you wanted to see the ‘Traviata,’ The fact is,” he continued, turning to Haldane, “my mother and my cousin are both terribly old-fashioned. My mother here is Scotch, and believes in the kirk, the whole kirk, and nothing but the kirk; and as for Edith, she is entirely, as they say in Scotland, under the minister’s ‘thoomb.’ I thought they would have enjoyed themselves, but they have been doing penance all the evening.”

      Without paying attention to her cousin’s remarks, Edith was looking thoughtfully at Haldane.

      “When do you return to Omberley?” she asked.

      “I am not sure – in a fortnight, at the latest. I am going on to France.”

      “And Mrs. Haldane will remain all that time alone?”

      “Of course,” he replied. “Oh, she will not miss me. She has her household duties, her parish, her garden – to say nothing of her clergyman. And you, do you stay long in London?”

      “I am not sure; I think not. I am tired of it already.”

      Again that weary, wistful look, which sat so strangely on the young, almost childish face. She sighed, and gazed sadly around the crowded house. A minute later, Haldane took his leave, and rejoined his friend in the stalls. Looking up at the end of the next act, he saw that the box was empty.

      The women had yielded to their consciences, and departed before the end of the performance.

      That night, when Haldane went home to Chelsea, he found a letter from his wife. It was a long letter, but contained no news whatever, being chiefly occupied with self-reproaches that the writer had not accompanied her husband in his pilgrimage. This struck Haldane as rather peculiar, as in former communications Ellen had expressed no such dissatisfaction; but he was by nature and of set habit unsuspicious, and he set it down to some momentary ennui. The letter contained no mention whatever of Mr. Santley, but in the postscript, where ladies often put the most interesting part of their correspondence, there was a reference to the Spanish valet, Baptisto.

      “As I told you,” wrote Ellen, “Baptisto seems in excellent health, though he is mysterious and unpleasant as usual. He comes and goes like a ghost, but if he made you believe that he was ill, he was imposing upon you. I do so wish you had taken him with you.”

      Haldane folded up the letter with a smile.

      “Poor Baptisto!” he thought, “I suppose it is as I suspected, and the little widow at the lodge is at the bottom of it all.”

      After a few days’ sojourn at Chelsea, during which time he was much interested in certain spiritualistic investigations which were just then being conducted by the London savants, to the manifest confusion of the spirits and indignation of true believers, Haldane went to Paris, where he read his paper before the French Society to which he belonged. There we shall leave him for a little time, returning to the company of Miss Dove, with whom we have more immediate concern.

      Mother

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